striker75

The Special Task Force. Just need to make a forum post clarifying what I meant by this in the TS chat. What the STF would consist of: 3 - 5 people at a time. Pretty much doing guard duty until the need for them arises. These people should have knowledge of advanced infantry tactics and manuvers. The 'Elite' of the post you could say. Still, all should be allowed to, at some point, be part of it. Will just need to be able to listen and follow instructions of whoever is the STF squad leader at the time. A Vehicle, for many of the jobs they would be doing they would need one. Advanced equipment (hopefully) Silenced Rifles, one sniper. Medical Equipment. Jobs the STF would do: - Recover bodies (items) of scavengers that died in the field. Pretty much only for those 'lone wolf' scavengers, if you scavenge with a group the other group members should be able to recover the items. - Eliminate threats to the settlement. They would be the ones that actively pursue threats. Probably snipers mostly. The guards need to be guarding the traders/items and pulling out too many to chase snipers away could be very bad. - Secure meeting points for trades. This can also, and most likely, fall to the guards/Mercs instead. - Rescue scavengers in the field This would most likely require a Heli as land vehicles might not be fast enough. - Other jobs that require tactics and good teamwork to get done. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Just my idea on what they should be, feel free to tweak or throw it out entirely. Like I said before, they'd just be doing guard duty most of the time anyway.

Browsing through this forum, I'm amazed at some of the posts people have made. To put it bluntly, some people are just plain stupid! I'm going to do a rough outline of the development stages a bit further on, but first I'd like to point something out. YOU DID NOT PAY TO PLAY THIS MOD You bought Arma 2. As with ANY and EVERY mod, you NEED the game the mod was developed on to play. If you bought Arma 2 only because of this mod then I suggest actually playing the game you bought. Now that that's out of the way lets move on to the topic of this thread. THE STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT This is going to be a very rough explanation. I will be leaving things out, pick it apart if you really want to. - DEV - ALPHA - BETA - RELEASE There are things that go between, but no one cares about them anyway. DEV STAGE You're starting with a blank slate. This is where you build your game/mod. Base coding, placeholder textures and everything else is worked on here. This stage is usually the longest stage. Since we're talking about a mod specifically, this stage is considerably shorter as it takes less work using things already in-game. (not to say it isn't difficult and long in its own right.) ALPHA Since the mod is currently in this stage I'd like to address a few things within the community after a brief explanation. The Alpha Stage is where the game has reached a playable state. Usually still using placeholder textures, the game is play tested. Initial (game-breaking) bugs are ironed out. New things are still being added, and more often than not this stage is where a developer will decide if they are going to keep going with the project, scrap it, or radically change it (Halo 1 is a great example, bet you didn't know that). Now, onto my little rant. I'd only like to address one thing in particular that I have read many times. I'm paraphrasing here FYI. "Why do you release these broken@$% updates? Don't you test your patches before you release them?!" I can't say for certain (as minecraft did, though they don't do things the usual way and are the only ones I know of that did.), but my guess is NO, they don't. 'But Why' you ask? That's an easy answer, because that is OUR JOB! No, we aren't getting payed, nor should we be. We are being allowed to play this great mod for free before its out. Our opinions and suggestions are the ones helping to move this project in the right direction. How many of you want to get a job as a "game tester" (btw that isn't the official title, so searching for it usually won't help you)? Well, this is the kind of stuff that happens in that job. Only it's less fun, they assign you specific places to test and you do that all day, every day. Compiling and submitting bug reports. WHOOOO FUN!!... Sorry to rain on your parade. Now that my rant is over, let's move on shall we. BETA The Beta is usually where the developer will 'recruit' outside assistance or 'Players'. This stage is mostly about bug fixes and game balancing. Things are still being added and many textures are still placeholders. RELEASE The game is ready to be shipped/sold and played by the millions. Bugs, glitches, and exploits are being found by the massive player base and are being fixed by post-release patches to the game. Any game-breaking bugs that were missed in the ALPHA and BETA stages are fixed with a patch ASAP. Now that we've all been a bit more educated on what it is we are doing by playing this mod. Let's all go have fun and kill some Zombies (and the occasional player)!

Critisism is good, as long as its constructive critisism. "Starting without a gun blows" Isnt helpful. "Starting without a gun blows, instead, maybe limit the person to 1 clip" Is helpful. This isn't about people voicing their opinions. That's all fine and dandy. It's for the ignorant ones that don't know what they signed up to play. :)

Yes, Michigan is Eastern Time

We're trying to keep everything on the forums at this moment. We'll probably use PM's to set up initial guard postings and the like' date=' so having everyone who's interested posting their availability and whatnot here would be quite helpful. [/quote'] I'd be available to help pretty much whenever, whether I have any items at the time to actually be able to help is another matter (I die a lot). :D

I looked around the forum and found this post. As I've owned servers for various other games in the past I looked through a few providers. Short version a server will cost a lot. Much more than I was expecting. Since it wouldn't be fair to have any one person shelling out the cost of running a server by themselves I'd recommend adding some type of donation to the server (if this is allowed). All donation should go to the server and only the server obviously. Possibly, in addition if sufficient money is being donated investing more in a TS3/Vent server. I know there already is one, but I don't know if its strickly for the trading post or is only being made available to use. Gameservers.com - Running close to $4.00 per slot. defconservers.com - Running around $2.00 per slot. Fragnet.net - Running around $2.60 per slot. artofwarcentral.com - Running around $1.50 per slot. NOTE: I haven't looked at the server specs so these prices may not be the most accurate. I'm also not 100% sure you can just buy a server from anywhere and be able to run DayZ on it. Need someone to clarify. I never installed mods on servers I've owned in the past.

I would just like to stress the server issue a bit more. With all the people wanting to help it would be benificial to have a server chosen ASAP. I know you have it between 2 choices atm, but I can't stress enough that if possible getting your own server would be 10x more beneficial to this project. I would also recommend staying away from servers "claimed" as being the home to "such and such" clan. I realise people my have friends in these clans and what not, but clans get big, very big! They might be very helpful to getting started but with more people joining the clan that means less server slots available to traders, scavengers, ect... UNLESS, said clan is all going to be a part of the Trading post project. Also, I highly recommened NOT publicly announcing what server the Trading post will be on until the island and transportation have been secured. Keep it within the steam group or just TS3 to minimize as much as possible word spreading to griefers.

This idea sounds great to me! I've read most of the post in this thread and thought I'd put my 2 cents in regarding the start-up issue. First things first, a server. You either need your own server or find one. If you have to find one I would recommend finding a low traffic server with a high total available slots, 50 - 60 range imo. The reason for this is simple, the traffic on the server will increase as you spread the word its the trading post server, so traffic isn't an issue. The low initial traffic will help in securing the start-up items required. Once the server has been picked. You'll need a large force of individuals all available at the same time. I'd say at least 16 - 20 people. Teams of 4 per. You'll be needing to search cherno and electro to find loot quick. Form up on the outskirts of cherno. split into groups and assign blocks of the city for each group to search. The group members should all be in the same channel of Vent/TS. Group members should use VOIP in-game while communicating with their 4 man squad. Only use vent/ts to communicate with the entire force. Friendly fire could be a problem, vent/ts to confirm its one of ours. otherwise stick to VOIP to reduce chatter over the more important vent/ts. Once cherno has been cleared regroup outside and head to electro, ect... This is a large undertaking and you will need a large amount of people initially to get it going. the 16 - 20 people will not only fill up server slots allowing for safer travel, but the large groups and much larger overall unit will deter anyone but the most brave/suicidal from attempting to kill the party members. You will also easily be able to recover anyone's body should the unfortunate event occur. A single helo should be the highest priority, second to that a boat. Anything to get you over to the island quickly. Find some tents and set up. More than likely there won't be anyone else over there. Once transportation has been established the pieces should fall into place. once everything is all good and dandy and ready to be tested. You inform the world what server the post is up on. DO NOT post where it's going to be before you're ready to trade. All that will accomplish is getting bandits to hinder your progress. I highly recommend you get your own server for something like this. I don't know the requirements to own a server for this mod, but you really should try. You will be able to control the name of the server and ensure it is up-to-date and won't just randomly disappear. resulting in the loss of all that work. after the post is up you can change the name of the server to something like 'US - 1.X.X.X - Trading Post' or something similar lol. Anyway. I love the Idea and would love to help in anyway I can. I'm very new to this mod but I can't get enough!

I'm a pretty vigilant person while playing this game, and it takes a bit of work to be able to sneak up on me. That said, I love it when someone gets the jump on me. Not the shoot on sight crap, I love it when I'm looting and someone talks to me with VOIP. I've had someone sneak up on me when I was looting and say "Well, sorry buddy, but I'm starving and I think you have beans" I didn't have enough time to do anything before I was dead. I've also had the opposite happen when they are friendly instead. I love these situations and wish I would see more of them instead of the 'Shoot on sight' that keeps happening. Now, while reading the 'Stories', 'Trading Post', and various other threads all while watching heli videos on youtube I got to thinking about what I would love to see more of. I would love for things like the Trading post to crop up on some servers. I'd also love to see some of the Bandit Hunting parties be formed. As I was thinking of all these things a "Dream Scenario" poped up in my head, rather movie like. I want to see something like a very well established Trading post, highly trafficed and a group of well equiped Bandits in the same server. I'm thinking about 6-10 Bandits and something like 25-30ish people trading/patroling/policing the trading post (including the loot gatherers off doing what they do). I want to see these bandits in a heli or 2 perform a raid on the trading post and seeing what would ensue. While my mind has branched into a multitude of endings I would love to see, the bandits raid was successful. Making off with great loot, maybe losing a few fellow bandits in the process. Then, having the remainders of the Trading Post. Most likely the looting parties, regroup and reform to go hunt down those bandits and retrieve the stolen goods. All the while having to search towns/avoid zombies looking for the theives. Now If you've read this far I guess I should close out with some realistic things I'd like to see happen like I stated in the beggining. I want to see more talking less shoot on sight. Even if you're a bandit I'd love it if you would say something over VOIP before killing me. I want to see an established server and trading post. I want to see bandit hunting parties. As it is now 9/10 times the parties I run into are Bandit parties usually around 3 - 5 people per. I want to be able to clear out a town of zombies and then fortify said town, which I can then claim as my own and become dictator of all that come in. Until someone kills me lol. Zombies should spawn on the outskirts of a town then wander in and aimlessly roam around. This would allow us to fortify the town, though you'd burn through ammo fast with the current respawn rate trying to keep them back. Would take a lot of work to get it working right. With that I'd like to say I love this mod and can't wait to see where it goes from here! whether it becomes more shoot on sight or cooperation, I'm super excited! Anyway, what kind of player interactions would you all like to see more of?

So, I'll admit, I only bought ArmaII for this mod. Haven't played the real game apart from the basic training. Anyway, my friend and I were playing and doing very well. Found a ton of nice goodies and both had Winchesters. We started getting a little more... courageous I guess. anyway after fighting off a whole lot of zombies. one last one comes up and smacks me one more time and I die. I still had 5000+ blood and was under the impression blood was kinda the equivelent of HP. I thought the worst that would happen would be I pass out. I wasn't still bleeding or anything. That last hit just killed me. Is this the point of Blood where the 'death' usually happen? It's not too big a deal, I'm enjoying starting over, though I do miss my Flashlight :( lol.

Thanks for the clarification! That helps a lot. I'll have to start being a lot more cautious now.