PhillyT

Don't get your hopes up! This is a very unusual situation! Zombies are either nonexistent on some servers or a minor quantity.

Ha! Read the post! I found a single AKM mag first thing. I kept count and found 2 ak101 and 14 ak74 before finding that AKM gun! And I have not found any mag other than that first one!

That learning curve was based on fast glitches zombies. Adding real zombies will decrease much of the boredom that leads to Kos banditry. I think it unfair to dismiss those who bandit as COD players. I did find an AKM at the Vybor base. Luckily I kept the 30 round mag and the 8 boxes of ammo I had from my trip to NWAF. I do miss my shotgun though. I am such a terrible shot that I will be unlikely to defend myself with an AKM!

Hey, I love shotguns? You won't likely hit me with a mosin before I kill you with my shotgun!

There isn't really anything above and beyond with the appearance of the items in the game. They look decent. DayZ will never be successful due to visual appeal. It is several years behind the curve. But the game is absolutely gripping for its feel. It is indescribable to anyone who has never played it.

I read your post. I have been reading your posts for almost a year. I understand what you want and what you said. One thing you seem to be missing here is that not everything posted is in reference to you and your posts. You want fewer guns as a means of reducing killing and accentuating the survival aspects. I don't have an issue with that. There is a serious difference between wanting hours to pass before finding a gun when you can run from one end of Chernarus to the other in less than an hour. Guns aren't that rare, and making them that rare isn't an effective response to a problem perceived in the alpha by some people. Bohemia isn't going to produce an extreme niche game. They will make something broad based with wide appeal. There can be increased survival components and a slightly reduced gun count, but thinking hours and hours should pass without finding a fire arm assumes zombies will be terrible and non-threatening. If that i the case you will have an even less appealing and unplayable game.

You want artificial scarcity to respond to an issue that is already avoidable. You're right, if they turn DayZ into a zombie version of The Forest, there will be nobody playing it. The guns aren't themselves an issue. They add a great component to the game. You can deal with them in different ways.

Several hours is absurd. There are 50 million guns in Russia. If you are talking about a small area like Chernarus, where two armed forces fought and died, you would likely have a high concentration. You want gun rarity to reduce the KOS aspects. I don't think that's the answer, and I doubt that will factor in. When zombies work and the survival mechanics operate, you will likely see Kos banditry deemphasized. Even now you can easily avoid it.

Mossins should be super common. They are everywhere in real life. Take the LRS off them and they are much more balanced. I don't know, I think they will find a balance. I have faith.

The gunplay in DayZ is absolutely terrible. It is in no way realistic. It is getting better though. That isn't to say games like COD or Battlefield are better in terms of realism. But DayZ is no more realistic than them.

Guns are a little high right now. But anyone thinking it will become a melee game is delusional. It won't because it wouldn't be fun. There are many zombie survival games. Guns are EVERYWHERE in real life. Most people in the US have several firearms if they have any. There are more firearms in the US than people. I assume there are far less in Russia, but there are going to be lots of guns. As they say, no matter how hard you try, you can only use one at a time! A person might take a couple with them if they were fleeing an apocalypse, but every other cabin in the woods would likely have an old shotgun or hunting rifle in it.

I seriously doubt it will ever be as rare as you are implying here. Not only will it make the game stupid, it isn't possible given the actual number of servers and the number of potential players. Dayz will not reach a saturation point where there will be so many players and so few servers that guns will become an impossible goal. Military weapons will likely continue to be rare, but the idea that double barrel shotguns and mosins will suddenly vanish is silly and unlikely.

Yeah! I didn't feel I was deserving of a complete ak. I was simply pointing out that ammo, gun, and mag combinations are quickly making for a difficult and unrealistic to get an operational weapon. To be honest, the m133 is my perfect gun. I am not a great shot. I also generally get into trouble with ak and m4 and eventually die. I have killed three people since coming back, all with the m133. I love being able to shoot a bandit at 30 yards and have them actually die.

Bro, I think you missed the point bro.

I get where you are coming from there. I think ammo is okay right now. There are uncountable millions of rounds out there!

Obviously. But it is a game that tries to get close. My point being, the current spawn system isn't really useful or reflective of the proximate reality the game portrays. But it's alpha, so that's fine. Hopefully they clean it up.

But that's the thing. Ammo is everywhere. Magazines aren't. In reality, mags should be common. I have piles of magazines for my aks. Similarly, magazines are a common item. Guns and ammo aren't. They don't produce 1 to 1 magazines for weapons. Currently I have found 7 ak variants and one AKM mag traveling from Polana to NWAF. That isn't accurate, nor it it adding anything to the challenge. In the final game, having consistent weapon spawns would be useful. As it is, the guns wouldn't even be in the same base. Different eras and rarity.

I've got 300 hours in the game. It isn't a question of laziness. I've been gearing for a while. It is a question of trying to see some semblance of realism. A military base that stocks M4 isn't going to have cases of M14 mags and belts of m60 rounds. If the base spawns AKM, somewhere within it should have mags. Honestly, the mag issue is huge. Currently guns are more common than mags. It should be flipped.

Depends. If it looks like they have ANYTHING worth taking, I will kill them. If they are pretty fresh, nah, they are good.

This is a great point. Generally, on low pop servers, you are looking at military spawn hunters. They will be at the bases. I often kick around the Polana/Gorka region. Close to the coast if I want to go there, or I can head further inland towards Vybor and NWAF.

Or if gear was retained on the server. A player arrives, takes gear, and leaves, the gear respawns when the restart happens. The normal DayZ loot cycle is fine, but if they want some scarcity, they could move to that model.

But the flip side is towns like Gorka are so full of loot that you can take your pick of items and move on. It is as though they respawn loot there every day, regardless of whether or not someone picked them up. Dozens of guns in the barns, heaps in the police stations. One question: Are they spawning backpacks with loot in them?

Well, I have had a few hours in the newest build and have a chance to effectively compare and contrast how the game has changed over the last 6 months: 1. Wet and cold are quite cool and really change how you play the game. I suddenly found myself lugging a raincoat around in my pack and using a down jacket instead of my regular shirt approach. Made for a much more interesting set of choices. 2. Food is EVERYWHERE. Food was never difficult to obtain, but now it is positively ridiculous. Zuchini and tomatoes are everywhere. Apples and berries can be obtained in a pinch. You can get a pile of food of any passing animal. I figure that this will be restricted later, but it is even easier to deal with hunger now than ever before. 3. People are even more insane after the wipe. I meet more KOS, no talk new spawns today than I can ever remember. I think people getting their character wiped has made them desperate and angry. Which is too bad because... 4. Guns are insanely hard to find. When I find a gun, I struggle to find any ammo for it. I managed to find an SKS and a box of ammo, a long horn, and a double barrel, which is what I am using. But the biggest one is a .357 and about 60 rounds I snagged in the trunk of a car in Polana. Seems like a good amount, but that was in hours of searching along the East coast. I found several other weapons, but no ammo or mags for them. 5. Cars and trucks are now probably the BEST place to find good stuff. Rifles, food, clothes. The junk yard in Berezino and the cars in Polana will kit you pretty well pretty quickly. 6. There are many new and entertaining things to do, but they aren't that useful yet. Fishing and fires come to mind. Other than pinpoint rescuing you from terrible cold, fires are just sort of interesting currently. You don't NEED to cook anything. There is so much food and any hand weapon will open cans now, that you are not required to kill or cook anything. Heck, you can even eat the rice and drink away the dehydration to avoid cooking it. I was killed twice, both times as a result of a bizarre lag that I can only assume was the after effect of the DDOS attack (though that doesn't make sense since the people killing me seemed to function fine). Once, I met a player with a sledge hammer at the Berezino construction site. I left him as he fought a zombie, but as I ran across the field, I suddenly heard the thumping sound of a hammer blow several times and I died. I can only assume I wasn't really in the field and I was actually still in the construction site being murdered! I did kill a player just right before I logged and came here. HE was an overly aggressive newer spawn with a fire axe who came flying at me outside of Stary. I showed him that even after 6 months, a magnum will allow even a mediocre PVP player like myself to survive through sheer volume of fire! All in all I am loving DayZ again after spending 6 months in the Mod. It still has some way to go though, especially in the stability department. Being killed and being reset repeatedly due to lag or dysnch is game killing.

I am at around 266 hours. I have really enjoyed it. SA was my first DayZ experience. While away I was doing Overpoch Chernarus and Lingor. Obviously a completely different game but still awesome. I REALLY think there needs to be an increase in transportation options. Nothing on the level of the insane numbers seen in most Overpoch servers, but something to reduce the running a little more. The trucks are a nice start. Realistic bikes will be great (as in significantly slowed off roads and paths).

Thanks! I actually played a week ago long enough to regear a little. I got wiped by playing during the DDOS attack as far as I can tell. He didn't come back afterwards!