Intro
Survius is a Multiplayer Open World Survival game, that focuses on survival and cooperation, rather than deathmatch and Kill On Sight (kos). The game is played in third person.
The game is currently in Open Alpha, and you are free to try it out!
The game thus far has:
The island Survius is about 5x5km in size (incl. smaller island via a bridge)
Several towns, farms and other locations of interest. All buildings can be entered
A day and night cycle
Zombies
Random player, loot, zombie and animal spawning
Multiplayer (join servers or create your own servers, either public or private)
Id be more interrested if it was either singleplayer survival or void of pvp (and you competed in other ways, such as through limited supplies or competition for needs).
Survival games are my favorite type of game, favorite theme.
Games like DayZ are not survival games. They are deathmatch timesinks for kids with too much freetime on their hands.
Part of what makes fps survival games deathmatch are too many guns, too powerful guns (automatic, tons of ammo, lack of realistic recoil like red orchestra), multiplayer, pvp, and ffa mode (as opposed to coop or team based).
I could give some ideas to help move it to survival and less deathmatch. However, it is your game so instead let me show you the survival games that stray from deathmatch and toward survival.
(I will add a comprehensive list to start giving you ideas). Even small features can help. Although youre on the right track- removing automatics is one way, but not enough by itself.
Perhaps a good design for a multiplayer survival game needs to have a requirement for all design components. “Does this draw players together or not?” You can create a design which attempts to make players NEED each other. If they have common need, which is lost if enemy or dead, then that encourages them to NOT needlessly deathmatch, even if allowed. Pf cpurse then you have to ask, “Do I still need to allow them to kill one another? What does that add to the game? What does it take away?”
Who knows. In the end you might have a design which brings people together to cooperate with new companions while declaring enemies with other groups who cooperated as well, culminating in team fights or betrayals or colony raids- or all sorts of fun shenanigans which transcend “ffa full loot kill everyone lame clone deathmatch game.”
So if you hold them up, I assume that means demanding they trade (give) you items? Make sure they can’t hold them up, then after kill them.
I didn’t have the time to ,make that list. However, if you haven’t played these survival games yet, please do: Don’t Starve, NEO Scavenger, 7DaysToDie, Minecraft. Taking a look at their unique mechanics relative to survival gameplay.
I strongly discourage anything similar to Day Z. It is a poorly designed game whose success relies on its popularity. There is already a Day Z, so your game won’t be able to compete if it is similar. That is why I encourage a design which focuses heavily on what people seem to want in survival games. Taking out FFA full loot PvP may be a requirement to fulfill that market and make a successful game.
Another tells the truth:
“People need to realize that if KOS was removed, DayZ would suck ass.”
Take that out of your design, but don’t add in enough alternative features- it might suck.
Keep it in, but don’t do enough to fix the flaws- it might fail.
7DaysToDie and Minecraft have voxel world building. Don’t Starve is built entirely around survival, not combat. Neo Scavenger is about scavenging items, crafting, and realistic. All have one or more features (unrelated to combat, related to survival) and a design which focuses heavily on those particular features.
Hence why the need for a heavy feature list for the survival aspect- even if you keep a FFA PvP system. Youd be working against players natural and encouraged behavior to KoS death match. One interesting thing that hasn’t been done with days, mine craft, or survival games is team played competitive player. Like those multi-realm mmo’s but on a smaller scale, like a local Team vs Team vs Team balanced fps server.
Thanks for that DayZ link, that really sums up how I feel about DayZ right now. Good ideas too.
By holding up, I indeed mean you need to hold someone at gunpoint and raid their backpack. Then after you’re done you can restrain them with ducktape (or something) that will stay on for about a minute, so you have time to leave the scene.
This is just an example ofcourse, but killing them would not give you access to their stuff.
I played a lot of Minecraft, WarZ (Infestation), Project Zomboid, Don’t Starve and still play a lot of DayZ. So I have a good understanding of what mechanics work and which don’t, at least to my opinion.
Hey there!..Brilliant work so far…the game looks really good. My only question for now is that are you planning on implementing a First person camera on the game aswell? Sure the game looks great with the third person camera too but it would really add more diversity to the game if you can implement a first person cam too . I will certainly keep an eye out for the games progress and Good luck with this great game!!!
About First person; I could move the camera to where the head position is, and that way give you the idea of First Person. But I’m not sure if that is true first person. But this method is easiest to implement.
Yeah! Nothing too fancy, just to give the player the ability to switch between cameras gives a lot more freedom to the game and it would be very useful in zombie attack sort of situation.
Good luck!! and keep up the good work
Wouldn’t switching from third person to first person be as simple as disabling the renderer for the character model, enablnig a hands model, and switching cameras to a different first person camera? Sounds super simple.
It really isn’t because you can bend your spine, looking downward you should be able to see your gun and feet. Moving the camera to the head position is probably my best bet. But those are details I am not yet focusing on.
Lets first get some more house models and basic hunting into the game.
. I will certainly keep an eye out for the games progress and Good luck with this great game!!!