chambersenator

I too am very curious about what is covered by each of the flags, especially the differences between the "in_cargo" and "in_hoarder" ones. I would assume the "in_cargo" flag covers items inside a item being worn, such as a backpack, shirt, or vest, while "in_player" covers items like the clothing/gear/shouldered weapons on a player, and "in_hoarder" covers containers like tents, buried stashes, cars, and dropped backpacks. However, that's just a reasonable guess on my part, and I would love to know if I'm anywhere near close to the mark.

Now that we finally have a modding section for DayZ SA, I'd like to suggest something that I've been thinking about for a long time now that could be helpful to us all. All of us that are interested in modding DayZ have vastly different levels of experience and areas of expertise. Some of us here are very familiar with modding ArmA in the past, some are completely new to it and eager to learn, and the rest are somewhere in between. As we get closer to the new modding tools to be released, I think it would be a good idea to create a dedicated sub-section of the modding section, focused on two things: A place for anyone interested in modding to introduce themselves, and include some basic info about their skills and any past experience with scripting, modeling, mission design, etc. in ArmA and other games, or for those completely new to DayZ modding, what particular aspects they are interested in learning. This could be very useful to help the community overall, by having a place where we can get to know each other's skills. For example, someone who feels comfortable with writing scripts, but has no modeling experience can find those who are good at making asset models and may be interested offering up their skills. The easier it is for us to know who's out there and what they can do, the greater the benefits to us all. An "Asset Exchange" thread or section, and the idea of a "Community Asset Pack". People can post a request for a certain item or item to be made, and if there's a modeler that wants to make it, they can submit their design for consideration. Ideally, those submitted assets could be made available to all modders, so that we can reduce the chances of us having 10 slightly different versions of some basic item (ex. a opened tin can, a handful of wires ripped from a wrecked car or home appliance, a liquor bottle, a brick, etc). Of course, there will be some very work-intensive stuff that some modders would like to keep to their own mods (vehicles, firearms, entirely new buildings, etc), but I'm talking more about about the (relatively) basic stuff here that would be useful in many different mods. Additionally, we could have links to BI's wiki pages that list existing ArmA assets, so that people don't waste time making something from scratch that could be just ported over. The goal here is to avoid wasting modeler's valuable time by letting them focus on different things, rather than duplicating things whenever possible. As time goes on, it would be possible for assets submitted to that part of the forum section could, with the permission of those modelers, be compiled into a "Community Asset Pack" mod through the Steam workshop either as a single mod or broken into 2-3 separate categories (environmental, structural, or miscellaneous items), and updated every month or two. As for who would be the one responsible for curating/compiling that and the general logistics of handling that, I'm open to suggestions. Figuring out the process at first will be tricky, but I think the potential benefits of it is worth seriously considering. (In many ways it's similar to the CUP mods in ArmA as the end result, but what I'm focusing on is how we can create a submission/compilation process that has the best chance to draw in new talent as well as have the support of those with a great deal of previous experience in ArmA) Just to explain a bit about where I'm coming from with this and why I'm making this suggestion: I've got my own plans for a DayZ mod that I've been thinking about for a coupe years now. I've dabbled here and there with mission designs and taking apart PBO files over the last 6+ years in Dayz and ArmA to understand how they work, and observing in particular how DayZ's new code has been evolving over time. I feel reasonably confident that I can make the core concept of my mod work, but when it comes to making a small number of fairly baisic asset models for the various little additional things I'd like to have in the mod, I'm going to need to find someone that would be willing to help with that. I have no doubt there are many other people in the same situation, so why not propose something that might make it easier for everybody?

Thanks, that shines some light on a number of gray areas for me when it comes to how the process was/is handled with custom ArmA assets, as my perspective on those aspects of it varied between "from the sidelines" to ""from out in the stadium parking lot." After years of messing about with missions in ArmA, this will be my first serious attempt at making my own mod, and I' have no desire to hide my 'modding noob badge,' and all the mistakes and a bit of naive optimism that comes with it. Everybody's got to start somewhere, of course. I'm up for the challenge of figuring all this out - "getting in over my head" is one of my favorite ways to learn stuff. Eventually, I'll learn the ropes, though a combination of tripping over them, getting tangled up in them, and occasionally being shown them.

Duly noted. I know I need to tread very carefully here, as I have done a good bit of freelance graphic design and IT work in the past, and I do not want to dance right into the "do this for free for the exposure" minefield. I hope you realize that my intent and reasoning behind this proposal was about having a collection of small,very basic, common items that could be useful across many different mods, made and submitted by those with the desire and skills to do contribute to it. I was picturing something along the lines of "requested assets: a piece of coal, an old coffee can, a candle, a jar of honey, etc" and if someone wants to help out and make it, cool. I'm NOT talking about "I need an extremely detailed model of a wrecked and rusted MiG-15, or a ArmA hilux pickup truck with a tow winch in the back so I can have a tow truck mod" and expect everyone who has the skills to spend dozens and dozens of hours on it out of the goodness of their hearts at the drop of a hat. Also, I would assume there's nothing stopping someone from sharing a basic, lower resolution model of something freely, and adding "if you're interested in something that's much higher quality version of this for your own mod, let's talk," IF that is something they would be open to doing. I can understand why some people would not be interested in such a thing, and I have no problem with that. I also could understand why some other people would be interested in contributing for no other reason than they want to.

I would really like to hear more about where the devs are currently with: Hearing someone else's radio: Example: Player A has no radio, but is standing beside Player B who has a radio, and is talking on the radio to Player C (who is far away), Player A should be able to hear both sides of the conversation, not just what Player B says. Being able to turn a radio on, drop it on the ground, and any broadcast the radio picks up on the channel its set to can be heard by anyone near that radio. For me, those two aspects are essential for radios in DayZ SA. Without them, we lose out on so many different gameplay possibilities. Just to be clear, I'm not asking for those capabilities to be put in the game ASAP - it will happen when it happens. I'm just asking for some information on where things are with it, what differences there are with the new code vs the old, what challenges the devs have run into and overcome, and what still remains to be done.

That reminds me of an idea I had ages ago for an improvised alarm as part of a mod. First, you need a wrench and a police car wreck, and remove the police siren. A car like that would probably still be using an electrically powered mechanical siren (like this). Easy to remove, easy to wire up to a trigger (a tripwire, a door, etc) and a car battery, and would create a nonstop, deafening scream until disconnected, and could be heard from the furthest distance possible. With the electrical wires that are coming with basebuilding, the siren and battery could be in a different part of the base (perhaps even a separate locked room), which means it may take a minute to be able to stop it. Scripting it should be fairly straightforward, with the trigger tied to the tripwire or the door's open/closed state. Since the door state randomization thing on server restarts could accidentally trigger the alarm, such a door would have to be locked to prevent that (the door state thing likely won't apply to player-made structures, this would only be a concern if the base is incorporated to a pre-existing structure, and uses one of it's doors)

Yeah, but then you still can just hop outside the map border and be in total safety. Of course, you could put in that 'contaminated zone' thing, but then what's the point of having the infected on the border? Using the border to escape AI is one of those things that people can be against in general, but eventually a situation will come up where it starts to feel like "It's ok, just this one time. I've got so much invested in this. Who's ever going to know?" I don't know, it just feels like a solution that ends up being more of a problem than it solves. I'd much prefer a solution that does not accentuate a limitation of an unrelated part of the game. It's better have a solution that doesn't include a tempting option to exploit such limitations (the AI border limit) as sort of compromise in order to prevent a more serious exploitation (using the off-map areas for safe travelling in general).

Alas, the AI can't cross the map edge as far as I know. I've seen people take advantage of that to escape wolf packs up near Tisy. I almost didn't want to mention it at all, as I see that as unsportsmanlike at best, and exploiting at worst, but knowing about it and using that knowledge to your advantage are separate things.

Ah, I see what you mean. That is an option. I don't know exactly how to explain it, but to me that solution feels more artificial than going with something like making the areas outside the map cause you to take damage in some form, and just call it a kind of extreme 'contaminated zone' Whoops, I guess I got my SW and SE corners mixed up. 6 years of this game and ArmA, and I still mix those up. In any case, the devs have said many times over the years that expanding north and west just aren't possible. You're not wrong about the limitations about triggers outside the map borders, but I'm almost positive there IS a way to do create a forbidden/contaminated zone for the areas outside the map, and I think there was even an A2 mod that had it. Of course, the devs would be able to approach this differently, but if I was making a DayZ SA mod, I might do it this way: If I understand this right, you can do it in two steps. First, you place a long, thin trigger area a few feet wide all along the map edge, and set the action to start progressively hurting you when you enter that area. So as soon as you cross that line, the damage starts and doesn't start. Second, you create another, wider trigger area on the inside edge of the first one. That second trigger area checks to see if you are taking that 'outside the map' damage, and if so triggers a stop command for the damage. So it would kind of look like - - - - - map edge - - - - - - - - - - trigger 1 (start taking damage) - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - -- trigger 2 (check if you are taking damage, if so, stop killing you) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - It probably could be done with a single trigger, but I suspect having them separate would be a more reliable, fault-tolerant method to make sure everything works as intended. It's admittedly a hasty, slap-dash modder solution, but it is fairly straightforward and simple.

Unfortunately, do to the way the map system works, it's not possible to expand to the north and west in any practical way. Everything on the map uses the NW corner as a reference point - loot, buildings, trees, rocks, water... everything, and the position handling code has a huge problem with stuff outside the map borders (as it's a negative value, and that causes no end of issues). You might then ask "well, why don't they just move the reference point?" Unfortunately, that ends up forcing you to pretty much re-make the map from scratch, then adjust every single script and line of code that involves, references, or calculates, position data accordingly. It makes the work needed to make a winter version of Chernarus look as easy as making one of those "hand turkeys" kids make in elementary school by drawing an outline of their hand and coloring it in, and maybe gluing some macaroni to it as well

Infected "age/life cycles" is something the did some work on quite a while ago, and the devs have some soild concepts about how they want that aspect to work. You have to go back quite a while in the Status Reports to find them, but they have talked about it a good bit. It's quite possible that the reason it's not fully implemented is that at some point, they realized that to do it efficiently and properly, other parts of the code would need to be updated first, so it was put aside until later (like an improved handler for AI behavior, better ways to manage and track AI, etc). IIRC, there can be a 'middle' state for AI that is in between 'despawned' and 'spawned' that is a 'simulated' state (which has been in ArmA for a long time). This means their positions and status are saved, but they are not fully rendered into the game until they are needed. It's a far more efficient way of handling large numbers of AI on a map, without having to devote server resources to managing AI that are miles away from any players. That simulated state might have to be a bit more complex than the one in ArmA, so that it can save their state upon despawning, and when spawned again, their age/life cycle is adjusted accordingly (and adjust that depending on the time acceleration of the server, too). However, there are other challenges to this that need to be considered. If you only use the above system, you're stuck with a set infected population that might be huge when the server starts, but after a couple hours can end up with most of the infected removed from the server. So to balance this out, you have to add in a system that is adding in new infected, but do so in a way that doesn't end up making the 'age/lifespan' thing barely noticeable after a couple hours. So I think we'll be seeing pretty much what you describe down the road, but there may be other new aspects with infected put in the game before that is in that may significantly change/influence it.

I agree that having bees and hives you can harvest honey from would be a really cool thing to have in DayZ. The fact that it would be tasty and provide some energy from all the sucrose and glucose it contains is far less important to me than its potential 'improvised' medical applications. Honey has at least some level of antibiotic properties, and could be used directly on wounds and dressings to reduce the chances of infection (which as time goes on, and the medical system is expanded to include more complex wound infection mechanics, could make honey quite a helpful thing to have around). While the bees themselves should only spawn around the hives in warmer months, making hives much easier to detect, but also trickier to harvest. In colder months, the hives would still be there, just a lot harder to find. As for the harvesting process itself, you could have the option of doing it the 'smart' way or the 'painful' way. The smart way would be to use a smoke grenade or torch that's had something to increase the amount of smoke it makes (hot lard maybe? oil? similar to how you can make torches last longer with pine resin right now) to make the bees calm down (it's not exactly how you do it IRL, but its close enough for DayZ). The painful way would be to just start cutting and harvesting, and deal with the angry bees, and the amount of damage/pain you get from the stings per 'harvest honey' action would depend on how much clothing covers your skin (perhaps using whatever system will be put in to handle 'biological' player damage when that is fully added to the game). It's certainly not a high-priority thing, but would be one of those nice 'finishing touches' to the game to see added in one day. Oh, and the other nice thing is, the models for the bees themselves already exist in ArmA 3, they'd just have to be ported over rather than made from scratch

To add to the list suggested human-powered cargo ideas for the future: ALICE pack option - ditch the pack, keep the frame The ALICE pack (IRL) is essentially has two parts - the pack itself, and the metal frame and shoulder/belt harness it hangs on (usually what's called the LC-2). If we were able to remove the pack, and keep the harness/frame, we could then be able to attach other large things to it instead using rope. What kind of things, exactly? For starters, an empty barrel tied to the frame seems reasonable, as well as a jerry can, a tire, or even a car door, too. As base building items are added in, it might present a more efficient method of transporting many larger items, or bundled collections of items (within reason), that currently can only be carried with two hands (and balanced out by the fact that you are trading off all your 'normal' backpack space in the process). As the weight/fatigue system is further developed, this could also mean that a barrel carried in this manner would not HAVE to be entirely empty, either. It could be reduced to a fraction of it's usual space when used like that (25-30%), but to access the contents, the pack would have to be dropped and untied in some manner, and take a bit of time to do, preventing players from quickly accessing the contents. Wheelchairs (something for much further down the road) Have a friend with a broken leg or unconscious? Have a prisoner (conscious or not) you want to move around in (reasonable) safety? Just put them in there (via their own power or by carrying/dragging them into it), use rope or handcuffs to secure them to it (if necessary, with the confined player needing a longer time to escape, and have an animation along with it to make such actions much more noticeable), and wheel them away. Admittedly, this would be tricky to code, and the wheelchair should move/handle incredibly badly on any non-paved surface, and would require the ability to carry/drag players in the game to make it worth spending time on, but certainly would offer a lot of interesting possibilities.

Note to mods: I'm posting this here rather than the bugtracker as it's not really a bug to be reported, it's working as it's currently designed, but with unintended consequences. Also, as this post doesn't contain a suggested solution, but is for discussion of possible options, this seemed the logical place to do this. The render distance for tents has a problem. As I understand it, if someone is beyond the view distance of a tent, it's invisible to them, allowing them to see and shoot anyone inside or behind the tent that they obviously shouldn't be able to see. The obvious solution would be to increase that render distance value, but I've been around ArmA and DayZ more than long enough to know that 99% of the time it's never that simple. If it were, it would have been set to match player view distance from the start. This distance was chosen for a specific reason. I would assume the reason it's set so low is related to the lag we often encounter when multiple tents and barrels are nearby. It's a symptom of a larger issue, and this is a way to minimize its effects. If that's true, the current setting is a reasonable temporary solution - frustrating a times, but reasonable. If my assumption is wrong, what is the real root cause? What would happen if the distance was the same as the view distance for other players? Is the problem more of a client-side or server-side issue? Is it related to some attribute about containers specifically, be it anything from protective cases to vehicles? Or is it simply any object that isn't a player, an AI, or part of the map? I would assume that even if the model is not rendered in, the server obviously knows it's there, and at some level the client probably knows it's there too, likely well before it actually renders when the player gets within range. When it comes to unmoving, player-placed objects, what is the difference in workload for the client when that tent is inside the overall object view distance range, but just outside the preset tent render distance vs. inside the render distance? With the advances and optimizations that we will start to see with .63 and continuing onward, in what ways will it address the wider issue (whatever it may be) that necessitated the lower view distance that were not possible and/or practical with the old engine? It seems logical that this draw distance issue would have to be resolved for base building to be even remotely usable. Even if that newly built wooden wall or barricade can, unlike a tent, stop or at least slow down a bullet, having your entire base look like it was made entirely from parts salvaged from Wonder Woman's invisible jet from 500m away is not exactly ideal. I know that many of those questions can only be fully answered/explained by the devs. If they find a moment to do so, great! If not, I hope that they might perhaps consider using this in some form as an example in a Status Report in the future for showing how the new engine is able to handle a problem like this in ways the old engine couldn't.

Interesting. I'm really looking forward to seeing how all the new code will open up all sorts of possibilities that have not been so easy to do with the legacy code. It will no doubt take me some time to adjust my mindset to that, and not have to think of things in terms of a series of fights/workarounds vs. the old legacy code.

It's important to separate the different blood-related elements into groups based around what parts of the code are involved, as each present different challenges to the devs. The player model showing the location and number of wounds. The current 'fountains of blood spewing from your body' animation Blood trails and pools of blood on the ground/terrain/floor. #1 seems like something that seems reasonably achievable, even if it's just limited at first to a generic set of bloodstains and wounds appearing on the particular area that's been hit (limb/torso/head). As time goes on, a greater variety of wound types could be added based on the particular item that caused those wounds. For example, someone killed by an axe or sword might look different than a gunshot wound, or a visible difference between someone shot in the head vs. someone who decided to do so themselves. #2 certainly needs to be addressed, and it appears the devs are working on something to replace it. #3 is something very different from the others, and perhaps the most challenging one of them all. Instead of a change to a particular part of an existing player model, or an animation attached to it, pools and trails of blood are things that would have to be placed into the game as a separate object (for the pool) or a series of separate objects (for the trail). That's a lot of new stuff for the server to spawn, despawn, and track that it never had to before, no matter how long the 'lifespan' of those things are, when you consider that even if the client has to only handle the blood within X meters of the player, the server has to handle it across all clients on the server. If a workable solution were to be found, this also would offer a way to handle other things like tracks and footprints in the snow from players, vehicles, and wildlife on maps with snow. We do already have a very limited form of this with vehicle trails, and back in the A2 DayZ Namalsk mod, those invisible Bloodsuckers would leave tracks in the snow, but they only lasted a few seconds before disappearing. However, I suspect that those methods may not be feasible ways to go about handling blood pools and trails.

I am fairly sure that's not how the devs want it to be either. The reason why it is the way it is now - with a single, all encompassing 'humidity' value for the player - is due to the limitations of the legacy code (the last of which will be gone with .63). So while each item of clothing has it's own absorbency/water resistance values, and combine to slow down or prevent the humidity value from increasing, once you hit damp, wet, soaked and drenched states, every clothing item you are wearing or pick up, and their contents will change to that state (except of course stuff that is already waterproof and their contents). Another unfortunate side effect of this limitation is that if you are wet, and go inside a building and change out of all your wet clothes and put on dry clothes, you, along with all those dry clothes, are wet. While we do have the option to "wring out" clothing items if we take them off, empty their contents, and put them back on seems to have very small effect on helping you dry out, the rate at which your temperature drops until the fire is going, combined with the rate that a fire drys you makes wringing out clothes a fairly pointless act right now. I wouldn't expect we'll see this system to replaced when we get our hands on .63, as there are many many higher priority things for them to tend to first. However, the new player controller should remove many of those limitations from the old system, giving the devs the ability to rework that aspect of the game. Since the whole wet/dry/temperature aspect will play a significant role with the stuff they have planned for the addition/expansion of the infection/disease system (influenza, the common cold, etc), it's not unreasonable to expect the new versions of those two elements of the game to be added to the game together at some point after the more important stuff is in place and working with .63 .

I'm all for bullet penetration mechanics. A heavy canvas tent should offer no ballistic protection at all. If I know someone is either inside or hiding behind one, I expect to be able to fire through that tent and hit them if I correctly guess where they are (and not make it ridiculously easy by going outside the render distance and seeing the hiding player). The current state of the model penetration overall needs improvement, but that's to be expected when we're dealing with a mix of old A2 building models and newer models (for example, there are certain buildings where shotgun pellets cannot penetrate windows from either side, but all other weapons can). That's a known bug, just like how sometimes buildings like the police station sometimes don't entirely render when you walk through the front door. The tent render distance is a different thing entirely - it's been set at a specific range for a specific reason (which I assume is to reduce lag in certain situations), but has an unfortunate side effect of being able to see through them at long distances. As for the 'obstacle check' you mention, with people being able to shoot through bugged, unrendered building walls (that unlike tents, would stop a bullet), I'm cautiously hopeful that the code that is designed to prevent players glitching into buildings in .63 may also prevent that penetration issue from happening. What I am really curious about is the different factors that combine to create that need to limit the render distance of things like tents at both the server and client end of things in the current version, and how the upcoming patches will address issues like these. It's not just an idle curiosity either - understanding how the new engine approaches these problems differently than how it was approached with the legacy code will help a great deal when creating mods for SA.

I really don't think you need to be so worried. Yes, mods will be made that will go against everything you hold dear about DayZ. They will be very popular, filled with people who are looking for, and getting, the exact opposite of what you value and love about DayZ. I'm not looking forward to seeing that stuff either, as we probably value many of the same things in regards to DayZ. However, I see no point in blocking everyone from modding DayZ in order to somehow keep DayZ 'pure.' In fact, I welcome them to come and create whatever abominable, horrible mods they can come up with. Bring on the 24/7 day mods, NVGs and thermal optics for all, and the 'pick your spawn point' options, and spawn everybody with an RPG, M249, and a tank. Let them bring over all the ArmA 2 and 3 assets they want, and bring over the maps and converted scripts, too. They'd all be 3rd person servers too, of course. I'm sure if they could, they'd invent the concept of 4th person servers just because 3rd person is just too limiting. Why do I want this? I'm certainly not going to be one of the people playing on those servers. I'll be having fun on the servers that are populated by people who want the same things out of DayZ that I do. The hardcore survival, the 1st person only, the servers that push for realism and make the game harder because they want the challenge, with the full spectrum of KoS, to PvP, to RP, whatever the situation calls for. The servers that are whitelisted, well-admined servers to keep out the riff-raff, scripters, and griefers. Servers that require you to put on your big-boy pants, make a torch, and deal with finding a single can of food on a moonless night while you are starving and freezing to death. And with mods available, I can get even more of that kinds stuff I dig. And don't forget, we can also benefit from the work put into all of those other mods, too. All that porting, converting, and scripting means more stuff to use for mods targeted to players who want to stay close to vanilla DayZ's intent, but wouldn't mind some extra stuff too. That's where I'll be, having the time of my life. Seriously, why worry? If a server is running mods you don't like, and would never go there, who cares if it's empty or full? Who cares if there are 5 or even 10 times as many of those servers than the ones you like? How many servers do you really need? With the people that are waiting for beta return, do you seriously think NONE of them will want to play on servers that value the same things you do? Modding is how DayZ was created. It's going to be OK. You'll see.

There are benefits of having a smaller player pop right now. The quality of players and interactions (be it through talking, shooting, or anything in between) has significantly increased in the last year or so. For example, just look at the success of "RP- encouraged" servers. It wasn't all that long ago that this 'organic middle ground' concept was seen as a curious oddity that was incredibly difficult to create and maintain. Servers were mostly classified as either PvP with KoS seen as standard procedure, or RP servers with many rules governing how you interact and when you could start firing your weapon, and anything that happened naturally in between those two extremes was considered pure luck. Before DayZ mod exploded in popularity and the player count went through the roof towards the end of the summer in 2012, the term 'RP-encouraged' may not have existed, but that mode was by far the most common. Why was that? Because the mod at that time had a large portion of players that approached the game from an ArmA mindset and perspective, and their presence helped acclimate may new players to a similar approach (one that often was very different from anything they had played before). This ArmA mindset is not easy to define - part of it was looking at the game in a TvT way with bandits, heroes, and survivors finding each other and interactions and combat were determined more about the context and situation more than a simple 'predator/prey/rare helpful soul' model. As the player count grew and grew, the chances of new players learning from the ArmA veterans decreased. There simply were too many new people coming in for the existing players to influence. Slowly over time, the 'default' way to approach DayZ shifted away from that 'RP-encouraged' concept, and the idea that PvP vs RP was primarily an either/or decision came about. If a new player came to DayZ (either in mod or SA form), how they learn to play and look at the game is determined by the experiences they have with other players they encounter. If all they know is from years of PvP games with kills and carnage galore, their perspective will be heavily influenced by that. All the interesting videos of cool interactions may have attracted them to the game, but if 99% of the MP games they played were centered around 'find gun, see guy, kill guy,' it's often a lot harder to figure out how to find/make that cool stuff happen, when most of the server is populated by those of similar backgrounds. So RP servers came around, but it seemed that many found engagement rules and restricting access were really the only way to handle the whole KoS problem on RP servers, which eventually reinforced the 'kumbaya" stereotype, making the idea of a balance between PvP and RP appear even more unlikely. But finally, over the last year, I see more and more people getting this whole RP-encouraged idea and actively seeking it out, and those that always favored that concept encouraging it further. To keep things going in this direction, you need good, active admins in charge to handle the riff-raff. This has increased the value of a server with good admins, since more people are seeing just how much better a well-admined server is. The devs may be responsible for the quality of the code, but even if that code is perfect, it's the players and admins that determine the style and quality of the experience. I'd take 6-8k concurrent players that are open to whatever DayZ has to offer every time than have 60k players, 90% of which are just here because it's popular and play it like it's PUBG/BF/CoD/etc with a bigger map with loot storage. So, when .63 comes, and the player pop blows up with new and returning players, its in all our interests to do what we can to acclimate them back into the DayZ mindset. It doesn't really matter what your particular idea of what the 'DayZ mindset' is - the fact that you're here reading this means that you almost certainly believe that DayZ can provide something that no other game can. You want crazy adventures? You want big faction battles? You want political intrigue and dangerous nighttime raids and heists? You want meaning to your characters life and death - something more than just gear up, shoot, and respawn? Do you want to be part of some incredible moment that gets shared and talked about for years? MAKE IT HAPPEN. Get a bus. Find random people. Get weird. Drive a herd of cattle into Stary Sobor in the middle of two other squads fighting. Go to the NWAF with nothing but pens in your inventory and run the length of the runway, knowing that when they loot your body, they will talk about you for months. Find the new people. Teach them. Scare the hell out of them. Find the people have been around for ages, and go do something EPIC. Go fishing. Teach a noob to fish. Beat him to death with the fish they caught while accusing them of being an enemy agent of the moon people. Get serious. Go full on spec ops hardcore milsim, get some people, and go get revenge on that faction that keeps killing you. When the people who are waiting for 63 to come back to the game, we gotta show them what they have been missing on the player side of things. edit: lol, apologies, I got a bit carried away there at the end. What can I say? I love DayZ, and having servers like the Village around and doing so well just makes me happy.

I really hope that we see a SA Modding subcategory on this forum soon - hopefully before the devs open the doors to modding. We really could use a dedicated place for those interested in modding SA to be able to collaborate, share ideas, resources, and tips. I brought this up back in April, but it only received one comment. Right now we have no dedicated place to talk about the subject. We need one here. There are things we can do now to get prepared for SA mods that don't require official announcements or releases of standards and tools. When those things are released, people with any level of modding experience are going to be raiding ArmA assets and code like it's a supermarket's bread and milk aisle before a blizzard. We need to have a place where at least a few experienced ArmA modders can tell them "These models have problems, use these instead." or "This is the proper way that you get permission to use someone else's stuff in your mod," or "That SQF you found is 8 years old, and barely worked back then. Someone made a much better version 3 years ago over here, so if you're going to base your own EnScript idea on something, use that." Let's have separate rooms for the "idea people," the "eager but willing to learn" people, the "I can model like a madman but can't code to save my life" people, and the experienced ArmA people, but let's have all the rooms in the same house. It also makes sense to have the 'home' of SA modding discussions here, rather than scattered about on other sites that focus on ArmA. While my own skills over the years haven't progressed further than 'meddling about,' I can't be the only one who was often frustrated when searching for information to find half a dozen possible answers spread over 5 years that was a confusing mix of conflicting and/or deprecated solutions that only 'kind of' answered your question, and relied on another script that ended up breaking what you were trying to do in the first place. Having a pre-existing sub-forum beforehand can at least help centralize the conversation and resources before someone creates it on another site. There is an opportunity here to look at how modding was handled by the community in the past 10+ years with a critical but fair eye and see what worked and what can be improved. BI and the devs will handle their end of things, but for us, with new tools, new code, and a new engine, let's have whatever our mistakes are to be new too, rather than the old ones.

It's worth mentioning that I think this video is before the stamina system got revamped in A3. Carrying or dragging a body should have a speed limitation, along with the ability to do a short burst of sprinting (but not at 'regular' sprint speeds, of course, though dragging should be a bit faster than carrying). I think the compromise you suggested may be a bit too extreme. If one is carried, it's reasonable for the backpack and the weapon that was in their hands to be left on the ground where they were picked up. If they are dragged, they should only drop the weapon in hand. As long as there is a stamina system in place that allows for short bursts of adrenaline-fueled strength, a balance can be reached that allows for reasonable speed while under fire for short distances (under 50m), and then drastically drops after 100m, then requires the body to be dropped after 150m. As for the despawn timer and exploitations, until a more nuanced solution is found, having the despawn timer unaffected and the body just disappearing is OK by me. When it comes to hiding corpses (as in moving them out of sight, not just despawning them), if there can be a way to have some sort of blood pool or other evidence remain at the body's original location for a few minutes without affecting server performance, that's fine with me too. Also, it would be nice if the "evidence" takes various forms - sometimes there's a lot of blood, sometimes little none at all. No need to get too specific with it, and just leave it fairly random. If the results can be filtered by the way they died (as in someone who is knocked out by a punch does not leave a huge pool of blood, but one that is gunned down usually does), so much the better.

I feel quite confident that it will be added in before the end of beta. However, it's worth pointing out that while the basic idea is straightforward, getting it to behave properly, reliably, and look right may take a little bit longer than one might expect. "The devil is in the details," as they say. Consider the following: Will the carrying/dragging include not just unconscious players, but also tied/handcuffed players, as well as dead players, infected, and animal corpses? Obviously, enabling this for unconscious players would take priority over the other ones, but there could be slight differences in the way the game handles all of those types that may pose some tricky problems. For example, if you are dragging/carrying a bleeding player, and he dies while being moved, will the game be able to properly handle that transition - not just for the two players involved, but syncing that event correctly to nearby players? IIRC, the dying process does have some behind the scenes switcharoo going on when it comes to 'occupied' models switching to 'unoccupied' corpse models that might cause problems with stuff like positional data, proper ragdolling/interaction with other models and collision issues, syncing, etc . MOST IMPORTANTLY - How will moving bodies affect their despawn timers? Will it pause or reset the timers? We shouldn't have players keeping their dead buddies and/or victims (and their gear) around indefinitely just by moving their corpse or carrying/dragging it. If this isn't addressed, such a system could be exploited by players to not just bypass the despawn timers, but use player corpses as a way to transport way more stuff than you could fit in a barrel easily around the map. Need more storage, just carry around a dead guy and dress them up in as much high-capacity clothing you can find, then fill it with more gear. (A possible partial solution would be to have the body automatically drop on the ground 30 seconds before it despawns, allowing the body to be stripped, but that is not really solving the problem, only making it less worse in a very awkward, artificial way.) And that's just the first couple things that popped into my head. So even if the animations are ready to go, and the basic functionality works, there is a whole slew of things that tie into other parts of the code that need to be addressed to make sure the potential problems outweigh the benefits of the mechanic. It's certainly not impossible, it's just... complicated. They'll figure it out, though.

Shotguns are a good weapon to use when you are putting the great advice already given above into practice. Why? Actively working on improving your situational awareness works best when you can focus as much of your brain's resources on it in combat situations. With a shotgun, there's less to think about weapon-wise than if you are using an rifle - no optics to switch to, no mags to switch out, etc. Also, shotguns and ammo are easy to find as a fresh spawn, which is nice because to get as much practice in as you can and test out new methods, you will be learning by finding out what doesn't work a heck of a lot more than what you will learn when things do work. During this time, don't let these deaths bother you. Death is your teacher. Make sure that each time you get killed you go over what happened in your head and learn something from it. Think about what you did right, and what you didn't. Sure, sometimes you'll do everything right and still die, and its just bad luck. The goal here is to learn, not to survive as long as possible and collect all the fancy gear. I can't stress enough how important it is to review the battle in your head afterwards. Close quarters PVP is usually pretty intense, and with the adrenaline pumping in those moments, your brain is not focusing on critical thinking, it's more concerned about the moment. Going over your battles in your head afterwards is what is going to allow those important lessons to get stored properly, so that in your next fight, your brain will find it a lot easier to apply those lessons without consciously thinking about it. These little 'after action reports' don't have to be anything complex. Just take a minute or two and talk it out to yourself, and consider what you did wrong, right, and what you might have done differently. That's it. If you have a PC that can handle recording while you play so you can watch the replay of a particularly intense/interesting/challenging fight, great, but it's by no means required. As you progress in skill, move from the shotguns to another weapon type - pistols, civilian rifles, SMG, assault rifles, etc. Once you have your basic strategy and tactics down, it will make focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of each weapon and how best to use them a lot easier.

I am really into the history and lore of pre-infection Chernarus as well. The amount of work that was put in by the ArmA 2 dev team to bring Chernarus to life through its rich, tragic, and complicated history has always impressed me. Anyone that is even remotely curious about the history of Chernarus should, at the very least, read up on the events of 2009 that are covered in the A2 Harvest Red SP campaign, or play through it themselves. OP, you're correct about DayZ maintaining, and continuing to enrich, the 'canon' pre-infection Chernarus history. While all the other official maps released for ArmA/Operation Flashpoint take place in the same "Armaverse," AFIK, DayZ is the only one that has split off of that into an alternate timeline that starts with whenever the infection occurred. Though I am 100% behind the decision to keep the exact details about the infection vague, I love seeing how the devs have been able to develop Chernarus in a way that makes the country's troubled past even more detailed, while not disrupting it's canon history in any significant way. Just a few examples: Except for the NWAF, military locations along the northern part of the map (that borders with Russia) show evidence of two separate destructive events - the ruined leftovers of the Russian "peacekeeping" operation (read: unofficial support of the Chedaki rebellion to create instability to justify an invasion and occupation/repatriation of the ethnic Russian Chernarussian province of South Zagoria) that were targeted by CDF/NATO operations in 2009, and the hastily made forward operating bases made during the infection. The ruined Russian armored column north of Krasnoe is a nice touch that's worth mentioning. The presence of statues honoring the Soviet general known as Aleksei Vasilii Guba, from OFP The ruins of the village of Kumyrna, which was burned to the ground (and IIRC, along with all its residents) by the Chedaki (AKA Chernarussian Movement of the Red Star - the evil bastards that wore those black berets you find in the game) One of the best things about the Harvest Red campaign was the way your character was thrown right from the start into a complex, ongoing situation with little preparation and that in order to succeed, you needed to learn about far more than just your assigned objectives. Understanding the underlying conflicts between the two main ethnic groups in Chernarus that had been going on for centuries was key to not only winning the 'hearts and minds' of the population to get them to help you, but to use that knowledge to make decisions in the field and have to deal with orders coming from command that are coming from people who may not fully understand what's really going on. This all adds up to one thing - those that have played the Harvest Red SP campaign, or at least have read up on it, will most likely have a much more immersive experience roaming around Chernarus that those that haven't. ------ Here's what I'd like to see in the future that incorporates the history of Chernarus (after the real important stuff is taken care of, obviously): Tweaking of the CLE and heli crash spawns - have NATO/UN helis and equipment spawns favor locations that are south of the NWAF, and Soviet helis and equipment favor the more northerly locations. The NWAF and VMC should be a balance of the two. By 'favor,' I only mean that there should be a somewhat higher chance - NOT that locations spawn exclusively one type of gear/crash site. Even though the infection came at least 3-5 years after the 2009 civil war, and that the UN continued to have a presence in the area to support the CDF (Chernarussian Defense Force), it seems logical that the UN/NATO forces would have been more populous in the southwest and southern coastal areas. Remove the black Chedaki beret from military spawn areas, make it much more rare, and shift the spawns to civilian houses in the northern third of the map. It makes no sense for them to be just lying about in military bases, as it's from a uniform of a rebel force that was defeated years ago, and as such would be something that would have been kept only by sympathizers and rarely, if ever, been worn in public. Put some sort of small monument and area of disturbed ground to mark the location of the mass graves south of Pusta (another Chedaki war crime site). Even if the bodies were dug up and given a proper burial after the 2009 conflict, there should be some small memorial or at the very least, evidence of a large patch of disturbed ground. Same goes for a Kumryna. Add the remains of the Manhattan FOB on the top of Klen mountain. I know there is a small wooden marker there currently, but it would be nice to see a bit more there, even if it's just a few wrecked vehicles and a couple busted up HESCO bastions. No need for item spawns, just the remains of the FOB. Add a few more burned out civilian building ruins throughout the northern third of the map. While the NATO strikes would have focused on strictly military locations, the overall rarity of ruined civilian buildings from that conflict in that area seems a bit odd. And finally, the toughest one to get right - a few scattered remnants of Chedaki and even NAPA rebel camps deep in the woods or other out of the way areas. They shouldn't be anything fancy, or spawn loot in general, but later on when buried caches are in the game, I could see having one of them spawn a hard to detect buried stash at one of them. It should only spawn rarely, perhaps once a week at one of these camps selected randomly. The cache shouldn't be OP, and most of its contents in damaged condition or worse (having been buried for so long and probably not all that well protected), but for those that get lucky and/or desperate, they may provide a serviceable SKS or AK rifle, some ammo (mostly ruined), clothing, and a mag or two, but nothing that you'd want to hang on to for an extended period of time. One last thing - I'm in the process of writing up a series of 6-8 longform articles on Chernarus' pre-infection history that's aimed at exploring the backstory of certain locations and items one finds in DayZ to give players who may not be aware of Chernarus' history a bit more context and significance. I'm trying to keep it as canon as possible and avoid straying into fan fiction territory, and tying together all the info I can from various places on the web, from the Harvest Red mission files itself, and hopefully a little extra info from those who worked on the Harvest Red campaign. It will take some time to complete, but perhaps in a few months, I'll have it ready to share with you all.