mercules

Wow... I must say, having read your previous posts in other threads dealing with difficulty and wanting a hard game, the fact you play in 3rd person is really surprising. It turns DayZ into You are wrong. I play 1st person for a number of reasons. 1. 3rd person rewards "camping" as it is much easier to set yourself up in a location where you can be hidden and still see all around you than it is to approach those positions. (this is the PVP advantage you were mentioning) 2. Promotes bad firefights. There is no such thing as "covering fire" or suppression in 3rd person. They simply sit in cover and can see what is happening without exposing themselves. This leads to a very dull battle where to win all you have to do is wait until the other player decides to move. In 1st person you can't be certain your opponent isn't moving without exposing yourself but maybe he is watching that spot for you to peek.... There is risk to gaining the information you need to properly fight and you can actually fire upon a position and keep that person from watching you move. 3. You can very quickly loot. Most of the time you don't have to climb all the way up a ladder or even ENTER a building to scan it since you can sweep a room through a window very easily with the wide swung camera. In first person you have to look around a bit more carefully. 4. Zombies are a joke. You get the periscope, but they don't. You can watch them from cover and then move when they have their backs turned. This is probably my biggest complaint as it is amazing how many time in 1st person you run into a zombie you didn't expect because you can't pre-scout an area with 3rd person. 5. Immersion. Seriously. The number of times I have jumped or nearly panicked because I COULDN'T see what was over a fence or around that corner or up those stairs until I was nearly face to face with it is amazing. 1st makes me feel less like I'm playing GTA and more like I'm the one the zombie is thumping on. Gear even becomes different with 1st person. Backpacks matter as you can't easily see over your shoulder with certain ones and in 1st you have to look over your shoulder a lot. A gun Ghillie wrap can actually be detrimental as it can block vision when you lay flat or with the gun on your back and again looking over your shoulder. Basically 1st person just makes DayZ feel more like a Horror Survival game and less like playing a late 90s MMO or console game.

Okay, here is the basics on differences between Macs and PCs. Mac computers are all proprietary. Apple builds them in a way that they will accept very limited hardware changes to them. The hardware is basically the SAME as a PC except you have to get the majority of it from Apple directly. Because of that Apple can assure you that they use quality parts but can also make you pay top dollar for those part. If you don't buy a premade system or something from BestBuy you can get twice as much power in dependable parts for a PC for the same price you would spend on a similar Apple. The issue is you need to know what you are doing and basically put it together yourself. Now a pre-built PC you can get half again as much power as you would for the same priced Mac, or maybe a bit more in one area, but they will skimp someplace else, so you might get a much faster processor and video card, but the drive speed will suck or you have limited slots for cards. So hardware wise Macs are awesome for people who won't know what makes up a good computer. Buying a Mac means you will have a decent computer, but you will pay more. That isn't a bad thing. With the Operating System... Windows is an annoying OS, but nearly everything is compatible with it. Mac OS X is solid, but when it comes to games almost nothing is ported over for it, and it has to be ported because it is different enough that the developer either has to use something that is compatible with both systems and write the code once(and usually tie themselves into lower expectations because they have to use tools that are not specific and thus not very advanced in many cases) or write it for Windows then turn around and use what they can but in many ways rewrite it for Mac. So software wise you can develop it to take advantage of specific code in a given OS and not use very much power... OR you can write it to work in each but not do particularly well in either OS. Now, since the hardware is basically the same(expect you are paying for the Mac version) you can use Bootcamp to have your computer ask what OS you want to start it up in. When you want to play a game you can start it in Windows if you have a legitimate copy to install. When doing other things you can boot it into Mac OS. My personal thought is that you should just buy the right tool for the job and if you are dead set on playing games buy a decently priced desktop with decent hardware and load Windows 7 64 bit on it. That is the best setup one can have for games at the moment.

Which you can do just as easily with a Repeater, Shotgun, SKS, or Mosin.... Why do you "need" to run for an AKM?

Award, for what? BTW, SKS is a solid gun. Some of the AKs, not so much. AKM = Good. The other three are okay, about on par with an SKS. As the the Postscripts. 1. Probably, which gun were you using? The different AKs have 3 different ammos and in the ARMA engine there is penetration but with the changes they have made in swapping the engine out in DayZ the penetration might be different. In ARMA those walls and windows can be shot and the higher caliber ammo will do it better, so an AKM, probably. AKA 101, might but might deflect as it passes through. 2. Your English is fine. In some cases better than the lazier native speakers who don't even bother trying. Two words: Private Servers

Old bug left over from the ARMA portions of the code. You used to get "batwings" with certain guns in ARMA 2 and you can still often get giraffe necks in ARMA 3.

Engine doesn't support it. You will notice any "caves" or other underground locations are done by using rocks or structures that cover the "underground" location. The ground surface is single sheet of ground which is raised or depressed. Nothing exists under it. If you have ever fallen through it you can see this clearly.

I also applaud your choice on uninstalling. The "apple picking" is temporary and often enough to get you to where you can find more substantial food or have the gear to hunt/fish. It gets you past that immediate hunger issue. If you can't invest 15 minutes into gathering food in a survival game I'm not certain survival games are what you want to play.

That is a bit broad of a definition of "survival game" mode then. In fact Mechwarrior Online which is more or less a battle arena 12 v 12 game for all intents and purposes now falls into your "survival game" category. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy Battle Royale but lets not pretend it is anything other than PVP - Kill Everyone Else. Sometimes I am in a mood for that... and that is when I play BR or Wasteland... not DayZ SA. ;)

Actually for some people the loot won't be "fixed" to their satisfaction until they start with a pristine MP5 with suppressor, 2 mags for it, 3 cans of peaches, can opener, backpack, cooked meat, and water bottle.

Um... ALPHA. It's not done yet. So a lot of the things you mentioned will become more important as more features are added into the game. "Why model hammers? They are crap for weapons. It makes no sense." Well eventually it might be a requirement to create barricades in buildings or other crafting. There will be much more. The medical system already uses antibiotics and such, but food is a bit to plentiful for the most part in the pre .55 loot schema and so people don't tend to get food poisoning and some of the other systems for infection are not in the game yet. Secondly the point of an open world game is that it is open. You create your own goals. Now in the generic Mod for some people it was trying to find a couple good spots to set up tents and hide vehicles and see what they could gather. For people did things like play other mods of the mod where there were crafting and building and such often times the point to them was to first secure a vehicle, then some means of storage, and start gathering supplies for a little crafted base somewhere off the beaten path. Then once they were established they would often then construct more elaborate bases and even dare others to raid them. Whole clans would go to war against each other. In some cases you would find two groups building better and better defenses against each other's bases and fighting over the no-man's land between them. Basically the game is what you make of it. It's like handing a kid 10 sticks, some rope, a few small rubber balls, and some chalk and telling them to make up a game. Some kids will look at you dumb and wonder what to do. Some others will end up actually having fun instead of sitting there bored.

The differences in ARMA III and DayZ SA are there, but are not huge. Each is their own game. I'm sure once the modding is allowed BR will be brought into DayZ SA but since it appears the OP can't wait ARMA III's version is a perfectly acceptable alternative. I enjoy BR and play it from time to time, but it is definitely not DayZ. There is no reason for the developers to build what someone will create as a mod later and waste time on something that already exists in multiple forms out there as mods to other games. ;)

Why wouldn't you? You don't like having more RAM? You like slow computers? You wouldn't be able to complain about software not running on your outdated OS?

...and in the DayZ Mod you don't have to farm imaginary food. You are welcome to return to it. This, however, is DayZ SA and many of us are playing for the reasons you just stated you don't play for.

If you stick something into a tent and expect it to be there when you go back... well... you are a fool. Experience from the mod tells me that tents are most often best for temporary storage with no expectation for it to be there very long since someone will find it. Oh, but wait... with public servers and vigilant moderators kicking anyone off their "public" server I suppose people could actually keep their tent stashes safe and then hop over to grab guns/gear any time they die so they can get right back into the action.... The Hive system truly messes up a lot of things in DayZ. - Someone dies so they head to a low pop server, gear up, then head back to the high pop server to get into trouble. - Someone loots one high loot area over and over, such as the prison island, simply by switching to a server that recently restarted and running through it. Persistance will help a bit with that, but it will still encourage hopping so that you might hit a server where the loot hasn't been picked over recently. - It allows Ghosting... even if it takes 30 minutes to log into a different server once barricading is in place you will still be able to bypass them by switching servers. 30 minutes to gain access to someone's "base" which could be full of tents of loot is not a large time investment compared to potential payoff. - It prevents a community from forming. When I played on private servers in the Mod I would get to know the "locals". I knew who I could trust some, who I should never trust, and such. I had rivalries with specific players. There were neutral parties that I knew I could trade with but also knew I shouldn't mess with when in certain areas. Things would happen like a player killing me in a high loot area and then offering to grab what they could of my gear and fly it down to the coast because they had a helicopter hidden nearby.

If a private server shuts down.... oh no... you have to start a new character. That seems much less difficult than finding a damn mag on public servers when server hoppers hoover them all up 5 minutes after the server resets. ;) "Server just reset... why are there 4 ruined mags in this barracks... oh damn it."

That won't stop it. 5 minutes during which people can watch YouTube, grab a drink, bio-break, or smoke is still faster than running to the next loot spawn point of "value" to them. The best way to stop server hopping is to remove the hive.

Ehem... He is still making that game that he wants. Making a game you want doesn't mean never soliciting advise from others.

Zombie AI gives not a single F about Ghillie or other camouflage. "LoS = Yes" means the zombie can see you. Maybe someday they will code in something that decreases your visability to zombies based off what you are wearing, but right now a Pink dress isn't any more or less obvious to a zombie than a full ghillie.

Passive Mode = Wandering around slowly Alerted Mode = Actively looking for players in their environment Agro Mode = Running at the player they found Gun shots can put them into Alerted Mode which doesn't mean they are agro'd on the guy firing, but instead taking notice around them. They will start heading in the direction of the gun fire if they are not triggered by something closer, but they can end up noticing someone they wouldn't have noticed in Passive Mode. At least that is what I seem to have experienced.

I'm sorry... it's a rather poor game. This is from someone who played the Arma 2 version of that mod and enjoyed it. The zombies in the new version are a joke as are most of the systems. The only thing they have done well is their "faction" system. That was well thought out. There are hundreds of games I can shoot people in. There are only a couple where I am trying to survive the environment, antagonists, and other players and most of those are crap. Too much run and gun and not enough survival.

So if the developers hold the same "narrow view" of what DayZ should be.... what does that make you? Possibly.... "Wrong."?

I've seen similar things skulking on the Prison Island. People coming out of the building back in the yard near the barracks, running through the prison, then returning to that location and logging out. That sounds like a pretty big negative to me. On private servers people tend to end up with reputations and history. Now, DayZ SA still isn't great for identifying people but you can get to know certain areas certain people frequent and what gear they prefer and start to get an idea of the lay of the land, so to speak, on a private server. The Public are SOOOOO random that never happens and you just treat everyone as extremely hostile.

It is good to hear you didn't give up. The game is supposed to be frustrating and you should really get a sense of accomplishment when you survive for longer and longer. Then the fear will set in. At some point you will be minding your own business doing one thing or another and you will hear another player nearby. At that point you will think about all you have accomplished in that life and a small jolt of adrenaline might pop into your system as the nervousness sets in. "Was that a player I heard? I haven't heard anything since. Are they just waiting for me to move or are they repositioning to get a shot because they heard me clomping around in this house?" That or you will be quietly working your way through a field when a bullet will crack past your head. You will have no idea where the shot came from and if you are like me you will be quietly saying, "SHIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiii*****!" outloud as sprint away dodging and weaving and hoping they are not too good or lucky. This is why losing everything is really important, because it builds that, "I don't want to die." feeling in most people. In most games you are like, "Eh... I'll just respawn and go on." I think they need something besides gear you can lose as well like maybe soft skills that don't affect game play much more than giving you higher success rates at lighting fires or crafting or finding food.

Arma III: Wasteland Mod