Fonebook

What kind of Alpha tester thumbs his nose at the development team and says "no thanks, you'll have to do better before I am willing to test?" Sure you are playing the mod for fun more than the testing, that much is obvious. But if you want to influence the direction of the game you need to play the newest versions and provide constructive feedback to the development team. If you are unhappy about the new version then please play it and document in detail what exactly you are unhappy about and think needs changing. I like at least that you made a list of reasons why you are reverting. Now that you're going back to the old version your feedback will undoubtedly be less valuable. I understand that people are upset about many of the changes which add difficulty, but lets be honest, we've all been spoiled rotten by the overabundance of loot and the ease of avoiding zombies. There have always been bugs. As such a massive piece of software, it is likely that there will always be bugs. The whole point of this endeavor is to crowd-source the development of DayZ. Nobody is going to force you to participate, but refusing to update in what appears to be some kind of protest against the changes is not a productive enterprise for the state of the mod. Change and adapt, the only constant thing in life is that everything changes.

Thank you for updating the poll choices, I believe the results will be more meaningful this way. Pollsters know questions and responses must be carefully crafted in order to get opinions which have not been influenced by the questions or answers provided. Looking forward to see where this lands in the next few days.

Since the first vote was from the OP under the category "It sucks" it is very easy to see what he/she is hoping to accomplish. If you would like for this poll to be more meaningful I would suggest the choices be "Satisfied", "Indifferent", and "Unsatisfied." Your results would be better, as now the only people who will follow the "it sucks" line are those who are really unhappy. Also it might be nice if you invited people to post the main reason for their vote in simple terms. Hopefully this poll can be meaningful, time will tell.

How bad they are is in the eye of the beholder. Mostly your expectations will determine how you feel about it. Just let go of your expectations and enjoy what you have, and will get going forward. Play the mod, post your constructive criticism here, and watch as things gradually improve.

Just like a great piece of art, software is never finished. There just comes a point where the creators stop and move on to other projects. We have all been given the rare opportunity to participate in the formation of a new style of game. Perhaps fretting over bugs or glitches is the wrong approach. We can speculate all day but the meaningful discussion on the condition of the standalone cannot be had by outsiders, once it is actually released we can talk about it. As an alpha build there will certainly be bugs and if you have some expectation of perfection, or even just high expectations of a work in progress, then maybe alpha testing is not for you. Anyone who is upset at what has been delivered, for free, is quite ungrateful in my opinion. And once the standalone comes out I fear the complaining will only get worse once real money leaves the pockets. We, as a community, have the opportunity to prove or disprove the viability of making and releasing a game in this manner. Lets band together and remember that the mission is to help make DayZ the best it can be. It would be rather sad if this whole thing went to pieces because of people having unreasonable expectations.

I cannot tell you how not to get addicted. If you would like to discuss coping with the addiction once you have it, we can talk. Just remember, the first time is always free. Once standalone comes out you will throw your money at it without even counting. And yeah, remember the distinction between game and real life. When you see a car broken down on the side of the road and wonder where you would find the parts, glancing at Autozones and Wal-Mart automotive centers... Well then you'll know you are addicted and we can start a support group or something.

Has the murder/bandit kill issue with the Ghille suit been resolved? I hatcheted a guy in camo clothes and it was counted as a murder. Perhaps he was a survivor under those clothes, but he ambushed me and a new found friend in the firehouse with an enfield and another bandit in tow. His behavior sure led me to believe he was probably a bandit under the skin, but I don't know and have no way to test this myself. Does anyone else know if murders/bandit kills are being counted properly for killing players in the special skins?

Perhaps the infection mechanic can stay as it is, antibiotics can be rare like they are now, and there can be a treatment to slow or delay death. I think the instant infection is crucial to create fear in the players. If there is a way to avoid it then people will go back to not being VERY scared of zeds. The instant infection does more to create fear of zeds than anything else. Maybe there can be tubes of topical cremes to "treat" the infection. Maybe a treatment can be relatively easy to come by but a cure can stay rare. In the end I think there being IMMEDIATE consequences to waltzing with zeds is very important to generating the fear this game should. Just add perhaps a range of treatment options but keep the cure a rare bird.

:facepalm:

Compare the Battlefield franchise today to the amazing game it was when it first came out. Compare the first and second Call of Duty titles to what has become of the franchise today. I love your post and think you are putting a lot of effort into having a fair and balanced view. I happen to disagree on this singular point though. It would be a shame if they altered the game in order to increase profits. In order for games to evolve, change, and improve we need adventurous developers. We need people to look at the state of the industry and push it somewhere. If everyone sticks to making games within some acceptable formula for difficulty or game play we will not have adventurous titles and the industry will stagnate around some self propagating standard. Sometimes we need developers to show us that we actually do want something different than we thought.

You picked a pretty choice time to resurrect this old post. I it wasn't outdated before, it certainly is now eh? Perhaps this should be locked as it no longer seems relevant. Maybe the OP would like to write a new guide for the new loot reality.

We can't get more salutes? Come on guys! Sure you have a strong reaction to it at first, but the new patch is great! Hats off to the devs for having the balls to do this in the first place! Hip hip....

Yes I hastily posted my first impression, but really it is a zombie apocalypse. Now all that's left is having you stand up as a zombie after you die of infection. And then have your character start making zed noises in the 2 minutes before the change. Then you would be faced with maybe having to shoot your friends...... Just need a survivor/zombie model and whamo.

Didn't you accuse me of crying for making the same lamentation? Well glad to see you suffered the infection too. I did what people recommended and have learned to recognize and avoid the viral zeds. This high rate of infection turns out to be exactly what we needed in order to properly fear zombies. Now that I have raised my internal fear level, doing good!

Don't worry guys. The good thing about infections are that they spread. Maybe I am over reacting by thinking this is a problem after only four hours of play, but this needs to be looked at. Once more and more people face the new grim reality of infection, the numbers of people calling for a change will only grow. I am off to the game world to kill cows until meds finally appear.

If you don't have anything constructive to say, please go elsewhere. In fact I usually enter cities to meet new players, I suppose you would advise me to just avoid cities?

Tried 1.7.7 for about four hours. Lived two lives. Became infected in both cases. Searched numerous hospitals, medical tents, military tents, etc. No antibiotics anywhere. I have been an advocate for the changes in 1.7.7 all along and I am very thankful that stuff is harder to find. I keep telling myself I like the new patch and the way it is. But so far the only thing I have looked for in my four hours of play is antibiotics. I even met and asked 5 people in Elektro about antibiotics, they did not have any either. I keep eating meat and other things to fight off the infection. But I have no idea where to go next looking for antibiotics. I am against server hopping and had hoped to find them in numerous hospitals that I visited with no luck. I would prefer to solve this without meta-gaming. I don't want to log back in on my character until someone has the antibiotics for me. It was the zeds which infected me. If the chances for infection have been increased this much and antibiotics are this much harder to find, I suppose I will just always be sick. There is only one way to deal with the infection, but when you run all over the map looking for one particular item it never fails to not spawn for you. Been there with jerry cans and tires and such in the last version. The infection, however, has huge consequences now that it won't stop draining. So now I feel my best way to cure the infection is to jump off a building. Not fun.

No apology necessary R4ZOR49. Many of us understand the situation and appreciate all the hard work you and your team are doing to bring this out. You never promised it, and a lot of us don't expect it. E3 is incredibly important for the gaming industry and anyone who does not understand this delay should be more or less ignored. Let us know what you know whenever you can, and thanks for being forthcoming about the delay.

Though is is true that simply operating a helicopter in ArmA is relatively easy, operating it well is not. Flying low and using the terrain for cover, doing quick pickup and drop offs in areas with heavy resistance, and generally doing the job without the aid of auto-hover is already quite difficult. Take a look at how most people fly, auto-hover straight up and down, fly forward in a straight line. These guys are easy to shoot out of the pilot seat as they are often foolish enough to be still enough to let this happen. Honestly, just removing the ability to auto hover would get the vast majority of unskilled pilots out of the air in one swipe. Perhaps this is something that could be looked at as an addition to an upcoming patch? The removal of auto-hover. It might slant things a little in favor of joystick owners, but I have met some fairly skilled mouse pilots back in the BF1942 Desert Combat days.

I have managed to wrap my head around this curse. Granted, if you had followed my upcoming advice, this story never would have been. If you find a Mountain Dew, drink it immediately. The curse is believing it has power. Magic only exists when people believe in it. I used to fall victim to this curse, and have seen many of my mates fall around me in the curs-ed tales of the Mountain Dews. Finally, I realized these little green gems are in the game for us to enjoy! Find it, drink it, defeat it. Never take the risk of not enjoying your lucky find. Trying to preserve the little green can for any purpose will surely accelerate your demise. Sometimes though, as you said "who dares wins," and bombastically running head first into the bowels of the curse will produce the most spectacular results. I usually play for the new and interesting scenarios the game has to offer, so you would think I would happily risk it. But in the case of the dew, I am squeamish, I fear the curse it carries. Therefor I drink them immediately, let my stomach acid sort it out.

I believe Death wants to make some more of these. Any other opinions? Any constructive criticism or suggestions?

The very first Operation Flashpoint had speed of sound calculations more than a decade ago, it is nice, isn't it? It's much more noticeable with the military hardware from ArmA 2.

I did a search and did not find a discussion going on this so I apologize in advance if this is old news. Death messages seem out of place to me. I mean they are handy for being sure you killed someone, but really how would you know without checking the body? We all know humans have survived some amazing things, and even people that look completely torn up may be alive. The game already has a dialogue for checking pulse, can we get more use out of this? I have been feeling for a long time that it is strange that you can sometimes see who shoots you in some private servers, and a few public ones as well. Furthermore, I find the default setting of showing death messages at all to be strange. To me it is an element of the game that doesn't belong at all. A person should have to check a body themselves or watch it closely for awhile to make sure their target is neutralized. Now I understand that these messages can be turned off in an expert mode setting server side, but given the choice players seem to prefer taking the easy route. Look at the growth of private hive shenanigans, for instance. I have learned not to trust them anyways, as I have been killed before for assuming I killed a guy, only to later realize it must have been a death message from somewhere else in the server as my supposed victim finished me off. As I play the game now, I wait until I hear flies to be sure the guy is dead, or check the body myself. Granted, as it stands I could easily rent a server and run it on expert mode myself, I have seen people around here looking for some so I figure I am not alone on this. However I feel that showing death messages is another UI element standard in FPS multiplayer games that does not belong in a game like DayZ. My opinion is that going forward into the standalone, death messages should be removed completely, forcing players to check bodies to be sure they are dead. I understand that in the real world looking through a scope/binoculars there are certain injuries you could possibly see on a person and make a reasonable assumption that your target was neutralized. Perhaps some 3D models for different injuries can be applied to character models? That is, if it isn't too sick and twisted, or the game could be pulled from shelves in certain markets. What does everyone think?

You know, there should be a button for "play dead" as well as "walk like a zombie." One of my favorite bandit kills was finding a bandit at Balota with a hatchet running around with a mob of zeds behind him. I started running with the mob of zeds hoping he hadn't noticed me. The zed and I ran behind him for about 70 yards as he wove through the town trying to lose them. One of them must have hit him cause as soon as he thought he had lost them, I ran up behind the guy and put an axe in his bandit back. He said over side chat "where the hell did you come from?" I told him I ran with the pack of chasing zombies. He said "crap, I thought you were one of them." Mission success.

Chernarus all the way. All the rest of the maps felt imbalanced for me, and the points of interest were not properly spread in my opinion.