GAMING IRL

Robbie's article got me thinking about gaming IRL - which is to say, the overlap between our persistent real-lives, and the pursuit of gaming as a past-time. As I've said before, I think gaming demands a lot more infrastructure - in terms of technology, mental resources, and time - than the other widely consumed media, and as such, it naturally has a particularly intrusive relationship with our everyday lives. Recently I had an insight about my gaming hobby-turned-habit and did something I haven't done in a surprisingly long time: I stopped gaming for a few days, and my return to gaming since then has been vibrant, positive, and newly enriched.

In the spring of 2013, a few friends convinced me to try the free-to-play MOBA game League of Legends. Unlike me, they'd played Dota back when it was still a mod in Warcraft 3, a game unplayable for me, given my daily commitment to World of Warcraft at the time (Blizzard is watching you; Blizzard loves you). I remember vividly my first encounter with MOBA following the tutorial. I subscribed to Riot's LOL channel, and unlocked a free cosmetic skin for this stupid minotaur character called Alistar. My first game was on Twisted Treeline, an atypical 3v3 map, and my first impression was total confusion. Where is my guy? Where did my cursor go? What does that guy do? Why can't I move? Am I dead? Oh, I'm dead. However I knew there was a structure underneath this chaos and I wanted to understand it, turn it to my advantage somehow. I started grinding out late nights and brewing up obscure strategies with friends. I curated a collection of characters - you only have access to the ones you purchase either with Monopoly money or credit card - and devoted long hours to researching the current strategic trends in between my university classes. I was happy to put up money for a game that was free-to-play in the first place. In a sense, I owed it to them - and there were so many cool and powerful characters to get to know. Eventually I joined Ranked matchmaking, the League among Leagues, and spent months oscillating up slightly and then down slightly at a just-below-mediocre skill level (I think I was Silver IV). Regardless of my failure to significantly progress, I played fervently whenever it was possible.

I think it was around October of that year that I hit a stagnant point with my interest in League. Riot loves to release overpriced, overpowered characters in order to push sales, only to neuter that character as soon as the next flavour of the month arrives. Most changes to the game seemed arbitrary, motivated more by Riot's fiscal dependence on their only product than on creating a Good Game. Across the various forums I trawled, I saw constant reference to Valve's Dota 2 which had recently entered open beta. Everything I heard about Dota 2 - the free access to the full character arsenal; the darker, mature visuals; the powerful abilities and impactful gameplay - made me feel like a kid with a Sony Discman walking past the apple store. I had found the master race. It was blatantly obvious which was the better product; and it was merely my investment in this pile of CDs (read: purchased League characters) which discouraged me from making the transition. I downloaded the also-free Dota 2, and within a month I had uninstalled League of Legends entirely. It became clear to me very, very quickly that, compared against League, Dota 2 had a deep design and respect for its players that had put me off of the former. 

In Dota 2, I could talk to my teammates on microphone in-game. I could customize my characters' appearance. I could play all the characters without buying them, and watch replays of my own games to observe my mistakes. Everything that i struggled to actualize in League of Legends, I was able to do in Dota 2. But what I found out later was that both games were preventing me from actualizing much more important things in my life.

See the big red dot on Feb 8/15? That's me not getting the message 12 times in a row.

 According to Dotabuff Plus, a third-party personal stats tracker for Dota 2, I played Dota nearly every day between December 18th 2013 to August 2nd 2015.  That added up to about 1800 hours over 20 months, averaging 3 hours a day for over a year and a half. These statistics include the rare 2- or 3-day interruption of a broken keyboard or internet failure, and a few 2-3 week vacations in 2014. Throughout this time I continued to "attend" university classes, "maintain" a relationship with my significant other, and work in kitchens. My attachment to these competitive battle arena games led my fourth year of university to be my worst by far - I got a 51 in a 400-level class out of sympathy, and the final required course for my program is still ungraded as I could never work up the nerve to submit my final project. MOBA games compelled me to become markedly more anxious and irritable in my relationship with my girlfriend and my family; whether winning or losing, I would leave every match or string of matches with that intense, twitchy anime thing on my brow. It was not a good time and I was oblivious to that.

You see, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with playing any sort of game (except maybe clicker games but... those aren't even games, dude). In fact I think it's fully possible to game every day in a healthy manner. Games are awesome virtual realities which allow us to explore patterns and possibilities at no risk to our real lives and identities. While I was engaged with Dota 2 and similar games, I became, for a time, more studious, constructive, and diligent than I am with most other activities in my life. I very closely analyzed replays of my own gameplay to correct my mistakes. I'd schedule my life around daily practice in order to improve; if I got home too sleepy, I'd set an alarm a few hours before work so I could get some training in at my peak alertness in the early morning. I would get friends together at the internet cafe and captain our drafts in a way that maximized everyone's strengths. But that impressive discipline faded with the summertime and my relationship with the game slid into habit. Eventually it just became something I thought I was supposed to do, rather than something I really wanted. I stopped improving because I stopped working so hard at it; yet I continued in wanting to improve and so was continually frustrated and disappointed.

For most of the second year of my time in Dota 2 I was playing on my girlfriend's gaming laptop she had gotten for free. This obviously lead to some conflicts between my desire (need?) to play and her own use of her computer, so I started my first-ever PC build. I scouted out good deals and assembled the machine one piece at a time -- all motivated by the desire to play Dota 2 on my own time, and my own terms. In July of this year I completed my rig, complete with headset, wired mouse, mechanical keyboard... but when I returned to playing Dota 2, something had changed. The basic frustration which filled me in the course of a game was much easier for me to see, for some reason. Something had to give, eventually. I think investing in the gaming rig pushed my addiction to its breaking point. It was probably the largest sacrifice I'd made to facilitate my access to Dota 2 and maybe with that, I finally realized it was something that just... wasn't all that worth it to me. 

I quit playing Dota 2 for three weeks this month. That sounds pathetic. But it's been liberating. My life's improved in every field since letting go of my attachment to this one, admittedly amazing, game. I've finally been exploring the dingier corners of my Steam library and really enjoying myself. Some friends got me into Heroes of the Storm, Blizzard's much-simpler and much-sweeter reclamation of the free-to-play battle arena genre. It is similar to Dota 2, but it's overall much less serious. I don't get that anime thingy on my head playing it with my friends anymore. If Dota 2 was a pack of smokes a day, then Heroes of the Storm is the gum-chewing habit I've replaced it with: perhaps not entirely healthy, and certainly not free of the habit, but a whole helluva lot healthier than before.

This goes way beyond gaming for fun. Evil Geniuses take home the Aegis trophy at TI5.

The main rift between Dota 2 and HotS or even LoL, is that Dota 2 is not, first and foremost, an actual game. I mean, it looks and quacks like a game. It would be ridiculous to say it isn't a game at all. But it's been built and maintained to be a fair, and competitive, activity. Indeed Dota is designed as a sport more than anything. And HotS is a game. Doing Dota properly is more similar to working a job, a career, than unwinding with some chaotic fun; or at least that's what it was for me. 

One of my friends who still plays Dota occasionally invited my to come play a few days ago. I cleared my mind and thought for a second, and you know what? I did want to play. We queued up and expected the worst... but everything went fine. We laughed at the trolls together, we set up insane ganks together. We were playing as friends, for fun, with no delusions about high achievement or selfish comparison. We had an adventure together that left me feeling happy once I, uh, re-entered my flesh body. And that's exactly what gaming IRL should be.

CONFESSIONS OF A TERRIBLE GAMER

Guest post by Rob Fernuk...definitely not Tristan Mowat!


I have to be completely honest - I am a terrible gamer. So why would this fledgeling gaming blog let me write an article for them? Because I suspect there are lot of you, like me, out there.

I grew up a child of the 80s. My first console was a Nintendo, but I also played Atari games at a friend’s house. A neighbour who must have been into computers let us play some of the earliest computer games in his bungalow. I remember him as an Asian man with an impressive beer belly who wore stained wife-beaters and always looked like he just woke up. He paid me to mow his lawn once a week, after which I experienced Pong and Space Invaders while they were still pretty new. Asteroids and Tetris might have been in the mix too, but my memories are fuzzy on the details now - which games were on which gear and when, I no longer know.

But Mario, he was my dude. I had a birthday party at a roller-skating rink and the theme was all Mario Bros. The air-brushed supermarket cake had a rubber model of Mario shooting a fireball from his hand. I probably still have that stashed away in a box of childhood trinkets somewhere. I knew that game inside and out. I remember finally successfully performing the trick where you jump on the turtle shell on the stairs up to a castle end-zone so many times that the game starts giving you extra lives for each jump. I jumped until the timer ran out, the life counter passed 99 and became just symbols. The week following I refused to turn off the Nintendo until all those lives were eventually used up, though my parents were bothered that the red light was always lit and complained that I would “ruin the machine”. Those were the days.

Did every kid know this trick?

When I was 13 or 14 my parents bought our first family PC and I got into Adventure games during the heyday of Full Motion Video. Myst, 7th Guest, Gabriel Knight, Tex Murphy, Phantasmagoria… As a young teen I was able to disappear into completely new worlds and walk around in them, even if it was just a CG rendered slide show. Sierra, Broderbund, Cyan, Trilobyte; all names that held magic to me for they were the builders of these worlds. I knew the names of Jane Jensen and Roberta Williams, female pioneers of digital storytelling.

I played these games. I completed these games. Usually there were no walkthroughs to be had until Prima Publishing started putting out books you could buy - and I did. Perhaps that was the beginning of becoming a terrible gamer.

Gabriel Knight - Sins of the Fathers

There were early signs that I was really not that talented at playing games. I couldn’t get through a few levels of Rebel Assault without exploding on the canyon walls over and over again. I did eventually see the level where you perform fly-bys on Star Destroyers while shooting at them, but I never could pass it. Rumour had it that in later levels you could fly across Hoth and shoot at ATAT Walkers, but I never saw that for myself.

Secret revealed!

Eventually I got into MMOs with a friend, and finally the other shoe dropped.

For me, it started with WoW, but eventually I got into Guild Wars 2, SWTOR, and The Secret World, and I dipped my toes into others like Wildstar, Elder Scrolls Online, FFXIV, and Tera. I loved them. They were everything I wanted to play in a game. New worlds. Flexible playing styles. Huge open maps. Seemingly unlimited potential… Until a random player from an opposing faction came along and gutted me like a fish. Well then. Clearly I was on the wrong server. Live and learn. But it was more than that - I struggled in these games mightily, and not in a way that excited me. I always felt behind the level curve, under-powered and over-matched. In some cases I could barely proceed without my friend practically carrying my useless carcass through to the end of a story instance. It was just a frustrating experience for everyone.

Part of my problem is that I hate to grind. As an adult (shudder) I now have a professional job. One that I am dedicated to. I pay rent and taxes. I work to live - as much as I am loathe to admit it. Who has time to GRIND??? Well apparently lots of people do, but not me. If I’m playing a game and progressing through its quest chains and geography, I have some expectation that my level will increase in sufficient time to reach the next area with appropriate power to kill the next tier of enemy. This is rarely the case. Game designers seem hell bent on keeping players behind the curve so they have to do extra killing or crafting or other menial tasks just to boost their level to reach the next area. If you don’t you’ll get your ass kicked. I got my ass kicked a lot.

Can we talk horror games? I love horror. It’s quite possibly my favourite genre in film and literature. For me, the best parts about the horror genre are atmosphere and world building. I love a decrepit, derelict building like none other. I love the sounds of horror, the look of horror, and as we get ever nearer my favourite season of Autumn, I love the smells of horror. Turns out what I don’t like are jump scares, and that seems to be what the horror genre in games has in spades. I simply can’t do it. For example I want to love Five Nights at Freddy’s. I love the idea of it, certainly. I love the look of it and the design of the creepy animatronic robots. I love the lore - which I’m happy to watch endless YouTube videos about (shout out to The Game Theorists’ excellent series which you can find on their channel, here: https://www.youtube.com/user/MatthewPatrick13). But I don’t think I’ve played more than two hours of the first game so far, because I just can’t deal with the jump-scares. Even when they are earned, they feel cheap. But worse is that they work on me. Yes, I jumped, you nearly gave me a heart attack by blasting loud sound and having something leap towards the screen.  Good job, you win, I’m out.
 

BOO...again.

As I grow older my fingers will never be coordinated or dexterous enough to win at a MOBA, or score enough kills in a competitive shooter. A million teabaggings will forever be performed over my digital corpse by children who have fucked my mother.  Sorry mom.

Do you know what? I’m okay with that. I’m okay with all of this. Gaming may be slowly getting too hard for me, or perhaps I never really had the chops to begin with.  Perhaps reading Prima strategy guides spoiled my patience to slowly work through a game, or life has taken my time and will to do so. But the one thing you cannot take away from me is my love of games. If you’ve gotten anything out of reading my recollections above, I hope you noticed that my fondness for games is still ever present. My trigger timing will slow. My aim will get worse. And I’ll still always hate to grind. But I’m still a gamer, dammit, and I have some more games I need to play.

By Rob Fernuk

DERAILING THE HYPE TRAIN

IGN First Look has been periodically posting delicious gameplay nuggets of the hotly anticipated No Man’s Sky, and while many have been wary to embrace the excitement for a procedurally generated, galaxy-scale open world exploration game (by the makers of cute little stuntman series Joe Danger), these gameplay trailers remove most doubts. At one point during the demo, the playtester lands his ship on a planet’s surface, but falls a few feet as he gets out. He turns around to see the ship has awkwardly landed directly on top of a small structure. Laughing awkwardly, game director Sean Murray says “That’s never happened before.”

Unexpected possibilities? Hype confirmed.

The hype cycle. I built my house on that nice-looking mountain to the left.

Due to their addictive nature and the growing magnitude and reach of the industry, video game releases are characterized by massive fan-hype, even more-so than in film. Gamers always look forward with great excitement to the next big thing. In some cases, gamers can be as responsible for a given hype wagon as the developers are guilty of embellishing the product. And publishers fuel that excitement with unfulfilled promises -- Aliens: Colonial Marines is a recent example. Touted features turn out to be pedantic, flawed, or simply absent. I think people have been disappointed by hype enough times that they must always question the implications of the so-called “gameplay trailer”, which more often than not are simply cinematic sequences shot to look as if they were taking place from the player’s point of view. We've essentially been trained to activate our 'bullshit detector' and question any hint of excitement for a very real possibility of betrayal. Due to the immersion and interactivity; videogames are experienced using a whole gamut of devices, the hype-cycle is fundamentally different from other forms of media. Reading a preview chapter of the next book in a series could never really be called hype, because it tends to be a literal, direct sample of the upcoming product. Movie trailers are cherry-picked, concentrated doses of the film to convey the attitude, actors, and themes to look forward to in the upcoming film. They can exaggerate or downplay parts of the full-length feature and even downright spoil the plot - but as a general rule a trailer shows us what we will eventually see.

Game-hype seems to be completely different. In this modern age of early access, public beta, season passes, and DLC, game trailers usually depict something only vaguely related to what ultimately ships. But gamers are beginning to catch on. A prime example, as most of us know, was the reveal trailer of Watchdogs all those years ago at E3. More disappointing than the graphical comparisons were the minute details that made the game seemingly next-gen. Ducking behind a car door and opening it to let out the innocent bystander caught in a crossfire was a fantastic idea. There was even an audible "get out, stay low"  heard by the games 'protagonist.' Car tires popped and other civilians would help each other out of wrecked cars asking "are you ok? are you hurt...talk to me!?" When the game was released our expectations were erased completely. A new lesson began permeating, finally, into our conscious minds. 'Don't get excited for anything anymore...become an adult, get cynical about anything promised by any entertainment company. This is the way of things, I understand what it is to be an adult now." This was the beginning of Evadegismos ban on all pre-sale activities and the epitaph of our personal hype train.

A lie could also be disguised as a lush cinematic, the worst offender being the first Dead Island game. The trailer is in itself, such a work of art, so emotionally compelling, so inspired, that the run-of-the-mill zombie slaughterfest that ensued in the game itself seemed much, much worse by contrast. I think when games marketing takes its cues from other media, namely film, it tends to flop. What you are hyping when you’re selling a movie is drama and spectacle and quips and climactic moments. I don’t think these aesthetics are at the forefront of most gameplay experience. Of course narrative is important in any form of storytelling but game trailers should focus on the user interface, the gameplay mechanics, customization options, and character designs. Story-driven games should be held up more fully by the product itself than by all the window-dressings that are fluffed up on top to make it sale-able.

What's the image matter if the taste is the same !?

Anyway, so far in its pre-existent… existence, No Man’s Sky has graduated from hype for the idea, to hype for the real, hands-on gameplay. While this holds promise, it has raised my expectations high enough that I stand to be enormously disappointed. I want this game to push the boundaries of what games can be. I want  it to redefine the concept of a shared, open world. If nothing else, this particular thread of hype has shown me what it is that I went in new and exciting video games. Perhaps hype can be used as a metric of gamer values.

Elsewhere on Evadegismos current hype list sits The Division, in the conceptual vein of Last of Us but with a greater emphasis on tactics than resource management. Early gameplay demos look a little too polished, with their sexy-sparse interface and incredible environment details, like intractable car doors, poppable car tires (yet again), and dynamic weather patterns. But one thing that Division’s hype campaign shares with No Man’s Sky is a certain emphasis on the development process. As first world culture gradually gravitates towards a preferences for artisanal, handcrafted quality in food, clothing, and decor, we become connoisseurs not only of fine products, but of production processes. We like to brag about where things come from and how they’re made, and this sensitivity seems to have reached the gaming industry as well. Sean Murray describes his perception of gameplay footage -- he sees the procedurally generated terrain for what it really is: a sprawling math equation. Meanwhile the second chunk of the Division trailer boasts the power of their custom-designed Snowdrop engine, and the loose corporate structure of the production company.

Games nowadays are made by people. Sometimes just a handful of exceptionally talented ones; they’re crafted. Maybe this new emphasis on design could prevent future hype trains from crashing so gruesomely. Despite a history of disappointment there is a faint hope always purring away in our imaginations. We all want to buy a train ticket heading for paradise with all of our friends on board, hopefully we get there in one piece.

VR-CADES

Prediction: VR-cades will be a thing in the coming years. Arcades as we know and love them have all but gone to the rapture, replaced by stale internet cafes or one dollar pizza places. An Arcade game should be so lucky, to find a loving home this day in age is rare, like finding a baby unicorn. Whether your PC's are ready for it or not, the VR train is steadily approaching. This coming fall the HTC Vive will be first out the gate and available publicly. But this wouldn't be the first time for a virtual reality peripheral. History tends to repeat itself. 

Way back when arcades were nefarious dungeons and the old Chinese guy at the quarter counter cut you short and there was a 9 kid line to play Mortal Kombat, VR was born. You probably don't remember it, because a human brain can only take so much nonsense before detouring shitty memories of empty promises. Enter 'Virtuality'. Introduced in the early 90's (and showcased in some theaters showing Terminator 2 in America) this 'VR' console attempted to capture the hearts of gamers. It didn't, the marketing was all flash, the games looked terrible and they made people sick. But hey, the user looked kind of cool ( for the 90's) wearing the gear. And that was the hook; games were shit but you got to sit in a 'vr pod' and wear a heavy, sweaty helmet for 3 min. Yes 3 min, Virtuality charged $5 bucks and let you play 3 miniutes. Which, in the early 90's was enough cash to get a six pack and crush it in the alley. This was a huge fail for any company trying to make a buck off a lie and when consumers began sharing there experiences amongst themselves Virtuality flopped, hard. Unfortunately, the technology at the time wasn't anywhere close to realizing the potential of our creativity. Until this Fall

In a year or two what will be happening will be a resurgence of the Arcade and Virtual Reality proper. VR is a different beast completely. Watching videos and trailers simply doesn't achieve the immersion level you keep hearing about from users these days. The only way to understand it is to experience it in person. It deffinately wont be for everyone so why would anyone throw $500 at something they might not even like? The HTC Vive uses a peripheral called 'Lighthouse'(the boxes on the right.) Essentially they are placed in a room and they map the space your physically standing in into the  virtual environment your experiencing. So your going to need a dedicated room for this already. Online the suggested size for the lighthouse tracking system is a 15x15 ft space. The headset itself will require no less than 3 separate inputs into a CPU: power, USB  and HDMI. The intelligent thing to do would be to have a tether on the ceiling with a swivel for these cables. If a company wants to injure their users then they should cause them to be blind and create tripping hazards, so when they throw up from nausea it'll be while tripping over said cables and falling against a wall; landing on an otherwise perfectly good and functioning computer. Childproofing resurgence is another prediction not suited for this particular article, but you heard it here first. Safety is going to be an issue here.

Problems are emerging rapidly.

HTC Vive, lighthouse and controllers.

Other very interesting and innovative peripherals are revealing themselves as well, some less recently than others. One of the most utilitarian and predictably ubiquitous being the Virtuix Omni. It's a stationary tread mill you might have seen on "Shark Tank" in 2013. They didn't get the bid. This seems like the most practical and natural extension to the VR experience. Allowing you to physically walk and run through the game environments safely (note the 'safety ring'). It's amazing... and expensive. Not to mention cumbersome. This unit costs $699 dollary-doos and the shipping costs alone will be insane if you don't live in the States. Also you need special shoes for it with plastic soles. You might be able to take them bowling! Were just not sure yet but keep your bowling fingers crossed.

Virtuix Omni

Contrasting the size of the Virtuix Omni perfectly is the 'Gloveone.' A hepatic feedback system attached to gloves that the user wears to experience tactile response in a virtual world. Oh and it's wireless! Hands down (pun intended) the most intriguing and technologically mind-fucking peripheral created so far. At $395 bones for the pair its not going to be a spontaneous purchase for many people. 

So to for full immersion and the complete VR experience were going to need some things. Valve in there wisdom has not yet revealed the price point or points for there HTC Vive headset but lets call it a comfy $500 US.  Then the controllers which who knows if they will be included. Lets say they will. The lazer-emitting lighthouse which may or may not come as a package with the Vive lets call that $150 US. Your going to need a 15x15ft room for the experience which can't really be priced. It would be fair to say none of us have a free room ready for VR dedication. Your certainly going to need the Virtuix Omni for running like a caged rat that's going to be $699. Lastly and not leastly you'll need a great PC if your a console gamer exclusively your going to have to wait another 6 or so months. As of now no big news about console VR peripherals has come. The latest PC specs from 'Road to VR' is suggesting:

• NVIDIA GTX 970 / AMD 290 equivalent or greater
• Intel i5-4590 equivalent or greater
• 8GB+ RAM
• Compatible HDMI 1.3 video output
• 2x USB 3.0 ports
• Windows 7 SP1 or newer

So that's, what? $2000 US. Finally you'll need those badass gloves mentioned earlier for $395. Now your ready, after spending about $3,750 before tax US for the full experience. For now, the Virtual frontier will more than likely happen through a business, hopefully near you.

The reality for the gamers at home though will be more modest. A consumer will be told by friends that they have to get a Vive or a Oculus or simply act on there curiosity and buy one for themselves. Most players will be contented to stay at home and add it to there entertainment arsenal forgoing the expensive 'add-ons.' But there's no way to truly understand the experience of full immersion until its been witnessed first hand. Hence the VAR-CADE! Remember that soft neon glow of the neighborhood arcade and now imagine it with rooms instead of video cabinets. Sure you might see 'quarter man' Jonny with a new job; dedicated to mopping up jizz off the 'porn room' floor or blood off the walls in the 'fighter room,' or Yak off the floor in the 'vomit simulator room.' Man this is gonna be exciting! Alternatively you could also be much less adventurous and make an incredibly elaborate long distance phone call (see below) totally your choice.

Keanu knows internet!

SUICIDE SIMULATOR Z: I AM HUNGRY & THIRSTY & I HAVE NO SHOES

The first time I heard abouty DayZ was when it was still a Arma2 mod. This friend of mine told me stories of breaking his leg and being dragged to safety by an ally from a swarm of a flesh-hungry zombies; of encountering self-organized player unions who lifted players from the spawn point, equipped them with basic tools, and dropped them. Other sources inspired me with their sheer surreality and hilarity that comes with encountering potentially hostile strangers. It would be a long time before I had to opportunity to actually play the game - in fact until last week when I finished building my first PC - but now I have, and my main take-away so far is that, while a true multiplayer sandbox is a terrific gameplay model, early access can be a tragic development model.

In my first ever run I wandered through fields for awhile before passing through a more industrial block along the highway. I found some nice gear in it - a flaregun, a welding mask, a pipe wrench, some canned food. But how am I gonna get the damn…? Oh. The pipe wrench smashes the can open. A bunch of food splatters everywhere but I can salvage enough to stave off starvation. This is kinda cool. I am feeling pret-ty tough as I head into town along the highway with my mask, wrench, and cold bean smell.

The town was a jackpot. Food, water, pocket-laden tactical vests! I fill to bursting with more tinned calories and bottled water. I find a hunting rifle with no bullets. I continue to sweep the town, throwing open door after door, until, approaching an intersection, my eye catches a flash of movement on a rooftop. I pull out my (useless) firearm and train it on the door as a man steps out, both hands gripping a pistol pointed directly at me. He cautiously approaches, and I remember there is mumble chat function. I immediately also remember neither of the goddamn microphones on my two headsets actually work, and this other player seems mute as well. We stand silently, facing each other down, and a thought occurs to me. I lower my weapon, step forward, and put a can of spaghetti on the ground. I take a few steps back. He trains his gun on me, then on the can … then lowers it, steps forward, and takes the can. Wow! Nonverbal peacemaking! Great job, me!

Eager to make progress on our newfound alliance, I head forward and see, in a fenced enclosure attached to the building this stranger came out of, there is a zombie shuffling about. Awlright! Let’s get him! I equip my wrench, my real weapon, pull open the gate, and the screen goes black and tells me I’m dead.

Huh. Guess that guy had a bullet after all.

In spite of the shock-disaster, that was an awesome gameplay experience. Long spans of nothing broken up by short bursts of tension, anxiety, release. However the game, being early access, is not consistent in producing this flow. In a later play session, I tried to meet up with my friend. But the way the game works, you spawn in random locations on the massive map, and have little resource for locating yourself in the game. Promising landmarks turn out to be distant replicas. My friend and I both spent an hour in a phone conversation trying to figure out how to meet up in the game. Over that duration, we each encountered nothing in the game world: no other players, no zombies, no weapons, and no food, and each died in total solitude and inertia.

If your leg isn't broken, sprinting off industrial-zone rooftops is a great way to cast off the good old B&W filter of a dying character in DayZ.

Later runs have shown a 50/50 probability of being either shot dead on sight by the first rigged-out human being I encounter, or starving/bleeding/thirsting to death, alone, laden down with tinned foodstuffs and powdered milk. I think I may actually write a guide on how to clip off your own dying characters, because once you've gone terminal, it's a good 10-15 minutes of gameplay before you can actually respawn a healthy character and a better chance at survival.

I found a shipwreck off the shoreline and abandoned everything to go explore, but sometimes you just gotta beat your head against a deck.

Ongoing experience with the game has been fairly positive however. To anybody new to DayZ, I strongly recommend shopping around the different servers and finding a high loot, low violence server to suit your desires. For some reason I loaded into one spawn as a pantsless, shoeless white man, and before I could find a single inventory item, I was shot dead by a stranger in a motorcycle helmet. My now-working headset microphone brooked no favor with this man.

While early access has earned a great deal of revenue towards the development of DayZ, it seems constrained by its shaky beginnings. Between the horrible user interface, jittery gameplay and rendering, and untuned randomness, many of the game’s improvements over the years have been preoccupied with glitches and balancing, rather than bolstering the shoddy foundation of the game as a whole.

And what’s worse, though it more or less invented the genre, DayZ now struggles against dozens of competitor games, which took conceptual inspiration from DayZ and backed it with some variation of a better-funded, more stable game engine. These competitor games allow shared spawn points, or start with a navigational tool of some kind. While this may break “immersion” in the survival situation, it makes those games more enduringly playable, and dependably fun, in a way that casts DayZ’s emphasis on hardcore survival in a shadow of quaintness.

To drive the point further, Dean Hall, head designer of DayZ, has openly stated that DayZ improvements have taken inspiration from the game’s competing knockoffs. Sadly, kicking off the genre does not set the standard and perhaps it remains to be seen who can build the optimal zombie survival sandbox game.

In spite of tracts of utter boredom, though, I have been enjoying my time with DayZ and look forward to delivering more epic tales of failure from the frontline of Hiking Simulator Extre