TheCaptn (DayZ)

Hey Suicide Mouse, interesting thread, but I like others I have some serious concerns about the reasoning. I've read the OP multiple times, and skimmed a few pages, but I think Lady Kyrah makes the point fairly well in the very first post. I'd like to get into detail though: This is essentially the fundamental premise of your idea, but it's demonstrably untrue, which makes the argument that follows unsound. There is not, and never has been, a moral absolute in any society with regard to killing. Every society establishes conditions under which the taking of another human life is sanctioned, a task which is then undertaken by generally rational and fully-functional members of that society. The professions of Soldiers, Police Officers, Judges/Jurors, Doctors (in some liberal democracies), Intelligence Services, even average citizens acting in self-defense are all granted a limited license by their society to kill another human. That action isn't automatically punished either. It may be independently judged (and often is), but such judgments will often conclude that the act was acceptable, or in some cases even to be commended. You cannot even sustain an assertion that the individual must -always- feel morally responsible themselves, despite such independent judgement. Although you try to do that here: You've made this clear assertion, without presenting any evidence that it's actually true, and linked it to an already unsound argument based on a faulty premise. Now I don't work in the field, but I do have wide-ranging journal access and can do a literature search as well as the next guy. Your argument that PTSD is related to killing more than any other act doesn't seem to be supported at all... De Silva, P (1999) 'Cultural aspects of post-traumatic stress disorder' Friedman, M J (2005) 'Veterans' Mental Health in the Wake of War' Gould, M; Greenberg, N; Hetherton, J (2007) 'Stigma and the military: Evaluation of a PTSD psychoeducational program' These all suggest that PTSD is much more closely related to the dramatic psychological impact of shifting from a high-stress culture with one set of sanctions, to a low-stress culture that essentially reverses those sanctions. Many parts of the military experience contribute to the stress; killing people, having people try to kill you, seeing friends killed/injured, seeing non-combatants killed/injured, constant high expectations, regular low resources, etc; but the PTSD seems to be triggered by returning to a civilian culture which has no context for any of those experiences. But the world of DayZ is the high-stress culture, one that lacks any established norms, and there is no hope of a transition back to a low-stress culture, since that no longer exists. It makes the following even more implausible: This wouldn't even make sense in regard to any current culture, or our Special Forces soldiers would be returning home almost universally sociopathic, while support and supply-chain personnel would hardly exhibit any signs of stress disorders at all. Again this is an assumption you're making based entirely on your original premise, and it just doesn't add up. Also consider the fact that our characters in the game do not represent the carebear pacifists of our civil, urbanised society (despite what the folks around the Bandit Campfire might think). The zombie apocalypse has already happened. The worst is over, and we're the final few survivors; the ones hardy enough to ride out the storm and reach this point alive. If there was any vomiting and shaking to be done at all, it's entirely fair to suggest that it already took place during the outbreak... You know, back when we presumably had to put down our own friends, family or simple acquaintances when they turned. The sort of things we would have been forced to do just to reach the point we're at now. I don't think the game can, or should ever try to enforce some arbitrary "balance" in moral or social structure; since doing so presumes that we'd even know what that would look like. We don't. Lets keep the focus on giving us the tools and resources to survive, while making such survival ever harder, to keep pace with the expanding resources. (i.e. Don't pull a Minecraft, and expand the resource base without ramping up the challenge, because therein lies the slippery-slope to 'casual' gaming) Leave the process of social and cultural development to the players, except when they're pointing out resource deficiencies that directly impact social conditions, like bandit skins.

Tried this yesterday on ANZ2, which was running 1.5.8.4 with beta build 93040. It worked exactly like described in the OP. I had wood in my pack but not in my active kit, and that wood was still present after the fire was set.