iBane

That's fine and to a certain degree true, but this isn't the argument the OP made at all. My response was specifically related to his/her argument. That being said yes, of course the game has boundaries of what is possible and what isn't...some the result of intentional programming, some the result of the game engine, etc. Every game has limitations and a lifecycle. These realities do not presuppose the game isn't worth playing and is a complete waste of time, which is basically what the OP claimed.

The premise of the OP is flawed and therefore this thread is irrelevant. The premise of the OP works like this: 1) Games are supposed to be fun 2) Fun is achieved by "success," which the OP defines as "accomplishing your goals" 3) But because DayZ is hard and has a "very slim rate of success" it is not fun and cannot ever be fun This seems logical and is if you accept the starting point rooted in the OP's definition of fun and the OP's assumptions about DayZ's ability to convey or allow for fun. However, the definition of fun is "something that provides enjoyment or amusement." There is no mention in this definition of anything related to achieving goals. Fun is a completely dependent term. Fun is entirely dependent on the participants and what gives them amusement or enjoyment. Secondly, DayZ has no explicit goals or objectives. Therefore it's nonsensical to say the game's goals are unreasonable or that because the game's built-in objectives are too hard it isn't and cannot be fun. Even if we decide that, in reality, DayZ has one implicit goal, which is survival, what survival means is totally dependent on the participating players and their choices. For some survival means to live in game for 200 hours and explore the entire map without getting killed. For others survival means lasting long enough to get kitted out and then running to a big city to engage in typically short, but exciting PVP encounters. These are both forms of survival, but are comprised of very different activities and goals. If a player isn't having fun or success trying to accomplish the goals they themselves set, it's not really DayZ's fault. In the end DayZ is a survival sandbox. If you're not having fun you've chosen the wrong play style or objectives. Make better choices, adjust your tactics, find enjoyment in failed attempts, or move on and play something else. The ability to have fun playing DayZ is much more dependent on us than the game. Yes, we must overlook some "alpha shortcomings", but thousands of people are able to overlook these shortcomings and have fun. If you cannot, this says more about you and how you're choosing to play than everybody else. **The OP admits all of this accidentally (proving my point for me) when he/she defines success as " achieving your goals." Unwittingly the OP stumbled on to the flaw in his/her argument. We the players set the goals, not the game.

What you, me, and everyone else is supposed to be doing right now in DayZ SA is finding and reporting bugs, exploits, & glitches, while making recommendations for game improvements from the players perspective. THIS^^^^^^ is the role of a public alpha tester. If you do not want to execute this role then just play it as-is and keep your trap shut or just move along and play something else for a year while development continues. What you are NOT to do is clog up the forums with useless "this game is broken and incomplete" posts. Now, please F.O.A.D.

Info from the Rocket interview by Eurogamer live stream. As usual no one is more transparent and upfront than Dean on the state of development. Some of what is listed below as available is only currently on the experimental branch. This is my documentation of what Dean said in the stream. I've tried to quote rather than interpret so if I've made mistakes, my apologies: Bow and arrows being worked on nowWorking on recoverable arrowsWorking on making getting physics added into the game soon (rag-doll and throwing mechanics)Working on making more world objects available for interaction, such as file cabinets & refrigerators Longer animation will be added to "Eat All" operationAcknowledged collisions need to be worked on to resolve characters not being able to run up hill and so onVehicles would be up for work after hunting & crafting are in - most important thing is to it properly so they must meaningful additions and a big improvement over the modVehicles should be in BEFORE betaBicycles are the first planned vehicleZombie performance has improved and therefore seem more aggressive because their functionality is betterPersistent storage objects - right now being developed. First trial will be with backpacks then work on introducing tents as a next, but not final step. First passes will be simply trial systems. Three AI animals types are planned: Predators (such as wolves), companions (dogs, horses), hunt-able/food animals (deer)NPC animals like Dogs and horses are being worked on - they are working on ownership functionality. Dean admits the pipe wrench is terrible... at the 28:00 min markConsole versions are on the table but no time frame is in place. (Dean confirms he's a PC guy through and through)Barricading and camp creation in the "short to medium term." Dean likes the style used in the Dead Linger. Server persistent structures similar to RUST. Working on binoculars nowWorking on suicide mechanic. You will be able to commit suicide with a weapon you're carryingDisease & heart attacks - disease mechanics are already in game just not turned on. Heart attacks result from actions within the game. You can suffer a heart attack from things like electrical shocks (shocking a conscious person with a defibrillator?)Morality System: they have given some consideration about possibly having a system that makes plausible changes character's appearance based on their recent or historical actions. Will not have a hero-bandit system. Dean was not specific and it was pretty clear this is just something being kicked around as an idea. No definite plans. Footprints are in game, but don't show on all surfacesHave made significant progress on the lighting systemWeather system is functioning properly and is correctly synced with the sky/cloud and lighting systemsCharacter facial customization - will not be completely open-ended where you could upload a picture into the game as it causes performance issues and is exploitable Being damp - lowers body temp and causes increased use of energy. Also degrades equipment. Improving flashlight performanceWorking on new gas lampLight sources: resolving the collision/leaking issues with light sources would be incredibly difficult and largely unusable at the momentServer Files: working on security/control protocolsNew towns and buildings - being worked on all the time and will be part of many major updatesCannibalism is being considered in the future, but need to work on the consequence system of something like thisBanished and Project Zomboid - Dean loves both games - the approach to things like resource acquisition and management in Zomboid as very applicable to DayZNeed to get rid of the slow vault - no situation in which is desirableCurrently in 3-4 week update cycles for stable branch. This should be the expected time frame for updates to Stable branch for the foreseeable futureAmputation - not planned for the medical system at this time???...but Dean didn't rule it out completely. Technical issues will make it difficult because of player skins and animationsLots of weapons are planned. All are being developed from scratch. No copy & pasting from the mod allowed (SKS reload animations are really cool).Updated Info: AK- (74M? or some variant) is being worked on nowBeards - don't want to implement something now that's only applicable for one character type. Too much effort and time to spend on things like this nowNew character heads being worked on - "a lot" of themChainsaws almost ready to be implementedPlan to implement a system to track player stats. Plan to have the information available from the DayZ website. Users will be able to customize what they pull from the database (somewhat unclear what Dean meant exactly)Degradation system: planned for the future at sometime. "Refrigeration" systems mentioned by DeanDampness from sweating seems to be implemented on experimental branch nowPaint-able fire axes should be implemented alreadyWeight-based inventory system is under consideration and would likely be tied to a stamina systemWant to re-do doors and make them physics-based with sounds attached to themDrinkable alcohol products - something they want to doAxes take damage every time you hit something with themMap Updates - no infoScaling loot spawns/tables (loot goes up/down as server population increases/decreases)- something under consideration after loot respawn system is in Repair System - will be possible to recover damaged and ruined items. It will be a SKILL that is acquired with practice. More you do it; the better at it you getYears of content planned for the gameChildren - a lot of work to put them in (MoCap etc) and Dean isn't not super comfortable with a game involving the shooting of kidsFishing - definitely going in; no info as to whenNudity - might go in at some point, but not a priority - would be a low-value content additionBallistics - improvements can certainly be made (impact of weather/wind for example), but works fine for now and fixing bugs take the priority for nowHomage items like Payday Masks - Dean got a lot of grief over them so won't be common or likely for the futureCooking - high priority to get this implemented Barricading - highest priority crafting system at the moment. Dean indicated that cooking, hunting would come after barricadingFriend Identification System (to ID Steam Friends in-game) - not planned. Would likely be left to the modding community and only for non-hardcore servers Melee System - it's clunky, but it's very difficult make it really smooth. Would like to improve it, but focus is improvements to the medical systemParticle System - will be replaced at some point in the future. Will allow for better visuals/animations. Another great thread from LaughingJack with detail from other sources: http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/175596-summary-of-dev-qas-from-streams/ Full video of the Eurogamer Stream with Rocket here:

Okay, it's raining A LOT on the experimental servers; particularly after a restart. Some side effects I've noticed: Some items get damp, but nothing bad seems to result (their conditions don't change.) However, I did have a pair of summer hunter pants that ended-up being ruined and everything in them, but I'm not sure if it was from rain or hits from a couple of zombies. Anyone had rain actually ruin anything for sure?

Chat and use the in-game gestures. This is your best bet for survival communication in-game. Yes, text chat is limited because people don't know the proximity of the person typing whereas if they hear someone over voice, they know they are close. Could you use a soundboard of general commands and phrases though an overlay? Or just shoot them I guess :D

For those who haven't seen or don't have time to watch here is a summary of the devblog from Monday, February 24th 2014 In Active Development - Soon To Release To Experimental Branch: Lightening improvements - flashlights and other lighting sources are being improvedPhysics - throwing items (to another player for their use or at another player to harm them) and ragdoll nearly ready for testing. Containers - making static items in the world like refrigerators and filing cabinets available for player interaction. They will also be able to spawn loot adding complexity to the loot systemBow & Arrows - currently in development and dev testingAnimations - moving to a new system that will allow for much better & precise movements. Greatest impact will be to make the melee system more intuitive and smooth. Map Updates - new buildings, bug & texture fixes. Fixing loot spawns in buildings that don't spawn loot currently, but should.Weather System - basic system in test on the experimental branch now. No impact on the player at this time, but the goal is to make weather a viable threat to the playerMedical System - improved messaging to the player so they understand their actual condition.Hunting and Cooking - big focus for the team. They've hired a special group of new devs who are specifically experienced in making hunting games to do this. They are also tasked with improving the games overall systems for hit detection and collisions. Cooking stoves already in game, but camp fires are coming soon as well. Desynch - probably the largest bug fix focus for the team. They have identified a significant cause of this which relates to server messaging around player inventory items. Hotfixes are in place, but a long term fix of implementing a "guaranteed messaging system for inventory items" is being developed and should be ready in a few weeks. Zombies - respawning system is an active development project. Will come with improvements to zombie path-finding, hit-boxes, and collisions from the hunting dev's work. One of the complexities is how to make the respawning logical. For example if a player has cleared out a town, zombies shouldn't just respawn back in the middle of the street in front of the player. They are working on handling these situations in a way that makes sense from a gameplay perspective, but the problems are complex. Loot Respawn System - in development in parallel with zombie respawn systemPersistent objects - working on making certain storage items persistent (backpacks first) as well as things like barricades and paper. Roll-out Plan: An update to experimental is planned in 2 weeks for one week of testing there before releasing to the stable branch. (This does not include the update rolled-out on February 25th.) Many but likely not all of these items will be ready. Rocket was not specific. Next Steps: Once the things on this list are complete the next focus will be on low-speed vehicles like bicycles and barricading. Faster vehicles like cars would follow the slow vehicles in later updates and will have a complex part system. Items like spark plugs and car batteries will need to be located to make a car operational. Cars will also break down and need to be repaired with items like these. LINK:

Play with friends, try out experimental branch (you can switch back to stable any time), or take a break until some new features come in and play something else for a while.

Hope the stripper clip animation for the SKS that's on experimental means that actual stripper clips are coming soon for the SKS.

No. I've seen some complaints about servers not being able to connect to the central hive though and this will result in your character not being loaded and you starting as a fresh spawn. Best thing to do is log off immediately if this happens and wait. Then try and log on later 10-30 mins and see. Once the hive is back up your character should load normally. HOWEVER, if you stay logged on as a fresh spawn and that server is able to cnotact the central hive you're previous character will be overwritten with your new one.

Didn't see BBbullet's post on this topic. Mods feel free to merge into his.

Bounty hunting is a good and necessary part of DayZ.

Don't fret. Zombie respawn 1.0 is in Experimental now and on to Stable next week (hopefully with some tweaks). Loot respawning should be soon to follow.

Here's an actual stainless Mark III with "integrated suppressor." Pretty close to what's pictured in the Tumblr dev blog link above. That being said, they may have modeled theirs off of a Mark II with "weighted" match barrel. They look very similar.

1)Dean mentioned they were working on a silenced pistol in the Eurogamer livestream posted earlier this week. 2)The picture of the silenced pistol in the Tumblr link above very closely resembles a Ruger MKI, II, or III and appears to have an suppressed barrel. 3)This combined with the comment in the link above that "at the same time we have created new reloads for Ruger MKII" has led me to this conclusion.

SPEAKING OF ZOMBIE AI and COMBAT: I HAVE A QUESTION I have made an observation from recent play on the experimental branch since the respawn was implemented and melee stances were tweaked in version 37. I can shoot a zed with an un-silenced firearm and not aggro zombies in a town, but if I engage one with a fire ax zeds come from all over. Am I imagining things or have you all noticed something similar? Seems like swings or impacts from a fire ax aggros zombies like a gunshot should.

I want a dozen doughnuts and a case of Molsen.

Silenced Ruger MKII pistols inbound in the near future. Current Eximental build version 37... moving to Stable next Wednesday

Here's the link. It's short so no need to summarize: http://dayzdev.tumblr.com/post/78119153354/weekly-report-starting-our-focus-on-survival

Can Opener Crossing; New Beanz

The Last Of Us Can Openers

Can Opener Hunter 2014

I was getting "server cannot connect to central hive" (or something close to that) errors this morning around 3am EST. By 3:30 I was able to join without any issue.

Don't randomly run around the map trying to find people to interact with. Join-up with your steam friends.

One of these -nosplash -skipIntro