In my opinion the notion of humanity is best abandoned completely. Instead, focus on giving players tools and abilities that allow them to form their own social groups and enforce their own rules and regulations about behavior and to track reputations and past deeds. Give players the ability to identify and recognize other players. Lock player appearance, gender, and tag at creation. No changes without a new CD key. Give players a means to "describe" or photograph other individuals, so they can disseminate information about other survivors. Create a more focused server system so that you are more likely to encounter a consistent player population instead of the transient "every server is a fresh start" experience we have now. Let players don clothing customizations to quickly identify friends and squad mates. Share GPS coordinates to sync up with friends. Add mechanics like this and more and players will begin to form their own groups, social rules and means of enforcement. And if a player knows that he might be seen commiting some atrocity and remembered for it, he/she might consider actions more carefully with respect to their impact on reputatoin and social standing. A raw "equation" to calculate how naughty or nice you are and make you wear silly fucking hats because of it is just never going to work in my opinion. It's a band-aid that needs to be ripped off as soon as possible.

It's safe to assume fewer rifles and less ammo will mean fewer murders with these weapons, yes. That's kind of just simple math. I wouldn't call what we have now a particularly pressing "problem," though. Unless you're in Cherno/Elektro fire stations or raiding Stary Sobor/NWAF in broad daylight I've never found snipers to be much of an issue. Fewer free car parts might mean it's easier to find vehicles, too, incidentally. Engines are rare.

Depending on which servers you play on, it can range from "not so bad at all" to "you're a sheep."

1.7.2.5 with the latest ARMA 2 beta has been incredibly fast for me. < 30 seconds consistently. If you're using Six Updater, make sure to get 1725 and the beta manually because I don't think updater is pushing them yet.

Too true. Some people man the fuck up and deal with the selfish psychopaths in the game by avoiding or killing them. Others whine on the forums and claim the game "doesn't work." That's the imbalance.

Uhh, ARPU is static. As for OP, it's not retention that's falling it's new player acquisition. During the steam sale we were gaining 180,000 players per week. Now we're only getting ~50,000. So it's actually retaining at probably the same rate as it was before, it's just not getting as many incoming so the PP24hr number is falling. Maybe that's semantics, but I think it's an important distinction. And I do not think it is tied directly to the stand-alone announcement - it was falling before that. The players we are losing I think are mainly veterans who have exhausted what the mod is currently capable of providing from a gameplay standpoint and are waiting patiently for the stand-alone. Personally I've put ~750 hours into the mod. I've done what there is to do and been creative and mixed it up and tried new things and gone around two or three times for me it's even getting a little played out, so I play less. Maybe only 4 nights a week instead of 7. ;) Though, hackers certainly aren't helping the situation to be sure.

Didn't expect to have to trot this out again so soon, but here it goes: The tactical significance of sniper rifles, accumulated rebuttals and why they're here to stay. I super love how 99% of these threads calling for the removal of sniper rifles 1) take place in Cherno and 2) include a detailed list of the OP's "loadout" as if we're supposed to think "Yeah, nobody with that awesome gear should ever die!" From your story, it sounds like those guys could have just as easily taken you out with Lee Enfields or M16 ACOGs or AKMs. Anyway, yeah. Read the thread if you want to know why these weapons exist and why vacuous arguments like yours are not going to result in their removal (in my very humble opinion).

Yes. That will be such a tragedy. As if we're not all planning on doing that anyway. Why the fuck would you stick around and play the mod after the actual game comes out? God some of you people are so ridiculous.

TL;DR OP has never played a roguelike and thinks every game is supposed to go easy-medium-hard. Most roguelikes start out brutally hard, unforgiving and bleak. 90% of deaths occur in the first few minutes or hours. It's not status quo, but that's okay. Not every game has to have the same difficulty curve. "Trial by fire" is part of the game. If the newbs can't hack it, fuck 'em.

I don't care about the ripping off so much as I care about what it says about The WarZ design team. If you can be that far into development and just say, "Whelp, now we're making a completely different game." then you can't have had a very focused or cohesive design in the first place. They claim The WarZ has been in development for years, yet they're somehow able to chuck half the design out the window, completely trash whatever work they did on their progression and quest system, get rid of quest NPCs, open up the world, and do all the re-balancing necessary to make the game playable afterward on short notice just because DayZ was doing well? I don't care whether they ripped off DayZ, I just think it speaks volumes about their approach to design if they can flip the entire game on its head at the drop of a hat just because they see an opportunity to capitalize on someone else's ideas. To me it says The WarZ isn't going to be a very good game, that's all.

In fariness and as much as I hate to get involved in another one of these threads, they were not "already there" for The WarZ. The WarZ was supposed to be a closed-world, quest-based game with XP, levels, progression, quest hubs, and unlockable areas, etc. Then DayZ came out and took off and they completely changed their design to an open-world, sandbox exploration/survival game. Whether you want to call that "ripping off" or not is up to you, but they certainly made the decision to include those elements in their game because DayZ had them and was doing so well. They have freely admitted that.

I found bugs, so I'm quitting. Sincerely, The Shittiest Tester in History

Lots of immature analysis of the industry in this thread. Nothing is being destroyed or is "in decline." Casual games are more common, but so are casual gaming companies. It hasn't come at the expense of anything. It represents growth in the industry, not decline, and it's nothing to be afraid of. More gamers means more interest in the industry, more investment, more growth and more potential for new and exciting developments. A casual gamer today might get interested in an MMO tomorrow and then a hardcore RPG or FPS next year. People grow up and change and their tastes evolve and change as well. Bringing someone into the gamer fold, even if it's through Farmville or Wii Sports is still another gamer and that's a good thing for us all. Some companies might stop making "hardcore" games because they see more profit potential in the casual market, but that just leaves a vacuum for a smaller independent effort to come in and snatch up that market opportunity and make a profit. It's all growth, and it's all good. Try not being such a bunch of nay-sayers.

No, it's fine. Decry all the demons of emergent game play and meta-gaming without bothering to acknowledge any of the vast and varied benefits. Ignore that some of the greatest games of our generation had their genesis in the "undermining" of other games that allowed emergent play and experimentation. But definitely throw all that out and focus on that other stuff. It makes your argument so much easier to construct, I'm sure. And I wouldn't want to inconvenience you.

So is the creator of DayZ. So is pretty much every designer of any sandbox or open world game in history. Meta-gaming begets emergent play which exponentially increases the value of every mechanic added to a proper sandbox game because players are left to their own devices to find ways that the designer never imagined to utilize his tools and mechanics. Designing a sandbox game and then watching the players utilize meta gaming to create emergent styles of play is like giving a caveman a sack of grain and a cow and coming back the next day to find out he invented Philly Cheesesteaks. Does it get out of hand sometimes? Sure, but that's when the designer comes along and shoots the cow, spanks the caveman, hands him another sack of new toys to play with and then stands back to see what happens this time around. It's incredible; and, it's an essential part of what makes sandbox games great. So, yes, I'm a proponent.

8 pages and nobody has posted a link to my thread yet? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tojt8QhKrrk

Uh, oh. Another poll. Do we have to have another talk, guys?

Blowing your head off is also a guaranteed way to cure your cold. Storage is not going to be removed in stand-alone. If there's one thing rocket has discussed more than any other mechanic, it's persistent player storage to facilitate long-term goals. It's literally one of the first things he talked about as being planned for the stand-alone game (underground bunkers for squad storage). It's here to stay, and it's a critical element of the game. Taking out storage flattens the design and undermines any sense of progression, long-term goals, etc. which simultaneously weakens the squad play and cooperative elements of the game. 10 of my friends get together and start saving up supplies to try and build an underground bunker or build a boat, but, oh, it just so happens that the guy who happened to be the one to pitch the tent got shot so, everyone's work is arbitrarily destroyed? What? It's a completely senseless watering down of what is already an amazing sense of progression that DayZ provides between the early stages of "Where am I?" and "How do I?" up to what obviously has the potential to be one of the greatest player-driven multiplayer experiences in the history of gaming. And hitting "reset" every time you get shot isn't going to help us get there. This isn't Mario Bros. where we need to start at 1-1 every time we get a Game Over. If you take the effort to form relationships in the game and maintain those relationships and cooperate with other humans to accomplish long term goals then you should benefit from that effort and dedication long-term, not just until the next time a stray bullet hits you. Permadeath has consequences. You lose contact with your group which can take hours to reestablish depending on what they were doing when you died (most often it's a firefight which they can't just drop at a moment's notice to come pick you up). You lose your connection to the history and story of your survivor. You lose your "score" which for you can be your zombie kills, murders, bandit kills, days survived, distance walked, cows killed, whatever it is you're tallying - gone as well. You often lose gear, despite claims to the contrary. If a bandit squad downs me and 2 of my friends in a 5 on 5 shoot out, chances are the remaining squad mates are going to beat a retreat and we are going to come out with a net loss of gear and weapons. You see, in squads that don't rampantly exploit item and tent duplication bugs the loss of a single rare weapon can be devastating. If ideas like my player identification system see light, you will lose even more than that - accumulated memories of your encounters with other players in the game and the actions/crimes you have witnessed. I'll reiterate. "No player storage" is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We have problems to solve, no doubt, but they can be solved and rocket will maintain this rather critical element of the late game DayZ experience - cooperating in teams and squads to stockpile gear, supplies, food and equipment in order to facilitate long-terms goals and advancement.

If duping is in fact impossible to fix now that he's working directly (or very closely) with the ARMA team, and if you are only referring to the mod and not the stand-alone game, then fine. Take tents out. I don't care. Nobody will. Honestly I hate to say it but if you plan on sticking around and playing the mod after stand-alone comes out for like $15, you're just being silly. Buy the stand-alone game. That will be DayZ. The mod is going out to pasture along with all these silly duplication issues and 99% of the "hacking" going on right now Their claim that the mod will continue to be "supported" may be genuine, but the level of support and what they are capable of achieving with DayZ as a mod has already been established I believe: not much more than we see right now. In fact he's probably accomplished more than anyone thought possible with the RV3/A2OA engine.

This has exactly squat to do with "persistent storage" and everything to do with the fact that the persistent storage items in the game are infinitely duplicating themselves as well as any items contained within. People complain about the frequency of tents, items, weapons, rifles, ammunition, etc. all while tens of thousands of every item in the game are being magically created every day by duplication bugs and exploits. We all know they're there; how can you sit and purport to have a serious conversation about item frequency and rarity when the giant elephant in the room is the fact, of which we're all aware, that none of these item frequencies actually represent their real rarities due to the ever-presence of these bugs and exploits. Fix the bugs. Close the loopholes. Then we can have a discussion about item rarity. As for inflation, rocket has already proposed a solution: items will decay, require maintenance and occasionally be damaged or destroyed upon player death. That's it. That's all that is necessary. Taking out or crippling persistent player storage or hamstringing a squad's ability to establish squad or team-based storage facilities because there are some design issues to resolve is textbook throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It's like what's that, you have a cold? Okay let me cut your head off. There? Don't even feel that runny nose anymore, do you? In summary: expand upon persistent storage mechanics adding new options for storage, especially for squads; fix item and tent duplication; add item damage, decay and maintenance. All your woes solved and we didn't have to excise a major portion of the core game-play in order to accomplish it. Like magic.

So my multiplayer survival game with team-based tactical combat and team-based structure building and team-based cooperative mechanics will have completely individual storage? Why? There's absolutely no justification for that. It's neither authentic nor conducive to the survival mentality. It's supposed to be "safety in numbers" not "safety in numbers but make sure you hide your own shit in your own tent in case someone you know gets shot while you're at work tomorrow." Again, you're speaking from an entirely solo, individual, single-player perspective. If I pull up to a firefight in a pick-up with 3 friends and jump out and get shot in the head, you want my pick-up truck to disappear while my friends stand there stranded? And my enemies have no opportunity to steal it? I assume that's not what you're suggesting? But it is... Tell me how a mechanic functions that guarantees enemies can steal my possessions or friends who are with me have an opportunity to reclaim vehicles that I was driving, yet somehow also prevents me from doing the same after re-spawning? I completely disagree with you. Other than the "newb griefing" which I'll ignore since I don't understand what it has to do with any of that other stuff, those things are in fact relatively critical to the DayZ experience. They are in their infantile states, and will certainly be fleshed out and expanded upon in stand-alone when rocket adds things like underground structures and permanent squad storage, both of which he has discussed at length. You are critiquing them in their unfinished, experimental stages. Storing gear to support a larger squad and recruit new members while vying for limited resources and precious vehicles is most definitely "core gameplay" in DayZ. I know it's fun to make sweeping generalizations and rely on the presence of duplication bugs which will certainly cease to exist in the very near future to make your point, but don't. Nobody has "infinite guns and ghillie suits" unless they are explicitly and deliberately exploiting the bugs in the game. I've worked for months in a team of 5-6 and we have only had 3-4 ghillie suits between us the entire time - same with the rarest guns. You're conflating the issue of item duplication with the desire to work in a team to ensure your long term viability and the strength of your squad and its ability to recover from losses. Do not. This is absolutely bullshit and is based entirely upon a mentality which assumes that gear is the only thing of worth in the game. When my 42-day-old character died I came as close to weeping over a game as I have since I was a child. And my friend who accidentally ran me over in our Land Rover? Got physically sick. And neither reaction had fuck all to do with the "stuff" I was carrying at the time. We cared about the player. The story. The history. That's what we lost and it broke both our hearts (his a bit more than mine since he was the drunk jackass who backed over me but I digress). Gear is not why I strive to survive, so having some waiting for me after I respawn doesn't really take the edge off death in the way you imply. No, and no. I disagree with this entire paragraph in almost every way so I'll just say that and not spend 15 minutes picking it apart. Roguelikes are fun, but they're also generally single player games, with short term (relative to an MMO) play-through's and become repetitive. DayZ must adapt rogue experience to a multiplayer, team-based game with long term sustainability and replay-ability which means long-term goals that are achievable even if you drink from the wrong fountain or read the wrong tome. Nobody is going to play DayZ for 12 months let alone years if every death is a complete "reset" on their entire experience. That's just not an MMO anymore. Roguelike, right? Like as in similar, not identical? DayZ has the hints of this progression right now. Very roguelike at the start - brutal, lose everything, start fresh, where-the-fuck and how-the-fuck kind of feel; but, with effort you can work against that and find your way into a group and work together and cooperate and then things change and the game morphs and you're playing at a different level and it's an entirely different experience and to me that implies a depth and breadth of design that needs to be explored, expanded upon, refined and polished not quashed before it has had a chance to flourish. Yes we need to fix duplication exploits. That goes without saying. But that's not a reason to abandon entirely the depth and appeal of long-term storage and player built structures and compounds.s I think rocket is on my side in this one ultimately, so I'm going to wait and see what he does and we can revisit the conversation in stand-alone. ;)

Gates began to appreciate the expectations others had of him when public opinion mounted suggesting that he could give more of his wealth to charity. Gates studied the work of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, and in 1994 sold some of his Microsoft stock to create the William H. Gates Foundation. In 2000, Gates and his wife combined three family foundations into one to create the charitable Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is the largest transparently operated charitable foundation in the world.[72] The foundation allows benefactors access to information regarding how its money is being spent, unlike other major charitable organizations such as the Wellcome Trust.[73][74] The generosity and extensive philanthropy of David Rockefeller has been credited as a major influence. Gates and his father met with Rockefeller several times, and modeled their giving in part on the Rockefeller family's philanthropic focus, namely those global problems that are ignored by governments and other organizations.[75] As of 2007, Bill and Melinda Gates were the second-most generous philanthropists in America, having given over $28 billion to charity.[76] They plan to eventually give 95% of their wealth to charity.[77]

Okay, fine. What about the ten other people who make regular use of my tents and vehicles? They get to arbitrarily lose all their extra gear and effort too, because a friend of theirs got shot when they weren't even online? Great idea... This whole "wipe everything on death" idea is a non-starter. It destroys the entire notion of an end game in DayZ and completely dismantles any long-term goals that a group of players might set and attempt to achieve for themselves. What about when underground storage bunkers are added to the game? My group cooperates for a week to build one, and it's supposed to just up and disappear randomly at some point to satisfy your need to remove these structures and storage options from the game? Senseless. Persistent storage is critical to sustained gameplay and long-term, cooperative and team-based goals. That's really it. OP's idea is solid, but I don't see why it would work differently for solo players and groups. Both are/should be capable of farming supplies like scrap metal, tools, etc. Just have the smaller storage like crates and tents require small amounts of maintenance so it's viable for individuals, while larger structures like bunkers and shipping containers require more maintenance so they work better for groups. No point having the arbitrary wipe mechanic and "save for group" nonsense to draw a distinction between the two. What's next "save for duo," and "save for trio" etc.? But, yeah, all the other "everything disappears" ideas in this thread are shit.

Never fails. "I know it's Alpha but here are all the ways in which I have absolutely no fucking clue what that even means." As for the rest of this sack 'o shit post, do yourself a favor in life: if you're asking someone for something, try not to call them "idiots" in the process. You might see more positive results and receive fewer punches in your foodhole. See, like, if I wanted something from you and you were working hard to entertain me and doing the best job you could, I might approach you with humility and say things like "please" or "would it be possible;" and I would refer to you politely as "sir" or "fellow DayZ fan" or "honored colleague." But, since I don't actually want anything from you and all you've done is waste 90 seconds of my time reading this travesty of a thread, I can safely call you a giant, floppy twatsock and tell you to get fucked. See how that works?

Your mistake is in seeing hackers as a single group that gets smaller as they are banned. Most hackers are just people bored with the game who, instead of quitting and walking away, decide to "go out with a bang" and hack until they get banned because they weren't planning to play anymore anyway. It's a moving population. 12,000 banned so far doesn't stop the 25 new ones who will show up today, and all it takes is 10-20 on any given night to hop around from server to server and impact thousands of people. You overestimate their presence because of the size of their impact (kill the whole server) and their portability (jump around doing it on multiple servers). There aren't that many hackers, they're just very powerful and mobile. And there's no reason to doubt BattleEye's claims, really. As for this asinine tripe, the number has actually been falling shaprly lately. It was over 200k two weeks ago and now back down to 167k which are numbers from like 6 weeks ago... If you're going to go all paranoid conspiracy theorist, at least try not to base your theories on completely false premises.