Ken Bean

I think you are getting it wrong. The game does not allow or disallow things based on ethics, it just reflects your way. So if you murder 1000 people, people may get an idea of you. So they can judge you better based on their ethics. If they think they are cool with, then they still just can leave you alone. I think it's also absolutely okay to reflect the way a player went through. If you chose to be an ass or angel, then you have the right that it somehow makes a difference, even if it's just cosmetic in nature. Ethics just doesn't disappear with a zombi apocalypse. It's still there, even in your own head. => If you chose to be an ass, you probably know best. ;-) Edit Btw, I love the new mockup! Such things really enrich the game. Giving a diary, which is more believable (a surviver would try to document his way) and adds more depth and immersion to the game, even enhances role play after all.

Cool as heck! :)

What's the point in kicking and banning when a friend can save the gear? Just for handicaping lone wolfes? You know that it is not nice in everyones eyes to be set in disadvantages against other player who play in teams/clans...

Earning persistent skins or tatoos could also be seen different. It's all about the views people have. E.g., if you think, that keeping tatoos or skins is unlogical, why do you think it is more logical that every survivor starts having the same few skins? Why do you think, it might be more immersive, that noone ever starts with a tatoo? Because everyone just starts tatooing himself a few months after a zombi apocalypse happened? You see, such things always have two sides and a huge problem can be made up out of nothing. It's just the peoples view they developed. Some think, it is not right, to have tents which survive the owners death. Others may think, why should a tent die with you? Why should items be destroyed? This is not logical as well.

The problem really is that you get used to the game world and that you'll have after life knowledge which may help the new char quite a great deal. But on the other hand, this afterlife knowledge is sth every player will have. So it's not really an unfair advantage. A huge random generated world would be interesting, but it should be quite hard to develop for a title like DayZ. Would be easier with worlds which would be not persistent at all.

Well, you cant have a persistent world if you reset just anything you did. So yeah, certain items might still be there and will not be destroyed. Since the items are not yours and basically everyone can use them, it would be strange to destroy all the items you may have touched. Your last character will leave some marks, so to speak. But besides of the fact that these maks and items don't die with you, you actually die when you die. There is nothing that could be done to make your last character more than permanently dead. And this is how death in DayZ already works. Yes it is permanent, you start an entirely new character, you are not reincarnated or sth. The game already has perma death. The only issue some people have is that each character leaves some traces in a persistent world. So what, why not? If that's your concern, you should request items and tents to not to be persistent (or not for you or sth like that). But this already has been discussed. -> If you destroy all your stuff, then the bandit who hunted you down will not be amused, since he feels betrayed for his loot. -> If you make your stuff from your last char inacessible only for you, then there still would be the ability to recover your gear if you play in a team, so another player could save the gear for you. Either way, some folks will either get around the item restrictions anyway or they player who tracked you down will lose his reward. Another option would be to kick the player from the server and guide him to another random one, but this would make teamplay impossible. Skill systems can be done in very different ways. I wouldn't say that every skill system will break immersion. That's either nonsense or your understanding of the term immersion is very different from mine. It even can increase the immersion, this depends how it would be implemented.

How does a skill system break immersion? May I ask you what do you think what perma death means? Player died ---> global ban?

Sorry to say so, but your weird assumption couldn't be more wrong. The real reason is that 1st person is annoying as hell for the most time. If they would improve the aiming in 3rd person, many would favour it over 1st person. Btw Many games today sadly do not deliver a ability to switch into 3rd or 1st person mode, which is an awesome feature of Arma 2. So why taking away a feature that makes the game outstanding? Because everyone loves the average trash and hates cool features? Na, comeon, there are loads of people who love to run around in 3rd person, there's no reason to take it away, except that peeking around corners thing. Just imagine how aweful limited your perception is in the 1st person compared to your perception in real life.

I don't think it would be too complicated to implement a function which gets the LOS from the head's position while you are in 3rd person. The head already turns around if you freelook left or right, so if you stand in front of a wall, the npc/player behind it would not be in the line of sight of the head and could be hidden for 3rd person view. Difficult might be things which could be seen not entirely, but lets say half. -> Should they be rendered full or half? Wouldn't it look strange? :-/

Since I actually managed to find my first AS50 at a heli crash site today, after playing almost 4 months btw, I see this point critical. :D

I would be okay with hiding player or npcs which are not in the line of sight of the first person view. Would at least be a solution.

Yep, some freedom and variety of game play offers way more fun. I also don't get why some consider the first person view as being so much more immersive. Immersion goes way beyond the first or third person view discussion. A game is immersive as long as the whole gameplay, world feedback, NPCs, graphics, sounds, physics, game logic, atmosphere etc truely deliver a very believable universe. The game universe can be entirely different from ours but it must be compelling and convincing. I played many 1st person titles which where not immersive at all. First person in DayZ to me allways feels like wearing blinkers. Not fun at all, but good in combat while you are closely focusing on your target anyway. But running from Cherno to the airfilds just would be a pita.

The loot is supposed to be the reward. If you walk into a town, what's the reason for? Yep, finding loot. It's a very important part of the game. That's why I don't understand the folks that constantly request the loot to be reduced. If you'd remove or drasticaly lower the loot spawns, the only remaining reward would be player kills. (Other pvp online shooter have no loot at all. Guess what they are doing the whole day. ;)) Regarding the achievements of earned start gear like a map or compas, it would just give you a reason less to go into a town. So my suggestion would be to increase the overall ammount of valuable items which can be found. We would have a longer gearing up time and more items to play with. Technicaly you are not looting "yourself". You just start fresh being a new survivor. If you are not familar with the game and if you died far away from your starting point, you most likely won't ever try to find the old char, since running straight from south to north can take 45 minutes. Without knowledge of the map and good skills in navigating, it even may take way longer. Also, you don't know if the body is still there and unlooted.

Hi peeps, recently I thought about weather effects which temporary change the environment and might be an additional threat for your fellow survivor. So what do you think about dynamic weather effects like tornados that could be able to make a swath of destruction through a wood area and may also destroy tents and light buildings on their way? What about rain periods which lead to flooded areas and swelling rivers which also could destroy tents and bildings nearby? Are there other weather effects you want to see as well? Feel free to discuss.

Do lieing trees cause considerabely more lag than standing? So in Arma 2, if 3 guys drive with their Tanks through a wood are, consitantely making traces in there, the server starts lagging? I mean, player already can destroy a lot of things, including houses. Would it be a great performance hit, when a tornado once a week may went through? You sound pretty confident. Maybe you know exactly what we are talking about. I for my self always thought that AI and physics would be very problematic considering performance.

I'd suggest skins to earn which can be chosen every time you start a new life (link, a topic which originaly was meant to be taken serious.^^) This is the part which carries over from life to life. Kind of reflects your backsory or your overall development in Dayz. Also I made a few character improvement suggestions here, but I don't think that one should be rewarded any further than your current life. So if you die, you should start fresh, without any benefits but cool skins you can chose from.

To play devils advocat, is the problem really that big? The statistics here look not that bad if you think about. On the other hand, people do what they usually do in video games. There's a lot of shooting in almost every title out there. People seems to love and enjoy guns in the very first place. Other player interactions are there but they are not neccessary in order to survive. I also don't think that teamplay should be forced game whise. Its hard to deliver for everyone if you don't define any rules. But you can set stimuli, rewards and handicaps. In my opinion, a ruthless play stile could be countered by certain gameplay restrictions, losing some features, being handicaped in some way. I know, this is a little a cheap trick, but if you don't want to ban certain playstiles, make them less profitable.

There still is a difference between bug and feature. ;) But anyway, I prefer a hard DayZ as well. That's why I suggested weather phenomenas which could be able to randomly destroy tents, if they were built in an area which would be affected. I just don't want it to be a bug or glitch fest and I'm certain, this is the focus of the development as well. If you drop your most beloved weapon to the ground and it disappears, right after your tent vanished, then oridinary people may not be amused. I'm not saying, this is the right way of thinking, but certainly a common. < :D But if there's an explanation, if you see your tent destroyed and the sourounding area is hinting that a tornado went through, then you may say "Wow, shit happens. Bad luck, but this is how it goes. A tent is not a massive building. Now I'm going to make a more massive one, like a bunker or a basement."

Hmm, in that case, provided you are right, those masochists always can switch back to the more punishing, more buged versions of the mod. Just go to DayZ Commander, Install/Update and revert back. d: Things like close combat is sth people seems more to avoid than love...

You mean it should be a masochists game in which the player constantly get punished? Nah, DayZ is supposed to make fun as well, it just is not as arcade stiled, but a survival game. Don't stress it over so only a pita remains, which no one loves playing.

1. Dude, in a certain way you are right, in another way not. Call it Großtrombe, Wind- oder Wasserhose or similar, but whirlwinds basically exist almost everywhere. Maybe on a smaller skale and yes, here you are right, Tornados only exist in America since this is the American-English term for. Other languages have other terms. I'm certain, that whirlwinds can happen in Chernarus too since as said, this is not a weather which only can happen in the USA. 2. Regarding floods and it possibilities, there probably always is a way. Mind that such things could be handeled as global or server wide events. If Diablo two is able to have server wide events, then other online games should be able to handle similar as well. 3. Because I hate snow. ^^ Nah, just kidding, but blizzards (or sth similar) would be awesome. I can't really recall that I ever saw a good snow system, which provided deep built-up snow, so you could watch the snow pack grow.

I meant 3rd person view or free look, I edited it in, last sentence. ;D

In my opinion the third person view should stay in. I'm not a pvp player, but in games I in generally hate it to be bound to 1st-person only. It's such a cut-down of the game experience for me, I hardly can describe it though. I love to switch the persons, can't say why. Maybe I agree that 3rd person combat should be more dfficult, but it already is. As I quite often run into Zeds while in 3rd person, I can clearly say that shots fired in that view already tent to spread very wide. So making an aimed shot in 3rd person already is nearly impossible, forget it completely if you move. It's just for self defence in a very close encounter. So the entire issue with the 3rd person probably is that some folks excessively use it in a pvp situation for spotting around corners, which can be an unfair advantage to times. If it comes to fight, they are switching to 1st person. I'm pretty clueless what to do about it but I'm certain, I will not enjoy the game if the 3rd person view will be removed or if you are not longer able to look around. Hence, the bigger part of the game is travelling. Do you really want to run all the way from Cherno to the NW Airfield fixed in 1st person or without oportunity to properly look around in 3rd person? I won't, it would be an incredible pain in the ass. So maybe we could counter the advantage of 3rd person PvP peeker in another way, without ruining the game for other player, who don't use it for combat only, who need it to enjoy the game? I'm all for this. But the question is: how? Maybe we could tweak it ab bit with the humanity value. I mean, excessive PvP player usually have a humanity value which tends to be on a lower end. --> Maybe we can handicap their 3rd person experience a bit - as being part of the greater challenge they seek for? Don't get me wrong, it is not about punishing, but I read a lot of post where people explain that they decided to go for banditry because they are looking for a greater challenge. So why not fixing their 3rd person view // disabling the ability to free look?

Well spoken, this is my eyperience as well.

@OP Yep, good catch. There are a lot of posts that suggest that many want to get the newbie feeling back. They know the game very well, play like a pro, but the same time they complain about it, because after all, they play too successful, have too much loot and feel not challenged. This is a bit of a growing problem. I as well already get the feeling that the map might get a little small. edit typos