mercules

Game takes 90 minutes tops. If there is not just one person alive before then everyone dies and no one wins. ;) Getting into a game is the slower part. Only a few servers so far and you have to wait till a new game starts and then only 24 people can join. There is a ton of people trying to join.

Don't worry, none of us with hold you down, stick a mouse in your hand, and force you to play.

Exactly HOW are the devs going to make DayZ detect Skype/mumble running on a second computer? That right there throws that out the window. In addition you think they will add in detection to see if SipDroid is running? What is SipDroid you ask? Well, it is a free Android based VOIP program. I can run an Android emulator easily enough and SipDroid would then run inside that and I can tell you now, no program you put out is going to be able to look inside an emulation for a program running especially all the different OSes I can run in simulators. There will ALWAYS be away around it and 90% of them really are not that hard. Phone on desk with earbud tucked into my ear under my headphones = effective secret communication you will never be able to shut down. Since I can run Skype/Teamspeak/Mumble on my phone disabling them on my computer only inconveniences me for about the 30 seconds it takes to plug in the headphones.

Cinder Blocks! They are not "rare" but they are uncommon and it takes 7 to make a wall. On top of that they are hard to carry.

You really need to reread the original post and then think about if your posts are in that frame of reference. It was talking about the SA but also about games in general.

I was mildly interested but then I overheard you talking about resetting humanity with real money? I also saw "Self Bloodbag" and after that I tuned out and went back to doing my actual work at work.

So you are not playing Epoch because you believe it has AI? Epoch doesn't have AI in it. Some servers, Epoch and Vanilla both, have AI on them but Epoch doesn't come with AI that is something the owner added in.

That still doesn't address the issue of people using other third party VOIP systems. There is no way for a moderator on that server to be able to tell who is using Skype or anything else. if the computer won't lauch while they are using one of those they will find a variant it doesn't detect and/or use it with a second computer. There is no way to enforce this, it will have to be voluntary. If they are smart they will set it up and use BOTH systems. So they will use the in game system part of the time, but 3rd party when silence matters or they are out of range of the in game. My friends and I use a Mumble server when we are doing raids with others from outside our group. We can discuss them in private but still communicate with them as well.

Ehem... how worn out did you get running 4 tires and scrap metal to a car? How many breaks did you have to take to slow down your heart and breathing? Epoch uses a weight system instead of inventory space(should be a combination of them in my opinion) and while you can throw 12 piles of cinderblocks into your backpack you can probably take about 8 steps before you pass out from carrying that much weight. Edit: Oh and play some Vanilla DayZ. They are not the same. I play Epoch and Origins but Vanilla is where it is at.

So I am playing Origins and I decide that instead of trying to find more building supplies I am going to try and find something like an SVD or DMR. I have AKs and Stanag based guns but nothing with any real range. So I head over to an area where there is military loot on my ATV and park it WELL outside the area in a nice quiet and hidden area. I go through an area with a few barracks(not like Vanilla Day Z only a couple loot piles in them) and find nothing. I then head over to an Air Traffic Control Tower, the firehall near there, and all the hangers. I eventually find an M24 and decide that isn't horrible at least it's something. I then work my way back and duck into those barracks again. There is a shiny DMR on the floor. In the next one is an M4A3 CCO and I swapped my M4A1 for it because it's got a flashy-light and it is night time. I quickly move back to my ATV. I want to get this "home" before anything untoward happens. Now I am just paranoid. I have a good sized backpack, Two solid guns with ammo, and I am in good shape. I get back to the house I built and I am already considering what I want to pull out and dump. I tuck my ATV into a tree, not thinking, opposite from how I normally do it. Not totally hidden but someone would have to look for it to find it so I am satisfied and hop off to store my new treasure. Greed and anxiety got the best of me. It wasn't another player that took me out, it was the ATV and Tree that did. I somehow ended up between them because I wasn't paying attention to what side I got out on. My legs break and then I die. Okay, well, now I need to run back up. Now I am really nervous someone will find my corpse and take everything, guns, gear, and ATV. I bee line for my camp stopping only to get food and drink and picking up a Lee Enfield on the way. I finally get there. Now, Origins does bodies differently. There is a cross where I died with my backpack hanging on it and gear around it. I can't access it though because of the ATV and the ATV ends up stuck on the cross. So I mostly wreck the ATV to get it unstuck but then couldn't loot anything because of the tree. Nothing would give me a gear sign, not even the backpack I was right on. So because of my haste to hide my treasure I lost all my gear and trashed my vehicle.

So... On the topic of bullet rarity affecting PvP. I've played some Battle Royal lately. It's an interesting mod, it is definitely not DayZ. However it does illustrate the problems with shooting when you have a lack of ammo. The whole game is designed to be a PvP experience that takes place over 90 minutes of time. You are forced into smaller and smaller areas as the time goes on and you start with nothing. 24 players start in a circle around 24 backpacks and you can run for the middle or run away. IN the middle are backpacks and in them is a map and then a couple different random loadouts. One might have a shotgun, or a PDW, or a revolver, or a machete, or it might have nothing but food and drink or medical gear or binoculars. You are often forced to defend yourself with a pistol with 6 shots. So there are times when you see someone off to your right and he has a gun, and you have a gun and you have to stop yourself from shooting at him because at that range you probably won't kill him, you will probably wound each other and you will use up both your ammo then you will be helpless. So you hold your fire for when you really need it. Eventually you might find a rifle of some sort and if lucky find a clip with it. Again you see someone and instead of blasting you try to close in and make sure the shot is good and clean but the whole time you are giving them a chance to notice you. I ended up with an M1SE1 Tan ACOG in one game. 20 round clip means you BET I used it only when I had a good shot. Shot a guy for his truck, wounded another guy which chased him off and lacking ammo I didn't bother to follow him, I wasn't going to run 600M for a chance to finish him off and then have to run 600 meters back. Sadly in that game the blue cirlce took a major shift and left me well outside it's area when I had gambled on still being in it when I went into a barracks to find more DMR ammo and maybe a back up gun. used all my SD rounds on the zombies, went to grab guns and ammo in the rooms and the shift happened. I then had zombies spawning inside with me, one knocked me out and it was all over. So even in a game that is all about PvP when you end up lacking ammo there are times you don't use what little you have

As I said the posting typically takes one tiny aspect of what he sees and then creates a very sterile argument that ignores any other variables but instead goes "X + Y =/= Z" which is in fact true, but the situation is not X +Y so really his argument turns out to be starting from an invalid premise to begin with. This makes it sound reasonable until you realize that what he is discussing is not taking place in the vacuum he is talking about. He also tends to create arguments that are False Dichotomy. Either it's A or it B ignoring that there are additional nuances inbetween. Gear degradation won't stop KoS. Less Ammo More KoS. These are ignoring each other and the other factors that will come into play and then are very binary as to how he thinks it will be. Discouraging some KOS to him is not worth the effort since it didn't stop it all. Everyone understands it can't ever stop it all and we don't want it to. We want it to be a harder choice for some so that there IS some choice. 1. More threatening zombies 2. slower looting process making you actually search 3. less high end gear 4. gear degradation These all will have some affect on KoS and without knowing specifics it is hard to say what effect but they will change the game. If we study them logically we can see that in combination they would make me less likely to shoot in general. A gunfight might attract the wrong sort of attention and that loot I want requires me to run all over this room checking under the bed and opening cupboards. The food I was hoping the guy I shot had was ruined by the shots and so now I've used one of my few bullets to no avail and still need to take the time to loot the house before the zombies show up and I need to waste more. This sort of scenario looks like it might be common, not sure. If it is that would discourage some people from engaging targets they don't have to, AKA KoS.

That is a pretty far leap of logic there. Epoch and Origins fans want these other things like Donor load outs. Lets examine this a bit. So there are no Vanilla servers that use Extra vehicles and helicopters? Hmmm... no, it looks like there is a large percentage of them that have that. Okay well maybe all Origins and Epoch serves have that and so the fans of those would want that. Oh, no, wrong again... Just like in vanilla there are servers that do not have this extra junk and those that do. Your bias is showing. Vanilla Epoch and Origins is very similar to Vanilla Dayz with some extra time sinks built in, ones that actually encourage co-operation instead of hiding in a tree/bush until someone falls under your gun sights. Basically Standalone should look at what aspects of the vanilla versions of different mods are successful and weigh what they bring to the game and see if that might improve the experience for others.

...and here is what none of those who are under this assumption thinks about. History does have very brutal and horrible things that have happened during it and those tend to repeat and come back, but you know what the overwhelming theme of humanity is? Civilization... groups of people banding together and working together for common good and through that overcoming the brutal and savage. This isn't a fairy tale either because if it was in our nature to simply destroy and fight amongst each other, to brutalize each other, to kill maim and rape, then civilizations would not stand a chance they would not come about and wouldn't do so over and over and over again or last for thousands of years. If history has taught us that Rome will fall, it has also taught us that something else will take it's place and it will be a group of people working together for a common cause and pooling their resources. So you can think an apocalypse is going to be all "Me for Me" but that guy who is all alone is going to have to sleep sometime and without someone else to keep watch he is going to not wake up one day. Meanwhile the crew of people helping each other is going to have a couple of sentries watching for Zeds and bandits, someone to pull a piece of glass or nail out of your foot and bandage it up, someone to watch over you when you catch the flu. They are going to have a pool of skills that outweighs the single guy's knowledge. They are going to have multiple people to share the work load and thus be in better condition because while they might need additional food for each member, individual members will require less personally because they will not be expending all of their calories just surviving. "Me for Me" guy will be scavenging and won't be able to secure an area by his lonesome but the group will be able to do so and might be able to put some of their skills to work because while some are keeping watch the others can be building, farming, and fixing. This is why societies exist, because a group of humans has a better survival chance than a single human.

I have to agree, which is why I don't want open modding for the SA. What might work is for there to be controlled modding available. Mods can be published as DLC but they would have to be approved by a team before they could be published. The second half would be no private hosting. Private hosting is what allows various mods to get even further corrupted.

It doesn't even take a picture... usually his OP will do that.

This has been my experiences with it. Some matches I run around just trying to find ammo or guns. Others I end up with a decent gun but then seem to be WAY out of the area. It always seems to be a sort of mad house where you hope something good happens to you before something bad happens. You have just enough control in the middle of the bedlam to say what you did effected your chances but not enough that you can claim your skill alone won or lost the game. ;)

INTP here, the P being the only one not on the far extreme one side of the scale.

Official or private server?

You needed to continue to read to the point where I stated I give a couple bucks out of every paycheck to an organization that doesn't "feed the children" but works to change the systems in place that are starving those children in the first place. No, I wouldn't die for a stranger... maybe a child... but I would help them as best I can without putting myself in significant danger. That is the key point, Significant Danger, which was also part of my training to become a First Responder was to identify when the risk to myself was to great to risk saving someone else because getting myself killed and disabled helps no one.

Look, I get that you can't compute anything more complex than very sterilized and narrow sets of parameters. It is apparent by how you try to break these into tiny little discussions inside a single box that ignores anything else. Gear Destruction, less ammo/guns, tougher zombies, loot changes, and more will all REDUCE KoS all together. They will likely overlap and the totality of it will discourage people who are not trying to come up with any reason they can to justify why they are not being a jerk in a game just because they like being a jerk. You enjoy shooting people because it gives you a power trip. I get that. No changes to the game will discourage you from doing so if that power trip high continues to trigger. That doesn't mean EVERYONE is as pathetic as you that we need those little ego strokes.

So you are going to kill the person who is a doctor/medic/first responder just because? You are going to kill the guy who can fix a car, or a journeyman who can repair machines? You are going to kill the people who might actually have a useful skill just because you are afraid they might hurt you? This is true cowardice in action. Good luck with that whole survival thing when you get a parasitical infection and don't know what would help you clear it out or you need to try and fix a carburetor, or maybe a wind powered generator. I think you need to start thinking longer term than you are.

This is not total bullshit and the reason it isn't is because there actually isn't anything short of changing their government and farming industry which is leaving food to rot in storage rather than accept lower prices from starving people. My sending $20 to an organization that might give those children a few meals will not alter the system that is killing them in any single way. I will have done nothing. In Africa the food that was brought in by those charitable organizations was constantly seized by the warlords and often the people that were given the food were killed. It was to the point where they refused help because it just caused the various fighting factions to consider them targets. Until the governments changed and some order, such as it is, was established those donations did only a small amount of good. Through my work I give money to The Hunger Project because they are rated high by CharityWatch and they don't just give food to people they attempt to bring about the change I mentioned. I don't even notice it because it comes out a couple bucks from each paycheck. There are also times when I don't get to see my own kids because I made a mistake in my budget and don't have the food and gas money to go pick them up and feed them over the weekend. That is on me, I messed up and I own it but what I am pointing out is that I live a comfortable life compared to many in the world but I don't have an excess of expendable wealth. In fact a bill collector once tried to tell me they would garnish my wages (I had worked out an arrangement with the original owner of the debt and was paying them back instead of the bill collector) and ran it through their "calculator" as to how much they would get a month that way instead of me paying a "reasonable" amount. Just for kicks I gave them the information and they shut up when it told them I had zero expendable income according to the law. So yes, I have internet I pay for and I did spend about $15 dollars for the arma package when it was on sale on Steam. Yes I could have given that to a charity instead but the net result of me giving my little bit of entertainment money to charity would not be an improved sense of well being but likely me becoming so unsociable and morose that I would probably stop functioning at work, lose my job, not be able to pay my child support and my children would then suffer. "In all things, balance." I feel no guilt in enjoying my first world game. I am not some billionaire with more money than I can even feasibly spend who is simply hoarding wealth. I give small amounts to charities that affect real change instead of putting food in a person's mouth for a day and live my life as best I can on my very moderate budget.

It will reduce KoS if only because after killing three people you are out of bullets. It seems like a far cry to think that if you only have a few bullets for your gun that someone else might have some and gambling on exchanging 1 bullet for a very strong possibility they don't have any seems futile. Now you might track them down and club them over the head, but it seems a lot less likely that someone is going to sit on a hill with extremely rare sniper ammo and try and pop shots at a newspawn who hasn't found anything yet. A lot of the KoS right now is people just shooting whoever. It isn't about gear, or anything else. You might not stop some of them, but others are going to get frustrated they can't find 2 clips for their favorite gun, much less their favorite gun, run up a hill and start doing the PvP game.Those will go away. At that point you might end up with people who will warily be willing to communicate since they won't be spending more than half their time dodging hidden snipers and trying to get to gear past military loot spawn campers.