Never

You'd need a lot more than a gasmask.

*Giggle* Sorry, carry on.

I think Its a performance issue. The old video showing the 'new' pathfinding looked interesting, but i'm guessing that the constant recalculation of all those 'waypoints' for each zombie as it reacts to your movements adds to the load on the server, times that by X amount of zombies chasing Y amount of players in different places around the map it adds up. Then also you have the fact that most things are being dealt with server side, the load is most likely getting daft.

I personally don't think thats strictly true to be fair. Although you have to address the two points of 'mature' & 'not so casual' separately. Its true that consoles mainly appeal to younger less tech-savvy people, but there are still some mature gamers that are console-based, and you only have to glance over some PC gamer forums to see that many are completely capable of acting like a child as well. Also there are some PS & Xbox players and clans that take it VERY seriously. Often to the point of stupidity granted. Just pointing out a sweeping generalization like that isn't really useful, or true.

Even though you'd be pressed to find one that doesn't spoonfeed you while giving you a handjob.

Yeah its pretty much that. Thing is, DayZ sounds great on paper, but when you try to introduce any kind of 'endgame' you hit the huge stumbling block that any kind of 'permanence' basically breaks the game structure fundamentally.. Say we distill DayZ down to its main two goals, Primary, and Secondary: Primary goals: Scavenge, Stay alive, Keep moving. Secondary goals (aka 'Endgame'.): Car/Vehicle, Stash gear, Tent cities, (eventually) Bases. Looks great at first, but when you examine it more closely, EVERY Secondary goal, apart from one, directly contradicts the Primary goals. The only secondary that doesn't is a vehicle. The main flaw is the loot system. Basically, we are all loot cycling, the effectively endless supplies provided by the loot system as it stands removes the need for nomadism totally. Where does all this stuff come from? Why is there a permanent supply of food/guns/bullets/fuel/etc/etc when there is NO supply chain/commerce/production/etc/etc? Simply put, if you can simply walk in and out of an area repeatedly til you get a favourable spawn you'll get players doing just that and becoming sedentary just like we are seeing. So yeah, I've come to the conclusion that 'permanence' is Dayz Achilles heel. It would be great fun to play knowing that if you do fuck up, that is IT. But in its current run'n're-gear format it makes a mockery of its own main premise. A difficulty i'm sure Hall had realised by know, if he hasn't, oh dear..

Slight shame DayZ isn't like that at all then.

Server hopping and loot spawning are still rife, content is still next to nil.

This and loot cycling is yet another fundamental flaw in the mod. Will it be fixed by standalone? No idea. If it isn't? The standalone will be yet another FPS.

I got bored by the lack of depth or content. Plus the constant bitching and whinging on here made be decide 98% of the players deserved getting shot on sight and having a bus parked on their tent full of duped OP 'sniper rifles'.

Again, pure speculation about a console we know nothing about.

I hate the terms as well but its just descriptive you know?

Hes also flirting with some very big companies very publicly. Its nice for him to have his time in the spotlight, but hes dancing a line of becoming a martyr to his own game you know? Its a shame because he does seem like a nice, straightforward bloke, but it seems he needs to cut back on the public flirting, streamline his ideas instead of throwing more into a already very complex plot, and make a solid foundation that runs tight before waving a unfinished product under the noses of some big dogs. Its great that Sony and Microsoft are interested, but get the a solid & working PC version with some content first before leaking quotes about a possible project thats at least 2 years away. I'd like him to do really well with this, and whatever happens i think he'll produce something interesting, its just the whole project seems to be a bit haphazard at the moment.

See, I think thats Rockets biggest problem with the standalone. Kind of feels like hes still flirting with different areas of what stage in development to go into public alpha, leave it much longer and he'll have lost some followers due to natural attrition, release to early with too thin content and he'll lose more due to lack of depth, the 'first alpha minus vehicles' statement recently for example will be a huge turn off for the not so dedicated. If that happens, the apparent interest from Sony etc will fade (I can't believe hes made a public comment about that already, very foolish) along with the casual gamers wandering to the next 'GTA:Mass Assassins Call of HaloField 4'. Simply put, the public has a 'now gimme gimme' attitude and hes taking to long. We also can't deny that the overly-common 'Private Gankfest DM server DayZ' hasn't attracted and catered for a lot of players that simply aren't into survival Dayz. And the figures that seem to be boggling Rocket right now are made up of a huge number of those players, the data hes getting from right now from the mod is miles away from the game hes making, the mods mutated to something that stands a long way apart from the original and due to that does not reflect the games hes trying to make.

Noones even seen the next gen machines yet so all this console-phobia may well be unfounded. Sony * Microsoft both need to up their technology vastly, in terms of power, detail, graphics etc, I'm sure a box that plays a shiner CoD would sell, but the companies know that the lines are blurring with tech these days so it'll have to offer a very powerful gaming side teamed with some multi-media interface also. Plus a straight PC vs Console comparison is pointless due to the way each use their available resources, a console can make more use of components as its dedicated to gaming, even the benefits of a hardwired OS helps. Even though that doesn't matter because i doubt Dayz will ever take off as a finished product. I'm expecting an 'Alpha' in November, and then another 6-12 months until the standalone has enough content to make it attractive enough for the big console makers to begin to consider it. By which time the PC version will have a 'hardcore' of players but the masses that flooded the mod will have moved on to yet another fad/craze game.