Perplexelerator

I'd like to look this "problem" of SA not being released yet from a different perspective. The problem is that some people find it very hard to wait for something they really want badly, and especially games with their long development time. The problem is not that it takes time to make a good game. The problem is that a lot of gamers CAN'T WAITTM for a good game to be made. When people moan and groan about waiting for a game, I sometimes get the impression that waiting is some kind of extremely taxing form of activity that they are forced by the game devs to engage in. I imagine they experience waiting as some kind of hellish ritual concocted and conducted by evil game developers that refuse to release their games just because they want to torture gamers. This is all in these gamers' heads. The "waiting pains" will mess with their heads, and they might start to get all kinds of weird worries and start to fabricate all sorts of conspiratorial ideas and theories about why the game is late. The more you wait for something, i.e. the more you agonize over not having the thing you are waiting for, the longer it takes for you to get it. This form of "active waiting" simply slows down perceived time. By waiting in this way, you are merely punishing yourself for not having something you can't have right now. Does this make sense to you? The best way to wait for something is to not wait for it. In practical terms this means distracting your thoughts from thinking about the thing you are waiting for. Don't start or enter threads with questions or conspiracy theories about why SA isn't out yet. The point is to not think about SA. Play the mod or other games, and spend less time in the forums. Imagine if you could completely forget about SA until it was released. All of a sudden it would simply be there, like magic. So, waiting for something by NOT waiting for it, is a bit like a magic trick. Things seem to simply appear out of nowhere. If in this situation the game was riddled with bugs at release, you would probably THEN say that they should have waited with the release. If all else fails, put yourself in a coma until the game is released. Consult your local certified brain injury specialist to find out how this may be achieved. Good luck. Or, rather, do as this cat – sit down and watch Star Wars:

Having been away from the mod for about a year now, I just recently loaded it up again to check out the many changes, and it's looking rather interesting. Cooked myself som bacon yesterday, mmm. Looking forward to some fishing. I would also like to say that I appreciate the work that the mod devs are doing, continually experimenting with new stuff and even releasing hotfixes. :) Anyway, as the title says, this post is really about the hatchet. I used to play DayZ stealthily, always crawling between the zeds when looting and using my trusty old hatchet to deal with those I aggroed. I wouldn't always hit them, and sometimes I would get Mike Tysoned and die (which was fine, BTW), but I would definitely hit them more than I missed them. Now it seems I miss them far more than I hit them, so something seems to have changed with regard to this while I was away. It seems particularly difficult to hit them after they start pounding on me, but it's also been difficult to hit them before they see me, even though I was definitely close enough to hit them, and that little puff of smoke from the strike seems to be right at them. So I was wondering, is there some specific place you need to hit them now? Or do you need to be at a certain distance? Any tips? Thank you.

I don't think this kind of suggestion is in the spirit of DayZ. Any kind of simulation of any kind of psychological "trauma" should be avoided in DayZ. I like to differentiate between "hard" counters and "soft" counters against killers or KOS. Basically any sort of "hard" counter, like psychological problems of your character, should be avoided. An example of a "soft" counter against hill top snipers would be something like morning fog rolling in over Cherno and Electro, so the snipers (at least for a while) won't be able see anyone moving about down there. This is a counter I would consider "legit" in DayZ.

Nice tips, herr doktor Duff. Just read about the new machete, so I will definitely try to find that. I play 1st person only, so I will experiment using my trusted "try and die" method. I actually managed to find one vanilla 1st person only server with night time. A rare thing these days it seems. Not a lot of players on it, though.

OK, thank you, Boneboys. :)

Thanks for the heads up. :) Registered and voted.

- Making predictions about how human beings would behave in a situation that has never occurred before is really mere guesswork. And my guess is that since human beings are social animals, they would organize in groups of various sizes. This is only a guess, though. Also remember that in reality human beings can do a billion different things, not just run around looking for loot, fix cars and fly helicopters. I would guess that in the beginning there would be scientists working towards finding a cure. Now, real smart people could obviously kill these scientists on sight for, er, being alive and trying to do something useful, and blah, blah, blah, <and more pure speculation on my part...> But let's say you happen to be correct, wouldn't we have the following scenario: This infection makes human beings an endangered species, and what do we do? In our infinite stupidity, as suggested by Einstein, we proceed to kill each other, because that makes sense in a situation like this. So, on a species level we are committing suicide because of fear and paranoia. (Great... but there is a better way to do it, I think. Just follow the example of VHEMT (google it), and let's die out peacefully as a species without all that noisy gunfire. It's not a bad idea. Sometimes it's just embarrassing to exist as a human being. (I vote for the ability to turn into a goat.)) - You're playing a game that has guns, and you just want to shoot your gun. Is that too much to ask? I hear you say. [i'm hallucinating.] No, of course not, I reply, but think about it. If we all start to KoS, what we have is a Deathmatch game. Do you really want DayZ to be a deathmatch game? Yes, I hear you say. Nonsense! I roar. How dare you!??! You can't just barge into my hallucination with such a stinking opinion! Huh, I seem to have lost the plot somwhere. Now, where did I put it... Anyway, in short: All KoS = Deathmatch game -> Dream of open world player generated content in a unique game is dead. Condolences to us all.

I think it's OK that you let off some steam before you leave. I'm thinking you'll be back for more non-buggy and non-glitchy punishment once SA has matured a bit. Anyway, good luck with your next game. :) Should't there be a rant subforum here? If there is any game in need of a rant subforum, this would be it, I think. It could be called simply "Aaaarrrrgggghhh!", "£@!!2%#!&", "Tears of rage", "The great venting cabin in the woods", or "Instead of punching your screen" or something. Then there could be a subsubforum called "The goodbye rant" or "The farewell rage party" or something.

I think of the non-existence of stats as part of "anti" in anti-game. Even though I used the debug monitor to check my blood level, I'm glad it's gone. This game has broadened my mind as to what a multiplayer game can be, and I want it to be different. Stats are in every other game, but think about it, what does all those stats really have to do with the game? I think it has more to do with the players than the game. Can't games be about more than stroking your e-peen and popcorn flick "fun"? Also, rather than an I-win button or a boost-my-ego button or a total-badass button, this game should have a die-horribly-in-total-despair button.

I would like the option to holster all weapons so I can have my hands free. This might help a little if you say "friendly" when approaching someone who only shoots you because they are particularly paranoid. I'm sure approaching someone when you hold a raised hatchet doesn't exactly fill the other guy with confidence about your benevolent intentions. The word "friendly" doesn't exactly fit the picture in this case. Here is how holstering could work: I have a hatchet, a primary, and a secondary. If I hold the hatchet, the mouse wheel menu says: Add Hatchet to tool belt <Primary> <Secondary> If I have my hands free, it says: <Primary> <Secondary> Hatchet If I hold the primary: Holster <Primary> (or Shoulder <Primary>?) <Secondary> Hatchet If I then select <Secondary>, there should be an animation where the character first shoulders his primary weapon, and then unholsters the secondary. This should take a little time, so that there is a small advantage to not holding a weapon. Switching from hands free to primary could for instance be twice as fast as switching from secondary to primary. I'm not going for realism here, so I think unholstering a secondary weapon should take a little longer than in reality. I'm going for extra tension. :) Also, I would like it if you could see the holstered weapon and the hatchet in the tool belt on the character. Oh, and of course, with holstering one can have duels. Draw!

I think it was only a couple of weeks ago that my heat icon started flashing. I started shaking a bit, but I did not cough. I used a heat pack, so the shaking stopped and the icon stopped flashing. Never experienced it before or since.

I got stuck on "Setup completed, please wait..." on all the 6-7 different servers I tried today, but no luck on any of them. Then I found this thread and simply logged on to #CZ02. Problem solved! Thanks! :)

Tutorial: How to puke and shit at the same time.

Even though I constantly give my W key the middle finger, it never quits on me!?

This is an idea that I think would appeal to all kinds of players, from those who just want to help people to those who want to play as, er, demented sadists. There are a few problems with this idea, and I will get back to them further down. There are probably other problems as well. But I hope this feature could be implemented somehow. I think it would be great if it would work like follows: - As you get knocked out you fall and land/roll over on your back, and you are unable to move. - You are not unconscious, but merely knocked out or stunned, so you get the near death blurred vision and hearing loss that is already in the game. - You also have only 1st person perspective and can lift your head up a little and move it from side to side. - You are unable to communicate, your mic won't work. - You can hear the other player, but only barely due to the hearing loss. - You suffer no blood loss. The eerie and maybe humiliating bit is that you now are totally at the mercy of the other player. You are lying there helpless and can only wonder what the player will do next. He can loot you and run away. He can get in your face, taunt you, put a gun to your face and pull the trigger, or not. And you don't even get a word in. This feature would be great for players who would like to loot other players, but not kill them. It would also be nice for demented sadists. Also, their victims could have a little horror story to tell, like the following example: "So I get knocked out cold, and I'm like oh no, not like this! I'm lying there, and I see this blurry figure standing by my legs with an axe. He then chops at one of my legs and slowly walks a few feet to the side. I'm bleeding badly, so the moment I come back to my senses I have to bandage. He then just pulls out a gun and shoots me in the face!" This feature would also be great for people that are desperate to help other players, like those that are so scared of other players that they shoot everyone on sight. Sneak up on them, knock them out, and give them stuff! :D While they are out cold, you could shout funny things in their ear: "Sorry to knock you out, mate, it's just the safest way to help people these days... Have a good one when you get back on your feet!" Are you a group leader? Keep those pesky insubordinates in line. Knock them over the head, and tell them a thing or two, like "Next time you won't be so... alive!" Are you a couple of bandits? Loot people the safer way. One points the gun, the other knocks the player out. Loot, shoot (or not), and run! Are you drunk while playing with your friends? Give them a gentle tap on the head, and tell them how much you love them while they're down! Aww! If you just want to be a ruthless killer, give yourself a challenge and kill in this way. Think of the added humiliation and the opportunity to taunt your victim before you kill him! (Lol, did I just say that? It's like a commercial for demented psychos.) Joking aside, the point is that such a feature could support all sorts of playstyles and creative ideas. You don't have to sneak up on people to knock them out. You could hide in buildings and knock them out when they come through a door. You could also manage to knock them out after they have seen you, but this is going to be harder. I think the hitbox for the club should be strictly limited to the head, maybe even to only parts of the head if possible. So if you meet someone with an axe, the guy with the axe clearly has the upper hand. I'm not sure how long the knock-out effect should last, but maybe somewhere between 30 seconds to a minute? Thieves must at least have time enough to loot and get to a relatively safe distance without having to sprint. Important point: Clubs are totally ineffective against zeds. One obvious problem with this feature is the following easy exploit: Knock somebody out, wait until the get-up animation has just finished and knock them out again, repeat over and over. The other player would be constantly knocked out and unable to do anything about it, so he would be forced to abort and disconnect. A solution could be some kind of delay (like a cooldown effect) after the player had gotten back on his feet, so that you couldn't knock him out again until 10 or so seconds has passed. Maybe that could work? Another problem might be that some people can't handle the humiliation and will just disconnect or Alt+F4. I don't know... Also, if it is possible to loot everything they have, they might commit suicide to respawn. They might reason like this: "Well, if I respawn, at least I have SOMETHING." That's a good point, and suicides (of all sorts) should be avoided, IMO. So maybe it should not be possible to take everything? One possibility is that if you take everything or nearly everything from them, they automatically get back the basic stuff they start with (flashlight, bandage, etc.). It's a bit silly, but there should be no good reason to commit suicide in the game, IMO. I don't know, I think it could be a great feature, but could it be made to work in the game? More importantly, have I missed something fundamental here and now have egg on my face? :) To sum up: - Club is totally ineffective against zeds. - Hitbox on player: head or part of head. - Getting hit over the head -> Lying on back, unable to move, unable to speak, blurred vision, reduced hearing. - While knocked out: can be looted and/or killed. - If everything or nearly everything is looted, gets back respawn supplies automatically after below mentioned cooldown effect to avoid suicide. - Knockout effect duration: around 30-60 secs. - Cooldown effect (time before player can get knocked out a second time): around 10 secs. Let me know your thoughts. I'm pretty new to this anti-game.

I support this idea completely. I had a similar idea a couple of days ago, knocking people out with a club. Then someone suggested a stun gun, which might have more of the desired effect, but a tranq gun could work too. Anyway, here is my idea of how it could work and some examples of what it could be used for: http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/95566-stunned-knocking-someone-out-with-a-club/

I agree that realistically the club will not give the result I would like to have in the game, and it may seem rather contrived. A stun gun is a much better idea. :) I would prefer the one you have to hold against the body, not the taser gun that shoots the thing with the wires and has a short range of a few meters. Anyway, I wanted something that would incapacitate but not render unconscious, and I think a stun gun would come the closest to that. The problem with being completely unconscious would be that the victim would have to sit and stare at a black screen for 30-60 seconds, and I wanted to avoid that. Being incapacitated (lying on your back) with blurred vision, reduced hearing and be able to move the head a little would make it a far more intense experience for the stunned person, only being able to lie there and wonder what the other player will do next. So, from the victim's perspective I was going for the intense experience of helplessness, like holding your breath while you wonder whether the attacker will let you live or not. From the attacker's perspective, I was first and foremost going for non-lethal incapacitation so that you could loot people without killing them. On the other hand, it opens up so many other possibilities for the attacker as mentioned with a few examples in the original post. I will wait and see what happens with the standalone. Maybe something like this could be worked in to it, maybe not. But I do feel there should at least be some way of looting without killing. Some way that will be more difficult than shooting, for sure, but certainly achievable. Thanks for your input, guys.