selquest@gmail.com

Exactly. And to the "until they shoot me and take my beans" folks, that's the point. That's part of the risk. The paranoia... the terror. This is a survival game, and the psychology that goes into meeting other survivors is frankly amazing... there are clear benefits to shooting first, especially because of the risk that HE might shoot first. But there are terrific advantages to having a teammate. All those things that the OP listed, and that list will hopefully continue to grow. I'd love to see a few more things make that list, and I hope that continued development introduces even more game elements that require cooperation. In the meantime, there are certainly clear advantages already....and you can generally convince others of them, you just have to be careful. Direct communication channel is excellent for this - sneak up, approach from a position of control. Talk it out, see if you think you can trust him... all while making it very clear that he doesn't turn around until you say so. If you're relatively equally equipped, you probably don't have much actual motivation to kill each other aside from fear that you will kill each other. If you can establish that, the teamwork is usually pretty straightforward, even if actual "trust" is still a ways off. It's all about measuring risk versus reward when it comes to meeting up with others... it's not pure PvP, and it's not pure PvE... it's survival, cooperative, competitive, and everything in between. And that's why I enjoy it so much.