Lukio (DayZ)

That would be a first step, removes the e-peen element.some may strive for. Generally I really hope is that the factor of uncertainty remains, but not all encounters end in one player dieing. Even if it just was 10% of all player encounters, this would work for me. Maybe making the story / adventure you go through have more variance would help as well. In the very beginning of DayZ everyone was so unsure where to go to, what to do etc. that you automatically formed small groups and something like a circle of trust. Somehow although its a sandbox game (technically) the whole path of getting to the sandbox part seems very linear. After respawn many almost always have the same priorities on their checklist, usually ending with either an airfield or Stary visit. Now of course you could set up other goals like "find a bicycle and do stupid things" but your chance of long term survival just has been lowered by quite a bit. So after a while almost everyone is in the same trance-like grind. Find food, water, gun, backpack, bug out, find more survival stuff and maybe a better gun, try your luck in a high risk place or find a vehicle - basically now you have arrived in the sandbox mode. If there was more uncertainty on how to progress, maybe players would be more willing to seek help in numbers.

What the OP forgot to mention was that the one shot that killed the pilot made the heli crash onto 50 other survivors all shambled into one spot an staring upwards in disbelief. After looting all bodies he found a box of chocolates. A Delorean appeared out of nowhere and the box of chocolates was used as fuel, then the OP disappeared into thin air.

The problem is simplicity, many players don't want, are afraid of or aren't capable of social interaction. As long as its simpler to just kill another player and loot his items, there is no benefit in approaching someone you do not know and try to interact / trade with him.

The scaling may be off, but you will not die if your hunger meter is blinking, you can actually go pretty far without finding food. If hunger and thirst both are blinking, then you will eventually loose blood/health, but still are far from dying. Seems alright to me.

Sounds like what the OP wants is some kind of suppression mechanic?

Its not really blood as in "fresh blood" in the bags, but blood plasma or blood treated with UV light and cleansed of any pathogens. Producing a transportable blood bag under any conditions would be a daunting task without any medical equipment. Almost as daunting as one guy fixing up a helicopter by just adding some scrap metal and rotor parts. So to expand your suggestion, maybe you want to explain if anything would be necessary to fill such a blood bag. Maybe a sterile pump or sterilisation equipment?

There have been many requests and ideas for some kind of trade-value-item or currency. Bottlecaps, shells, whatever. The thing is before you get any currency, you need to be able to trade. At the moment there is no such thing as a trade of different goods, because tbh all goods are basically the same, have a decent availability and if you want something from another player you can just shoot him. On top of that players who would have enough currency to buy things probably have acquired these items any way. Getting in "trade distance" with any player I do not know I can trust 100% not to shoot me is not going to happen either.

Don't like this idea as its a one sided suggestion. Although I'm not a bandit as myself, I've also killed several other players just because they were too far into my comfort zone or were pointing their gun at me. Why should I feel guilty when I am defending myself? Nope to this.

@Yatagan Possibly your installation of ARMA 2 got corrupted or you are (maybe unbeknownst to you) playing with a "pirated" version of the game.

Maybe a bike at every bus stop? Respawn after 4 hours?

Not to mention that most tents are often stocked full with duped or hacked items.

Why use the optic slots if there already is a toolbelt? All that would have to be done is adding a better way to access the items from the toolbelt, could be done just as easily and would not mean having to mess with the optic (head) slots.

I think its more that most people don't think it makes sense. Did you ever play WoW or another MMO that had this? Go walk through a sandy or snowy area. Notice how long footsteps are available (about 5 seconds). Having footsteps from 50-70 players being shown throughout more than 1 minute would put a huge strain on the server. Imagine instead of footsteps you'd drop a tin can every step, its basically the same mechanic and the server needs to keep track of every can. Even most FPS games feature decals (like bloodstains, bullet holes, footsteps etc.) that rarely are visible more than 1 - 2 minutes, probably less when online. To add something that supports your idea, I would think it was ok if some kind of tracking mechanism would be implemented, maybe the way it was in Ultima Online, that worked fine, even without footsteps.

Regular vs. Hardcore, Crosshairs, Nametags, 1st vs 3rd person ... why beat on dead horses? These things have been discussed 1000s of times in almost any ARMA or mod forum available. Just wait for standalone when we are talking about the real deal, currently its completely pointless to bring this up again and again.

I can see why some people are attracted to private hive servers. You get more security from hackers, better / tighter moderation of players and often have a regular base of players who you get to know. Also of course less lag / loading issues. The only thing that speaks against this is that its contrary to what Rocket (probably) has envisioned for Day Z. Day Z was supposed to be a social experiment and part of that is actually having to stumble upon players you are not familiar with and deal with them. Currently (sadly) the only way this is done is by shooting them, showing that many players have made bad experiences, lack empathy and generally get paranoid while playing Day Z. This is why people on non hive servers often get "belittled". They go there to avoid annoying encounters, hackers and lag issues, which I can't blame them for. No one likes being frustrated, but at the moment its part of the game. The non hive servers to me are a good indication what the next step of Day Z should be, more grouping / social functions and better control over malicious actions (ALT F4-ing, scripting etc.). If this was implemented and the official game serves would have more fixed communities we would see less non-hive servers.