pillock

I am not in favour of developable 'skills', like crafting or medical expertise or mechanics, for character progression. I think that takes the game in the wrong direction. But I do like the idea of physical conditioning. When you start out as a fresh spawn, you ought to be weak and unfit - get tired easily, require sustenance more often, get sick or injured more easily and take longer to recover from it. But players who have looked after their character over a long period of time, keeping them well fed and watered, free of sickness and injury, and not knackered them out too often by constantly running around everywhere - they should be rewarded in the increased physical health of their character. So, you get to turn yourself into hardened survivor who is stronger and fitter, can carry heavier equipment over longer distances, can run longer (and maybe faster?), can recover from sickness more quickly and be less susceptible in the first place, can recover from injury faster, can sustain longer periods of hunger and thirst. I'd like to see much more made out of fatigue, so you have to manage it. Physical exertion tires your survivor, but conditions them - unless you over-exert, in which case it has the opposite effect. This wouldn't be "skill grinding", it would be "training".

Lounging in the flat above a cafe in Berezino earlier, minding my own business, eating me lunch. Suddenly there's footsteps on the stairs, and I look round in time to see a man running at me through the doorway: black jacket, black jeans, black boots, black beanie, black glasses, black splitter-axe. Managed to make it out of the building after getting clobbered once, my vision now fading. I wasn't going to out run him or have time to bandage myself, so I drew out my own axe and turned to face him. I swung and missed, he swung and didn't. Which one of you bastards was it?

I think the timer should count down before you leave the server you were on, not before you join the new one. Sitting in front of a black screen is a pain in the arse, but if you could still have limited vision and sound while you were exiting (simulate going to sleep), you could react if you needed to defend yourself or move - but this would cancel the exit timer. Thereby, you'd have to find somewhere safe to exit, and it'd prevent people vanishing as soon as they got in more trouble than they could deal with. (oh, and I voted to increase the timer)

You already get to improve your character in a small way - you make him/her "healthy". I'd just like to see them run with this idea and give the "health" a bit more depth - make you keep fit, warm and strong in order to perform better in whatever you choose to do with the rest of the game. There needs to be some kind of progression, otherwise there is literally nothing to aim at or work towards - and without some sort of goal ahead of you, I think player numbers will fall off a cliff not very long after the game is finished.

It would be fun to hold someone up, make them take off their backpack, smash the backpack up with an axe, then leave them.

I agree that DayZ isn't a survival game yet. It's a tactical shoot-em-up where you have to find your kit before you fight. Character progression is definitely the way forward. Give us something to work towards and be rewarded with noticeably fitter characters: fresh spawns are pathetic weaklings who need feeding often, get tired quickly and are more susceptible to sickness; hardened survivors can run longer, run faster, carry more kit, hit harder in melee, recover from illness and injury faster... ETC! Building up characters gives players a goal, which adds longevity and brings people back for more.

Never open a can of beans with a kitchen knife, son.

I think when you exit a server, your character should remain in it for the duration of the timer (at LEAST 10 minutes). This simulates your 'settling down to sleep', so you need to find a quiet, safe place to do it. Edit: perhaps you could be allowed to monitor the situation during that time, in case someone spots you, so you could wake up and defend yourself - but then you'd need start the 'settling down' period again from scratch.

I found the Russian Cheat Sheet once, but I couldn't open it. For that matter, I've never been able to figure out how to open and read any book - I just assumed they were 'useless' items included for decoration or something. What am I doing wrong?

I do! As it stands, DayZ is a combat game with some scavenging thrown in. It does need to change focus if it's ever going to have any long-term appeal.

Sound carrying more. I think you should be able to hear gunfire from several miles off, and shouting from much farther away than you can currently. And footsteps, especially if running through a forest or on hard floors - if you want to sneak up on someone, you should have to actually creep. Buff melee weapons. There's a certain threshold above which it doesn't really matter what you hit a human being with. Zombie or player alike, if I whack them in the head with a baseball bat or a wrench or a crowbar, they shouldn't still be standing there - even a helmet shouldn't stop them being knocked over. Axes are the only useful melee weapon at the moment - the rest of them might as well not be in the game. Fatigue. You should not be able to sprint flat out for mile upon mile. At all. And sprinting even a short distance should require you to drink and rest immediately afterwards, or else suffer. You should not be able to jog massive distances with heavy packs on, either, without suffering big penalties. Add vehicles for people who want to get around quickly; but make fuel scarce, while the risk of accidents, inability to negotiate rough terrain and the noise and increased exposure as a target also acting as disincentives. You shouldn't be able to sling the larger weapons over your shoulder unless you have a means to attach them (like rope): you should have to carry them in your hands. Exposure to the elements. The next biggest concern for survivors besides finding food and water is finding shelter. At present, clothes are useful only in terms of how many pockets they have: shoes should affect your feet and by extension your movement capacity; you should have to keep yourself warm or cool, depending on time of day; you should have to keep yourself dry. If not, you should face exhaustion and sickness.