Friend-or-Pho

Care to elaborate?

I just have this image in my mind of a large group of survivors that have settled down in a small village. They are sitting around a campfire telling jokes and what not, when suddenly a lookout on a roof screams, "Zombies incoming!" Everyone then scrambles to thier post and proceeds to try to defend thier town from 300 zombies that spawned just outside.

Perhaps bolts could work similarly to roadflares, in that 1 inventory slot is 10 flares. Given that you can continue to interact with flares after they are thrown, it wouldn't be impossible to imagine that you could pick up bolts again after they are fired.

Sure, why not!

The one thing that I strongly agree with in the OP would be the addition of fortifications. If the entry fee (materials required/time invested/suitable location) was high enough forts would be a good challenge for end game players. It would offer players the opportunity to care about a town that they have built with thier virtual hands. I have already developed a strong emotional investment in the survival of my character, I can only imagine the joys and stresses of trying to build and protect a town!

I don't necassarily believe that starting players with less will lead to less murdering. With even less equipment at the start players will be given that much more reason to murder someone that actually has gear. From what I've seen (in Dayz and other games) there are players who will not "get" it and focus on just shooting people regardless of how challenging you make the game. I do agree the game needs more challenge, and hopefully the kind that promotes teamwork rather than simply making the game impossible.

I certainly think that there should be clothes that are well suited for banditry, but they shouldn't be literally "bandit specific".

Care to explain why' date=' everyone is saying "DON'T PUT IT" but at least put the reason so we can understand. Not against adding/removing the bandit skin just want some solid info instead of " I h8 BANDET OUTFIT ITS BATSHITZ" [/quote'] Because looking at someone a klick away and INSTANTLY telling if they are a bandit or not is silly. Without the ability to visually see whether or not someone is a bandit adds suspense to every encounter. You have to question them, as well as yourself as to whether you actually trust them at all. If bandits had blue hats and survivors had red hats (purely hypothetical), it would just turn into 1 group shooting the other from a mile away. This isn't to say that doesn't already happen, but it happens for other reasons than you wore the wrong colors in the wrong 'hood.

This would be cool, but I don't know how possible (if at all) it would be to implement in-game. Groups could be enabled in DayZ and allow players that know each other to group up in a more official capacity, and within that allow name tags to be visible. That is certainly one posibility, and I'm sure there are more.

I wouldn't want any identification mechanics that show a player's chosen profession (survivor v. bandit). I would however welcome more clothing options.

I believe that the ability for groups of survivors to capture and hold towns would add more purpose to the game other than living in the woods. The concept would work like this, towns/villages/cities can be cleared of zombies by survivors and then become "captured". This could work similarly to the Domination game-mode already in Arma 2. The conditions for capture can vary from town to town, for example a small town might require you to merely clear the area of zombies; while larger towns might require you to repair a generator. There are some balance issues that would need to be addressed, and I have a couple of ideas for that as well. Something that is already a part of Domination, are the enemy reinforcements that try to re-occupy captured objectives. The frequency and intensity of the zombie herds would need some further thought. Also, once a town/city is captured loot would no longer spawn, or do so at a drastically reduced rate. This would be in the hopes of preventing large groups/clans from simply capturing a town to farm loot. Instead, the purpose of capturing a town would be (idealy) to set up a fortified "safe zone" where survivors can hang out and barter in relative safety. Or for bandits, it would give them a fortified position to strike out from, or exact a "toll" for coming through the town. Whether or not a town has been captured should not be visible by simply looking at the Tasks section of the map, and there should only be a notification for the people who have completed capturing the town. Hopefully this would preserve the anxiety felt when approaching a town, since you wouldn't know if it was occupied. For the TLDR towns could/should be capturable, using existing Arma 2 assets can add additional challenge, and give more meaning and purpose to the game in the long run. Sorry if this has already been discussed, I did a quick search and didn't come up with anything.

Well this really doesn't have anything to do with kill-confirmation. Nor is it meant to be "perfectly safe". In what I envision only really well equipped and well coordinated groups/clans would be able to pull something like this off. It would require first clearing the town of it's current zombies, completing a secondary or even tertiary objective, and the town would go to "captured" status. From there in order to keep control of the town they would need to erect some sort of fortifications (possibly something beyond simple sandbags and barbed wire), keep a number of people there to watch for an incoming zombie counterattack, and even defend the town from hostile survivors. This isn't meant to be easy by any means, but the reward would be in actually pulling something like this off. To see some little town in the country-side go from undead retirement home, to a fortified center of trade amongst survivors (or a Bandit's harem if youre so inclined).

There are other possiblities for books beyond just owner's manuals. A buddy of mine made an off-hand suggestion that there should be an in-game almanac that gives you a message about the current lunar cycle and weather of the server you are on. He was joking, but it was actually a really good idea.

While I like the form and function of the GUI you propose, there is one thing about it that I find to be a problem; it is rather large. I do also like your suggestion about characters and thier bodily functions, but there is one change I would make, and that would be the affect of adrenaline on the need to poo. There is the saying about being so scared that you find yourself "puckered up". However the need to find a quiet and "safe" spot to pop a squat wouldn't be out of place. This could bring an entirely new purpose to the entrenching tool.