bfisher

I assume the loot tables are always fluctuating due to the devs testing various stuff. Like now it's all raincoats and I never find those yellow boxes anymore. Finding guns is relatively easy, but it seems like there are never any magazines.

Started playing again after a bit of a hiatus. After getting slightly injured by a zombie, I stopped to bandage myself in a firehouse in Cherno. So some wiseass bonks my character on the head and knocks him out. He's talking shit and I have no idea what this a-hole is going to do next. I come to and I guess he's not paying attention so I smash his face in with some brass knuckles, knocking his ass out. That would have been fine I suppose...but then I kind of...chopped him up with a machete and ate him. :(

I made the swim out there and someone killed me with an automatic weapon. It made me sad. I guess I'll just camp in the hills above Kamenko and bash anyone who tries to return to shore. :D

Sadly I died a short while later in the Balota ATC tower. Apparently, people are very quick to rush to judgment when encountering a guy in a worn welder's helmet and tattered crimson overcoat wielding a machete and giggling like a crazy person.

It was an M4 from back in the days when all you had was an M4 with 500 rounds in a bunch of STANAG mags. There will always be KoS if I have to beat you to death with by bare hands!

So you're all for people like WhyHerro who propose the ability to grab someone's beard and kill them? -I would totally go for beards growing in if you don't shave. Or other realistic thing such as: Your character getting randomly depressed for no reason? Managing your characters mood and mental state! Gosh if you're character is too angry he may be unable to complete basic tasks die to his immense frustration! -Tough to simulate mental states of characters you control in first person. Unless you get angry or depressed for no reason. Besides, I already assume the other players are insane. The game is really more "The Crazies" than "Night of the Living Dead". You can sprain your ankle randomly from running Stress fractures! -Aside from "random broken leg from climbing ladder" glitches, I don't have a problem with characters getting injured from running over rough terrain, particularly when wearing worn out footwear. Removing bandaging so that if you're shot, you are pretty much going to die no matter what. Because realistically, if you get shot, you're not saving your life with some rags. Infected wounds, even if you get hit by a zombie! Better carry around that alcohol tincture that is nearly impossible to find -I'd like a more realistic and unforgiving health dynamic. Most shots should be a one-shot kill. If not instantly, it should be progressive as you get weaker from infection and whatnot. It should take a long time to heal and you should be at a reduced capacity until you do. Maybe even have a permanent limp or screwed up shoulder. Needing to practice oral hygiene Cavities from not flossing! -'My teeth are hurting..' Forcing your character to sleep -Doesn't work in a multiplayer since no one wants to watch a black screen for 6 to 8 hours a night, Blisters on your feet and hands -Well, they have gloves and footwear for a reason. Pissing and shitting -'My ass really feels like it's going to explode...' The ability to drink your own piss when you can't find water. Hey! That's realistic and has happened in many dire survival cases! -People actually survive in spite of drinking their own piss, not because of it. Think about it. Piss is pretty much all the chemicals your body wants to get rid of. The ability to have sex with people. That's realistic, right? Why not put that in? Just because it's the apocalypse doesn't mean we can't get it on. -What...you can't? :D Needing rain-proof gear from head to toe to be rain-proof, and even then you can still get damp. Because, hey, realistically, you still get wet in hard rain with full rain gear, which means in Chernaurus weather, you can still get hypothermia and die with full rain gear on. -I feel like that's already in there. Digging holes...Hey! Digging is a realistic thing. Let's dig some holes. -Crafting! You're character has to stop and rest for periods between running. Come on! You can't expect to run forever, can you? Realistically you would have to rest for a good 10 minutes! Vitamin deficiency! Your character getting fat or becoming unhealthy if they don't eat a balanced diet -These are not bad ideas. I would be totally cool with your character getting fatter or skinner or more jacked over time, depending on his diet and activity level. I think the more our character can be shaped by the environment, the more the player will get attached and become less likely to risk him in a random COD KoS play style. Mosquito bites! Those pesky mosquitos...gosh sure would hate to.... DIE FROM WEST NILE VIRUS Poisonous spiders...gotta remember poisonous spiders. Calcium deficiency, leading to.. Brittle bones! Trench foot Your character getting REALLY annoyed by those whiskers that grow inward at the corners of your mouth? OOH! That reminds me. -I don't know that most of these are native to post-Soviet Russian states. But more diseases and whatnot would be fine. In the Mod you could get really sick from drinking water you didn't boil. The ability to pick your nose. That's realistic The ability to scratch your nuts. That's realistic. (Seriously, have you tried not scratching an itch on your body? It drives you insane!) We should be able to leap frog with other people in the game. That's realistic. Hop scotch? Idk about you guys but I'm down for a game of DayZ hop scotch. That's a realistic thing. -All great ideas for F-key gestures. Include tripping into the game, as well as stumbling. Come on, we all do it. It's natural and realistic. You're character is not a gyroscope. -Why not? I think if you push your character past his endurance level, he should be more prone to trip and sprain his angle or bust a leg. The ability to remove ALL clothes. That's realistic. -This isn't Rust! On that note, each character should have unique body parts, as well as reproductive organs. That's realistic. Come on, no two people are the same. -I feel like my character's reproductive organs are a bit larger than everyone elses...sort of like his player's. :D We should be able to climb trees! We should be able to climb over walls! -I'm actually a bit disapointed that we can't already. Dreams! While sleeping your character in-game will dream. Good luck separating what is dayz from your dream! -How do you know that your character isn't the real one and you're just your character's dream? Did I just blow your mind!? Taxes. You didn't think just because it is the end of the world the government isn't going to come and collect what you owe, did you? But remember, those beans you gave to that bambi were tax deductible -What makes you think I haven't been collecting "taxes" from other players?

Give me a break. How long would it take 1 jerk to make a palisades fort by himself with just a fire ax? ANSWER: Long enough to be killed by whatever he was building the fort to protect himself against. What's next? Chopping down trees and gathering rocks to shit finished 2x4s and reinforced concrete foundations?

I think my character actually gained weight since the apocalypse.

Not to mention you only play a few hours at a time. IRL, you can't just log off to go to sleep. It helps to have someone else watching your back. Or at the very least, just having some company.

No you are correct. Even during Sandy, we never felt like our survival was threatened. In fact, it seemed like getting rid of food before it spoiled was a bigger issue. It could be a very different story if people were starving. A lot of it relates to game theory though. Do the rewards for two or more people cooperating outweigh each acting individually? A funny thing though. In spite of all the KoS, I have frequently teamed met random strangers who I've teamed up with. And then we go become bandits together!

During Hurricane Sandy, my city of Hoboken, NJ was completely flooded and blacked out for a week. (Ironically, with my "post apocalypse gear" of North Face vest, flannel shirt and baseball hat, my wife said I "looked liked a character from that stupid zombie game I play"). To be honest, at times it did feel creepily like Cherno and Electro at night with all the blacked out buildings. Not to mention all the unsubstantiated rumors of looting and whatnot. But we didn't form into warlord clans and wage war against neighboring Weehawken. (Mostly because my wife kept nagging me "stop trying to build a warlord clan to wage war against Weehawken!"). Sure a major factor is that we expect order and infrastructure to be restored in a few days. But another major factor IMHO, is that it's very difficult to survive alone IRL as a raging asshole. The Walking Dead is mostly bullshit. You're in a zombie apocalypse with a group of friends and meet another group, do you think about fucking eating them or do you think "hey..if we combine our forces, we have twice as many able-bodies, guns, eyes watching for trouble, people to shoot the shit with. Particularly in The Walking Dead where there's a supermarket full of groceries to loot every 2 miles. The "finished product" isn't going to change much from the current state with respect to bandits. The main problem is that it's always easier to just kill someone and take their shit rather than cooperate. This was a problem in the Mod, the Standalone and will probably be a problem in H1Z1. I don't really know how to solve this (or if it should even be solved). But I don't think any of these games have figured our how to not turn onto a giant death match.

Look, according to the Mod site, there have been over 9 million player "murders" in DayZ. http://dayzmod.com/ IOW, over a period of 2-3 years, the DayZ community of 1.7 unique players has manage to implement one and a half WW II Nazi Holocausts or ten to fifteen Rwanda Genocides . That doesn't include zombies killed or stats from the Standalone. I think it's safe to say that the world of Chernarus is a lot more violent than the real world even under the worst circumstances. That said, DayZ is not supposed to be a "real world" simulator. It's supposed to feel like a realistic portrayal of a zombie apocalypse as portrayed in popular fiction like The Walking Dead, 28 Days Later and the Romero zombie films (including The Crazies and it's remake), with a touch of general post-apocalyptic works like I Am Legend, The Road, Mad Max, The Postman and Book of Eli. IOW, a bleak, desperate world filled with zombies, the ruins of civilization and crazy A-holes who would sooner kill you than ask you for directions.

A normal adult job takes 40+ hours a week, plus your commute time. That's not "living to work". That's just "having a job". I'm 42 with a wife and 4 month old. I'm in front of a display all day at work, so I also try to throw in working out or hanging out with friends / wife or other activities that aren't sedentary. Typically, I get up earlier and go to be later than my wife, so I can devote a couple hours once the wife and baby go to bed or early Sat and Sun morning. Certainly don't have time to live in Cherno real time for days on end.

I work in the tech industry (computer/IT tech...everyone says "tech" as if computers are the only form of technology...but I digress). I would describe Rocket's role as what is often interchangeably called a project/program/product manager or producer (depending on the context of the project). Similar to my job actually. The short answer is it's a lot of walking around looking over the shoulders of people coding. The longer answer is that it is providing overall vision and direction to developing the game, making sure the development team is adequately staffed with the right resources, managing timelines and budget. In my professional opinion, Rocket leaving in the middle of development is a bit odd. The game is his brainchild. He developed the Mod. He's been travelling the gaming circuit talking up his vision for DayZ. Then a few months after the alpha release, he's off to go do his own thing somewhere else. It's like Will Wright taking off before completing The Sims. With any unconventional game, it needs a strong visionary to take it through to completion. Otherwise what will happen is that it will become "consumerized" and designed by corporate committees and focus groups until it's some watered down piece of crap that has mass appeal to 13 year olds.

I guess my point was that even when I don't have responsibilities for a few days, I don't feel like the game holds my attention anymore. Maybe it's better to explain in terms of how DayZ make me feel engaged rather than how it doesn't. I was in some no-name town north of Green Mountain and got soaked by the rain. Hypothermia started setting in so I went about making a fire. Unfortunately, my ax was ruined from killing some zombies or bashing down locked doors or whatever. So I started back towards the town and was lucky enough to find a fire ax in an old garage. From there it was easy to make a fire and warm up, all the while keeping a nervous eye out for anyone who might have spotted the fire. That's the sort of stuff I'm looking for. Like the difference between your character living or dying is finding or maintaining that one piece of critical equipment. Or that choices you make (like building a fire) are often the lesser of two evils (dying of hypothermia or calling every banding within sight of your fire). Or player interaction. Last time I played a few weeks ago, I met a total stranger in Electro. We managed to team up and have all sorts of interactions with other players (friending, having to put our friend down when he got critically glitched, robbing and killing people who fucked with us, etc) on the road to Balota before the server reset. That was a lot of fun. I think there's still a lot of potential, but those moments that actually make me enjoy the game just feel fewer and farther between. Think of if this way. Why does that Frankie1080p guy have 50 videos about the Mod but only 8 on the Standalone? ricp - The "point" of DayZ is long stretches of boredom punctuated by a few seconds of terror ending with either elation or rage. Always ssume some ghillie suited A-hole is going to pop up and empty his clip into you for no reason at any moment.

I have a job, wife and kid. I'm on vacation all next week and the wife and kid have been at the in-laws for a few days. Plus it's raining out. With the Mod, I could have easily spent most of that time playing DayZ, but the SA just doesn't grab me the way the Mod did. I played for like an hour this morning. My character is dressed like a Jersey guido. I have a revolver with 10 rounds of ammo, an AKM with one round chambered and a collection of random ammo types for guns I've yet to find. Ammo is so precious, I'm afraid to use any of it, which I don't really need to as even on a full-ish server, I rarely run across anyone. And any zombies can be handily dispatched with an ax. So my character is sitting there inside a house taking shelter from the constant rain. Finally, I just said "fuck it". I don't feel like sitting inside all day from the rain playing a game watching a homeless sit inside all day because of the rain. I did see a buck though.

Did I read that correctly in the release notes? Skinning characters and getting sick from human steaks is now on the menu?!! I'm horrified! And yet strangely curious.

It should be a bit higher than that IMHO. You don't want it where eating other players is a main food source. But it shouldn't be instant insanity either.

Except when I hold guns to new spawn's head and scream at them to kill each other or die.

LOL! This is you! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVX8wm_CONM

What...like that film Warm Bodies?

No but you do need Dean Hall (or his successor) to build a game for you. And the game they are working on is a sandbox where you can do what you want, subject to the survival rules of the sandbox. If you want a game where you just run around blasting other players, this probably isn't for you. And that's fine. There are plenty of FPS games that don't burden you with having to find food, water and shelter.

I want to kill or be killed by other players because it might mean the difference between one of our characters getting that piece of loot that lets them survive another hour. Not just because some 13 year old dipshits find it funny. That said, I think the PvP dipshits have a place. The post apocalypse needs amoral psychotic thugs who will shoot you on sight because they are scared, defending their turf, desperate or just think it's funny. And really, I've encountered enough of a mix of friendlies, bandits and in betweens that I am satisfied with the player interactions.

I picked up another survival game called "This War of Mine", which presents a fairly dark and realistic scenario of a group of civilians trying to survive in a besieged city. One of the things that struck me was how the progressive nature of diseases and injuries forced you to make difficult choices. Like whether you should even try to help a character or if you would be better off saving the food and medicine for someone with a better chance of recovery. And the worse shape your characters are in, the worse they perform. That's one thing I think is missing from DayZ. Having to deal with injuries and sickness getting worse over time without proper medicine, water, food and rest. In the Mod, provide you weren't killed outright, a couple of shots from an AK-47 could be fixed in 2 minutes by a single bandage and eating a cow. Maybe a shot of painkillers to eliminate the shakes. A broken leg could be healed instantly with a shot of morphine or now a splint. One blood pack and your good as new. One thing the Mod did well was when you caught an infection from a zombie. You wouldn't get better without antibiotics and your condition would continue to noticeably worsen. That was the one form of medical ailment where you actually felt some desperation that your character was doomed and there was little you would be able to do about it without help. So my suggestion is for DayZ to move away from any form of instant or near-instant healing. Certainly we don't want players literally bedridden for months because that's not fun either. And I do know that the developers have disease in the works and that early versions of the game showed characters limping around. But here are my suggestions: * Healing should take a LONG time (at least in game time). Bandages and blood bags will keep you from dying, but you should still have to ease up for awhile. * A split should just let you not have to crawl. But you should still be limping around for some period of game time until the bone heals. * Maybe even permanently lose use of a limb if the injury is severe enough. It's not like Cherno Hospital has a working orthoscopic surgery practice. * When and if alcohol and antibiotics work, they will be necessary to not get an infection which will only get worse and may require multiple treatments. * For severe injuries, bandages might need changing every so often to avoid infection. * More indicators of players health (besides text messages). The shakes, the blurries, the fading vision, the coughing and vomiting, limping, reduced speed and stamina. * Addiction. Take enough painkillers and you have to keep taking them or the shakes return. Or you an opt for a painful period of withdrawal. * Sometimes people get sick for no reason. You can do everything right, but still catch pneumonia or an appendicitis. * Sometimes people just don't get better. I'm sure many of these are already in the works, but think of it this way. The way it works now in the Mod / SA, when you get sick or injured, your friends are like "quick! give him a blood bag! / bandage / meat / etc!" so you can get back in the fight. The way it should be is "now hold on a moment...do we really want to waste our precious resources nursing this dude back to health?" Or at best "here's some first aid so you don't die right now...we'll come back for you if the rest of us survive this fight."

I feel like a lot of these things are just "turning the knobs" as opposed to being "broken". Once they know the system works properly, I'm sure they can just tune things like hunger and body temp to reasonable levels.