Capital

Yeah this is a very flawed argument that I've heard before. First of all, I readily acknowledge first-person is indeed not a 100% simulation of reality. For example, are you aware of the concept of a peripheral blind-spot? It refers to the fact that the very edge of our peripheral vision is essentially a simulation concocted by our brains based on all the sensory information in the immediate area. That is why something entering our peripheral vision at great speed startles us, because it can seem to appear out of nowhere. Games do not simulate this, regardless of the viewpoint, because our eyes already do. Secondly, regardless of viewpoint, games do not simulate 3 of the 5 major senses: touch, taste and smell. The only thing that Third-person gives you is an unrealistic ability to see things that are not in line-of-sight with your eyes. This is more like a 6th sense than anything real and tangible. Thirdly, Arma 2 already offers free-look (holding or double-tapping LAlt) and FOV transition in game. Touble-tap the minus key on your numpad and you get a wider FOV, if you're worried about not being able to see things in your periphery. Then it is up to your OWN eyes to scan your monitor and locate targets. Remember: The view from a first-person camera is never the character's "eyes" it is always their "head." The player's eyes move independantly of the character's head, simulating actual eye-motion in-game, which no actual mechanic. Fourthly, what people seem to detest most about Arma 2's first person is the camera shake and motion blur. I personally love it, but what's great is you can dial both all the way down to nothing if it bothers you. I can imagine it giving some people motion-sickness. Fifthly, in third-person you can see most of your body in the frame. This is far more unrealistic than the small realism/gameplay concessions of first-person. No amount of ESP can replace smell, touch and taste in a game. And lastly, the unfair advantage. There is no denying that whether you prefer third or first person, in a game where you can go up against other players and tactical advantage is so paramount to victory, third-person affords an unfair advantage known as "corner-camping" or "corner-looking." You can put your body completely behind cover and use the camera to see around corners without leaning out or exposing any of your body to danger from your covered position. This is not only highly unrealistic but also highly unfair. Even two people using third-person, if one is hiding behind a corner and the other approaching, the person hiding will easily get the first shot off and that is generally the deciding factor, especially in a game where the weapons have such lethality. TL;DR: First-person may not be a perfect simulation of reality, but it is a far sight more realistic than floating a few feet behind your own head and being able to psychically see around corners you have no actual line-of-sight on. I have no issue with anyone's preference, but if you are looking for immersion, realism and fairness, first person is the only option for a game like this.

Nope. Difficulty setting doesn't change weapon damage or player health in ArmA 2. It only changes 3rd person' date=' crosshair, units-on-map thing, etc. (Experience from playing ArmA 2 for about 3 years now) It's due to the blood system having issues with PvP I believe. When it's only supposed to take 1 bullet to the chest, it takes 2-8. The M4A1 for example, takes 2 bullets to the chest to kill an AI or player at close range, but in DayZ, due to the blood system... It takes a lot more. (I emptied half a mag into a Bandit's chest before he dropped dead at point blank) [/quote'] Yeah I've played since Arma 2 released but I always heard rumors of easier difficulties giving players more life but I guess those were just rumors. The blood system just takes some tweaking and testing. I did kill a bandit in 3 5.56 rounds yesterday center mass but I have no way of knowing what his blood was at. I think it is actually pretty realistic as it is. Sniper rifles are generally one-shot kills. AKs are insanely powerful (7.62 ain't nothin' to fuck with). You can take rounds and with all the variables that go into that in reality, I think the game does a good job of simulating the randomness of a firefight in that sense. Frankly, I wish that all servers were locked into expert mode.

I'm gonna echo what Rocket said when we were playing with him on stream last night: http://www.twitch.tv/bashurverse - DayZ will be a mod in development for at least 6 months from now. - BI have been very supportive but there is no "official" word yet on how they're going to approach it. They're likely just watching and waiting. - The mod will always be free. Rocket was very adamant about that. - If it does become a standalone game (which is the goal) it will be "reasonably priced." - Rocket got a raise because of the new sales of Arma 2! Hope it's cool if I say that here. He did say it in ventrilo in front of 500 viewers so...yeah... And to the OP: I suggest downloading Arma 2 free and the OA demo on steam, doing the training. If you can learn how to move and shoot (not as easy as it sounds) and you like the tough, milsim realism, thenyes, you should absoluytely buy Arma 2 CO in order to play DayZ.

That second pic with "I want to live" gave me chills. Amazing! Please make a 1920x1080 one when you can!

Is this some other mod with zombies?

I like the idea of the occasional lost zombie or two in the woods but I REALLY like the idea of wild dogs. NOT zombie dogs, that's just cheesy to me, but wild dogs! They could not only attack players but also other zombies and docile animals too! That's something few people think of when they hear about the ZA, what would all the domesticated dogs do? They'd go feral and become a dangerous force to be reckoned with. Heck, even today in poor parts of America there are packs of wild dogs roaming and killing people! http://www.igorilla.com/gorilla/animal/feral_dogs_rule_detroit.html Also, I heard a rumor about bears being added in the future! Hell to the yes!

SNIIIIIIIIIIIIP :P Some minor edits to fix typos and toss in some additional info.... I hate typos. Holy crap, SO much amazing info! Thanks for taking the time to make this post! Yeah I certainly never claimed to have any expertise in this field, although I do have a fair amount of firearms training and I know how to strip and maintain most sidearms and rifles. But this is awesome! Before I made my post I did look up a few statistics on barrel life and I thought that 10%-ing (or so) it would be more balanced for game-play. There is a very fine line between where the mechanic would require too much micromanagement, and not enough: definitely something that would require testing. Psychologically, you want the player to have their weapon cleanliness and maintenance on their mind, but not as urgently as food and water, for example. As I mentioned earlier, the consumability of the kits is a gameplay concession. Perhaps, in the same way that a road flare has 10 uses per item slot, the cleaning kit has 5. The problem is, if you make the cleaning and repair kits permanent, then the player who finds one will simply lose that feature altogether. They never have to worry about it again; if it were me, after every firefight, I'd clean/repair. It has to be a constant problem they have to deal with and worry about finding cleaning/repair kits. The workbench idea is VERY interesting. Instead of having a repair kit that's portable, perhaps the workbenches could be statics in the world and you have to find one and use it then and there to repair a weapon from an unusable state. This could lead to some confrontation when two people/groups want to use one in the same area. For more common weapons, I imagine most players, if they fully break them, wouldn't necessarily bother to fix them, just find another. But for the rarer weapons, like the M249 for example, they may go all out to try and fix it. Also, I do understand that rarity doesn't pertain to the relative damage value of the weapon, but from a balance perspective, that seemed okay. But it would be interesting too, if it were realistically handled, and players would think to themselves: well I really like this rifle but it gets so dirty and jams too easily, where as this one doesn't have good optics but it does last for a lot longer. With my M4A3 CCO (which I still have btw) I have gotten into numerous firefights and horde alerts in the past few days and in total I've spent approximately 7 30-round stanag mags for a grand total of 210 rounds fired. I'm running semi-auto of course, but I'm still nowhere near my figure of 750/1000 rounds. I think it would also encourage players to conserve ammo (quelling some rambo tendencies I've seen), take careful shots but still make them think about their weapon's durability if, as you suggested, full-auto deteriorates a weapon faster. That would be very cool IMO. Thanks for the info again, hopefully Rocket can use it to make some good judgements on this system's implementation.

Be sure to check out the "hardcore" servers then. Most hardcore servers I've seen play on regular difficulty, which is no fun. I guess you can turn off cross-hair (lame) third-person (super-lame) and nametags (super-duper lame) in regular mode but can't you still take more bullets to the chest? I'd like to see these (or, the lackthereof) become features rather than options. Cross-hairs are just unnecessary, and get in the way. Use your iron-sights and give yourself a small amount of weapon free-move. Third-person, aside from being just a vanity view, is not well implemented. It also gives people a major advantage in firefights: corner-looking. You can camp a corner and see if someone's coming without leaning out and exposing yourself. I hope the final game is first-person only. Last, the name-tags are obviously terrible, you can spot people from 500m on the horizon without actually seeing them. In a game like this, it ruins the ever-present fear and makes things way too easy. Here's hoping all these things are gone by the official release. In other words, I agree with the OP: don't listen to casuals. The game is already popular enough in its Alpha stage! We don't need to hand-hold any care-bears.

That would be amazing, only if we could also get a jerry can and lighter and burn the bodies instead of just magically "hiding" them, ya know?

I am in support of blood regen only if it is PAINFULLY slow; like not even worth it slow, just enough to simulate how blood naturally regens. Maybe 500 blood per hour = a full 24 hours for 0-12000. Realistic and only barely advantageous, still could help in a pinch.

I have several female friends who have echoed your sentiments. I also have it on good authority that Rocket's sister has been buggin' him about this, so hopefully it will make a later update or the official release. ;)

Definitely hope to see this added, as a VERY rare drop. Ghillie suits would make things very interesting when trying to counter-snipe!

Interesting points all around. I think some misunderstood the "breaking" aspect. It isn't like the weapon is gone forever, or disappears, it is a broken weapon that needs a repair kit to fix. The reason why the kits should be consumable, or consume SOMETHING finite is because if you get a cleaning kit and it acts like a toolkit or compass you never need to worry about this feature again. The feature becomes moot, so why bother coding it in the first place if it can be so easily bypassed? The gamey aspect, as someone else pointed out is it adds more dynamic side-quests. Current necessary side-quests are: Find Ammo, Find Food, Find Water. Players have to constantly be thinking about this, and now they need to think about keeping their weapons clean and maintained and finding resources to do so. Also, I completely agree that the amount of maintenance necessary should depend on the individual weapon. As someone said an AR-15 will need a lot more maintenance than a Kalashnikov.

A 5 second invulnerability (that goes away as soon as the player fires his gun) wouldn't be a huge issue. The problem here is that your character spawns in a few seconds before you take control of them, people can spot you and kill you before you even are fully logged in. To counter-act this flaw with ArmA 2's spawn system, a 5 second invuln period for logins I think is fair. Any more than that would be safe-zoning and that's no good for a game like this. If its not implemented, then take our advice, try to log in safer, remote areas.

Badass, hope Rocket likes it!

5. Yes please X100000 All other suggestions sound good and as someone pointed out there is a "surrender" option.

I say YES to taking out the bandit skin. It will make things even more difficult to determine who is friendly. I love the tension and stress this game creates and I want more gimme more!!! You could give the ability to change to different skins at will As The Lamer suggested above me.

I am on the fence, it would be nice to have different characters for different profiles; one for playing with my buddies, another for playing when they aren't around. However, I am concerned about the server load AND the amount of exploits it opens the game up to. Tough call. I would say it would be better to keep it as is, and the OP can find a way to have fun while his friends are offline (patrolling the surrounding areas, etc. That's what I did when we held NW airfield a bit.)

Thanks! It can be annoying, but with the emphasis on realism and items in DayZ I personally feel that it fits.