Goatwitz

I sort of get your point but in the current state of the game survival is fairly easy and families do not exist. I think you're thinking a bit too realistically while I wouldn't disagree that I'm thinking of this as too video-game-ey. There is a happy medium there somewhere though.

Unless there has been some apocalypse that happened and I missed it I'm pretty sure you have no more expertise in the matter than anybody else. This zombiepocalypse is occurring in a world that used to have policemen. Policemen already risk their lives to punish criminals so after they had enough supplies to live comfortably why wouldn't they do so after the downfall of civilization? And everybody's points about the minimal effects this mechanic would have on the game are valid, I agree. It is just a suggestion I wanted to make and maybe some more creative people than I could improve on it.

Hunting bandits is exactly what I am proposing. I don't think that there should be any skin changes or anything like that. People do hunt criminals in real life and I would definitely do it in the game. This mechanic would add more to the game in terms of pvp. After you have enough food and water and guns you could become a vigilante rather than a bored bandit.

I agree people would probably just server hop. And I fully understand the point of the game and that's why I wanted to come up with a realistic way to punish bandits as they would be punished for banditry in the real world.

Most of the ideas to reduce the amount of banditry seem very unrealistic and video-game-ey to me so here's my two cents. If someone was hanging around a certain building or small area and murdering and stealing from people, word would spread and some justice minded individuals would try to punish them. Now this is already something we can do in game; we can complain when we are killed and hope someone will avenge us or avenge ourselves. I think that if you make a drop that is just a simple note that warns against going to a certain area due to murders and thievery it would increase the number of vigilantes who try to punish bandits. Some may disagree but to me it seems pretty realistic that if an area was dangerous some well meaning individuals would try to warn others against going there. Think of wanted posters in the wild west. Of course this should be done mainly through chat or radios (when they are added) but since we don't have the in game option of posting a notice the devs could help push this idea along with random drops. So, for example, if a player kills 5 people around a certain area of Cherno a note may randomly drop throughout the map that warns players of that area. And the note would stop appearing after murders stop occurring for some amount of time. I have no idea if this is possible to implement but it seems like a decent idea to me.