Vicco

A bandit skin really just says you murdered "too many" players. That's how it works. I've heard a lot of stupid crap about bandit skins. "They look cool, so it encourages players to turn to banditry." WTF? Only a kiddie with undeveloped morality would buy that. A bandit skin just says "murderer." Nothing complicated about it. I hear you, and know what it takes to remove the skin. The humanity system is flawed, but mostly on the "self-defense" end. Didn't you earn the bandit skin you're wearing? Just wear it proudly, and go about your business. You're playing your role. Nobody forced you to get 50k humanity in the hole or whatever hellish number it is. How many did you shoot in the back? Kinda reminds me of somebody earning $100 a week but gets himself $50k in debt. Maybe like the killer who murders his parents, then asks the judge for mercy, because he's an orphan. You say the "friendly" mentality is only good to people who are new. There are plenty of veterans who play friendly. So that doesn't wash. You chose a different path. That's fine. We need bandits. I get a kick out of some of the YT series. Guy is supposedly playing a "hero," carrying an AS50 TWS. Says he's basically a "good guy." Sees a survivor 400 yards ahead carrying an AK, going in the same general direction he is. Says - in a very sober and serious tone - something like "Now that guy is a clear danger to my mission. And very dangerous with an assault rifle." His "mission." "very dangerous." So he shoots the guy in the back. Ten minutes further on in the YT series he's wearing a ghillie. He's covering up his bandit skin. Or he server hops to regain a survivor skin. Sometimes, if the vid shows him getting the skin for self-defense kills, he'll wear it a while, but not for long. I've never seen such a bullshit fantasy world as in Dayz YT vids. Got no problem with bandits, and no real problem with bullshit. I just like to recognize both. So you're a bandit. Tell Rocket you want an easier way out of your bandit skin. I won't complain. I like the humanity system assigning bandit skins. Already said that. Don't care if it's made a bit easier or harder to gain or remove it. On private servers the admin can delete you and get rid of that bandit skin, so you can pal up with him and have him do that. Tell him to spawn in all the best gear for you too. That's what many Dayz YouTubers do. Another option is buy a new game key. That'll remove your bandit skin for public and private hives. But taking away your bandit skin won't change you. You already said that killing is all you get out of the game. So I guess you losing that skin will just give you a chance to get closer to survivors before you shoot them in the back or backstab them. So why not just play bandit? You can still sneak up on survivors and shoot them in the back. You'll get no argument from me. It's a perfectly valid role in Dayz. This guy has fun NOT being a bandit, but still doing a lot of killing. He does say it's a lot of work finding bandits. Only Dayz guy on YT I give any credence to. He also has a short series where he's pure bandit. Does that well too, but says it's "too easy. Anyway, there's a lot of options for bandits, and you can figure it out. I'm just saying I like the humanity system, and want it improved. If I ever choose to bandit I'll try to be the best damn bandit, and wear the skin proudly. Wouldn't worry at all about being taken for a bandit. It's my path. Would be a nice challenge to remove the skin if I wanted to do that. I know some don't want the humanity system, but I think they are naïve in thinking that removing it would not turn Dayz into deathmatch. I think it would turn the game into a deathmatch, excepting players who avoid all stranger interaction. I might well be wrong. Just my opinion. The only test would be to remove the humanity system. I really don't think that's going to happen. But it might. It's not my game. I just play it. Might even play it if it goes deathmatch. Won't know unless that happens.

As long as you had fun, that's what it's all about. A new tactic to fight infection came along naturally with 1.7.7 and 1.7.7.1. Suicide. Just get to an isolated location near the coast, draw some zeds to your hiding spot to do SBZ (suicide by zed,) and hope nobody hears the flies before you respawn and retrieve your gear from your body. Done it many times already. Got my gear every time. Feels real good to get rid of that coughing.

Yep. But understand - AFAIK - they are still all Dayz V1.7.6.1. Different game as far the zeds/infection goes. Could also go on 1.7.6.1 Chernarus servers.

Get ready for "What, only 15 attempts to last a few hours? Try harder man, it's the Apocalypse." The 40% kills from PvP isn't bad. Dying easily from zeds/infection disease is a bummer. Don't expect the stand-alone to eliminate the PvP. That's ok with me. There are ways to avoid getting killed by players. But if the loot and infection rate is the same as the current Dayz, I want no part of the stand-alone.

Bandit skins didn't keep those who teamed up in that video from teaming up. Of course they may have earned them after they teamed up. Gets into mob psychology. Dogs will turn murderous when they pack. Not saying that happened here, just commenting. Although very entertaining, videos aren't representative of what a player finds in-game. I don't see bandit skins as being an impediment to teaming up. Would be to me, because I KOS bandits if the odds are right. Others tolerate them. I can't argue against what you think, but only suggest that having a good humanity system is necessary to keep the game popular among the larger player base. That's why there are bandit skins now, and why the stand-alone will have them, or some equivalent. Personally, I won't cry if the humanity system is removed. Just won't play Dayz. I need my share of killing in Dayz, but only killing bandits will do. Just how it is. Won't matter to anybody if I don't play Dayz. Sure, some people won't get my friendship and aid. They can just look elsewhere. Because without penalizing murder, it will be a deathmatch game, and I don't play deathmatch. I know you think otherwise, and that's how it is. Can't say I'm right, because it hasn't happened yet. So it's just another opinion, and you know what they say about opinions. BTW, using the word "copasetic" doesn't mean I mastered anything. Just means I'm old.

That's funny. I've got my own idea of play style, but don't expect anybody to cooperate with it. I sure won't cry about getting killed. So if anybody thinks I should cooperate with a stick up artist, well, excuuuuuse me. That's not my style. Same goes for "Drop your guns." WHAT!!? ARE YOU EFFING CRAZY!!?

I basically agree with you, and with AI it's a different game. But there are plenty already playing with AI in. Origins is one example, and SARGE AI is in place on some private servers. I just put SARGE AI on my server, in Chernarus, which I use solo or with a partner. The AI does randomly spawn within configurable parameters. I left mine as default SARGE AI, so I don't really know where they will spawn, but have already encountered some. They are groups of soldiers, bandits, and survivor/heroes. Everything can be configured pretty easily, including the number in the groups and their weapons. Some will patrol, some will ambush. Soldiers and survivors attack zeds and bandits. Bandits attack everyone. All will attack you if you shoot at them. I expect more servers to install AI if DayZ loses too many players due to what we're talking about here. If the game loses all conversational player interaction and is all death match, then most people would rather play against AI. Smarter and better shooting opponents, and they keep their traps shut too. I didn't tell my partner I put AI in, and he was shot by bandits shortly after he spawned in. He told me to change the server password.

I welcome your disagreement. As I said, basically going on comments I see here, and from what I've seen on YT, the most common justification for KOS among survivors is "kill of be killed." That's completely understandable, and consistent with the "vicious circle" paradigm. How much this plays out on public servers I don't know. Public servers should already be skinning murderers. It's really hard to get a good handle on it, but it seems there is severe player attrition due to rampant KOS by survivors. Since skinning is already in place server wide on the public hive, it seems most of the complaints are from those playing in private hives. But I don't know that. And I don't even "know" that severe player attrition is occurring. That's just my "impression" from reading this forum. From the KOS complaints I've seen here and elsewhere, it does "seem" to lead players to abandoning the game. But it may be from people just tiring of the game. Even most KOS'er's will tire of that, as the game's design isn't very conducive to doing purely that. Anyway, everybody has a different view. And I roll with that, but express my own. I really believe that without a "penalty" for it, murder is the name of the game. As I've said, I have no problem with KOS'ers or bandits if they are willing to pay the price. I mean, the price to be paid for trusting a survivor can be death by murder, and re-gearing. If you think that murdering should extract no price, you're basically putting far too much trust in "human nature," or are copasetic with murdering as your main game play. Because unless you're playing with "friends" only, that's what you'll get, including from me if I chose to play the game. How could it be otherwise? There's no incentive for me to trust a stranger, and every incentive to murder him. "Human nature" works only by carrot and stick. Always has.

I like "prevent infection." Unless antibiotic spawn is increased, where we are now is doing way too much "prone" movement to prevent infection. Still extremely difficult to avoid infection, and really boring. One way to address it might be "buffing resistance." Like eating 2 cooked meat would give you immunity from infection for 10 minutes. Something like that. Still have added difficulty working to "fight" infection, but it would be more interesting than endlessly being prone, and give more hope against the scourge of infection.

Everybody has their own fun by doing what tickles them. If you have fun "robbing" or being "robbed" I have no quarrel with that. If I meet somebody who wants to "rob" me in Dayz I'll just say "That ain't gonna happen," and offer to team up for a while. If he persists in wanting to "rob" me, I'll just say "STFU you damn fool. You'll have to murder me first." That'll be fun for me. Don't think there's many "honest robbers" running around Dayz anyway. Mostly plain old murderers looking for justification. "Why'd you shoot that guy in the back as he was running away?" "Had to. He wouldn't give me his stuff." "But he was running away!!" "Yeah, but maybe he would try to kill me later. Besides, I wanted his stuff." You always hear lame justifications for murder. And that's how they earn their bandit skins. Not complaining. I like it like that. Wouldn't be enough bandits otherwise.

Oh, I'll talk to them. Tell them I forgive them for falling into a life of a thievery, and that I won't shoot them, but I also won't give them a damn thing. Because that's how I roll. So the choice is theirs what to do next. Become friendly, or murder. It's not too complicated. And very natural to the game.

Hey, you can start your own server. Then recruit people to play robbers and others to play the victims of robbers. Then you'll have your "fun." Likewise, you can build bases, start families by naming people Jed and Jed Junior and such. Just don't expect me to join up, nor to give up my gear when you "rob" me. I'll run away. If you shoot me down, we'll both be playing our "roles" well enough for me. If you don't shoot me down, you'll feel like a real life robber whose victim ran away without you shooting him. Should be good enough for you. Damn, it's like you expect a stranger to play YOUR game. Doesn't work that way in real life either. Roleplay with your friends.

I understand how a robber/robbed roleplay can happen. That's all fine. Go for it. But I don't play that, and I didn't see anybody here admit to letting themselves be robbed. Takes two to play that, and I only say I won't participate on either side. I can see where somebody who counts "days alive" might let himself be robbed instead of starting a new day count, and hope he isn't shot after giving up his gear. Makes sense. Just not how I play. My game is basically letting non-bandit skins lose humanity. I don't steal it. They freely give it up, earn their bandit skin, and then provide me "clean" PvP opportunity when they earn their bandit skin. KOS doesn't bother me, except new spawn killing. Never do it myself, but it's what gives the game tension. Same with betrayers/back-stabbers. Good thing is, this all generates bandit skins, and the game needs bandits. If bandits get too light in number, we'd have to cook some up. Here's a scenario I'd like to see done, and wouldn't mind doing it myself. Find a public server with a group of goody-two-shoes patrolling Electro or Cherno. Four or five heroes and survivors helping each other out and keeping the town "safe." Get your own team of 5-6 players together to spawn in, with one guy joining the hero/survivor group, so he can report in TS where they are. When he's in position, your other guys charge in, one at a time, with whatever shotgun, Makarov or Winchester they've picked up. You could pre-arrange a weapons repository to speed things up a bit. These are just suicide runs, shooting to miss, but making the hero/survivor lose humanity by killing the shooter. Your guys just keep spawning in, charging the hero/survivor location and extracting humanity. Soon enough all the heroes/survivors are bandits. Your infiltrated guy convinces them all to gather up at the fire station or wherever. Then you all start typing in side chat that you're seeking volunteers to assault the fire station where a group of murdering bandits are holed up. Of course your infiltrator guy is recording all this for YouTube. The reaction of the heroes/survivors as they become bandits, their reaction to him expressing his doubts about being in the company of bandits, their reaction to the side chat, etc. Could be done. So who are the "real" bandits here? Anyway, unless I become a "days alive" player, I won't cough up anything for some "robber." I'll run away, and if he shoots me down, he'll pay with humanity.

I don't get one thing. Letting somebody "rob" you. Maybe if I didn't have a gun, I'd talk a bit with somebody who wanted to "rob" me. Who knows, might team up for a bit. But I'm not giving up anything I have. Go ahead and take it from my dead body if you want it that bad, you thieving "robber." Earn your bandit skin. Gee, why would you give a "robber" anything, or let him toy with you? I don't get that. It's different than handing over your wallet to a guy pointing a gun at you in real life. In Dayz you just respawn. What am I missing here?

Just do what you want to do according to the play style you want to develop and what makes you feel "right." Personally, I won't shoot anybody without a bandit skin unless they shoot first. And they have to hit me too, because I don't want the humanity hit for murdering them. It's usually better if they get the kill on me anyway because I prefer they earn a bandit skin for their misconduct. That way they're just a KOS to me later and provide a legit PvP target. I'm not a gear collector and make do with a Lee or Winchester, which are easily found. I keep survival gear in stashes, making runs for rifles, matches, knives and hatchets when the server population is low. Not too easy with the new zeds. But basically dying doesn't bother me much because I never lose "important" gear. A bandit "robbing" me is a joke. Why the hell would I give a bandit anything? We ain't playing "Robin Hood" here and I ain't Maid Marian either Any treachery I can use against a bandit, I'll use it. They're free kills. If they kill me, so be it. That's how it goes. If a survivor or hero tries it, I'll just run. If they kill me, so be it. Puts them further on down the trail to banditry, giving me another target. If I sound like a hard-ass, just accept that and move along. But while I'm here I'll ask if anybody thinks this a good plan for playing. Because it's just a plan. I haven't played much yet. First time I was shot dead on the beach a couple minutes after spawning. Then I spent a few hours collecting gear when the server was down to 1-2 players. I'm scared man, I'm scared. But the "plan" above shouldn't take much skill. And I don't have much.

I use DayzCC for single-player and playing with my partner. It's legit, and nobody can hack it, if you PW protect it. It's robust, and from what I've read on the DayzCC forum some are using it to host 40 players. That depends on your PC hardware and connection speed. I gather it's the basic server used by Dayz Priv, a hosting outfit. But without all the server admin control bells and whistles. It still has some development connection to Dayz Priv, though they are different entities. Unless you have tools and SQL abilities, you'll basically be playing vanilla. But there's a loadout SQL generator that allows you to easily paste whatever loadout you want into the control panel configure loadout window. The control panel also provides some common admin functions. Delete/repawn vehicles is one. It also supports about 8-9 other vanilla maps. Lingor. Takistan, Taviana, etc. You should have decent computer skills if you want to install and run it, but it's pretty easy to use. Don't expect hand-holding support. Novogeek is the sole developer now, and is doing a bang-up job in keeping it going. He expects to release the newest version, which supports Dayz 1.7.7.1, in a few days. That will be DayzCC version 5.9.3.0 Wait until he releases that, because anything else - except the old package supporting 1.7.6 - is a mess. I'm running Dayz 1.7.7 with the old DayzCC version 5.9.2.0 with no issues I care about, but obviously new elements like stashes aren't in the DB. But 5.9.2.0 won't run Dayz 1.7.7.1 for me. So I'm looking forward to the new CC release. 1.7.7 is brutal even with no PvP. Having said all that, playing single or with a partner on your own server is only good for "training" with no PvP to deal with. That's a lot different than mixing it up on public servers. You won't have any "fun" at all once you've adequately trained and seen the scenery. You could do pretty much the same by finding a low-pop server, and I've done that too.

US 3479 doesn't show up on Dayz Commander. Official or otherwise. Good.

So what's the deal here? Who takes a server like this off the "official" list? Sure wouldn't want to walk into this server, all innocent as I am. Excuse my ignorance here, but I was expecting some kind of "official" response. Looking at the posted rules above, it appears that PvE can't be enforced on "official" servers anyway, and it's basically "voluntary." Is that right? Don't care what private servers do, because I can easily avoid those I don't like.

Commenting to get my view in. I'm playing 1.7.7 only now. On my own server with a partner, no PvP. Server is set to 1.7.6 vanilla loot/spawns. He wants to revert to 1.7.6, but that's just way too easy with no PvP. Server won't run 1.7.7.1 yet, so haven't tried it. We're basically training before we go on public servers. Have maybe 20 hours play time together so far, half 1.7.6, half 1.7.7, but I have another 6-8 hours sneaking around on public servers gearing up there for when we go "real world." That was all 1.7.6. Zombies were just background noise, I think everybody agrees. I was quickly killed, still unarmed, first time in by a new-spawn murderer. Next time in I died because of blood loss because I couldn't find matches. I got geared third time in, so that character is set up. So we played 10 hours 1.7.6 and I could feel the boredom setting in with no PvP. The fun was learning the controls and map. The 10 hours at 1.7.7 is pretty stupid, because of infection rate. You can't survive long unless you just camp the woods and stay away from zombies. If that's what you like to do, then 1.7.7 is for you. The only reason we can still play on 1.7.7 is no PvP, and we have cars to mow over zombies. Mowing over zombies is boring as hell, but that's what we have to do to loot in 1.7.7 to avoid infection. Infection has been a death sentence. At the very beginning of the 10 hours of playing 1.7.7 we found 2 anti-biotics in the Cherno grocery. Haven't found any since, and blood bags are scarce. Wouldn't be impossible if any of various elements were tweaked a bit. More anti-biotics, slower blood loss from infection, etc. Also want medicine to suppress coughing. Robitussin maybe. Pretty sure 1.7.7.1 is better, but heard it needs tweaking/fixing. I want zombies to pose a real threat, whether by direct melee blows or infection. But infection can't be a 99% death sentence, no matter how else zombies are nerfed. Maybe 50/50 chance of death from infection. We'll see how further tweaking goes. And I want cough medicine - I want it badly. The coughing drives me crazy, and I start panicking. Not really. I just calmly suicide to get rid of the cough. BTW, we check EVERYWHERE for loot.

It's possible Steam corrupted your Dayz downloading the hotfix. Both my partner and me had that issue. Check in Dayz Commander in the install/update section to see if it reports as "Corrupt." If so, turn off the Steam auto-update, and use Dayz Commander to reinstall whatever version you want to play. It's fast and won't hurt anything. Worked for me. I was getting the same "Waiting for server to start authentication" error until I found that Steam had corrupted Dayz. Steam will probably fix their mistake pretty fast, but you don't have to wait.

Check the install/update tab in Dayz Commander. Steam apparently broke my Dayz with the 1.7.7.1 patch update. Showed as "Corrupt" in Dayz Commander. I used the dropdown box and reinstalled 1.7.7. That says "Out of date" but it works on my server, which is still at 1.7.6. I'm sure the server has "issues" with 1.7.7 and beyond, but it's working well enough for me and my partner to horse around. I'll probably wait until the server provider has the updates before I update Dayz to 1.7.7.1, which includes the hot patch. You're probably best off using the latest version from Dayz Commander. Just be aware that many servers are behind in doing their updates, so you have to join the right one. That could be causing your problem. If you choose to run anything but the latest Dayz version, and use Steam, remember to turn off "automatic updates" in Steam. In case you don't know how to do that, you right click the game in the game library, select properties, the select the "updates" tab.

Your gear probably doesn't matter to somebody who always kills on sight. Might set off somebody who want your gear. Personally I only KOS bandit skins. Good move avoiding the ghillie. They do get my trigger finger twitching.

Assuming you don't want to murder, stay on public servers, so bandits are more easily pegged. Killing a bandit extracts no murder penalty, so just kill them on sight. You could make that your job, or not. Bandits can server hop "non-official" servers and spawn with a survivor skin on each one. As a non-murderer who wants player interaction, play it by ear, which means always use direct voice with anybody you've spotted. If you trust the voice, trust the player. If you don't trust the voice or he doesn't respond, just stay away from him. If you trust him and he kills you, no big deal. You've maintained your game "integrity." Death and restarting is part of the game. He'll probably soon earn a bandit skin and then you can consider him a cow, to be slain. If you're good enough, and take the first bullet from him, you might manage to kill him and suffer no penalty. The downside to this is he doesn't have your kill to score him as a bandit, which he clearly is if he betrayed your friendship. If you play as a murdering bandit, you want to kill everybody on sight unless they are mates of yours. BTW, part of the voice/trust deal is trying to detect if who you are trusting is teamspeaking behind your back. First thing to ask is if he is speaking to friends. If he says yes, that's good, but no guarantee he or one of his friends won't backstab you. If you pick up cues he's lying, and talking to friends, leave him or expect to die.

Ignore axes stuck it tree stumps. They are just visuals. Look in barns and industrial type buildings for an axe. I really think you'll have better luck surviving in a few days, when a patch is installed. For now you can practice total zombie avoidance - and dying.

Strange. We find more zeds than ever, and easily agroed. We were near the coast with a hill making us out of LOS from a small village. Popped a lone wandering zed with the Winchester. The whole village of zeds stormed over the hill after us. Infection and suicide. Haven't fired a non-silenced round since. Wait, I can't really swear to that. We may have been crouched near the hill top and in zed LOS, but not agroing them until we fired. Not sure. But it's a good test, and I'll try it next time in. Make sure no LOS and fire the gun.