deepfried

yes I agree. the bandit skin is an artificial contrivance but its a small dose of unrealism to foster much more realistic gameplay overall. There is nothing realistic about the giant deathmatch the game has become. In real life the penalty for screwing up is death, the penalty in the game is lose your gear and respawn: with that disparity in risk/reward this game will NEVER be a realistic survival simulator... to even get close you have to introduce artificial mechanics.

I'm not so sure and I really don't think we want regenerating health. One of the main compelling aspects of the game is survival, if you can regain health by just hiding under a bush for a while then 90% of that mechanic is gone. Anyway, as it is its still very easy to stay at full health or get to full health, provided you have the precious matches of course :) However I do agree that zombie attacks should be less likely to cause bleeding, though perhaps more out right damaging to compensate.

just allow people to setup a group in the lobby and spawn together. no big deal.

Edit: Clarification: bandits and survivors should be different side only for side channel purposes, everything else same as now Any segregation or detectable difference between survivors and bandits is going to be artificial and contrived, and will to a degree run counter to the game's ethos. However I think we need to do something along those lines for the sake of gameplay. My suggestion is this, make bandits and survivors different sides, then combine that with another idea I read on the forum: 2-way radios as findable equipment. The 2-way radio once found will give you access to the side channel, your side being bandit or survivor as appropriate. This will allow survivors to team up and cooperate in relative safety, and it will also allow bandits to do the same, though with the obvious increased danger of meeting up with other bandits. Many people will hate this idea, but I'm pretty sure it will make the game more fun and IMO should at least be trialled in alpha. Thoughts?

I realise that, but I don't imagine for a second that its impossible to reverse that change, and believe me once we hit 1.7.1 and all the current non beta players suddenly find the side channel gone, you'll be seeing more than a few of them turn up here complaining. Its just a suggestion anyway, if the dayZ devs really don't want a side channel then we wont have one, cool, doesn't mean there is no point discussing options though. As opposed to a huge DM? might be an improvement.

sorry OP this is a stupid idea. Go play COD if thats what you want.

5 seconds should be fine, what I would me more interested to see however is a fix for the server jumping exploit. Here is a suggestion: If someone disconnects from server A, fine, no penalty, they can connect right back in. However if they disconnect and then connect to server B, they should be banned from reconnecting to server A for 10 minutes. Will fix the problem at a stroke.

The OP is well reasoned and has sensible suggestions. However I don't necessarily think this is where DayZ should go, there is something to be said for unadulterated survival sim, where your only defence against being back stabbed is your own wits and caution. Still, I would like to see things like this tried in alpha, after all we cant know what will work until we try it.

How about music cues? different ambient music if there is a bandit nearby. something edgy presumably.

If they make it a full standalone game with the budget and development staff that entails then I would pay as much as for any other game. As a limited mod however it is DLC territory at best. Something else to bear in mind, tens of thousands of people have already bought Arma 2/OA just to play this mod... asking them to pay again wont be received well.

traps is a terrible idea... just think of the endless griefing!!!

I like playing at night provided there is a moon or its dawn/dusk. Sometimes its so pitch black I may as well switch my monitor off and that's not really practical - and no, im not going to light myself up like a xmas tree with flares/cemlights/flashlight as i'd rather not be a gigantic target for every bandit in 1km radius.

its at least worth trying to see how it works out. IMO we need something like this.

Its just Arma 2 from what i've been able to work out, I have a pretty good PC but to get playable frame rates in Arma 2 or DayZ I have to turn the graphics to low/med, and even then I still get horrendous rates in some circumstances (I think there are some server side bugs).

Maybe its just me, but the last supermarket I went in had a PDW, a 1911, and a beretta. no matches. I have scoured every town on the map and only found 2 boxes of matches in about 30 hours play.

What if your server is offline or full?

I agree 100%, we need some sort of global channel or the game gets a bit boring IMO. At least it should be up to the server admins to choose, and thus players to choose which server they go on. I'm all for realism in a survival sim, but some small concessions need to be made for gamplay purposes and I think this is one.

This is a good idea but probably hard to implement in a mod. thumbs up for the idea though.

I found an mp5sd once and a couple of clips for it, very useful but I had to dump it as I didn't find any more clips. That seems a reasonable scenario to me, just make sure that SD ammo and SD guns are truly rare (even in military base) and the rest will take care of itself - i.e. people will use them briefly then dump them when they run out of ammo.

I meant different sides only for side channel purpose, I have added clarification to OP and title. You would not be able to tell a survivor from a bandit in lobby or any other way than talking to them in the side channel - which you would need a radio to be able to do.

You say that but consider how many guns you have found compared to how many boxes of matches, then just think about the realistic relative rarity of those two items.

I agree with the walkie-talkie suggestion but it think it should enable side channel rather than global, and bandits and survivors should be on different sides for the purpose of the side channel (and only that purpose). That way survivors can chat to each without bandits listening in, and it also helps survivors trust each other and group up. If not side channel then group channel with different groups as different frequencies.

I'll third the matches comment, matches ought to be common, and so should hunting knives for that matter. Lets face it they are common, most people have matches or a lighter somewhere in their house and everyone has a knife of some description, even if its only a small kitchen knife.

I would suggest disabling all normal side functionality (crosshair text etc) apart from the side channel.