rn_max

Well, there were actually people who played and managed to figure out how to survive without checking, but that means you have to actually play the game and not throw up your hands in defeat. Lolwut?

In that case I salute you for your pioneering effort ... and good luck.

If anyone tells you to check out the Lemonparty, give them a miss, they're not that well organised. Oh and once seen ... cannot be unseen.

Are you kidding? Unless you were King Dupe before 1.8 rolled out, this is Hunt for Antibiotics Simulator 2013, sequel to the hugely popular Run With Flares Simulator 2012.

The problem with the infection ... still ... despite clear explanation and reasoned suggestion ... is that it has still been kept as 100% lethal, albeit in 1.8's 90 minutes instead of 1.7.7.1's 60 minutes. What on earth was really the problem with reverting infection damage to reducing player health to a low blood level? Or inflicting a large, mildly variable and finite amount of damage over time that has a chance at least of being out-replenished or limited to avoid death? Still don't buy the idea. Hunt for antibiotics simulator 2013 rolls on.

Not being funny, but perhaps asking the experts in their own forum might be a better place to start ... over at http://dayzepoch.com/forum/

The whole thread makes an ass of itself anyway. Empty tin is empty :emptycan:

Looks like private hive discussion, sounds like private hive discussion, leaves private hive discussion droppings in its wake ... guess its private hive discussion.

Night time has mostly been made ineffective since the moonlit nights update in 1.7.7(?). There is usually enough ambient light to see well unaided and quite often it is too bright for NVG's. Even on the rare occasions now when it is actually too dark to see far, there are plenty of chem lights, road flares and flashlights. Glock G17's and Remington 870's come into their own. What happened to the suspense of blundering around in fear, clinging to the beam of a torch or glow of a chem light, jumping at every sound, hoping not to stumble into zeds or be seen by others? Or of seeing the frantic waggling of a flashlight beam in the distance, undoubtedly from a panic stricken survivor on the run? It is both amusingly ironic and disappointing that a well balanced and reasonable challenge like darkness is diluted and avoided, whilst infection retains its unreasonable 100% lethality, albeit over a whoopee-doo 90 minutes instead of 60 ... and still blind and fainting for the last 14 minutes anyway. But that is another subject.

Never used an oil drum fire, but it makes sense. I'll have to try cooking and boiling next time I'm passing one. What would also make sense, but is absent from the game, is an associated "drink water" action menu item if a player is carrying an empty can or bottle at a pump or pond.

Why is riding a bicycle louder and more visible than driving a bus?

Add one wood pile to be put up for the night ... the versatility of crafting.

Has anyone actually managed to be more right than everyone else yet? Let me see, all these circles of "he said, she said" boil down to not a whole lot, apart from 32 pages of competing pee stains. FPV is generally preferred, but is probably flawed enough to warrant retaining some form of TPV until or unless it is improved, particularly when operating vehicles.

I only play vanilla now, as it's all about the hive. If my chosen regular server goes down at any given time, I can at least move and continue on another one. Just about every private hive server I tried either changed what they were running on a whim or closed down completely, which made any investment in a character pretty pointless.

The last 2400(?) blood (empty droplet) equates to 800 seconds, or 13:20 of totally blurred, pulsing, monochrome vision and random fainting. Not much use for running.

First person vehicle views have to improve dramatically before I'll use them routinely, as they are clumsy immersion breakers. The recreation of vehicle interiors ... from a static viewpoint ... are complete nonsense in relation to real visibility from inside a vehicle. A system of player camera movement, or compensation for the lack of one, is required to recreate the visual mobility taken for granted by vehicle operators and utterly ignored by game designers. Free look goes some way to meet the need in ArmA, but still doesn't manage to imitate or compensate for the real ability to shift viewpoint around obstacles such as windscreen pillars by planar head movement rather than just rotational. Head bob and vehicle view shake are utterly unrealistic. The human body has an amazingly complex and effective system for stabilisation of the head and eyes. Head bob is one of those game design elements that just became trendy and falsely touted, then accepted as "realistic", when it is anything but. The ArmA ridden vehicle view shake is also utter nonsense, again because of the fixed position player camera with no compensatory consideration. Head bob can be turned off, which I do, but vehicle shake is a frustratingly unrealistic constant. I would like to see third person views removed, but don't consider the half-arsed implementation of first person views still inherent in games like the ArmA series fit for purpose to do so for vehicles. Nothing has really changed in this respect in over a decade, from the likes of OFP and BF1942 until now. Sure, the resolution of images has increased and a bunch of cliched and unrealistic gimmick features have hung around like a bad smell ... head bob ... HDR bloom ... motion blur ... ad nauseum. Oh ... and on a Michael Bay note, driving in first person also removes any defence against instant Hollywood death by explosion when colliding with a melon sized rock, or log, or runway light, or any other chicken sized collision mesh bearing statics ... you get the idea.

I can see the concerns of others regarding an easily exploitable return-to-corpse mechanism, though it is only of any real advantage if players hang around specific areas of the south coast in a set order. I'm not so sure about those Skalisty spawns, which may be a bit tough for many and become the new home of the Kamenka suicide cult. Not only is it quite a swim to the mainland, it would be the ruination of a certain vehicle spawn located there. Oh and an absolute turkey shoot for bambi killers.

A time honoured tale of arrogance and stupidity being their own reward.

There are private hives that don't run on donations and I get the impression it is generally only the ones of the same ilk that nuke each other. Apart from many non-donation private hives, the public hive remains unaffected, which means that really there are plenty of servers to play on.

No nuke from me, apart from suggesting this gets moved to the private hive discussion forum ... as this is not relevant to public hive servers. Nobody is forcing those who donate, it is their money to spend as they see fit.

That's 12 people with a high powered sniper rifle. For an average server (usually 30 players), nearly half of them would have a high powered sniper rifle? I'd say at least 4 or 5, no more than 6. Au Contraire ... read again. That's 12 people with a high powered rifle, correct ... out of everyone playing public hive DayZ ... period. Private hives don't count as they usually do what the feck they like. Following suit they would have one per server and even then that would be way more common.

On public hive DayZ servers satchels are as rare as rocking horse shit, so are a non-issue and occasional novelty. Thus the only real problem is from dwindling duper stockpiles, disappearing fast nowadays and on private hives, who don't count and have control of the solution for themselves anyway.

The short time span lethal infection is a dull, clumsy and not very entertaining feature of DayZ. It doesn't make the game more difficult, just tiresome and repetitive. Quite often the most entertaining and quickest solution is either to have a friend kill you, or if alone, to gather a horde of zeds and let them beat you to death in the location of your choosing. The solution that springs to mind? Make the infection passed by zeds the same as the dirty water / uncooked food infection from before 1.7.7 with the drain to 3000 blood. A more plausible infection ... - Generally hygiene based and is the same from several sources, which would fit with zeds, some polluted water sources and some uncooked animal flesh carrying it. Zeds die in some water sources, some animals drink from them and become tainted meat, players collect water from wherever they can ... etcetera. Why not make it relatively infectious between players, introducing a double whammy threat of contagion and subsequent exile from groups? - Makes players ill over time to a low blood level rather than being directly lethal in an hour. Far more elegant and less obvious, because having low blood until cured makes everything else more lethal anyway. A big zed hit, a pistol shot, an otherwise minor bicycle crash, they all become deadly. Anything that causes bleeding can put infected players down in seconds from 3000 blood, maybe even before they can react to bandage up. Isn't that enough of a threat? - Slightly increased infection rate compared to pre - 1.7.7 levels, as nobody really cared about it enough before. When infected before 1.7.7 it was still quite risky going about the basics of survival, but infection was a rare event, where now in 1.7.7.1 it is too common, not least because it is quickly lethal. - Have more than one cure, but make antibiotics the most successful and relatively speaking, least available ... just not super rare. It is risky enough venturing into hospitals and medical tents, with only 3000 blood, let alone having basically zero chance of finding any antibiotics. Why not have things like a combination of warmth, tent rest and pain killers have a reasonable chance of curing infection, or even part curing, say gaining back 3000 on blood limit? Also make cures effective over time rather than instant, so infected players recover rather than experience miracles. - Vary the chance of infection by body temperature, hunger and thirst, as all three can contribute to lowering immunity. Body temperature already does function, at least if you play proper DayZ on a public hive it does. Stay still at night and watch it drop, better still go for a swim then stand still and watch it plummet. I almost froze to death on the fishing boat once, after swimming to recover it at night, then standing still at the wheel for a while driving it. My indicator was flashing empty blue when I noticed. Lowered immunity becomes another imperative to remain nourished and hydrated. Look at that bambi killer on Elektro hill again. Cold, hungry and thirsty from laying on a hill top for ages like a dork, now a prime infection target when that scoped dinner bell summons the local wildlife. Nothing to do with punishment for bambi killing, or even having a weapon, but rather the penalty for neglecting the basics of survival equally applicable to anyone. Infection as it stands now, just carpet bombs certain lethality without any recourse to reasonable challenge or reward. People generally play games to be challenged, rewarded and entertained, not frustrated, bored and abused. A one hour death sentence, with the last quarter of an hour unavoidable and unplayable is even worse. Logging out just saves the joy of being unable to play for the next session. Challenge and reward with the more plausible infection comes from players exercising risk reduction, by maintaining hygiene, warmth, nourishment and hydration. There is also recourse to challenge and reward when infected, by managing to survive whilst ill and find in a logical location, or formulate, partial treatment or a cure.

Yes, the infection drains the blood gained from food, at the rate of 3 points per second. At full health of 12000 blood, it will take 4000 seconds, or 1 hour, 6 minutes, 40 seconds, to die without food or transfusion. That's real time in game. Just over an hour. Of which the last 13 minutes 20 seconds (under 2400 blood?) will be spent unable to see anything except blurry grey blobs and randomly fainting. So realistically its 53 minutes 20 seconds before being effectively blinded and incapacitated, plus suicide isn't an option ... so go and take a dump and make a cuppa, because there's plenty of time otherwise spent staring at a blurry monochrome screen before respawn. It is also plain to see from the numbers, that with the anti-stacking eating mechanism, where a time delay is needed between eating each item to get the most blood benefit, canned food just isn't going to save the day. I managed to survive over four days game time, by eating half the animals in Chernarus and it was very time consuming, slaughtering and cooking enough meat to keep going. In fact, if it wasn't for the motorcycle, I doubt that there would have been enough time for hunting on foot and scavenging enough locations for antibiotics, without a serious dose of blind luck. In the end I died in a motorcycle crash, chasing another distant meal-on-legs to stay alive. After four days of endless looting of every location I reached, hundreds of them, with no antibiotics. As for hospitals and med boxes, I have seen them, but very rarely. The spawn probability appears to be much lower now.

Don't forget that there is a less than 100% chance of many loot spawn points actually producing anything. Some locations will remain empty for more than one timer cycle, as the spawn chance result may have been for nothing to spawn. There appears to be some kind of issue which causes spawn triggers to not function or spawn points to produce nothing, or the same item, en masse. There seems to be some kind of shenanigans in the background with the probability of particular items appearing, which belies randomness of individual spawn points. Perhaps some of the spawns are grouped for convenience of editing or for performance reasons. How many times have you been through a village which seems to be inundated with one or two items? How many times have you rolled through an entirely empty village? I have seen enough of both cases and they don't look like particularly random events per spawn point. As for lag, I would say that occasionally I see evidence when a server "shudders" to produce a wave of spawn events, in response to player movement into trigger range I would presume.