If you are writing software upon which people's lives depend and you are releasing it for public use in an Alpha state, then you are probably guilty of criminal negligence and manslaughter at the very least. I like to read these threads once in awhile because every post is formatted in basically the same way: "I know it's Alpha." followed by a series of statements that demonstrate that the poster actually has no fucking idea what that means.

Because developers use the money they make to fund future projects which you might also be interested in? So if you really like an amazingly awesome game from a developer, you should care whether or not they are making enough money to come along and improve upon the game, release updates, and perhaps one day even another game for you to play. Same reason you shouldn't pirate games you like, but that's a while different discussion.

Stand-alone does not mean independent. If he meant independent he would have said independent. Stand-alone simply means the game will be separated from the core ARMA code branch and will work on an engine of its own giving the team access to modify the engine code which will give them far more power over what changes they can make and mechanics they can work on. The most likely engine is ARMA 3, which is going Beta later this year - the same time rocket said DayZ will likely go stand-alone which makes perfect sense. rocket has no reason to break completely away from BI and go it on his own, and BI has a vested interest in maintaining the relationship as well, as they will likely see royalties or license fees from DayZ if it is based on the ARMA 3 engine. It's a win-win situation for both parties. As for getting DayZ for free because you bought ARMA 2. No. Get your wallet out and support rocket you cheap-ass bastard.

Health is a measure of one's overall well-being. It's not as if when I get shot suddenly I didn't exercise last year, ate more saturated fats and refined sugars and took up smoking. But, there sure is a lot of blood pouring out of me.

Where the fuck are you getting that ridiculous number?

Uhh, Six Updater does not force you to update. Simply select "Launch Game" instead of "Update Mods and Launch Game" and it will run the current version without updating.

Except people don't camp spawn points. They camp Cherno and Elektro downtown. There are no spawn points there, only idiots who haven't realized yet not to go into Cherno and Elektro and run around in broad daylight standing on rooftops.

Really? Guns seem to work fine for me. I curb the living shit out of them.

Did you ask him how he could possibly know that? Because unless he works there he's full of shit.

Not exactly. There are more types of sniper rifles, not more rifles themselves. The spawn rates and limited spawn locations take care of that. Okay, now we're just arguing in circles. Every day you have hundreds if not thousands if not tens-of-thousands of these rifles being duplicated. One rifle becomes 2, 4, 8, 16, with just a few mouse clicks. The same goes for the ammunition. And once an item exists in the game, it is rarely lost. A dead player will almost always be looted by his killer, a friend or himself. So these duplicated rifles disseminate throughout the player population. So, yes, right now you can legitimately claim that they are more common than they should be. But that doesn't really say anything about whether their spawn rates need to be altered. We can't determine that with any degree of accuracy or legitimate analysis until these duplication exploits are fixed once and for all. In my purely subjective experience, the rarity of these items is absolutely fine. I have played the game for 600-700 hours or so (I've lost track since I stopped using Steam at 400 hours), and so far I have seen one SVD Dragunov, two AS50's, two M107's, one M24 and maybe a dozen DMR's. As for ammunition, I found one box that contained SVD Dragunov rounds at a helicopter crash site - never seen another round for it before or since in all my days and travels. AS50/M107 rounds are similarly limited - if it weren't for their clips refilling automatically on reboot, my team would have been without rounds many times. And CZ550's seem to have disappeared from the game - the only time I see them anymore is inside freshly spawned pick-up trucks and how often do you see one of those? The one rifle that seems a bit too common is the DMR. Maybe. But, again, I would prefer to wait for the duplication and free-ammunition bugs to be fixed before any serious design changes are even discussed let alone implemented. Making balance choices at this point is like trying to make interior decorating decisions while your house is on fire.

Didn't we just get done talking about how the game isn't just about zombies? The survival aspect of the game isn't just about surviving zombies - it's about surviving other players too. Those both count as survival. And trust me if you run into a squad of 5+ other players, you're going to regret being alone and might think about bringing some friends along next time you travel.

Discovered like 2 months ago. Enjoy exploiting the game while it lasts.

I think combat at all distances is legitimate PvP. And I think it is disingenuous of you to imply that one is balanced and the other is not. There is no "imbalance." You have access to this military equipment just like everyone else, and if you were an intelligent tactician you would by now have assigned a member of your group to sniper duties -- preferably someone with an understanding of the weapons, a calm head and knowledge of the map terrain so he/she knows how to get to an effective vantage-point quickly. Give him/her an L85A2 or pair him up with a partner who has one. Assign these members of your squad to protect you when you travel together and loot high-value targets or settlements. I have had my life saved on many occasions by my sniper team because they spot threats before I do and open fire, either scaring off an approaching bandit or eliminating them before they have a chance to engage me in that medium range combat you seem to think is the only way players should be allowed to shoot at each other. Well, I'm sorry. I planned ahead and have a team so you don't get to get close to me to shoot your AK or your M16 at me. Maybe that makes you sad, but it makes me very happy and it gives me more reason to make friends and have a squad and communicate and cooperate and work together which are all things people on this forum seem to claim this game lacks an incentive to do... well, here's your incentive: if you're tired of snipers, then cooperate with some other survivors and come up with a plan to neutralize or counter their effect on your strategy and game play experience. If you come under sniper fire, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from using your team to locate and counter-snipe the individual. If he can see you to fire, you can see him to fire back. If you do not have a sniper, then you will be at a disadvantage. But that's not an "imbalance" any moreso than saying it is imbalanced that a player with a Makarov has an advantage over a player with a hatchet or that a player with a hatchet has an advantage over a player with a flashlight. You always have the option to flee, or take cover. No legitimate sniper can shoot through walls or terrain. So, in ultimate answer to your question - I think sniper combat is amazingly well-balanced with the rest of the game and encourages tactical play, communication and squad-based cooperation. Not to mention increasing the tension level immensely. So it would be a huge loss to the game if sniper rifles were removed.

You should add an option to your poll under sniper rifles and ammo that says "Too polluted by duplicated items and free ammo to evaluate" or something along those lines. Because that's how I and a lot of people I know feel. You overestimate the commonality of these items and their effectiveness because of these bugs. Many snipers perched above Cherno and Elektro probably only carry one ammo clip and just log out when they get down to 1 round... If they actually had to deal with real ammo scarcity, you would probably be hearing a lot less shots. M24 and M107 rounds in particular are not that easy to come by in nature. It's just that 1-2 clips can last you a month that's the real problem.

His point is you can't have a serious discussion about the frequency of items and the scarcity of ammo when item duplication bugs are rampant and ammo clips refill themselves when you log out of the game. We need to wait until item duplication exploits are fixed and ammo is actually tracked accurately. Then we can talk about hether certain weapons and ammo are too common in the game. Because I think right now there are literally millions of rounds of "free" ammunition being flooded into the game every day when people log out with partially spent clips. I for one once used a DMR for 2+ weeks only carrying 2 clips, because the clips are large and I would only fire 5-10 shots per play session meaning I never even used an entire clip, and next time I logged in they were both full again. So, yes, Alpha is a time for suggesting improvements but you also have to take into account how the Alpha state of the game effects things like balance, etc. before you start talking about the details of those improvements. In short, fix item duplication, fix "free unlimited ammo" bugs, and then we can discuss frequency and rarity of military grade equipment. There's plenty of evidence that the military stuck around for awhile and tried to clean up the mess. Temporary military hospitals in major population centers, piles of dead bodies outside cities and in military bases like Green Mountain. Fire stations being used as temporary strongholds, etc. And don't forget the military weren't just contending with zombies - they were also fighting the earliest bandits. ;)

Surviving alone is difficult in reality; a single injury can end your life if you don't have a friend around to tend to your needs. So I personally appreciate the fact that DayZ recreates this. If it encourages you to branch out and make friends, then rocket will have done his job. One day down the road there will be more communication options in the game like radios, etc. for you to make contact but in the meantime I strongly reccommend you drop your aversion to using forums to find a group to play with. It may "ruin the experience" in some small way, but it's a sacrifice you need to make for now because the mechanics have not yet been implemented to facilitate this kind of contact and communication in-game. Good luck.

As it turns out, it's a zombie survival game with hardcore PvP. Not sure why so many people have such a difficult time with the fact that these two things are not mutually exclusive and can both exist in the same game. Also, if you "thought it was just coop zombie survival" then it can only be because you didn't pay attention to any of the widely available information on the game, including this very website. Best of luck out there. It's not so bad once you're off the coast.

Everyone acts like PvP just begins and ends when the shots are fired. PvP is more than that. Not being seen is part of PvP. Sniper rifles play a critical role in the game. I shouldn't have to expose myself to your assault rifle fire in order to cover my friends while they loot a crashed helicopter in the middle of an open field. That undermines a huge part of the game's tactics and tactical combat is part of what DayZ does best. Would combat involve more shooting without sniper rifles? Yes, probably. But, why is that automatically a good thing? This "everyone gets a chance to shoot" mentality is just goofy. I absolutely have no support or sympathy for anyone who wants to see them "gone" simply because they died without seeing their murderer's face.

It also helps you kill zombies. And spot loot. And spot vehicles. And spot friends. And spot road signs. And do literally anything that involves seeing things. You could just as easily argue that it helps survivors avoid bandits by helping them spot the danger sooner and go some place else. So yes, I guess you're right. It totally helps bandits. In that bandits have motherfucking eyeballs. I'm sorry, but this thread is ridiculous.

I'm pretty sure the hatchet is the only weapon that doesn't perform past 50m bro. Half of what you list have nothing to do with zoom and are more about clipping and display bugs. How about we just fix the bugs instead of taking things out of the game? Zooming is helpful to bandits? That's really what you're going with? Seriously? Come on.

Eh, played all night. Gathered a ton of loot, killed ~75+ zombies, repaired a UAZ, stuffed it with gear... game seems fine. M1911 mostly. Seems like a lot of needless drama going around here.

So, we know the stats on the front page, including life expectancy, are ignoring very short lives in an attempt to filter out the spam respawn behavior that has become so common in the game. (Source). In 1.7.2.4 the Respawn button will be disabled, which will drastically cut down on this behavior. However, many players - some by their own admission here on the forums - are going to try and work around this by finding other means to kill themselves. Suicide by zombie, suicide by ladder, suicide by standing on top of the Cherno hospital with a road flare and going AFK for a couple minutes, etc. People are clever and if they want to off themselves they will, even if some end up spending more time in the effort than they would have spent just running to where they wanted to be in the first place. The problem that arises is that many of these "extended suicides" will cross the thresshhold of what is considered a respawn by the stats algorithm. Instead of respawning instantly, people will take 5+ minutes to kill themselves. So my prediction is these very short lives are going to pile up and drag the life expectancy down in 1.7.2.4. I've posted a suggestion related to this: Prevent Spawn Point "Choosing" by Suicide.

Unsurprisingly there is a somewhat similar vein of discussion going on in the suggestions thread, and I think some of my comments there apply here as well so instead of rephrasing them, I will just quote myself:

It's all a matter of perspective. My survivals at this point are usually in the 15+ day range and the same goes for the members of my immediate group of friends. If we die before Day 10 we make fun of each other for having such a short life. So, yeah, if we have to spend 30 minutes or a couple hours or even a day roaming around and gearing up after death before we meet back up with our friends it really doesn't amount to much in the grand scheme of things. Most of the time we are alive, together, and cooperating and communicating to accomplish group-oriented activities. Honestly, a few hours alone is a nice break and a change of pace once in a long while. Of course it's not for me to say ultimately, but DayZ does not strike me as a casual, short-session kind of game. If you only have 90 minutes to play once or twice a week, so that a 20 minute run seems prohibitive to your enjoyment of the game, then I'm not convinced DayZ is the place for you. But, I honestly believe much of the complaint is hyperbole. I'm guessing your average DayZ player has a few hours at least each week to devote, so a 15, 20 or even 45 minute investment in that initial gear-up-and-meet phase is really not asking much, and it ultimately enhances the experience and encourages long-term survival. Some people regret losing gear when they die but honestly the biggest loss to me is contact with my group of friends. And I think that's cool. DayZ has made me value the company of friends more than equipment and gear. If you spawn with your friend it would just be like "Oh, hey. There you are. Okay, let's play." But when you have to spawn alone and hunt and search and scavenge and communicate and claw your way to meet each other, it turns it into something of import. That moment you come up over the ridge and first see your friend, the giddy calls of "Is that you? Holy shit it's you!" and the relief you feel at finally having someone there to watch your back... it means so much more when you have had to put a little effort into it, you know? "Nothing easy, nothing free." I think that's DayZ's motto. And for me it works. It makes the small things seem large. In most games, I take it for granted that my friends will be right there when I login, and if not they can "summon" me at a moment's notice. In DayZ if I login alone, I actually feel lonely - and I think that says something about this design direction. Personally I like it. I'm not asking you to feel the same way.

Great post. I invite you to read and comment on my idea which is quite similar in many ways: Player Identification & Classification System. I also added it to the ARMA dev queue here: https://dev-heaven.net/issues/37277 I have linked to your thread from mine, and provided beans to boot! Beans would be appreciated in exchange. The more support we show for similar systems, the more likely the devs are to pick up on a trend. Cheers and best of luck out there!