pillock

I have been 1-shot 3 times by zombies when on full health, also been 2 shot a few times, had gear ruined occasionally. But the vast majority of the time, zombie hits do nothing at all; bleeding about maybe 1/3 of the time. Doesn't matter how fast the zombies are. You can dance around them, just don't get caught in front of them when they take a swing. Then move in and punch their head. Average for me is about 3 knock-downs, then they're dead. I don't bother with a melee weapon on this version - they're pointless. Shotgun is good if there are several of them on you at once, but you have to run away to a new location pretty quick after they're dead so the endless respawns can't find you.

Besides stuff they've confirmed like vehicles, barricading, camp building, storage, etc... 1)Really deep, complex health, injury and stamina mechanics. So it's not just "Dead/Unconscious", but a range of injuries that can be treated and nursed. Lengthy recovery times for injuries, and effects accordingly to your movement capability and nutritional intake (for illnesses). More detailed wound dressings that you have to maintain. Stuff like that. Make looking after your character's health your no.1 priority. 2) more realistic inventory system - separate pockets, rather than large, linked "slots" that we have now. Factor in weight and bulk and make it affect your dexterity and stamina, etc. So if you want to gunfight, you have go light to be more effective. Make it so you can't carry rifles or melee weapons on your back unless you have crafted a strap. More craftable bags, pouches, etc. in general. 3) better melee combat, so it's more static and not 2 guys sprinting circles round each other like some sort of fucked up game of tag. And fix the damage values so other weapons besides axes are actually useful (and fists aren't so stupidly powerful). 4) More plentiful and different types of radios, so you can make contact with randoms in your server more easily and at a much bigger range. 5) Padlocks and chains so you can secure doors (could be breakable with hacksaw or axe or whatever) 6) boobie-traps (combine with lockable doors, as above, to discourage people from nicking stuff you are trying to store!) EDIT: sorry, you said "top 5"! er... 5 and 6 are the same item, so yeah, that's only 5, really.

Well, that's one thing. But the fact that you don't even need rocks in the first place to build a fire is another; then couple that with the fact that you can only get said rocks from bizarre places like the downstairs toilet of a cafe or some such - that would just take the piss. I'd rather there were no campfires in the game at all than have stupid no-sense shit like that. I just hope they've thought it through.

Servers with short reset times are the biggest off-piss in the game for me. The only way you can play on a full-ish server is to join one that will chuck you out and ruin your fun within the hour. I dislike server resets more than I dislike glitching zombies.

Yeah, I had to manually set the key for throwing. It's pointless right now, mind - throwing stuff doesn't actually have any purpose... and rotten tomatoes can clip through walls.

If we have to search in kitchens and bedroom wardrobes to find stones to build a campfire in the woods, it'll be the stupidest design decision in the history of computer games.

Do you have cushions where you're from?

is twitter account a person? (sorry, not funny any more, I know.)

Are we really expecting to get functioning campfires, cooking, hunting, and the AKM all in the next update? Is twitter a person?

Yes, but first impressions do count! I have actively experimented with this, I think there is a genuine difference in people's attitude when you stay at a low-gear appearance.

I've been doing this. The best way to appear unthreatening, in my experience, is NEVER to carry a backpack of any kind and certainly never carry a visible weapon. You can walk around Berezino and Svetlo relatively unmolested, because people tend to think you're a new spawn. They don't know you've got a sawn-off in your rider jacket, and your cargoes are full of reload clips and ammo. If you carry an SKS, even if it's on your back, too many people shoot before asking questions; if you appear to be unarmed (no back-pack makes this more likely), you are much more likely to get friendly interactions. I've done it: it works, I swear. All the non-combat-orientated player ever really needs to carry is: a gun (just in case!); some ammo for it (not much - 1 or 2 stacks - it's easy to pick up more on your travels), a can opener (or equivalent), bandages (maybe some morphine in case of accidents/glitches); binoculars are quite useful too, and I like to carry the in-game map because it's cool. You don't need a melee weapon, because you can kill a zombie in 3 punches (or shoot it). And you don't need a rifle unless you are actively looking for gunfights. You don't need to carry food ever - just eat what you find where you find it. You don't need a canteen. Walking makes you appear less threatening than running, I also find, and it also makes it easier to observe your surroundings. When you leave town for a yomp in-land, by all means find a backpack and put some supplies in for the journey - but in the high-traffic coastal places, you're safer without one. (Hopefully this changes soon, because it's a bit silly how easy it is to survive with virtually no kit at all - you could probably live forever with just a can opener and some rags, as long as you steered clear of the "competitive" bits of the map).

I don't see what the negative outcomes there have been of releasing the alpha to the public when it was. By doing this, they have made a shitload of money, which will help BiS (and maybe enable the execs to buy themselves new Porsches or whatever), and also enabled them to speed up development of the game by hiring a large number of new staff to work on it, which is good for them and us. Also, by achieving the level of coverage and exposure, there is now more incentive - if they needed extra to begin with - for the developers to get the game right. If it was a minor title which only a handful of fanatics knew about, it could be allowed to fail without major reputational consequences for the developers and publishers. But it isn't: DayZ is massive now. It'll be a massive embarrassment if it flops now, or fails to realise what's been promised. And that is also good for us punters. It's not a guarantee, but I think it counts for something.

It's not that much of a gamble. It was only £20. I think I've got that much value out of the game already. I've pre-ordered some games in the past for more money than this, and they have turned out to be fucking terrible - and finished products without much further development.

I agree that an open-access, paid-for public alpha does have a responsibility to its customers to keep the latest version in a playable state. But, I also think DayZ currently fulfils this responsibility and is perfectly playable. The fact that fists are OP doesn't actually matter that much to me at this point. It is pretty silly, I'll admit, but the results can be quite amusing. As long as they DO actually balance it properly later on, it's fine. Given how shit the melee combat is in general, I don't think that fixing the wonky damage values is particularly urgent. They do need to completely overhaul the physics for melee combat and player movement, otherwise the finished product will look pretty amateurish compared to its competition - and in a full-price standalone game, that isn't acceptable. But I don't mind if they aren't doing it right now, as long as some content in some area of the game does keep coming. And it is. So I think it's fine. Yeah.

It's not an issue of whether the improvised pack looks more or less threatening than a Taloon; the problem with using it is that other people think it looks cool, and they want it off of you!

It looks a lot like a man eating dogfood while pointlessly wearing a high-vis vest on a boat in the middle of a flooded town. Crazy Russians.

5 : 5 is the fastest way to get killed I've ever seen.

What an absolutely fascinating discussion this is. Please continue.

I'm honestly not trying to be a smart-arse, here. Just wanted to make that clear before I talk about grammar! If the message you received said what you quoted, word-for-word, then I think a server admin has fucked with you somehow. Because of this: "Your character have been resetted" is very badly composed English. If that is a direct, word-for-word quote, then I find it very unlikely that it came from an official source like BattleEye - they are professionals, and they wouldn't put a sentence like that in their product. I realise these things aren't always easy to spot for non-native speakers, and the grammar isn't always perfect in the genuine in-game messages, either, but knowing your verb conjugations can actually give you a clue as to the authenticity of things like this, sometimes!

I was wandering through the woods to the north-west of Polana just now when I heard a noise; I looked round and there's 4 zombies running at me. Four! All together in a gang. What the hell are they doing so far out in the boonies like that? I had to take the bloody sawn-off to them (chambered Amphibia would've been too fiddly, I figured, and I've got fed up with the tedious boxing matches. Is there a magazine for the amphibia? I don't think I've ever come across one, if there is.)

The lad Dean Hall pronounces it "Die-Zay". I've seen him do it. Heard him.

Keenly anticipating the introduction of shepherds' crooks as a melee weapon, then. And I want an animation so I can use it as a walking stick! Herding sheep ought to be an amusing mini-game distraction.

Zeds are fine? Are you off your head? Pablo: don't run away from them, run around them. Just jog in circles, they won't touch you. Get used to their patterns of movement and lunging. This doesn't take long. I've been running around Berezino herding up groups of 6,7,8 zombies, and just playing with them. Once you get the hang of the way they move, they become VERY easy to avoid. After this, you can pretty much get on with your business undisturbed by them, even if they are trying to chase you.

I think you're pretty much fucked if a bear starts chasing you. Zig-zag all you like, those fuckers can run at 40mph!

I don't understand some of the logic being applied here. Why is it beneficial to the balance of the gameplay that you can fit 5 fire axes in one hunter backpack? The answer is: it isn't. This sort of thing does need to be changed: it's stupid, and it doesn't make sense. But it's not a terribly urgent matter right now - I'll concede that.