lrp1984

There are many more than "three different factions" in this game. Well, there are no factions at all, but there are many different play styles. Perhaps Hero players all act in a similar manner, however those that are labelled as Bandits come in many different varieties. I think however if you want labels then you need to add Psycho's to the mix. The DayZ Psycho is the guy that doesn't want to kill on sight, they want to lure someone to a quiet location and cuff, strip, burlap sack and force feed disinfectant. http://www.youtube.com/embed/T-xOKuBTd1Y

You have a well written post, and I agree with some of your points, however others are a little tenuous in terms of something to complain about. I think this really depends on what games you have played before. The idea of pressing the same key for different actions depending on the context seems bizarre to me, but then I am not really a console gamer. I think if you play any game, expecting it to be the same as another game, which is a different genre, and made by a different developer, you're always going to be disappointed. The game has poor controls and UI, terrible optimisation, average graphics, a bucket load of bugs and non-working features, and little to no actual content. However with all those problems, it is somehow a really fun and additive game to play. If a game can be this fun with so little, then it has huge potential to be a really great game. I've spent 50 bucks on fully released games that have been far less enjoyable. I don't want to mention other games, but I have a whole box full of games that are supposed to be great that I've only ever played once for less than two hours. DayZ however has so many hours invested in it, that I hope my girlfriend never see's my steam account as I'd certainly get a lecture about what I'm doing with my life :P For me, I really hope they work on getting the backend stuff fixed rather than more content. I know vehicles and more guns would be great, but optimising the game to run smoothly, and allowing bigger player counts on the servers would be better. I guess however there is a different skill set between those creating the in-game artwork and features and those that are able to work on the optimisation of the game.

Hey, to be honest the part which is normal is the re-spawning. Everything else is just luck. Unless you want to hermit in the forest, you don't live very long in DayZ, and to become a hermit you still need to get through the initial first hour of stabilising your character and getting everything you need to survive in the wilderness. Many people enjoy the wilderness survival aspect of the game, and it certainly possible to live out in the wilds indefinitely if you get the right gear. The basics you'll need for living in the forest (anyone feel free to correct me) are; an Axe, 6 slot pants, warm jacket (down jacket is a good one), a kitchen knife for skinning, rags, a backpack (either a standard one, or find a burlap sack and rope to make one, you can upgrade it later with sticks), water bottle or flask are good, but you can live from ponds etc. Ideally you'd want a rifle for hunting as well.

Hi, on my desktop I pretty much always get an unplayable framerate when I'm near elektro and a zombie is nearby, the rest of the time it's pretty good though. Oddly enough on the worse spec'd laptop I have an over-all lower fps but don't get the unplayable drop.

So I thought I'd see if my old desktop will run DayZ. Will it work on the low settings? Windows 7 RAM: 4GB Processcor: Intel Core 2 Quad CPU Q8300 @ 2.50Ghz (4 CPU's) Graphics: Nvidia GForce GT 520 - 2GB Resolution: 1920 x 1080 (32 bit) (60Hz) From what I can gather the memory and graphics card are ok for the lower settings but the CPU might not deliver a playable frame rate.

How do you know they were a hacker exactly? Did they teleport you around or make you randomly drop your stuff?

I reckon in the future, once the player counts per server are a lot higher, a zombie play feature would be good. It spawns you as a zombie in a random location (but ideally spawn near survivors, and perhaps allow you to re-spawn again when no players within x radius), you have no access to voice/text chat, you can't use weapons or tools, and can't open doors (although perhaps in the future will be able to pound your hands against a door until it opens). However you can run freely, albeit slower than a player, and you can attack as you wish. There would be no noticeable visual difference between you and an AI zombie, however as a person you would react in a very different way to an AI zombie, throwing a lot of the zombie killing tricks out of the window. Your zombie would wipe when you log off. This would make an interesting dynamic and make zombies something to be more fearful of. Lord of the Rings online have a monster play feature like this and it works ok, although it's very limited in where you can go in that game. A player zombie should be able to roam anywhere and attack anyone. Like AI zombies though you would make groan noises as you move around, and perhaps your vision would be similar to a survivor that's been shot, but perhaps with a red tint.

I agree with this. It seems really strange to me that we can't layer our clothes. You should be able to wear a T-shirt/vest, Shirt/hoodie and a coat over the top. I would also suggest that all clothing items that have buttons/zip be able to be worn either done up, or undone to aid with either keeping warm, or keeping cool. This would also allow for more variation in character models.

I do not believe there should be any offline protection, I don't see that at all being in the spirit of the game. It's about survival, and as someone else stated, shit happens. I also hope that you lose any control over your barricaded buildings when your character dies and if you want your stuff back you need to break down the barricades like anyone else. This is a tough survival game, and should remain that way. If they implement offline protection I can tell you exactly what will happen; people will create a second steam account and buy another copy of DayZ, they'll use this character to build the base, and then only ever log that character on again if they have to to keep the base protected, or to let their main character in. Any mechanic like this would get abused far too easily, which would be far more unrealistic and damaging to the game than the potential unfairness of losing your stuff whilst you're offline. If they add offline protection to appease people crying "unfair", what will be next? Safe zones where PvP is made impossible, because it's unfair to die everywhere and there should be a place players can go to trade safely? A one hour protection where new spawns can't be killed unless they attack someone else, because it's unfair to get killed by other players as soon as you spawn? The ability to "opt-out" of PVP where you can't be killed by players, and in turn you can't kill other players? Only lose 10% of your stuff when you die? Before you know it, you don't have a brutal survival horror game, you have yet another crappy, predictable MMO. If you don't want your base raided whilst offline, the simple answer would be to not build a base in the first place. If you build it, they will come (to knock it down).

Maybe there are hackers, but to be honest more likely to be someone with a lot of free time server hopping on low population servers at a military base, or restarting their own clan server repeatedly and booting anyone else that joins.

Indeed, if their crap isn't floating in the air they need another shot/axe to the head.

If you actively avoid player contact, you certainly would survive longer than me. It only takes a few days of playing to learn how to not die to zombies and not fall off stuff, and after that your main threat is other players. I lost my long surviving geared character a little while back after playing under the influence. I don't remember how I died, but I do remember I thought it was a good idea to head to Berezino on a 40/40 server, and I'm pretty sure there was some singing over direct communication. Since then, having read all these forum posts, I've tried to see how many hero type players there actually are, so I've purposely stayed as a new spawn, avoiding getting any weapons and simply running around near the coast. So far I've died 20 times in 2 days, all from players. Only three actually spoke to me. One guy said he was a hero, and he had rounded up three of us new spawns and led us to somewhere he said was safe (I had a feeling what was coming), then once he got us into a room, he blocked the door, aimed a gun at us and demanded we strip. One guy actually did strip, however the other guy ran up and started punching at the maniac, and in that split second I decided I'd rather be with the guy that was punching than stripping. The end result was at least two of us died. Not sure if the stripping guy died, but something bad happened to him either way. The other two that spoke simply said they wouldn't shoot and then did. The only people that I came into contact with that didn't try to kill me were other new spawns who lacked the means to do so, and even then, a couple tried punching me. The vast majority of my deaths simply came from random people shooting without speaking. I don't wish to be like this, don't get me wrong, I'll carry on killing other players, but going forward I'll make an effort to talk to them first.

I don't agree that your player should turn into this character, nor that any zombie character you play will continue to exist after you log out. If it was possible I would suggest that you spawn into an AI zombie that is already in game and simply take control of it. The infected are driven by a need to kill anything that is not infected. The fact that you can't wield a weapon or open doors etc will keep the player controlled zombies quite mindless. However I see no issue with a zombie player stalking you and attacking you when you're most vulnerable. This could also lead to a group of players getting together to create a zombie horde to raid a city. This would add to the horror of the game for survivors without the need to code complex zombie AI. This would be quite pointless whilst the server limits are at 40, but if they get into the 100's then it makes sense. There would also need to be a survivor to zombie ratio so a server couldn't have more player controlled zombies than survivors as the player zombies exist to make a more dynamic experience for the survivors.

Oh my, what a cretin you are.

My right hand is completely numb due to my carpal tunnel syndrome, which means no shaking! Also means I get to enjoy the stranger every time.

True. Every time a gamer kills someone in real life, (or if a WOW player, kills themselves), the media always likes to blame the game for it. DayZ Hero = Possible real life paedophile. (I've seen them handing out their "beans" to 12 year old players. Sickos.)

All I have to say on the matter is; 'Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play And the hackers gonna hack, hack, hack, hack, hack Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake I shake it off, I shake it off Thank you for your time.

I'm sure this sounds awesome in your head, however knee capping a conscious and semi-intelligent player isn't particularly easy. They rarely stand still when you come at them with a melee weapon, and shooting someone that's already taken a few beatings normally ends up with them dying before their legs break. Besides, it's a lot more cruel to leave a recent spawn crawling around the sheets with no means to fix their leg than it is to shoot them in the head. I only hobble players that have really annoyed me.

More along the line of a tranquilliser gun that fires darts. Technology has progressed on from bean bags. I don't want this myself. I'm more than happy to carry on killing on sight. I simply made the point that there would need to be better readily available options to not kill someone you want to loot before killing on sight will ever be reduced.

Yeah, sometimes I talk about the weather, sing, or read from Leviticus over voice. What of it?

I meant a ranged knock out. If someone has an assault rifle, I'm not going to run up to them with a baton and risk my life, I'm just going to shoot them until they die. The same goes for using a low calibre bullet, to get into the stun range on that I'm in the kill range of their gun, so again too much risk. Sure you can knock out an unarmed new spawn, but then that's no different to killing them.

I'm not sure what morals and ethics have to do with anything? This is a video game after all. That is a sweeping generalisation, and to be honest in my own personal experience completely inaccurate. The nicest, dependable and straight up guys/girls I've known in real life have been the biggest assholes in games, and on the flip side of that the people I've known that play hero's in games tend to be the biggest assholes in real life. How many of us have known someone that lectures you on how best to play a game, and how it should be played in a certain way and the whole time you're thinking 'I hate this guy' (if you don't know this person, it likely means it's you).

Yeah, and it'd be good to be able to dance around a fire too, whilst wearing our used bean can jewellery. Maybe we could trade our organic food with other survivors? We could have hugs as our official currency. We don't need guns dude, just love. But if we need to defend ourselves how about bows and arrows?

As has been mentioned many times before, if there were more options to knock people out, then there would be less kill on sight. Having said that, there would also be waaaaay more torture, leg breaking, force feeding, tea bagging, general molesting etc. I reckon in the future, once the player counts per server are a lot higher, a zombie play feature would be good. It spawns you as a zombie in a random location (but ideally spawn near survivors, and perhaps allow you to re-spawn again when no players within x radius), you have no access to voice/text chat, you can't use weapons or tools, and can't open doors (although perhaps in the future will be able to pound your hands against a door until it opens). However you can run freely, albeit slower than a player, and you can attack as you wish. There would be no noticeable visual difference between you and an AI zombie, however as a person you would react in a very different way to an AI zombie, throwing a lot of the zombie killing tricks out of the window. Your zombie would wipe when you log off. This would make an interesting dynamic and make zombies something to be more fearful of.

Sounds fun. I hate it when you have a great stand-off like this and then seeing the horrible words in red.. No response from server for 10 seconds :(