I assume you didn't play back then? Life expectancy was lower and murder rates were higher when the skin was in the game, mate. Nothing was really different. Half or better of the people with skins had them because they killed someone in self defense or for trying to steal from them, or for shooting a friend, etc. so a lot of "bandits" were friendly, and people with survivor skins were as likely to be pre-bandits and just as murderous as anyone else. I died far more often to fresh spawns wearing the survivor skin and toting a Winchester or Lee Enfield than I ever did to bandits wearing the skin. I know it seems like a good idea, but it was a completely broken system that accomplished nothing. So please save your giant red text for something that will actually improve the game. Like, say, maybe a system that puts the power of identification in the hands of the players instead of relying of a magical fairy.

It is dependent on weapon, target velocity (not just speed) and distance to the target so, yeah. Just estimation. This is where experience comes in handy. Eventually you will just get a feel for it.

You could just not do anything. You realize that right? There's a middle ground between running up to a complete stranger and expecting to be fast-friends and murdering them outright. It's called just sit still and watch them pass and then go about your business. I mean kill them if you want, but don't act like you have no choice. You will be doing it because that's what you want to do, not because the circumstances of the game have somehow forced you hand. I've played 700+ hours and probably have murdered fewer than 30 people total. I've seen literally thousands. 99 times in 100 I just watch them until they're gone and then continue doing whatever it is I was doing. If survival is really your goal, murdering people is not going to help.

Don't shoot standing up if you can avoid it. Take a knee at least, prone is best. Don't shoot while tired/breathing heavily. Don't fire rapidly. Short, controlled bursts will allow your weapon to return to it's original position after recoil. Pick a weapon and get familiar with it's effective range. Bullets will begin to fall beyond their effective range so past that point you need to start aiming high to hit your mark. Lead moving targets. Stick with one weapon or a category of similar weapons like AK's or M16's and practice only with those. You cannot master every weapon in the game by learning one. Pick something and get good at it before moving on to another type. Practice with friends. Human targets that try to survive are more realistic than metal targets.

These are the sort of people you're coming to the defense of jskibo... I understand that being an admin can be a thankless job, though I take the time to thank them regularly here on the forums and on the servers themselves, but do you honestly support this kind of attitude and behavior?

Per Wikipedia: The groundhog (Marmota monax), also known as a woodchuck, whistle-pig, or in some areas as a land-beaver, is a rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots. I was just standing at my office window and I noticed a whistle pig, as they are called in my home state, hanging out in the neighbor's yard scavenging for edibles in the flowerbed. I opened the window to shoo it away and it went perfectly still. Stopped chewing. Perked up and it could have been a lawn ornament for how still it was. Instead of shouting I watched it and it went back to nibbling and grabbing leaves. Then it stopped again totally still, perked up. Not even chewing. Then back to it. I watched it for 5 minutes repeat this process - every 5 seconds of eating separated by 5 seconds of complete and utter stillness; and, maybe it's only because I've been playing so ever-loving much of this game lately, but it immediately reminded me of DayZ. An animal that lives its life constantly under threat of death from terrors known and unseen; humans, all manner of animals ground-based and airborne, motor vehicles, insects, farming equipment, poisons, natural disaster - every moment of every day of your short life fearing a painful and untimely demise. That's what it's like to be a groundhog. And here he was gathering supplies with precisely the kind of careful precision that I apply in DayZ. Not brute force, guns-blazing, grab it all and blast the windows out, but methodical. First, an exit strategy. Where's the nearest cover and what's the shortest route? Okay, take a nibble then stop. Wait patiently. Listen for gunshots or footsteps or that special shuffle shuffle of nipples on pavement. Check the doors. Communicate. Okay, take a nibble stop. Check the treeline. Check the barn door. Check the back room for people server hopping. Communicate. Nibble, nibble stop. Was that a gunshot okay get low. Listen. Which direction, how far. Watch the zombies they're the key. Can I get away or do I take up a strategic point and wait? It's a method that has served me well and it seems to work for the whistle pigs. If you're having trouble staying alive in DayZ in the face of all you meet try to channel the groundhog. Slow down, plan ahead, be patient and above all be aware. Check, double check and triple check. With a friend you can sextuple check. Footsteps are loud. Gunshots are loud. Angry zombies are loud and for people who hunt survivors they are like giant dinner bells with feet. Follow the zombies and find the beans. Your beans. That's the world you live in now. You're a groundhog now. Be the groundhog. Groundhogs raised in captivity can be socialized relatively easily; however, their aggressive nature can pose problems. Doug Schwartz, a zookeeper and groundhog trainer at the Staten Island Zoo, has been quoted as saying "They’re known for their aggression, so you’re starting from a hard place. [Their] natural impulse is to kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out. You have to work to produce the sweet and cuddly."

Might be time for the new crop of DayZ players to learn from the groundhog.

"Secret intervals." Precisely so people can't do this ^^.

Pretty much exactly. Buy a mic if you don't have one, because if I try to talk to you and you just stand there staring at me or run away silently, I'm going to assume you're hostile or will be soon and shoot you in the spine.

If you loot helicopter crash sites without proper medical supplies. You're gonna have a bad time.

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/35425-do-not-publicly-report-websites-linking-to-hackscheats/ Reported...

I think if you are getting used to the game in an environment free of these threats then you aren't really getting used to the game. Part of "growing up" in DayZ is learning how to deal with the very real fact that there are constantly people out there trying to murderize your face. Adapting to the possibility that around every corner could be a lead salad is how you're going to learn to survive. Figuring out that zombies run at you if you make too much noise and crawling is probably a better idea than running through the center of town takes about 15 minutes - the rest of the learning process is in figuring out how other players behave and how to effectively adapt to that behavior in order to achieve the kind of play experience you want. Yes, this means the learning curve is shallow and long. It's going to take you a bit longer to ramp-up in DayZ than it does in most other modern games that come with tutorials and online guides and how-to's and walkthroughs because you can't write a walkthrough for dealing with human intelligence and the unpredictable nature of man. Or, you can but it would be very short. Like "Best of luck, buddy. The end." or something of that nature. It's the people who are up to the challenge - the ones who man up and face it and die over and over and over again in their first few days that are going to excel in the game. The ones who back down or the ones who would want to utilize a "safe zone" server will be cannon fodder for the rest of their days, a smear on the road in Cherno or the roof of the Elektro hospital because they just never get around to getting it. In the words of the immortal and quirky Björk: If you ever get close to a human and human behaviour be ready to get confused there's definitely no logic to human behaviour but yet so irresistible there is no map to human behaviour they're terribly moody then all of a sudden turn happy but, oh, to get involved in the exchange of human emotions is ever so satisfying there's no map and a compass wouldn't help at all human behaviour

Welcome to the forums! Have fun out there mate.

No, I don't. Despite the fact that there's a thread at the top of the forums specifically asking them to do so. I expect ignorant assholes to be ignorant assholes. But that's not going to stop me from pointing it out.

You're right. I'm sorry. Posts on the forums totally make things that are impossible suddenly possible. My bad. You're cute. Let's be friends, okay?

The strange thing is no that's not how it fucking works at all.

When did it ever have a fucking topic? Seriously, what was the topic?

Oh, okay. Sorry. Search for that other thing that happened. The other 600 threads. There are like 3 on the front page right now. I searched "everyone dies" and came up with like 15 pages of threads on the topic. Seriously you and the OP can both please be quiet.

In pretty much every instance you had an opportunity to just leave and find another server. Instead you chose to continue to play. And it kind of looked like you were having fun. So quit your fucking bitching.

Scoured? Scoured? That's really what you're going with? How about typing "teleport" into the search box and finding the 600 fucking threads instantly? Jackass.

The 600 existing threads on this topic were insufficient apparently.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/DayZ-DE7 Let's all join their Steam community and let them know what we think of the fact that they dupe and then lock their server the minute their duped equipment comes under threat. I love the fact that they "encourage cooperation instead of PvP" too. Like yeah you guys are regular fucking saints. Like "Oh we don't like PvP but we're totally cool with duplicating gear and breaking the server hosting rules whenever it suits our fancy." Fucking assholes.

Protip: There are no spawnpoints inside Cherno. If you are there, it's because you chose to go there. You always have the option to go somewhere else after spawning.

Blood & decapitator only now. Let's just say... I know that Pocket4s isn't an admin. ;)

So your argument is basically that people complain on the forums, so admins should be free to ignore the rules? Yeah. Can't say I can get on board with that line of reasoning. Latest and greatest example: DE7 admin's dupe farm gets called out in this thread: http://dayzmod.com/f...it-pics-inside/ And the server is immediately locked and passworded for the rest of the night. So we have an admin-based team obviously exploiting duplication bugs, and then using a server password to protect their ill-gotten goods - which I'm sure they happily take to other servers. Yeah, no, we should definitely just ignore these guys though. No need to enforce the rules. Let's just let them have their fun, right? Fuck. That. And fuck you for making excuses for them. This is getting ridiculous. I'm starting to rethink the whole "temporary" thing.