Target Practice (DayZ)

WUT U TRYIN TO SAY, BOI? -_-

Yeah, I think for 'trauma' injuries, shading the body part a la Fallout is a much better idea - you'll be able to see at-a-glance where the damage is rather than having to spend 30 seconds inspecting your body for the hole and all that red stuff. :D Yeah, I do like the idea of the symptoms and having to actually work out what the problem is - it'll certainly add a new dimension to getting ill, but much of that could be worked without having to go through the 'inspection' process - let's say you're running a fever - your 'temperature' icon will go through the roof. Upset stomach? Without wishing to go into excessive detail, I'm sure there's sounds and animations that could convey that pretty clearly. :p Cold/sneezing? Temperature again, plus a sneezing sound/animation. I feel like I'm picking apart your good idea here, which isn't the case - the actual idea itself is a really solid one - I love the idea of having a 'health' screen and being able to see at-a-glance how your character is feeling, as it's one thing that's immensely difficult to convey accurately to someone without using words and/or text (and even then it's difficult, as highlighted in my previous post).

Excellent post, excellent suggestion. One thing I would argue for is perhaps the doing away of 'text' feedback and replace it with either a visual system (IE similar to the existing one in the mod) or a 'moodlet' system such as the one used in Project Zomboid (which I know Dean's already admitted to being a fan of). The main reason for this is that it's often difficult to accurately portray with words how high on the scale the problem is - for example, one I know is used in the SA pre-alpha at the moment is 'I feel faint'. Now, how serious is that on a scale of 1 to 10? Is it 'I feel faint because I haven't eaten for a while and I'm a bit low on blood sugar' or is it 'I feel faint because this hideous illness I've contracted is rampaging through my system and I'm on the verge of losing consciousness'? As for the suggested system - it feels a bit cumbersome to me, particularly the 'exploring your body to find the bit that's causing the problem'. If I get shot in the leg, I'm pretty sure I'm going to know damn well that I've been shot in the leg - I'm not going to spend much time checking my arms to see where all that blood's coming from. Same with illness - let's say I've got the galloping squits from eating something - whilst I might well have a fever, the main issue I'm going to be reporting is the fact my stomach is doing somersaults and I've had to tuck my trousers into my socks. I don't have to spend any time working that out - I know that because it's the message my body's sending to my brain: 'Heads up buddy, best you find some toilet roll toot sweet.'

I also have a Sidewinder X4, and it's perfect for what I use it for - mainly gaming with a bit of typing/wall-o-text posting on forums - it's not going to blow away a mechanical keyboard or dazzle you with pretty design, but I've had mine a year now and not had so much of a hint of a problem - there's even a few macro keys if that's your thing. EDIT: Seems like it's been discontinued, though - can't seem to find anyone stocking it anywhere.

If you didn't know by now that they've been trying to lock the Alpha for public release, I have no idea where you've been hanging out the past two months or so. :-/

With regards to military camps etc, I think it's all relative - if there's twice as many military camps, but only half the loot, the amount of loot floating round will still be the same, it'll just be spread out a bit better (meaning you don't HAVE to go to Stary or NWAF if you want anything better than a Lee Enfield). Not saying that'll be the case, but it would make sense. EDIT: Let's also not forget that arguably the biggest sources of military loot (Heli crash sites) aren't in the game at the moment, and I don't know if they're even planned.

I wouldn't read too much into it. The presence of servers doesn't necessarily mean they're ready to release the Alpha, it more likely means that they're at a point where they want to ship a few test builds out to server hosting companies to check for any potential issues and to see how they run. Just because there's a bunch out there doesn't mean that they're planning on using them all tomorrow.

In a fairly unusual case, Dgeesio's not alone here - a lot of players simply aren't comfortable with admins having that level of information - more often than not, admins and/or their buddies play on the servers they own, and it doesn't take a genius to see the potential for a conflict of interests there. Yes, the majority of admins would never use something like that to their advantage, but there's a not insignificant number who have done so in the past and continue to do so. The fact is, a good admin who knows their stuff doesn't need live player tracking, so if there's no real need for something which can be (and has been) abused, players will understandably be wary of anyone who chooses to use that tool, no matter how good their intentions are.

I highly doubt that you'll be able to just instantly cuff someone without them having 1) any idea of what you're doing and 2) some way of resisting/avoiding it should they choose to. The most likely scenario is that it's going to be used by robbers to ensure that their victim doesn't suddenly take off/pull a weapon while they're busy robbing, so one would assume that the victim would be complicit in having the handcuffs attached, because the alternative is getting shot.

Erm... 95% of buildings are enterable, even in the SA's current pre-Alpha state, so I don't really get what you're driving at there. How can we possibly know whether everything in the SA is modelled already? It could very well be, but may not be implemented yet as the coding behind it isn't ready yet - there's a whole bunch of stuff at the moment that serves no purpose because the features that require it haven't been implemented in the code - water purification, antibiotics, cooking pots are all included in the current build, yet serve no existing purpose. What counts is that the handcuffing/restraining code is in and mostly working, so the handcuff models are in and are usable. Your point regarding 'one working gun' leads me to believe that we have different understandings and expectations of the state of the Alpha - the M4A1 is in there and has attachments presumably so they had something to test the 'attachments' mechanic with, Once they'd done that, presumably they decided that the mechanic was working, and they could move the coders onto something else. In its current state, the aim of the Alpha isn't to give players a rich gaming experience full of variety and intrigue, it's to make sure basic mechanics within the game are in place and (roughly) doing what they should be - the padding comes later. I'm not a developer, nor am I particularly clued up on the development process, but I would assume that making new weapons and attachments isn't something that can be done just by the designers/modellers due to the ways different weapons operate, damage variances, gameplay balance issues etc, whereas adding masks and cosmetic items is, and rather than having them sitting around twiddling their thumbs, if you can get cosmetic items in nice and early, so much the better.

Yeah, but people are into S&M, and someone's already posted in this thread that Payday 2 masks were given away as part of a special edition of the game. Look, if you don't like them in the game, that's one thing, and you're entitled to your own opinions and feelings. However, right now it looks like your point is essentially 'I don't like these items, so I'm going to blame their inclusion on the fact that the SA Alpha isn't out already.' I'm not sure how much of the SA you've seen through various streams and whatnot, but the map has had a shitload of work done to it - almost every major town/city has entirely new areas. Pretty much EVERY building is enterable. Zombies have been overhauled. There's an entirely new system of clothing. Weapons are customisable now. But yeah, you're right, I'm sure they probably spent most of their time doing those handcuffs.

It's not as bad as it sounds, Bladder. :) From what I've seen and head, it seems like there are issues that will need to be fixed, but barring any wholesale changes, you won't have to worry about hyperspeed zig-zagging zombies that are impossible to hit.

I believe there is currently a punching ability already in the SA.

Amen, brother. Amen. Sadly, you're asking for a rational response from a group that has frequently acted like spoiled children, so I don't hold out much hope. However, know that for every entitled whiner than complains about a single feature/item they don't like or that they're not getting their own way, there are ten players who are patiently waiting and understand that these things take time.

In b4 "OMG THIS REMOVES IMMERSION WTF BAN DAYZ"

No, I think the point was 'if you don't know what you're talking about, you're better off staying quiet' - if the OP had taken your advice, he'd have bought a new computer or have a repair bill for absolutely no reason whatsoever. We'd all like to help where we can, but bad advice is worse than no advice at all.

Turn off gamebooster. Uninstall it, then burn your hard drive just to be sure. Nuke that horrible, useless pile of crap. Even if it isn't responsible for this specific problem, it's a terrible piece of software that causes more problems than it solves. (I'm not a fan, in case you were wondering. :p)

You might be better off filing a bug report with Josh over at the DayZCommander forums. He wrote the program, so he's far more likely to be able to help you than any of us.

orLoK's nailed it here. This outrage is based on what - a brief appearance of a single mask in a video where Rocket was talking about how the SA is progressing? Many (if not all) of the people who are up in arms are complaining about an item they've seen once in a video of the Alpha of a game they've not played. For all we know, that could be the only one in existence - it might not even make it into the final product. Let's not forget that game developers are human beings too - they have a sense of humour, they like to put their own personal touch on things and to put shout-outs to stuff that they enjoy. If you don't like that, perhaps you need to lighten up a little and remember that you're playing a game designed to entertain people.

I would imagine once it becomes 'public' and any joe can buy it on Steam, you'll be able to do whatever you like (within reason of course!) - as I understand things at the moment, those lucky few who are testing the pre-alpha builds are under NDAs.

1. That depends on your motherboard, although most mobos now have a headphone jack. If not, just get a USB headset. 2. Assuming your motherboard has an ethernet port on it (pretty much all of them do these days), you can connect with a direct line to your modem/router. If you're wanting to get wi-fi, you'll need either a wireless card, a USB plugin adapter or a motherboard with built-in WiFi. 3. Depends if you want to cook your CPU or not. Most CPUs will come with a 'stock' cooler that's alright but nothing special. Remember that heat kills components, so it might be worth the investment in a slightly better CPU cooler. 4. If you don't know what you're doing, no. You run a very real risk of damaging your hardware, and in many cases, benefits aren't that great anyway. The guy that said 'you get an average 10fps increase' from overclocking is talking rubbish. 5. Depends on your case - in a large, roomy case they're probably not essential - in a small, cramped case, they're pretty much mandatory. They're not expensive though, and as discussed above, heat kills components, so better to have them than not.

I swear, if one more person tries the 'well X wasn't in The Walking Dead, so why would it be in DayZ' argument, I think I'm going to have an aneurysm. DAYZ HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE WALKING DEAD. It's not an official TWD product, and therefore (strangely enough) there's a chance that stuff might pop up that isn't seen in TWD. Who'da thunk it? I don't particularly like TWD as a tv show, but I understand that millions do - what irritates me is that a not insignificant percentage of those people now see it as the holy grail of all zombie-related media and anything that wouldn't belong in that universe apparently shouldn't belong in any universe with zombies in.

The 'lean' feature (assuming they haven't removed it) would cover the peeking side of things anyway - and as Enforcer pointed out, pressing yourself against a wall with a giant-ass backpack on isn't going to be particularly easy or practical. :p It's one of those things that I'd file under 'sure, nice if it happened' but I'm not actually all that excited about seeing, and there's almost literally hundreds of things I'd want to see in the game before it.

Dying is learning! Back in the 'good old days' before some of the crazier bugs were squashed, I saw people killed by stepping on rocks, launched 200ft in the air by running along the harbour wall, and breaking both their legs trying to put on a ghillie suit. :p

DayZ meets Kerbal Space Program. :)