Psychologically trying PC game re-creates tension faced by soldiers

http://www.fastcompany.com/3025201/most-creative-people/dayz-a-murder-simulator-psychology-study-and-zombie-game-tests-your-emo

by pmcpinto • 13 years ago

23 11 13 years ago

fastcompany.com

dobbsbob2• 13 years ago

If you only get one life, and can kill other players, what's to stop somebody connecting as TROLLAXOR BINLADEN and just teamkilling 24/7? Because if I was 13yrs old that's what I'd be doing.

timje1• 13 years ago

You misunderstand, there aren't any teams.

edgarallenbro• 13 years ago

First off, there's no such thing as "teamkilling" because there are no teams. From what I understand, anyone can kill anyone.

Second, you start off with no resources. It would be pretty silly to play long enough to get enough resources (guns) to kill someone only to throw yourself at anyone and everyone you see, considering each attack would diminish your resources and they are likely to try pretty hard to fight back and kill you, at which point you'd have to start over.

It might be fun, but it would get tiring quickly I think

redthrowaway2• 13 years ago

1) The only teams are ad-hoc and the servers are sparsely populated. You can go hours without seeing another player.

2) When you spawn, you have very little in the way of equipment. You have to dig through abandoned houses to find a lead pipe, much less a gun. You wouldn't be able to kill an established player.

3) Following from 2), people would catch on and kill you quickly.

It's certainly possible, and people certainly do it, but griefing in DayZ is really unrewarding. You wouldn't be able to do it without a huge investment of effort.

dobbsbob2• 13 years ago

Massive gaming already has a few vids where they run around 7 strong and handcuff/kill every other player to loot them. The griefing reward was recording it for a bunch of youtube comedy vids

Shivetya• 13 years ago

besides the obvious lack of knowledge of how the game plays, I find most people underestimate by half the age of most games jerks.

As in, most games the jerks are twenty somethings.

redthrowaway2• 13 years ago

DayZ seems to be one of those games like Eve that I love reading about, but sound kind of boring to play.

stcredzero• 13 years ago

I was going to say, it sounds like Eve. Except Eve isn't at all boring if you get deep into it, as in invested with a group in wars in 0-security space. Eve is one of those games that is lots of mundanity punctuated by sheer terror. I can easily believe that people who've played Eve have had (very mild) cases of PTSD.

amelim• 13 years ago

I believe the fundamental difference is that the time to get to null-sec in EVE (the actual interesting component of the game that generates strong narratives) takes a significant time investment from the player. Leveling up skills, purchasing ships, and developing knowledge of the game are fairly tedious.

In comparison, you can get thrown into interesting situations from the get-go in DayZ. Basic FPS skills and a little knowledge of the clunky interface are all you need to generate strong player narratives. Whereas you make need several weeks to months to motivate an interesting experience in EvE, DayZ only requires a time investment of a couple hours (maybe).

Killah911• 13 years ago

Not just a game but a very interesting social experiment. This is amazing on multiple fronts. I think a movement started with second life and hopefully there are many more similar interesting social experiment/games to come.

Don't know if there are any neuro/psychological researchers in the background examining the dynamics but hell, this type of a game, in a given scenario and carefully tweaked can potentially provide at least very interesting insights into human behavior and group dynamics in a certain context.

This may be a bit hyperbolic, but games such as this may be an interesting "evolutionary" step for people as well. In nature play is a way for animals to test out and perfect skills. Given that humans have somewhat transcended the need to perfect motor and physical skills, the future of our play is probably better in a world where our greatest potential threats come from others of our own kind and navigating a more nuanced human centric world where our "play" is more specialized too.

Enough dreaming for me, but very cool...

Psychologically trying PC game re-creates tension faced by soldiers

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