_Anubis_ (DayZ)

Cheating is too strong a word but of course you get an advantage if you use TS/Skype/.. over Direct Comm chat because Z do not react to that, which is *unfair* toward players using DC and sticking to vanilla. We may debate forever but I would simply remove the Z aggro in the game due to speaking and level the playfield.It is a game after all. _Anubis_

Ah yes... When you reach Olsha or even North of it is really like that. Not even loot spawn there :( _Anubis_

IMHO Daizy is good for training, but not for playing. If you use for training, you may end up with multiple engagement with several bandits, with different weapons. They do not aggro Z but you do, so you have a firefight with the handicap of being chased by tons of Z as you noted. Fire-Move pattern The variety of weapons coupled with moving targets is also good, especially for long-range engagement with assault rifles: you can learn quite a bit. However, the reaction time of the bandits is rather high, real "players" are way quicker. The spawn system has been changed, now bandits spawn around you wherever you are, but never close (300 m or so), much better. _Anubis_

Hello here Lok, As I tried to point out in my previous posts people who have *already* Arma2 can enjoy dayz mod without generating a single USD/EUR of revenue to BIS. And if there will be an official or un-official porting of dayz to Arma3, the same can happen with a better engine (Arma3). If I buy arma3 today, it is only the game engine I purchase, not dayz because there is no dayz available. Will all those people, who have already Arma2 and/or Arma3 purchase SA as well giving *more* revenue to BIS? Maybe yes, maybe not. The more alternatives they have the lower the probability, that's basic math. _Anubis_

So you are saying that BIS is happy to not sell more copies of SA and would like people to download instead a free mod !!?? Where do you think BIS gets money to pay its employees (including Rocket) ? Sorry for asking, maybe it is due to that, but do you work for a living?That changes the perspective a lot... _Anubis_

Nope. It matters a lot to them... It is about the money they could make: dayz freeware mod on arma2: zero revenue if someone owns already arma2, otherwise revenue for an arma2 CO license dayz freeware mod on arma3: zero revenue if someone owns already arma3, otherwise revenue for an arma3 license SA payware: revenue for one license of SA, ON TOP OF any arma2/arma3 sales So BIS may get more or less money (*zero* money in some cases!) depending on what is or will be available on the market. Now think a little bit whether BIS would like to end up in a situation where they can get more money or less money and what they will choose. It is all about maximizing ROI, just like making a port of SA to console. More sales (more $$$). _Anubis_

SA and dayz mod are obviously similar in concept, gameplay and structure, so one does not need Einsten IQ to sense a competition (especially taking in account dayz is free but SA is not). dayz is a mod of an engine. It is based on Arma2 but it could be ported to Arma3 (see Wasteland). Arma3 is a newer and better engine hence the dayz mod could benefit of this. So the more options are there on the market to have similar games (dayz on arma2, dayz on arma3, SA) the more people will choose and buy one or the other (if one can afford all, godd for him of course), it is called fragmentation. No supplier likes fragmentation, it reduces revenues. _Anubis_

There are zillions of in-game & out-game (e.g. TS or skype) features which can be exploited to gain advantages to oneself or the clan, e.g.: - nametags which allows to detect players hidden - 3d view to see behind walls - chat to inform friends about that sniper location after being killed - spawning and go looting your own body - telling your friends where you dead body is so they can loot it - duping items - using Alt-F4 ... Some are worse than others, but all share the basic concept that "if I do that I will have an edge over players *not doing that*" . Simple enough. _Anubis_

It is not about controls but amount of RAM, CPU and GPU. A console version will be far more limited. _Anubis_

Get a second backpack, pack all the good gear there, hide the backpack N of Olsha and start over again... _Anubis_

Have you tried to disable the internal card card via Control Panel -> System -> Devices (os level, not bios) ? Are both cards listed there (no yellow quextion mark etc)? With an NVDIA you should have its separate control panel running, does it work? If you use a tool such GPU-Z what does it report? _Anubis_

Okay, first of all I am not a bandit, I play Lone Wolf, avoid PvP and tend to help people if I can. "Why this moron is posting here then?" - you may ask. Because I have reached the conclusion bandits are a good thing in dayz. It is like an eco-system and predators are needed (Z are not a threat at all), but much more important, bandits add adrenaline. Yesterday evening I was playing dayz: my avatar was running to NWAF armed with a Lee-Enfield, it was night but the moon was out, so visibility was acceptable. I was almost there (SE corner) when 2 players get out of the trees, the first one has an M107, the second wears a Ghillie and has an assault rifle... They run sideways in front of me maybe 150 meters away, I drop to the ground but I am in the open. I highly doubt they are friendly. The first one keeps running but the second stops. Shit. They move forward, then they split in opposite directions and start to look for me. I keep the ghillie man (closer) in view, heart pounding. F*uck I know I will die but who cares. 70m, 50 m, 20m, 5m ... The ghillie man passes by, he has missed me but he will soon turn back and there is still the sniper somewhere. I decide to shoot: first miss, damn the slow L-E reload, fire again, the ghillie man goes down but he isn't dead. Fire again, now the sniper has finally spotted me and with an M107 one hit is enough. Damn. So close. I chat a bit with the 2 guys: "so at the end you saw me..." "Not immediately.." "Were you hostile? I started to shoot when I saw you coming towards me." "Yes, we are bandits" "Fair enough." So it was fun, pure adrenaline for maybe 30 seconds. That's one of the reasons why I love dayz so much, even ifI will never be a bandit. _Anubis_

I believe there should be far more emphasys on long-term character development, that is perks/capabilities you get by performing certain actions. Reasons: 1) As dayz is now, perma-death means utterly nothing. If I die due to PvE (not anymore happening since months...) I simply re-spawn, run back and loot my corpse. If I die due to PvP, it happens now only if I am in the first 2-3 hours of gameplay so I loose almost nothing if I die: honestly I do not even care, it is the stage where I am raiding Cherno or Elektro because I am too lazy to run up to Berezino, and even being careless, I survive 19 times out of 20, certain snipers suck big time... 2) There are zero incentives to survive on the long-term. The character can either evolve further in either a hero or a bandit, but nothing more. Humanity is the only player attribute that records some history/experience and has some relevance 3) End-game status (full tools/gear/food/nice survival spot close to game/water source and recessed location) is reached in 2-4 hours. It was 1-2 hours before 1.7.6 because deer stands could spawn military weapons, now it takes a little bit longer. Then the Zombie apocalypse is over. As consequence, no wonder people resort to player to player interaction to "do something": there are different forms: hunting/KoS/banditing, helping/being an hero, clans and teams... Either way killing or being killed has little or no incentive at the end: we do not value our avatars beyond the gear, which can quickly and easily be recovered or renewed, nor we value another one (except for his rare NVG or AS-50 maybe, which can be lost 5 minutes later anyway). How to give more depth to the game and give more value to players (both for themselves and for others)? To me the answer is simple: perks coming from experience and experience coming from repeating actions over and over. Examples (it seems to me the SA is moving into that direction): - by hunting and gutting you should be able to get way more meat compared to a noob and be able to eat raw meat with lesser chances of infections: that would make you more valuable to others as a skilled hunter and more resilient and able to survive. - by healing/bandaging you should be more proficient in applying/using bandages: so you could apply a bandage more quickly (less blood lost) or the bandage could be more durable (if a bandage has to be replaced over time until the wound is fully healed) and so on. Again you would be more useful to others and to yourself. Those are simple examples but I think you get the concept: same for repairing/fixing things (you need to gain xp in fixing, say, a car before fixing an helo and so on), maintaining/upgrading weapons (armorer skills), using water, switching weapons (slower/faster), re-gen health from food, running (faster/slower) etc etc. In this way your character will evolve, grow, get better as time goes by: by doing something, not merely sitting behind a pine-tree. This could be a great incentive to team-playing and accept/be accepted as new member in an existing team: the system should be structured in such a way it should be very difficult to be a jack-of-all-trades, so people would specialize naturally. This should give more value to each player (including ourselves) and maybe reduce casual killing and tea-bagging as a mere nuisance. Players would still kill each others of course, but more out of necessity, or fear, just like it would be in an apocalypse scenario. _Anubis_

It provides an advantage over using the built-in chat in direct-comm mode because Z will react to direct chat and not to TS/skype/... Solution to avoid any problem: level the playfield and make Z not react to direct-comm (the feature is borked anyway) and just pretend TS/skype is a radio. _Anubis_ I play FSX multiplayer and there is a nice application called FSHost that links the aircraft radio frequencies to different TS rooms, food for thought for the SA..

Your comment is interesting for at least 2 reasons: 1. you are automatically considering ways to avoid/move around the perma-death concept (get back gear and -if possible- skills), which is natural, I would also try to loot my body, but we should all keep in mind we are cheating a little bit by doing that... 2. Dying for stupid reasons (a Z glitching, leg broken vaulting, touch a branch and the car goes ka-boom, ...) is considered an "unfair" way of dying and therefore upsetting. Makes sense of course. But those 2 things are related. dayz is still ridden by bugs and therefore there are "unfair" ways of dying and therefore we kind of accept to cheat perma-death and do things like loot ourselves. Would that still be acceptable with a polished game? Clearly it is not in the concept of Dean. I am assum8ng dayz and SA will improve as time goes by. _Anubis_

Nope. I was meaning getting more raw meat from a given animal and suffer less from infections eating raw meat. Re-gen health from food is linked to have a kind of progressive re-gen as opposed to 'insta-ok' by eating 5 cans in a row. An experienced/hardened player could re-gen quicker (not getting more health by the same amount of food, but getting back health more quickly). _Anubis_

About combat-roll/V: I can do it several times in a row, just press it lightly, even after short interval (e.g. 5 seconds) from the previous one. What I have seen however is that (depending on the server, so I guess it is ping-related) I can do a combat roll very easily on some servers whereas on others the player 99% of the times stops and vaults. Maybe it is lag. _Anubis_

Interesting debate here. I tend to favor high-capacity side-arms (G-17/Beretta) over the more powerful M1911 and revolver because ... I do not trust my aim too much (a PDW would be even better in dire straits/CQB) with a side-arm. A big magazine means not only a longer interval between reloading (and that may save your bacon) but also more ammo available for the same number of equipment slots (ideally 4 bandages and 4 magazines), so more efficient. And yes, I "like" the M1911 sights more than the toy-thing of the G-17. _Anubis_

OT - Isn't your bitmap the old "Carmaggedon" one? _Anubis_

I discard the Makarov not because of any technical reason but simply because I do not like it from an aesthetic point of view (yes I know it may be silly). Nothing wrong with the G17 or the Beretta, on the contrary those are preferred back-up weapons (after the PDW). Sometimes I think the SA should introduce some more side-arm such as the Desert Eagle and/or Sig-Sauer models, but that's another issue. _Anubis_

Server dependent from my experience in terms of frequency and locations. One day I was near Mogilevka and I saw 3 of them in quick succession (private server). _Anubis_

I play LW mostly because I can't spend a lot of time playing and/or I may need to log-out for 5 minutes to do something: with a team you must be able to ensure some reliability to be efficient. However, I can team up occasionally with people (mostly to help) - even if the KoS danger is always there, so I tend to avoid contacts and watch from a distance. _Anubis_

This "outside the game/unfair advantage" concept doesn't make much sense... So: - if I look at an online chernarus map (I do not even pick up the in-game one anymore) is it cheating? - if I use my HOTAS Saitek controller/rudder (the same I use in FSX) to control an helicopter is it cheating? - if I use a mic is it an unfair thing because not everybody has a mic? - if I use trackir to look around is it cheating because other people have to use freelook instead? - if I speak using teamspeak instead of side chat, is it cheating? ... Sorry but it sounds a little bit too anal to me. Please let everybody play as they like, as long as they do not cheat by using hacks or exploit design weaknesses (e.g. duping items or giving themselves blood transfusion, which now has been fixed). Edit: one argument of side-chat vs. TS is the following: If I speak (e.g.) in direct comm nearby Z can hear me and react. If I speak using TS this does not happen of course. So clearly there is a tactical advantage of using TS over built-in voice chat. Personally I consider this a design flaw of dayz however. _Anubis_

In Europe where I live there are plenty of private servers which are vanilla or almost vanilla (e.g. a Makarov, which I discard since I dislike it anyway). The problem is vehicles however: a little bit too many sometimes. _Anubis_

Back to 1.7.4.4 times my character had survived a couple of weeks just to ... miss the ladder of a Deer Stand and break the leg. At that time I was so dumb to not understand the value of morphine so I han't any. Unable to walk and too far away from hospital to consider crawling, I started to shoot to attract nearby Z and waited. Now I do not play anymore a single character, I like instead having several, each one on a different private server. At this time I have 16 of them, all fully geared and roaming Chernarus (a couple of those even visited Olsha, forsaken and derelict place..) - no idea about their life duration, I do not track it anymore. _Anubis_