Olfart

Aaaand... lol. :) Sometimes life just messes with your brain. I decided to try one last server hop... and found two fnx mags in one firestation. I guess I really was having the unluckiest loot streak known to mankind. The rest stands though. No loot in tents and garages any more. :(

Loot never did spawn randomly anywhere. ;) It's strange though. I've been through the entire NW airfield 5-6 times, as well as the electro fire stations 5-6 times, getting in right after server resets, and there's just no fnx mags there any more. Plenty of fnx pistols and ammo, but the mags seem to just have sprouted wings and flown south for the winter.

So I seem to notice a few disturbing trends after the last patch: - No loot in garages, making it bloody hard to find your first melee weapon. - No loot in Balota / NW Field tents, making it bloody hard to find weapon upgrades (EDIT: Never mind this line. I really was just extremely unlucky. FNX mags do spawn.) - No FNX mags *anywhere* Can someone confirm this, or have I been having THE unuckiest 10 hours in a row ever? Been on multiple servers, even immediately after resets, and this seems consistent to me.

I know. I get my maps in Cherno too. That sort of proves my point though, doesn't it? Cherno's the only place you can get a map together just like that. That makes it kind of rare, especially with the defunct loot respawns. That's 1 map, per server and four hours. That makes maps a LOT rarer than, say, M4s.The fact that you can still get a map together in Cherno on most servers indicates quite clearly to me that very few people bother to actually get a map because a ) they already know the place by heart or b ) just look it up on the magic interwebs, because it takes a lot less effort and a lot less sniper-dodging in Cherno... which I believe is one of the points I was originally making.Having really only one place (cars in Cherno) to get a map together in less than 10 hours ( yea, gas station spawns, etc, are very, very bad) probably makes a lot of new players (who don't know the Chero car-trick) go straight to google to get either a map, or directions on where to get an ingame map, which sort of was another of the points I was originally making.

The point wasn't "wah wah unfair." I'm perfectly capable of surviving just about indefinitely, learning first on low pop servers, and then on high - but staying out of sight and being a ghost for hours on end is pretty boring. So, I went looking for people to interact with. Usually I'd carry some nice extras I found laying about, such as spare canteens, bags of rice, medical supplies and so on. I figured I'd find someone in need and give em a helping hand, or something. The point, if there is one, is that I was trying to play DayZ as a survival game, like the thing Rocket seems to want to build judging from the streams and news updates. I was sort of hoping maybe I could be a good guy instead of a dick who snipes bambies. I was fully expecting some people to be bandits, even a lot of people. I just didn't expect every single person I meet for 78 hours straight to be a bandit. I find it sad that the only player interaction to be had is "I killed you" and "You killed me". I'm merely pointing out the state of the game mate, and noting that I'm less than pleased.

Well yea... the game doesn't in any way reward good guys, but in every way rewards bad guys. Hopefully some of this will change in the future. Maybe with more dangerous zombies for example, people will be more wiling to trust other people, because they need help with the zombies? Who knows? I'm sure Rocket's thining about this a lot, as he's always talking about the survival aspect, something which is currently sadly missing. The game would indeed be bland without bandits, but bandits should be the exception, not the rule. Maybe some day, one in ten will be up to no good, as opposed to the nine in ten we have now. Personally, I'm just about ready to give up on playing DayZ as a survival game with neat player interactions. If I just start executing people like everyone else, my life expectancy will improve.

Lucky you. My 10 first interactions went something like this: KoS. KoS. KoS. Unarmed noob runs away from me. (Guess he thought I'd kill him with my crowbar. Who can blame him?) KoS. KoS. "Getdownnoworwe.."-BANG! (Guess they get credits for trying, but at least give me time to press Z...) KoS. Freshly spawned, found some food. While eating, a guy runs up to me and whacks me in the head with a pipewrench. He runs off leaving me bleeding and unconscioius. KoS but at least that was sort of funny. KoS. No joke: 78 hours played and I have *not once* met a person with a gun that didn't simply execute me. Hell I even got executed by a noob with a pipewrench who caught me during a bean-break. Maybe I've just been unlucky, but I'm about to give up on playing DayZ as a survival game, and simply join the others in the death match. Next person I see is dead; I don't care who it is. No talking, no trading, just bullets.

Night... has potential, but is currently a bit of a disaster. A few points: Flash lights in general don't work right: A real flashlight has the usual cone of light you see in dayz (everything that comes from the reflector), but it also has a wider dimmer cone from the direct light from the source. This wider cone is missing in dayz, and that really hurts, as it removes so much of your awareness. The wider dimmer cone needs to be added to all flash lights, head torches and weapon flashlights. This will make a huge difference, even if the wider cone is weak and short-ranged. Since light also doesn't *reflect* it hurts even more. If you point a normal flashlight at a wall, you illuminate the entire area a bit through reflection. This doesn't exist in DayZ, which further makes the narrow cone unbearable. Point source light is broken: The gas powered lamp doesn't work; it doesn't provide light in your inventory, when held or when dropped. This point source of light would be great when the zombies come running. Needs to be fixed. When this works as intended, it'll be awesome. Duct tape! The flashlight is effectively useless for everything except running away and searching for beans, as you can't use a weapon with the flashlight out. You can potentially drop the flashlight, and try to fight the zombies in the cone of light but... this is a hassle. The flashlight needs working duct tape, so *any* ranged weapon could be jury-rigged with a light source that points (mostly) in the right direction. Weapon flashlights: The weapon flashlight is currently available for the M4 only, and only with a special grip - making it pretty rare and hard to get. It's very useful when you do get it; it's really the only effective way of fighting in the dark, and it's super for keeping the beasties at bay. Needs to be attachable to more weapons. I'm pretty sure there's weapon flashlights for pistols for example. Head torch is a head ache: The headtorch is currently the go-to light for all night time needs as it's the only light you can use with a weapon - any weapon, including melee. It has an unfortunate tendency to go from pristine to ruined in 1 zombie hit, but that may be intentional. A bigger problem is that it's always pointing in the wrong direction: as soon as you raise a weapon, the character lowers his head, leaving your direct line of sight with zero illumination and forcing you to fire blindly into the night, hoping the zombie hasn't moved. Don't even think about crouching or going prone, unless you wish to provide lighting for ants. If the head torch was tilted up just a bit more, so it pointed in the general direction you are aiming in, it'd actually be useful, even if it's usless when crouched or prone. As for the ambient lighting: Fair enough, DayZ is *really* dark. The occasional moonlit night wouldn't hurt. On moonless nights though, with the power out, it really is that dark; you literally can't see the hand in front of your face. I rather like that this is true in DayZ - but until we get some of the above points fixed, I'm not surprised people chose daytime servers; night time is an unbelieveable pain in the butt (until you get an m4 with a flashlight...) I've done quite a bit of night play tonight, searching through airfields and army bases for that elusive grip and weapon flashlight for my m4 (found it at last!) and I gotta say it's fun... At night you really need to worry about zombies. During the day you just hack at them with your axe while running circles, but at night... oh my, I actually chose to make noise and "waste" ammo. If the lights just worked tight, I'd play night time a whole lot more! So yes, add some moonlight now and then, but other than that, I'd like it to stay dark. Night shouldn't just be a change of mood lighting - it should render rifles virtually ineffective - unless you are either close enough to light them up, or you are aiming at someone's head torch.

I'm sure there's people who like being lost until they find a map, but in the end you are going to be hunted by people who know exactly what the area looks like, and will take full advantage of it. The point I was trying to get across was that those with no map will always be at a disadvantage to those that either know the map from years of gaming or those that simply look it up on the internet. Making maps rare is trying to create artificial scarcity on information - and that only works as long as people play along. Like I said, making maps a rare item is a neat idea, but it's only effective as long as people play nice. That's what makes it a neat idea, but not a good idea. This is DayZ; it's a rare few that play nice. Most will do anything to get ahead and then start shooting everyone in sight. The only way to avoid being executed in DayZ is to stay the hell away from the coast and roads, and use a map to navigate. May as well provide easy access to the map in game, and save people the trouble of visiting Google.

The ingame map HAS waterpumps marked.

While I rather like the idea of maps being rare, and most survivors being perpetually lost all the time, let's be honest: It's 2014, and most people have heard of a thing called "the internet". It takes most people less than 30 seconds to locate http://dayzdb.com/map, which makes it a rather silly thing to try and make maps rare. There's plenty of things you can make rare in a game, but information simply isn't one of them. So here's my suggestion: Remove the idea of doling the map out in quarters - just make it a complete charnarus map on every spawn.Drastically increase the spawn rate of maps.Consider ignoring the spawn rate and just give one to every fresh spawn, just like the flashlight.OlFart

I always get the hell away from the respawns ASAP. Now up north people are fewer and further between but they still KOS with no reason. Just takes a bit longer is all.

Yea I think there's way too much KOS as well. The occasional bandit adds spice but there's a difference between occasional bandits and 90% of the player base executing any player they spot instantly without thought. I don't like "punishing" people to be good - that old humanity system was just that - artificially punishing the bad by revealing their nature to the good guys. I also thought immediately of a more hostile environment as an incentive to reduce all the pointless KOS. There's KOS with a point, and that won't disappear of course. Making the zombies and possibly other wildlife a LOT more challenging may be the best course of action. Making the environment more hostile through scarcity of food, etc is probably bad way to go as that's something that can be solved by murder. I'm pretty darn new, and as long as I have a pipe wrench or better I not only feel safe, but happily kill every zombie in sight so I can loot in peace. Bandits should be no more than 25% of you worries, but currently they pose 100% of the danger, and just about everyone is one. After all Rockets talk about the survival aspect, adding item damage, and ability to capture, it's pretty clear they are trying to curb the pointless KOS, so with a bit if luck, something will change during alpha.

The alpha is barely out and I'm already noticing a disturbing behaviour in the majority of the players: if it moves, shoot first and ignore questions. There's been a lot of talk during development about the survival aspect, about team play and reasons to simply not shoot on sight. So far, it's absolutely not working. I was never a big fan of artificially punishing people for bad behaviour, like the bandit skins from the mod, but I do see the reason it was introduced: plenty of people are simply dicks. I really do want days to be the awesome survival game it could be, but so far I see mostly deathmatch from other players. The ability to cuff people is great. The fact that gear takes damage when shot at is great. However none if this seems to really change player behaviour. But yes... suggestion: I think perhaps people would spend less time hunting players if the environment posed a challenge. At lest a challenge that can't be overcome by killing players for loot. I'm really new to this and I can already clear an entire village of zombies with nothing but a pipe wrench. The environment is tame, but the players harsh. Maybe if the environment was harsher with more and stronger zombies, more players might choose cooperation rather than execution.