famishedmammal

Just a comment on what Dean is contemplating, in a DayZ E3 interview I saw ... The idea that you 'sit down' and are vulnerable after logging out (so you must find a safe location to hide in) is a great idea in theory, but you should also consider that this is essentially just a game and that people have other things to do (ie. have to leave immediately for dinner, girlfriend wants the D, drunk dad falls down the stairs, etc), and that they will often have to leave the game right away without being able to find a "safe location", and that this feature may spoil the game for a lot of people

As someone who has made many online games, FPS is generally not affected by the server you are on, unless the server is spawning an unnatural number of entities (zombies, items, fires, etc) that is difficult for your CPU/GPU to handle. If the server can't handle the load, your FPS will not drop, but people/zombies will 'rubber band'/teleport around and you will de-sync a lot, or maybe even be disconnected. Giving the server responsibilities will not affect your FPS at all, and will probably make the client FPS faster (now that the server calculates things for you). The network lag will probably increase, unless they've improved the server software/structure. The FPS is only dropping because they're trying to stuff in more zombies into every town.

In fact, here's something very similar ... an IamLegend alternative storyline

And there you have the backstory ... There was a prison-island just off of Chernarus filled with convicts who had life-long sentences. Knowing that they would be unable to communicate with the outside world, the Russian government used them as test-rats and experimented on the inmates with the first version of the zombie virus (perhaps as part of a biological weapons program to destroy the US or something). The first version of the zombie virus was unsuccessful on the inmates, and had no visible symptoms at all. The inmates, instead, developed a resistance to the virus and could not be experimented on any further. Some time later, the second version of the virus (which was biologically similar to the first version) was released into the general populous accidentally (or maybe purposefully tested on a small town of "nobodies"?). The second version was very much successful. Eventually, when the virus was widespread and most of the prison guards/maintenance crew were dead, a religious prison guard named Thomas Thatcher believed it would be morally wrong to allow the thousands of inmates to die of starvation in their cells, and he released the inmates, allowing them to go free. You could have an awesome intro to the standalone game, actually.

The default clothing, I think, should be an orange prison jumpsuit. If you see someone in one of these jumpsuits, you'd say "oh - that guy's new", and it gives new players a legit reason to find new, more camouflaged clothing. [Edit] There was a prison-island just off of Chernarus filled with convicts who had life-long sentences. Knowing that they would be unable to communicate with the outside world, the Russian government used them as test-rats and experimented on the inmates with the first version of the zombie virus (perhaps as part of a biological weapons program to destroy the US or something). The first version of the zombie virus was unsuccessful on the inmates, and had no visible symptoms at all. The inmates, instead, developed a resistance to the virus and could not be experimented on any further. Some time later, the second version of the virus (which was biologically similar to the first version) was released into the general populous accidentally (or maybe purposefully tested on a small town of "nobodies"?). The second version was very much successful. Eventually, when the virus was widespread and most of the prison guards/maintenance crew were dead, a religious prison guard named Thomas Thatcher believed it would be morally wrong to allow the thousands of inmates to die of starvation in their cells, and he released the inmates, allowing them to go free. You could have an awesome intro to the standalone game, actually.