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iShoZza

Landmarks & Building/ Flora Variation

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For me one of the biggest cons about DayZ is the lack of variation in Chernarus. It's a beautifully sculpted world don't get me wrong, but it's lacking details which if resolved could really help this game get the visual recognition it deserves - as well as resolving multiple issues that it causes.

 

Unique buildings/ objects or world design is few and far between, making navigation quite blunt - which for most people is an online map in the steam overlay. If there were more gigantic features that are unique to that one place, and that one place only - people would be able to fully immerse themselves and learn the map by pure exploration and memorable scenery, instead of online maps and dodgy road signs that are only memorable to people who speak Russian. For example, Fallout: New Vegas has from memory has four really great landmarks that can be seen from far out in the distance. The Red Rock Canyon, giant red mountains. The Lucky 38, giant casino tower. Dinky Dinosaur, medium sized building shaped as a dino. The Unity Statue, large statue of two men shaking hands. These landmarks can be seen in the distance in certain areas of the map, giving you a rough idea of where you might be. The map was really fun to learn because of these landmarks. Now, I'm not suggesting you go overkill so you can always see a landmark wherever you go - but there should be a few things that stick out and can be seen from a distance dotted around the map. Especially inland. As for suggestions, something like a giant Windmill in an empty field would fit right in. Solar Panel plant/ farm would be cool too. Aeroplane crash-site. Lakes. There's plenty of creative things that could be added that will really help DayZ come to life, whilst aiding poor navigation issues etc.

 

Buildings in towns is another one. Loads of buildings are re-used over and over, which is fine, but only to a certain extent. It gets dull quick when you come to a new town and it looks exactly the same as the previous one, with a slightly different layout and geographical surroundings perhaps. Obviously new buildings would be nice, but an easier option and one that would work just as well, re-shading. Having the same buildings but with different colour schemes/ or even patterns. The same goes for the inside of buildings, not just the outside. Having a variety of wallpapers, furniture, flooring, heck even stuff like curtains or kitchen sides, beds too. This again would really help bring the game to life. It feels like a lot of shortcuts have been taken and it can actually take away from the beauty of the game. It would also aid navigation too because places would be so much more memorable. I don't particularly think any of the current towns are unique enough to be that memorable.

 

Lastly, flora variation. This one is abit of a hit n' miss and no where near as important as the previous two suggestions - but it still is something I feel would really, really help bring DayZ to life like never before. The current flora is a little dated but in mass it still looks gorgeous. The problem is the variation only goes so far, then the variation that there is isn't evened out which practically kills the point. The woodlands are all the same. It's like a paintbrush of trees has been swept over Chernarus with no real creativity. What I'm trying to suggest, is that you have particular trees and grass in particular areas, section it out a little. Example, you could have a really dense woodland area built up of mainly pine trees and have little grass. You could do the same in another area, but ease up on the denseness of the woodland, separating the flora, allowing lush grass to bloom inbetween them as the sun is able to hit the ground. Again, it'd really help bring the world to life and make DayZ one heck of sight to behold. Once again aiding navigation, variety, immersion etc. Now that I've read what I wrote, I'll take that back about this being less important than the other two suggestions. It'd make a big difference.

 

Combine all three of these suggestions together and you've created something pardon my language, fucking magical.

 

Thoughts?

Edited by iShoZza
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Variety is costly in computer games. Dayz is already a RAM-eater par excellence. Each of the new meshes requires to be loaded at the start of the game and whenever you enter an area. Whereas all the same meshes are actually instances of one mesh and have to only be loaded once and then confirmed when the area is streamed into RAM as you pass through. In other words - you don't want too many original meshes, because it slows down performance and has no value for gameplay as such.

 

Each of the games system eats up resources and most of the resources are taken up by AI, because AI is really fucking difficult to write for a sandbox game. I imagine tens of thousands of lines of code go into the infected. What the devs are doing by offering only limited variation, is giving us just enough difference to be entertained, while holding back enough resources to invest into the other systems (like collison information, vehicles physics, weather, item spawns/CLE, etc). In a game about horticulure you might plan things entirely different, but everything Dayz can do at this point is already pretty impressive. Especially when it works ^^

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