mercules

It's not the same old map, tons has changed and even those older villages have new life in them now. There are a lot of little places added that give new life to the map. They have already replaced some of the rock assets and added in some nice new textures for them. I'm willing to bet the new renderer will untie their hands for certain things and we will see slightly different vegetation. You are playing on a crap computer... what do you expect? Multiple people with the same laptop are report poor performance in various games especially games that utilize a lot of the CPU. A quick Google search will highlight this. It's a laptop, with a laptop CPU that is beat out by I5 CPUs designed for laptops. DayZ is in Alpha and therefore not optimized and thus will require a more powerful computer to run it well, just like a bunch of other games I play.

Solution, Host a Private Server. In my opinion all servers should be unhooked from the hive since it adds very little value but creates some bad situations like Ghosting, Server hopping for loot, and a generic sea of players who you never really get to know. Private servers are the way to go. Yes, but at least they had to get a second Steam Account and purchase the game again to have their "Mule Character" to hold their stuff. Why give it to them free?

In the mod you could not find "better guns everywhere". They were limited to very specific spawn sites, 2 in Electro, 1 in Cherno, a small gathered location in Berinzeno, NWAF, NEAF, and Balota Airstrip. By contrast we now have police stations scattered across the map, the prison island, Zelenogorsk barracks, Myshinko tents, Stary Sobor tenst, VMC, NWAF, the military base between Pavlovo and Kamenka, Green Mountain, and several other places with jails and/or guard houses that have a chance of spawning solid guns, military clothing, and military backpacks. What is more medical gear is not limited to the four hospitals; 2 in Cherno, 1 in Electro, and one in Berezino; and a few medical tents most of which are in Cherno and one in Ballota. You had to have antibiotics to survive in the Mod and most of the medical spawns were clustered around Cherno so where you get this bizarre idea that loot was distributed in a balanced manner is beyond me. Nearly every small town/village was a place you skipped on your way to NWAF, Stary, Cherno, Electro, or Balota. I've been through Electro multiple times on servers with 50 people on and typically don't run into anyone because other than the police station and in .57 the guard houses there is nothing of value to anyone but a freshspawn in Electro. No one camps Electro, they camp VMC, Zelenegorsk, and Berenzino for the most part. In .57 with the static Helicopter spawns I've found people will sometimes camp them as well, but for the most part I don't run into people camping in SA even on full servers. There are so many different routes to take to find basic gear that camping is almost not worth your time. Once the CLE is worked out and persistance is fixed loot will be much more solidly balanced. .57, unfortunately was a step backwards because persistence is off and there are still loot explosions in certain areas(which is why they are running .57 that way, to weed out those issues). BTW, not everyone is supposed to run around with an AK or M4 and most of the non-military guns are decent and you can pick those up everywhere on the map. You talked about the concept of the game. Of course I pointed out what the conceiver of the game said he had in mind when he created it and what his CONCEPT for the game was. You: "The concept of the game is..." Me: "Not according to the guy who conceived it..." You: "All you talk about is what Dean Hall thinks the game is...." DUH! You talk about concept we will tell you exactly what the creator conceived when he started the game... by his own words. 1. It's a forum. Look up the word forum. It's a place to discuss things which means you don't get to tell people to "shut the fuck up". You need to chill out and come back when you can join the discussion as an adult and not a petulant child. 2. Look up the word concept, I don't think you understand it as I have pointed out what the concept actually is which is what the creator conceived when he created it. Notice conceived and concept are versions of each other. ;)

Sure... but that means having a camp that actually does something for you, not just a stash for gunz-n-ammo. Look at ARK, there are times it is so cold outside that without the clothes, enclosed base area, and a fire or two going you will start taking damage from freezing. A base includes things that make my stored food not go bad as quickly or a place to craft better items. DayZ has none of that and barricading isn't going to do it. Right now giving us a NEED for a base is as important as the base itself. That means extreme temperatures, lots of hostile AI around like Zeds and carnivores, and places to gather things like rainwater so we have fresh clean water to survive off of or a place to work on more complex items. Storage alone doesn't give setting up cam much value in a survival situation. You want shelter against the ELEMENTS and right now you have no need of it.

Sure... but there are literally thousands of PVP games and while survival games are now starting to pick up in numbers that is happening because someone created the concept of a SURVIVAL game and created DayZ. The ONLY reason PVP is so incredible in DayZ is because there is no respawn with full armor/ammo/guns or arcade areas that you magically run over and get full ammo. You have to start your SURVIVAL all over again and gather up everything again. DayZ is a survival game that includes PVP not the other way around.

Blatantly wrong. Dayz, as a concept, according to the creator of DayZ, Dean Hall, was a SURVIVAL GAME that included other players adding an element of not knowing what they might do. They might trade with you or they might try and rob you. It was based off of survival training he went through being dropped in the woods with a small amount of supplies and tools and needing to survive in that area while there were others going through the same program in the the same area. He talks about the paranoia of not knowing if someone else might steal your limited supplies while you slept or what might happen. Again I point at Dean Hall's experiences and concept behind the game which is the opposite of what you just suggested it was. DayZ was an experiment in player interactions created by putting us into a survival situation together. Maybe before you start explaining to others what the concept of the game is you should actually investigate as to what the concept was. There is no way they took all the stones from the beach which is probably your most important survival tool in DayZ. WHAT? So you could pick up a shotgun or Enfield in multiple places and you might even find a pistol or two, but all the "good guns" spawned in a few locations which were easily camped, the few firestations and the few barracks. Loot was concentrated. What happened then is a large group of players could lock down the airfield from any challengers other than another large group and cycle the loot over and over and over again until they were stockpiled on guns and ammo they wanted. They could do this with armed helicopters and vehicles that a shotgun and Enfield had next to no chance to hurt. Don't let nostalgia kid you into thinking the loot spawns in the Mod were better. On top of that Server Hopping was a norm in the Mod which is why your supposition that server hopping is prevalent in the SA because of the different loot system is ridiculous. Same thing happened in the Mod.

Vehicles are not game changing? Hunting scope and SVD are not game changing? Disease system and a use for Water Purification Tablets and Antibiotics is not game changing? New CLE is not game changing? NPC AI is not game changing? Summer of 2013 Like I said, quit including the, "We are going to port the Mod" year. The scope changed completely and they didn't start development of the Standalone until summer of 2013.

No we are not. Stop adding in the year of, "We are going to separate the DayZ Mod from ARMA II and make it a stand alone product." year where ALL they planned on doing was packing the base of ARMA II into DayZ so it could sell on it's own. That scope changed and at that point they hopped to add on to it which was about 6 months before they actually opened the Alpha. Once we could buy it they realized how many people wanted it and the scope changed yet again. So really this product we are playing has been in development for about 2 years tops.

Did you even play .57 experimental? Trust me there were WORSE bugs that were fixed before it went to stable.

You signed up for a pre-release game in Alpha. Development of games the scope of DayZ takes years. Giving you the ability to play it while it develops slows down the process since they have to fix game breaking bugs each iteration they release instead of ignoring them till later and simply telling the QA not to do that till it has been addressed. Also, you had 2 kids in 1.5 years?

Found one in 3 minutes using Google. Really people it's not hard. http://www.gamestar.de/videos/gamescom-2012,84/dayz,71592.html 1:40 Dean mentions what he is demoing is Pre-Alpha and the Alpha has not been released. 9:50 Dean talks about 1st vrs 3rd, mentions he doesn't want to remove 3rd but states that they want to change it possibly make it so it is context sensitive and so that when you lay prone it zooms in close or maybe forces you into 3rd. In other interviews he mentions similar things, talks about turning 3rd person into an over the shoulder camera. This is all before DayZ SA Alpha was launched to the public showing that 3rd person was meant to be altered from the very beginning of DayZ SA. They don't want to outright remove it(which would ultimately resolve the issue) but do want to remove the exploitive nature of it.

I agree, but 90% of the modded servers out there for the original DayZ Mod turned it into Easy Mode.

You aren't even talking about the mod then... you are talking about "A" mod of the mod. You don't even want the link tux gave you you want here: http://epochmod.com/forum/index.php?/forum/1-arma-2-dayz-mod-epoch/

I have 3, yes 3 mags for the SVD. I have been looking for one ever since going as far as waiting near the helicrashes until server restarts and then zipping over there... I swear I still don't beat people to them. The only thing I can think of is they are in a truck waiting for the restarts then blitz them before anyone else can threaten them. I may have to camp one in LoS when a server restart is coming. I play on private servers so not a lot of hopping going on but I can't wait for those things to go dynamic again.

3PP as it existed has been mentioned by the developers as something they want to fix going as far back as before any of us had access to the game. When Rocket was demoing the first bits of the game he mentioned it multiple times in various recordings that he liked 3PP but that he had to admit it was exploitive in the manner it was implemented and would have to be changed to remove the exploits. Since then multiple devs have made that statement again and again that they knew people liked 3PP but ultimately wanted to change it to remove the exploits that it could be used for. They have now adjusted 3PP in an attempt to remove those exploits. We talk about it in such a matter of fact manner because from day 1 of us following the DayZ SA project it has been mentioned that 3PP had to be changed. If you don't get that point then you haven't been paying attention.

What? You want to ignore years worth of evidence. The vanilla DayZ experience in the past spawned guns with ammo, which is exactly what you are asking for. If the devs thought that was a good idea they would have retained, not changed that when t hey developed DayZ SA. I am not talking about player generated mods, but actual DayZ prior to it becoming SA. What happened during that is perfectly relevant to what happens in SA. It's not just similarities, DayZ was the foundation DayZ SA was built off of. When I speak of going backwards I am talking LITERALLY. The Devs developed DayZ SA and made certain design choices moving away from DayZ the ARMA II Mod such as "guns no longer spawning with ammo". the did so for a very good reason part of which I have explained to you. Having guns spawn with ammo would be going right back to the previous version(aka BACKWARDS) that they decided to change. You go on to say you are looking for the best most balanced experience. I've explained why I believe guns not spawning with ammo is better and more balanced and you explanation why it is so far consists of, "I think it is." In my explanation I explained how it gives lower "tier" to moderate tier guns more of a purpose and makes the players have difficult choices when it comes to weapon choice. Your arguments so far have been based upon ignoring past evidence that doesn't fit with your view of what you want and ignoring game theory because against it doesn't fit with what you want. TLDR: The devs CHANGED it to guns not spawning with ammo for a reason let's not just willy nilly change it back without thinking it through because that is "what we want".

Remember, every time you log into the game there is that disclaimer that this game is unfinished and likely buggy and you fully accept that. That is how the bugs make it into production... because even the production is technically an Alpha test server.

Hills can really slow down trucks and if he slowed down at all because he was unsure of the road or had some lag and didn't want to crash then the hill can end up bringing the truck to a crawl so that isn't totally grounds for suspecting him. The other possibility is that the driver was dead and THAT was why the truck started to slow down. If I heard a truck and had something like and SVD or Blaze with a scope I would probably line up on the driver and pop him so the truck didn't escape. If you are good you can shoot them through the windshield and not ruin the truck. Once he was dead the passenger is just sitting there not moving and would become a prime target before he hopped out and started to zig-zag. The other thought, if you died and not the driver might be that someone decided they would take out the person likely to hop out and start shooting at them. The driver typically won't jump out and will hope the truck protects him or is at least ruined so that the other guy doesn't get it, but any passengers might bail out of the slow moving truck and pull a gun. In fact my friends and I have approached areas like that when using a truck. I slow down, they hop out and get into position and then I continue on into a city possibly drawing out targets for them to pick off, either people slinking away from the truck noise or those trying to shoot me out of the truck. So maybe someone decided to pop you first then went after the driver.

There we go... more accurate reflection of what will occur. People adding easy mode mods into their own servers drug the Mod down, tripped it, kicked it for a bit, and left it a whimpering ball of crap. Don't get me wrong, some mods were awesome and I look forward to seeing those, but people adding in auto starting gear, 10,000 vehicles, tanks, military choppers, a hundred extra military gear spawns, and such ruined the game. "Well don't play on those servers." Great advise except in general people tend to want to take the easy way out and when they see they can start on this other server with an AK in their pocket and a huge backpack with enough food and drink to last for days and enough ammo to shoot everything that moves in Berezeno for the next 4 hours they will flock to that server in droves... then a month later complain about how stale DayZ is. Then come the tanks and choppers... then the complain about how stale it is... then comes a mission system with HUGE rewards which they flock to... and then complain about how stale DayZ is.

I prefaced all my comments with "In the Mod" which leads me to believe you have never played the Mod then, where ammo spawned WITH GUNS. Suffice it to say they learned from that and now ammo no longer spawns with the guns themselves. I was not talking about SA but the Mod where we were able to experience ammo nearly always spawning with guns. I used to pick up and move guns so that the spawn point would spawn another gun with MORE AMMO for it and stockpile enough rounds to shoot every tree on the server at least twice. :) That is what you are asking for, going BACKWARDs to the Mod.

The reason why it is basic game theory is because it adds an additional control for the devs. If every AKM spawned with two mags like it typically would in the Mod you would never have much of a choice between using an SKS and an AKM, end of story. Even if the SKS spawned fully loaded with two extra clips to reload it with that would equal ONE mag with the AKM and it still wouldn't be a full auto gun that can take some nice scopes on it and other accessories. Ergo the SKS would only be a stopgap gun. As it is the SKS is a pretty solid gun as all you have to find is AMMO and you have a good solid gun that is better than an AKM until an AKM finds a mag which can be made very rare while the ammo remains uncommon. If every AKM dropped with 2 mags like it did in the mod what you would end up with is a single prison run giving a person a solid gun with at least 2 mags and likely 6-8 mags. As it is exists currently(well once guns start dropping there again) you might find multiple guns and multiple mags and have NONE of them match. This gives the SKS and similar guns a very nice niche to be in, where they are very useful even for an extended time. Which would you rather have: Blaze with ammo and a Hunting scope.SVD with no mag.Technically they are almost the same. Blaze is slightly better, however once you find the SVD Mag it suddenly becomes a better gun. This lends balance to the game and it's not even an artificial balance. I have at times had a rifle and shotgun stored in my house/apartment without ammo for either of them around simply because I haven't bought any recently and had shot all mine off. Sometimes that state has lasted for years as I haven't had time or inclination to go hunting or shooting.

It's basic game theory. Some weapons are better than others, this is just a fact and it comes from DayZ trying to be at least a bit realistic. Because of the way DayZ is you can't lock weapon and character progression behind something like a leveling system where more "powerful" guns are not available until the person has progressed to a certain stage. With a CLE though, what you can do is balance power via loot availability. Separating out guns spawning and ammo/mags spawning gives them even more leeway to balance out the power levels of guns. For example and AKM and SKS. They share ammo so we can ignore how common just plain old ammo for them is and look at the rest. SKS is valuable because it doesn't require a mag so you can find the gun, find the ammo, and you are good to go. Stripper clips are just bonus at that point. The AKM on the other hand is worse without a mag and BETTER with one. It's full auto with 30 shots available instead of ten before reloading once you have a mag but without it it is single shot and reload. This balances the AKM and SKS out. In the mod mags spawned with gun most of the time. What this meant is you could stockpile mags and ammo by simply going to where the gun spawned and taking just the mags from the spawn. I had HUNDREDS of mags for my preferred guns squirrelled away on some servers by simply running to where the gun spawns and grabbing the mags but leaving the guns. You would often "upgrade" while gearing up by simply finding a better gun because there was typically 2 mags laying right there with it and something like a DMR meant you had enough ammo to go for a pretty long time just from that one spawn. My whole point was that at least in SA you end up having to make choices. Say you are regearing. You have a shotgun with 3 shots left, an SKS you are just looking for ammo for, and you run into a crossbow in a deerstand knowing that the deerstand about 50 yards that way has 3 quivers in it. You can't double carry all three and the shotgun would help you deal with a player while the crossbow could quickly and quietly take down zombies. In the end you want the SKS because once you have ammo it will be more solid than the other two. So now you have to make a choice... this is a good thing. If the SKS came with a stripper clip and loaded with ammo there wouldn't have ever been a choice you would be using that and probably dropping the others.

I think you just demonstrated why guns should not spawn with mags and ammo. The game should be about tough choices, it makes the game a better game.

You talked to one developer, not even the lead. Meanwhile the LEAD developer has a poor opinion of combat logging and the 30 second log out didn't exist when Alpha first started. They tested a longer one on the test server and decided it was too punitive to non-combat loggers and pulled back to 30 seconds. Now, an 'Exploit' is using a game system in a non-intended manner. Is logging out seen as a viable tactics to save your life? Not according to the lead developer Hicks who has stated his clear opinion on those doing it. Is it technically allowed? Yes, but it is allowed because otherwise you would have to have a safe location for your body every time you logged out and since no place anywhere on the map is safe they can't make it so your character never leaves the game OR sticks around a very long time because the chance of an Infected or player encountering you randomly goes up the longer they make the log out. The fact that there is ANY delay shows their intent for logging out and doing so to "instantly escape danger" which is that logging out isn't supposed to be. You also asked a question and got an answer, but never stated the question you asked or the exact answer. For all I know you went, "So is logging out even though someone is nearby an exploit?" and SMoss said, "Well, not in the strictest sense of it, no." I however linked to a tweet demonstrating Hick's opinion of logging out to escape. So it doesn't appear as if Combat Logging is an intended behavior by his quote. Oh, and you have yet to explain to me in detail even one of these "numerous" solutions that prevent combat logging but are not overly punitive to other players who are simply logging out normally. You keep shifting goal posts and talking circular arguments. "Well if they intended it not to be done then they would have made it so you can't do it. Since you can do it they intended it." Which is not a valid argument, it is a bit of a false dichotomy. It isn't, "They intended it or you couldn't do it." because there exists multiple reasons they might not intend it but can't stop you from doing it.

Hicks states it is for, "pussycakes". Sounds like the devs don't even agree on the subject. Then again with Hicks being Lead Producer... one might wonder if his opinion might hold any sway. <_< I think we can safely say your still not right, I might not be, but neither are you.