Furtherado

Wouldn`t a system like the one in elder scrolls oblivion do the trick?

It`s not really about charging someone with a knife directly after playing DayZ, I don`t think that ever happens. It has more to do with sub-conscious thinking developing over time. For example, the whole "lonely badass ranger"-type that everyone thinks is cool, and alot of people are trying to emulate in DayZ. We see them in movies, books and games all the time. Examples are Aragorn, V in V for Vendetta, Thief, Max Payne and even Harry Potter. Other examples of being affected by video games, over a long period of time, is basicly the way you and I think about places we haven`t been or people we haven`t met based on how they are depicted in games and other media. Now, think about the kind of person you want to be. You might not want to murder people, but you might want to have some elements of a personality type you see being effective in a post-apocalyptic world. Such as, for example, being ruthless and manipulative. This seems like a really simple way of thinking about it right? But some thoughts also start to creep into your psyche. By telling yourself that people will become ruthless killing machines as soon as society collapses, you`re basicly telling yourself that humans are only kept in line because of some artificial rules that have nothing to do with our true nature. What i`m trying to say, is that, all these thoughts and more will be confirmed if you get horribly maimed in realistic fashion just for shits and giggles in a video game, where the main selling point is what human interaction would be like if it were just a massive free for all in a post-apocalyptic universe. There`s already people who like to grief by shooting people in the legs and watching them crawl long ways to try and find morphine. By adding more graphic violence in this regard, the psychological impact of knowing people are capable of doing this to you, rather than just killing you right away, will lead to more cynical thinking about what lies "just beneath the surface."

Aesthetics is a subjective concept yes, but in terms of gameplay it becomes a bit more complicated. Why do we play games at all? And when we do play games, why do we choose the particular types of games we play? Personally, i think more gruesomeness would add to the flavor of the game. I`m thinking in terms of the impact the violence you commit has on you. After a session of DayZ, you might get this uneasy feeling of "what have I become?", even if it is just a game and you brush it off, it gives you a more disturbing visual image. For example, if you axe someone to death and you have to repeatedly chop them while they`re trying to run away. This scene would make a much bigger impression if you did it through blood-curdling screams and the infliction of terrible bleeding wounds and maiming of limbs. Then until you finally chop away at their lifeless body to make sure they are dead. Of course, most people wouldnt think too much of it, it`s "basicly" the same as executing civilians in any open world game like GTA. But i`m actually not sure if it this is a good thing. I`m not usually one to say video games lead to more violence. I think making DayZ a realistic murder simulator where you can kill and torture people in all kinds of terrible and humiliating ways, with the added psychological element of dealing with real people who you can deceive and give false hope, would actually contribute to someone becoming more apathic to hurting someone in real life. I think Dayz should stick to the "psychological horror" element, rather than both, because imagine seeing your character being horribly maimed in realistic fashion while some teenage kid is laughing at you over the mic.

Well, a single bullet to the torso, passing through to the backpack would do limited damage i guess, even if many objects don`t take kindly to being smeared with blood. But several bullets, 3-4, could easily do alot of damage to the objects in the backpack.

Convert him to christianity

Yeah sure, getting shot or otherwise suffering grievous bodily injury would most likely kill you in a DayZ environment, i`m just against the idea that you up and die from som random denominator over which you have little control. I mean sure you could develop heart issues from a bad diet, but not over the timespan of days or even months and by then you`re most likely dead anyways. I mean, I`ve had periods where I`ve eaten pizza, kebabs and hamburgers all the time, but i`m still not dead.

How often have soldiers in any of numerous wars died of heart attack? Young, relatively fit people like the avatars in DayZ shouldn`t up and die of heart attack,

It`s still not the same thing, you agree to play a game where there`s a chance you`ll get shot, because people have guns and can shoot you the second you press the "play" button. It`s not the same thing to tear up a painting someone used 10 hours to paint because they were creating something and didn`t agree to any kind of risk that some crazy mofo would come in and tear up their painting. If shooting someone in DayZ is a douchey thing to do is up to you to decide, but you know what you`re getting into.

It`s not the same thing at all, in a videogame all you are doing is interacting with virtual pixels and gamecode, if you can`t see the difference between shooting someone in a videogame, no matter how hard they worked for their gear, and destroying ancient statues, you need to take a little break from gaming.

Killing other people affects you, sure, but the human mind can condition itself to kill amazingly easily. I`m not saying your normal everyday Joe who has participated in any of the numerous genocides around the world isn`t somehow affected by it, if not completely mentally scarred, but many of them still live pretty normal lives because they didn`t get incarcerated or punished for what they did. Your brain can very easily make excuses for what you did, and does make excuses while you are doing it. There are numerous books about the subject, and it`s a couple of years since i read a book on genocide, but basicly it boils down to stripping the value of life from your victims. The way it is done in most genocides (very few are spontaneous, it`s a process that lasts for years) is that the victims are gradually stripped of their rights until the perpetrators have been conditioned to think that the victims are of lesser value. They usually give the group several nicknames, which further distances them from the "human" status. My point is, that in an environment such as the one in DayZ, killing and death will gradually have less of a meaning to you, and it all depends on your experiences whether or not you will make excuses for shooting anyone you see. It`s harder to trust anyone since anyone could be a scam and you would forfeit your life in a very undignified manner, I`m in no doubt as to the fact that people would try to cooperate and restore some kind of society, but then again, what happens when the resources aren`t enough for everyone? How do you trust anyone, even your closest friends/family when the going gets really tough? What decides who is the leader? Any society would undoubtedly be a very violent one except if there is enough of an infrastructure and food surplus to sustain a proper society.

Has anyone who complains about the game turning into CoD actually played CoD? DayZ is nothing like CoD, it doesn`t FEEL like a CoD game no matter how many M4s and semi-automatic weapons from the US military that you stuff into the game. CoD is all about blasting people from max 100m away in small, cramped maps, bullets and grenades are everywhere. In DayZ you`re paranoid alot of the time for no good reason, and when you do spot someone and get the jump on them the firefight is over in a few short bursts of gunfire. DayZ is slow-paced and adrenaline-inducing in a way CoD is not. The KoS issue is one of those entrenched arguments where neither side is wiling to make concessions. There`s no fruitful reason to complain about it in this state of the game anyhow, because we simply don`t know how much of a threat the environment is going to pose in the future, or how an extra pair of hands is going to be of use. I hope that PvP is here to stay, because safe zones or arbitrary punishments for player-hostile actions is just going in the wrong direction IMO and detracting from the tension that makes DayZ what it is.

Yeah, he`s the "fatty", atleast he`s not so desperate for attention that he posts the same thing twice.

Personally i don`t get how people willingly degrade themselves in order to get some sort of sexual gratification, like how 90% of omegle is guys looking to get laid and chatroulette is a dick-bonanza. It`s amazing how people actually get all weird and creepy over online games as well, whne playing online games im not thinking about sex or treating it as a dating website at all. Realistically, even if you were to use an online game to get laid, your chances would be soooo much higher if you were just acting cool, and getting someones steam IM and eventually FB by just being a cool guy and making people like you.

Maybe it`s because in order to make a convincing argument, you need to have sources for your facts, and what better source for facts on this subject (DayZ) than the creator of the idea of DayZ? You don`t need to be his best friend to quote messages from social network sites or interviews, that`s just the cold hard fact that he stated this or that. I mean what would you do if some religious fanatic tried to disprove the theory of evolution? Would you try to use evidence (books, research papers, essays) to convince them or flaming rhetoric (calling them Jesus fanbois and whatnot) It`s basicly what newspapers do every day, does it mean they are best friends with everyone they interview about a subject?

Here we go again, KoS arguments being thrown back and forth again fruitlessly. With the same old CoD kiddie mumbo jumbo being thrown around. He isn`t trivializing the social aspects of DayZ, it`s just that 8/10 you get shot if you trust someone and that is a crappy way to die. Besides, there isn`t really much to DO other than shoot eachother in the game, i don`t feel like talking to some guy and having to keep track of where he is in order to cooperate towards some unclear goal which usually ends up with a shootout with some other group of players anyways. Why would deathmathching CoD kids still be playing this game? It`s bug-riddled, has no achievements or xp and it can take hours before you meet anyone, whereas in CoD it takes max 10 seconds before the bullets and nades start flying. The CoD-kiddie word is so misplaced.