-AoXo-

There are a lot of annoying arguments on here, particularly the elitist arguments that start, end and are based on "lol carebears feed me your tears". Saying stupid stuff like that only serves to invalidate your argument. One of the major things about this mod that bugs me, aside from the bugs and glitches, is that people want to make it "harder" without even considering what "hard" means. Many of these suggestions are artificial difficulty and loaded with hyperbole. Oh, you want to be shot by a survivor with a thousand-yard stare? That's cool, but have you SEEN the facial expressions of the models in this game? http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/17pd6gkibphaxjpg/original.jpg Ignoring the context of that image, isn't his death stare just soooooo riveting? omg he is so scary and intimidating and it feels like I am really there! That's hyperbole. It seems as if a lot of people are falling for imagination, in which case you might as well not have the map, or the zombies, or anything else there stimulating your senses because you're writing a story that doesn't exist. You'd be better off not playing at all and keeping this story in your head. Adding thousands of zombies so that "no where" is safe defeats the purpose of "survival". It's not a horde mode. It's an "open world" - open world sandbox, like so many of you have been proclaiming, suggests I have choices. It suggests I can "create my own story" and if my story is riddled with zeds and crawling through the grass where I don't get any down time that's not going to be a story worth writing because it has, in a very real sense, already been written for me. I can choose to play it safe and very boringly slow, or I can choose to be reckless and die every five minutes. That doesn't make the game hard. It just makes it boring. Difficulty is good, just not when it's artificial and cheap and makes for a boring experience, which seems to be what most of these anti-"carebear" suggestions are. Stuff like cars or powerstations COULD require lots of players. Imagine if cars or power stations needed "stock piles" of resources, as in 50 scrap metal, 30 jerry cans etc so that it might take several different groups of people working together at different times to complete these goals. It may have an RPG/MMO tone to it but it is all about creating a world where players make a difference by working together on purpose or incidently. The only reason I don't like the banditry is because it's a much easier game to play if you're out for blood. If you're trying to play as a survivor you risk wasting your life on trusting other survivors - if you don't trust them you lose the group mentality, or you risk becoming a pre-emptive bandit. Again, it's not about making the game easier, it's about putting in some behind-the-scenes stats that represent and simulate real-world actions. As much as you'd like to think everyone would become a murderer in this situation many more would be willing to help others and work together to survive. You simply don't get that in this game because guilt, compassion and humanity simply can't exist when lives have no meaning - and, if they had meaning, then bandits would just be an even bigger threat and get a bigger thrill from it. It's not something that works, imo. Edit: I didn't even really get to the crux of my response which was that artificial difficulty does not make a game "more" sandboxy. As has been said a sandbox needs tools to build stuff, otherwise it is just an empty arena. If you have a foot ball field and tell people to pretend they are in a war, looking at it objectively it is just a bunch of people running around in clear sight of each other going "pew pew pew!" and diving to the ground. But put in some boxes, crates, barrels and give them paintball guns and you've suddenly made your sandbox worthwhile. Right now DayZ is an empty football field with some players unwilling to see its potential because they fear adding props to it will make it "easy".

Just to re-iterate my point from earlier, this vast empty void of space IS THE EDGE OF THE MAP - whether rocket or his mother or jesus or his mother decide that at any point from now until the end of time that the map will be expanded to include the entire planet and beyond, what you're seeing in that void is the EDGE OF THE FUCKING MAP. By going beyond it and playing there you are EXPLOITING the map boundries - you know that place where everyone else is playing? "If I can then you can..." yeah but not all of us want to be jack asses like you. If there was a giant invisible wall would you be making the same claims? No? Well the wall is implied. It's implied because there's fuck all beyond it to stimulate gameplay. Use your heads. It's an exploit.

Just because you have to come "back" to the map doesn't make it acceptable. Just because there is no invisible wall, or you don't have to circumnavigate prts of the map, or break game mechanics, or do anything that effects other players or the server doesn't mean it's not an exploit. If it was intended to be part of the map it would have detail - it would have towns, forests, and buildings. It's exploiting, it's taking advantage of the fact that you CAN go out there, and the fact that in the name of fairness and not being an ass hat that you should NOT be out there. You know you shouldn't be out there but you're making up reasons for why it is acceptable. The fact is that it's not intended, therefore you are exploiting.

Sorry I lack details, but I freaked out and quit, and Arma 2 has a terrible way of identifying servers, but anyway some messaged poppued up saying "TZI" or something was "taking over DayZ - zombies do not belong in ARMA" and the screen started flashing all kinds of green/red/black. It was on an ANZ server but I don't know how wide spread it was.

Yeah that sounds about right. I was just interested in whether it was a localised attack or wider. Seems this answers my question!

You have to realise that people will complaina lot more about the stuff they dislike than the stuff they like. People are likely to talk about a bad experience nearly twice as much as a good experience - that goes fr everything: games, movies, food, general experiences, etc So people (very vocal internet communities mind you) complaining about stuff might seem like a lot, but consider they are not talking about all the stuff they actually like about the mod. As you say if they don't like it why play it? They're playing it so they obviously like something (likely all the stuff they're not complaining about). And even then, when you complain about something you like it is because you feel it can be better and this "complaining" is merely critical feedback which a lot of people like to see as nothing more than complaining (and sometimes people just poorly express constructive criticism).

You can stand up next to a tree or rock and break your legs and spine so hitting anything in a car is like a meteorite crashing to earth.

Until the zombies actually move properly (i.e. don't zig zag, don't turn into ghosts and float through walls) adding more of them, or making them stronger, or faster, is just going to make them feel even more cheap as hell.

It's funny how much people want to throw around the realism argument, but then defend unrealistic lightning-fast movements like this as "making it harder". I suppose next you'll throw in a "carebear" comment and tell me to go back to CoD even though I don't play it.Zigzagging is infuriating because of the lightning speed at which they do it. It is completely unrealistic and makes it near impossible to hit them unless they are standing still, which usually means they are busy biting your **** off.

Like I said in my post I switch to first person when in combat. I don't need my screen shaking while I'm walking. It's not game breaking and it's not immersion breaking, and anyway I am a hermit in the woods and I always have painkillers because I make sure I have them.

Personally I'd say loot in that town shouldn't spawn at all. Then the group is forced to split, those to defend, those to forage. What you bring with you is what the town has. Imagine that there are 10 people, they are all hungry, but hey wait a minute that guy over there seems fine... turns out he's been hoarding food. What do the other players do? Do they turn on him? Do they kick him out? Rob him, wound him, not help him if zombies attack, force him to do all the work, etc

There are a few things I'd like to add: Firstly I don't want zombies in the wilderness, unless they are right next to towns. I love the guerrilla tactic of heading into a town, seeing what's there, and bailing if I need to. The only problem with this is that zombies often get stuck and confused in the forests. If they had more fluid animations and better AI as in Left 4 Dead this would be less of an issue. In any case I love staying "near" the towns (especially near Elektro), but not being so close as to be "in" the action unless I've run out of supplies and retreating and living in the hills like a hermit. Secondly, being a sandbox there are no inherent goals aside from "survive". There is as much reason to head to the top of the map as there is to go between Elektro and the Powerstation. It's just what people want to do. I think, perhaps, to split players up the urban centers, the cities, need to be more populous with very weak zombies so that there is a horde mentality. Players will be chased out. I also think the coastal areas could do with far less loot, or at least less weapons and ammo and that players start with much less. If you could get melee in then players could be "forced" (in the adventerous sense) out of the cities and into the towns and villages to find even basic pistols. Lastly, there is no inherent reason NOT to kill other players. Lots of people talk about co-operation being key, but it's MUCH easier to look out for yourself, keep yourself out of danger, etc because you only have to worry about yourself and not someone else startling zombies, worrying that the person you thought was watching your 6 decided to go off into a house, someone starts shooting when you're trying to stay quiet etc. Group play is beneficial IF you go looking for trouble. I admit though that I am an idiot, so I don't know what the f I'm on about here, but these are my thoughts anyway.

You know a lot of people are throwing around the Carebear comment and I don't think anyone has discussed instant gratification at all. Prety much all zombie games and movies have had hordes of zombies attacking that get gunned down in a huge slaughter. People come to DayZ expecting that and instead get a zombie version of Lord of The Rings - just walking around all day. And yeah, that can be fun for a while, but after a while, when the whole survival thing goes to shit you don't want to make your way back to "civilisaton" with a 40 minute walk only to have your dick chopped off the second you get there. You just want to kill shit and get your gear back. And fuck, video games are ALL about instant gratification and you can call this an "anti-game" all you want, but it is in a video game format. I don't know how to get around this. I don't think it's about making the game easier, or particularly faster, but maybe having strong zombies as well as some weak ones around that you can worry about less will help. Maybe being punched in the back won't break my legs. Maybe change it so that there is jack shit loot around the coast and survivors spawn with just enough to last a few minutes so that they HAVE to look for help, so that even if they act like a dick fuck and kill someone who just spawned they'll STILL be left with shit all so, that they NEED to find help to fight past these weak waves of shitty zombies, and move-inland to find better gear, thus thinning out the crowds and having more instant-co-op at the coast, survival/solo in the middle and more bandit work deeper inland where the legitmately awesome loot will be, because who's going to spend 90 minutes going across the map only to risk pvp on a whim? Morons. /rant I don't even know what I was saying at the end there. I need lunch.

To the carebear guy above: try getting your own material. Because configuring your graphics options is totally cheating and not available to everyone else. To everyone else: I had to disable post processing because my game would crash or I'd get really bad artifacting, so I didn't even know there was screen effects. For those who really care here is the obligatory, immature "lolumadyusomad4". Get over it.

Personally I find movement to be much more smooth with third person and I use it while moving around, not necessarily to ... "cheat". As I said it's just much "smoother" even if I turn head bobbing off. I still use iron sights in any combat situations though. As for the name scan thing I don't like it either, even if I am getting the advantage.

I don't play at night for obvious reasons and I see no reason to. The first time I played it was at night and I couldn't distinguish a zombie from a building from the trees from the ground it turned out I had been looking at. Yes I used flares but it wasn't worthwhile for me to fumble through such darkness like that. I didn't find it rewarding and I haven't bothered to go back because it's just simply too dark for me to (want to) play. Take that as you will.

Honestly can't imagine why anyone outside of machinima would use this. I'd rather die (and lets face it at this point it's exactly what would happen) than get on my knees, allow myself to be handcuffed and be paraded around like Merry and Pippin for 2 hours while some guy with no life gets his jollies off role playing as a douche bag bandit.

I'd like to suggest that rather than a trailer perhaps something more along the lines of a "journal entry" that was 3-5 minutes long. That way it could be anything from raw gameplay to a full production with special effects if people wanted. Something where someone can show "their story" in what ever way they wanted.

Sorry in advance if this suggestion has been made before: A few people have been suggesting classes, and I hate the idea of that, however I think a somewhat easy way to get around it is to introduce specialised backpacks. I shouldn't have to spell it out, but for example there could be a Medic pack which would only have the standard 8 slots (maybe even less), but could hold more items if they are medical supplies. A support pack which could hold things like flares, chem lights, smoke grenades, etc, a bandolier pack - more ammo, engineer pack - vehicle parts etc I don't think this detracts from anything at all, but I think it could give groups a chance to organise, and single players to "specialise", so to speak, without adding anything like actual classes, impacting weapons or any other features. Thoughts?

I think simply having a more clear name tag when you mouse over someone would be helpful - however make the range at which you can mouse over someone fairly close, like 100m or something which is roughly the length of a soccer field. Then to remember that person perhaps have a option to remember, or mark as bandit which could have the name go from blue, to green or red. *Shrugs*

I think a more important issue is why shouldn't we all play as a bandits? I haven't, thus far, but I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that it gets me nowhere to try and trust others when I can (probably) more easily survive much better on my own. I can sneak more easily, I only have to worry about my own ammo and food and water, I can go into a town, grab some food, and go back to the woods for a while, and if I see anyone else then I should kill him in case he tries to kill me. There's no point to the "survivor" aspect if I can just kill others and take their loot on the coast.