Atomizer

Doesn't seem like any more then before, in the first week of release, near komarovo, I ended up fighting at least 10 zombies all up with a pipe wrench(most likely more then 10), first I had about 4 on me, and I decided to go for it, in my running around I aggroed at least 6 others by the time I had finished, took a lot of strafing and swinging. But anyway, that was in the first week of release, doesn't sound like there is any more now, and I certainly haven't seen any more, you guys might have simply gotten on just after a server restart, which is possible with the server issues after the patch.

Making zombies faster is a balance they tried to do in the mod, it is not a proper solution, zombies are completely placeholder in terms of how they work right now. Have any of you seen the zombie leap animation? That I believe, is intended to knock you over if you get hit by it, but there is many other aspects they can change to make them more challenging, run speed is not one of them however.

This is the deal, they need to adjust all weapon spawn chances down as they add more weapons, it will likely be a balancing marathon that they will be continuously tweaking as they add more things. Also, there is only 1 military weapon even in the game right now, all the others I would consider civilian, I myself really can't wait for the bow/crossbow, just hope it feels good to use(probably still won't be the weapon I aim for though)

The issue is seeing around obstacles you shouldn't be able to see around, essentially, "seeing what should not be possible to see", just like the gamma issue. Resident Evil isn't in the same boat.

DayZ got its start as a mod, and Rocket as a modder, not to mention ArmA2/3 have a history with being highly moddable, I highly doubt they would make DayZ SA unmoddable, it will happen, but most likely not until beta/release. As to the extent of the modding, that I have no idea on, but it will be supported.

It is a problem, but until it is "fixed", you put yourself at a disadvantage if you don't use it, it is the same deal with third person servers, use it or you put yourself at a disadvantage, once they fix it then it will all be good. For the gamma issue though, unless they ensure the game is not showing any details when it is pitch black, people can still adjust their monitor/drivers to see better then others, the biggest issue is the fact clouds on/off makes a huge difference, that is what needs to be fixed.

There is no private servers, any advertising themselves as private need to be taken down.

As far as I have experienced, night time servers suffered from the same population drop in the mod as it does in SA, the real problem with night in SA is the fact it is unfinished, there is no shadow shader for night time yet(this is why the flashlight shines straight through walls), and there needs to be more lighting options, chemlights, flares etc. The final thing, is when night is meant to be pitch black, they need to make sure there is no visible detail in the darkness, it needs to be flat black, this will mean no amount of gamma adjusting will let you see, the only time you will be able to see, is when using a light source. Unfortunately, even if they remove in game brightness/gamma controls, people can still adjust their gamma in their drivers or their monitor, and by removing the in game controls, some people will have a harder time then others, my monitor for example is darker then others, I usually have to set my brightness/gamma higher to even get the same level of visibility. One thing they need to do though, and is fixable, is the effect clouds have on brightness, if you turn clouds off, it becomes much darker, turn them on, and it becomes much brighter, and I am talking about the difference between pitch black and being able to see clearly.

Rocket has said in the past that modding will happen for DayZ standalone, I am not sure what else you want if you are willing to wait for it, it is CONFIRMED. I am not sure what kind of tools they will release for DayZ SA modding, or what changes they will make to the forums to accommodate mods, but I would assume that would come hand and hand with modding support, they aren't just going to one day say "Ok, now you can begin modding" and provide no support. In the meantime, I would probably work on whatever modding you want with ArmA2(or 3), I just wouldn't work too much on the scripting side of things since my understanding is it will be different on that front. But any terrain/models that will work with ArmA2, would be more easily ported across, with modders just having to accommodate with any changes made to DayZ.

1. Loot will be made to respawn eventually, and as more and more items get added to the game, spawn rates will need to be adjusted and balanced, this isn't finished. 2. Bug, they have the option to "chamber a round" which will only load 1 round, the normal loading is meant to be 5 rounds, something just went wrong when they added spray painting. 3. I remember Rocket mentioning something about this, but I assume it does it all in one go into a magazine as a balancing act, to be honest, it still takes longer to load a magazine before putting it in your gun then simply swapping magazines, and loading magazines in the middle of a fight is already pretty risky, it is always better to carry several magazines. The mosin obviously has the animation of loading each round into the gun, and as far as I know, there is no way to "break out" of the animation, if you started loading a 60 round mag, you'd be stuck there close to a minute reloading, it would be fine if you could break out of the animation, but yeah, I am guessing they have a reason for opting not to have time for loading a magazine(though, it is an alpha, subject to change). I do understand what you're saying though, it is rather quick right now, infact, I believe loading a partially full magazine takes longer, since you have to first empty the mag, then reload it, so yeah, makes sense to me to be able to start loading in rounds. Actually, what would be nice is to be able to load a magazine without having to go into the inventory(and being able to reload the mosin without going into your inventory), perhaps a separate key, for used when you have either a mosin or mag in your hands, which is for loading 1 round of appropriate ammunition, you can hold the button down for multiple rounds, but once you let go you stop then you can take another action, I don't picture that being too tedious, at least in my eyes. 4. Once more weapons get added, it will be even harder to acquire a functional weapon, as you need to find the right ammunition for the right gun, and in most cases, the right magazine too, will certainly complicate matters once different magazine types get added, so I imagine working guns becoming more rare then what they are now. 5. I assume you have done research into the mechanics of this, so I am just going to say, don't forget stomach has nothing to do with hungry/thirsty status, you can have an empty stomach and not be hungry or thirsty, and as I have not played around with it too much after this most recent patch, I can't say any more then that.

I believe it will be ported, but not before 2015, however, as a member of the PC Master Race, I don't really see the point, think of how many buttons you use for DayZ right now, now try to map them to a controller, yes, certain things can be simplified down to a single button(the emotes are a good example), but they would need to do some major refactoring of the actual design in my opinion to make it suitable for console peas- users. Rocket did say if DayZ was successful enough, it would be under consideration, but really, it is way too early to be asking for it, come back after release.

Clearly a troll, or ignorant, the BF4 "beta" you likely played was a press beta, not a real beta, and it suffered from major performance issues, and even months after release, it has plenty of issues, but instead of fixing them, since it is all managed by EA, they will work on more DLC and premium content and then have BF5 out in a year which you have to pay another $90 for. This is an ALPHA, REAL, ALPHA, that isn't even 2 months old, not your press beta that comes out to hype people up for release, which is essentially the final game(yes I know there is some differences even between a press beta and release, but facts are facts), FPS issues will be resolved, mouse control will be resolved, a lot of these issues you seem to have with the "engine", have been addressed by the developers already. Now I am not some ignorant fool as to think miracles can be worked, however, do not use ArmA as a reference on what this game will be like come release, ArmA is a very open and heavily scripted game, it has a lot of extra cruft that doesn't exist in DayZ SA, and that is why I believe things CAN be made better. Also, I don't see how you say this engine is outdated, if it is because it is using the Take On Helicopters engine as a base, which as far as I know, branched off from ArmA2, guess what ArmA3 branched off? one or the other. When they were deciding what to use as a game engine, they went with the Take On Helicopters engine because ArmA3's branch was too unstable to work with at the time. If you think it is outdated because they have used the same engine since the early days, then the same is said for BF4, don't be ignorant to think Frostbite 3 is not a modified Frostbite 2 etc, engines are rarely made from scratch, because they come with a massive development time overhead along with "stabilizing" and "expanding" the engines feature set, a mature engine is usually always better to work with as a base, even if you strip a large chunk out and rewrite it. Now come release, or at least beta, if performance or controls(I have to assume you mean the mouse movement, I would like a 1:1 mouse ratio as most others do) are still an issue, then it becomes more appropriate to bitch about it. Edit: Just want to clarify this part, I am not saying you don't bring issues up, the devs need to be made aware of issues, however flat out saying "it is this way because the engine is shit" is not productive. This is why you don't compare a press beta to an actual alpha, heck, an actual beta and a press beta are different enough, this is a GOD DAMN ALPHA. Terms: Press Beta: A beta released as a marketing tool, it is essentially a demo for people to try out the game and drive pre-orders, and that is why you only got 1 map in BF4 beta. Actual Beta: Usually betas are considered "content complete", as in, all the mechanics and art assets etc are in the game, and this is where the game starts being polished up towards release, there are always exceptions to this, as new mechanics and art assets could be added during beta, but the focus is usually on bug fixing and any balancing as required. Alpha: This is where a lot of the game mechanics and artwork is not in the game yet, heck, some mechanics might not even be fully planned out yet, or existing ones could change, there is obviously still bug fixing going on, but since the actual code base(engine/game) is in flux, certain bugs will remain until that part of the games code base is stabilized, even if the devs attempt a band aid fix, it will just break later as the code is still being worked on, this is normal, this is natural, this is ALPHA.

I got killed shortly after I got mine as well, and then my friend killed the guy who killed me, and then his body glitched out and the beret was lost....they are cursed I tell you! cursed!

You watched the video right? Concealment can be done regardless of perspective, he was playing entirely in first person, yet was able to sneak around and conceal himself, yes, I will agree, THAT is part of the game, however, it has no relevance in this discussion as both perspectives can "hide", and you can peek in first person as well, you just don't get this unrealistic view around and over walls. That is in no way realistic, there is plenty to hide behind, even in an open field there will be bushes, hay bales etc. As an example of concealment, I was on a first person server earlier, in one of the high rises in berezino, there was someone outside with a flashlight looking in the windows of the highrises, I had visual on him, he turned his flashlight towards the exact window I was in, but because I was just peeking over, he did not see me, now, if he was better at spotting, he would have seen me, that is the difference between third person with the exploit, and first person, third person he wouldn't have even had a chance to see me, assuming I was actually in third person(even not "intending" to exploit third person, it happens). Not sure why people don't understand that, the exploit is the real issue, not third person itself, it does not "make up" for any concealment, as you can conceal yourself just fine in first person. It has nothing to do with "come out and fight", in fact, it is the opposite, and again, this video clearly shows he is concealing himself AND ambushing, in FIRST PERSON. Go enjoy your third person, it won't be going away, I know that, the exploiting nature of it however, hopefully will.

Close up of the beret, looking good

I was just on before the hardcore servers seemed to disappear, I had all my gear prior to the patch, the database wasn't wiped, even though I figured the hardcore hive would be starting fresh and was EXPECTING to start fresh(so I am going to get myself killed to start again). Be sure you are not playing on the Experimental servers, they have the same version, and are on a different hive, I saw them in the list while waiting for other hardcore servers to come back up, even though I am running Stable.

I am not going to disagree there is a lot of bad seeds entering the community in SA, however, you have to remember, being an alpha, and not having much to do right now, most are getting bored and try to relieve that in different ways, usually results in KoS along the coast, zombies are mostly nowhere to be seen, and there is so little loot right now and other things in the game that even without server hopping, people get geared up relatively quickly, and you get bambis who are now an actual threat if you let your guard down for 2 seconds, you can be unconscious before you even have time to react if you don't already have your gun out and ready to shoot. Regardless of how bad this seems right now, things will change as more stuff gets added and things get fixed(like combat logging), I am already experiencing a somewhat friendlier experience then what I experienced in the mod, though granted I am not a veteran to the game by any stretch of the imagination, but considering I am having this more friendly experience already, suggests that it will only go up from here.

I posted about zombies having a base skin, which could have several skins for some variety, but then they would be fully customized by the equipment they wore, which also means the equipment is lootable and any time new equipment is added, there is no extra work to add them to the zombies(they just have to adjust the spawn tables). I didn't consider the performance issues this would bring with it though, and don't misjudge this, this has nothing to do with how good a programmer is, it's just fact. Zombies are one simple model with some animations and AI, and with having thousands of zombies on a single server, this system would essentially be like keeping track of thousands of players, with their own AI(which would be equivalent to the networking overhead of players, if not slightly better in terms of performance). There is no way this would be feasible, even with major optimizations, running into a town would be like running into a town with 50+ players running around, towns already have their own performance issues they need to work out, without adding to it. So yeah, have my beans. Edit: Oh, almost forgot, in regard to people being mistaken for zombies, it goes the other way too, zombies mistake for people, in my opinion that would be more ideal then instantly knowing if it is a player or zombie, though chances are, you would know pretty quickly based on movement, it is hard to say without seeing it and playing around with it, but I have a feeling it would add to the game, rather then detract from it.

The guns should be realistically modeled for DayZ, this is not a competitive PvP game like CoD, Counter Strike or Battlefield, it is an open world survival simulator, there is no such thing as OP weapons, unless they are more powerful, more accurate, or shoot faster then they should in real life, relatively, to other weapons. Not to mention once the game has most of the weapons in game, with separate weapon, magazine, ammo spawns, you might not find your "ideal weapon" straight away, and even if you do, you then still have to find all the other parts that come with it, including the ammo, which means a lot of players will simply get the first thing they can find that they have ammo for. What about if you're by yourself, and come across a large group all carrying guns, where is your balance now? Normally in a standard PvP game, if it isn't deathmatch, teams will be balanced, so you usually have roughly the same number of people on each side. DayZ you are usually mismatched, one way or the other, you are either in a larger group compared to nearby players, or in a smaller group(including solo), or there is multiple, separate groups, on top of that, you are not obligated to fight everyone you see, sometimes the better option is to back out and vacate the area. Throw your notion of balance out the window, it doesn't belong in a non-competitive PvP environment. I would be ok with more realistic sniping, I enjoy sniping, and if it is made a little more challenging, people might start complaining less about snipers, every game I have played, with exception of TF2, people always bitch about snipers. The only other thing I could see, is scope glint, very subtle effect only visible during the day, or at night if a torch is shining directly at and close enough to the scope, definitely nothing like BF4 massive flare across the map if a sniper is so much as pointed within 30 degrees of you.

These do not look like the same zombie models the mod had, these look new, even with the horrible quality screenshots I can see that. What would be much better, would be zombie base models, different variations on the base zombie model, and then allow the zombies to be equippable with the same gear players can wear, that way as new clothing/armour/helmets etc get added, you can make new zombie types just by changing the spawning loadouts. Now this zombie spawned gear, would have diseases/infections attached, a long with being damaged from the get go, and any gear they were wearing would have an effect on players killing them(and damaging the gear further). One thing I am always disappointed in a game with a lot of customization in terms of gear, and seeing npcs/humanoid monsters with gear, is that they never actually drop the gear they are visibly wearing. In my opinion, it would fit right in with DayZ.

The main points have already been covered, so instead I am going to delve a little bit deeper, first, the points that have been covered: BI already own the RV engine, and the developers are already familiar with the engine, using another engine means shelling out a lot of money, and then spending a lot of development time re purposing the engine for DayZ, which they have been doing with RV, however, with a different engine they would need to learn it, and make much more drastic changes to the core to get things even close to what we have now, so not only would it take longer, and potentially have more issues(due to the teams inexperience with the engine), it would also cost magnitudes more then working with $0 licensing and without the extra development time on top of what they have already spent on reworking RV. Creating a new engine from scratch might have $0 licensing fees, but as mentioned, would take years to get close to what we have now, with more issues, and likely more staff being required from the get go, not to mention without having an engine to work on from the start, art assets and the map, not to mention the gameplay mechanics, cannot really be put into play until the engine is fairly solid, which means waiting on the engine to be done before the majority of the other staff would even have jobs to do, and I am pretty sure BI will not pay people to sit around doing nothing. As for the clunkiness of the engine, that is an issue that can be addressed, believe it or not, not saying it wont remain in some way, "clunky", however, if you compare ArmA2 to ArmA3, ArmA3 itself is less clunky then ArmA2, in fact, a part from the inventory, I would even go so far as to say it is less clunky then DayZ currently, even with the way you can switch weapons in DayZ while moving. I mean, a lot of the clunkiness from the mod no longer exists, and I imagine it is only going to become smoother, while remaining with it's more realistic approach(ie, it won't become as smooth as the arcadey counter-strike/cod/bf games).

Reminds me of one time in the mod, me and a friend were logging on one day, on a night time server, I logged in prone in one of those little industrial buildings with doors on opposite sides of a small room, I heard foot steps behind me so I turned around and got killed....turns out it was my friend, he just walks into the building and sees some guy point a gun at him and well, things happened. Ahhh.. good times

If the argument that these polls are invalid because most people don't visit the forums(well, I think the sample size is too small and biased myself, but I won't get into that), then your argument that most people playing the game actually know first person servers even exist, or have even bothered to investigate such a thing, is also invalid, I just went on, right now, at 11PM GMT+10(Australian Eastern Standard Time), and took a look, and I don't know about you guys, but the preferred server for people seems to have more to do with the actual player counts on the servers and ping, people seem to prefer either a high pop server, or a low pop server, but player counts can fluctuate wildly within a minute of the last refresh, there isn't much conclusion that can be drawn at the moment as to what most people prefer, based on what servers people play on. Most people will look at the ping and player counts and determine which server they want to play on, a lot of people prefer higher player counts, and while there is high population first person only servers, there is many more third person servers, so the chance for them to end up on a first person only server is slim, the same goes for people who prefer lower player counts, they will be looking for low populated servers, and again, with less first person only servers, the chance for someone to find themselves on a first person only server is slim. I started with a high ping threshold of up to 500, but there was too many empty third person servers(the page was full of empty servers), so I had to reduce the ping filter to 200, unfortunately that seemed to get rid of all empty servers, but it still gives imo, for within 200 ping of where I am, validity to the fact that most people, are just joining servers based on player count/ping, rather then if a server is third person enabled or not, ie, there is NO CONCLUSION based on player counts on servers, feel free to do your own searches within the server browser. I saw several full first person only servers, and a mix from empty to full first person only servers, which oddly enough, is exactly the same as third person servers, there might be more full third person servers, but there is actually MORE empty third person servers then full ones, just like with first person only. Draw your own conclusions, but in my eyes, there is no relation between player counts and player preference, so stop stating it as fact.

The main thing is, what we have right now, on regular alpha DayZ SA, isn't everything that exists in some shape or form, that goes for experimental as well, radios, shotguns etc are all in dev builds, and something they don't want to release yet due to potential issues with it, someone posted this recently: http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/165926-we-need-xxxxxx-why-isnt-it-in-yet/ The key is the first line of the answer, things have been worked on, that are not in what is on steam, radios are one of them, heck, one of the first weapons they showed off for SA iirc was the AK-47(or 74?), I don't see that in game either, and it isn't, and isn't even in the next patch, but it exists, they showed it actually working, implemented, in game. Granted the reason for the AK not being in game and the radios not being in game are two different things, but that is the deal.

I can't think of this as nothing but a troll, but I'll bite. "Missing bricks", "dirty windows", "bushes", are all modeled in game, and a part from a two way mirror, or some kind of video camera setup, there is no way that you are not at risk at being spotted if you can see someone, all this is achievable regardless of perspective, the difference however, with third person view, you DO have a video camera style setup, except the camera is invisible, so there is nothing to be spot. Stop confusing ones ability to "remain unseen" with "impossible to see", last I checked, there were no mirrors on the DayZ map(let alone one-way mirrors), and certainly no video cameras and display monitor, a part from that floating invisible eye in the sky that is the third person view. "You don't want it real. You want it easy." <-- That is third person in a nutshell, it is easy, not realistic, right back at you.