BeefBacon

Not super keen on the angle and placement of 'DayZ'. Would be better if it was straight, maybe in that empty gray area above it. Also try zooming in when taking screenshots, or narrowing the FoV. Good start, though. Nice use of vignette and a grungy overlay.

I've not found a single item at any military building, though I've only checked a handful. It's actually quite refreshing. I was running around up north and got shot at with what I think was a repeater. They missed the first shot so I was able to get away. If they'd had a full-auto weapon I wouldn't have stood half a chance. Shots were whizzing past my head as I ran through the village and into the trees. I've never had that experience before and it was incredible. I circled back round to see if I could find the guy but had no luck. Heard some shots go off in the distance and headed that way when the server went down. I'm not against full-auto weapons - certainly not SMGs - but given how powerful they are I think they should be incredibly rare. This wasn't an opinion I held before, but seeing how fun it is fighting with limited ammo against an opponent that can't just spray bullets in your general direction from great range... have to say I love it.

Reminds me a lot of some of FrankieonPCs videos. I have to assume you drew from inspiration from them but that's not a bad thing. Hell, I went back to watch part one. Good work.

All game engines have legacy issues. RV might be a particularly bad example, but the whole point of upgrading the game engine is to iron out the legacy issues to make it easier to add new features and squash bugs. The Source engine still has lines from the Quake engine. When compiling levels, waterindices is calculated which is something that hadn't been relevant in 10 years. In some cases waterindices would cause severe glitches, corrupting maps. Maybe Valve should have just used Unreal engine. No? That'd be stupid? Would it then be equally stupid to switch game engines half way through development to one less suited to an MMO-type architecture to be worked on by devs who have been (largely) working on iterations of their own in-house engine for the past year or two? It would? Well, then.

Small. Silent and uses existing ammunition. I like it.

Found an amphibia next to a magazine. Not found many rifles but I've seen two repeaters, a blaze and a trumpet. Whole load of ammo. Weapons aren't particularly difficult to find if you know where to look. Must be said, though, that I'm yet to find anything in a military building. Either they've all been looted of literally everything or they're not spawning items. I've found more press vests and stab vests this patch than in any other. Of course I'd never seen either before, so that isn't difficult to beat. Must be said I do like the semi-random loot spawns. I never liked knowing which buildings were more-or-less guaranteed to spawn a weapon. I do think that food items and basic supplies such as rope and burlap sacks should be much more common, however. And matches. For the love of God, matches.

Check WebMD. Sounds like a brain tumour. Possibly progeria. Eat some tactical bacon and check back in 3 days.

Liar ;D I like these ideas, especially the notion of reinforcing clothing with leather and other materials. More crafting, and making crafting more important, is a must. At the moment the vast majority of crafting is simply too difficult since they require uncommon materials. By the time you've gathered those materials you've most likely found something better than what said materials would allow you to craft. As such, crafting is of little importance to both geared and ungeared players. More options for freshspawns to make simple backpacks and weapons, and the ability to reinforce clothing and craft utility items once players have enough food and such to keep them going would be stellar. Sheaths and slings I'm not too fond of, unless they serve as a means to store items externally. Players should be able to carry a weapon on their back regardless. Of course if a sling could be crafted very easily (you mentioned rags) then I'd have no problem with it - though a simple sling should perhaps incur a weight or stamina penalty while a proper gun sling would not. And yes, cooking should be far more accessible. I've never been able to cook anything because I simply can't find the 300-or-so components required to cook a steak (if I can even find an animal to kill and have the means to do so). Having a proper setup should confer an advantage, like better cooked food, but cooking food via simple means should certainly be an option.

I give 0.55 a go as a freshspawn. Sound goes a little out of sync after a while, which may have been caused by a server reset or just having Fraps running for too long. I'll have to look into it.

Wait, bags are persistent? Neat.

I like it. The zombies are a bit too tough and loot is a bit too scarce, but I like it. Of course I have the advantage of having a character from .54, so I have access to a few cans of food, a decent weapon and some ammo. I daresay I won't enjoy it quite as much when I'm a freshspawn. But, honestly, I had more fun playing last night than I think I ever have. I was forced to use bullets on zombies and I found that I was actively searching for food rather than just picking it up as I went along. I think once loot starts respawning (and more food spawns in cities and larger villages) and the attack rate and health of zombies is reduced, I'd go so far as to say it'd be spot on. I know that a lot of players on these forums won't be happy until the population of every server is fighting for the last can of beans using only sticks and burlap sacks, but I'd rather see a small increase in food spawns. It seems to me that cities eventually (if they're not already) will become death traps. Being spotted by a single zombie might be enough to force you to run, thereby attracting even more zombies. Perfect, I say. However, what's the point in going in to cities if they spawn virtually nothing? Where's the risk/reward? The chance that the police station hasn't already been looted? Raiding cities, and all the risks associated with it, should be a viable playstyle. I also have a small problem with the 'tech progression' as it were. There seems to be a catch-22. The best way to get food, it seems, is to either farm or hunt. In order to get the necessary tools to farm and hunt one needs access to things like axes and shovels which can only be attained in settlements. This being the case, forcing players inland doesn't really make any sense given that there's no way to make these tools. The ability to make a simple hatchet and a bow out of readily available materials would go a long way towards alleviating this issue. I understand that bow strings can be fashioned from animal guts, but how do you get animal guts if you can't make a bow to kill the animal? If you have animal guts, odds are you have a bow so it seems that there's not much point in being able to make string out of animal guts unless you're in a group. And, of course, the bow itself can only be gathered from a few select (and rare) trees which, unless I'm mistaken, can only be taken using an axe. So this has somehow become a suggestion. I say that simple bows should be fashioned using generic sticks and plant matter. Such a bow would be considerably less effective than the standard improvised bow and would break after a few uses, but it would allow players to hunt. Being able to gather ashwood sticks without an axe, and ashwood trees being more common would help too. The ability to start fires with sticks would also be nice, since matches don't spawn in forests. It's also worth noting that in the three or so hours that I played last night I saw a single chicken. More animal spawns, particularly in dense forests, would be good. Christ, this is a lot longer than I had intended it to be. Yes the game is in alpha, but without knowing what exactly the devs plan to do in terms of the availability of food, making suggestions based on the current state of the game is the best I can do. I'd like to reiterate that I really, really like 0.55. The new zombie AI is quite refreshing, as is the scarcity of loot, but I dread to think how frustrated I'm going to get when I'm back on the beach. tldr; food scarcity and the threat from zombies, while refreshing, seems like a repeated death sentence for anyone unlucky enough to spawn in 5 minutes after everybody else. Freshspawns should have more options when it comes to obtaining food.

Yeah, no worries there. I do agree. I'm not convinced that the devs pay a great deal of attention to the forums. They pop in from time to time but I daresay that there's little that can be said that would incur any change. A better explanation of what the final product might look like would be beneficial. As it stands we have no idea if the scarcity of loot is for testing purposes (like when shoes would degrade very quickly) or if it's something that will be largely unchanged for the rest of the development cycle. I like how open the devs are, but more clarity on the future and what the game might be like in a year or so would be quite nice.

Not a gunfight. Not an epic loot stash. Just two regular people running into each other on some random server. I've not recorded anything from a game before - not at length anyway. That being the case I cocked up and wasn't recording when I should have been. I may or may not upload stuff in future.

Thanks. There are a few shots in there that could be trimmed down, and a couple of important parts were missed out because I'm a scrub when it comes to recording (using a common letter on the keyboard as my record key. Good job) but I'm pretty happy with it. I always thought powdered milk was awful for some reason so I'd usually ignore them. I'll have to hold on to them in future. Well the only reason I didn't kill him after a while (besides actually coming to like the guy) was because I already had plenty of food from 0.54. I let him pick up all the food (though he shared, bless him) since there wasn't much I could do with it given that my inventory was constantly full. Hell, first time I saw him he was afk. I knocked him out to steal his stuff but all he had was an apple and some rags. I thought it'd make a pretty funny video if I were to knock a man out, steal his apple and run away so I let him wake up again. Before I could start recording he was up and about. He kept the apple but it led to, honestly, one of the most enjoyable DayZ experiences I've ever had so I'm pretty happy with that tradeoff. I was hesitant to give him ammo, though I did give him a few rounds since it'd be pretty dick saying "I have plenty of .22 ammo but you can't have any". He also led me to a stab vest which is an item I'd never seen before, so I became a bit more trusting.

So what you're saying is that we're playing a game, and that said game is absolutely representative of the final product that has already been in development for 5 years? YOU HAVE TO BE MORE CLEAR, HICKS. I've got absolute faith that DayZ will be all it was meant to be when it is released. I've been playing Standalone since it first came out, but I've barely got 100 hours in (which pales in comparison to the 1000+ hours some people have). I like to leave DayZ for a few months and come back to see all the cool new stuff before having a break again. That might be why the atmosphere of DayZ is still there for me. Sure, I can think of improvements, but I daresay many of these improvements are already being developed or are planned. So I'm perfectly happy coming back to DayZ every couple of months, because almost every aspect of it improves every time I do. ...also I primarily play on 1pp servers, so I don't doubt that helps immensely in terms of atmosphere, but that's beside the point. *sheer

I just don't think it'd work in practice. It's a really cool idea and it'd make for some neat scenarios but I can't see it working outside of a few specific circumstances. But as I say, having to rest your player by sitting down for a little while would be really nice. It's something I do anyway in order to get my breath back, as well as to survey a nearby settlement with binoculars or a LRS, but it'd be cool if it became more ingrained with how people play the game - on the same or similar level as food and water. And you were very gracious. I feel I may have been a little aggressive in my response ;D no worries, though.

I like the SKS. Not long ago I had 10 rounds loaded, an extra 10 in a stripper clip and then another 4 rounds loose. It's enough ammo, and would do me well in a pinch, but I couldn't go around shooting zombies and deer all willy nilly. It was important to conserve ammunition. Then I looted a barracks. I found a couple of guns and an assault vest, the usual stuff, but I also found two 30rnd AK mags and a 75rnd drum. A rummage through a single building got me from 24 rounds to 159. Excuse me while I go kill everyone on the server 3 times and still have some spare. Magazines having some ammo is absolutely fine, and I've no problem with small magazines (pistols, for example) being full or mostly full, but when there are 30rnd and 75rnd magazines, any ammo conservation becomes pointless. It takes a lot away from the game in my humble opinion. The same goes for boxes of ammo. Finding 20 rounds of mosin or SKS ammo can set a player up for life if they're careful with it. That being the case I propose that either boxes of ammo become far, far less common or that they contain a random amount of ammo. You don't know if you've got cobwebs or a magazine's worth until you empty the box. Ideally (and I've said this before in other threads) ammo boxes will be extremely rare, but loose ammo will become extremely common. It should be relatively easy to find, say 1- 5 rounds at a time, but you'll be unlikely to find anything in bulk. Players would have to work harder for their ammo and, ultimately, would probably have less making for a tenser experience. Of course I realise that loot hasn't been balanced yet, but it's a thought I wanted to express.

Gameplay has to trump realism, though. In reality armories are filled with rack upon rack of guns, but to include that in the game would be detrimental. I'm not against finding the occasional box of ammo, but it seems that boxes are at least as common as loose ammo which shouldn't really be the case. Bulk .22 and even shotgun shells is something I have less of a problem with (especially .22) as it would encourage players to use those weapons over more powerful ones for which ammunition is less available. As it stands I'm able to ditch my sporter (if I even bother picking one up) because I know that I can very easily find a mosin and several boxes of ammo by looking in the right buildings - which sort of links in to another thread.

Yeah that's fair. I suppose faster zombies are usually weaker while slow ones are usually tougher. Fast, tough zombies sounds like a nightmare ;D a fun nightmare, mind, provided it's not too difficult to get away from them or - better - hide. In either case (back on topic) it'd be better if we couldn't find ammunition in such large quantities. I'm fine with a large amount of ammo being dispersed over a wide area, but I'm not such a fan of instantly finding 75 rounds for the same gun.

I disagree that zombies should be difficult to kill. They should be extremely easy to kill. Their strength, however, should be in numbers. You average survivor should be able to engage small groups in melee, but should be easily overwhelmed once they're facing more than, say, 5 at once. Individually they should be very easy to kill, just so freshspawns aren't screwed if they happen to pick up a straggler. Also, I'm hoping the melee combat system will be improved immensely. No doubt it will be.

They spawn crap mostly. I seem to recall occasionally finding basic ammo as well as tents and semi-decent clothing items but that might not be true. Tents definitely. But yes, being able to find ammunition and simple rifles as well as items like hunter backpacks would be really nice.

True, but it still bears discussion.

Attaching wheels to the legs of player characters seems like an extreme solution. I like it. RO2 is one of my favourite games. The combat and movement is superb. I hear the devs will be addressing sprinting speed relatively soon, so hopefully an interia system like this will come into play.

And you're one of those types. The type of person who takes comments out of context and likes to sit on their limping high horse. The guns comment was related to Fallout 3. Not DayZ. If you've played Fallout 3 you'll realise that it's very combat heavy. You'll also realise that there is an extremely limited variety of weapons for such a large open world game that is combat and action-oriented, and is also heavily related to RPGs which often (not always) emphasize upgrading weapons and armour gradually rather than being limited to two or three armour types for most of the game. You'll also notice that when mentioning the Fallout 3 mod I put emphasis on the fact that it makes the game more difficult by introducing survival elements. That it adds more weapons and armour was an afterthought which you chose to pick out. Now on to my comments about rest. If I go to sleep then I can be woken up. If I get up to make some tea then I can't wake up. If I don't get up to make some tea then I get to stare at a blank screen. Now, I'm not a game developer but I'm pretty sure that any mechanic that requires extended periods of doing literally nothing isn't conducive to engaging gameplay. I do, however, like the idea of being required to sit down for a minute or two after running any considerable distance. You can watch your surroundings, make a fire, eat, do whatever and then move on. You say that it's a good opportunity to get some work done. I think it's an even better opportunity when 'sleeping' players are actually playing the game. So. Because I installed a mod for a different game that actually makes that game harder, and I don't believe that players should be periodically forced to sit out of the game for extended periods to satisfy a need that could be satisfied in a way that enables players to actually continue playing that makes me some pvp 'kid'. I could just as easily call you a mobile game enthusiast who loves the idea of making the player not actually play the game. Mine one gem every 24 hours OR pay £1.99 and mine 100 right away! I could make that comparison, and I would be justified in doing so - by your standards at least. I won't, though, because I'm not a dick.

Rest is fine. Sitting down for a minute after a run to catch your breath is good. I'm not interested in staring at a black screen for five minutes, however. I could go make a cup of tea, but that leaves me completely defenceless. No sleep. New Vegas had a wait function. 8 hours' sleep was condensed into 8 seconds. I can assure you you wouldn't think the mechanic was so fun if you had to wait 5 minutes. Having said that, I did enjoy hardcore mode. Also installed a mod for Fallout 3 that adds a similar system called Wanderer's Edition, so take a look at that if you're interested. Also adds a bunch more guns and armour types.