instagoat

Because there is no incentive. The only incentive to make people work together is an economy. No economy, no motivation to work together. Stuff just falls into your hands, or you rob somebody else who did the farming for you. Right now, the game is constructed to actively reward what would elsewhere be described as "griefing". Opposite example would be a game like EVE, essentially without rules, but the economy and construction of the game make the players work together because they benefit from it. (People run entire corporations doing nothing but -mining-. Imagine clans in Arma doing nothing but driving ammo or fuel trucks.) Edit: re reputation: artificially adding a reputation scale is just that, artificial. Some way for players to make themselves recognized is all the game needs. People will make a name for themselves on their own. You see a certain name, and you have an ear on the rumour mills, you will know. At least, that would be the ideal state.

Well, the problem is that there is no punishment for being "bad". Unless people form some kind of militia that actively seeks out bandits, and establishes servers where there is legit "law and order", with gun free zones, etc, KOSing will be the thing to do. I think the problem is the economy. If equipment was worth so much that dying was a real problem, and implements to kill each other so rare (and possibly dangerous, ie, weapons failiure) that harming each other is economically less profitable than engaging in trade, then people KOSing would be stupid. Something like a global economy across all servers, such as a limit on a certain type of gun. That would mean that in the entire game, only, say, 300 Mosins would exist, no more, no less. Once the crafting is in, maybe broken down guns that need to be assembled. So, finding a gun would ensure you that this particular weapon is out of the economy. One possible result of this would be that people would need to band together to protect whatever valuable equipment they found, because an individual with a rare weapon paints a target on themselves. What also should be eliminated is the possibility to store these weapons in limbo, and if a character dies and doesn't recover their stuff in a certain time, re-cycle their stuff back into the global economy. The game is unfinished, and the KOS situation will change depending on the changes made to the gameplay. Killing somebody needs to become more expensive than engaging in communication and trade. Artificial means are bad, so I am looking forward to seeing what the team will do with the gameworld and how the players can interact with it to change the situation. No rules, only the world, and human minds trying to figure how to best cope.

The community's behaviour is a product of emergent gameplay. It comes down to game theory, who benefits when doing something. A: You meet somebody, present yourself and figure out if they are friendly. B: You meet somebody, stay hidden and don't shoot. C: You meet somebody, stay hidden and shoot. In case A, you give up your advantage of surprise, and in a trade you may end up with maybe one or two extra items, possibly none, and maybe a chat. The other person may turn out hostile too, go to C. In case B, if you are not spotted, nobody gains or looses anything. If you are spotted, you are in conflict because of: Case C: You gain all their items, and prevent them from doing harm to you. If you KOS, you do not loose anything apart from bullets. If you get into a fight, you risk dying and loosing your kit. Killing on sight is so common not because people are inherently bad, but because it is the SENSIBLE thing to do, 1v1.

These old training videos are great for familiarizing yourself with map reading. Its all about learning to read terrain features and then triangulating your position from them. The rest is easy. If you have a compass, all you really need is a piece of paper and a pen. If you don't have a compass, the same is true, really. Without both, pen, paper, a clock and the sun are also sufficient. At night, use the stars.

YES Try ittttt.

YES While at it, randomize starting gear and reduce amount of it. Remove backpacks at start. If possible, randomize amount of ammo in magazines found. Basically, make starting out harder than Robinson´s Requiem.

I love the Idea of the crashed military choppers. The concept is great, and maybe in the future, as the loot table expands and possibly, new survival hardships are added, more ways to get ones hands on loot would be cool to have. Basically, my Idea is this: Randomly placed (on roads) wrecked convoys, with bodies and loot around them, as well as Zeds. This could serve to introduce more diverse weaponry (PMCs, USMC, ACR, BAF, etc), as well as other unique loot (Clothing, Backpacks, Vehicles, Tools). Randomly placed individual bodies/vehicle wrecks, with no or few zeds around them, and survival gear loot. Basically people that went into the woods when shit hit the fan, and didn´t make it. Possibly, to add the thrills, use survivor bodies instead of civvies or military, to give the illusion of a bandit ambush. Or maybe it´s a real ambush? Wandering Zeds, small bands of Zombies that move inbetween towns, or just appear randomly in the woods, maybe chasing wildlife. Make living in the woods more dangerous, basically. Angry hogs: Make some of the wildlife defend itself, basically. Just a couple Ideas I had. Hopefully not too annoying/useless. Looking forward to what you think about it. Cheerio Insta

People don´t suddenly get a bright, sand coloured clothing set just because they committed a criminal act in real life. I like the Idea of doing away with rules. The gameplay with make its own rules emerge: right now, because everyone is scared and there is no punishment for it, the law of the land is shoot first, ask questions later, and metagame tons to arrange cooperative play (clans, chatrooms, forums, etc) Technically not wrong. But I agree, right now, the gameplay in itself is boring because it is rather simple: it´s a bit like the early sim city. Once you have a template figured out, you can survive almost indefinitely. All you need is a source of water, and the occasional animal. Forests provide infinite firewood now, and if you stay away from the coast, chances of meeting a player even on a populated server are low. Every time I died was because of accidentially hitting the respawn button, or because I did something supremely stupid. I only got killed by another player once: all other times, I worked together with them. That was prior to the chat being turned off, though. I´m looking forward to what the devs will do next. Maybe make survival more challenging? Make loot more rare? Zombies wandering inbetween towns? I bet there´s much cool stuff in store. I´ve been with Arma so long, I am patient. One year is not really "waiting time" as far as I am concerned: so DayZs development is quite speedy to me. Have patience.

Maybe check if a player is inside a building, and only allow Zeds who are also in the same building to perform their attack successfully. What won´t be fixed is them quantum-warping trough walls, though. That´s been a problem with the game ever since OFP, and seems to be an inherent limitation.

I can do with both, 3rd person on or off. Off is making the game much more tense and immersive, in my opinion. What I hate is the crosshairs. They make ironsights useless, and I prefer them off every day.

With regards to the game, why is this an actual problem again? Or is it just a pet peeve sort of thing...

And so does killing someone. I am putting this thought out here for review by the community, maybe even the devs if it turns out viable enough, and can be implemented in any way. One major reason, in my mind, why people like to shoot each other over at the beach is that there are no consequences to dying, and that there is no stigma attached to killing people. That seems to be a contradictory statement, however, let me explain. Apart from loosing gear, you don´t loose anything when dying. Gear, apart from really high-tier stuff, is quickly recovered. I wouldn´t mind dying right now, and I have pretty rad stuff, lever action rifle, 1911, that kind of stuff. But in general, because people do not value their OWN life, they also don´t waste a second thought on the lives of OTHERS. Conversely, people also completely overvalue what they do get in the game, currently, and use excessive force to preemptively defend themselves. All they get, at best, as a brand is a temporary bandit skin. I know I am not making a lot of sense here, but I hope at least a basic Idea is coming across here. We need more achievements, actually challenging Zombies, maybe some sort of choice of skin for the player (done at will at character generation and kept troughout the game, maybe with a few exceptions for special reasons.), maybe a mechanism for self-generated groups, and a sense of building something. Dying should actually present a serious loss, and killing someone should have some sort of stigma attached beyond a mere skin. My few cents on this. Insta, out

Aside from the NV goggles, that is just guns. Silenced weapons are nifty, granted, but in the end, all guns kill the same. I guess the challenge is gathering all that neat stuff, and keeping it. I don´t really value it so much because I´ve had it over and over in Arma 2, Arma 1 and OFP. I could take a screenshot with NV goggles, SCAR-L w. TWS, Silenced sidearm, satchel charges and a tank as backup: not in the mod, obviously, but the "newness" of actually getting this equipment isn´t quite there for me yet. I value having shitty equipment more, than having good equipment, because it makes the game harder. Except it doesn´t, because wether you have a makarov or a MK-48, Zombies fall over all the same, and they won´t hit you if you just back away at the right moment. Players are the same, if you can get the drop on them. I guess that´s the beauty, though, everyone can play to their own liking. My goal would be mere survival, so I´d like to see the survival simulation enhanced. Give players reason to band together, long term. But, again, this is only my opinion. Opinion´s aren´t worth anything unless they´re held by a majority. I love reading what you guys take from the game, so please, keep it coming. At this dev stage, I imagine any sort of productive discussion can only be healthy and helpful for the development of the mod.

I think the game shapes the player, as much as the players shape the game. At some point, everything runs into a deadlock, where a sort of status quo settles in. The Zombies are not dangerous. Other players are. Surviving alone isn´t challenging enough, so people have a lot of time to spend elsewhere. Most apparently spend it on killing each other. The concept of the mod is great, it just has a few rough edges that need to be taken off. Right now, I don´t see it being enjoyable in the long run. It´s still alpha, though, so everything is still in flux. I´m pretty sure the devs have a couple of aces up their sleeves in the future :>

Some BAF weapons are used in the mod. If you want them high-res, you need that DLC too. Otherwise, PMC. Also if you´re bored, check out www.armaholic.com or something.

To a degree, this is metagaming. If the in-world can´t figure it out, the out-world shouldn´t "cheat" it´s way to a better state of affairs, unless by intervention of the hand of god so to speak. There needs to be some sort of mechanic in-game to facilitate this kind of discourse. Some sort of faction system or something. There are a couple of natural factions existing in-lore, which could be used as bases. Players could volountarily align with those, and found sub-factions (which would actually need the boss-players of that sub-faction to agree with someone joining them.). A clan system. Then it would make sense to have some sort of actual diplomacy. Make the metagame actually part of the game. Sort of what goes on with Eve-online.

Brohoof to that one. Keep making the game better for everyone, good to see people working together and for each other like that :>

True.dat. If the Idea is that the players make the game, however, I think there could at least be ways to make groups and player movements more distinct. Volountary choice of player skin, etc, that kinda thing. I have mil-grade equipment now. I aquired an automatic rifle, ammo, things like that. However, I can get those by just double-clicking in the editor anytime when playing on my own. The kit may be motivation for some, but is that really everything? Any rifle kills the enemy, and wether you have a DMR or a CZ550 doesn´t really matter unless you want to chain-shot a dozen targets at once. Survival is too simplicistic right now. My background in these games are the enhanced Stalker mods, and the Robinson´s Requiem games. In the latter, you had multiple dozens of medications for multiple dozens of ailments, multiple different ways to treat wounds, sprains, broken bones, you had to scavenge and prepare food (or risk getting sick), clean the water you collected, things like that. That may be overkill, to some, but when it comes to this, I am a rivetcounter. I love it being hard, harder, the hardest. The only thing that is hard right now, to me, is not getting killed on the beach by people out to collect spawnee-scalps. I dunno. :V I really like this mod, I´d just love it to really go further still.

COD is a fancy, no depth, atrociously written piece of software. The MP, for fast paced, big-bang gameplay is about the only thing it has going for it. Arma meanwhile is the best game ever to grace the face of the planet. Don´t have to believe me though, I´m just a rabid fanboy since 2001 :I But srsly. Arma is better than any other game ever. And everyone who tried to challenge it wound up with their nose in the dirt. And one reason? Mods. DayZ is probably the greatest example of success trough allowing a community access to the code and composition of a game. It single handedly revived Arma 2 as a franchise, which is a massive, massive success. And it proves again that the sustainment of a game lies with the players and creative individuals willing to put in their own time and effort, and not with the advertising departments of large companies.

Played the game for a long while, didn´t shoot at another survivor once. I keep muzzle discipline, communicate, and if I don´t trust someone, I don´t even show myself. If someone surprises me, though, I´m not gonna take any chances, no matter who you are.

DayZ is basically Stalker crossed with Robinson´s Requiem, except WAY less complex and realistic. Robinson`s Requiem was crazy. My first thought at reading the OP. Reading the rest of threaddd now.

Lolnecrothread. Just want to point this out. Arma 2 simulates material penetration. A brick wall will not necessarily protect you from a heavy round, such as the .303 used by the enfield, or 7.62mm Nato MG rounds. I have seen .50 cals go trough two buildings in a row at times. So unless somebody is hitting you trough multiple walls with a pistol, it´s likely not a glitch at all.

One way to get away from other players is to stay away from the coast. About a kilometer in and you barely meet anyone. And if you do, they usually announce themselves with gunshots or by running really quickly. Inside the towns however, it´s best to move about in a team. Otherwise you need to be super paranoid. Yesterday someone snuck up on me inside a building because I forgot about a couple of ladders outside.