ZedsDeadBaby

I'm not even sure. I mean, what?

Okay. I made a huge image and you're still not picking it up. Zombies ONLY PvP, too. You realize that, right? They don't even have the courtesy to fight each other like the bandits often do - they only care about YOU. They even spawn special just for you. So why is it okay and awesome and cool and fun and fine and dandy to face off against a horde of mindless killers bent on nothing but PvP when they are controlled by a computer AI and make scary noises but suddenly if those mindless killers have human intelligence it's suddenly awful and sad and a waste and terrible and game-breaking? The game is full of mindless killers who want to murder you. Some of them are computer controlled, some human. The human ones are far more interesting and challenging, as they can react dynamically, unpredictably and without convenient sound effects to let you know when they are nearby. This is a GOOD thing. It increases tension, drama and the unpredictable nature of the game. Likewise, overcoming an enemy of human intelligence should give you far more satisfaction and personal pride than beating an enemy who is controlled by a few lines of code and who you can fool by ducking behind a tree or running in a straight line for a really long time. rocket made it clear a long time ago - and I agree completely - human enemies are more interesting than AI ones, no matter how good that AI gets. So, DayZ is about human enemies AND zombie enemies, and what you do when you have to face both everywhere you go. Why is this not as interesting to you as it is to me? Why is the presence of killers, no matter their motivation, not a GOOD thing? How can you see it as ruining the game when I see it as the most important defining factor in making it the amazing experience that it is? Okay. Who cares? Why does that matter? Zombies don't even HAVE a survival aspect. They're just automatons. So, again, why is it okay for them to go after you but not these players? Oh, right. Again, it's because you know you can beat the zombies every time because they are predictable and stupid. Players, even the bad ones, are smarter than the smartest AI and that makes them dangerous and scary and it means no matter how hard you study them you'll never know what they're going to do next and that makes you sad and uncomfortable. No, they really shouldn't. If they leave, DayZ will become boring. Their presence and the drama and tension it adds is precisely why DayZ is interesting. Getting together with another survivor and collecting a bunch of food is only fun because you also have to worry about players who want to stop you from accomplishing that. Without the "killers" survival just becomes a matter of walking from place to place and that's a fucking bust of a game. Once you encounter a player in the game, why does it even matter to you how they have played up until that point? They might be the most careful, methodical, survival-based, team player on the server or they might be a "CoDer" fresh off the beach who got lucky with a winchester. If they decide they don't like you, it doesn't MATTER where they came from or why they're there. You have to deal with them the same either way. So basically you're happy PvP exists you just don't want people to actually do it? And if they do, you want them to do it in a way that's predictable and identifiable for you so that you can quickly categorize them in your "bad folks" file and move on with your comfortable life. BAH I say. BAH to that. Discomfort in the face of your uncertain fate is exactly what makes DayZ great. YOU OF ALL PEOPLE with a name like that should understand. Every single encounter with another human in The Road is incredibly gut-wrenching and tense precisely because you don't know what their intentions are. And just like DayZ - most of them are fucking batshit level crazy. You have the cannibal/rapist bandits, the family of cannibals with the naked meatfolk locked in their cellar, a group that cooks and eats an infant and a man who shoots The Man on sight with an arrow. No saluting. No "friendly?" Just BAM eat that arrow in your leg motherfucker, how's that taste? The entire novel your namesake wrote is full of the kind of unpredictable inhumanity that you're now arguing has no place in the game. And meanwhile, what friends did they make? The Man is so afraid of what might happen, he prevents the boy from making contact with the few individuals they meet who might not be awful people. The boy feels lonely and frustrated at this (like DayZ players do at the removal of side chat), but through his frustration we see a glimpse of his desire to reach out - and help - his fellow man. Even though the world he knows is nothing but grey ash and death, he still reaches out. But he doesn't make contact, truly, until The Man is dead and the novel is ending. What do you think McCarthy is trying to say? Maybe he's saying that when the world has gone to shit, it's going to be really hard to find the good people among the insane murderers and rapists... but don't give up. Hold on and keep trying. They're out there somewhere and it might take you awhile but keep looking, okay? If you took all the insane, murderous, senseless, horrible and despicable characters out of The Road it would literally be 1 chapter long. "Hi, shit went down. Now we're on a road. Shit I got sick. We found some peaches. Now I'm dead. The end." Boring story, right? Right. So bring back the murderers and make it interesting again. Really give it some thought, okay? Thanks.

So, completely remove stealth as an element of resource gathering? Grant an even greater, nearly game-breaking advantage to people with silenced weapons? This is not a good idea. The dynamic of choosing between quick-in-quick-out run-and-gun style tactics and the slow, methodical approach which doesn't involve killing zombies is a huge part of DayZ. See my post about groundhogs in my sig. If all loot was on zombies, the ideal game play strategy now becomes: team goes prone in treeline, "bait" player runs like an idiot through the middle of town and "pulls" zombies to prone players who open fire. Collect loot, move on to the next town. Ugh, boring.

$30, 350 hours of game play. That.s $0.08 per hour for the best game I've ever played.

I'm not opposed to the idea of "specialties" that have subtle, non-critical effects like slightly faster bandaging, faster animal gutting, or better driving/piloting abilities. So, good. Okay. But what does this have to do with PvP? More people working in teams just means larger groups of targets for bandits to shoot at. You're not going to get rid of PvP by clumping up like fish in a barrel for them. And why would you want to "decrease" PvP in a PvP game anyway? If you want a decrease, just go play a game that doesn't have PvP as a central, critical mechanic and thematic element. Ta-daa! Instant decrease free of charge.

Perhaps one day, but as is there are plenty of third party programs to help you add friends to a list and keep track of them so I don't see this as a major priority for the developers. Also, it wouldn't "downplay PK" and if you find yourself sitting around trying to think of a bunch of ways to do that, you're probably playing the wrong game. PvP is at the heart of DayZ. Downplaying it makes no sense. Think of ways to refine and improve it, not soften it.

I'm pretty sure history proves you wrong, there Kageru. We may not have zombies in reality, but there have been plenty of instances where societies have disintegrated or come under such distress that all manner of law and custom disappeared. And I'm pretty sure bandits, pirates and warlords are the ones who benefitted most in those situations and "friendlies" suffered some of the greatest inhumanities in recorded history. You don't need re-spawning supplies to benefit as a bandit - you take your guns and you go to people who have supplies and you take them. While you're there, if history serves us, you probably do some raping and murdering too.

There are plenty of existing social incentives, and more to come, but they are not going to magically arise out of a random stranger you bump into - nor should they. Put effort into establishing contact and building trust, then you can reap many benefits. I don't know about you but I don't think the game designers should be worrying about helping us make friends. Let them focus on game mechanics and features. Human beings already have the capacity to make contact and communicate with one another about our desires. Why waste valuable programmer time coming up with pretty, colorful ways to represent these relationships on the screen when its really the out of game stuff that matters to us anyway?

Poker isn't. If you get dealt shit hands all night long, you have to use your brain to beat me instead of your cards. Good players can do this extremely well using a combination of experience, intuition and manipulation. Overcoming imbalance is an important part of game theory and military strategy as well. And it's an important part of DayZ. Find weaknesses and exploit them. You have every tool at your disposal to restore balance or upset it in your favor if you so choose. If you don't want to, though, please don't come here expecting the designers to do it for you.

Yes. "Or something," indeed. That something? Hike up your diaper and go play a different game. This one's not for you mate. This game is great for far more than "just bandits." I've probably murdered fewer than 10 people in 30+ days and 300+ hours in the game. It's still great for me. Every day it's great so get your grubby, tear-soaked little fingers off of it.

Hint: Your hiding spot isn't as clever as you think. People are stealing from your tent while you're away.

I started my first new survivor in ~15 days last night. I didn't die' date=' but I played on a fresh copy. My starting experience went like this: [list'] [*] Spawn, Krutoy Cap. [*] Loot military flashlight, bandage from deer stand near Tulga. No zombie aggro. [*] Loot hatchet from barn near Solichniy. Zombie was standing on it; had to use tin cans to distract him. [*] Catch zombie aggro on the way out of town, use hatchet but lose ~2000 blood but pasta/soda on bodies. [*] Loot Winchester 1866 + 4 15 round slug piles from barn near Dubrovka. [*] Loot medical supplies including morphine, epi-pens, blood and bandages from Berezino hospital. [*] Loot ALICE pack, map, M1911 + 1 clip, 2 sodas from Berezino grocery north. [*] Loot watch, hunting knife, 2 more 1911 clips, beans from Berezino grocery south. [*] More zombie aggro on the way out of town. Now at 7000 blood but sardines, more soda. I'm now in the wilderness north of Berezino with a completely full ALICE pack - food, soda, medical supplies. I have a secondary weapon with 20+ rounds and a primary with 60 rounds. I'm at 7200 blood but as soon as I meet my friends they can use one of my bags to give me a tranfusion and bam clean as a whistle. My last missing piece is matches, and I'll basically be set for the end game. This took me ~90 minutes total. Not "impossibly hard" by any stretch of anyone's wildest imagination. If your mates don't have the patience for it, that's ashame but not rocket's responsibility. Get new mates or tell them to keep at it. We don't need to bring DayZ down to the level of people who can't hack it, we need to bring players up to the challenge of DayZ.

You have no option for a suYou didn't provide an important option - a survivor who is friendly and helpful to trusted family and close friends, but gives fuck-all about others. 'cause that's honestly where I think most people would land, myself included. I would gather my trusted friends and family (those who remain unturned) in a secure location, and help to ensure their safety through personal defense, scavenging, and survival strategies such as entrenched defense building, food preparation, water gathering and conservation, etc. But outsiders who encroach on our space, or whom I encounter while out scavenging? Avoid them at all costs and, if confronted or cornered, assume hostile and react accordingly.rvivor who is friendly

rocket made some mention of "not ruling out" the possibility of romance playing a role in some game mechanics... As for TWD, I love the atmosphere of the show but have admittedly not read the comic so I will speak from that perspective: as long as I have the option to be smarter than the characters written for the show, I'm happy - because they are a pack of bumbling fucking idiots I'll tell you what. So many of their decisions and actions in the show are complete and utter nonsense, not to mention their lack of basic survival strategies. I have trouble sympathizing with the deaths of characters in this scenario. I'm like "Yup, deserved it." Like the scene where Daryl is injured in the river and trying to climb the steep hill back out to safety. Risking his life on a sheer hill face, climbing with an injury, clinging to unstable branches, nearly passing out from exhaustion and pain, slipping and losing his balance... the entire time I'm just shouting "Go down river 100 yards and the hill might not be as steep there you fucking ninny."

It's precisely because I take this game so seriously that it remains of interest to me. You have "survivor only" DayZ already at your disposal. Go play Left 4 Dead or Dead Island or any of the other ARMA mods that rocket has specifically suggested for those players not interested in DayZ because PvP plays such a central role in the theme and game play. Why is it so difficult to accept that DayZ is a PvP-based zombie survival game? Is it because it hasn't been done before? Or has a decade of watered-down, cordoned-off PvP experiences really left you believing that that's the "right" way to do it? You're so used to the WoW model where PvP is kept off behind some invisible wall where you don't have to think about it or worry about it, and even when you do you don't because nothing happens if you lose anyway, that you just can't wrap your head around a game where PvP is an absolutely critical, essential and inextricable part of the entire experience. Asking for DayZ without PvP is like asking for DayZ without zombies. They are two sides of the DayZ coin. Two parts to a whole. If you're not willing to flip that coin and see where it falls, then go play one of the many other games that only use one-sided coins.

Umm, okay? Right. Are you suggesting that risk/reward scenarios are not absolutely central to almost every game in the history of mankind? Poker? Chess? Come on, man.