JohnTheCynic (DayZ)

Came here to discuss the topic, got "America is this, America does that". Holy crap, take it somewhere else. Topic-related, the inclusion of American-made firearms and clothing is probably in conjunction with American involvement in the Chernarus outbreak. However, nothing about the story of DayZ has been revealed and is all speculation currently. For all we know, the outbreak could be after the events of ArmA 2, during ArmA 2 (as an alternate course of history), etc., etc. Also, as people have pointed out, we don't know how influenced Chernarus is by western civilization, which would explain why clothing like cowboy hats are in the game.

I usually tell them to freeze, if I get the jump on them. If they get the jump on me and tell me to freeze, I usually oblige. If they're close enough to tell me to freeze, they're close enough to gun me down and will probably do so if I try anything. Them telling me to stop shows a want to communicate. First few days of SA, I held up 3-4 guys at Balota, two of them being armed. I simply told them to not move, lower their weapons, and sit tight. After making sure they obliged, I sat down with them and traded. So far, nothing has gone wrong when either party involved communicates. It also probably helps that I don't team up with them, nor tell them where I'm going. Lessens the chance of being attacked from behind.

In short, post any interesting stories of you, your group, or somebody you witnessed contributing to society by helping a wounded survivor, a starving victim, a prisoner of bandits, etc. Otherwise, post interesting stories of "helping" other survivors back to the coast, now with a lot less clothing, a lot less gear, and a lot more rage. -DISCLAIMER- Don't devolve this into "KoS vs. being a hero/surviving". Both "heroes" and "bandits" are needed to make DayZ a tolerable, fun, and enthralling game. Without either side of the morality scale, it'd be bland. Suck it up and don't flame people for playing how they do.

The cookie-cutter responses can't accurately describe every scenario that a player can run into. Generally, it doesn't matter if they're armed or unarmed. If they don't obey basic orders (stand still, don't move, get on the ground, holster/drop your weapon), chances are, they're gonna get killed. Disobedient players are a liability to my health, the health of my group, and the health of anybody else in the immediate vicinity. If they obey, they're not gonna get killed. However, armed players are obviously more of a danger than unarmed. It still doesn't mean that I'll kill them outright, but if they do some fishy stuff (like hiding, getting into cover, etc.), I'll probably kill them. Players armed with melee share the same threat as a man with a firearm. Regards to your last question, it all depends on if they're armed. I usually get into a good position to watch them while my friends do likewise and try to identify if they're armed. If they're traveling with others. If they're in trouble. We then go from there on how to deal with them. EDIT: And obviously, all of this "friendly only if X scenario happened" is thrown out the window if they kill one of my group. They do that, they're a dead man walking.

A lot of people have nailed the point on the head, and yes: imposing limitations upon survivors and bandits is just downright silly. However, I do agree that KoS just for the sake of killing is pretty damn lame. A fair amount of people preach about immersion and reality, and I'll be damned that I get sniped in Cherno and the guy just hides my body or keeps on moving instead of poaching upon the stuff he gained from killing me. This will, of course, be rectified in later patches, I would assume. Roaming zombies would make it much more worth killing and actually looting the victim. Also, another problem with KoS (and no, I don't mean a bandit killing me or killing in self-defence) is fresh spawns having the mentality that they have nothing to lose. Off the top of my head, if you enable a short cooldown period after dying (let's say, you cannot respawn until X amount of minutes have passed), it would drastically reduce the Hatchet Wars of Cherno. If somebody holds up a survivor, such as robbing them, the person would have a higher change of complying and saving themselves the cooldown timer. After all, I'm sure most of us would rather spend X amount of minutes scavenging after being robbed of our possessions over waiting for the cooldown to pass. This is only my observation and opinion, flame if you want.

I'm not entirely sure if this is an intended feature or not, but when firing the Mosin Nagant and failing to spend all 5 rounds in the weapon (the standard "magazine" size), you cannot reload until all 5 rounds have been spent. However, the shooter should be able to reload at any point in time due to the Mosin Nagant having an "internal magazine" that accepts 5 rounds at a time. Not all 5 rounds have to be spent prior to being reloaded. tl;dr: Mosin Nagant reloading is iffy. Can't load rounds even when you should be able to.

How about something is done about the pitch black nights first? In the middle of the country with no lights on, both the moon and stars would provide some form of light. I would know because I live in the middle of the damn countryside where there's a collective 4 streetlights between 3 towns. If I go outside, even when the moon is a new moon, I can see pretty damn well. I can at least distinguish my car in the driveway, houses down the road, and anybody walking down the street. Last time I checked, Chernarus doesn't have power (or at least have very little energy, considering there are a few streetlights on in Elektro), so there would be very little light pollution tampering with the night sky. Now then, this gamma fix by disabling moonlight illuminating the world won't work, in my opinion. People simply don't want to play at night without being able to see. Now, before you mention a flashlight or road flares or chemlights or whatever other means of light they want to put in the game, how many people actually use them and get shit done, like raiding Cherno/Elektro/NWAF? All throughout the mod version of DayZ, people rather turned up their gamma to see (and didn't use the flashlight because it revealed their location), or they simply didn't play. Your method will stop people using gamma, yes, but it will drop the playerbase drastically during night, which will bring about the "2pro4u 24/7 day M4 HALO spawn MaxLoot" servers that, in my opinion, ruined the DayZ experience. Locking the gamma slider in-game will also not work, as some people suggested. People can turn up their monitor gamma, and nothing can be done about that. The game cannot tamper with computer settings, last time I checked, so people who turn up their gamma would have to work only slightly harder to see at night. And please, for the love of god, stop talking about forcing shadows to be mandatory. Many low-end PCs cannot run shadows, considering shadows are probably a top cause of FPS strain. Yes, without shadows, you'll be able to see the sniper trying to hide in the shadows, or see the guy foolish enough to look around with a flashlight in a house, but honestly, snipers usually hang around in pine trees and people who are foolish enough to search with a flashlight can be seen through the windows of a building, or will be seen shortly after exiting the house. In short, preventing moonlit nights is foolish. The better solution would just be improving nighttime visibility and add more items to help illuminate the area. If your idea actually is implemented, you might as well kiss the player base goodbye and welcome 24/7 daytime servers. EDIT: Also, wouldn't disallowing the moonlight make NVGs useless, considering they also need light to amplify?

I have three situations to regale the forums with: One, I freshly spawned in Prigorodki and spent about 5 minutes looking around, testing the new spawn system and writing it down for my friends who are interested in buying the alpha. After finding a hatchet and a shirt which I promptly tore into rags (I figured they would be bandages), I went to the train station and was held up by a man with a Mosin Nagant. After declaring I was friendly, we both motioned to each other and met up. We chatted with each other for about 3 minutes, discussing the alpha, when he decided to gift me an empty handgun in the spirit of Christmas, then departed Prig towards Cherno. However, after raiding a barn, I spotted a bandit charging him with a hatchet, so I called out for him to watch out, but to no avail. He was murdered. I charged after the bandit, who just managed to take everything from the survivor and killed him with my hatchet. I then took everything from both bodies and mulled around Prig, hoping the friendly would return, but he did not. Two, my brother and I were holed up on top of the Cherno firestation when suddenly my brother said he saw a flashlight moving around. We went prone and spotted a survivor searching around the firestation. So, I went on direct chat and verbally warned him twice that we were armed; he should go away. He ignored our warnings and proceeded into the firestation, up the tower. When he finally stood still and was scanning for us, we both stood up and took him down with my Mosin Nagant and my brother's handgun, then quickly fled the scene, fearing that everybody on the map heard the Mosin fire. Three, my brother and I went to Balota airstrip and went into the ATC tower to look around for supplies when I spotted a dead body in the middle of the airfield. My brother offered to search it while I covered him, but as he exited the building, a well-armed player with an M4 emerged from the darkness and searched the body. I quickly aimed and fired twice, putting the man down quickly before he could see my brother. As my brother moved in and fired 5 shots into the still figure, the figure stood back up and started readying his M4. I shot once again while my brother emptied the rest of his magazine. When the figure once again fell to the ground, his body disappeared. An Alt+F4'er. <_<

Honestly, I didn't find it in a spawn. In the first five minutes of me playing, a friendly survivor wielding my new Mosin Nagant gave me the new .45 handgun and was promptly murdered by a hatchet bandit. I exacted revenge and took it for myself. Darn shame the first person I met in alpha was friendly and was murdered. I'd assume it's in farm/civilian areas.

I tried adding it to the bugtracker along with people Alt-F4'ing, but the bugtracker told me that I got the wrong version (0.28.113734). Do I have to exclude the demicals?

In my opinion, it sounds like you shot them because you were unsure about their intentions, not because of their loot. Therefore, you were being the majority of players: shooting not to be a bandit, but to save yourself. You were in the right. Unless you want to be a bandit, of course. This doesn't mean they were enemies, however. 99% of the time, if somebody talks with you via direct, they're friendly. They're blowing their advantage if they speak to you. Case in point, they certainly found you while driving their bus. They could have easily pulled away, faked an escape, got out, and sniped you with that DMR of theirs.

I concur. However, I would still like a dumb fire rocket launcher, at the very least, to be added to military spawns. All of this zombie apocalypse and the military in Chernarus doesn't have anything to quickly disable a vehicle with potential infected persons in it? Yes, I know the M136 was removed because of the impracticality of the weapon. But hell, if you play in a comprehensive squad and you know you might run into a heavily-armored vehicle, it'd be great to use an RPG7 or RPG18. Not every great weapon is useful in every circumstance. If that were the case, everyone would be using an AS50 indoors to smoke bandits trying to get in their face. Back on topic... Selective spawning is a double-edged sword. I personally had a run in with it when a bandit smoked my three friends and I returned fire and killed him. I spent about 8 minutes gathering gear and stuffing it in a car before, sure enough, he spawned at Elektro, ran back to me, and started harrassing me with a Lee Enfield. The pros of selective spawning is that, if you know the map fairly well, you know where to spawn to get some supplies before your trek north away from the coast. Also, it allows easy grouping up with friends or other survivors you've met outside of DayZ (such as on these forums). We all know that another pair of hands next to you is the arguably best tool in DayZ, especially with bloodbags. The cons, however, outweigh the pros in my opinion. Many players use selective spawning as a stunted "get out of death free" card, so to speak. As a few players have posted, it's very easy to spawn in a town and know exactly where to go to return to your body. In my experience with it, stated above, it usually leads to players who have killed another player fair and square being killed while looting because the victim returns post-haste. It is also quite confusing for new players to understand where they are spawning without prior knowledge of the towns/names of the towns (thankfully, I am friends with a Ukrainian, so he can always translate what town I am spawning in/enter on foot :D ) Honestly, I can give a damn about the selective spawning system because, as pointed out, it's controlled by the server admin. If you don't like it, ask the admin to disable it. S/he says no, then find a different server. There's about two dozen mods and thousands of servers to play on. If it's made the norm in DayZ Standalone, I will be upset, yes. It will just further exacerbate the coast wars of Chernogorsk and Elektro. tl;dr: Some people like selective spawning, some don't. Ask admins to do something about it if you don't like the server's usage of selective spawning.