voxframe

I have never tried playing with the radios before. Is there a basic "common" channel that everyone uses? I'd hate to spend a ton of effort to use one, only to find out everyone is on the wrong channel. Also what is the battery drain like on these things? Can I just leave it on all the time?

I would report this as a bug directly to the devs. You've outlined the issue very well, and it's a black and white issue to reproduce. Should be easy for them to see and take action on it.

I guess this is related more to what kind of audio setup you're running. I run two large studio monitors as well as a lightweight headset when playing. Usually I keep the headset running fairly low, but the monitors are cranked up quite high and with a lot of low level EQ. This produces a really nice effect of being able to hear very small high noises clearly in the headset, but also to "feel" the ambiance and lower impact noises due to the monitors. ... This does produce a secondary effect that has caught me several times off guard in DayZ and Arma. Sneaking around for most of the time, paying attention to every detail, I find myself turning up the sound frequently. Then I decide to pull out a shotgun or rifle and let it rip, without thinking about the sound level, nearly blowing my headset off in the process. Which does of course, fit beautifully into the immersion aspect of the game. A gun is loud! (duh) So it makes sense that it has a slight spook/jump factor when actually used after a day of quiet stalking. The net effect is usually a handful of startled "Holy shit!"s from myself and anyone nearby lol. That said, anyone else run a "non-standard" audio rig? Anyone else scare the shit out of themselves in a similar way? (Just a humorous topic... Nothing serious)

Gotta agree with a lot of this. I've been playing for must be almost 2 years now. The speed and quality of the development work is way behind that of a "normal" game. DayZ/BI has the budget and staff to make this work, but it always seems as if DayZ is just a back-burner project meant to keep some people busy in the office. I work in development and system administration, and this really isn't how a "project" of this scope should progress. The rate of things over the past 2 years pretty much drives the game to one of two clear outcomes, it will never make it to RC/Release before the game is vastly surpassed by others. (It's great that a new game was made for PlayStation2, but you wasted so much time in development that the platform itself is obsolete.) ... Or it simply will die before hitting RC/Release. I see this as the most likely fate of the game. At the current dev rate, we won't see BETA for another 2 years, RC in 3-4? The game will be far EOL by then. I hate posting rants, I really would like to contribute more in a positive manner... But I can't because the devs don't interact well with the community in general, and the progress is so shrouded and oddly non-progressive that we can't follow/help properly. I've said it dozens of times. I wish the devs would be a lot more specific as to what/why they are testing "X" and then we as a community would also know what to look for or what to test. I understand wanting your userbase to test "blindly" to see how things affect the overall dynamics of the game, but that's honestly something you tackle at BETA, not ALPHA. Alpha, you build the system and make sure it doesn't completely hose the game. Build your solid foundation. Then BETA you start tweaking the variables and bug fixing. You don't run mass dynamics/psych experiments in ALPHA. (All of this would be solved with better dev communication and interaction. (And a load more transparency). That's another thing with ALPHA/BETA testing... As a development company, you need to be very clearly transparent with your customers (US!). It needs improvement guys.

I have to agree with this as well. The damage systems etc are nice... But whoever is creating content or steering that group needs to take a break from the guns, and even weapons in general. Survival and crafting are coming along quite well, but it would be much nicer to see more content and focus in that area than the damned guns all the time. I also have to agree that the damage system is somewhat wasteful if there isn't a break from the gun fetish. It's getting laughable when the updates look like "We have a stove, but it's still insta-burning! ... Oh but we have this rifle, that handgun, new scopes, mags, and are working on the ballistics system". In my mind, the guns are done. Stop wasting dev time on them for now. The inventory is more than adequate for testing/beta purposes, so please move away from the firearms until the game moves to beta at the very least. Another +1 on the videos. Status reports are great, but also require more in depth info than just a pile of youtube videos. We have enough comic relief in here from other users, we don't really need shoutouts from the devs. A bullet list with actual dev tasks and issues would be worth far more than some fun videos. I realize it's hard to post news when there really is no news. But followups are nice with some perhaps in depth info as to what's going on behind the scenes. It's nice that you're working on "X" system, but maybe outline some of the challenges involved. "X doesn't work right now because this counter isn't incrementing as it should due to a desync issue etc." (I must admit, you guys are doing this somewhat... but more would be great. We're not afraid of tech talk, otherwise we wouldn't be here in Alpha stage testing).

I can understand the zombies being off temporarily. That doesn't detract from the gameplay THAT much. There are still threats-a-plenty out there. But the persistance... I'd rather wait for this to be activated. With both off, it leaves the player with squat to do. It will be similar to the very beginning of DayZ where it was just run and gun. Stuff like disabiling these mechanisms mid-development should only happen on exp. Stable should not see this kind of stuff. If it means waiting, I'd rather wait.

Agreed. DayZ is one of the games that I must say has one of the more "open" methods of playing that I've ever seen. Most any "sandbox" style game still follows along a certain line for the most part. But DayZ is pretty much anything-goes. DayZ is one of the first multiplayer sandbox games that I have seen where the "vice gets cranked tight" on the players. Most sandbox games you could almost sit idle and nothing is really going to happen to you. DayZ has threats from every angle, and they are all various ones. -Self Inflicted/controlled (Hunger/Disease/Health/Stamina) -AI generated (Zombies, animals, explosions, environment) -Player generated (Other players attacking, or even helping you) Add onto those, when it comes to other players, you don't know what they are going to do, and they can do anything. Including completely fuck you over. This keeps the pressure and tension going throughout the entire game from end to end. Which is something that can't be said for most games. And as a result, players who pressed to the max like that, will do "unpredictable" things. As I said, I've been the hero, I've been the asshole, I've been the wacko... I've been the farmer and I've been the theif. There is no one way to play DayZ :-)

I can actually say too, that since that incident, which dates back a few months, I haven't KoSed since or pulled any other bullshit. (Excluding shooting clan leader in the head during my "Exit"). That particular experience, and a couple right after left a really bad taste when it came to joining up on a few clans. Seems that "rule" is a little more popular than people think. There are many ways to play the game. I've been the nice guy, I've been the douchebag, I've been the guy running around in his boxers blasting "walking on sunshine" on VON. Spent nearly a week looting up, only to have a friend in game take a shovel to me last night and run off with my gear. Karma and DayZ have an interesting relationship.

I'm the poster. And sadly I'll agree with you. Wasn't my decision, and at the time the clan's rules were quite clear about it. And if I didn't do it, the guy next to me would have anyway without at least packing some stuff for him to reclaim quickly. *NOTE* I'm no longer with that clan, for reasons like this and more. (I hated the admin and politics and BS) Certainly not my proudest moment. But it goes to show that some of the best gameplay can come from anyone regardless of their age. I always help out anyone who's fresh in the game, and anyone can roll with me and my current crew if they're respectful, even if they are squeaky lol!

That's not what I'm saying. I've participated in many early access developments for games and commercial products. What I'm saying is I'm not pleased with THIS particular early access, and how it's being conducted. I know I'm kicking a bees nest saying this, but this isn't how early access or alpha/beta testing is normally conducted in the real world. It's like saying you're willing to help a friend move, and he tells you it's going to be difficult (that much you understood), but when you start working, he throws rocks at you the entire time and asks you why you're getting pissed off. Then everyone else helping him move calls you a pussy because you're complaining about the asshole behavior of the friend. The job would go a lot smoother with some very basic cooperation from the host. There comes a point where "Guys I know this is alpha, and bumps are expected along the way, but this is getting a little ridiculous." It's kinda simple. Keep parameters easily and quickly adjustable, and listen to your user base and make adjustments in a timely manner... Or don't go freaking crazy with the adjustments and leave them for weeks at a time. You want people to test and report back, don't purposely kick their feet out from under them on every step. Yes the DayZ testers probably like a challenge. That's great, feed it, but don't mow them over in the process either. Smooth it out a bit?

Sorry to drag my rant back up, but I'm saying that's exactly the WRONG idea. *Careful* I'm saying it's the wrong idea in THIS specific setup. If there was a single release chain, your argument makes sense in the dev world (If there was just a "stable" and no "exp" chain). The general audience is crammed in with the tester audience. So it's a mess of everything, and you can only take what you can get. But when you have two chains, it doesn't make sense to keep the testers out of the loop. If they are on stable, they don't need to be kept that close. They are playing for fun, or to get the general scope of the game. That's where you find the major bugs that didn't get caught before since it wasn't mass-scale. But if you are on exp branch, you're there for a reason (Or supposed to be anyway!) your experiences are exactly what the devs (should) need feedback on. I don't see any decent feedback collection happening asides from this forum, which has no real development flow, or a bug tracker system. Bug system is great for stable to report bugs... (Whoda thunk it lol?). Exp needs to be much more closely connected with the devs and testers. This is how it's done in any decent development world. Picture it like this... You're designing a remote controlled car. Exp is the tests in the lab/hanger/warehouse. Everyone needs to be in the loop with what's going on... and adjustments to parameters (steering mechanism as example) need to be done quickly. You're not stupid enough to let the thing ram into the wall at full speed, put it back on the bench and go "Hmm that didn't work. Let's rebuild it all" (That is currently what's being done right now... Weeks between any kind of adjustments). Instead you run the simulation slowly and controlled, and take in all the feedback at near realtime, and adjust the algorithms inch by inch. So it may be a little wobbly at first, but at the end of the day it will be moving somewhat straight. You don't keep the engineers/analysts locked out of the room. (We ARE the analysts when it comes to exp) Stable is the tests outside on the track. The thing is going straight, and you're fairly confident it won't explode. OK so it will hit the wall anyway. But not catastrophically. It just takes slight tweaks here and there again. This is when you put the controls into the hands of the customer for the first time. (This is the general stable audience) ----------------------- Perhaps the entire problem is that the general public HAS access to the exp? Maybe lock this down to a select group that understand how dev testing works and what kind of stuff to report as opposed to "It's BROKEN!" Oh wait... that's how it's done in the real world with closed alpha/beta testing. The issue is we have an "Alpha" game that runs both an "Alpha" and "Pre-kinda-alpha" chain... In an open world that should have been closed until Beta at the very least. They want everyone to play and comment and help development progress, but they're not listening or communicating. Last Beta I was part of that pulled that bullshit was the Elder Scrolls Online beta... and most of us know how much shit they wound up wiping off their face... and how badly their game flopped in comparison to their other titles. I don't think DayZ could ever get THAT bad, as they do somewhat listen to their users, but the progress and communication is so slow and bad that the game will never finish by 2020 in its current flow. ------------------------- Again sorry for the rant. I get frustrated because I love this game, and it's floundering. I love the improvements and new items and many of the awesome new systems being done for the first time. But when you're trying to experiment with these new mechanisms and you constantly have the devs cranking the variables to the extremes, it wears down on user patience. Sadly so many of us have funded the game so well, that they could wrap up tomorrow and close down the development, and walk away with a decent pile of cash. So they don't really have to do squat for us. They owe us nothing since we (stupidly? Myself included) paid them upfront with no recourse available on a bad delivery.

Just to clarify, I'm talking mostly about variable tweaks in short time frames and such. Not bug fixes or new objects etc. I'm talking things that are adjusted by simple variable changes. -Spawn rates -Item quanitites -Item quality and degradation timing variables. -Location variables -Timing variables -Speed variables -Distance variables -Etc. These are all things that can nearly be adjusted on the fly. At worst case host these somewhere centrally and have the servers pull them down on restart. Avoids having to "Re-Install" servers repeatedly.

Agreed. Again... for the countless time I am saying it... The devs need to be a hell of a lot clearer on what variables are being tested and WHY they are being tested. I hate this "Let's cram the rats into a box with X objects and see wtf they do" without any hints. THAT'S NOT WHAT ALPHA TESTING IS! Tell us WTF you want tested, and why your variables are the way they are! Also, keep an active finger on the knobs for the first couple days and adjust those variables based on feedback! We will test, we will test to the death, over and over... But FFS communicate and WORK with us. ------------------------ This drives me crazy. I love this game but holy shit the dev process for it is the worst I've ever encountered. I've done countless alpha/beta testing, for games and professional software. I've been a dev and work as a sysadmin. Sorry to say it, but "DAYZ DEVS, THIS IS NOT HOW THE REAL DEV WORLD WORKS!" I love this game, and sadly it's the only factor that brings me back here every now and then after I dump all hope. The process is so maddening I dump the game for months, only to come back and see the same BS. GUYS! WORK WITH YOUR USERBASE/TESTERS ACTIVELY! Fuck I hate being a lab rat... and worse, I'm stupid enough to pay for it. ------------------------- Sorry for the rant. I hate coming in here and ranting blindly... but it's soul-crushing to watch the piss poor management of this development, especially when it has such grand potential. The devs would get a lot better quality feedback if they would actively interact with their tester base. We aren't players, we aren't users, we are testers, but we aren't being treated as such. (Insultingly we are even paying to be testers lol). I know it's also been discussed that you get more "objective" results when the testers don't know what the changes are... And that I don't believe is true in this case. If people are actively moving over to exp, they realize that it's to test variables that are stressed to some extreme. So please, work with these guys! There should be a pile of polls and surveys open for every release, and based on the initial feedback of the first day or two, those variables should get trimmed accordingly to reduce the issues... As they get trimmed out, the quality of the testing should also improve because you're eliminating the stuff that is otherwise distracting to the user and they can test other objects. (Example: You want us to test X gun, but made it near impossible to get... WTF is the point of the test? The gun or our patience?) The devs aren't getting good data like this, and I'll be honest, I've never seen an alpha/beta software testing as bad as this. You guys want quality data, work closely with your userbase, and communicate/REACT to that data quickly. (Weeks for variable tweaks is not an acceptable timeframe. Day or two max should be very possible.)

Yep... Came here to laugh but sadly it's all too true. Some of the best gameplay I've had on DayZ has been running into random squeakers (LOL Sorry dudes!). Lately most of my interactions with other players has always resulted in nothing more than KOSing, hacking, or general bullshit bullying/mouthing-off until they get shot. Or straight up gang rape by clans. Had a similar experience a few months ago with some kid at the police station in Elektro. Myself and 2 other clan members came across this random kid while we were all being pegged down by another clan that had us flanked from all sides. Decided, against the screaming of other team members on TS, to give the kid a gun. Little booger held down the fort with us for like half an hour until we managed to get around these guys and drop them. Was one of my most memorable firefights. I was sure we weren't going to live. Unfortunately, our team has a pretty strict "no kids" rule. So I knew what was coming. I figured it might as well be me to do it... Packed a bag with some cans, and drinks, tossed it in one of the sheds out back. Team leader cuffed the kid. "There's a bag in that shed with some food and supplies if you manage to..." "Huh? Why?" He asked quickly confused... But it was too late. "Sorry" - And I pulled the trigger. "Hope you're fucking happy. Let's go" I grunted.

That's something I'll agree on as well. Give a better chance or longer time to revive someone. Perhaps a timer of 5 minutes regardless of your final state to try and bring you back. Perhaps it will not be successful because your health is -200, and the best treatment can only deliver 150 health (Completely made up numbers, just trying to make a point). I notice it's too quick to render "You are dead". Unless your head is blown clean off, you should never hit that point unless you've been bleeding heavily for a set time. Gunshot wound to the chest should not even deliver that. Give a slight (very slight) chance where someone can do some serious medical work and bring you back. Currently it's pretty worthless to do any "medic" effort because death is just too easy.