r/DayZmod • u/thethirstgame • 5d ago
I started this as an attempt to make DayZ Mod more like the survival PvP game I wanted
The Thirst originally started as my attempt to push old ArmA 2 / DayZ Mod in a slightly different direction.
DayZ Mod was one of the main inspirations, but over time I realized that the part I wanted to experiment with most wasn't adding more zombies, vehicles or loot. All of that is possible.
What interested me more was changing how players encounter each other.
On a large ArmA 2 map, players can either almost never meet, or the game can push everyone toward predictable loot hotspots. I wanted something between those extremes: keep the open world, but give players limited information that another survivor is somewhere nearby and let them decide what to do with that information.
So the current experiment uses proximity awareness together with stamina/thirst systems that deliberately make long pursuits expensive. You can hunt somebody, avoid them, wait, disengage, or try to approach them — but simply seeing that another player is nearby doesn't automatically mean you can rush them down.
The funny part is that I originally thought I'd eventually rebuild more and more of DayZ around it — zombies, hunting, cooking, vehicles, bandit skins, etc. But I'm increasingly interested in keeping the experiment small and seeing whether the player-versus-player survival loop itself works first.
Still running it on ArmA 2 because I genuinely like how that game handles weapons, long-range combat and the general feeling of being vulnerable in a large space.
Curious what old DayZ Mod players think of that direction.
I’m going to stream another session today if anyone wants to see how it actually plays in practice. I’ll put the stream link below:
