pilgrim*

^ I really was not joking - but maybe I was exaggerating - when I said: < limit the total assault rifle spawns to 4 per server > I mean a small number - so however much you loot farm, you won't get one, because they will already be spawned (all of them) and scattered around the map. So the only way to get your hands on one is go around the map and look for it. That's got to multiply up the time it takes to farm an M4 by fifty or so.. ? xx pilgrim ===================== [edit:] - off topic, i dunno - an alternative to make it harder for loot farmers - spawn dead soldiers the same way we spawn crash sites <different mechanism but same principle> - KIA scattered as randomly as poss. across the map, towns, rooftops, fields, road junctions, forests (a KIA dead mil. personnel , rotten, sweet, half skeletal, as you like) and ONLY spawn the assault rifles with those bodies, When that weapon is gone, nothing respawns on that body . maybe give him one or two other with-the-body non-respawning loot to make him more interesting - 1 half full mag, damaged clothes, field rations, (1 photo of the girlfriend/ boyfriend or SteakandPotatoes), morphine, bandage, boot knife, dogtag..

I think Bororm is closer to understanding the actual way loot spawns ATM (better than I do for a start) - but with respect that's not the main point here What's happening is: 1 ) players - and some game admins - have found ways to mess with the loot spawn to gear up very fast, inside 10-30 minutes (look at the "how to, 0.58" YouTube for several demos ) 2 ) you don't have to "defend against hoppers" you just kick them while you are farming. (If you are not an Admin, you do it as a team). 3 ) It doesn't matter if you are a private or a public server, if someone puts in any complaint about unfair play, the complaint has to be checked by a GSP logging on to check it. 4 ) Any time after working hours, NO ONE stays in the GSP office to oversee complaints about fairplay. No GSP provider has staff that works nights to check complaints. - Conclusion - if your server is private or public, you can in fact get away with whatever you like outside office hours, no one will check on you in those times, even if complaints are made. So do your 'bad' stuff after the GSP staff has gone home. A GSP that works 9 to 5 in their UK office is not going to check at 2pm local time to see what's happening on your UK server. - Conclusion - Many people take advantage of the way loot operates ATM. This is specially easy for server admins, and also for player teams, but anyone can do it. Also everyone knows how to do it. - Conclusion - Admins who have chosen to hire private servers hire for a reason... what that reason is depends a lot on the Admin himself. Some want total RPG (you're kicked if you Kos). Some help you loot farm easily in peace on their server, then fight a kind of CoD game. Some want a 100% fair game. And all the reasons in between. I don't have much comment about private Admins, except to say that that taking advantage of an exploit in the game is not helping the game in any way.. it's an exploit, just the same if the server is private or public. Usually we think that private server Admins don't like exploits, but some do like them and encourage them. My opinion is - this is not good. - Conclusion - Because of the lack of any real or effective oversight from the GSPs (and maybe zero at all) pretty much anything you can do on a private server you can also get away with on a public server, as long as you don't do it to EVERYONE, all the time, inside office hours.. if you run an autokick (for instance) all day, every working day in the week, sooner or later someone might notice the PILE of complaints and actually check on it, but they will only do that from work, at say 3pm on Thursday? Never at midnight, dude. So only turn on your autokick after working hours - like - during the hours after work = that's just when most people PLAY (get it?). Best thing to do to stay "safe" is just manually kick players who log in at 10pm while your exploiting. - Conclusion - doing this crap on public servers gives you 2 advantages : 1 - you pay less than hiring a private server 2 - you can use your fast-farmed gear on all the other public servers. (and if you're not very stupid, there's hardly any chance at all of you getting your wrist slapped, not even once...) Finally - take this stuff together and you see this is a BIG PROBLEM I admire private serve Admins who try to do something about it. I only wish the public server situation had the same kind of people to overlook it, so public server players could at least 95% rely on finding a fair game when they log in. hmm ... but, whatever, please check Youtube before you say that hopping is faster than pulling a loot farm exploit. xx

Online I'm a one-game player.. did Anarchy Online 2 years , then moved to EVE..(but .. well .. EVE,what can you say? Half the players were serving brit airforce fighter teams on their evenings off.. ) went back to Anarchy. Read a report somewhere about DayZ written by a girl scared witless to be in that game and shown around by an old hand "hey look a tent in the middle of a field" - "don't go out there its a trap set by some guy hiding in the forest" "shit I broke a leg" - "sorry have to leave the zombies are coming, want me to shoot you?" OK- Checked the web - wow = no points, no leveling, no nothing, no win, ya CANT win - all you can do is see how long you can stay alive.. that's all, nothing else... stay alive till you die.. ok-that's got to be cool... I - (me) - got ADSL for the village area, the exchange had put us on a 2 year waiting list. (hey - walking into a telephone exchange is a terrorist act here, but what the hell). I caught the guy leaving the door - kinda steel bombproof door - bought him a beer said <kindly> "if you wont plug in the damn card into the rack, i'm an engineer, give it, I'll plug it myself" Bought him another beer. 10 days later we were on. We were maybe 3 PC users on that exchange card, total, and back then a ping of 120-170 still about worked in the Mod.. so from France I played even 1 Japanese server. I fought in Spain, I died in Moscow, joined a bandit group in the Ukraine, fought door to door in France and UK (brits into TS and squad movement a lot - made a different game), teamed in Saudi Arabia. Around half the world. Had some 100% incredible experiences. My main servers were Saudi (after midnight) and Romania. Came to have good regular friends, and some mad-crazy friends too, with good people in both those places. After the fighting I took to living in the woods and boiling my water in an old tin can. I've heard that happens to people. Shot out some tyres to warn tourists off, just once in a while - but If chopper rotors came, they were messing with my meditation, I'd most probably get a flight line, see if it came back, work an idea of where it was going or coming (pilots fly landmarks, usually) get out the Dragunov from the stash and some grenades and set to track it - with the North the way it was then, you could spend whole days. Maybe weeks. Later I gave up the sniper and kept a Mod 0 in the stash instead (heh) if you've collected enough ammo you can do CHAOS with that mo..; had a bicycle to move distances, silent, easy-hid, and I liked the way you can run over a tent 4 or 5 times with a bicycle to waste it. then the hackers really started coming back .. was around the third/fourth big wave I guess? .. for me the last wave. One serious thing :- I found out most of what I now understand about the eastern areas of Europe starting from that Romanian server, plenty of Romanian english speakers (impressive), and I learned enough to follow a part of the Romanian cross talk.. that is one lovely language, love it... Before then I thought I knew about "Eastern Europe" but until DayZ Mod I didn't know shit. Most I'd heard previous was a mess of old propaganda, half-baked info, and stupid mixed up badly informed crap. Apart from the game-game itself, that DayZ also changed the shape of the world for me. so .. yeah... sometime a year or so later (the icon was in front of me every time I turned on the screen) I remembered I was still paying monthly for Anarchy Online, and my tune was still sitting wherever I left him like 14 or 17 months ago.. xx

I don't think B@KER is making a negative comment here (so don't anyone say alpha) He's saying the Mod was a GREAT game. I agree - I was there (and plenty of other Mod survivors too). SA can be great. Make it so. In the early Mod if you turned around in a bush you broke a leg. You said "oh frag-shit" and you went on playing. I crawled miles in that Mod. I hid out behind trashcans with a broken leg and starving -2 days- zombies around all the time, crawling out and back to hide when I could make it to drink at a pump, and the nearest morphine in the next town. - Damn that was a good game. Now in the same situation, the result would be 10000 complaints "this game is unplayable" so - YES, he does have the right to say - that game was good - so do it now, make this one as good. that Feeling of a game is nearly impossible to define - but you can soon tell if it's there. You can't judge a game by counting up the play elements like "1+1+1+1+1+1=6, so this game is a 6, and the other game is a 9, the other is better" It's not 'a new way of making a bowstring' or 'a different kind of fireplace' it's not "1+1+1" that make a game great. There are many fine elements in SA, good ideas, a great map, a ton of original things, but those aren't the SOUL of the game, it has to have the Soul and the Holy Fire to be a great game (..scuse me... I'm harking to voices) IMO B@KER is saying, as I do - that the soul isn't in it.. may never be, or maybe it will come back - ATM there's not the atmosphere and no spirit to mark out SA as different from other games. But it was done before - a game was made great - we know it CAN be done. So go for it. Maybe all it needs is just one or two crazy people working along with the good sensible talented BI team to add that danger and mad vertigo and craziness or that deep feeling you are in a place that never existed before... the thing that grabs you. For instance - (yes from memory, again) - the heaps of rotting corpses - the unfairness of the damned Mod that kept you coming back to face it again - or the sound of those flies buzzing that meant there was a dead player close by, even before you found the body... these are just (old, good) ideas - put in those or something new, give the whole thing one coherence that makes it unforgettable..pull all the elements together into one experience no one can turn their backs on. So sure, B@KER has the right to feel down about SA, but he's not dissing it..he's saying that what it needs .. is not there. So how to put it there? It's been done before... it CAN be done again. The elements and details are fine, excellent and they are being worked on. So try out some stuff, experiment, use lightning - see if the Monster will come to life Like - Mmuwahhhahahahahah ! it is ALIVE,... ALIVE.I tell you !.. ( ya follow me? ) .. see if it comes together and stands up xx pilgrim

This is not correct ('scuse me dude), there is no "30 minute rule" I just read now (4 oct 2015) a text from a private server mod who says: "anyone can join in, we're open to the public- but be warned if we are getting geared and do not want to be disturbed, you will be kicked off the server" .. He's talking about SA 0.58, not history or theory or the Mod. He's not hiding anything either. His clan use their private server exactly the opposite to OP, it's a loot farm first and then open for gamers afterwards. Forget server hopping - Seriously (I'm dumb .. but) if all you want is gear isn't it easier just to play ArmA ?

^ got to say Weyand is right about this, even though constant changes and experiments have been going on for a while.. it seems the loot <distribution, spawn and persistence> is more complex to deal with than was thought at first. A few months ago I mentioned - more than once - this 'farming' but the topic-area was kind of 'verboten', so it wasn't discussed much on the forums at all. You could only refer to it in a roundabout way in public. Up to now each BI alteration to avoid "my team can pick up 5 assault rifles and as many mags as we want in 10 mins" is followed by some player working ways to get round it. The idea was/still is - BI are on it. You have only to look back through youTube vids - see the many times a player arrives at a barracks or (recently).. eh.. other high loot places, and right there in the video you see dozens and dozens of loot scattered around outside. Ask yourself - Why has someone taken all that stuff outside and dumped it there? Dude, you KNOW it didn't spawn there. It took me less than 1 short evening to figure it out, just by looking. hmmm ... Me, I never hardly go near those places,(except to cause trouble from behind a bush). I'm a shotgun/rifle and drab clothes player, I need a box of shells,10 rounds, a longhorn an axe and a packet of seeds, and I'm made. not several thousand rounds, 50 mags, a ton of mil gear, or any mega-stacks of anything. Put a serious limit on all stash/tent sizes for starters (I mean eg 1 gun + 7 objects), while BI are working out the software.Might help. [edit] And limit the total spawn of assault rifles to 5 per server would surely help (lol) check those videos, you can see if you look, been going on in variations, since six months right to the present. Now everyone thinks it's part #1 of the game.

While zombies are being sorted out: I wonder is it's possible to plug in some temporary placeholder zombies, just for a while? I mean like the zombies from the Mod (crazy, hardly no tracking, and loads of them all over the place) ?. If those came back as temporary placeholders, it wouldn't matter how ugly and bad they were, would it? They could provide action anytime the real thing was in for overhaul. - seems to me those old zombs were cheap on processing power. So let a few loose when you need to work on any parts of the game involving the real zombs. they might have been crap and gaffer-taped onto the game, but they gave out plenty of gameplay xx

Weyland Yutani I hear what you are saying: IMO you are speaking on 2 subjects here - both are important loot farming and loot 'abuse' This splits down to a technical/software problem about loot - and a server admin problem Already - for public servers, there is a huge game-breaking problem ATM. 'Bad' public admins act the way they do so they can loot farm and "pretend" to have private servers. This is one single problem, and many players are giving up, and new players are dropping the game after a week, because of "no-join" public servers, loot-farms and kicking. Reporting does NOT work. I wrote a 5 page explanation (- a REPORT) on why the reporting system can not work. - because it is 5 pages long nobody read it (lol). https://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/229083-kicking-from-vilayer-server-is-allowed/page-4#entry2310557 Folk on this forum want 1-line questions and 1-line answers. If you don't understand the problem it will NOT go away. Bad admins and frustrated players set an attitude, in the minds of everyone, about how to play DayZ SA. Result: admins give up and/or get worse, or they sign up deliberately to play "badmins" - players don't have any Fs left to give, and bottom line it's easy to play the crap way "like everyone else". Or they leave. the result is - eventually (admins, players) everyone is in the "why the hell not" mindset. And IMO then => the game is screwed. * For your own particular situation and comment W.Y. The technical (I mean software) loot situation, including effects like loot hoarding and easy-farming, and "loot-bag-lag", is something BI can deal with. I heard they are working on this as a priority ATM. I hope this is still the case. As for increased admin powers on private servers: These will come. (but that's no help to you now) At the latest they must be in place when DayZ is finally open to mods. The oversight powers you want/need are already 95+% present in the software today (as you know) - they "only" need linking to your admin control. I would be interested to know at what point greater admin powers will be opened to private admins as the game matures. I think BI keeps 'private server' issues on the back burner right now. Out of 2 million players, easily more than 1.8 mil are definitely public players. So ATM the standard forum answer to gameplay questions = "join a private server" - is not even close to relevant. The players and admins need to know what they can/cannot do, and ( 1 ) the software and ( 2 ) abuse reporting has to reinforce that. This is what shapes the whole SA game. But I must add - (IMO) loot hoarding has always been one of the game elements since the Mod. If you have a populated server, the first answer is to let the players deal with it, they will find and raid the stashes themselves. However I agree, if everyone is playing "hoard" then the game is rotting away unless BI solve the software side. I don't think you can single-handedly turn the tide, except by operating the best server you can, until BI sort the loot issues. My thoughts and prayers are with you Weyland Yutani (even though they are buddhist .. and maybe zen .. sorry) IMO (and others know it too) you are a good and fair server mod, and a brave and honest man. Many Beanz for that. Perhaps you don't realize how few of you there are. - hey - this is ALL on topic - yes, it's a bit complicated, but there are about 3 action lines here that NEED bringing together to get the game back on the rails..this is boardroom level (dudes, it's not a question of "fishing pole" or "ghillie" that will make the difference). These 3 areas brought together, are where the game will stand or fall. xx pilgrim

^ yes q.Sachiel - been thinking over your post, about visibility. leaving urban camo aside for now - even though I hear you and its a real interesting topic (... except to say that black, green, and mid-grey face paint sticks would be a good thing.. IMO very easy to do because you don't need to change any face skins - just 2 bars under each eye and 1 across the forehead, of the chosen color, can be applied as gear in the game exactly like putting on sunglasses) * So, the distance problem In SA. The ghillie is only one special (extreme) case of what players look like at a distance. The look of any loot object or player seen at middle to far distance, is just wrong and unrealistic. the whole texture/rendering thing is wrong (sure, there's nothing to be done about that, but it is Not Good) A sniper can get under cover where he can just see out of the wood between hanging branches and foliage, and just see through tall grass, enough to take aim. he can NOT move back further into cover, if he moves back he wont be able to see anything But if I look at him from 50+ meters away, he's completely out in front of the cover. IRL this would be exactly the reverse, right? Suppose we took our set of active in-game objects, and - just as as we do for map textures - we gave them a different skin (a different texture) for each of the 3 different ranges, close, mid, distant... Each of these 3 skins would be based on the close-up texture, but the mid distance would be much less dark (because = less detail, no shadows and folds in clothes, less definition, less distinctive pattern, more generic, in fact a kind of camoflage, details outlines and shade differences gone), and the far distance skin would be fairly featureless.. say by using the original game-object skin with now 90-95% blending towards "standard DayZ distant green" ...(replace whatever skin the game object has close up, by the same shape skin, but virtually mono-color and just about featureless) This would mean someone wearing a yellow raincoat would show up much better at a distance than someone wearing drab clothes.. that's what happens in real life. and everybody would be more difficult to see in the distance, whatever they wore, so long as they don't move too much to give themselves away In the game ATM I see someone running at a distance - first I see is something "black" moving the way only a player can move - so I know it's a player. When he gets closer I can see what the dude is wearing. Worse - If I scope somewhere in the distance, I can see a ghillie just as well as I can see a guy in red with a colored payday mask, or a bare face, or a nude white guy in shorts... sure - I might not notice a ghillie behind a treetrunk - but just as easily I might not notice a guy in white underwear in that same place. The problem for the ghillie sniper is HE has a whole bunch of grass and leaves in his face.. if he can even see me to shoot, his bullet might easily bounce off a damn twig or a leaf in a tree-boundary or ground object-boundary . but while he has that (big) problem, I don't have any problem at ALL - I can SEE him, no problem. Most probably I can shoot him dead too. He's the ghillie sniper, so he's in trouble.. not me.. that's seriously unrealistic xx [ I've been checking urban camo, right back to my ol' grandad's photos from his Home Guard urban warfare guide.. => red brick and grey colors, with Z dazzle(breakup) patterns, a vertical divided half-black face,and a bit of some see-through netting to cover eyes - wow - it's a 1940s urban ghillie) I'll put up links when I have a few interesting ones, more modern ]

I think I agree with you - I was looking for a workaround - the problem is at middle distances and beyond - a sniper (close up) is lying under low overhanging fir branches with tall grass in front of him - from a distance he's lying on a lawn between a couple of sticks. He might even be out on the lawn in front of the forest completely - in the open on a flat surface with zero cover and a standard background that shows him up REAL good. This is not only the textures used at the moment - at mid to far any grassy ground has a texture you could call "lawn" but ALSO the problem is that any a play object - such as a gun or a player or a can of beans - is DRAWN in the game in a different way to the static textures. Its a sprite. So they will always be visible, Like in a kiddy color book where you take a background color and stick on a cutout - a thing with an outline and detail-shadows that look black at a distance. In play the "play objects" do NOT "blend in" at all.. at a distance this is very very obvious.. (eg, you can scope loot lying around crash sites from a mile away, much easier than going close to look for it) Remember the healing plant you needed in the mod? - to find it you had to go AWAY from it - if you looked from middle distance you could see it standing all alone on the "lawn", if yo went close it was mixed in the grass and very hard to see, So from a distance you could check a whole field in 5 seconds... that's because the plant is a "play object" so it is NOT a "background' texture, it is created separately and it SHOWS. Same in SA now for any loot or any player. This is why tents are so EASY to spot if you stay on the NEXT hill and scope for them, you see them standing on a on a lawn with ZERO foliage. Don't bother going closer, they're harder to see. Unfortunately it 100% doesn't matter what you are wearing... so "look carefully" is not really the case - to "blend" your tune has to be invisible or transparent at a distance, but you aren't so it is EASIER to see you from a distance than from close, any clothes makes no difference to that. And changing to 'new textures' dosn't make a difference either - IMO "supertexture" is even worse (q.S.Sachiel), its a compression alg. to help the PC rebuild "really neat" textures.. meaning close-up textures. I think you would show up even more on that background. - if "even more" were possible.. except you show up at max visibility already. What you wear AND ground, tree, grass, bush rendering ONLY make a difference at close range. That's all. Talking about "new rendering" is real interesting but I'd have to see it to be convinced.. I give that ZERO faith. ATM ... nah - dudes, the snipers will always stand out like they were wearing school safety dazzle colors, and the little birds will always see the tents like they were set in the middle of an empty superstore car park. Prove me wrong. Give me good thoughts on this. xx

Right And if you ran your client game on a Cray it would not be great,even then. If you paste the same "close-up" texture on everything for miles and then render it to one POV it will not look good - An obvious example => IRL hills in the background do not look the same to the human eye as hills in the mid distance - they are a darker color for starters. Same texture at different distances wont work, even if you could (and you can't, using today's top PCs ) but for better gameplay there can be workarounds, maybe? For instance - Decide that players wearing X gear are not rendered at all until they are inside a set distance (try out what is a good distance for that) eg in the middle distance texture range - you could also do the same for tents There might be a realistic aspect to this in gameplay, so it doesn't seem crazy - IRL you "suddenly" notice a camo tent when you are quite close, or when you scope to search. IRL you don't see a ghillie until he suddenly 'pops into sight' coming towards you, when he's close enough. In the game this can be imitated because he's not rendered outside a set radius. Its an idea - it still doesn't solve a bunch of problems, but its a workaround that can be implemented.And make ghillies and tents more useful, AND seem kind of more realistic. Jexter mentions a similar thing earlier in this thread, about hunting advantage. The distance/texture problem has always been present in DayZ since the mod - it is not caused by any engine it's just the way things are done in all games. DayZ SA involves a lot of distance and mid-distance actions, so it's an important problem in this game. Give special treatment to designated stuff - like ghillies or tents.. seems the only way out. xx pilgrim (off topic: - put in a stick of camo greasepaint for us bums who live in bushes or make payday masks sprayable so we can paint them green? )

My understanding is that grass rendered at different distances is based on different TEXTURES... it's not one texture ("grass") that is rendered for different distances. (someone tell me if Im wrong) this is a problem for all the textures - like the famous question "why do forest trees look like sticks from a distance?" But still, the idea behind what you're suggesting makes good sense... It might be easier for the programers just to make ghillies invisible to other players outside a given radius, instead of altering the texture-sets used in the whole game (that could be pretty hairy, software engineers wake up at night covered in sweat and screaming already, ya know.. that's why so many of them aren't married) xx

" If you don't move they cant see you " Famous real-war quote - I think it was originated by photographer Robert Capa who finally died when he stepped on a mine in Indochina (I guess that counts as ...'he moved'). Amazing guy, - from the spanish civil war to vietnam, he was there - you should check up on his record and photos, and girlfriends. He worked in war zones for 25 years, so I guess he knew. Back In DayZ: - at a distance you can see anyone moving about the SAME whatever they are wearing - you see a small size sprite and its a dark color, almost a black shape, exactly like distant zombies or distant animals, doesn't matter what the clothes are because you can't see any clothing colors. You see movement. - Coming closer up (at mid distance) you can see details of clothing but it is still movement that counts most - it's a sprite moving across your screen, THAT'S what draws the eye. - You can see clothing details (real colors) ONLY at mid-to-close distances.. and if the gear blends in a little, or you aren't concentrating, you don't notice. Generally - If the player is not moving you probably wont notice, unless he's standing upright out in the open (like on a road). If he's moving, you WILL notice as soon as you're looking that way. - So, any drab clothes are OK. I've used a damaged yellow raincoat.. because it's damaged it blends in pretty well with bushes, it does not look bright. Any clothing close to ruined looks drab enough to help hide you , even red or yellow (damaged yellow is better than damaged red). - Your face (white) might probably give you away first, if players are close and are LOOKING. So a bit of "sniper netting" or a stick of facepaint in the game would be great. Because of the mechanics of the game-visuals, a ghillie suit can be useful if the other player is 0-15m away, but outside that distance there's no big difference, and at mid to far distance there's no difference at all. Probably you are best with any drab clothes and a dark skin color for your tune. This combination will give you the most advantage you can get in a range of situations (as long as you don't move). seems that 80% of play takes place in towns anyway, as far as I can see... but we have no urban camo suits in the game. Not that it would make a real in-game difference to visibility any more or less than the ghillie (same as I explained above). But an urban 'ghillie suit' should cheer up the players who like that stuff. xx

yep, A HEAP of mods have come out in the last 2 years since the DayZ port I linked you to, that was just to give you a place to start I understood, you're looking for an ARMA 3 dayz mod with a map exactly like the DayZ SA map.. but not the DayZ SA map from 2 years ago, right? you want.." many enterable buildings, new areas, and a bunch of cool things to find like crashed airliners and boats " ... and zombies like in the DayZ mod...and actual "loot and ghillie suits and such" So a mod kinda like DayZ SA, but NOT like it because SA it's "sooooooo bad". So you want it LIKE DayZ mod, but with "a bunch of cool things and new areas", and "crashed airliners" and "loot" like the SA map. I guess you don't mind if you have the new DayZ SA trees on the mod too?. Or do you need the exact same new trees? Would just the new areas be ok? (with opening doors). Or do you only want "many enterable buildings" and "crashed airliners" and ... zombies .... plus everything you liked left over from DayZ mod ? Or if it's an exact copy of the whole map you need - do you want the original SA map? last year's map, this years, or next years? But also you dont want exzctly a DayZ mod with "many buildings with opening doors and crash sites and boats"? (but not the trees, or pumpkins I guess?, you won't want those? and If you want the old sunflowers out of DayZ mod, dude, those aren't in the map now). you want an SA Map (with some changes for stuff you dont like) on a mod of the DayZ mod - mod. You can get there through ARMA 3 but it's a lot of work, much easier to find a A3 mod with stuff you like in it, unless you want to SEARCH Are you looking to mod this yourself ? There ARE ways (ya know), but it's like StanleyWasHappy says you have work at it => new map MOD built from another Game's map, = you cant just load it in There are modders around interested in those exact same elements you find on DayZ SA. Are you sure you really checked around ? Are you sure you're the only person in the world with that idea? Modders can build maps, ya know... sometimes they like to make them real different from other maps - usually, But it has been known to happen that one map looks amazingly like another, sometimes. (ask the russians how they do it). too much work for me, for sure... like I said, I only looked for 15 seconds and gave you a place to start. So - Wait till the modders put DayZ-mod back into DayZ SA (modders will, officially, sooner or later) - or try YouTube. If you look, you'll find pretty much what you're looking for

try searching for ARMA 3 mods the first I found (there are very many, some have zombies, some are DayZ-mod on ArMA 3, whatever) - I searched for 10-15 seconds so best advice is if you want the SA map on a mod with zombies and a lot of loot spawn.. go look for it under ARMA 3 mods http://www.dayztv.com/post/dayz-zoombies-mod-dayz-on-arma-3-release-how-to-install/ http://www.pcgamer.com/dayz-arma-3-the-reason-you-should-play-the-dayz-mod-again/ no idea if these things are any good, Im ok with DayZ SA xx

economics, timezones, staff, - what IS a GSP ? the stuff you need to know to - the explanation of why this system is not working as it was intended: - click on each sheet if you want to read it full size - [edit:] in case anyone wants the main links in the text above, without having to type them out: http://www.endole.co.uk/company/07997934/vilayer-ltd http://www.endole.co.uk/company/06638175/gamingdeluxe-limited http://www.endole.co.uk/company/03370594/multiplay-uk-limited www.gov.uk/government/organisations/companies-house http://www.bbb.org/new-jersey/business-reviews/internet-gaming/clan-servers-hosting-llc-in-matawan-nj-13001206/ // http://www.aninowsky.com xx pilgrim

^ ok ryanincalgary I hear you dude, but - please don't complain about 1 actual server incident on this thread otherwise it will be shut down - IMO Complain they way you should ATM, send in a complaint to Vilayer. Because it's a good thing to have a thread stay open to discuss on What To Do About the whole problem. xx pilgrim

wha? .. doesn't everybody ?

Real question is not how to hide the camps, it's how to hide the Little Bird xx

A Longhorn is a really useful weapon for different reasons. I always like one in my pack. If I'm out solo ranging. Which is what I mainly do. - I feel happy with a Longhorn plus some kind of shotgun for close encounters, and an axe. Add a waterproof and something with plenty of pockets, and/or a backpack.Then I'm just about OK equipped. I've only been in a couple of barracks since this patch and the patch before, and maybe a police station from time to time. For 2 or 3 months i never been on the Airfield, or the big tent camp (none of those 'high loot' places). Heh - except skulking around in the bushes and trees on the edges of them when I'm out trying to cause trouble. if you are around the edges of any of those loot places, you got to be wary of snipers up behind you somewhere, or across on the other side of the place, not just on the obvious roof spots inside the area. Coming up behind a sniper with your axe at the ready is a fun thing, and IMO most 'snipers' rate 95% beginner at the trade - But some of them are pros - when you work round to come behind them, they suddenly gone - they ain't there anymore(!) then you're in the bad place with no paddle. You got to admire that - you may even have time to say "beanz brother" before you're dead. I never like much to snipe myself, as a way of life, because to do it you need to overlook a popular place, then to make a profit you got to go down into that place, so IMO it's more sport and fun than survival. But you do have to give respect to one or two of those guys. xx

you ever hear that old joke ? "I used to be ALL SCREWED UP AND CRAZY on Drugs till I found the Sacred Book - Now I've given up the Drugs and I'm ALL SCREWED UP AND CRAZY on the Book " xx

For OP info - The OP is getting auto-reply mail from Tom Morriss' box. Tom Morriss (Vilayer, UK) is listed on "Linked In". He says he has a personal interest in Arma from way back, so he should be a good person to talk to, right ? Perhaps someone could tell him that his e-mail replies and his company are being discussed on this forum ? If Tom Morriss would join this forum, it would be a great opportunity for him to do some fine public-relations work for Vilayer. ******** Vilayer say: "We employ a number of staff on a full and part time basis to provide an uninterrupted sales and support service to our customers" but - people who complain about the admins on "public" servers are not customers. The Server Supplier has no responsibility to "players" at all in that statement or anywhere else, their customer support is for "customers" However, they have a responsibility to Bohemia International. There are special rules for DayZ that are not the rules for all the other games offered by the SP. The SP has to have staff who's job includes to check these rules are being applied (otherwise, who checks anything?) If that member of staff does not have a job description that includes a statement of "the actions to take on DayZ complaints from players" - then no actions will be taken. Vilayer also say: "We were among the first companies in the world to offer fully 100% automated hosting solutions" Now - how many staff do you need to be 100% fully automated ? (sure - you got to keep 1 tech for updates and tech problems - but he gets all his e-mails from the boss, not from folk outside the company) Well - on the public relations side - you need "someone" to deal with customers (not players, normally, because they ain't customers) and you need "someone" to deal with Bohemia international. xx pilgrim Hey - I got a lot of stuff to say (I used to be interested in this mess, way back) and plenty of questions - so I put it in a spoiler, 'cause I gave up bending folks ears about this a long while ago. BI could also answer these questions and police the problem, if that was their policy.

SAK makes good point. If you don't want to kill, then be a man-hunter/tracker => hawkeye/spy/tracker/shadow-walker/woodsman/ninja/thief => It's a whole different way of playing. Since the days of the Mod, once vehicles and tents and stashes were well established, stalking has always been a respectable profession. Move on the map. Know the region. For instance move and check till you spot a truck spawn. dont go near it - get up in cover on a hill and keep eyes on; Plant a crop while you're waiting? Sooner or later someone will turn up and find it. You'll see that 50%+ of players will hide it somewhere close, mess around, and use it as a base/stash.. others will drive off in it looking for loot or fun, or back to their tents if they already got any. When you know what's happening you decide your move - follow, move on, wait, see if their friends show, steal it now ? You have the advantage, you got eyes on them, they don't know you're there. This play takes different skills and a different mindset from PvP. You learn to move in cover, change location, know the approaches, watch, follow, know how to get out of the way fast (is useful). Learn the players - you'd be amazed how many players do exactly the same thing in a situation, have the same reaction, take the same decisions, make the same move, hide stuff in the same places. But (heh) remember there's always one player smarter than you, He's on the map somewhere right now. He's got the skills and the experience, so if he finds a truck spawn he might surely circle round to check if someone's overlooking it. Maybe he was there first and he already watched you go to ground. It's a new game in DayZ SA. Some folk do this full time (but you don't have to). Pretty often nothing happens at all, you move on, check, maybe check back later, there's a lot of "nothing happens" and then sudden situations. This is the fair honest play method, [You can play this totally without going looking for loot farms, or those 4-person public servers that kick soon as you log in - because their tents are right by the airfield, natch, somewhere real easy to get to - but then they go away hopping for loot, and also they have to sleep sometime, so ya can take note and log back sooner or later when they're not around - But IMO all that 'my-server' hopping/farming play is just for duckheads ] .. Yo can make a honest manly healthy living and survive on just one populated server as a savvy-ranger-ninja, don't even need a gun really, just need your skill and wits, stay sharp and know the terrain. xx and - as folk already said in this topic - ya don't REALLY want an M4, (and anyways you'll probably be dead by the time you read this so your mags will be gone). You want an AK (hmm, my kinda joke) - or more likely you need any rifle with a scope or a sawn-off or a pump gun. Mags are going to get scarcer, so when you track down someone's stash, take any auto-weapon mags or ammo cartons, or even loose rounds, and throw them away in a bush. Up the odds in your favor.

edwin3 wrote on 19 sept: << you are better of informing yourself a bit, not just to post a "help" topic..//.. go with an i5 4490k cpu, a descent nvidia gpu and defnitely 2 SSDs (one for the OS, one for the game). just some cornerstones. >> hahah edwin3 my ol' mate - I've seen your 120 posts since you first joined a month a go, and every one of them includes a put down of another forum member (and a bunch of spelling mistakes, but I don't ever blame anyone for incorrect spelling on an international forum). Beanz for your first 120 casual putdowns, dude - an average of two or three bitchy comments a day and nothing helpful - is a good rate of input for a newcomer. Go for content, edwin3 - give the OP the benefit of your knowledge of SSD best setup. You have the knowledge, share it. Why do you think 2 SSDs are better than one ? That's unusual (and expensive) advice. You wrote it on the next forum, right after you read my comment, so maybe you thought of it then, or you have some better tech info than I do? Share it, dude. Yes, I write long texts, I'm a well-known boring shithead on these forums, myself the first to admit it. If you'd been around longer you'd know this (everyone else does). HOWEVER I AM answering the dude's question as best I can, in my slow, dull manner. But - sorry, edwin, I can't give you another beanz for "well spotted" I already gave you one beanz for "zero content". Ya-all notice my first post where i suggest: " other forum users will have good, or better, advice for you " - that includes edwin3. Putdowns are easy, help is difficult. *** Note : I'm running DayZ on a dual core I bought from a heap of remaindered motherboards in a big old cardboard box on the floor in a backstreet hardware nerd shop. Runs OK, cost pennies - Added a nice graph card (top range 4 years ago, lol), plus 3 or 4 old HDs, and one small 'was-fast' experimental HD I got from a Hewlett-Packard test lab when I wrote their tech. texts and product sheets for them. And one tiny - LITTLE FAST SSD - (best verified rate available commercially, but .. so small, so tiny !!) - plus a couple or 4 various OS to try stuff out. Rig runs damn OK compared to what I read in the threads = I'm interested in hardware. And I'm interested in WeirdoBeardoh's problem. IMO it's seriously -seriously- too bad that many folk get such bullcrap BAD advice from stores who don't give a damn and don't know shit about the stuff they sell. .. hmm?.. most expensive is best, right? = NO. And for DayZ "most expensive is best" = NO, NO.. NO. You can take the top-range, highest-pricetag, most-sexy, off-the-shelf PC, and with just a little honest advice and some thought, and one or two questions and answers on a forum like this to aid you..then DEFINITELY you can get improved performance out of that rig for your own purposes. You just need 1 or 2 people ready to give considered aid or pointers. Comments like "I'm smarter than what yos is" don't really cut it. We already know I write a lot, we already know how smart you are. So let's stay on Topic. Many people simply don't GET what SSDs are about - they think SSDs are fast HDs, but they aint. It's not a very simple subject, but it's not rocket science. - "other forum users will have good, or better, advice" - hope so. Not knocking ya edwin3 (who's counting?) and sure hope you feel the same: brotherhood, aid, warmth, love, wonderful wet hugs, wit, comment, useful and pertinent info, advice on beards - live life and release - the lowdown on SSDs, bang for buck, keep bouncing, the arrangement of existing already in-place hardware to help make DayZ run best on a rig .. and hold the KoS for in-game. just para-quoting some Public Enemy there, (see what I did?) - they talked a lot too. xx pilgrim

His prob is obvious, just from the details of his machine, he has HD and SSD and hasn't reinstalled his OS Game is on SSD (exe and files) so it has to call and write back to the OS on the HD - so that the OS knows what it's doing, and the OS gets the info, provides the interface and routines, and tells game what to do next, and etc. - that exchange can only run at the HD speed (slowest disk) right ? and constant read-write between 2 disks will slow anything down anyway, so his setup SHOULD be slower than having everything on one HD in the first place. or .. edwin3, are you suggesting that maybe he just plugged in an SSD without actually putting anything on it at all ?? Interesting sugestion. But I should have noticed that OP only has 1 post So unless we hear back, maybe it's just one of those strange 1-post trolls that turn up on this forum. How does someone who <dont know about PCs> know that they have <very high write back to the OS on the HD> hmm... ?? and maybe not a serious question looking for real answers ? xx