scriptfactory

CQC in the Arma series is pretty horrible when you are coming from a BF/CS background, but I get what you mean. It can do both long-range and close-quarters combat reasonably well.

There is no reason DayZ couldn't be similar. I would continue to fund development of the game through purchase of DLC if they would turn it into something that actually feels like a post-apocalyptic survival game.

Gotcha. That makes much more sense. Agreed.

If we are playing normal people that are trying to survive an apocalypse the dispersion system should stay as is. Not everyone receives military training and we are not supposed to be playing DayZ as former soldiers. I would be in favor of a "background" system. This way, people can choose a "military veteran" background and shoot with way more accuracy that someone without training. There should be negatives to balance this significant advantage (e.g. if you kill a civilian you lose "points" for going against your training.)

It should be possible for a group of players to spawn at the same (random) location. I believe Rocket posted something on Reddit about possibly allowing friends to spawn together. Even so, this would require commitment and planning. Want to raid a server? Log in 30 minutes before the raid so you are at the staging location. Plans are given out to the various squads at this secure location (prepared a day ahead of time) and they move out and execute the raid. After the raid is over move to a rendezvous location and wait for "extraction". Or do you think it is less silly to spawn directly in the middle of an enemy base, kill everyone, steal everything, then logout? This seems much less realistic to me.

The whole thing that turns DayZ from an online game to an MMO is the public hive. Rocket envisions clans eventually setting up home bases on certain servers and performing raids on other clan servers to get items they need. Servers become like individuals islands in the huge landscape of DayZ. Server hopping could be easily fixed by expanding on this idea and saving player locations on a per-server basis. Log into a new server and you get a random spawn location. Die and all spawn locations are invalidated. Please note, this also fixes ghosting. Item persistence will be what keeps users tied to a specific server. I guess vehicles and bases will be server-bound.

I get what you are trying to say but humans cannot easily recognize other humans based on their virtual avatar. Even with an advanced character creation system people would just need to die and respawn to get away from the stigma of being a griefer. In fact, they could simply spoof the look of other players which is impossible in real life. This is not an option for realistic player identification, in my opinion. If something like Polaroids was added you could even "take pictures" of the faction armbands Rocket was talking about to place a bounty on a whole clan. An in-game mechanic is necessary for this to work as the problem is not the virtual avatar but rather the asshole that is controlling him. XD

This post is the reason official communication channels need to improve. #PlzRocketHireCommunityManager

I thought the same until I saw the contents of a private hacking forum. A3 hackers have way more options than DayZ hackers including godmode and true teleporting (not speedrunning).

Other cheat engines don't ban teleporters. They have sanity checks in place to make sure the players are at a valid location. If the sanity check fails... rubberbanding. One thing I am curious about is if BattleEye does ESP screenshots like Punkbuster. I think player/item ESP is a much larger problem than infinite ammo and teleporting as those type of things will be fixed by the DayZ dev team. The dev team cannot, however, detect people knowing where all other players and all other loot is.

I actually wasn't talking about people getting automatically labeled as a bandit. I was thinking the community should be able to pass around "lists" of guys they don't want participating in their community. This would be a virtual list, of course, and should be able to be transferred to other players, perhaps outside of the game via an import/export feature. Each player entry would also have to be linked to a player's unique id for this to work, of course. After using the item in-game you could get a message like "This player is wanted on server XXX for [insert crime here]" or "Don't believe his lies". Yes, I was thinking a Polaroid camera would be the item that captures the image and there would be a way to "copy" Polaroids to other people. Take a Polaroid when the dude is dead and write "He attacked our town". Take a Polaroid after capturing an asshole that was shooting noobs and write on the label "This guy kills babies".

No. I like the KoS element in DayZ. It really brings excitement. That doesn't mean that players shouldn't have tools available to recognize or combat KoSers and griefers. As of now players feel helpless in this situation and there is no possibility of forming in-game communities or cultures due to lack of ability to trust and recognize others.

DayZ character customization will never approach real life. Not even close. Even in MMOs with extreme levels of customization it is difficult to recognize your friends simply based on their character model. Have you heard of Black Desert? My company was sourcing it for a European release and it has the most impressive character customization I have ever seen. Even with its advanced character creation options it could be difficult to identify friends without name tags. DayZ will never get anything that approaches Black Desert. So, in my opinion, better customization will not solve the problem.

Stop talking smack. You would not have given the money back... XD

It is understandable you like having a direct connection with the designer of a game. It doesn't mean that it is what is best for the game or for paying customers. The community manager would get updates directly from the team in weekly meetings or from the project manager (if they have one...) He would give updates on a regular basis and keep the masses under control so the dev team could focus on their jobs. There is, honestly, something wrong if the DayZ project lead is responsible for community communication. That is, typically, not his job and is a waste of resources. It would never fly at a major game developer because it would just slow down the pace of development too much. Think about it this way, would you rather have Rocket devoting 8 hours per week to community interaction or spending the same time on improving the game and development process?

There is a reason the industry standard is to hire people to handle communication with customers. If people purchase a product they want company support and updates. Community management is related to marketing but it isn't the same thing.

The player experience is pretty shitty in Rust, though. I would prefer only add sleeping to DayZ after advanced base building and protection (barricades, locks, etc.) is added and the hackers are taken care of. Otherwise it just ends up being a frustrating experience. There is a reason why I only have 30 hours clocked in Rust. KoS and hackers ruined that game but, thankfully, they are working on fixing the situation. p.s. Why is the Rust getting so sexy? I can't believe the things they are doing in Unity. So pretty.

Edit: not worth it.

No. Zombies pathfinding is currently broken and the Bratislava team is working on fixing it. This is independent of the player collision issue that enables people to glitch through walls.

I will never understand the victim blaming mentality from some fans of games. I saw it, especially, when everyone was complaining about Wollay and CubeWorld. The fanboys told everyone to shut-up and stop complaining about the slow pace of development. When Wollay would miss delivery dates the fans would blame it on the complainers. This continued for a long time until 99% of the community just forgot about the game. It still isn't even close to being finished. Anyway, I wish people would stop blaming players for purchasing a game that everyone is playing. Stop blaming players for complaining about a game was commercially released in an unfinished state. If the developers can't handle the criticism they shouldn't have taken the money. Period. They are big boys and they have a lot of funding now to make the game they wanted to. I can understand about people getting tired of hearing the complaints but criticism is, often, the best way to get the attention of a game developer. (EA/DICE. 'Nuff said.) All of you people yelling "alpha!" should probably also realize that when a game typically reaches alpha status it is pretty much a full game. There will be missing/placeholder content but the game feels pretty close to how it would @ final. The company I work for recently released 2 games into alpha. Both games have bugs but they work. All features are present. You can get a very good feel for how the final version of the game will be. DayZ, in contrast to many other games in alpha, will feel completely different when it is finished because the vast majority of game mechanics aren't close to being implemented. It (and many other Steam Early Access games) would typically be classified as something between pre-alpha and a beta if they followed a normal release schedule.

I was a big critic of the DayZ development process in the past. The dev team was kinda' amateurish in regards to their community interactions and communication. Also, they added things like the login/logout timers to address problems that will be different (or not exist) in the final version of the game. They rushed the release of certain versions of the game and certain features to make the community happy but it just ended breaking the game on multiple occasions. That being said, the DayZ dev team has made huge strides, in my opinion. Communication is better (but it happens infrequently.) Rocket released a development roadmap (of sorts.) They are working on making the engine work well and THEN fast (which is how most software is developed.) I'm happy with their current progress. There are only 2 things I would wish for: Hire a fucking community manager. Or two. WTF? Rocket and Hicks interact with the community all the time but it is fairly simple to tell they don't know what the fuck they are doing. Some of the statements (and promises) they make just piss a lot of people off. A community manager, generally, knows how to interact with the community in a positive way while giving steady updates on the current status of a game. Give us a real roadmap and update us as often as possible on the current progress of DayZ development. Something like "Server network architecture (50%), Server memory optimizations (90%)". Numbers. Once the problems with the core client/server engine are sorted development progress will increase quite rapidly. The main problem they are having now it getting a working engine together. It, honestly, isn't that hard to add things like item persistence to the engine (if my A2/A3 modding knowledge is up-to-date.) If I use community mods I could add to it DayZ in a day. Writing it all myself would take about 1-2 weeks. But there is no point in adding features like this when the core engine has so many problems.

Neither agreeing nor disagreeing. It was simply a comment on why the 30-second logout timer exists. Rocket said they tested your suggested method and found it "undesirable" for whatever reason. He didn't go into specifics.

There are a lot of players that want to be able to kill a defenseless person if they try to combat log. Honestly, combat logging isn't that big of a problem and having your character (defenseless) on a server for 30 seconds after you logout is a poor game mechanic. If you are not actively engaged in combat you should be allowed to logout without fear of your character being killed. In my opinion the DayZ devs should do something like this: Remove current timers. They suck.If you shoot another player or a bullet hits you or lands in your immediate vicinity (~5-meter radius) you can't logout for 15 minutes.If you logout or disconnect during this 15-minute period your character stays on the server for the remaining time.To fix ghosting make spawn locations save on a per-server basis. If you die all of your spawn locations are invalidated.Edit: add queuing system for logins with priority being given to players that haven't switched servers recently.Done.

I hope they add character "backgrounds", each one with a specific advantage but all classes would have an invisible form of "progression". No custom skins. "EMT" (civilian) = would have better medical skills. The more people you heal the less materials you need because you are more efficient at your job. After enough progression you spawn with a medkit, then a medical armband and, eventually, a special medical backpack identifies you as a veteran medic."Mechanic" (civilian) = better vehicle repair skills. The more vehicles you repair the less materials you need. After enough progression you spawn with a overalls that can be worn over your normal clothing and eventually a special "toolbox" that can carry over your shoulder and will hold tools and can be worn together with a backpack."Construction worker" (civilian) = same as mechanic but for base-building."Military Veteran" (non-civilian) = gradually lower bullet dispersion and increased physical endurance. After a certain level you spawn "in uniform" which looks special and holds the same amount of stuff as TTsKO gear. Much higher penalties for killing civilians."Reporter" (civilian) = pacifist. After a certain level you spawn with special version of the press vest and tranquilizer pistols/rifles. Higher penalties for killing all other players (besides traitors or bloody murderers)."Murderer/Criminal" (non-civilian) = can do whatever he wants. No progression. No loss of points when killing civilians. No skin. After one kill the character model shows blood on his hands/face. Blood is reset on death.All backgrounds would suffer progression penalties when killing civilians. Positive points when killing traitors or non-civilians for some backgrounds. If too many negative points are accumulated in a particular background you will be turned into a traitor and your hands/face will always be bloody while playing a character with said background. The only way to remove this is to get enough points so you are above a certain threshold. All backgrounds could increase their skills (medical, vehicle repair, construction, physical endurance, shooting accuracy) over time but upon death all of these skills would be reset. Only the background skills bonuses would be persistent through death.

So, I have been against formal factions for a while. I recently started playing A3:Breaking Point again and they have a functional faction system. It seriously changes the game into something better. All of the tension. Less KoS. More social interaction. The only way I would view people wearing this gear as "neutral" would be if there was a job/faction system in place that guaranteed me of that fact. Unless that happens, KoS all of the way.