Total War and Day Z - some thoughts

As I sit today on the top of Scarborough Esplanade, looking far across the frothy waves, I feel the discomfort of the breeze against my bare arms. It is not entirely unpleasant, but it is something that jolts me out of the expectation that I will be here forever.

I will one day die. Playing Shogun 2 makes me think repeatedly about the prospect of death, and of the purposes of guiding men to their deaths. Whether those deaths have meaning, those pixilated imagined men, is not just down to me. As their general, I can control the logistics of the battle, but I cannot control entirely how they perceive themselves, and the purpose of their deaths.

With steel and wood, men once battled .If they were to kill someone, they would have to face him. Combat was brutal, and I imagine men could not train for that without actually experiencing combat themeslves.

It is with this idea that I think towards my own future. I am of a certain age where I can believe, or perhas more likely fool myself, that I have all certainities planned.

Playing a game like Shogun requires some dedication. Since starting my multiplayer experiences, I realise that just because I can beat the computer heavily and frequently doesn't mean that I stand a chance against those who play the game regularly. I say regularly – most of those I play have clocked between 500 and 2000 hours on the game. And that is in the space of a few years, maximum. This time seems exorbitant. Why spend so long on such a game, or even just one game? In doing so, it seems clear to me that th epurple flowers that strain against the seas breeze will only be here for a short length of time. They will one day pass like all else on this island.

Writing, creative writing, is not something that I want to do in my apartment much. At least not at this time. It is, instead, something that I am happier trying to do amongst other people.

But yes, the game, and time spent playing it. The thing about games is that they are an imitation of real life. That is, they have their exploits and they have their limitations. There comes a point where someone is so incredibly able to play the game, so intuitive in terms of what unit beats what, that they can beat anyone with 'only' a few hundred hours of experience.

I have found myself on more than a few occasions a poor loser. I don't rage quit, and I don't disconnect – I always take defeat to give my opponent credence. But I detest losing to self-conscious power-gaming builds. If I see a spam of monks, or of cav, or of heroes, then I give my opponent the game, with a few choice words too. If my opponent doesn't speak to me, even to say that universal greeting of 'hi', I tend to give them the game, too.

When I do play, I find myself wanting to play until I have a win. Yet that win is not always so simple; I often want to win a great battle. And so I find myself on a streak of losses until I play someone who has only played 50 more hours or so than me. And then it is apparent that they are much worse than me.

All of these experiences mean that when I do find myself in an excellent battle that flows back and forth, I enjoy it tremendously. I have a few that I will probably upload, along with some defeats, too.

Day Z. The game has the unusual quality of creating tension and keeping it there. The possibility of being killed by another player makes the game what it is and will make it a huge success.

However, the nature of that killing matters. If, for example, I am kiled by a collection of elite bandits who intend to steal my loot so as to better survive, then that is the game. If I am double-crossed by someone, then that is also acceptable. But some of the current mechanics break the immersion.

One is the killing of newly spawned players. This isn't a problem for the game mechanics in terms of breaking the game itself, as this is the best time to be killed. However, the reasons to kill a newly spawned player are only to grief others. There is nothing to be gained loot-wise. And there is nothing in role-olaying a bandit that means this makes sense.

There are many many players who are, I think, perhaps incapable, rather than unwilling, to roleplay a character. That is not their fault, because that is not the game they want to play. They want to play CoD, with its ocrridors and its upgrades, and its kill streaks. They want to get a gun with big numbers so they can get bigge numbers in their debug table (of player kills.)

Expert players hunting and killing other players is a judicious part of the game. Collections of players fighting other players is, again, part of the game. But this appeals to a fraction of the gamerbase – those who focus solely on competitive FPS games. And this minority have influenced the rest of the game. Most players, now, shoot on sight. They don't talk; they kill. Many, I have found, can't hit a player who runs. But their shooting has replaced their talking. And this removes the tension of the game.

The first and foremost concern of a large budget game like Day Z is to make money. And appealing to the expert FPS crowd will create self-marketing. Therefore, PvE (player Vs Environment) zones would water down the game's brutality. Instead, there should be consequences that force FPS griefers into roleplaying certain characters. For example, someone who kills new spawns or unarmed survivors should gain negative traits. Those who kill groups of amred survivors could gain positive traits.

Survivor traits should trump bandit traits. Some of these should be much more powerful.

NPCs should be in the game, in the absence of players who will talk. These will offer food and/or shelter ,or can be killed like anyone else.

But these facets are second to the fact that the game makes you feel like your death matters. I managed to get out of one of the cities, and picked up a rifle. With it, I found my way far far north, and currently raid a nearby town for supplies. Other than that, I amble around the countryside, surviving as long as I can.

Some say that this leads to boredom. That the long you survive, and the more you have gained, the less inclined someone is to talk to someone. Indeed, letting in someone who you haven't played with for many hours before is a foolish thing – they could undo many hours of work, possibly hundreds. But that is the game.

It has made me wonder whether all the things I have gained now have made me soft. Of whether I do not want to gamble with my future, and my school with the opportunities that might be found in this kind of climate.

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