Jack Dant

But kinetic energy is 1/2 * mass * velocity squared. So bullet velocity is very important to determine damage. For a given bullet weight, velocity is mostly a function of powder charge, that is, the cartridge used to fire the bullet. So in principle all 5,56x45mm guns should deal the same damage. However, barrel length does have an effect on velocity. Powder keeps burning in the barrel and making the bullet accelerate as it moves towards the muzzle. In shorter barrels, there's not enough time/space for all the powder to burn, so the muzzle velocity is lower. The effect in damage is probably negligible in the short range. But it is part of the reason why carbines are shorter range weapons.

If they take a significant effort to repair and keep running, they should take planning, patience and a bit of luck to capture or destroy. Do you really think it should be easy for you to single-handedly stop or destroy any car that happens to run near you? However, I'd love to see re-usable spike strips in the game, as a slightly less lethal option. Fair point, but I think taking the backpack slot and rarity of ammo would be enough to limit that casual usage.

Well, this is a former soviet country. How about introducing the RPG-7? They take the backpack slot, so they are specialist team weapons. Otherwise, you have wire, tank traps, etc.

The SVD should be a lot more common, if only because it's a widely used soviet weapon in a former soviet setting. And it brings OFP memories. But the zeroing is not that much of an issue, or the M24 would be used a lot more than the DMR (and it isn't). The problem is, the .50 cals are much more effective snipers, with more damage and more range. Ammo was not a problem before the infinite ammo bugs got fixed (we'll see how it goes now). And their RL cons, their weight and bulk, are barely a problem ingame. Unless there is a way to reflect those downsides in the game (for example, and ACE-style weight based stamina system), the .50 cals should probably be removed.

94876, and the server was running the same.

Not seeing this. I was playing 1.7.1.5 today and found a ghillie. Didn't put it on. Logged on to 1.7.2.3, put on my ghillie, started moving. Then my connection dropped and I DC'ed from both the server and TS. When I got back on (different server), I was close to where I DC'ed, around 800m from the point I put the ghillie on. I moved a bit further, then decided to log off for the day. After reading this thread, I logged back on, and I was exactly where I logged off and where I expected to be. Can't speak about the inventory issues, but it seemed my inventory was fine throught the whole test.

Oh, absolutely. I've been an EVE Online player for quite a few years and I'm familiar with the need to rebalance things from time to time. But I don't think the problem is what you think it is. The PVP in DayZ is very enjoyable and probably one of its strong points. Any sort of discouraging/punishment of what you perceive as pointless PVP, is only going to hurt an important facet of the game. Now, what the game is missing, is conflict drivers for the geared up players. Once you reach a certain point in your ingame life, you have the tools you need to survive forever in the forest. You have your favorite PVP gun, and a pack full of stuff for "emergencies". Now what's left? What reason would you have to PVP except the thrill of it? That's what we are seeing. The only thing filling in as a conflict driver right now are vehicles. And let me tell you, the vehicle ambushes I've been involved in have been awesome. But then, if the vehicle even survives the fight (and I'm at a 33% survival rate myself), what did you win? They are not really that useful, and having multiple vehicles is usually a waste. TL;DR: It's not that people are killing each other for the wrong reasons, it's that there's no right reason to kill each other once you reach a certain point. But killing each other is fun, so we do it anyway.

I don't think so. My camo was wiped even tho I still play in 1.7.1.5.

Regular ARMA 2. Sorry? Please explain how regular arma 2 has persistence and permadeath, because it has neither. Edited to add: You really don't get what a sandbox game is, do you? A sandbox game is not "meant" to be played in any particular way. I, for one, would applaud your DayZ racing initiative as an excellent example of the sandbox at work. Then I would show up to it with a grenade launcher to spice things a bit.

It's funny how the gamers who oppose senseless violence in video games, are always the first to threaten real life violence when their e-peen or their pixels get hurt.

You respawn without your gear, which depending on your personal style, can take anything from 15 minutes to several hours/days to collect. I guess if all you do is play lee-enfield wars in cherno/elektro, death means very little to you. For everything else, it does matter. The game itself is casual. Yes, you can go pro and then it becomes non-casual for you. There are also rock/paper/scissors championships and, I presume, pro-players. That doesn't make it into a hardcore game :)

Oh, I agree. But much of that will go away when/if server hopping and DCing gets "fixed". There's very few spots where you can do that and get regular kills without server hopping until you see zombies. They are well known, and relatively easy to scout from a distance. The others require a metric ton of patience, which in a way is a skill.

My favorite fix is to completely reset your location if you log on two different servers too quickly (say within 10-15 minutes). It slows down server hopping for loot, and it makes ghosting like the OP mentioned pretty hard to pull off.

If you think skill is the same as who can control their mouse best at the highest sensitivity, sure. Arma2 is not designed for that, because it's focused on realism. For me, that's pretty shallow gameplay. Maybe I'm growing old, who knows. Being aware of your surroundings so you see the other guy first. Always staying in or near cover so you can react to an attack. Planning your approach and your escape route beforehand. Those are the skills you need. The same ones you'd need in a real situation.

It's funny how you seem to equate "hardcore" and "quicker gratification". Surely they are opposed concepts? Those deathmatch games are terribly casual, not hardcore. You can join and leave at any minute, death means nothing and you always respawn instantly. You can't get more casual than that. Those games offer fun, but no adrenaline rush. While after a firefight in DayZ you walk away from the computer with your heart racing. It more than makes up for the rarity of those firefights.

I, for one, cannot read rocket's mind. Maybe sir has a direct line into his brain? However, sir should most definitely look up the definitions of "sandbox game" and "emergent gameplay".

Get hatchett, knife, matches and water bottle. Dissapear into the woods. Where is your ever-present zombie threat now? Name one. Name one shooter with 1) persistence 2) permadeath 3) a 225km2 map 4) realist guns and gun damage. If DayZ had those elements and no zombies at all, I would still play it. Why? Because they make for tactical, tense and terrifying gameplay. Comparing it to COD/BF is like comparing high stakes poker with the neighbourhood bingo.

All the special action sounds are bugged, FYI. If you approach someone who has drunk/eaten/repaired a car in their current play session, the sounds play for you as soon as you get in range.

Then you'd support complete removal of loot respawn? Even across server resets? If not, please explain what plausible mechanism is there for respawning loot. This is a sensible RP explanation. Loot cycling does feel a bit like exploiting a game mechanic. But on the other hand, the whole loot respawn thing is rather unrealistic, and very hard to do right.

This, pretty much. The M24 is a better specialist sniper rifle, but the DMR is more versatile. Their rarity makes sense from a realism point of view. Although, the other problem with the M24 is just how common the .50 cal rifles are, and how much better they are at everything the M24 does.

It's not "killing" any more than capturing pieces in Chess, sinking ships in Battleship or destroying armies in Risk is killing.

The BIG problem was not the duping. From the video of it I saw, it would be impractical to dupe lots of barbed wire in different buildings. The HUGE issue is that removed wire comes back on the next server reset. So if I setup barbed wire anywhere for legitimate reasons, it will stay there forever. Trying to clean it is a losing battle.

There are several related issues here: Combat logging, combat logging followed by server hopping to flank, or server hopping for loot (which often results in flanking someone who was in the building legitimately). They all ruin immersion. The attempted fix in 1.7 only dealt with a small subset of the first issue: people logging off while you had a clear shot and were shooting. With only a 5 second timer, you would have been free to log off as soon as you found minimal cover. But AFAIK, we haven't heard anything regarding the other issues. There's even some confusion over whether server admins can ban people who cheat in that way!

"Despite evidence to the contrary, murder is not a commonplace occurrence in Ankh-Morpork. Ankh-Morpork does, however, have an extraordinarily high suicide rate, due mainly to the city's view on what constitutes as suicide. For example, walking alone through the night-time alleyways of the Shades is suicide, as is asking for a short in a dwarf bar. It is very easy to commit suicide in Ankh-Morpork if you are not careful."

Our personal theory is that players logging on/off nearby triggers corpses despawning. We've noticed corpses despawn faster when we fight known combat loggers.