Target Practice (DayZ)

This came to me earlier - in a situation that I feel reflects the loot balancing issues with the mod rather perfectly at the moment, I'd ended up in a situation where I had two high-grade military assault weapons but couldn't find a wood axe for the life of me, so I couldn't make a fire to boil water and stay alive, but I could quite happily hose down as many players as I felt like. Anyway, point is, whilst working my way through one of the small collections of houses between towns, I stumbled across a house with a woodpile built into the back of it. A huge-ass stack of wood just sat there doing nothing. But I couldn't interact with it in any way, and that felt like a real missed opportunity. A similar example would be the 'axe stuck in the tree stump' object that I'm sure we've all seen from time to time and thought 'man, I could really use that axe right now'. Is there a reason we can't? I have no idea how possible this is - I would assume that 'house' objects are just pre-made and therefore the ability to interact with specific parts of them is pretty limited, but for me this would be a really nice touch if it was possible - there's nothing more immersion-breaking in a game than seeing something that you need that's been put in the game world, but because no-one thought to make it usable, you can't actually take it or use it.

Yeah, but they weren't aggroed - that's the thing. They were just walking normally.

Had an interesting little glitch last night, I would have taken a screenshot, but it was the middle of the night, so any shots I'd have taken wouldn't have been clear enough to be of any use. Long story short, I ended up low on blood in the Berezino area and put out a call for a blood buddy. Someone came, and we ended up bumping into another couple of friendlies at the warehouses in the Berezino Docks area. We exchanged blood bags, traded some excess stuff away and then went our separate ways. As I went to cross the road back to Berezino, there was a HUGE conga line of zombies just walking along one side of the road. I've never ever seen anything like it before - they were all un-aggroed, just in their idle walking/crawling/loping animations, but all walking in exactly the same direction up the coast road towards Khelm/NEAF direction. It was too dark to get a proper headcount (plus I was trying to look for a break in traffic to cross the road!), but I waited for over 5 minutes, and there didn't appear to be any end to the line when I finally found a big enough gap to creep through - I'd estimate well over 40 passed me before I got through - one of the other guys reported the same thing a little further down the road. It was pretty awesome to see, actually - like some kind of horde wandering round, it's just behaviour I've never ever seen (or heard of) before.

Dude, chill out. I'm not attacking you, no need to get your back up. I'm just pointing out why it might be kind of tricky to do even on a server-to-server basis, and a few situations where it's not quite as black and white as you seem to think.

Yeah, my only worry is that I'm assuming houses are classed as one 'object', and that presumably the woodpiles next to them are considered part of that object, so it depends if it's possible for only a specific 'part' of an object to be interactive (IE, you don't want players to get the option to 'take wood' when they walk past the front door of the house in question).

Well, I was thinking just use the same method they use for chopping wood near trees. Once you get near a wood pile, the 'take wood' option appears, you middle-click and the wood appears in your inventory. No need to access the gear menu, and since people rarely ever need more than one pile of wood at a time and it's only used for fires, it's not like there'd be any real drawback to having it as an infinite wood generator. :p

Not to be an ass, and I freely admit I don't care for the mods of a mod, but I've actually not heard of it, whereas I'm at least aware of the stuff like Origins and Epoch, so I'm not sure it's quite as popular as you think. Either way, I don't have a problem with it in theory, and I understand that you're saying it's not a 'blanket' thing, I'm just pointing out that it's going to be nigh-unenforceable. No matter what you put in place, people will find a way round it, either because they want a tactical advantage, or because they just want to be able to gas with their friends whilst playing the game. I play BF3 with a small gang of guys, and regularly we'll all be in the same Teamspeak with some playing BF3, some playing DayZ and some playing Payday 2 - there's no tactical advantage to what we're doing there, no rules are being broken, so how are you going to differentiate between that situation and the one of a clan of guys all working together in in-game silence thanks to Teamspeak?

Good point, well made. Not that it stops most idiots these days, though. :-/

Yeah, what you've experienced seems normal to me. Well, actually it doesn't, as you seem to be finding a hell of a lot more vehicles than I've ever seen, but as far as zombie frequency and location goes, yeah that's about par for the course. DayZ is a very different kind of game to what you may have been expecting. It's very rare indeed for an experienced player to feel the need to use firearms on zombies, because all that does is attract more zombies, and there are probably going to be more zombies than you have bullets, so unless you've got a GOOD escape plan, put that itchy trigger finger to one side. You'll soon learn that the best tactic is to avoid confrontation and that this is best achieved by slow, steady progress, which means crawling through any area with more than a handful of zombies - you're going to get it wrong a few times, and you're going to die horribly more than a few times. That's part of DayZ's learning curve - it's not a hand-holding kind of game, and if you fuck up, it will happily kick you in the nuts as punishment.

As others have said before - it's just not enforceable, even if it's technically possible. At the end of the day, it's a game, and people like to play games with their friends. When I use TS to play with my friend, 90% of the time we're not even talking about DayZ - we're just gabbing on about real life stuff. Whilst there is also a tactical advantage to using TS, it's not an enormous one - it's unlikely to be the sole deciding factor in someone getting killed or not. The sacrifices and hurdles that would be created in order to even try and implement something like this simply aren't worth the negligible benefit it would have on gameplay.

I never said it was. 'Fair' was probably a poor choice of words on my part in this context. How can he be anything but surprised if he's killed for breaking rules you didn't tell him about?! I have a feeling we'll just end up going in circles with this one, so I'll just leave this thread be. Most of your points make sense, I just fail to see how you can punish someone for breaking rules they're not told about or disobeying instructions you don't give. People aren't psychic, and they do unpredictable things. Perhaps that's something you need to consider when looking at/writing your rules. :) Peace out.

Mercules nailed it for me. YOU were the one following him. YOU had the chance to make your intentions clear, but didn't. He therefore made a reasonable deduction that you weren't friendly, and decided to try his luck running rather than staying still and probably being shot. Sorry buddy, but in that situation, I'd hold you just as accountable for his death as him. That's not to say what you did was wrong, but I just don't think you can justify what you did as 'giving him a fair chance'.

But if he hadn't seen you, how could he know how long you'd been following him? For all he knew, you could have just stumbled out of a nearby bush three seconds ago or been following him for twenty minutes. Like I said, most of the stuff you said I agree with, but I just don't agree with shooting unarmed players in the back for doing nothing wrong. The guy made two mistakes - one, he let himself get followed for what I'm assuming is a reasonable amount of time, and two, he incorrectly (albeit understandably) mistook you for a KoS player. Which, as it turns out is how you acted anyway. If you'd told him to stop or you'd shoot and he ran anyway, fair deal - he disobeyed an instruction from a guy with a gun, and he'll get what's coming to him. However, you didn't say a word, so how the hell is he supposed to know that you won't shoot him if he just stays still and says hi? It's not like that's a particularly smart move against most players wearing a bandit skin - they'll just use that extra time to line up and pop you in the head to save themselves a few rounds. I'm not trying to come across as criticising you for being a bandit or for shooting players. What I'm trying to get across is that you can't really justify killing someone for breaking a rule you haven't told them about. It'd be like if Fraggle just came in here and banned you for breaking a rule about having a picture of a big cat in your signature. Whilst you obviously broke the rule, how could you have possibly known about it before he told you he was banning you for it?

Whilst I agree with a lot of what you're saying, your example of the guy who ran away doesn't make much sense to me. Let's be honest here - it's now the sad state of the mod where more often than not, a guy in a bandit skin isn't a bandit. He's an idiot who found a gun and ran round Elektro blasting anything that moves - he's not interested in anything other than shooting other players just because he can. Now, as an unarmed player, when I realise a bandit-skinned player has deliberately followed me and doesn't appear to be actively trying to rob me, my first reaction is going to be a cointoss. If he's got me bang to rights and I know there's no possible chance I can lose him, I'll try and talk to him, see what he wants. If I think there's a chance that I can get away and possibly lose him in houses/trees, then I'll try that. It's the way of the world now, and any guy in a bandit skin who isn't trying to communicate is going to be presumed hostile. You didn't get that skin by hugging lots of kittens, after all. Maybe you didn't tell the story right and I missed a key detail or something, but I don't see how what this unarmed player did made him a threat to you. He wasn't armed, so he couldn't possibly hurt you, you didn't state that you'd told him not to move, so he wasn't breaking your rules. All he did was the first thing a lot of players would do on seeing a non-communicative bandit right behind him - ran like hell to get away from someone he figured was about to try and kill him. I'm not a bandit player - I'm not really a hero player either, I just kind of survive. I don't have a problem with bandits, I think that without them, DayZ would be a hell of a lot less interesting. I even don't mind KoS players in extreme moderation (goes without saying that current levels are so far past that line that it's barely even visible), and I actually agree with a lot of what you're saying - it irks me no end to see idiots bitching about being shot when they tried to fight their way out of a situation they had no hope of winning when staying calm would have seen them walk away with their life, if maybe a little lighter on gear. I just don't see where you can justify shooting an unarmed player in the back as they run away from someone who they can reasonably assume is going to try and kill them.

I think you nailed it in your initial post - whilst it's nice if it's there. it's not a dealbreaker if it isn't. Indie gaming in recent years has put to bed the myth that appearances really matter when it comes to games, and if the core gameplay is good enough, players are willing to look past a fugly UI. One game that I felt got this better than most was Dead Space - the UI was functional, slick and never really took you 'out' of the game. Obviously they can handwave the holo-menus because it's 'the future' and it we expect advanced technology, whereas that sort of thing would be more than a little out of place in DayZ. I have to say though, I'm a big fan of immersive UIs, where I can save/quit/fiddle with my inventory without ever having to break that willing suspension of disbelief. I do think that's one thing that the games industry as a whole could look at improving.

I do see what you're saying, but there's a lot of difference between mounting a KORD or a PKM or something like that on the foredeck of a fishing vessel and turning a boat into a 'sea base' which was the original suggestion. Even something as simple as a sandbag wall could drastically alter the balance and stability of a vessel if put in the wrong place. I do agree that perhaps a little more freedom in being able to at least walk around on the deck of boats would be an improvement, but I think technical limitations would prevent being able to go below decks and into the hold etc. To be honest, the vessels in ARMA 2 aren't really big enough to have anything worth having below deck anyway, so unless they're planning on adding larger seagoing vessels like supply boats and/or commercial fishing boats, then there's not really much point giving us the ability to go below deck. One thing I am intrigued to know though - what exactly is the point of having a 'sea base'? Perhaps I've not been playing on the right servers, but generally I've not seen many times in DayZ where someone has actually set up a 'base'. I know most people will have a 'hiding place' where they'll pitch a tent and hide their car/heli, but I've not really ever seen someone log in with the express intention of holding a specific area for an indeterminate amount of time, so I'm not really sure what the point of adding a specific 'sea' alternative is.

Couple of points - fishing vessels, even the small ones that are already in the mod are absolutely capable of going on the 'high seas' (I don't think anyone nautical has actually used that term for a long time. :p). They're designed to cope with terrible weather, because when you're three days from land and a storm blows over, you don't have much choice. :p That's why they're generally pretty slow - they're built for stability and endurance. Sure, you'd probably still get sick as a dog on one in bad weather (and sea sickness in itself can actually be life-threatening if severe enough - mainly through dehydration, I believe). The second point is regards modifying boats (I think the example used was to mount a gun on one and use it like a tank) - stability on boats is a huge deal, and I can't off the top of my head think of anything you could do to make a boat more likely to capsize than by mounting a giant-ass heavy gun to the top of one. I'm no marine engineer, but I know a little about stability, and doing something like that would change the centre of gravity so much that a small wave could easily turn the thing over. Generally, any extensive additions to the superstructure of a vessel (ie anything built on or above the main deck) is going to add weight, and the more weight you have on the top of the vessel, the easier it is for that weight to get knocked off-centre and pull the whole thing over. There's a lot more to it than that, but long story short: modifying the kind of boats likely to be found in the DayZ universe to serve as bases: fairly unrealistic.

You know what, I joined this thread expecting some kind of terrible half-troll, but this is a genuinely good idea with some potential mileage, so I apologies KoS for judging your post before reading. :P My one concern is that as good a system as this could be, it's going to cause a big ramp-up in the frustration factor when you do get randomly killed by a KoS player - if you've just spend multiple hours (I do feel 8 is a little extreme) getting yourself to a point where you're in a position to be able to start doing what you like rather than just trying to stay alive, then you get shot in the face by some sup3r-pr0 snypah for being unlucky enough to walk round the wrong corner, that's a LOT of time you've just had thrown down the toilet. I know DayZ isn't a gentle hand-holding kind of game, and I know that you want to encourage survival, but on the same note, you don't want to give the player reasons to say 'fuck it, I'm not going to spend another 8 hours doing all that just so I can die instantly again' and quit - however, some aspect of this could be used with the DESPERATELY needed reduction of ammo/weapons, and would probably work very well at reducing the effectiveness of the current KoS 'spawn, run to military loot, run and gun, die, repeat' playstyle.

Okay, some of you will recognise the format of this from such excellent entertainment as Skippy's list and 'Things Mr Welch is no longer allowed to do in an RPG'. During a bored moment, I figured that DayZ would probably see some mileage from a list like this too - so, without further ado: Things I am not allowed to do in DayZ any more: 1: Playing the ‘Benny Hill’ theme while I do it does not justify running round Elektro firing my Lee Enfield rifle. 2: ‘Buzzing’ newbies in a Huey on the Cherno to Elektro road is best done when my teammates are not sat in said Huey screaming for their lives. 3: If I start singing ‘Kum Ba Yah’ one more time when someone lights a campfire, I will be shot and left for dead. 4: Wearing a Ghillie Suit does not entitle me to communicate in Wookie over TeamSpeak. 5: Whilst my commitment to recycling is admirable, there are no recycling centres on Chernarus, so I can stop holding the party up to collect tin cans. 6: The Coyote backpack is NOT the reason we don’t see any Coyotes around Chernarus. 7: Likewise, the British Assault Pack does NOT contain brass knuckles and a top hat. 8: I am limited to a maximum of two Ron Burgundy quotes per play session. 9: I am not allowed to shoot other players for their morphine ‘because I need a fix, man’. 10: No matter how many times I try, we are never going to ‘get wicked sweet airtime’ in the bus. 11: Humming the ‘Smokey and the Bandit’ theme when approaching the Northwest airfield does not help anybody’s nerves, no matter how loud I do it. 12: If I don’t hit the rabbit with the first box of M249 ammo, we should probably just cut our losses and move on. 13: The AS50 is no longer to be used for opening tins of beans. This goes double when someone else is holding them. 14: No matter how close I try to get, that zombie in the white shirt and beret does NOT look like Jamie Hyneman from Mythbusters. 15: Chernogorsk is not Russian for ‘Whale’s Vagina’. Also, see item 8. 16: ‘Taking the sniper out’ does not mean inviting him for dinner over side chat. 17: We are all aware of the effect a baked bean and sardine-heavy diet will have on the digestive system, and no more will be said on the matter. 18: I am to stop asking new players where Thumper is and telling them that I’m sorry about their mother. 19: I am to stop screaming ‘Airwooooolfffffff, nooooooo!’ at Heli Crash sites. 20: Holding up other players is acceptable. Interrogating them ‘Jack Bauer style’ is not. 21: Our hero group’s motto does not mean “Cannon Fodder” in latin. 22: Landing a helicopter on a hospital roof is impressive. Landing it on a lighthouse is showing off. 23: No matter how many times I think I shot it, satchel charges on a goat is overkill. 24: Double-tapping with the AS50 is unnecessary. 25: Just because the Lee Enfield is nicknamed the ‘dinner bell’ doesn’t mean I have to fire it in the air every time we stop to eat. 26: The Winchester does not shoot slices of fried gold. 27: ‘Zombie Wizards’ is not an acceptable explanation for why the Huey I was left in charge of is now upside-down and on fire. 28: Just because the road signs are in Russian does not mean that I have to speak with a Russian accent. 29: Saying ‘Stand and Deliver’ when holding someone up is acceptable. Playing Adam and the Ants is not. 30: The Bandit group pinning us down in the supermarket will not respond to ‘a firm telling off’. 31. If at any point I begin to hum 'Ride of the Valkyries', I am to immediately land the chopper and let someone else pilot. 32. There is currently no situation in DayZ that requires a tracheotomy, and even if there was, the MP5 is not a suitable tool for the task. 33. If doing something causes me to giggle audibly over Teamspeak, I am to immediately stop, lay down and wait for the rest of the team to come fix whatever it is I've done. 34. The correct term is 'Fire Station', not 'Twatmagnet'. 35. Snipers do not have or need a battle cry. 36. When told to hide/hit the dirt, my first question should not be 'Raptors?' 37. My three-man team does not consist of me, 'primary human shield' and 'backup human shield' 38. I am no longer allowed to hunt with any item to which the term 'blast radius' can be applied. 39. The reason for all the empty whiskey bottles is not to make the Russian women look good. 40. 'It's what they would have wanted' is not to be used to justify the looting of a corpse belonging to someone currently in the TeamSpeak channel. This goes double if it was me that caused their death, no matter how indirectly. 41. Smoke grenades are not toys. 42. I can try as hard as I like, it's not possible to trick the zombies into recreating the 'Thriller' dance in the middle of Elektro. 43. Not allowed to set the stoner guy off by asking 'what if the game is real and we're all just a dream?' 44. We did not spend four hours repairing the helicopter so we could go 'cruising for chicks'. 45. No longer allowed to tell the new guy that he can give himself a blood transfusion by pressing Alt+F4. 46. In conjunction with item 28, adding -ski to the end of every other word does not constitute 'speaking Russian'. 47. Just because we haven't seen any female zombies does not mean that they're still trying to find somewhere to park. 48. My character's spirit guide is not any of the following: William Shatner, Any character played by William Shatner, any person or character with similar character traits to William Shatner. There will be no further discussion on this matter. 49. The fact zombies cannot see me through trees does not mean my character is part Wood Elf, part Ninja or part Treant. Or any combination of the three. 50. Epi Pens are not to be used as 'pick-me-ups'. 51. No matter what I learned from the movie Hot Shots! Part Deux, a chicken is NOT a valid choice of weapon. 52. Any plan which starts with the words 'First we strap a load of satchel charges to...' is immediately vetoed. 53. The zombies aren't infectious, so I shall refrain from any more 'mercy kills'. 54. I am no longer allowed to challenge other players to hatchet duels. 55. Any action which causes a member of my team to break down in tears is automatically disallowed in advance. 56. Until we see definitive proof, I am to stop blaming our missing tents and vehicles on Kobolds. 57. If I don't stop singing that damn Queen song every single time, the act of our group finding a bicycle will be marked by my immediate execution. 58. I am not to play dodgeball with the M203's launcher attachment. 59. Just because it happened once does not mean I have the power to summon wild boar by using the power word 'bacon'. 60. If a player breaks his/her leg and I don't have morphine, I am not to attempt to amputate with the hatchet, even if I did sterilise the blade first. 61. Singing 'Another One Bites the Dust' when a team-mate dies is not considered appropriate behaviour. 62. Chasing team members through barns in the dark with my hatchet is going to get me shot one of these days. 63. If we are running low on blood bags, I am not allowed to suggest using the new guy for refills. 64. 'Hang back and wait for them to hit puberty' is not a helpful suggestion when under attack from other players. 65. There is no possible situation which will require me to be carrying three machine guns. 66. Any action which draws more than eight lines of player reaction in side chat is probably something I shouldn't be doing. 67. Likewise, any action which causes the Teamspeak channel to go silent for thirty seconds is also something I shouldn't be doing. 68. When challenging a player to a duel, it is generally considered polite to inform him of this before opening fire. 69. Any plan I suggest that has the words 'initial explosion' and 'acceptable casualties' in will be rejected before I have finished the sentence. 70. It doesn't matter how nicely I ask, I'm not allowed to carry frag grenades again until I've learned what the controls for a blood transfusion are. 71: 'Friendly fire' does not mean shooting at someone's feet to tell them that you're friendly. 72: I am not to kidnap new players and force them to duel with hatchets at gunpoint. 73: There is a limit to the number of times someone can 'accidentally' discharge their weapon during tense night-time crawls through hostile territory. 74: I am to consult the rest of the team before stopping to pick up hitchhikers armed with assault rifles. 75: No more playing 'chicken' with team members awaiting pickup. Particularly when they are not aware that they're playing. 76: I am not to congratulate the player who just shot me in Elektro for 'having such a deep voice for a eunuch'. 77: When in doubt, I am to assume that vehicles are not amphibious. 78: I am not to attempt to commandeer the tank statue in Chernogorsk. 79: I am not allowed to try any plan which is likely to cause server-wide framerate drops. 80: 'I took a wrong turn' is not a sufficient explanation for how our fishing vessel ended up in Stary Sobor. 81: Chernarus is in a bad enough state as it is without me attempting to start a military coup. 82: When asked to create a distraction, shooting a team member in the legs and running away is not what was meant. 83: Even if MacGyver could do it, it's not possible to attempt to fashion a jetpack out of tin cans, fuel and frag grenades. 84: 'Probably' is not a satisfactory response when asked mid-flight if I remembered to fill up the helicopter before take-off. 85: When running low on food, searching supermarkets and hunting animals is likely to yield better results than trying to get Bob Geldof to hold a benefit concert for us. 86: I am not to tell the guy in the Ghillie Suit to 'get a haircut, hippie'. 87: Yodelling. Never. Again. Ever. 88: I am not to assume the role of 'psychotic drill sergeant' without permission. 89: There is a time and a place for rap battles. A firefight on the Northwest Airfield is neither. 90: In the event of unexplained explosions, I had better have a DAMN good alibi. 91: 'Do a barrel roll!' is not helpful advice when the Huey pilot is trying to land under fire. 92: If I don't stop screaming 'freedom' every time my combat timer goes off, I won't be allowed to use the blue facepaint skin any more. 93: I am not allowed to slip subliminal advertising into the group's 'Let's play' videos. 94: Crashing the Humvee into a road sign is bad enough. Crashing the Littlebird into a road sign gets me kicked out of the group. 95: Not allowed to hold impromptu raves with the chemlights. 96: Painkillers are used to ease the effects of existing pain, not to stop the user from feeling it when they get shot. 97: Dying monologues are limited to a maximum of twenty minutes. 98: The guy with the infection does not have lung cancer. 99: Not allowed to use road flares to draw a giant penis on the Northwest Airfield. 100: If I'm too drunk to pronounce it, I'm too drunk to fly/drive/shoot it. 101: Even if I did grow a moustache especially for it, I'm not allowed to seduce anyone when I turn up to fix the Humvee. 102: Not allowed to use the helicopter to herd sheep. 103: Zombies don't have a melting point, so I can stop throwing road flares now. 104: Not allowed to talk about anything that makes the girl gamers feel sick. 105: Definitely not allowed to talk about anything that makes the guy gamers feel sick. 106: The guy with the AS50 isn't compensating for anything, thank you very much. 107: I have to carry at least one item about my person that isn't an explosive of some kind. 108: 'Shoot first, ask questions later' does not apply to the pre-mission briefing. 109: Frag grenades are not to be used to mark landing sites. 110: Just because I'm the only one that can fly the biplane does not relegate everyone else to the role of 'air stewardess'. 111: 'Fifty Shades of DayZ' is not a real book, and no-one wants to hear my excerpts from it. 112: Not allowed to fill the sniper's backpack with toilet paper while he's busy looking through the scope. 113: When under attack, I am not to attempt to sell teammates to bandits as slaves in order to save my own worthless hide. 114: I did not see a giant gator in that pond one time. 115: If a teammate gets held up and I haven't been spotted, it is not 'every man for himself'. 116: No speaking jive to players we just met over direct chat. 117: I am not to attempt to ram zombies with the biplane. 118: When playing in a hero group, I am not to charge into battle screaming 'blood for the blood god'. 119: Not allowed to use satchel charges to trick new players into thinking I can explode zombies with my mind. 120: We killed that sheep because we needed food, not because 'it was better than what the Aussie was going to do to it'. 121: Not allowed to throw smoke grenades in deer stands and laugh as people stumble blindly off the edge. 122: Not allowed to recreate any scene from Pulp Fiction in DayZ, including (but not limited to) accidentally blowing people's heads off in cars, stabbing 'OD-ing bitches' in the heart, and telling teammates to 'unleash the gimp'. 123: Not allowed to use satchel charges and a bus in order to recreate any scene from Speed. 124: No hiding in the back of the coupe and pretending that the car is haunted by the ghost of Macho Man Randy Savage. 125: No freaking out the pilot by replacing all his cans of soda with Mountain Dew while he isn't looking. 126: I am not to advocate cannibalism of wounded players, no matter how low on food we are and/or how much meat said player looks like they have on them. 127: No shooting unarmed players in the face and claiming that they might have known Krav Maga. Especially when playing Hero. 128: I am expected to inform the other passengers BEFORE bailing out when flying the Huey. 129: Chernarus is NOT 'just like Wales with friendlier locals'. 130: Just because we found a Ghillie Suit in a church does not mean that it's the same one Jesus wore. Moreover, there are so many things wrong with that statement, I should be ashamed of myself. 131: It doesn't matter where or how I got it, I'm not allowed to play with the T-72. 132: Any camouflage given by the Ghillie Suit does not 'stack' by wearing two or more. 133: Not allowed to play 'Hatchet tag' with my teammates. 134: Even if I do know morse code, not allowed to use my flashlight to transmit the lyrics to 'It's Raining Men'. 135: Not allowed to troll the French guy by surrendering to every single zombie we come across. 136: Likewise, I'm not allowed to mock the Italian guy by offering to switch sides every time we come under attack. 137: There is no easter egg where you can find the Teletubbies hill, so I can stop wasting all our fuel looking for it. 138: There is a key difference between a UAZ and a UAV. I am to learn and understand this difference before I am allowed to drive the UAZ again. 139: When playing DayZ Origins, I am not allowed to try and take down Dr Ivan with my Makarov. 140: There is an upper limit to the amount of time I am allowed to spend 'punting' zombies in the SUV at the Northwest airfield.

So, 1.8 is out, and looks like it's made DayZ potentially interesting again, so I figured I'd update and give it a whirl. In all honesty, I never really had a problem with DayZ that made me stop playing it, I just felt like I'd done more or less everything there was to do at a point, and that I'd sit out for a few months to let the burnout pass. The one thing I did have an issue with was the frequency of KOS, and not just 'two guys meeting in a supermarket, one shoots first to make sure the other doesn't' KOS, I mean the 'minding your own business as a fresh spawn, BOOM you're dead' KOS. Anyway, I found a quiet server (7/60 or something) and got to playing. Initial impressions were good - loot availability seemed about right, within half an hour I'd managed to scavenge up a couple of cans of drink, a hatchet and a small backpack - enough to keep me alive. Zombies seemed tough but fair (ish - obviously the walking through walls and ultra-speed notwithstanding. :p), and I could actually feel myself starting to enjoy DayZ aga.... BOOM. Shot. Didn't kill me, but broke my legs. I frantically looked round, trying to work out where I needed to crawl from, and there, clear as day about 50m behind me was some dude standing right out in the open, big conga-line of zombies behind him, is some dude with an assault rifle. This, for me, is DayZ's biggest problem right now. Unprovoked, unnecessary KOS in situations where firing a gun should be a near death-sentence, used only as a last resort when you're already swarmed by zombies, and you need to clear space to get away. The problem is, I don't know how it's going to be fixed - the other problem is, it's only going to get worse - eventually, non-KOS players are going to get fed up swimming against the tide and either start shooting first or just quit altogether, and you're going to find even fewer players out there who won't think twice about putting a bullet in your brain to say hello. I'm aware this may sound slightly like a whining/crying post - it really isn't. I actually don't have a problem with KOS in moderation - in a server with 50 people on, having one or two maniacs who keep things interesting will increase tension and therefore enjoyment. The problem for me is that it's the wrong way round - there's 48 lunatics running round without a single fuck given, and 2 poor guys expecting every step to be their last.

Are persistent servers a new thing for you? Who on earth said it had to be the same player in the town for 24 hours? Lots of players come and go over a 24 hour period. Having said that, I don't like the idea at all, but to criticise it for that is just silly.

Dgeesio, I'm sorry, but you're just repeating yourself over and over now without actually reading what I'm saying. I think we'll just agree to disagree, as I don't want this thread to fall into a spiral of KoS vs non-KoS gameplay. That's not what this is about.:) Boshed, yeah, that's the problem here. It's not a binary 'in or out' issue, and whatever is done is going to somehow infringe on the way other, innocent, parties play the game. But that's part of the catch-22 of being a game designer for such an ambitious and wildly popular game - you're going to find yourself in these situations, and it's how you deal with them that separates the Day Zs from the War Zs. :p

There is almost always, always some kind of light around. That's how NVGs work - they pick up the light that's too dim for the naked eye to see and amplify it to a level where it can. I don't have a problem with playing in the dark in theory - my main issue is that it doesn't seem to affect zombie behaviour overly (that I've noticed, anyway), and as such puts me in considerably more danger than I'd otherwise be in if I raided the same village during the day. As that's the case, and survival is my main priority, I'll wait until daytime before raiding any area where I expect there to be more zombies than I could reasonably deal with in limited visibility. To that end, if I can't do one of my main activities in the dark, then there doesn't really seem to be too much point playing on a server where I'd have to spend half my time waiting for the sun to come up so I could do anything other than travel from town to town. DayZ is already close enough to a cross-country jogging simulator, the last thing I need is for it to be a 'camping in the woods' simulator too. Like I said, I like the idea in theory, but in practicality, I find that in its current form, darkness is just a chore.

Seriously dude, you really need to start reading posts, because I don't know how many more times I (or the various others who have corrected you) can say it: There IS middle ground. Middle ground is the guys who are posting in THIS VERY THREAD saying 'I don't mind KoS in moderation, there's just a bit too much of it at the moment, and it's making the game less enjoyable.' No-one here is trying to suggest that there should be rules against KoS, or that KoS players should be at a disadvantage compared to other players. What I'm (and I'm assuming the others here voicing similar opinions) asking is that the developers look into having a downside to playing as a one-man army. Heroes have downsides - they are often shot by the very people they're trying to help. 'Proper' Bandits have downsides - hold-ups are risky and often go wrong, and many heroes actively hunt bandits. Murderers don't have those downsides, because they want the PvP. They want to shoot at people as soon as they see them, they want to get into firefights with everyone they see, and if they die, they don't really lose much, because it's just a case of spending ten minutes finding a new gun and then back into the action. But that's the problem - if you're waiting for consensus before doing anything, nothing will ever get done. An example is the already-used .50 cal discussion. Arguments raged back and forth for months over whether they were overpowered or not, and it was turning into a real base breaker. Then one morning we all logged in to see that they'd been patched out. BAM. Just like that. There was plenty of wailing, gnashing of teeth, cries of 'RUINED FOREVAR' and so on, but in a week or two it had died down, and now it's pretty much agreed that the game's better off without them. If we'd waited for the community to all agree on whether or not they should be in or out, we'd still be here come doomsday. But someone on the team made a bold decision, rode out the initial wave of hate and we're all better off for it. Still, though - it's definitely reassuring to know that someone's actually looking at it, because as much as people wave the 'human nature' flag, there's a reason why we don't spend our time away from the keyboard just murdering everyone we don't like - because there are consequences for doing it, and the consequences outweigh the benefits of doing so. That's the bit that's missing in DayZ right now, and if they can just find that little piece of the jigsaw, they'll have nailed it. Fingers crossed!

I don't disagree with you there, but surely the fact that the topic comes up time and time again would indicate that perhaps there is an issue that needs resolving. The fastest way to get rid of the discussion is to find a solution to the problem. I accept that the guys (both the mod developers, who I know work regular jobs as well as developing the mod on the side, and the Standalone team, who have bigger fish to fry at the moment) have enough on their plate as it is, but this is problem that is expanding to the point where it is legitimately driving away players, and therefore I would think probably needs at least some attention, if only a pin in a board somewhere that says 'look at the KOS problem'. It's no good having a beautiful open-world survival simulator with fantastic disease mechanics, ingenious loot placement and hordes of dozens of zombies if 95% of the people playing the game are ignoring all that and running round Cherno with assault rifles.