bfisher

I mean...at least the trolls take the time to actually interact with you.

I was in Cherno and some jerk shot out my legs. He then toyed with me as I crawled after trying to catch him with a lucky swing of my ax. He then came back with sticks so I could make a splint. He then shot my legs again after I had splinted up, then eventually killed me. At least he took the time to interact.

That is literally the exact opposite of everything DayZ stands for. DayZ is an open world survival game where the only goals are to survive as long as possible and what you choose to do while surviving. There is no "end game" other than your character's death. That said, DayZ could stand the introduction of a bit more randomness. Everyone playing on the same map compared to a procedurally generated random map is great because it gives the community a shared experience of common locations and landmarks. But it also kind of makes it a bit routine for experienced players. So maybe base building will help with that. I like the idea of coming across the ruins of some base where two clans killed themselves fighting over and picking through the scraps.

I wonder if we were on the same server? I stumbled across...something..in Kamyshovo. There were bodies everyone. One guy ran up to me and begged me to kill him (so I obliged with my double barrel). I was going to take out some other guy until he warned me just in time about a sniper. Rounds started whipping past my head so I didn't stick around. Good thing that sort of stuff won't be happening anymore!

A decently designed and well balanced game shouldn't depend on creating artificial "rules" and hoping that players abide by them. Respectfully, I disagree regarding the "rarity" of things. Wandering around for hours tediously overturning every rock to find a single tent, HESCO barrier, wire cutter or brick is not "fun". The materials should be relatively common. But they should take time to assemble / disassemble. They will need to strike a balance between 4 guys turning NWAF into a fortified Green Zone in a half-hour and the Mod where you could spend 16 hours looking for a single sandbag. Here is what I imagine: At the simplest level, players should be able to dig a hole for storing some extra crap in, so long as they have any sort of digging implement. Finding fancier stuff like tents or barrels gives you more places to hide stuff Keys/lockpicks would let you lock/unlock doors and hammer & nails and some wood would let you close off windows and doors in buildings (or bust into them). These sort of bases would be useful for single players to create a secure spot to store, say...parts for a car they are assembling or their collection of guns and ammo until they find a match. The big fortified encampments, I don't see that being practical for anyone besides a relatively large clan. I mean what's the point of spending all weekend building something like that by yourself only to have it occupied by some kids while you're at work? And, yeah. I very much expect them to pop up near airfields, military bases and cities. Any PvP hotspot will now become a PvP hotspot with one clan occupying a fortified base that controls the region like a medieval citadel.

This. DayZ is contrived for a number of reasons. You need to sleep in RL and you can't just log off. In RL, you can't combat log or respawn. You don't get "lonely" in DayZ or crave human contact after weeks of wandering empty towns. There's no emotional cost in DayZ to just killing people for no reason. The world of DayZ more closely approximates the fictional world of The Walking Dead or other post-apocalyptic fiction like Mad Max, The Postman, Jericho, Revolution, The Road, Book of Eli and so on where it's just understood that the last remaining humans will try to kill each other for no apparent reason. Which to an extent is equally absurd. It's easy to survive in DayZ. Just stick to the random towns and slowly gather essential supplies. The only time I've gotten killed of late is when I go to the tent city at NWAF to stock up on machineguns. 2 people on a server, you can bet that's where they will be and not looking to make friends.

Everyone wants to be Daryl or Rick. No one wants to be the dumb jerk who get's his head smashed in by Negan's bat. Personally, I think the huge imbalance between fresh spawn and clans of death squads armed with military grade equipment to be the best part of DayZ. To me, DayZ is closer to the film The Crazies or Mad Max than The Walking Dead. That is to say, everyone else is a well armed lunatic and you are lucky to find someone who isn't "infected" with murderous intent. Honestly, I don't understand why people have such a problem with the PvP. Without that, it's just running around the woods picking apples.

The bandit / hero / normal / ghillie suit skin system, in conjunction with the actual equipment being carried worked fine in the Mod as it gave you a rough estimate about the person you encountered. Did they just spawn in? Did they just kill a bunch of people? Are they a sniper? Have they survived long enough to get a sick load-out of silenced assault weapons? It's not a perfect crystal ball into their character, but it does give you some context. I wouldn't mind a similar system in the SA, but I think it has to be natural and organic. Like maybe killing people gives the character "harder" facial features (ie. thousand yard stare). Facial hair shows how long they've been alive. New spawns look like clean-shaven dipshits you want to punch in the face. And that would actually serve a purpose to having bandanas and balaclavas. Personally, I kind of feel like you can already read a lot into a players' character by how they move, what clothes they wear and what equipment they choose to carry.

a) That's not "irony". b) You are saying the main benefit to living where you live is that it is more "survivable" in the event of a scenario that only happens in fantasy. Which is pretty dumb unless you are saying it ironically. In all fairness, neither is playing DayZ. I decided to play some more this morning just to see where the game was at. Even ignoring technical issues like occasional stuttering in the larger cities, the magazine for my submachinegun disappearing and the usual zombie issues, I just couldn't get into it for more than about 2 hours. Best I could find was a server 1/3 full. I picked up the game where I had left off near the coastal port north of Berenzino. Took a wandering route west, with an ultimate goal of hitting NWAF from the north. Never encountered another player. Some sporadic encounters with zombies, but not enough to ever feel threatened. Food and water were plentiful enough to stay stuffed. Really the only big win I experienced was finally finding a Glock 19 and some sort of Czech submachinegun to go along with all the ammo I found. Although it also occurred to me I could just get by just as easily without any weapons. Also, I think the water is broken because I fell into a lake and never got wet. I don't care what anyone says. I think DayZ went downhill as soon as Rocket left. His original vision was a brutally unforgiving survival environment, with zombies, and players running around killing each other for their beans. Because he was doing it as an experiment, he had the luxury of not caring about whether it was successful. But it ended up being successful beyond anyone's wildest expectations. But now, it just feels watered down. Liked they nerfed everything trying to appeal to both COD PvP kids and the whiney crybabies who don't want to get shot in the face 10 minutes after logging in.

That's you. I have under 200 hours since the standalone was released and I used to play the crap out of the mod. Don't get me wrong. I don't think it's a terrible game. But I think it's just short of actually keeping me engaged for long periods of time. Look, if I want to want to wander around some hick town full of armed idiots and go apple picking, I can drive out to my in-laws.

That's exactly it. DayZ is like one of those luxury condos people in my town buy based solely on the location, the floor plan and other marketing materials. Then the construction gets delayed by months. Eventually they let you move in, even though it's not finished. And each month they keep going on about the pool and the fitness center and all the other fantastic amenities, even though the hot water and electrical don't work.

See that's why we need zombies and lots of them. Lacking any other threat, I always have bullets to spare for unwary travelers. (What else do I have to use them for?). A game where you have to spend 3 hours just to find a gun and a handful of bullets isn't really fun. Plus, in the spirit of The Walking Dead and George A Romaro films DayZ borrows heavily from, guns and ammo were never exactly in short supply. The plot was always driven by the fact that there were always more zombies than bullets and you needed other people to survive. What was more interesting to me in the Mod was giving a perfect stranger a weapon because you were about to get overwhelmed by zombies. I like PvP as much as the next guy, but think about it like this. Playing on a server without anyone else (or so few people you'll never see them), should be as fun and challenging as playing on a full server.

The danger of that is you might end up with a completely fragmented player base where there are so many different servers that none of them ever have more than a handful of players (but they'll have 1000 cars and 40 helicopters). Really, I feel that the game is already diluted by hoards of strident "fans" clamoring for what they want the game to be and BI kowtowing to them in the interest of selling more copies. What made the original mod interesting was that Rocket took a relatively unique idea and created a game that nobody knew they wanted until they started playing - A hardcore zombie survival game. Survival rates were something like 15 minutes and that's before you ever encountered another player. Having lots of guns and ammo was fine because there were almost always more zombies than bullets (not the case with the SA). PvP was a big part of it, but often because people needed to kill other players for food and supplies (or just because!). Even if you all you wanted to do was PvP, you still have to take care of your survival needs. The point is, Rocket didn't initially set out to make a game to sell a million copies. He set out to make an interesting game. If you didn't want to play that game, then perhaps DayZ wasn't the game for you. I kind of feel like BI is trying to be all things to all players and is effectively creating a mediocre game designed by committee.

Which part did you not understand?

Decided to play a bit of DayZ this weekend after taking a few months off. Spawned in near the apartment complexes around Cherno (full server). I'm more of a traditionalist, preferring beach spawns, but that's neither here nor there. Graphics felt very smooth (also have a new graphics card, so I can't give the devs all the credit). Did a classic loot crawl through Cherno. After hearing some distant gunfire, I decided best to head out of town. Headed west, skirting the southern edge of the apartments overlooking Balota. This allows me to hit some of the buildings there and then come down behind Balota Airfield through the woods. Good thing too, since I catch sight of another player running east along the road in the familiar crouch of someone carrying a weapon. Not armed with anything more effective than a hammer, I stay hidden in the woods. Hit the airfield buildings and make my way north without incident. I don't know the new map locations as well, so I kind of got lost. Luckily I came across some military bases as well as some large towns and NWAF. Dispatched a few zombies with my ax at NWAF. One of the barracks is full of ruined weapons and ammo, leading me to believe that there was a fight here. After few hours, I am outfitted in a complete Chernarussian Defence Force Gorka uniform, stab vest, AKM, MP5, Glock and M1911A with a few full magazines for each weapon except the M1911A. Food is not particularly scarce and I am in good health. I head East. Having no map and no sense of direction, I miss every town until I get to Krasnostav near NEAF. It is here I first encounter another player while coming down a hill towards a barn on the edge of town. Peaking around the corner of a barn, he points his weapon at me and I fire off a burst from my MP5. My equipment takes the brunt of his fire and I duck behind some hay bales to bandage while he ducks behind the barn. I wait. Stupidly the other player decides to run up the hill I just came down, giving me a clear line of sight from my unseen position in the hay bales about 100 yards away. 2 aimed shots from my AK and he goes down. For some reason, I can't loot the body, but the helmet, head to toe camo and red armband imply some sort of bandit clan affiliation. Most of my stuff is ruined, but my main weapons are still intact. Not wanting to stick around, I hit the airfield (did they replace the military ATC tower with a beer garden?) . I find a green shirt to replace my ruined Gorka jacket. Approaching Berezino lumber mill from the north, I hear a LOT of gunfire. Slowly I crawl towards it using the buildings and trees for cover. I soon find myself in a long alley lined with storage units on both sides. I can hear footsteps running around on the other side of the wall, so I feel a sudden urge to get the hell out of there. My next position is not much better, finding myself in a long walkway between a wall and some sort of pipes with not a lot of cover. Suddenly, I see a shape coming around the bend. I blast away with the AKM and he goes down. There are at least 2 more. One ducks back around the corner and I fully expect him to try to flank me. I fire a couple shots at his buddy, but can't tell if they hit. As expected, the other comes around what he is expecting to be behind me but is now right in front of me. We exchange fire, but sadly my lack of practice gives him the slight edge he needs to take me out. All in all, I like where the game is at. Still some stuff missing, but it's starting to feel like the right mix of wandering the wasteland as the last man on earth with the constant terror of feeling like someone is watching you.

Ah. I knew about those. To be honest, I wish vehicles were a lot more frequent. I liked the Mod servers that had like a thousand cars and dozens of helicopters. Really, why would these things be rare in a zombie apocalypse? I simply don't have the time to play for hours and hours assembling a car just to hide it in the deep woods. just my personal preference.

I knew about cars, but not helicopters. That's awesome! Although I assume they are as rare as in the Mod.

I get that it's still an alpha work in progress. So I'm not complaining about bugs or even KoS. My big complaint with the Standalone is that everyone is so focused on picking apart the content that you no longer hear any stories about actual gameplay. What I mean is this. During the mod you had all these YouTube channels like FrankiePCin1080p or the Cherno Journal or just random videos. People on this board telling stories about this, that and the other thing. So it kind of built up all this lore around DayZ. Now it's all bitching about development or picking apart some vehicle or weapon mechanics.

Philosophical question... Who is ghosting who here? The camping team using the other server to reposition outside of the building and then retake it on their normal server or the host using the server restart to take a better position to ambush the camping team when they rejoin?

I didn't think to check out the Gallery. I'll check out MrBlackOut's videos as well. I'm glad we had this talk. :D

I do not. However I do know that budget spent on developing new visual assets like models for guns and buildings is budget not spent on perfecting the core gameplay or the underlying engine.

Whether the game would be better or worse at this point is debatable. It may have been better if the devs could focus on core gameplay without the constant fan pressure to add cars or new ballistic vests or whatever. Second, I think you need both. Ultimately it's a game. If the sum of all the parts doesn't add up to something that's actually fun and exciting to play, what's the point? The Mod was a buggy, imbalanced, unstable mess. But it was a lot of fun to play. What I'm saying is if people aren't sitting around the campfire and singing Kumbaya stories about how they raided Elektro and made some bandits drink disinfectant, DayZ has failed as a game.

Right, but if everyone is saying the same negative things about a hotel, you might not want to stay there. Reminds me of the last company I worked for. Always talked up how they were "cutting edge" and what a "great culture" they had. Well if a company of 500 people has over 100 negative reviews on Glassdoor and a rating of 2.5 / 5 and they all say the same thing, maybe things aren't so great. 2 years is a long time to develop a game which was basically already built.

Coincidently, Space Engineers is the other early release game I play ("only" at this point I guess since I don't really played DayZ any more). They do a much better job with their development. Every Thursday, an update is released like clockwork. Sometimes it's just bugfixing. Sometimes it's a major update (like the addition of planets or DirectX 11). But it always feels like the game is moving forward. DayZ not so much. The releases are months apart and mostly it's just content. After 2 years, the fundamental game mechanics still aren't there. Also, Space Engineers, you actually build stuff so there's a lot more to do. To be honest, it's hard to stay engrossed in DayZ running around the same map for 2 years. Yes, it's great checking out a new town or prison island or whatever. But honestly I've just sort of got bored of it. Maybe I'll check it out again in a few months when the weather keeps me inside.

Yes. I think they look fine. I'd just like to see thousands of them wandering around.