Areos (DayZ)

I feel the fast zombies are scarier than the slower shambling zombies, but the problem is that the limitation of the engine make it impossible for fast zombies to display their strengths over the slow ones. By no means is this the fault of the developers of the mod, but the DayZ zombies have jerky, buggy and almost comical movement mechanics, and then they break to a sudden, 60-mph-to-0 stop where they flail their face and arms around as an attacking animation. It's like you're being attacked by a really, really fast retarded person. For fast zombies to be scary, they need to run in an instinctive straight line to you (which makes them easier to shoot, true, but it's also not realistic for a predatory animal to waste time and energy running all over the place before attacking you), attack you while they're still moving and to possibly hinder your own movement or gun mechanics whilst attacking you. These kind of zombies in real life would be grabbing at your arm or leg and biting into you, scratching and clawing you and overall inhibiting your ability to fight back greatly. Because they'd attack in such a fierce manner, your ability to fight back would be more limited (if it's biting your arm, you can't shoot your gun at it very effectively, and your ability to run away is basically impossible until it detaches itself from you). If this attack doesn't kill you, the 10 other zombies sprinting to you that will grab you, bite you, rip at you and completely mangle and pulverize you to death will. Fast zombies, to me, are scarier because they're a lot more effective at what they're meant to do. The problem is that the mod, due to the limiting engine, cannot convey this ferocity effectively at all.

There's always going to be trolls, and the most you can do is to ignore these posts and focus on the people who are willing to partake in an actual discussion. Replying to the inflammatory, dismissive posts is only going to provoke them to spew their diarrhea further and drive off the people who may actually wish to discuss things with you. If your thread is bombarded with such negative posts, then that's a shame. You'll usually have better success at sparking a discussion if posting within the suggestions board.

Nobody is going to (or rather, shouldn't) dismiss your criticism with "Alpha test is alpha" as long as the criticism you bring forth is constructive and legitimate. How you present your concerns is key to getting others to partake in a meaningful discussion, and the best way to get others to listen to what you have to say is to bring facts to the table and not emotion-driven rambling. You can complain about a singular issue in two different ways and get two different responses from the community based upon your feedback. "I feel this issue needs to be resolved" is a good way to go about it; "this crap is broken, fix it NOW!" is going to get you flamed. Either way, opinions vary and people may get on your case even if you are being calm and constructive. Don't let the trolls get to you, and focus on the objective at hand.

Forgive me if this has already been suggested. I've always felt it was immersion-breaking that you could shoot another player to the point of death and yet all of the items in their inventory would remain untouched. You could put down another player with a rain of lead and then proceed to remove all of the untouched canned foods, ammunition, water bottles, equipment, weapons, etc. despite the fact that their actual body has been reduced to a shredded meatbag. Ballistics, especially high caliber weapons and explosives, should damage or possibly destroy gear on the player, either upon taking damage or upon death. This means that a bandit could potentially damage the very items he was hoping to steal off his victim, or possibly destroy said loot altogether. Those soda cans aren't so useful anymore if a bullet tumbled its way through it, after all. Anything could be damaged or destroyed this way, even more powerful items like primary weapons and equipment items, so there would always be a risk that the silenced weapon you shot a survivor over will be broken beyond repair. Certain items are always destroyed rather than simply damaged, such as canned food, soda cans, flares, chemlights, blood bags, etc. There could be ways to repair certain items if you have the proper tools available. A toolbox, used in conjunction with discarded materials (such as empty cans and scrap metal), could be used to repair damaged metallic items. Items that are destroyed, however, would be beyond possible repairs and thus must be scrapped.

Did you log off while in shock? You'll get a nice ol' hourglass if you log off whilst you're in shock, and combined with bleeding damage means there's a very high chance you'll die if you're not given immediate attention by an allied player.