dashender7

I think you got a bit offended where you didn't need to here buddy. I wanted to make it clear I was separating your approach from what I then went on to discuss which I considered to be just relaying interesting information I'd gathered reading a few journal studies and articles. I thought I made it clear that pertained specifically to griefers, trolls, and those who enjoy killing in online games for the sense of loss and frustration it affects on the other player, and who thus relish in causing some form of frustration or distress or loss to another, or acting out overtly sadistic acts toward another person's avatar. And you actually couldn't have missed it any worse in your assumptions. I grew interested in the topic due to the way I've both watched and encountered people playing DayZ - often cruel, overly violent (i.e. torture), power-over and sometimes sadistic. I became curious as to whether online behavior, and video game behavior in MMO type environments in particular, had been clinically studied. Turns out it has, and somewhat often, for the past 15 years. I'm trying to point out that many will KOS and PvP no matter what, and especially because other players don't want them to, and that they might even be drawn to DayZ for the chance to kill and grief players who aren't "playing the same game." No, of course this isn't the vast majority of DayZ players, of course you're right about that, and I said as much in my post. And you couldn't have been more wrong in your assumptions / accusations of the inner workings of my personal DayZ conscience my friend :).

…and he fell right upon the road. A justified killing as defined by your signature? Some kill in online games for the challenge. Plain 'ol PvP. That's one thing. Others, however... Interestingly the gaming community and online communities in general, have been getting attention from some scholarly studies in psychology. Several studies recently have highlighted sharp and alarming correlations between those who derive pleasure from causing distress and loss to others in MMO type online gaming environments and the presence of what are known to psychologists as the "dark tetrad" of personality disorders - sadism, narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. These are the kinds of personality disorders present in the worst kinds of people like serial killers and despots, for example. Basically, in a nutshell, they all boil down to this: people who, when given power over another person, are likely to exploit that power in a self-serving way, often violently, with callous disregard for the other and often even with pleasure in the other's pain. They often seek out environments or situations in which they can express these urges. Researchers are seeing that MMO gaming environments, while of course populated by many normal healthy individuals not expressing these personality disorders who are drawn to the games for other reasons, at the same time draw a disproportionate portion of society's "dark tetrad" personalities - those seeking an environment to express their urges without repercussion or consequence, where they can in a way "live out" their fantasies of having and exploiting this type of visceral power over others and derive satisfaction from it. This of course certainly isn't saying that people who seek PvP have personality disorders - the psychologists seem to draw a sharp distinction in the motivations and the reasoning and outflow of the action it seems. We would be talking about the KOSing player who enjoys the frustration or loss they might cause to the other player, and especially, the griefer or troll who goes the extra mile to cause emotional distress to their online prey. We would especially be talking about those who prey on the "weak." There is a growing awareness that the way people choose to behave in online environments, especially a sandbox MMO type environment where "anything goes", is truly an expression of their inner character given circumstances where societal norms and consequences are removed. This person deriving enjoyment from causing real distress to a real person, and reveling in the power they hold over that person at that moment to do that, is in effect showing just that - exactly what they'd do given removed outside repercussions. Think of it as an expression of how this person might actually act given an environment where you remove consequences to their actions and where causing harm to others, and perhaps even enjoying it, could possibly go unpunished. (As is often the illusion for a person in real life when they hold a position of power and safety over others who they can use to their own ends - i.e. a pack of armed men coming across an unarmed woman in the middle of nowhere in a place where there is no law and order, or a politically powerful despot, or even an abusive spouse.) Basically, what a person actually enjoys doing in an online environment (which although not a physical environment is still a real life environment - a forum of real interaction with the extensions of other people's real emotions and personalities) to another real person (albeit somewhat removed by cyberspace), is of course an actual reflection on what that person enjoys and thus who they are. So for someone to say "I enjoy and derive pleasure from the frustration and loss I cause to others when I kill them and take their stuff in an online game, but in 'real life' I'm actually a good person who would never hurt anyone for fun or just because I can no matter the situation" is getting called out for the nonsensical and ridiculous B.S. it is and always has been. All that to say, there are some real lines psychologists draw in motivations for actions. For example, in an MMO environment, being shot at first and threatened, then engaging and killing another player, I would imagine, would be handled in terms of our healthy human regard for justice and personal survival - of self defense, and even deriving some satisfaction from that other player's demise might be seen from the lens of justice. But I'm just guessing there. Interesting stuff with regards to the KOS debate. Motivations. Are you expressing your personality disorder, or are you just looking for a challenge and a story? I'd imagine this research ain't popular with a portion of the crowd around here. And yes, once again we're talking peer reviewed scholarly studies. Search it out if interested, quite an interesting read.

Sorry man your comparison of the debate we're having here to the real life gun control debate just does not stand up. It's so completely different that it's nearly impossible to compare, let alone reconcile, the two things and say they are the same. Think about it - we're not comparing apples to apples in terms of the two situations with only one control variable as your premise implies. In the real life gun control debate, regardless of the side you're on, you have to recognize that the circumstances and scenario are as follows: we are debating the effect of readily available legally owned firearms within a population that is largely controlled, policed and amicable to a relatively effective degree (i.e. there is a high degree of law and order, at least as compared to the vast witness of the history of civilization). Add to that not only is this society relatively amicable and well policed, most people have at least what they need for basic survival and do not directly face the need to kill for sheer basic survival. DayZ is a lawless post-apocalyptic state. Guns are obtained by finding or by force. There is no legal or illegal. That is where the validity of rampant or common killing comes in. We would all agree I'm sure that in some form, given the breakdown of society and total absence of law and order and authority, killing for survival would be much higher. That is not debatable in terms of realism. We see that in the present and in history. DayZ does need KOS - there are not many who debate that. But here's where things really divert: DayZ is a VIDEO GAME. That's the crux so to speak. Some of us here want every video game to be pretty much the same - give us unrealistically available guns and ammo - i.e. you can expect to find yourself something to shoot with within minutes or maybe an hour or two max, and then let us do whatever we want with no balancing. Others of us want the game itself, and it's mechanics, to import some semblance of counter balancing to the fact that it is indeed a VIDEO GAME where we always tend to spiral into PvP killing competition for lols and entertainment at an unrealistic level. Since it is a video game where you feel nothing close to realistic remorse or moral objection to slaughtering human beings, and where the prospect of your own death due to spending your time "hunting" other players is no big deal, we want the game to import mechanics that place some discouragements to the "gear up, PvP, die, repeat" cycle. We want this so that there is a prospect of encountering some sort of interesting gamut of human interaction beyond the normally insane level of KOS PVP'ing that happens due to so many players approaching it as another PvP oriented player kill game. History shows that while times of lawlessness are indeed violent and brutal, human beings always also have a tendency, in the aggregate, to move toward and seek a rebuilding of some kind of order, structure, justice, and society, and are quite likely to band together to help each other, especially when it profits them. Constantly seeking life threatening shootouts because there is nothing else to do is the part that seems divergent from realism. The game must be too easy if so many players have the energy and time to gear up and KOS. On the other hand, killing another player because it is the safest thing for you at the moment seems totally valid.

You are clearly unwilling to listen to what I've actually been saying. It's kind of baffling. You keep arguing points against me that I'm not even actually arguing. I'm not arguing against KOS altogether and I've said that over and over again, yet you can't get your mind past that point. I'll say it another way: KOS is great - it is necessary, yes I AGREE it's an inherent part of the post-apocalyptic scenario. But the death matching PvP cycle of running and gunning, PvP in high pop areas, die, gear up quickly with an assault rifle and repeat ad nauseam is what I'm saying needs to change. And yes, that's just an opinion. And I've been saying that in addition to good multi-person mechanics, other systems of the game need to change for us to see that. The funny thing is that if you'd have been actually paying attention to what I was saying you'd see that we might actually agree on more than you think. I'm saying that it would be interesting if DayZ could experiment with ways to discourage the majority of players from resorting to this really base level style of gameplay, the constant cycle of gear up, PvP, die, repeat, and instead provide players with an attractive alternative that is challenging and rewarding but still allows for player killing at any time. I would just like to see the consequences of life and death be greater such that players are encouraged to play with a more human and survival oriented mindset. That's all. Also, I continue to disagree about guns and ammo, to some extent. Yes, KOS will continue even if guns and ammo are very very scarce, and yes, players should continue to be able to kill one another and NOT be kept from doing so outright. But great gear including guns and ammo will continue to be a big part of the DayZ endgame no matter what. Therefore, if these things are not easy to find quickly, then more players will spend more of their time searching for these things, and protecting them when they do have them, because they realize it might take many many hours before they can find it again. Going along with that, when other kinds of gear, and food, are harder to find, it will spread players over the map and cause them to spend more time surviving and foraging for things than looking for someone to kill. Also, while squad play and friends playing together is a great part of DayZ, a very large part of the DayZ population, probably the majority of the time, is playing alone (lone wolf) at any given moment. Especially in one on one encounters, my experience and that of people I know, has been that such encounters are way more likely to foster some sort of conversation or interaction (or something interesting like a robbery), rather than outright blindside KOS, if one or both parties aren't observed to be carrying a weapon, especially a weapon like and AK or something that is really overpowered.

This is one of the most nonsensical statements I've seen yet. How do you not understand that if you give people plenty of guns and ammo in a video GAME where LIFE AND DEATH HAVE NO REAL CONSEQUENCES, including one's OWN DEATH, and they know they can "re-gear" quickly after respawning, and let them run around with no balancing mechanics, the vast majority will devolve into Battlefield style PvP? If you want that, that's fine and that's your opinion but at least just admit that's what we're talking about. It's really ignorant to keep acting like the absence of mechanics and consequences in a game makes it more balanced or realistic - that's the whole point - a game is just the sum of it's parts - it's mechanics or lack thereof - and often it's the lack thereof that lead to a really base level, least common denominator, mindless sort of PvP competitive play where players make decisions that do not reflect a "real life" sort of scenario. We're asking for DayZ to try to tackle some of the mechanic and balancing issues and to be a pioneer game in importing and yes imposing some mechanics that encourage players to take life and death more seriously, thus importing a more realistic player to player interaction environment into the game. All games including DayZ are just a sum of mechanics imposed on the player to create the experience. This includes mechanics like health systems, stamina systems, food and hydration systems, etc. These are all things "physically and mentally" imposed on the player to create an immersive experience. What's missing are some of the mechanics that would actually cause the average player to value their own safety, preservation of life, and survival at a deeper level such that they're not so willing to throw it away seeking constant PvP death matching, but where they might still choose to risk that life if survival really depended on it. Proponents of the status quo of mindless PvP and "tactical play", just keep straw-manning the argument. We're not asking for the elimination of killing or KOS, don't you get that? We're just asking for mechanics that balance the game in such a way that one might expect to not encounter the majority of players playing like they're playing another BF PvP video game, but instead an immersive survival sandbox, where just perhaps, survival really does become paramount to seeking PvP endlessly out of boredom. We're asking for DayZ to be something a little different for a change - perhaps a game that thinks about how to artificially implement some effects and consequences of playing it like killing and dying routinely over and over again all the time don't matter at all.

You're still missing the whole point, and I'm pretty sure that's intentional. You straw-manned everything I said by addressing it as if I were asking for a system where no one can ever kill anyone. I'm not asking for PVE where bullets go right through a character, or a reliance on a community like DayZRP where admin policing is the way it's done and most of the adrenaline is gone - I made that clear but you ignored it. I'm just asking for some serious balancing that takes some of the power and initiate out of the hands of the habitual killer, at least some of the time, due to the fact that this is a game where by definition without intentional mechanics in place, players don't face much discouragement from just running and gunning all the time. You keep talking about "authentic" and "realistic" as if a DayZ where kiddies run around on the coast and grief and troll and shoot at everything that moves "just because they can" and there's nothing to discourage them, is the best representation of both approximating reality and of what this game could be - because that's what it is has been and will be without some well thought out mechanics. Let's be honest, they're not role playing a cold iron willed psychopath, they're just themselves taking out their inferiority complex and pent up aggression on whoever they meet in cyberspace or entertaining themselves by the challenge of killing other players at least. I'm talking about counter-balances that, while of course not necessarily reflecting real life perfectly (as if this whole "no consequences" thing does that!), at least could balance out some of that issue, and you seem in favor of every existing mechanic (or lack thereof) which encourages players to kill everyone they see and not worry about it, nor worry about dying. You don't care to see that the game in and of itself as it stands is an unbalanced one that in every way encourages senseless killing and puts all of the power in the hands of the griefer, troll, camper, or PvP'er. Every aspect is in their favor in a really deeply unrealistic way because there is no consequence and namely, death itself does not even matter all that much. And by the way, Rocket said those things in 2012 apparently - he's now long gone and the devs have learned a lot since then, so we'll see. And yeah there are private shard communities and there will eventually be mods, so I guess that's the answer after all perhaps we waste our breath debating. My basic premise is that the consequence-less open sandbox game with weapons and no strong counter balancing mechanics will always devolve into a senseless PvP mess that encourages the least common denominator, lowest level of gameplay and interaction, and puts all the power in the hands of the killer, and is thus very unrealistic. It is essentially a griefer's paradise. You are okay with that I guess - and I am not stoked about it. That's where we end up.

I understand that, and I feel that too - about discovering loot. But the bummer is that it does empower server hoppers, which I think is a big problem in a game like this. It's a really cheap way to play that puts the player who actually travels the map to find gear at a big disadvantage. A server hopper can wipe out many servers worth of the best stuff at a given location in not much time at all.

I see your point that some players want that experience. I'm saying that there are already literally dozens of games for tactical squad play, or for being the no-consequences iron willed super soldier killer who feels nothing - like ARMA for one, where players should be free to kill everyone they encounter. You're obviously struggling to grasp what I'm saying, or maybe you're not interested in trying. Why shouldn't this game be something different for a change? Why does it have to be ARMA with zombies? It hangs in the balance of being something special - something different in perhaps attempting to provide a different experience than primarily random killing like most video games with guns. That's what's unrealistic. It feels un-imersive and repetitive because no one values their life. That's the ultimate difference between feeling realistic and being just another shooter video game, maybe with a big map. Players value their gear more than their lives even. Maybe that's not what you want. Fine. Try seeing it from the other side in terms of unrealistic penalty imposed. The "PvP" player by nature forces their style of play onto everyone they encounter - they unrealistically get to dictate play style and commandeer the game by the very definition of what they do. Every encounter becomes a random deathmatch. Why would a PvP player who just wants to shoot everyone play a game like this instead of ARMA or something else? I'd argue in most cases it's because they're lazy and want the opportunity to kill and grief players who might not also be equipped with the most tact-cool gun, or who don't really want a fight - the low hanging fruit. Otherwise why not play ARMA or BF or something and fight players who are always similarly geared. If you want to squad play and are only interested in shootouts, I postulate that there are plenty of games for that. How about the unrealistic penalty of being an immersive player in a world where a stupid and yes unrealistic amount of players are running around killing everything in sight like psychopaths, sniping at everything that moves for sheer lols, and not even valuing their own "life"? Ever think about that side of things? How realistic is it in an immersive post-apocalypse to have a high percentage of people throwing their own lives away for lols and kill counts, camping some hill to shoot everything that moves, rather than worrying about preserving their own life? Maybe this could be the one game where every player doesn't get to be the iron willed no care in the world expert killer with no care or value for his or his counterpart's life, and no penalty for racking up unnecessary kills? Maybe this could be one game where you don't just jump in get the gun, kill, die, repeat. Never stop to think about that unrealistic penalty? If you'd have read my other posts, you'd have been enlightened about a little thing called Value for Life. If you want a realistic game - a term you used - then let's start there. Because it's just that - a video game - then by definition artificial game mechanics must be added to encourage players to preserve their own life, rather than "oh well, I died again," I'll respawn, suicide until I get the spot I want, then go back to getting a super soldier gun and killing everyone I can." You see, every game is just a compilation of mechanics that encourage one thing or another. In any video game, if you give players guns and let them do whatever they want, it devolves and spirals into another PVP killing fest. Why can't there be a game that doesn't do that? None or not many so far have truly tackled VALUE FOR LIFE in a way that brings immersion and a more realistic scenario for interaction with others in game. I'm not saying no killing at all - I'm just saying that to bring a realistic level of variety to player interaction and make this an immersive survival apocalypse, they'll have to be intentional with game mechanics.

This is the reason why the final release needs to have all loot including the best stuff and military gear spawn totally randomly with rarity defined by the zones Hicks discussed in the last status report. One of the things that ruins a game like this is players dashing to the "guaranteed" loot spots to gear up quickly (usually so they can get back to PvP'ing) rather than playing for immersion surviving as they go. It ruins the fun of discovery running to the forums to meta for info so you can server hop a spot for the gear you want. Having the best items always spawning at the same locations gives power to server hoppers and loot whores, along with KOS'ing PvP'ers. Just an observation, but good luck and who am I to tell you how to play, right?

I think you're on the right track in where you're going with this - but some of the specific ideas might be a bit overpowered and unrealistic. I do agree that the main effect of firing a weapon in a town or city area should be that it attracts massive hordes of zombies - I would even say not just zombies already wandering around, but that it should also cause zombies to spawn somewhat nearby and race toward the sound searching out the sound. That alone would be a big discouragement to shooters. And I would extend that "zombie aggro" the full distance around populated areas that "snipers" tend to take pot shots from, so that they don't feel perfectly safe laying in the bushes shooting every player they see. Yep, another vote for nay on lifespan limitations - that is literally the worst idea ever. The game is supposed to be about survival - why the heck would they want to de-incentivize players living for long long periods of time? That seems absolutely ridiculous. That would be a huge discouragement to me. I've had players survive for weeks and months many times (those who run around KOS'ing on the coast can't even fathom this) - I'm talking well over 100 hours of gameplay often - and that always on higher population servers. There are other ways to reward long survival - a player doesn't have to progress over 40 years of life to grow a darn good beard, or gain soft skills. And I agree - most soft skills should simply progress as a player moves and survives, with great though as to how to make sure they're not exploitable. For example, start players off with poor stamina and great amounts of weapon sway and reduce these over time. Also, I adamantly believe that there need to be discouragements to indiscriminate killing. This has to be implemented to counter-balance the non-immersive effect of the fact that this is a video game, so many players resort to doing things they'd never do in real life, like killing for lola and griefing for fun - when you have the majority of players basically acting the role of a psychopath killing for fun in a game like this, it destroys immersion. This could be thought out so that a player who has to kill occasionally is not punished in any way, but such that a player who racks up too many kills too quickly suffers discouraging negative effects. This would be like PTSD type effects or paranoia - because let's face it - in reality someone who kills everyone they see is not mentally healthy and would be suffering severe mental effects like paranoia. These could be manifest in the game mechanics by shuddering, weapon sway, nervous ticks and the like. All of it can subside and go away if the player goes enough in game hours without killing anyone. Why would any player not want this? Normal players who kill once in a while in the normal course of interacting would not be punished, but only those who show that they're playing only to hunt others for entertainment. The only players who wouldn't want this are those who want to use this game to grief others by turning it into Battlefield 4 with a big map. I submit again: This is a video game. Many players see this as a chance for an incredibly immersive experience. Something new and deeper, with better player interaction that pulls one into the life of a person surviving in post-apocalypse. Because it is a game, this experience is literally impossible without deep, intentional, creative thought in game design and counter-balancing to encourage a more realistic and immersive VALUE FOR LIFE among players - even if it's just discouragement of run-and-gun by encouraging players to at least value their own self-preservation and survival.

While I love the ideas in this post for cooperative mechanics and want to see many of them implemented, your post, Deepfryer, sums up the issue that is core and underlying to the one we're dealing with. I said a similar thing in the Dev section thread about encouraging hermit style gameplay. The core issue and obstacle to a game like DayZ feeling immersive and realistic is not necessarily whether players have to cooperate, but instead, it's a thing called Value for Life. It is the issue of "lazy" players you refer to who live and die on the coast and don't bother to contribute or learn game mechanics (i.e. those who play NOT valuing their lives or others') that ruin DayZ. A lot of DayZ players are waking up to the vision of what this game could be. The devs seem to want it to go there. The gaming community really doesn't need another kill everything shooter game. Seriously please. The devs need to put a lot of thought and energy and creativity into doing things that haven't been done before - and it needs to center around this one core issue - how do we get players to value their own lives at least, if not at some level value other players lives? And yes, the only way to do this (incentivize Value for Life) is to make "artificial" restrictions that at least encourage a certain play style. This is called counter-balancing. Counter-balancing is desperately needed because what the devs are after is an immersive real-life post apocalyptic experience focused on player interaction. The problem is that this is a video game, which inherently means that many people will not have the imagination, maturity, or vision to approach it from an immersive standpoint - they will "take the easy way" or play this like another shooter, or use it to troll and grief, or for lols, or to hunt players for entertainment - many players even on these forums often brag about how they enjoy ruining the experience for "immersive" style players by killing them for entertainment. For this game to be something special and not just another kill everything shooter, the devs absolutely will have to introduce more artificial restrictions and mechanics and incentives. Right. Tradeoff is the key. You will always still have to risk trusting another player.

I really like the trading vicinity menu - how might that work? Like hit a hot key to show player in vicinity what you have to trade, or your whole inventory? Or shows them certain items you've dragged into a special grid as trade availability?

I don't see why people complain about non helpful blindly critical threads and comments getting shut down. For one thing, you usually sound like spoiled little kids who's mommy didn't give them exactly the flavor of candy you wanted right when you wanted it. This whole forum is about what is helpful in furthering the successful development of a game that has been very clearly advertised as being in early access - you've paid to be a tester of something - to basically be a lab tester of something that will be intentionally broken at times in order to help produce a final product at some point down the road that works according to the developer's vision and the extent to which they choose to listen to the community about ideas and implement things. It has been proffered that you are coherent enough as a human being to understand that. I'll echo this - if you want to be a part of that process then use the bug tracker and enter the game knowing you will encounter broken things just like the disclaimer you click every time you load says. I'm in favor of the admins instantly shutting down and trashing every thread that's created just to bitch and gripe and whine. Those are not helpful. It's not news to anybody that you wish the game were in a finished state - what's shocking is how entitled so many people are. I could understand the frustration if this were supposed to be a finished game that you played for a few hours and found totally unplayable and broken. But it is neither. Most people complaining have hundreds of hours logged in this game. Yet they've come back to it, and obviously care enough about it to have it emotionally affect them to outburst like a six year old. There will be some builds that "work" better than others. There will be some versions that have more broken elements than others. I for one have many hundreds of hours logged in this game. There have been frustrating moments, there have been versions that disappointed me - but it all comes back to the original premise of what we're operating in - yes, Alpha - and yes - you have paid in order to serve as a bug tracker or to enjoy a game while in it's season of generating and flushing out game breaking elements. There are great processes in place to give feedback and have your voice heard - the flipping lead producer even just replied to this very thread a few comments above this. They're listening, they're qualified, they're competent and mature, they're working long hours, they're responding to helpful feedback from the community. I'm not a video game expert but from what I can tell they're treading in some rather uncharted waters in terms of game design and scale. If you want to be heard, then grow up and communicate in a helpful way. Admins, please keep these forums helpful by continuing to shut down and ban gripers, trolls, and complainers who operate out of some juvenile sense of entitlement.

Agh. Killing admins is a bummer. Just happened to me the other day I'm pretty sure.

This. It lost something when I became able to run anywhere on the map out of sheer memorization and getting lost is impossible.

Why can't I ever encounter players as bad as these? Last guy was trying to combat log. Almost makes the whole thing okay.

Hi, I'm curious which component of my PC I should upgrade to get a performance boost for DayZ - i.e. where's my bottleneck and where would money be best spent to see results? By results I guess I'm talking FPS and smoothness at reasonably high graphics and rendering settings. Also, if anyone knows what would be optimal to plan ahead for when game is finished and optimized that would be best - i.e. CPU or GPU heavy, is RAM sufficient, that sort of thing. So far I saw my biggest performance improvement when I switched to the SSD from an old hard drive. Here's my current specs: GPU Sapphire HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 with Boost CPU: Intel Core i5 4440 3.1 Ghz quad core RAM: 8 GB HD: Samsung 840 Evo 250GB SSD Windows 8.1

Chalk me up for another NONE!!! Don't turn this into another stupid admin abuse battlefield wannabe griefer tool. I don't need to have my camp found and wrekt for lols twice a day by the jerk clan with their super soldier helicopter.

Please continue to experiment with changes that make it harder for every random 12 year old "survivor" in DayZ's Chernarus to "gear up" with their full Gorka including helmet and matching visor, AK with 5 drum mags, and sniper rifle and camp out all day instead of doing their homework, picking off other players out of sheer boredom and inferiority complex. Many of us are glad the "experimentation has all gone one way" - that being to make DayZ less a military PvP game and more a player interaction (i.e. interaction besides shoot everything that moves) zombie survival game. The player should not feel in total command of his surroundings all the time with eagle eye zoom - I'm so tired of seeing guys in their videos quickly changing their FOV for ridiculous zoom to snipe. There are already half a million shoot 'em up games out there. We don't need to buff out every camping sniper - talk about ruining a game. Getting one shotted by an unseen kid camping all day with his buffed out sniper zoom and ghillie should not be what this game is about. I'm glad the devs seem to be trying every possible mechanic to take it in another direction. Please continue to explore "civilianizing" this game so that it doesn't just feel like a bunch of wanna be super soldiers running around trying to be CS:GO with a big map.

DayZ taught me about karma yesterday. I killed another player for the first time in a long time - I'd say in nearly 300 hours of gameplay. That's out of choice because I normally don't kill and I die almost just as infrequently due to a keen eye and usually seeing other players before they notice me, then avoiding or interacting with the upper hand. But I shot at this guy's truck totally unprovoked - I just lit up a truck driving by out of sheer boredom. He turned around and tried to run me over so I finished him, but that's on me. 10 minutes and a couple of kilometers later in a totally unrelated incident I set up to take a look at a town through my binos before going in and another fully geared guy with a scoped mosin pops up from prone to crouched in a bush not 15 feet in front of me - still with his back to me. He's watching he same town through his scope. Binos still in hand, I hit my hotkey for my AKM slot - nothing. Hit it a gain. Nothing. One more time - nothing. Pull up my inventory to manually drag AK into hands, he suddenly wheels around and instantly one shots me. Quite skillfully and calmly. Props. What's the point of hot keys again? I got Rocketed. Right up the #$% I'd say.

Idea for an inventory space / slot / item storage revamp, here goes: For some items with slots / carry space (like a backpack or vest) - allow an option of sorts for a certain predetermined number of inventory slots to be each divided into quadrants able to carry only certain classes of very very small items. For example, perhaps in the hunting backpack anywhere from 2 to 4 of the available slots can be optionally divided into a "quadrant" of 4 slots - but these slots only fit certain very small items. So once you place a very small allowable item, for example, a pen, in a slot, the slot automatically divides into 4 spaces, so you now have 3 extra slots, but which can each only fit very very small items. In a six slot set of pants, for example, the ability to carry, say, 6 pistol magazines is pretty realistic. But it makes no sense that alternatively, one could only carry, say 6 pens in the same space (not that you would need 6 pens). Alternatively, a certain type of protector case or slotted pouches as an item could be implemented which gives the ability to carry a lot of ONLY very small items. I think that having to choose between different items for space and weight concerns when looting is a precious and necessary part of the game. That pressure of choosing - should I carry the extra food, or will I really need this extra bit of ammo - is essential to the game. But, for realism and immersion sake, I propose one big change to the inventory and item slot system. This change would reward the survivalist / resourceful type player while not "buffing" the item carrying system too much for the PvP minded or hoarders. That would be to change the slot / inventory system to allow for carrying many more of the smallest and lightest items in the game. These types of items tend to be "nonessential but useful" type survival items that IRL have negligible weight and next to negligible volume for carrying, which you would never really have to pass up on carrying due to space. In addition, this ability to have more slots or space for the smallest of items can be partially expanded by allowing the "small slots" or "quadrant slots" to be used for certain very small quantities of certain items - for example, 1 to 5 rounds of ammunition depending on type, or a single rag rather than a stack, etc. Here are some examples of small items, and items that would be able to fit in "limited" quantities (would have to implement ability to divide some items such as matches): fishing hook pen battery piece of paper a certain small number of matches one to 5 rounds of ammunition depending on type/size of bullet (would be always slightly less than 1/4 of what can be stored in a single slot of a given type) a single rag (not a stack of rags in this case) medical items like a certain small number of charcoal tabs or water purification tabs other medical items such as possibly a syringe, maybe even epinephrine pen (very light and relatively small)

Sorry that for you a quadrant is some great mathematical mystery. I think most people find that pretty basic. It means four. In a survival game where your gear often determines if you live or die, it makes sense to me that a 15 round pistol magazine and a few matches have to take up the same amount of space in my backpack.

Great job putting the fear into server hoppers man.

Yeah it's pretty much a scam right now. My group's private shard already failed due to these issues. How are we supposed to enforce server rules or ban anyone if we can't see what's going on?

My group has been having the same problem. I had a fireplace kit just disappear. Another guy had a sawed off shotgun vanish.