unfortunately dean's imminent departure spells doom for dayz. it is his uncompromising vision to make the game what it is that largely keeps bohemia from perceiving the act of making it as a series of business decisions to please a paying audience. without his guidance, the game will be reduced to something catering to the loudest moans from the COD generation and will never reach its full potential. we've come so far to see it end here because the pressure of doing something like this is extremely difficult to manage and continued involvement bears diminishing returns. Really sad news for anyone who has come to hope that dayz would become something more than it had been with the mod.

court-certified russian interpreter and ATA member reporting in.

gunplay is a skill belonging not to the character, but to the player. a capable marksman benefits in the game by way of his skill at marksmanship, not his 'character's skill' - good example of an abstracted marksmanship skill would be in something like fallout or wasteland, where your accuracy is either entirely dependent upon some metric of a character or significantly influenced by it. This is a pretty common device that games use to abstract knowledge or complex gameplay mechanics. for example, why implement a fully-fledged medical system that would be a lot of work and require someone actually familiar with practicing medicine in the real world when you can tie results of using medical items/interactions to a %-based 'skill' metric or something like that. You can use that sort of a system to abstract/bypass a lot of things - medicine, crafting, gathering resources, navigation and situational awareness. but, as it stands right now, marksmanship and gunplay are controlled by the player's skill, not an abstracted value of their character's ability. And if what you propose was to be implemented into dayz, marksmanship would be pretty much the measure of a player's skill, further making dayz an FPS with light RPG elements. DAYZ is not billed as such - it promotes itself as a survival simulator, and generally emphasizes the skills a player brings to bear rather than a 'character' - you're not role-playing another entity so much as behaving instinctively in a setting designed to immerse you, the player. And what would make great deal more sense, what truly separates dayZ from a lot of the things out there and things it has influenced since would be more complex gameplay mechanics/systems that allow more and more of player's real-life abilities to be tapped into. Give you one pretty basic example: DAYZ takes place in russia. The street signs are in russian. This is a language I'm fluent in and can easily tell where I am without having had to consult a map outside of the game. This is also a player skill, not something my character has read in some kind of a book. Its a clear advantage that i receive the same way someone trained in the army to use the mil-dot system effectively can range a target or someone who knows how to read the stars can find their way north. More of these things need to be integrated, starting from a robust medical system that takes under advisement recommendations of players we have in the medical field.There definitely need to be ways to identify yourself in-game as a particular type of specialist in order to immediately and visually communicate that to other people, but in terms of actually having the skills to be a doctor, Roshi has created some pretty good mockups of basic medical systems and how they could work in the game. The same goes for crafting and resources. Basic knowledge of various kinds of plants and berries could help someone learn how to pick the ones that aren't going to poison them, and which ones have better nutrition. The same goes for construction, barricading buildings and repairing vehicles.. these things all need complex gameplay mechanics solutions that will take a long time to properly design and implement but THAT is what dayz is about. not abstracted skill % or 'characters'. plenty of other games do that. but this game aims to do something else entirely..

how about a skill book for marksmanship that makes you auto-aim better. your ideas on 'skills' for other things like medicine or crafting are pretty much that preposterous.

Some of the preview trailers for the standalone clearly showed a person limping about. I thought of this for a bit and decided to write up a very basic outline of options for revised treatment of broken limbs. To start with, gunshots do not currently seem to be causing fractured limbs the way they did in the mod. I do not recall there having been broken arms, but having a shot take out your leg was a fairly commonplace thing. Such functionality is still needed in that it presents a less-lethal way of stopping an adversary without necessarily having to kill them. As it stands, the only way to stop someone who is running away is to kill them or be lucky enough to knock them unconscious with your shot. Having to adapt to an injury without that injury being certain death provides for an experience that is more immersive and memorable. It also creates more demand for the services of a medic or someone ready to treat injuries of such type. And so, it goes a little something like this: Solid hit in the arm carries a chance of fracture, depending upon weapon used and shock inflicted. Regardless of which arm is hit, it is assumed that the off-hand arm is broken. Only one arm can be broken. Shooting the other will not actually break it. Affected character is immediately notified via 'It hurts too much to move my arm" and a "Broken Arm" status. Unable to equip any two-handed weapon. If holding a two-handed weapon at the time of sustaining the broken arm, the weapon is dropped on the ground (can be picked up to shouldered position, but no 'take into hands' option givenStill able to equip side-arms or one-handed melee weapons such as knives, etc. Still able to interact with/use items.once you've got a fractured arm, a splint can be applied to immediately regain normal use of the arm with a significant penalty to accuracy/dispersion for two-handed weapons and 50% damage penalty for melee weapons. the 'broken arm' status remains in effect until 45 (approx same as restoring blood) minutes after using morphine. now, moving on to the legs. Solid hit in the leg carries a more significant chance of broken leg.Regardless of which leg is hit, only one 'legfracture' status can be sustained at a time. Affected character is immediately notified via "It hurts too much to move my leg" and a "Broken Leg" Status and falls to the ground.Unable to walk, restricted to crawling. applying either a crafted improvised splint or a proper kind has the same result. the character is able to walk with a limp and crouch-walk at a reasonably brisk pace, but unable to sprint and walk normally until 45 minutes after using morphine. in both cases, simply using morphine is ineffective. a splint must always be used to recover from a fracture. Conformable Roll Splint. A cut-to-length, fiberglass splinting material packaged in an easy-to-use, easy-to-seal system. The splinting material is made of layered fiberglass and is pre-padded with water-repellent felt. Occupies 4 inventory slots, 5 uses to craft splint. Can be crafted into either arm or leg splint. Reduced chance of infection compared to the wooden sort but obviously a premium item.

My problem with post-processing as a way of simulating pain/etc is that it is easily disabled client-side, so i'm trying to go for solutions that are both abstracted enough to be playable, yet nuanced enough to have gravity to the conditions and sense to their treatment. Also periods of limited ability that are worth surviving through as opposed to just a respawning fresh. But the mechanic of both the disability and treating these things must be such, even if it affects someone over time, that it doesn't encourage straight-up logging off to recuperate. IE: scenario you do not wish to see is someone getting a broken limb at the start of their session and pretty much being forced to end it.. So splinting ends the 'crawl on the ground' and analgesics control the shock/tremor/blurred vision? That sounds pretty doable. I haven't noticed any changes to the medical system in the recent updates. Which is to say that the medical system in the game right now is a placeholder/not indicative of what we may have eventually. There are many items that do not currently do anything or simply have a placeholder status. Other items implemented that imply more detail to the medical system at a later point, but that looks like something that may have had assets in the client despite not really having taken shape yet. Are you seeing some kind of actual changes from build to build implying a further simplification/gamification of the already-rudimentary medical system? I guess, as opposed to getting jaded at this early point, I feel our best bet is to create a compelling, solid presentation and get dean to read it. He has been very uncompromising with the game and would probably want to see something like this in. My guess is that it just hasn't been built despite much thought already dedicated to the subject.

i won't be on a 'pvp server' - thats the default. you, however, will adapt to dayz or shuffle off into the woods, sad-frog-like, wishing someone would make a DayZ Sanrio™Edition for you, probably heading off to some other game more consistent with your expectations. because if anything Dean or BI have said to that effect so far, it won't be coming from them.

problem is, you're hollowing out the experience under the argument that everyone can have their dayz the way they want to. my argument is that you may very well be playing some mod-of-a-mod on a private server eventually, but it won't be dayz any more so than those servers the mod had with people parachuting out of the sky in full military gear and 50cal sniper rifles. you're welcome to modify your experience and play it in the he funshine ghetto with your UN beret worn backwards while holding hands in a human chain with every last man on your server. just don't call that dayz. it isn't.

you're the problem. get out. and there, problem corrected.

again, struggling with abstraction issues. I really liked your regeneration of blood over time during the logoff idea depending upon the qualities of rest area. this could actually couple together with a proper log-off mechanic (the same way it did in Ultima Online originally, back in 97..) Repair of broken bones over logoff time same as regeneration of blood is a very good addition to this, with restored limited usability with penalties (limping/dispersion) via splint and full usability regained *temporarily* via morphine until proper rest w/ splint can be had for such and such amount of time (cumulative, so as to not discourage people from playing if they have a currently-fractured limb)

nope

Roshi, could I get some input on this from a representative of the medical profession? I am but a lowly medical interpreter. ;/ I'm trying to find a decent middle ground between abstraction and realism without creating too much abuse potential (someone with two broken arms who is unable to manipulate objects, etc)

change visual effect of 'worn' status items to being heavily patched up and repaired, similar to the trousers of the character in the above concept-drawing. allow for repair of clothing, etc using various basic resources and kits up to 'worn' to prevent waste spawn items (badly damaged and thus useless)

Someone had mentioned spears and bows earlier.. These have been suggested as improvised weaponry going into the game, and while the ideas aren't necessarily bad, bows and arrows and spears are a comparatively ineffective way of killing people. Its reasonable to assume that while some types of ammunition are going to be extremely rare, other types are relatively uncommon and will continue to be much more widely available than weapons used to fire them (the opposite may hold true for some military weapons..) So here are some examples for items that could have some kind of a primary function as survival gear in DAYZ, while also having an an option to be modified into improvised weapons to use some more common types of ammunition. I also noticed people complaining about the darkness at night, and remembered the solution of chem lights and flares that were present in the mod. These are by far better ways of tackling area-lighting than NVG, and also provide a more rapid solution to brightening an area than setting up something like a lantern or carrying a flashlight around to reveal your precise position. So, without further ado: flare gun. shoots flare rounds. useful for deploying flares at night to light an area.metal scraps (basic resource) + rubber tubing (basic resource) = 'craft flaregun insert' optionadd 'flaregun insert' to flare gun as attachment = modified flare gunfires shotgun shells, occupies 4 spaces. even less accurate than sawed-off.takes some wear/damage with every shotgun shell shot. Nail Gun used in construction, fires caseless nail ammo, large mag capacity.Can be used in construction for boarding-up structures or vehicles.Can be carried in Toolbelt/BoxNail ammo can be used as weapon. Super short-range and inaccurate.Use metal scraps (basic resource) on nail gun to modify it into Improvised Pistol, chambered to .22 Still quite inaccurate and short-range, but there you have a basic firearm with decent mag capacity that can use existing ammo Takes a small bit of damage with every shot fired on account of not being able to safely handle ammo type. Should night-vision ever be implemented into the game, it should use an improvised solution crafted out of Welder's Goggles (piece of glare-reducing eyewear) + Wiring + LED lights + Electrical tape and using batteries. Combining above items requiring pliers. Multi-step crafting involving both uncommon items and salvaged components of other items stripped using tools is a far better way of introducing items like that into the game than uber leet rare lootspawn for tryhard bros to spawnhop.

I'll assume that you're acting in good faith here, but did you take the time to even read what I wrote, or in a paroxysm of knowing better on the internets, stab your fingers at the quote button, followed by the frantic scrabbling of fingertips on keys whilst hitting the "Post" button? So have I. And you know what else? I've fired 12 gauge shells out of them. It looks a little something like this - and you can buy it for $14, or make your own out of aluminium with basic machining skill. Here's a link for you, knock yourself out: http://www.keepshooting.com/12-gauge-insert.html I...do not know where you could have come up with crafting the flare gun. I said the flare gun should spawn in default configuration and be modifiable to shoot 12 gauge. the way it can be in real life. Obviously its not designed for that and would take some damage with every shot, but a viable improvised weapon for when you don't have something else and using a very common type of ammo available damn near everywhere. Pretty cool, I think. Also, flares burn up to 20,000 candles for 5-10 seconds depending upon manufacturer/type. The upper bound of that is quite enough to illuminate an area you're aiming for, in addition to using them as a signal. you also have parachute flares which descend slowly and burn for considerably longer periods as well. So, again, thank you for your not-inconsiderable knowledge in all things flares-related and firms dismissals of stuff that is obviously confirmed within like a 5 minute long internet search.

I don't have a link off-hand, but someone had a great post illustrating the limited stopping power of bows and arrows - particularly the sort you'd be able to craft on your own in the wilderness. The example they used to illustrate 'the most realistic depiction of being killed with arrows' was the death of boromir. What i think makes the most sense is an increase in 'shock' damage to weapons across the board, because a good hit with an arrow or several of them would probably make the person experience excruciating pain. The same goes for a lot of melee weapons that currently take an uncountable number of direct hits to bring a person down. I think the amount of pain and shock inflicted by things like a single blast of a shotgun, even if only partially-hitting someone - should reasonably knock them unconscious or seriously disable them. But one-shot instant kills with an arrow to the knee would be a very weird direction to take. There's a reason why most bow-hunting enthusiasts carry a backup firearm. Anyway, once diseases and infections are in, the definition of a mortal wound expands greatly.. something that may kill you a few days down the road as you frantically scour the countryside for some tetracycline antibiotics could very well have been delivered courtesy of an arrow or wayward buckshot fired in your general direction.

Well, this is something i was going to say also. It isn't that the player needs to do these actions somewhere in a forest clearing with basic hand tools. If you recall the mod, certain actions needed to be performed in the vicinity of a certain object, or in a location that was specifically-designated. the most obvious example of this is when chopping wood from a tree using the ax required you to be in a location designated as 'forested' - any tree would not necessarily do. Given that some locations in the game feature actual machine shops, there is no reason to say that certain object interaction for crafting purposes could not be tied to those specific locations, giving them even greater importance in a setting where you have fewer functional firearms than people to use them. Some types of crafting that basically involve making an attachment to weapon could work anywhere (put aluminium liner into flare gun, get modified flare gun that can use diff. ammo. same as attaching mosin compensator to the barrel in terms of how the game handles it..) other, more complex crafting is location-tied. This would go along very well to increasing the level of interaction the player has with existing structures in towns - ie: being able to start a fire inside of a fireplace, etc. further down the road it could involve stuff like reinforcing doors, boarding up windows, making barricades, placing locks on doors.

field-stripping barrels off of 'ruined' guns.

Soviet-era nailguns from the 1970-80s (such as the one pictured in the modified version) do not. They use separate blanks and nails, which could be abstracted into a 'gun nail' round. but could also be modified to actually fire from the gun using an improvised barrel such as what is seen in the image. I'm not suggesting we have some kind of advanced blacksmithing or CNC mills in the game. That isn't the kind of improvised scenario i'm pointing at. But - take a look at that barrel. There's no reason why, for instance, someone equipped with a wrench/screwdrivers and pliers (or something like that, again abstracting from existing) couldn't take the barrel from a ruined magnum (otherwise useless item) and marry it to another item like the nailgun to produce a viable basic firearm from otherwise useless stuff. I also like the idea of resource-gathering being a process of stripping and salvaging existing things into components that can have complex interaction between each other and be used to construct either wholly-new items in several steps or modify/improve/repair existing items. Some items can produce unique components - revolver barrel for instance. Stripping them also produces more generic components - metal scraps or assorted weapon parts. Other items may produce insulation, rubber tubing, cloth yardage. other may yield more specific stuff like a revolver barrel, LED lights, an optic lens, etc. You might be able to use this kind of system to manufacture a home-brewed silencer - something that may be quite vital in a setting where you've got hundreds of zombies shambling through a town instead of the paltry couple of currently have.

The SKS does not (or shouldn't rather) use .22 LR. Sorry, my error there.

no, echoing what that guy said - i think you've got the wrong game. if you've expected funny hats, there is any number of freemium gindfests that be only too happy to take your money for this novelty doodad or another. i suggest you go there and leave this thread to meaningful suggestions. f-ing up the signal-to-noise ratio. I don't know what this 'us' you cite in the original post, but i'm somehow doubting dean needing to bribe the lobotomized into testing with fur-cuffs and beer hat. take care and stop posting.

i'm going to answer your original question per the thread title with two words. fear and boredom. banditry is a decent way of assuring survival through neutralizing perceived threats. also, its currently a decent way of assuring survival through looting things off of the people you kill however, that will not be the case going into the future because ruined items , something you can use without any penalty right now, aside from clothing, will not function anymore. assume a ruined canteen isn't something you can drink from, a ruined rifle isn't something you can fire without repairing it and a ruined can of food cannot be eaten. ruined antibiotics won't cure your infection, ruined ammo won't load into your gun and so on and so forth. Under that scenario, casual 'guns blazing on sight' is a means less preferable to at least trying to cuff the other guy and rummage through his stuff before you swiss-cheese everything to shredded guts salad. it'll always remain an option for neutralising threats though, and one most people will prefer to take. It is also something people do once they're geared - partly because there isn't anything else to do. fighting zombies is not and was never the point of this game, but weapons like the enfield weren't called 'the dinner bell' for nothing - used to be you'd get swarmed if engaging in large gun battles within cities. fair to say that will be the case after some optimisation is done and number of entities is increased. people aren't friendly. its safe to assume that. but just because people aren't frendly doesn't mean you need to kill them, or even engage and reveal your location. some of my most lucrative kills so far have been point-blank headshots with the magnum at people looting corpses of people they had recently killed.

its useful in general - you can fire the flares into the ground to the same effect and have them burn on a timer. you can fire them into the air and have them light a large area without specifically revealing your location. you can also just fire them at another person at near point-blank. Being hit by a flare round at that range is deadly. Or you can convert it using an aluminium liner insert into a 12-gauge improvised handcannon and use it for a sidearm. Coastal towns, industrial bases, shipping warehouses, lighthouses, shipwreck. All valid spawn locations.

sorry, did you just propose boss mobs for this game? just to make sure i'm getting you clearly. maybe even dungeon raids? ggghheeddafuckouttahear. if you create some kind of a uberleetbossmobspawn, you'll have a whole queue of tryhards camping its location 24/7. just, uh.. i mean, if i have to explain to you why this is a bad idea, there's no hope in hell of you getting it..

Right now there are few zombies for technical reasons. Desired entity population is something like 10 thousand. Server population limits are rising and the map could easily support a few hundred players, which it eventually will as more robust server instances/private hives kick in. With the number of zombies dramatically higher, shooting will come with the uncomfortable reality of suddenly having more aggressors than available ammunition. Also, there being far fewer firearms than people wanting to use them.. anyway, tl;dr version for you: this is not a shooter. this is a survival simulation, currently reduced to being played as a shooter by the COD crowd, courtesy 'public hive' architecture that lets you gear on a lowpop server than then 'hunt' on high pop. This is coming to an end, and i imagine you'll be going to play something else when it does.