pilgrim*

I'm not convinced that you completely grasped my point: <<If you meet 4 guys all with exactly the same gear - thats odd, right? Do you think they spent the time needed to get 100% matching equipment? And why would they do that when they're going to deathmatch?>> now WHERE do you think these 4 guys are going to deathmatch? - well, Berezino of course. But I didn't SEE them "spawn in" that equipment - I assumed they'd duped it. But Rauchsuger - you see people spawning in equipment, but you don't feel like shooting them, even though you're in Berezino.. that's very relaxed of you. what do you go there for? not deathmatch? Does anyone else know how to spawn equipment in a server? I mean "spawn" not "dupe" of course. I'd like to know if its possible and how come its not on youtube yet. Please tell. thanx

One simple thing already - If rainfall starts to have an effect in the game, it would be good to be able to put the yellow plastic raincoat OVER everything else, instead of having to change into it (for instance when you are wearing something with more pockets than the raincoat). Maybe this could work with other cover-all items too. I dont understand why there is not a BLANKET in the game already, it is a REALLY common item you should find anywhere, and you can do SEVERAL things with it - from make rags through to wearing it as a skirt, or over your shoulders, as a plaid, as a poncho, (for Irishroy), or over your head, or making an improvised backpack. And in the future - why not wrap stuff in it to bury as a stash, make an improvised tent, recover from illnesses more quickly, stay warm (if cold/exposure becomes a factor), even sleep better. Its a BLANKET.. how can there not be any?

My british miltary carry-vest goes from pristine to damaged from a minor zombie hit.. but the info says its made of specially strong canvas.. so I CANT use the sewing kit to repair it back to worn, because its too tough for me to be able to repair it. So what did this zombie lady DO to it? She made holes with her teeth and her fingernails that I cant repair? (wow).

Haha - on the mod it went in waves, and I swear, when a really 'good' week of scripting lunatics came up, the only point in playing was to go on line to watch the fireworks and the madness.. no way you could really play... Ive seen a BIG steamboat stuck inside Cherno church, the sky on fire, a whole town of ruined destroyed buildings, a complete NATO concrete camp spawned where there was just an empty hilltop, including barracks, tents, APCs and heavy trucks full of weapons. Seen maybe 20 - 30 fighter planes nose-diving out of the sky and exploding across the countryside, the road blocked there were so many arms crates scattered on it, duping, immortality, maphacks, people who played openly calling themselves "magicians", players turned into animal shapes, helicopters spawned in with heavy machine guns that fired through walls... name it.. And all that was ALL in the VANILLA DayZ mod. There would be a whole month or more of only one or two little irritating hacks, then a new wave of crazy gamebreaking stuff, then a month or so fairly calm again... always. Towards the end (intro of SA) the mod started getting seriously cleaned out.. there were only maphacks around the last time I played, but they were just as much a pisser as they always had been. I think everything else including duping had been sorted ( IMO + maybe). So YES, 'hacking' in DayZ Standalone is NOT anywhere close to the problems that turned up in the mod. This is the reason they started again in SA, to build the game on an engine that could handle a non-cooperative model, where players were expected to use any advantage against other players. The mod was based on a model that expected everyone on the same side, so there was no point in messing with scripts to gain advantage over your team-buddies. But the mod added to that, was a non-cooperative, competitive game, and lots of people started using scripts for advantage, and then just because they existed and they could (the script kiddies). So SA was targeted to make this impossible. At present it is a LOT better, and as new hacks come up and are made clear, so the devs can focus on how to negate them (this is Reason One for 'alpha' public development, as well as for player input) But there are several known proved, demonstrated cheat softwares around - as well as lag effects, bugs and glitches. So no one should try to blame everything on either one or the other. Infinite ammo is possible at present (still here I think) but it's not something you might notice easily or prove, unless you can kill the player and know to look at his ammo. And there are various other well-documented things. I havent "seen" a true hack that I was certain of, that I could PROVE, after good many hours playing, but seen plenty of things that were odd or VERY odd sometimes. . Seen Exploits for sure - If you meet 4 guys all with exactly the same gear - thats odd, right? Do you think they spent the time needed to get 100% matching equipment? And why would they do that when they're going to deathmatch? This is getting better. Game elements are improving too. IMO xx pilgrim

Right: Problem is, it might save you from bullet damage but your backpack is the only thing zombies leave alone - Ive had 1 hit from a zomb ruin my jacket and the stuff in it including an FNX (ruined) and a spare FNX mag (severely damaged) morphine (damaged). I didn't bleed, killed zomb, after 2 mins when I looked my health was full, jacket ruined, stuff ruined. And you cant keep morphine in your pants as we all know. Backpack is safe from zombs but one bullet that - more or less- "misses" you... (its a hit but you're ok, soon healed), can wreck three-quarters or half of your backpack gear. Rice and water and bandages and morphine you have to keep scattered around your pockets and pack, and magazines or clips. So maybe your backpack damage saved you from the bullet - but the gear is damaged like a heavy truck ran over it and then REVERSED. And maybe the gear in your pockets saved you from the zomb hit, but effects on your gear is the same! I shot a zomb at the same time as she hit me, and when I shot again, the gun went - click - click - the FNX in my hand was RUINED by the zomb punch. That IS a MEAN punch. But at least I got away without everything in either my pants or my jacket being flattened out. xx pilgrim

Camus says choosing life is the difficult way out

Do you use the Question and Answer Challenge for new accounts?- I'm sorry I don't even remember if you do or not, from when I opened my account. That tends to slow down spammers - particularly if you set your own good questions - specially as ATM you have just one particular visible charlie who is getting through persistently. See if he reacts to that. Facing you, you have maybe 2 college grad level people (or under-grad) making a living, with 2 or 3 PCs and some very cheap labor. You are smarter than they are. And you have the moral high ground for sure. Beanz [edit]: you have IP blocker function in IP.Board, instead of using your Hosts file (natch). And 'love doctor' will be def listed already - the IP and his e-mail adds - in the Stop Forum Spam blacklists, with an IP.Board plugin available for that, and the option to block either. But blocking e-mail adds. causes less hassle for the spammer than blocking his IP. I don't use IP.Board but I think this is all correct.

Good idea When a spammer opens an account using "sfdsfdsfdsfd" you know this is some poor sucker doing it by hand, keyboard entry. For instance a 10 year old kid in Mumbai getting paid nothing a day. Bad bad. For myself - I just trace it back and then block anything from that IP. I put the source IP on my machine's Hosts file. If its a city access provider, you may be blocking all users in 10 city blocks from communicating with you, but the access provider server for real pain-in-the-neck spam is usually 90 or 100% a spam source, because that's the local industry, so I do that.

..a rock in a sock

This has been suggested before - because it's crazy you have to take your military helmet or other hat OFF, to put on a head torch. The problem with the gas lamp, if you take it exactly as it exists IRL - is that a butane container lamp like this is kind of the wrong way up to hang from your belt, as the heat from the gas rises from the top, so you must carry it holding the bottom part. When I said 'clip it on your hard-hat' I was thinking really of the old miners lamps, or miners lamps with battery pack, or carbide lamps - some old style lamps were still recently used e.g. in E Europe or Africa, but now mainly electric battery pack for long endurance. I have used carbide lamps in potholing, they are not ..so.. outdated.

Yep, and the killer moving your ammo - ammo split sound - if he loots it, and talk..

Try Steam first maybe? Right click on the Steam icon, choose Settings, then Voice... try that, there is a 'test microphone' so you can hear what's happening Also in DayZ there is the Configure option Insid there is Audio You can set the audio 'Microphone input Volume' on Auto, or you can set it manually. If it is turned down too low in manual adjust, then the output of your audio system will have to turn up higher so your mike comes through, this is one way you can get the buzzing in your headphones.

You hear a buzzing in your mike? OK - so take your mike out of your ear. (sorry friend, I couldnt resist that, really no harm intended) You have headphones I guess (better than speakers). And this only happens with DayZ not with other talk or chat.. right? In Steam there is a sound setup page that aids you to adjust your mike level so you can talk and hear at the right level. Also a lot of windows audio mixers have a mike boost option, either on or off. Sometimes it is better off, with the mike volume up high, but try it yourself if you have it, then use Steam to adjust it. If you use Skype, you have the same test setup in there, try that, it should adjust the settings about the same as Steam does. Seems to me like a simple 'sound in-sound out' problem, you ought to be able to adjust that without messing with the game (IMO) xx

. the Loot Clan Kick Ban Reset server

Log In Dead Already Mode

Dont worry dude - lag just means you were in slightly different time zones. The bullet had already gone through him before you pulled the trigger. I'll bet he didn't even feel a thing. xx pilgrim

Zeds might agro everything at the moment, you can crawl past them in the blackest night on the other side of a building and they might just jump on you, throught the walls, or maybe that near one will ignore you (he's got his ipod on) and another one will come running down from the hills a mile away to stomp you. If you shoot anything anywhere with anything, if you move, if you dont move, or for no reason at all, or perhaps because another player killed one 10 mins ago and this one spawned and he's already agroed to the eyeballs and you're the only thing alive inside his 3-minute mile sprint. But sometimes they get bored and wander off, or you run around a couple of things or go upstairs and they loose you completely, and forget what's happening. Sometimes they hide in a wall and wait for you. Like I said, some of them have their headphones on and they just sway their shoulders and ignore everything. They hear the zombie music. In general, it's kind of interesting + getting better. I like it all, but it would be great to have STEALTH so you could try to sneak around. Also: Crossbows and Zeds are both going to change, def, next patch fo' sure.

"Noisy were the ravens and carrion-crows, and other ravenous birds of the air, and the wolves of the forest, over the bodies of the nobles slain in the battle on that day." - battle of Bel-an-Chip, Ireland 1573

A thing that has happened to a couple of players in that room: If you go down the side of the bed near the window, and you try to look under the bed, it can be that part of your body, like your foot for instance, sticks out through the wall.. then a zombie outside, on the ground, can hit you from the ground. I had my leg broken this way. Also, glitch players can hide in the next room, the one that you can not get into (they glitch through the wall into the closed room). Then they can glitch to shoot you before you see them. There are threads about this, look around the forum to check it out. If you are shot only 1 time and die fast you maybe do not hear the shot. Killed by a sniper you can be dead suddenly without hearing anything. But in my case, it was def a zombie outside that hit me while I was crouched down near the outside wall.

In fact the proximity sound is already available in the game: The sound of a creaking, metal-sounding door or gate. It triggers (it becomes available) only when you get close enough to a building/buildings in the country. In the mod, this sound was already used - I always thought it meant "there are zombies near" - because in the mod, every building in the country had zombs associated with it... so going through the woods or coming through fields and hedges, often even before you saw anything, you heard that metal squeak, and you knew you were approaching a place where there is zombie danger, you need caution .. Now in SA I realise the sound is associated with buildings, not zombs, because some structures there are no zombs but you hear the sound anyway. However, it is still location specific, and only heard when you are close enough to a type of location.. so the player bubble detection could be used in the same way, the structure of the mechanism already exists I think. In the country if another player is close enough, you may hear a stick break, you may hear a bird call It's good to see so many people agree with this - and have thought so for a long time. Beanz Max Planck for first establishing another basic principle. Let's do it. xx

^ .. and in a DayZ 40 player server, you could REALLY do something together with all 40 players, its not a set of dungeons or instances, like MMORPGs, where you're actually in a shard with only 5 others, and that play keeps repeating for each group of 5 (or whatever)... DayZ is is a MOG, a multi-user online game.. that's it .. and you can do anything with ALL the people on the server or any number of them. never the same twice.

Right scriptfatory, this is the START of the problem: One way of "how-to-form-a-group" already in the game, is the walkie-talkie - but it is no good. I've tried using the walkie-talkie. I got a pristine walkie-talkie as soon as they started spawning in the game. Got a pristine battery to put in it. I still always have one - Nothing . Zero. I used to go through the channels and say hello on each frequency when I logged in. Then do the same each time I ate, or sorted my inventory. Anywhere quiet. I left it on, changed channels from time to time. Changed flat batteries. Nothing, completely zero. Got into the habit of picking one up whenever I respawned, just takes up 2 slots. So I've used a walkie-talkie as much as anyone ever can, and it is USELESS to help you make contact with other players. If you are already in a group, you could use it for short distance comms... 'for realism'. But if you are already a group you already teamspeak/mumble. Everyone knows this. A group that gets together by chance for one session - even 2 players -is never going to equip itself with walkie-talkies so it can talk over a hundred yards (one side of the airfield to the other). A lot more players are no-pants gamers, than will ever use the walkie-talkie. Its a silly, useless game gimmic. Unfortunate, but there you go, it's true. So in practical gameplay, the walkie-talkie is no good at ALL. Its use in the game IS ZERO. And that's the sad report on walkie-talkies from someone who REALLY HOPED it would be useful, and I put some effort into it. The only way it could be made to work is to have a range across the whole map, or AT LEAST a range across 25% of the map. But because the battery lasts a short time, and because of teamspeak.. I think no one is going to use it EVER, anyway. But the Devs could TRY putting the range up to 10 kicks or 15 clicks, just to TEST what I say. So what other way for players to get in contact? Ways of cooperating after you are in contact => we can talk about later - FIRST, how the hell do you get in contact before you can begin to cooperate? In the game you go up to a player at very short range and say "hello" using a mike. You get shot or maybe you don't. If you are alive after a while, maybe they are players who are fun to run with, or pass an hour, but their gamplay is not what you are looking for, except to pass time. So IF it turns out OK you join the same teamspeak channel or you do not. OK - the big problems are - firstly not all players can talk into a mike, they are babysitting, their kid brother is asleep in the same room, or its bad to shout "look out, behind you" out loud in the house at midnight. You have parents or you have a partner or you share a room or you have kids, or it drives the people in the next apartment crazy. Or you don't want other players to hear you are a girl because they start playing stupidly, or you dont want them to hear you have a very young voice, or an OLD voice, or you don't want them to hear your accent because it's different, or maybe you have a speech problem, or just - a LOT of people are SHY to talk into a mike, to strangers, specially when they will maybe get shot for even trying. Some players don't even have a mike. ALSO the speech quality in the game is poor, sometimes you hear good, sometimes you don't - it's not great. If you try to type when you are already face to face with someone, it's too slow, you get shot before you press Enter, or the other player has already gone away. So RIGHT NOW at the moment - the only way I can suggest to contact other players, where you can take your time, speak if you want to, stay quiet and safe if you want - is to have sidechat. And for the reasons I said, and also to avoid idiots gangs shouting across the map and playing music, it has to be typed sidechat, not sound. Then you can say hello to a player you have seen on the server before. You don't have to buddy up. Maybe next week you will see them on the server list again and start to think he is a regular guy, might be worth communication. So this gives you A CHANCE to form groups INSIDE the game, and gives you a CHOICE of doing it or not. And that's just the FIRST step, before anyone talks about the advantages of being in a group, or how to INVENT advantages to encourage people. Unless you have typed sidechannel there is very little chance of getting to know other players. The only other way is to be in a clan. If you are in a clan you do NOT MEET new strange players, really you block them out of your team game. So a clan using teamspeak is meta-gaming.. good for them, but MOST players, at least 50% do NOT want to go that way. So FIRST, players need a WAY to coordinate, and there is NO way inside the game. Then afterwards, when THAT is SORTED, we can wonder about actions in the game to encourage people to coordinate, why Grimey Rick started this thread - when survival and illness and other activities start to become important, and the gameplay is not just paramilitary groups - clans - looking for loot and looking for fights, or people with no pants running around giggling. Hey if you want to be no-pants, or you want to be a SWAT team, or a clan player, that is COOL too, I like those things in the game... but there MUST be communication FOR ALL so that many different players can share ideas or just say "hi" to a player they saw yesterday. And maybe start to trust others before meeting face to face. It's got to be long range or medium range, and it can't be spoken aloud for all the reasons I've given. So how else to do it? [sorry this is so long - probably no one will read it - but its the first thing to sort out to be able to start cooperating, innit?] xx pilgrim

Isn't a problem also that there are two different texture sets for foreground and middle distance? And the change from one set to the other is inevitably abrupt. So that, looking further away, at a given distance from the player the ground and foliage etc will 'suddenly' look different in any circumstance? Then, to render better, all textures of mid-distance grass, earth, trees (all) would have to be revised - or you would still have the 'flat ground' look, all other considerations apart. (maybe I'm wrong about this?)

It might be interesting if your running speed OR your running endurance depended on how heavy your gear was So if everyone had the same sprint speed (to keep it simple), the one with the heaviest pack would have to slow down first - For instance: Suppose a group of 3 were being chased by zombies. The one carrying most weight would slow down before the other 2 So they would either have to leave him, or wait for him and help him fight the zombs. Or, as you suggest, your top speed depends on how much weight you carry. This would have the same effect on a group xx

Clip it on your hard-hat