It’s the lore.
At current moment in GZ, i’m on the pathway without knowing where i came from or even what i am. Also, where the path leads to? To get the answers, i need to continue walking on the path, learning the truth and also seeing how it all ends.
Thank you for this beautiful answer. 
I should have guessed, since you are one of the few in here that seems to have picked up and managed to keep track of all the details in the story so far. You have enlightened me quite a few times in that regard. 
While I agree PARTIALLY, I disagree partially as well.
Sure, it is upon the person doing X (reading, gaming, daydreaming, …, it is NOT!!! totally upon that person.
The world he gets immersed in can be BROKEN!!! by external factors disturbing that person.
Few examples: a griefer (VERY well-known concept, I do not need to get into this any deeper, right?), Oddities (example ASTRONAUT machines (LOL)), dead soldiers getting up and talk to you, dead TV’s restoring magically, bugs, crashes, plundra, wife talking, I can go on for ever.
Certain things CAN absolutely break immersion from external side.
Do you disagree?
And thus, no, not quite so…
IMMERSION: definition: a deep emotional and mental involvement.
Incorrect?
Someone bashing your skull in while you are immersed, I would say, that would likely BREAK said immersion?
Or do I see this wrong?
So, I am respecting your opinion and given points, but I just fail to agree in the post and statement, partially…
Let me make an out-of-GZ-example:
You work at company X for boss Y.
You’re TOTALLY involved, aye?
Now, Y comes to you, tells you out of the blue: “Know what… just go home, you’re fired.”
What does that do to your given involvement? 
Okay, I’m coming in here. What is “Immersion” and what destroys it?
Let’s take film (and I’ve used this picture before, I know) and w’ll take “Taken”. In the film Liam Neeson says, “I have a special set of skills and I’m coming after you.” So far, so good, I’m “immersed”. It turns out that his “special set of skills” lead him to re-kidnap a sick girl and drive her away in the back seat of a car while someone fires an AK47 on full automatic from less than ten metres away. Where is now my “immersion”?
It is gone. He has no skills that would allow him to survive that, so the only reason he has done so is because the script reads, “60 rounds of automatic fire are fired at him from close range, but they all miss!” I have lost my disbelief and immersion is permanently broken.
So - Immersion is the supension of disbelief.
Now, Generation Zero. In Sweden in 1980 there was not only a very strong hunting community, but also a very large territorial army, all of whom (I seem to remember from in-service discussions at the time) were allowed to keep their weapons at home. There has been enough time for an alarm to go out, and for all sorts of people to have made fast arrangements to go here, congregate there, hide over yonder, so weapons, ammo, ammo boxes in cars are perfectly believable. I think it would make more sense if medkits were nearly always found in the kitchen or bathroom, because that’s where I keep mine. Furthermore, every base has an infirmary, and in that infirmary I would expect to find stocks of medkits, and cupboards full of adrenalin. But no problem.
Where then is the problem?
It has come because the community has demanded things in this game that they already havee in other games, and these havee beeen included without reference to Immersion. By what means does a machine, standing alone in the middle of a field, suddenly upgrade itself, repairing all its damage and increasing its armour and firepower, with no outside intervention?
Well, the only explanation is that the script says, “Spawn instant Boss.” This is just a bolt-on, and Immersion is broken because it is arbitrary. But it is also unnecessary! With a little more thought, you could have the enemy, being aware of you, creating a special machine (specially armed so you can have your drops) in a factory somewhere, that then hunts you across the world. More believable, and frankly scarier. Rivals are persistent, so if they are connected with the machine/net, they should have an idea where you are. We know that Von Ulmar knows you are out there, and what could be more immersive than that he has taken steps to deal with you? The Rivals become something not to farm, but an actual threat, which may catch up with you before you aree ready, or while you are dealing with something else.
I’ve said in the past that the community splits into two - one the one hand those I call the Immersives and the others I call the Doom-Mongers (although we could call them the Shoot-Em-Ups).
My fear is that so far, the Shoot-em-ups have been given almost everything they asked for, and what they have been given breaks the disbelief. Ammo drops as you use rather than as they use; Bosses; Create The Base; Defend The Base, Waves; and more.
So what did the Immersives want? After the story reaches its conclusion, communication with outside agencies and missions to fulfill, and the start of a guerilla war between us and Von Ulmer. We might even need a base, but be damned sure, if Von Ulmar knows where it is it will be besieged and destroyed, so you better not be seen going in or out.
We want things embedded into the world, not arbitrarily bolted on. I kill rivals because they are an offence to the world - an offence to my sense of disbelief. They could have been embedded in the world, but they aren’t. They’re arbitrary, and without a backstory, disbelief is destroyed.
But so far every change takes the game further from the launch concept and further towards arbitrary “Action” and it breaks my heart. I know Tene doesn’t care, but then he’s a Shoot-em-up, bless him, and awfully prolific! But Tene doesn’t care if a Rival is embedded properly into the world or not. It makes no difference to him - it is to the Immersives that it makes a difference, and a huge one. He doesn’t see how (I get that), but it doesn’t make us wrong.
So if I’m a Dev, what do I want?
What we don’t need is the Shoot-em-ups telling us that we are wrong and have no view worth listening to, on the apparent grounds that if there are ammo boxes in cars, then Rivals as they are now make equal sense - they don’t, even if they can’t see why not…
@SR_knivspark
@Avalanche_Pontus and others please read!
@IanForce
@Xogroroth
@Flick
@tene
@Bootie
Well said!
DAMN well said!!!
This is what I always said as well, just not this eloquently…
You address some faults I addressed (in my own peculiar way), additions I went against, yes, we are so on the same page.
Now, the game could take an extreme turn, let me point at my aliens post: New machines and where to start
While yes, this is SO not GZ, it actually is in a way: it would STILL be PURE to the CORE IDEA of GZ: No NPC’s except mechanical ones (as the aliens never set foot on Earth), etc etc.
A whole different direction, sure, but it would not be ‘against’ the base lore and game concept.
NOTE!!! that this was NOT a suggestion, but a POSSIBLE EXAMPLE, and NOTHING else.
So please, do not take it out of context.
I am a so called ‘Immersionist’, ‘Purist’ even.
I enter the game, as a ROLE PLAYER!
This means, I basically become the dude running the whole game.
So yes, moron added things annoy me, like that frakkin plundra that keeps stalking me, as this just is not logical.
UNLESS there’s ACTUAL magic ingame.
Or, well… plundra teleportation…
But this tech has not been touched, nor has magic been touched, and yet… it just STALKS me.
Now, with that I can live.
Bikes… even if turned of, that too just STALKS me.
It’s ‘everywhere’: inside machines, all safe houses, on my compass… I just cannot outrun the darn thing.
But, still, it’s not… killer… annoying to me.
Now, base building or motorized vehicles, or skiing, or UFOs or NPC’s or broken machine AI… that IS deadly annoying, extremely game breaking, to me…
But… that is me.
And this mere opinion, though, it’s more.
Not a FACT, but not an opinion either any more…
Right?
Happens to us all when we meet Jesus 
@Bootie, I tried so hard to find something in your post that I could disagree with, but I didn’t succeed. You summed it up very nicely for us “Immersives”. And @Xogroroth, you too. I love your purist attitude to the game too, even though your craving for sharper machines probably wouldn’t work for me using an Xbox controller.
I like your wish list, @Bootie. Because this is what we can “do” something about. You know my stand on Rivals and experimental weapons, but it is already there. There should be something for @tene (bless him) and his likes (bless them too) too. Personally, I think that Rivals still could be fixed. Make them actively hunt you, take them out of the map, and let them be announced by the Resistance over a walkie-talkie you carry with you. I think I suggested that in a posting some time ago. And let us stumble upon a military lab somewhere that gives the backstory on the experimental weapons, as @Simulacrum_Protogen once suggested. Like if the director of Taken had let us know, that Liam had participated in a special course where he required the skill to avoid being hit by AK47 bullets. I’m reasonably open minded and I would buy into that .
I almost regret that I used the work “immerse” in the title but then I finally checked the meaning of it in the Cambridge Dictionary. It says:
The fact of becoming completely involved in something: Total immersion in a videogame is almost like living another life
I think it covers it pretty well. When I “live another life” I lose track of time (I don’t look at my wristwatch). I intended this thread to be a place to list those things in GZ - present or yet to come - that will make that happen for you. And all you lovely “Shoot-em-uppers” are invited to participate too 
@Bootie, you have watched the movie “Taken” with Liam Neeson and it breaks your immersion. I certainly understand why. Now, you should consider watching “Shoot 'em up” with Clive Owen (and Monica Bellucci … Oh my God!). It is ten times worse than “Taken” in terms of Clive being bullet repellent, but it doesn’t break my immersion. Because it is basically a comedy and therefore all is forgiven!
GZ, however, is not a comedy.
The clue is “in the name” - Shoot-em-up.
But we already have lots of games that’ll do that - we only have one Gen Z. Let’s fight for it. The Resistance begins!
OMFG!!!
THAT would be SO frakkin SWEET???
+10 billion to it’s power to it’s power to it’s power!!!
I DEMAND THIS!!!
Hell, I asked for a GZ Lore or Rule Book.
Turn it even into a full blown frikken Pen/Paper/Die Role Play even!!!
But yes, INFORMATION please.
What is the precise history, …
…
Because some say it’s the PLAYER alone one’s job?
Hell bloody no!!!
Immersion is FAR more than mere the “players job”!!!
Sadly, it is becoming a joke…
For many a reason.
Shoot’m’up/SURVIVAL
And back here in Belgium it was sold as simply SURVIVAL.
Either way, I can dig the shoot’m part.
I get however heavily ticked of by frikken HOARDING.
AMEN!
EDIT: I can seem like a total cunt sometimes, by how I put things.
For which I am very, VERY sorry.
I do not tend to overthink my responses, I open the REPLY, and begin spamming my ideas, feelings, opinions…
It would not be fair or honest, not to you, nor to MYSELF.
And sometimes people think I either attack, or insult them, but please, that is absolutely NOT the intention.
IF this is how I come across… please accept my apologies.
I do not ask for forgiveness, but please, accept my sincere apologies…
Love to see me buried. XD
I’ve always been under the impression that Generation Zero was always meant to be a “shoot robots with friends” kind of shooter. A simple recipe, from an easy concept. The fact that Avalanche Studios happen to use a beautiful game engine and know their way around sound design is an added bonus that many seem to enjoy as well.
@Zesiir
Though it was mistyped (miss game typed, red) where I am, I can live with the shooter part.
But when folks start to request things “because it is in game Y” or “game X” I tend to get quite angry.
For one because I SO love Generation Zero, it’s concept, it’s story, the landscape, the… game…
And I just get horrified if this perfection gets changed by things that simply does not suit Generation Zero or it’s concept.
Sure, I am on break.
After like… 6, 7 months of daily HOURS in game, I finally got fed up by the broken machine intelligence.
Been bringing this up since July, and after 8 months of horrible machine AI failure, I gave up.
That just is a statement on it’s own: the game had such a grip on me, that this agonizing AI failure could not get me away.
And this, just THIS, is why, especially for GZ, I am such an extreme purist…
Because it’s sheer PERFECTION!
And why I can come across as a total cunt… though I do not mean this…
Post edited for profanity. Keep it civil.
/Mod
But hasn’t it become more to you that just a “shoot robots with friends” game? I’ve seen some of your videoclips, and you definitely put more strategy into the fight than I do. I’ll bet you stock flares, fireworks, gas cannisters, and EMP batteries. I do not. I’m pretty much a sniper only and I always try to fight from cover. So fighting machines is actually just a minor part of the game for me, and if I get my 10 minutes machine-bashing fix in GZ a day, I’m pretty content in that departement. What made me stay in-game for hours (I don’t do that these days as I’ve pretty much done it all) was all the rest. The exploration, the story, the missions, the looting and all the other things I’ve mentioned here on the forum. Are you actually content with the “simple recipe from an easy concept”?
Of course. It’s got a good combat system in place where you can choose your fights and it really works, especially in co-op. And the world-building works well, even if it’s simplistic. I’m perfectly content with the game as it is and I don’t think that it’s strayed too far from it’s core mechanics.
We’ve seen some gameplay enchancements thus far, and some additions like Rivals, Alpine Unrest etc though I believe that the game’s constantly evolving, and I’m sure the devs are aware how many care about the game’s aesthetics, atmosphere and so forth and are eager to expand upon that as well.
That’s me allright, basically.
I use ONLY fire weapons, if I DARE use explosives… I am dead.
For some hilarious reason, I always get the brunt of explosives going off. XD
Issue with co-op is the fail of machine scaling along with the amount and level of players.
Where solo play already is a walk in the park due to machine AI failure, this is ‘extremified’ in MP/Co-op.
It occurs to me that GZ is not even a shooter anymore, but a LOOTER/Hoarding game.
Where you win the game if you fill out ALL possible storage rather than finish the game and quests.
The machines should be such an extreme threat, you would not dare move.
Of course, that would ruin the game as well, naturally, having it that hard.
I would SO want that FOR MYSELF, but I won’t ever ask the Devs to bring my personal “hell to the power of hell” on to the rest.
Still, the treat is just… not even a joke anymore.
And that’s so… sad…
I agree!!!
Protect the CORE, please, Devs?
It’s not because another game features a Planet Killer ( https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Planet_Killer ) that I therefor want it implemented in “my” game.
Adding base building, motorized vehicles, more NPC’s, … would ruin:
(Taken this part of the sentence from the whole, as this is where I am pointing at.)
The change in weather, the different night and day starts and ending. The way the machines are learning and not reacting in the same way. As setting up land mine traps at the same location and they avoid them or set them off. I truly enjoy this game as it does not get old for me. I see the February update is going live and adding some new missions. It just keeps getting better. Thank you and keep up the good work. Best game, even with the starting short comings, but the fixes worked and you still are improving.
I hope this fits the topic, but what I’d like to see is some sort of “character log”.
My idea would be:
In the log, a new tab called “characters” or similar gets added.
When you collect a mission item or collectible that mentions a character for the first time, their name gets added to the tab.
You can then select there name and get a list of every item that mentions them and you have already collected.
So for example, if you collect an item that mentions “Veronika Nilsson” and the name seems familiar to you, instead of having to search through your side and main mission in order to re-read her story, you simply select her name fron a list and you have all the info you have collected about her at your fingertips.
It´s a good Idea for the Game
It is probably more a “quality of life” thing, but it is a good idea. You should make a feature request for it 
