StonedProphet

So I have been playing a long while now, took break, and came back for 0.51. Before anyone tells at me for searching the forums first, I did that, thought if I missed a post explaining this please let me know. As far as I can tell, persistence on severs with that active will spawn loot ONE single time on Wednesday at restart and that loot will exist thee for a week. This loot can be moved, taken off the server by players, stockpiled by multiple players in ANY location. Loot can be brought in from other servers, persistent or not, as long as they are transported by a player and dropped somewhere on a persistent server. Said loot will remain where it is THROUGHOUT any regular server restart intervals and no new loot will spawn until the week is up and everything is reset that you don't have on your character. You can revisit multiple severs with persistence enabled and have multiple sites through these servers where you can store loot and return to it for that entire week where it will remain unless it is found by another player and taken. Is this accurate? This is what I have seen.

Anyone can get shot anytime for looking like anything. For gods sake this game is about survival and people kill to survive. I have had the same character for 4 weeks now playing on all different servers. I've only ever killed 3 people and i almost died about twice that amount. Right now my hobby is collecting handcuffs and walkie talkie's, which I will use to scare the crap out of some poor people after setting them up in a high traffic area and then blasting something crazy like Hendrix or Orsen Wells War Of The Worlds. https://www.dropbox.com/s/rwjrvj4x620q5lr/2014-02-14_00004.jpg https://www.dropbox.com/s/mim9byg1ogw9sit/2014-02-13_00018.jpg

I could honestly care less if 2 people read this. I hope some of the people that have complained or were thinking about these things would understand some basic realities of this game. I would never complain about other peoples style of play and choices made in a game where there are no rules and no one to enforce them if there were any. I don't go around killing people but I won't be mad if I get killed or shot at. That's what makes the game fun. Play the game the way it is or don't play at all. And yes, it could be viewed as a post complaining about people who complain, but honestly the post itself was to point out certain facts about how to view the game as a whole and not to rant about peoples complaining posts. Anyone can say whatever they want, but they shouldn't be yelled at for it. They should be redirected with alternative opinions that have contrasting view that show the game and certain play styles in a way that can be understood. All I want is for game improvement and to enjoy myself playing, even if that means getting killed 3 times after I keep spawning. Either way, you make the game what it is by simply playing it.

Listen people. I've got my own set of kids and wife IRL and have a limited time to play. And yes, I have games like BF4, X-Com EW, Hitman Abs, and all manner of other games on 360. So I could easily thrown my hands up and say "why would I play a half broken game in alpha that I can't even stay alive long enough to have a decent amount of fun in?". But I don't say that, and will never. Why? 1) This isn't a game, it's more like a giant ongoing interactive testing/development process that just so happens to include a couple hundred thousand testers. And only approximately 10 or so developers. We should just be happy the game functions well enough for it to work on this scale at all. We should continue to provide MEANINGFUL bugs and issues with the game that will help improve the gameplay and stability of the overall experience. Not say "Yo, whenz they gonna adds da rockets?! My character iz no workins right! I keeps on dyins when I am runnin arounds!" Not that many people are ACTUALLY saying these exact phrases or implying them ALL the time, but I'm sure you get my intended point. It is human nature to be focused on the negative. We are bred to identify problems and fix them, and if we can not fix them, we whine about them. Our job as players of this game should be to help make it better with positive feedback and tips to fellow players and present information on game breaking bugs to the community and devs. With such a small team working this project and such a huge, immediate install base, it is no wonder that people will get frustrated. Not everyone is going to have a consistent experience in terms of connection issues, bugs, and player interactions. The idea, while somewhat game breaking, that our character can migrate from sever to server, keeping its character data and inventory saved on the central "hive" server is an achievement alone and will, obviously, not always work as intended. 2)There are no rules. Did anyone see any rules posted or enforced, other than those by individual admins or personal severs? No? Me neither. I see a giant, open ended, persistent world where the only goal is survival. Does it say how you survive? No. Sure, we could all be good little players, never shoot anyone and take there stuff, hand out food and meds to anyone we meet. But why? Does that happen in real life? If the intention was for everyone to be working together then there would be a friendly fire option and it would forced upon us. Can people just shoot someone and take there stuff, or not, and log out and back into another sever and repeat the process? Absolutely. It's annoying, and unfortunate, and I'm sure will be dealt with in some way down the line, but right now it's part of the experience. Deal with it. "But what if I don't want to deal with it and it's destroying my experience?" Well then there are 100's of other servers to try. Or, how about this. STOP PLAYING until you are satisfied that some things are fixed. Just like any other open world game where PvP is active, you will have to deal with issues like this. If you don't like it, don't play it. KoS is not so much an "issue" as it is a personality type and play style. Again, there are no rules and if KoS means survival to some people, then that is their choice and their right at this point in the games development cycle. There plenty of other games out there that provide some sort if similar experience without this issue. From my humble perspective, the idea of KoS, "Bandits" or whatever is what makes the game tense, interesting , unique, and fun. There is always an inherent sense of danger everywhere you go. When you see something move, you freeze. If it's a player, you start to sweat bullets. Does he/she have a gun? Are they alone? Am I alone? Is someone watching me right now? I mean for the love of god, the game BREEDS that kind if experience. As the game continues to improve and evolve, those confrontations will become more impactful and enjoyable for everyone. Remember, this is permadeath. You die, you start over, unless you have friends with defibs with you, which isn't even proven to work all the time or at all. Hey! Just like real life! Those of you constantly complaining about these issues, getting shot, hacked, mugged, etc...; just remember if this keeps happening to you, you are doing something to make it happen. Not every single server is filled with people KoSing everyone they see, so maybe it's you that is allowing it to happen. Maybe you were running across the airfield in broad daylight when you joined a server that has 30 people on it. Maybe you didn't know that people camp out at airfields to spam loot drops and kill people for their shit. Well, no you know, and if you keep going there and doing the same things, them it's your own fault. This game is unforgiving and has a learning curve akin to any survival game or scenario. If your playing COD or a shooter online and you constantly go one route and get killed every time, do you yell at the screen and shout profanities? Sure, but maybe u should learn something from what you're doing. Same thing here. You have options, so use them. The map is HUGE and the closest airfield might not be the best option if there are a ton of other people on the same server. 3) "Whats the point of this game? I just walk around and get stuff like shoes and wrenches!" That's the whole point! Don't drop those wrenches! On some servers, they are the most basic form of commerce and should be treated like gold! Wrenches and gray t-shirts! Ok, seriously though, there is no specific goal other than seeing how long you can last. I mean, hey, it's a zombie apocalypse! Should we be meeting elves and wizards and going on side quests? Hell no. Let's just say we had an actual z-apocalypse, and this was 4 years later. Towns have been looted. Buildings destroyed, no gas for cars, no power, limited water? Sorry, that sound pretty plausible to me. If anything this game is more of a simulator than an actual action/rpg/stealth game. If you look at all the little details of the game, most of it is exactly what could happen in real life. There would be canned food, limited sources of water, no cars, limited weapons, etc... You want goals? Well, this game doesn't have any specific ones so make them for yourself. Pull up a map online and find some landmarks. Hike your way north. Find a castle. Get to the highest point on the map. If you have friends who play with you, take over a town. It's basically a sandbox that you can play how you want, but always with the constant threat of zombie attacks and player attacks. Don't like such an open ended game? Again, DONT PLAY. In closing, there are many issues with the game as a whole that sometimes limit it's playability. There many features some of us want to see, and some that are already being worked on. This is an experience where we are able to craft our own story and discover how to survive and make things. Did u know you can fix a broken leg with sticks and either duct tape or bandages? Many of you did, but little things like that are what make this game great. And they will continue to evolve, and luckily with input from us as the testers. Yes we paid money for this game, but we are lucky to be involved with the process as much as we are now and to have a dev team that is so interactive and receptive. Stop complaining about things you can't change or that everyone already knows about. Look before you post. This is an alpha and when something doesn't work, we need to remember that fact.

I experienced much the same thing as well. I did find loot in the barracks though on a couple different severs. There much be a conflict somewhere where loot is not spawning in specic places. I can understand how lower loot drops for weapons would be a positive thing (as is was said, making having weapons a more rare thing) but there seems to be something a little wrong. I mean, there is a lot wrong in terms of basic functionality (character wipes or old characters coming back in some sort of weird time travel). And I noticed that basically EVERYONE was waiting for servers to reset (now that the actual time is shown in server browser) and is basically server hopping to find all the new stuff. That may have had something to do with recent issues. I am also noticing the majority of the servers are now set to night time. I am guessing that should be an opprobrium for the server admin, so I am unsire if this is another conflict program wise or if everyone love to run around with their game all the way up. I'm sure the Dev team has been made aware of these issues. I also saw that Dean made a point to let me or whomever know about which severs are having connection issues and name them by ip or name. Again, the more we can help by giving information needed, the faster these issues will be fixed.

It really seems like there are a bunch of little and big things that we are all having issues with. I've had sever connection issues for a while and have lost characters multiple times. Recently I have experienced the same issue that others have had with deleted. Haracters and respawning as a freshie, and then I would switch to other servers and would have an old character be there fully loaded from a week ago that I am sure had died. As has been said before, there are obviously issues other the new patch and server communication and their save/load function. The best thing we can do is just bug test the crap out of it and post our experiences, which seems like what is happening save all this other petty crap. This is and ALPHA! For all intents and purposes, we are all a big bug testing group for the dev team. This is a persistent, online, open world game with a main server trying to keep millions of individual save data and trying to seamlessly transfer it over any server. The fact that you can even NOW just log out and back in on a different server and be in the same place with all your gear was impressive enough. These servers aren't being run by one main company/production team. They are hosted and spread out over the world with different settings, time zones, names, etc. the logistics of a of this combined is a lot to handle, yet people complain that they can't find an m4 or why are there new soda's and the zombies still walkthrough doors? Or I lost my character? Come on people, all of us have died and had to re-loot several times now. It's part of the game. We should be happy that we can continue to test this ALPHA out and still have a great time doing it. When shit doesn't work right, we should EXPECT that. Just be happy with what is working and don't complain when things don't. We should all have the expectation that this game is perpetually broken in some way until it's not. The ways it's not broken are the ones we should enjoy and try and make the best of. We all knew what we were getting into when we bought early access to a game still in development. It's it like GtA or COD had ALPHA access programs where the community at large help test out bugs WHILE playing open world multiplayer (well maybe GTA who's MP was like a beta). Let's just post our issues and hope they are tallied and recognized by everyone working hard to make this game better with every patch. Stop bitching about stuff and update with posts about real, consistent issues with gameplay you are having and keep any frustrations to yourself because, not only can nothing be done about it immediately, but it serves no purpose. Our goal should be to but test whilst having a good time playing a game that works well enough for us to actually play it.