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Since giving up cable, twitch.tv has more or less become my HGTV -- somewhat enjoyable, minimal attention requirement; decent background noise to help keep me

Since giving up cable, twitch.tv has more or less become my HGTV -- somewhat enjoyable, minimal attention requirement; decent background noise to help keep me from going insane. I cannot for the life of me, though, understand the appeal of Day Z. Perhaps I've had the misfortune of only seeing the "slow" parts, but, from what I've seen, it's a lot of running around in large environments and then... hiding out? sometimes? Then there are zombies? I really don't get it. I tend to fall in love with niche market games, but this one doesn't do it for me.

ConAntonakos 13y ago
I think it's because it has appealing gameplay. It's all about PvP that drives the fun of this really engrossing survival action genre. It helps that the lead developer/creator, Dean Hall, is very obsessive and meticulous about really doing this right. I'd love to hear more thoughts.
- alttab 13y ago
  What makes minecraft more interesting to me is the building and Redstone aspect. DayZ has similar elements to the survival an PvP parts of minecraft, but spending hours or days by yourself isn't nearly as easy.
overgard 13y ago
It's like staying in an "actual" haunted hotel versus taking a disney ride of a haunted house. The disney ride is a more consistent and probably enjoyable experience, but the former is more ... interesting. Maybe nothing happens, maybe something happens and you're terrified, but either way the experience feels like it has more substance. You're not just a tourist looking to be entertained, you're exploring something. I think that video in the middle sort of captures it. I mean on one level it's just.. weird, but on the other hand, how many other games can you describe where you're searching through a house in the dark and all the sudden some psycho player starts slowly chasing you down playing tiny tim music through his microphone?! And not just as a griefer that's going to inconvenience you, but in a "oh god this character I built is dead forever if this crazy person does what I think they're going to do" way. I mean, that's a fundamentally STRANGE experience, but it's also entirely organic in it's own weird way. Most games nowadays are about moving you through a bunch of set pieces so you can experience the most "content". I think DayZ is interesting because it completely throws that paradigm away and gives a sandbox where things just happen. It's uneven, but playing it, it feels like you're experiencing /something/. Even if it's not always "fun", it's interesting in a way that most games aren't.
btmorex 13y ago
So, I had a long response written out, but I decided it didn't really get to heart of the matter. Here's the short response: Every time you start a new character, it takes a while -- at least a couple hours -- to get to a comfortable level of survivability (by that I mean: food, water, equipment, weapons). Even once well equipped, it's incredibly easy to die. So, when you're scrounging around for some food or poking around a military base for better weapons and you hear a gun shot, the adrenaline rush is like nothing else. The two hours you spent gearing up could literally be wiped out in an instant by sniper that you never even saw on some hill side. Even better, everyone else is in the same situation as you no matter how long they've been playing, which leads to some really intense/scary/funny encounters in game.
- brazzy 13y ago
  So the question that determines whether someone will enjoy the game overall is: does that intense adrenaline rush outweigh having to go through all that bootstrap grinding again? I strongly suspect that the answer for me is "no", at least on the long run.
JonnieCache 13y ago
Part of the key is that its a mod of a "realistic" army simulation. This is what makes the slow parts still fun. If you were just bunnyhopping around in a quake engine style thing, yeah it would be boring. The environment is HUGE, and the engine is designed for the maximum draw-distance. When you start, you have no map. When you do get a map, its just a graphic, and your location is not marked on it. All the markings are in russian. Later if you're lucky, you might get a compass, with which you can manually take bearings. Basically, the engine and the setting is realistic enough that you become invested in the apocalyptic survival thing for it's own sake. An important fact not mentioned in the article is that you need regular water and food to survive. This forces you to go into towns to raid buildings, which is extremely dangerous and tense, involving a lot of creeping around in the dark. This turns the "hiding out in the woods" part of the game into a blessed relief compared to crawling in the gutter at a snails pace in the pitch black, gently wetting yourself.

ConAntonakos 13y ago

I think it's because it has appealing gameplay. It's all about PvP that drives the fun of this really engrossing survival action genre. It helps that the lead developer/creator, Dean Hall, is very obsessive and meticulous about really doing this right. I'd love to hear more thoughts.

alttab 13y ago
What makes minecraft more interesting to me is the building and Redstone aspect. DayZ has similar elements to the survival an PvP parts of minecraft, but spending hours or days by yourself isn't nearly as easy.

overgard 13y ago

It's like staying in an "actual" haunted hotel versus taking a disney ride of a haunted house. The disney ride is a more consistent and probably enjoyable experience, but the former is more ... interesting. Maybe nothing happens, maybe something happens and you're terrified, but either way the experience feels like it has more substance. You're not just a tourist looking to be entertained, you're exploring something. I think that video in the middle sort of captures it. I mean on one level it's just.. weird, but on the other hand, how many other games can you describe where you're searching through a house in the dark and all the sudden some psycho player starts slowly chasing you down playing tiny tim music through his microphone?! And not just as a griefer that's going to inconvenience you, but in a "oh god this character I built is dead forever if this crazy person does what I think they're going to do" way. I mean, that's a fundamentally STRANGE experience, but it's also entirely organic in it's own weird way. Most games nowadays are about moving you through a bunch of set pieces so you can experience the most "content". I think DayZ is interesting because it completely throws that paradigm away and gives a sandbox where things just happen. It's uneven, but playing it, it feels like you're experiencing /something/. Even if it's not always "fun", it's interesting in a way that most games aren't.

btmorex 13y ago

So, I had a long response written out, but I decided it didn't really get to heart of the matter. Here's the short response: Every time you start a new character, it takes a while -- at least a couple hours -- to get to a comfortable level of survivability (by that I mean: food, water, equipment, weapons). Even once well equipped, it's incredibly easy to die. So, when you're scrounging around for some food or poking around a military base for better weapons and you hear a gun shot, the adrenaline rush is like nothing else. The two hours you spent gearing up could literally be wiped out in an instant by sniper that you never even saw on some hill side. Even better, everyone else is in the same situation as you no matter how long they've been playing, which leads to some really intense/scary/funny encounters in game.

brazzy 13y ago
So the question that determines whether someone will enjoy the game overall is: does that intense adrenaline rush outweigh having to go through all that bootstrap grinding again? I strongly suspect that the answer for me is "no", at least on the long run.

JonnieCache 13y ago

Part of the key is that its a mod of a "realistic" army simulation. This is what makes the slow parts still fun. If you were just bunnyhopping around in a quake engine style thing, yeah it would be boring. The environment is HUGE, and the engine is designed for the maximum draw-distance. When you start, you have no map. When you do get a map, its just a graphic, and your location is not marked on it. All the markings are in russian. Later if you're lucky, you might get a compass, with which you can manually take bearings. Basically, the engine and the setting is realistic enough that you become invested in the apocalyptic survival thing for it's own sake. An important fact not mentioned in the article is that you need regular water and food to survive. This forces you to go into towns to raid buildings, which is extremely dangerous and tense, involving a lot of creeping around in the dark. This turns the "hiding out in the woods" part of the game into a blessed relief compared to crawling in the gutter at a snails pace in the pitch black, gently wetting yourself.