nic0

i'm perfectly well aware of the death mechanic of games that died out decades ago! i played them at the time (i'm old too). i've played the more recent games that have permadeath too, and there's a big difference. those old games were still fun! the new games rely on very different mechanics to make them fun. and even in eve, you can (i think) mitigate against death in many ways. i think you're exaggerating that eve has true permadeath, but i'm willing to be proved wrong (don't they have cloning or something? dayz definitely won't have that!) the most recent permadeath game i played was diablo3, and i died in that due to a dodgy internet connection! that wasn't fun in any way. death has to have consequences, i agree. in dayz, it seems right that those should be as strict as they are now. but in a game so riddled with bugs, unbalanced weapons, hacked in weapons (and i'm not even going to mention hackers themselves) it's a bit unfair. i don't care, because it's an alpha and i have to take my chances. i mentioned the standalone because i'll be paying for that, because i'll apparently have to spend a lot of time looting batteries, drugs, getting ill, taking a shit and doing a whole bunch of stuff that is dubious in the extreme - if i die *unfairly* (bug, someone exploiting, lag) after going through all that stuff and i lose *everything*, i'm not going to be having a lot of fun, and what will be the enticement to make me start again? even hardcore gamers have fun, don't they? or do they sit around all day seething in anger and hating every minute of their gaming lives? if the game is made too teeth-grindingly hardcore (not hard, just hardcore), then it will scare away a lot of people (not casual gamers - i'm talking about the very many people that are neither casual or hardcore), which could leave servers largely empty, and make the game less interesting (not fun, because they don't want fun!) for the hardcore. i'd love a game that allows hardcore and middle-core (i made that up) gamers to interact and both enjoy the game. i love having hardcore gamers on the server with me, they make a game like dayz what it is!

well, i take your point, but i didn't say that "everyone" should enjoy the game! i'd also say that i'm not describing a casual game here - i'm suggesting there must be a sweetspot between a game being fun for many (definitely never for all) and being only enjoyable to the "hardcore". proper gamers don't like to be punished for totally random, unfair, or unbalanced things - they like to be punished for making legitimate mistakes. things they can learn from and do better at. casual gamers see one setback and give up - i don't care about those people either. i'm simply saying that if you're going to have permadeath, you have to be *absolute* in that every single game mechanic is perfectly balanaced, fair, proportionate and (yes) fun within the context of the game. if you get any of that wrong, so that people are permadeathed by someone with a weapon that has no counter, is way overpowered, and that kills you so randomly that you can't learn from it, then that's not hardcore, it's perverse.

also, specifically on this, you make a good case here. one thing that i can't quite agree with is the idea that the snipers are seeing you having fun and deciding to end that fun just for the sake of it. that may often be the case, but ultimately this game is (at least partly) based around a combative game mechanic - your fun is predicated on ending someone else's. sometimes sniping is just plain fun - and it's a shame that that fun comes at someone else's expense. perhaps the problem is permadeath. i honestly feel that the devs have this wrong. most of the things people complain about would be mitigated by the death mechanic. if you only dropped (say) a random item, or your primary, or both on death, your "fun" wouldn't be entirely ended at that point. the sniper can have fun sniping, without ending your fun; you can have fun even if sniped (albeit curtailed by losing something and respawning back at the coast). no more "griefing", no more being a dick. the permadeath thing is going to increasingly be a problem with the new mechanics such as disease and so on - it's going to feel far more like a punishment and less like fun as it becomes harder to survive, and as you find yourself losing so much more to death. at the root of so many complaints about griefers and hackers and bugs is, even if it's never explicitly stated, an irritation with the permadeath mechanic.

very much agree with you, though i'd say that AS50s are so common because of duping rather than hacking. i think the game clearly doesn't quite know how to deal with snipers. the mechanics aren't quite right - they're unbalanced. it should be possible to spot a sniper more easily once they've fired a shot, and this should make sniping much more difficult and camping impossible. it should also be hard or impossible to snipe, and therefore control, an entire town from so far away and with so little equipment - you might be able to do that in real life, but this is a game. having said all that - if you don't want to be sniped, stay the hell away from those towns. berenzino is better, as there are no sniper hills in the surrounds that can command the entire town. i'd disagree about the DMR though. you show a lot of skill, and have taken the time to earn that skill - that shows commitment and should be rewarded. headshots are difficult to do. the AS50, however, is stupid. one shot kill wherever you land the shot from more than 800m isn't a balanced mechanic given the rest of the game. if the devs can find a balancing counter, then fine, leave it in (standalone). it's also stupid that you can shoot down a heli in one shot with an AS50. again, totally imbalanced against the difficulty of obtaining and maintaining a heli. it's supposed to be a game first and foremost - never mind real life, it needs to have balanced mechanics, needs the correct balance of risk/reward, and needs to be FUN.

exactly - basically, everything that any other player doesn't like is "cheating". in a game with no rules, everyone becomes a judge of what's "right". don't judge, just play the game!

how can something be described as "cheating" in a game with no rules, other than those coded into the game and its mechanics? ghosting is perfectly legit, so long as you're not using a hack. any sniper who sits around and doesn't check his 6 constantly for people sneaking up on him is an idiot, and deserves to get shot either by someone ghosting (which i agree, while not cheating, is a pretty dickish thing to do) or just being really sneaky. the flipside is that ghosting is a difficult thing to time right, and logging in leaves you potentially vulnerable for a few seconds. i wouldn't try it just to get a sniper.

the only griefers in this game are hackers. everyone else, those using legitimate mechanics built into the game, are simply players like everyone else. don't judge someone's playstyle as "bad" or negative just because it's different from yours. i agree that those guys are terrorising noobs. i totally disagree that they're "ruining" their game experience though. why not make that their first experience of the game - if they don't like it, they don't like dayz. that was my first experience too, but i came back for more having learned my lesson and changed my tactics. a cherno that you walk calmly through, on a high-pop server, during daylight, and know that you'll be safe, is the most boring game experience i can imagine. ducking through the place with your heart in your mouth, running from cover to cover, and getting the hell out when you've got what you need - that's the game i want to play. ps. i've tried some sniping and was bored out of my tits after about an hour. those guys camping cherno/electro must be total idiots, but god love 'em.

apologies - of course, you're right. i've seen these things before and hadn't realised they were thermals - i'd genuinely assumed ALL thermals had been removed (for being overpowered). guess i was wrong. and, ironically, just today i found one in a heli. now i'm undecided, because i have to admit it was fun. my playstyle has morphed into avoidance, creeping around, looting helis in far-flung areas of the map and staying the hell away from high-pop areas, or any areas that might concevably contain traffic to a high-pop (like NWA). having the thermal sights made me feel like i could avoid contact. i kept scoping around while i stopped to catch my breath. a real buzz. intense when you spot a heat-sig too - chickens and rabbits made me jump. i see what people mean about tunnel vision too - that could be a problem. i just like to be alone, so this thing feels like an aid to that. in other hands, i'm not sure it's a good thing. and even in my case, i can't say what i might do if i saw another player lit up in the scope...would i run the other way, or...? don't know. i think i'm kinda looking forward to getting killed and losing it, to be honest. it's fun for a while though.

really beautifully done. the love shows. you have my beans - thanks.

exactly...although, to be fair, they were talking about oral sex. much the same thing tho.

yes, this. very much this. you cannot "grief" in this game. those people are just another part of the game. the most fun i have in the game is being shot at having just spawned in at the coast, maybe on my first weapon. nothing to lose, everything to play for. i love those happy idiots - they make even the first few minutes of the game an adventure!

you may want to add an apostrophe in front of "cause". you may also want to find some new friends, or at least stop defending their asshat behaviour. and, finally, did you really post that? really? i've read it three times and i can't detect the irony. you can't possibly be serious though?

agree with the rest of your post, except that we've a duty to exploit bugs in dayz, as we're playtesting an alpha! beyond that, it's the duty of the devs to ensure that game mechanics aren't explotable. i feel quite strongly about that - in cases where players have been banned from exploiting loopholes in commercial games, i blame the devs, not the players. once i've paid for a game, it's up to the devs to test the thing, not me! that said, i think exploiters are asshats.

there really should be a warning about the female skin on the selection screen... despite being male, i tend to use female character models when playing games - my sexual politics are fairly liberated, and i'm not into gender specificity, shoot me. after two weeks in the game, i found a ghille...only then did i find out a pretty useful part of the alpha was closed to me. ahh well. something else to be filed under "to be fixed in standalone" i suspect.

thermals are, indeed, overpowered and add nothing to dayz as a game. they're imbalanced and were rightly removed from the game. those that remain are hacked or duped i guess. i consider the initial inclusion, and then removal, of thermals to be a positive part of playtesting the alpha. your point is well made - they are BS and shouldn't be in the game. the devs agreed and removed them. there's no way we can completely remove them from this mod though, given the limitations of the engine. if they're put back into the standalone though, along with laser weapons, light sabres, nukes and other imbalancing crap, then i'm out!