Day Z has become so popular that in the few months i have played the mod the player base has grown from 10,000 to over 300,000. I think its about time the in-game economy got a little more complex than shoot or don't shoot. and the only way that will happen is if players set it up, there are no handy-dandy NPC's to host a trading post. if you have any ideas on how to make the in-game experience more interesting post them! Want to set up a trading post? make a police force? how about your team of random new spawn killing bandits become mercenaries? I know people cant hold open a trading post all the time, we have real lives you know. but setting up a place in one of the servers that is a common meeting ground for people to trade gear would be more than enough. just let people know that Dolina is a good place to try and met other survivors or something along the lines of that. If your plan fails miserably and you loose your gear, oh well. Its alpha and you will die anyway by a blood hungry tree or a rouge ladder. So any ideas?
My initial concerns are supply and raiders/thieves. You may end up needed suppliers or have people who primarily devote resources to the trading post, if not you may end up with nothing if the demand is too high. When/if you get some form of supply your probably going to need enforcers. People who stop thieves and defend the shop/trading post from raiders as a it would be a juicy target. this is all assuming there will not be any major changes to the way dayz (economy) works.
I also like the your other ideas, kinda simulates slight rebuilding of civilization, where as now its just, as you said, kill or not kill.
I see what you mean about supplies and raiders. But if we don't start somewhere it will never happen. So ill just put this idea out here, why not make Dolina a meeting place to trade gear? On 124 i will try and secure it over the next few days with my group of 5 people. Not a real trading post yet, but just a place to trade over your ammo depraved M16 for some much needed food or car parts. We can start a list and if you come across one of those people there then you will know they are friendly, unless provoked that is. What do you think?
The problem I find is that at 50 people max at any one time, I don't believe you can reach a minimum sustainable number to operate an outpost while keeping the game itself interesting.
In terms of hardcore players, you'll need around 2 to 3 merchants to hold all the gear (can't lock tents remember). 2 guards at least, perhaps per merchant to dissuade soloers from mowing everyone down. One maybe two sweepers to clear the town of Z's continually. At least six snipers to provide overwatch of an entire town, hidden as a detterrent for larger forces, and that's at any one time. Assuming the minimum number of about 10-15 players needed for an outpost to function, that only leaves 35 people to do trading with...On a map the size of Chernarnus, is that enough? Will traffic even arrive at Dolina? Let's not forget to run it 24 hours, you'll need 4x that if everyone runs 6 hour shifts.
Also, let's not forget, you have to somehow find a way to signpost it so everyone in the area knows the rules and knows of the deterrent effect from the snipers is in place, because side chat doesn't work, only 50m direct. And then on top of that, if I were to find out there was an oasis out there, I would just get four or five of my buddies to mow down the entire trading post, loot, then log off...
I hate to be a pessimist, but it doesn't seem feasible. It's a nice idea though.
To get co-operation on any scale going start small. I think it needs to be established amongst a community of players that there is an accepted "honor sign" Like pressing the button to lower weapon will signal that you can be approached and will not fire first. If someone lowers weapon and then shoots, the firing player gets blacklisted and will always be killed on sight regardless of honour sign.
Yeah the last part you mentioned is generally how our medical camp on TX4 started, then hackers overran that server. But for the time that it was up it was rather effective, and to top it off in the middle of cherno. You would be surprised how many people are not total assholes in the game. All i mean is that people should look into making interesting in game experiments. Remember this mod is a social experiment to Rocket, so lets make it interesting for him to watch. As a bonus now that the mod has moved to the rooster teeth community, these are now more possible than ever. Seeing as the RT community is already well developed.
Well, as stupidly terrible as this will end, i think me and a couple friends are going to open up the convenient store in Electro, or maybe a mechanic shop there. We will see how long peoples amazement at seeing a non hostile group trying to make a living lasts. Any ideas for servers to do it on? I have heard rumors of noob launching hackers on 126.
