xath

I gotta be honest, while a creative suggestion, it would just be making things far more convoluted than it needs to be, even for a survival game. As it is, so much is being added in terms of illnesses, having to boil water, drinking too much soda having effects etc that, while I like those mechanics, if it goes any further, it's going to turn into a friggin' medical simulator, as opposed to a zombie survival horror game.

Same for me, for the reasons mentioned in this thread already, and for the atmosphere/mood of the city as well. Just has more feel to it and a great aesthetic over most other areas.

You're absolutely right, but there's another, more accurate perspective from which to look at such a situation: it's not the fault of devs that people are as entitled, out of control and psychologically imbalanced as they are, also lacking in common sense and not even wanting to understand the simple fact that it's alpha/beta, so it's going to have issues. That's not directed at you, that's directed at the people of whom you're speaking. Dean and co. are working hard to ensure that things run as smoothly as possible, but the bottom line is that it's the attitudes of people that are the problem, not the fact that an alpha/beta has bugs. People need to remember that just because they've bought/bought into a game, that it doesn't change the fact that alpha/beta is alpha/beta, and they're supposed to go into it expecting issues. But, the majority of voices are the ones who end up coming-down hard on such people, so shitstorm or not, the whiners will always be outnumbered by those with more than two working brain cells to remind them: "It's in alpha/beta, expects bugs and shut the hell up", so don't worry about it... it's not going to dishearten the devs, as they've more than two working brain cells. Now, when a fully finished game is released that are fraught with bugs, that's a different story. I don't want to see all the complaining either, but just ignore the fools who are so entitled that they blatantly ignore the fact that they're buying into/playing a work in progress, and the rest of us will just enjoy it for what it has to offer.

Zeds have always been buggy in one way or another, but yes, they're far more so at the moment. The "fake eating", drunk falling over and even getting back up a few times even after having been killed (though actually already dead and cant hurt you) are all happening constantly. If you're looking for "confirmation" of all these things, you've got it, though I don't know why. Everything is handled server-side, so if you're seeing it, you can be assured everyone else is seeing it as well. It's just the way it is right now. I haven't found it any harder to sneak around them, or the bugs causing any more infection than if the zeds weren't flipped out, however. If you aggro, you aggro, and if you get hit you've a likely chance of being infected. Their bizarre movement doesn't change their aggro behavior or chance of being infected.

I can understand where the OP is coming from, especially being a "zombie purest" myself. But, it's just always been part of DayZ's "charm" and the general atmosphere of DayZ is bleak, grim and tense enough to sort of "make up" for it, to a point. I don't think using L4D as comparison for "proper" zombies is right either, given that I'm wholly again the whole "running zombie thing", so it's semantics... As for being "the infected", yeah, then comparing to L4D would be appropriate. But as has been said, the animations is one of the largest issues they're working on hard for the SA, so then at least movements will be more fluid and realistic, if not still a little too fast, though Dean mentioned something about adjusting zombie speed a little for the SA. I don't think it's just about the zombies themselves, though; it's more just the fact that if any AI in any game moved like a zig-zagging, epileptic, karate chopping ninjas, it would break the immersion regardless of what game you were playing, lol.

Now THAT'S funny.

What's the "problem" people have with this issue? You really need to ask? Maybe because some people aren't complete mindless muppets who aren't going to: 1) just do what they're "told" by some meaningless stranger on the internet and 2) drop their only means of self-defense just to get a bullet in the brain for their trouble. I love this whole thing where people have the balls to think they're high-and-mighty enough to actually "order" someone to do anything, never mind drop their weapon. I just could never understand how DayZ brought out that nonsense in people. Some people really think who the hell they are. Last person who said that to me took a few bullets in the head and lost their shit due to their ego. Drop your weapon... yeah... good luck with that... It's really just a power trip on the intrawebz. If someone thought you were actually a danger, you'd already be dead. It's obviously just ego. If it wasn't, don't you think more people would simply be asking, "Friendly?", as would be the normal, as opposed to exuding such narcissim? It's one thing to ask someone to lower their weapon, and you do the same, if they're friendly, and circle around one another. It's another to have some fool on the internet "giving orders" in a game telling someone what the fuck to do, like they think they're the friggin' Gestapo or DayZ police.

There is no "right/good" or "wrong/bad" way to play a game. Especially an open-world survival game, but any game in general. Play it how you enjoy and get the most from it, man. Sounds like that's what you're doing, so keep it up. I handled you my beans, bud. I especially like to hear you see the zombies as the biggest threat; makes it more zombie-centric, which is what I'm all about, and why I cant wait for the SA. Cheers.

Ah, but there's plenty proof of concept that slow-moving zombies are equally as dangerous, especially in numbers, in films and in games such as NMRiH, and even The Dead Linger (though in alpha) and others. So, in numbers and in most situations, slow-moving zombies are extremely dangerous. I actually agree with the OP, and he's got some great ideas (things I myself have been saying for a long time) except for possibly different reasons... It's not the difficulty, which definitely needs to stay hardcore... it's more for me about capturing the real and classic (i.e. Romero) zombie/zombie atmosphere. It's a lot more ominous atmosphere, and DayZ's atmosphere already lends to that, when the dead are slower, shambling, relentless hordes of horror coming at/surrounding you. I love the extremely hardcore element of dangerous zombies, but I do have to agree (and I've been saying this for an extremely long time) that the "zombies" in DayZ need to be slower, and do more damage, as well as be upped in numbers as much as is possible/reasonable. Not because of the difficulty; again, I want the difficulty the same, but I also want more of an actual "zombie atmosphere", where as the "zombies" in DayZ are not actually zombies, they're more "infected", such as in 28 Days Later... an awesome film, and playing in such a scenario is a great experience when done right, but I'm more into the true Romero zombie. If the zombie speed was never changed, and they were just reskinned to look great, and their animations really tweaked, I'd still be fine with faster zombies. Though I know that supposedly zombie speed is going to be toned-down at least a little. I'm a hardcore DayZ freak, and will continue to be, but then again, I'm also always about the zombies, not the PvP (that's just an added tension in the game). Personally, in regards to really capturing an actual zombie atmosphere, I'd love to see nothing more than the zombies slowed down, at least to a fast shamble, and do more damage, such as in NMRiH, where you can only be hit a few times before it's all over, and trapped/surrounded easily. But, as long as they look great and their speed and movement are tweaked to be more reasonable than the "lightning speed zig-zaggin karate zombies" we still have in the mod, lol, then I'll be pleased.

Oh, nevermind, I seemed to get into one running the update proper and I managed to get in. I guess not all servers are updated totally yet.

Anyone else having authentication problems when trying to get on servers? I reinstalled DayZ two days ago fine, played fine, but ended up having to reformat. Just reinstalled A2, Dayz etc, updated to new patch, and I cannot get on any servers. I continually get a problem with authenticating. Suggestions? Thanks. Edit: servers are showing they're runing 1.62.102591 but underneath that it's saying 1.7.1. or 1.7.7 so not sure if I'm joining updated servers or not. Using Commaner.

Yeah, I've found a few private ones that seem decent. One I jumped on briefly a while back was great, classic DayZ experience. I get ya, and I'm with ya. I'm all up for the bare-bones experience of the SA at first either way and, as you've said, perhaps the mods will make the jump to A3 with some new maps. I think the biggest thing for me is the SA being far more zombie-centric, since I'm a hardcore zombie freak and always "all about the zombies", with the added human threat still being there. That's the new "flavor" I'm looking forward to the most. ;)

Ah, I see. Thanks for that info. It makes sense to do some things that way, I suppose. Again, thanks for the response. I remember hearing something as such, but could not remember. Sure, always room for more, no doubt ;) So it's almost completely community run, as well as being used to test out some new basic features... if I put together these responses. It does definitively answer the question that there's no connection between the patches and any timeline regarding the SA, if things are mainly community-made at this point, so I think unless we hear the SA is coming soon for the general public, that I might go ahead and jump back in, see what's what with this latest patch (if it's out yet).

I'm loving what I'm seeing coming with the upcoming patch, honestly, but I've a question. My question is serious/legit. It's not meant to be sarcastic or "snarky": Why are such large patches with so much attention being given to the mod currently with the SA on the horizon? Is it a sign that the SA is still a way off? Or is the team just "split-up" so that some are still working on updates and improvements to the mod as it stands? It's been a long time since I've played and I cannot remember if something was stated about this, except that ongoing improvements would be made until the SA was released. I've played hardcore almost since the inception of DayZ, but gave it up a while ago due to all the problems with hackers, certain horrid bugs and a lack of real meaningful updates at the time. So I'm asking to re-inform myself and to see if there's indeed any relation or not between the work going into these patches and the release of the SA, or if it's just there are certain team members it was "handed over to" (as I think I remember hearing it) while Dean did his thing on the SA. I'm considering going through the hassle of a reinstall at this point, while waiting for the SA, unless it's coming up soon, and getting back on some vanilla servers (I'm not into all the other things DayZ has "turned into", though some of it looks impressive) again. Thanks, and again, this is not to nag about the SA nor is it a sarcastic question.

Well, honestly, if he delivers a truly excellent zombie survival horror experience, then he deserves to be filthy rich, since not many devs can seem to manage the task. So, I don't care if he rakes in enough cash to buy the whole damn mountain, as long he delivers with the SA.