DocWolf

Sounds good - and maybe let some of the first aid items your character use be visible for a short time. Bandaged arms, splinted legs and so on.

The problem is, IMHO, the number of players. With character wipe everyone (50 or 70 people depending on the servers) started as a noobspawns, raiding the usual towns and areas over and over and over...that means all the loot respawns somewhere in a 2+ km bubble: considering a lot of spawn areas have sea on one side and nothing on the other three, all loot is probably respawning in the inland towns near to the coast. Chances are it's the same problem we had with the previous iteration of 0.50: too many people looting the same areas and not scattering on the map means that areas will be effectively scorched earth, while all loot is just some km away. Considering this version of 0.50 is a little more forgiving than the previous one, there will be less cluttering in the spawnzones, and in a couple of days player dispersion will balance loot respawn.

I believe the problem is again the number of players. The previous iteration of 0.50 had the same problem: too many players weren't able to leave spawnzones or the nearest towns, creating scorched earth areas where there was basically no loot. I don't think it's a bug - AFAIK the loot respawn system re-create a looted item somewhere in a 2km radius from where it was picked up. So, if too many people raid the same town over and over and over, such town will be basically empty. Working as intended, IMHO. The current iteration of 0.50 probably is still struggling with the same problem: too many people in the same areas. Yesterday was almost impossible playing on UK or DE 3rd person servers: always full to the brim. There was a character wipe, so every 50 (or more, in SWE servers) characters started as noobspawns in the same areas...that means the loot system registered many people looting certain zones and started re-spawning loot in a 2km bubble...I've been in Cherno, for example, and there was NOTHING in the areas around the spawnzones. In Cherno, mind you, wich is one of the biggest cities on the map...I've found something useful in its northern outskirts, but then a mob of zombies ate my face. Probably this situation will improve in the next days: the players will not loose their characters as quickly as in the previous iteration of 0.50, and when they will start scattering on Chernarus the loot system will start re-spawning again stuff in and around spawnzones.

There's no character transition between 3rd person servers and 1st person ones: the character you create on first person servers stay only in 1st person servers, and when you join 3rd person ones you spawn as a new character.

With the introduction of weather and body temperature systems the usefulness of many items have been redefined. Previously, having a raincoat in the inventory was basically a waste of space; dow jackets or wool coats were useless, and hoodies were used only to craft rags. Wearing them was a cosmetic choice...now they're useful items - without them there's hypotermia and then death. Rain coats are the only items that let you navigate the countryside of Chernarus with (almost) no problem from rain and cold. But what about the backpacks? At the moment the backpacks are in the same situation jackets were prior to weather/body temperature introduction: you choose them according to inventory space or, for the more tactical minded, according to their high/low profile and colour. What about an overhaul of those items? Suggestions: Improvised courier bag/improvised backpack/leather sack Those items are haphazardly crafted with burlap or untreated leather, rope and sticks. They're useful because you can create them easily, have a low profile and subdued colours. But they should be easy to damage and they should offer very low protection against elements - rain should soak them quickly, and damage them accordingly. Items stored inside them should take damage from rain/prolonged exposure to humidity. Child briefcase Easily found around Chernarus, with low profile and sometimes dull colours - they're some kind of stopgap until you find or craft something bigger; should be easily to damage, and offer minimal protection against the elements. Inventory space should be decreased. Taloon backpack It's the most basic version of a professional backpack, used often thanks to a good amount of storage space - the drawback is a poor color choice, all of them are very bright and flashy. Should come with an integrated "raincoat" for the backpack: there should be an option to deploy it and cover the Taloon, in order to offer moderate-to-good protection against rain...much like the option "close lid" you find on a compass. Should be moderately difficult to damage, considering it seems to be a 24h hiking backpack Hunting backpack Favoured by players because it offers good item storage, good camouflage and low profile. It should be sturdy and very difficult to damage, but it shouldn't offer protection against rain - seems to have a very old design and use old school materials (leather and canvas), without integrated raincoat for it. Mountain backpack The go-to choice if you want to carry around everything. The drawbacks are, as for the Talon, extremely bright and flashy colours and something extremely important: an high profile. Its shilouette is easily spotted even from afar and if you play of first person servers it impairs your vision when looking behind you. It should offer exceptional protection against rain - as for the Taloon, there should be an integrated raincoat that covers the backpack and shoul be sturdy enough to avoid easy damage. Seems to be a professional mountaineering backpack, after all.

Too many layers could be difficult to code in the game; but raincoats, for example, should indeed use the "vest" slot, and be worn over any kind of jacket/shirt the characters are wearing. I'm intrigued by the idea of seasons causing more/less calories consumption - that's a really good idea...I'm a bit worried by people noobspawning in a server set in december, january or february and having to play "hardcore mode" for a while. It could be a problem if the calories consumption and loot spawn remains invariated. But anyway...wow, that's great. It's really the kind of ideas I hoped to see in this game. Kudos to Bohemia Interactive

Oh noes! I managed finally to spawn again near Novo, at the truck depot/garage...the first time I spawned there in 0.50 was probably the most funny gaming session of the whole experimental patch. Decent amount of loot, interesting towns nearby, plenty of wilderness at walking distance. Alas, beloved character :(

Improvised leather sacks, messenger bags and backpacks are, as the name suggest it, improvised. That means their manifacture is far away form even the most basic quality standards and, therefore, there are probably ill-fitting links/stitches and whatnot on them. Holes, maybe, considering that in game you skin animals with kitchen knives. Canvas itself is not waterproof - Using canvas that is already waterproofed for hunting and other things is normal nowadays, but old-style backpacks like that need to be waxed in order to keep water out. Anyway, just to cut off the argument I agree with you: the hunting backpack should be waterproof. Also, I love how basically everyone is gleefully nitpicking on easily modifiable examples instead of commenting on the general idea of creating an interaction between backpacks and weather system, similar to the weather-jackets relation. Seriously, WTF <_<

It's not broken indeed, the slight inventory reduction was intended as a possible way to further individualize the various backpacks. The core of my proposal is not, however, about item storage: it's about a better interaction with weather, exactly like clothes. As I said, according to the in-game representation, the hunting backpacks seems to be an old model. Not a vintage-looking backpack, simply an old eastern european backpack made of leather and (maybe waxed, maybe not) canvas. If you think those kind of stuff is waterproof in heavy rain you're mistaken - they're not. And that's what the core of the proposal is: interaction with elements. A light drizzle shouldn't soak such a backpack, but rain or a storm should.

Is this still a discussion about a videogame? If not, feel free to disinstall DayZ - it clearly holds too much sway on your life. I hope you're aware people who kill other players not necessarily server hop or, generally, exploit game flaws. If I were a malicious person I'd start thinking this was a clumsy attempt at gaining the moral high ground...you know, arbitrarly linking a legitimate in-game behaviour to cheating and all that stuff. So, basically you're saying that 2 times on 3 KoS is "ok" because it "play a part in DayZ experience". What. WHAT. Do real people seriously use 30+ years old D&D slang to define their behaviour? Are we seriously speaking of your mod experiences on the standalone forum? Do you seriously think telling another player he's not worthy of the title "survivor" actually means something? On a more serious note: you seem to be a roleplayer. Are you seriously telling me it's not "realistic" roleplaying someone who will not take any chances, and will kill on sight fellow survivors? Or someone with PTSD who will see any survivor as a potential infected? Or, you know, a simple murderer? Because you seem to be awfully quick in painting anyone who will not fit your personal view of roleplay as a cheating, griefing player who will soon loose interest in DayZ.

Personal choices. Kill on Sight is (fictional) murder, I agree. But, honestly? * Why shouldn't I murder on sight someone who conceal its character face with an evil/creepy looking mask? There are no visible nametag, no real character customization...DayZ is already dehumanizing enough fellow players, but this people choose to wear a creepy mask. Who are them to me? Just competitors with a creepy mask. They compete with me for resources, so they're a threat. They choose voluntarly to wear a creepy mask, so they want to be seen as a threat. (Fictional) Bullet to the (fictional) head I say. * Why shouldn't I murder on sight someone who takes time and resources to loot military areas? Firearms both in 0.49 and 0.50 are useful in dealing with players - not infected. They're personal protection against other human beings...and in order to be protected a simple SKS or an humble .22 sporter are enough, and much quickly/easily looted. But no, some people need to have an assault rifle...that means they are seeking problems, not trying to avoid them. Again, (fictional) bullet to the (fictional) head. Just a couple of examples explaining why sometimes is advisable killing on sight. If you kill me out of the blue while I'm running in a forest in the northern part of the map...maybe. But even then, maybe I have some kind of item you need in order to survive - and you're forced in a nasty choice: me or him?

Some players report that fires in buildings are ok if they're on ground level, but from the first floor upwards they're bugged and produce no heat. AFAIK fires inside garages and/or barns produce heat: but I'm not sure they're treated as "buildings" by the game engine, and I never tried lighting a fire above ground level.

In order to repair firearms you neew a weapon cleaning kit. In game it appears as a long, wooden box (2 squares lenght and 1 height in the inventory): as any other item used to repair others, it will bring the status to "worn", never to "pristine". In addition, the kit status will change with each use - exactly like the sharpening stone or the sewing kit. Using it often means it will degrade quickly. There's an additional feature - I don't know if it's in 0.49 (stable) or in 0.50 (experimental) or maybe only in my head...but if some item is left too long to the elements, be it weapon or clothes, it seems it will degrade. My "pristine" dow jacket, for example, became "worn" after a particularly long and hard storm that caught me in the open between two villages. At the same time, the "worn" machete I dropped in a city and retrieved half an hour later after another storm (long story - it involved a lot of zombies, full backpack and no rags) was "damaged" when I found it again.

According to my (unlucky) gaming sessions you're dead meat if you spawn on the coast between Berezino and Chernogorsk: most of us noobspawns seem to pop up in this area, and everything not bolted down in the buildings is sistematically looted. My last character picked up a worn pair of sunglasses because I didin't find ANYTHING except a water pump in the previous 12 minutes and even an useless piece of cosmetic gear gave me a sense of purpose :D If you spawn near Rify you usually hit jackpot: it's full of stuff - sometimes useful, sometimes not. Just imagine the barn in Three Valley spawn, only multiplied by 10. Spawning in Novo or Svetlojarsk is usually good: there's a decent amount of stuff around. Three Valley sometimes is rewarding, sometimes not. I've spawned there 5 times, and in two cases the barn was choke-full of items, in three it was empty except for spraypaint and handcuffs (seriously weird fetishist farmers in Chernarus?) I'm not sure it's a problem of loot not spawning: IMHO it spawns, only in odd locations. A lot of farming buildings (barns, wooden shacks/tool sheds near houses) contains a staggering amount of industrial loot. Some houses are full of strange items - I've found stacks of empty and damaged medikits in several houses around Cherno, and stacks of books in some bus stops in front of two-story houses. AFAIK the loot respawn system spawns an item in a 2km radius around the place where the original item was taken...it seems that there are some problems with this system. As already said, Rify for example is choke-full of loot. That means either the respawn system create new items in the exact spot they're taken (but that happens only in certain areas) or someone raids the towns around Rify and all the loot respawns there. Mad idea that just crossed my mind: could the quick death-respawn-death cycle of 0.50 be a sort of stress test for loot respawning system? Maybe the developers cranked up the calories consumption system just because it was the easiest way to cause quick mass deaths that stress the loot respawn.

Well...every stable server I've played in usually restart every 2, 3 or 4 hours. All except experimentals, but they crash every hour anyway. Something like 95% of all stable servers does not give warning before restarting, and some of them even say it in the description while you log in: "server restart every X hours without warning". I assumed it was the norm. The most "serious" server I've played in have a restart every 8 hours...I'd like to play in something that does not reset every minutes, someone can give me a list of those servers?

Some suggestion about a future fix of 0.50. Yeah, I know no Bohemia developer will read that, it's just food for the community's toughts. Make Chernarus look bigger: how to. With 0.50 the maps feels way bigger than before: walking instead of running is the key, and with sprinting as a big no-no unless you're chased by half Cherno's infecteds it will stay in this way until 0.51. Sadly we walk instead of perma-sprinting because calories consumption is insane. Not insanely difficult, simply (and plainly) unbalanced even on paper. A possible solution to the problem "easy survival": * decrease run speed by 30% * automatically stop sprinting after 2 real-world minutes from activation * disable sprint for 10 real-world minutes after each activation * bring back 0.49 calories consumption system * decrease canned food spawn rate by 40%-50% * decrease canned food caloric intake by 30% * mantain 0.50 stomach filling limits In this way you force people to cover distances more slowly, to actually plan against dehydratation/starvation without being too punitive and, in general, you avoid putting the loot respawn system under too much stress. Slightly decreasing caloric intake of food is, IMHO a much better solution than harshly increase calories consumption. I suspect it's more manageable even on from a developer's point of view: you don't have to modify a whole system or feature, you need to tweak just some values associated to certain items. Setting time limits to sprint and decreasing run speed means you have an easy placeholder while we wait the stamina/weight management system implementation. This is what I hope seeing in a future update to 0.50. Any other suggestion or constructive criticism to Bohemia?

I appreciate the story: it's good reading something positive about 0.50 for once...but, sadly, you were lucky. First-person-only servers have more loot in them simply because they have less players locked in an endless circle of dying and respawning in the same zones: loot respawn isn't overwhelmed by the sheer number of players. Besides that, I've spawned in the north too: Novo and Svetlo, mainly, and each time I found well balanced loot: useful things mixed with garbage lying in the usual places. If you spawn in certain places you enjoy 0.50 even if it's harsh: I managed to actually smile when I realized how much funny was balancing supplies in an expedtion from Svetlo to Karmanovka. But for people spawning south, starting from Berezino and going downwards towards Cherno? It's often scorched earth, literally: house after house of nothing. And, very often, barns and wood shacks/garages full to the brim with industrial loot. My last character managed to starve because I walked from the three-house-and-a-barn spawn between Krutoy Cape and Solnichniy towards the city itself...I've found and ate a couple of canned goods shortly after spawn, found some fruits in the barn and several beers/cokes...and walking killed the character: he dropped unconscious just near Solnichniy's quarry. Calories consumption NEED to be reworked, especially if they intend to introduce a stamina system.

As said countless times before and, more importantly, as noted on the DayZ bug tracker system ANYONE playing this alpha should at least read (God forbid contribute to it), there's a nasty bug with non-Vilayer hosted servers. Basically, any server hosted by other companies seems to have a bugged temperature system: even if you're covered in warm clothes your temperature will drop regardless of activity (running produce warmth) or weather. It will not stop until you hit hypotermia status and then die. In order to avoid temperature-related death on non-Vilayer servers you have to start a fire: * pick up any kind of axe, or a machete * find a bush and go near it with the weapon in your hands * there should now be a note on your screen (chop kindling or similar) * press F and pick up the sticks you have created felling the bush * tale a bandage or a rag * combine one stick with one bandage/rag to create a fireplace kit * drop fireplace kit on the ground where you want to start the fire (avoid buildings, as the fire in them seems to not produce heath) * pick up any kind of axe * find a tree and go near it with the weapon in your hands * there should be a note on your screen (chop logs or similar) * press F and pick up the log you have created felling the tree * combine fireplace kit and log * pick up matches * approach fireplace kit with matches in your hands * there should be a note on your screen (start fire or similar) The fire should be started at this point. Stay near it and you will be warmed. Go away and the temperature bug will start cooling you again, bringing you gradually towards hypotermia and death...be advised, portable gas stoves DOES NOT warm characters in-game. I don't tink it's a bug, simply the only way to warm up is starting a proper fire. To light up gas stoves you have to combine the stove with a gas canister...at this point you start them with matches exactly like fires. You can use stoves to cook meat, but you'll need a cooking pan or frying pan and combine it with the burning stove.

Wow, an all caps rage-reply. Must be true. On a more serious note, no. Ten, a hundred, a thousands times no. I've spawned in places obviously looted before my arrival and there was loot - sometimes interesting, sometimes not. But there was loot, even if some other noobspawn before me dropped his/her jeans, battery and/or torch on the ground. There is, on the other hand, a very big problem with loot tables and locations. As previously noted by Boneboys some towns are literally full to the brim with supplies. I've found stacks of 10-15 empty first aid kits in a room outside Cherno. In every shack and/or barn I'm visiting there are tons of industrial loot (constuction helmets, cyalumes, ropes, pliers and such). Barns are full of lanterns and gas stoves. Two story houses spawn almost only books, and on several bus stops in front of houses between Solnichniy and Kamyshovo there are dozens of books. Rify, in at least three servers I've visited with different characters, is full of cloned items - groups of tree/four child briefcases are common, as bike helmets and, again, empty first aid kits. Rifles cover (literally!) the bridges of the ship, but no ammunition can be found on it. There's some problem with loot, yes, but player-dropped items does not seem to influence loot spawn. I still don't understand if food spawn rate have been tampered with and lowered or if the circle of spawn-death by thirst/starvation-respawn is too quick and effectively prevent loot respawn creating "burned" zones where no food can be found around spawn zones. This, with the combined reduced stomach dimension/harsher calories consumption is killing characters extremely fast. I don't agree with Boneboys however on a point: even if you're full green and healthy with lots of supplies you WILL die of starvation. And quickly. Way too quickly to be enjoyable. It's a game, dammit...seriously, this is the only answer to the "easy survival mode" of 0.49? There's no middle ground, either it's too easy or needlessty harsh.

Permadeath is a feature the developers themselves have put in DayZ, and they announced it even before DayZ hit playable alpha a year ago just to make things clear with the playerbase. The name you see on the screen is your DayZ handle, not the name of the character. And you can carry around everything you need NOW, in an alpha version of the game...in the future there will be a a weight/stamina management systems, exactly like now we have a hunger/thirst and temperature management systems. You will not be able to go around 24/7 with all your supplies in a backpack. Do you even playtest this game, or at least read the news about it?

Well, there are some problems with 0.50. First and foremost, loot. I'm beginning to suspect they've NOT lowered loot spawn rate - I've been in apparently not crowded areas (Rify, Olsha, outskirts of Polana) and I literally was stumbling in weapons, clothes, canned food and such. Especially on Rify. It seems that we short-lived noobspawns die faster than loot can reappear inside and around spawn areas...and that means more quick deaths, and more people spawning, and even less loot. In some spawn areas I've foun 7/8 batteries and torches in a row, and was greeted by two people freshly spawned themselves...but none of us could find ANYTHING inside and around the building in our zone. Only torches and batteries. I humbly suggest a very thorough revamp of 0.50 before sending it to stable. Second: infected. I really like their new navigation/movement system, they're not hitting you from 3/4 meters anymore...and you can actually circle them effectively - they seems to be without movement/hit detection glitches. Sadly, they still ignore closed doors sistematically...while in 0.49 I was able to trap infected inside buildings (especially to avoid being annoyed by their silly respawn system) or close me inside, they AGAIN walk through doors and/or walls. AGAIN. It's one of the more annoying problem of this alpha, IMHO. Oh, a suggestion for Bohemia: try not respawning on positioning infected inside spawn areas...it's not really funny running around chased by zombies immediately after spawning. Put them at the outskirts of the spawn zones. Third: hunger/thirst system. I'm sorry, but I seriously can't believe we're testing this. I'm all for an harsher survival system in this game, but my current character ate two canned tunas, one can of spaghetti, two apples, one banana on Rify and in the time I took walking down the stairs and in the forest towards the old site were the downed helicopter was...red warning, I'm starving. Ok, I understand the need to try different energy consumption systems, but this look unbalanced even on paper. Do we really have to write it down on the dayz issues report? On a more general note, I welcome an harsher struggle to survive...sadly there are too interlocking features that simply make you die too fast: energy consumption is way off, and that means you need more food. But hungher/thirst kills you fast, exactly like bugged infected and inclement weather. That means a lot of people respawning quickly without finding much loot and that brings even more deaths and even less loot. I can see the direction the developers are trying to take, and I like it...but 0.50 needs a serious revamp before stable.

The idea of going back to your base to resupply after death is something that comes directly from the mod, and it's pretty silly. The following step is allowing completely out-of-place fortresses like Epoch, and then everything goes downhill becoming a military simulator with zombies. You have a "base" because you stockpile things that are useful to your character when it's still alive. After death, it's another charachter and shouldn't be allowed to run back to the base of the previous one and resupply freely. Thanks to God the developers are working only on tents (small, mobile bases open to raiding) and boarded/fortified buildings (fixed bases open to raiding). If I kill a charachter with a base or if I stumble on the unguarded base of a charachter, I fully expect to be able to raid it with time and the right tools...tents should be easy, you just open them and loot. Maybe even take them away. Boarded houses should be harder, but not impossible with axes/crowbars for doors and windows and maybe pliers for fences.

As already said, 0.50 does not mean they've completed 50% of the game. And anyway...I've seen much more hyped games released on the shelves (yes, released as fully fledged products) with less content and playtesting than the current, experimental build of DayZ. I remember for example the closed "beta" of Wharammer: Age of Reckoning, and its launch: it was, even at launch, a product utterly unplayable. We have a playable alpha which is actually playable and enjoyable...even if it's still not the final product. Let's not start with the doom and gloom please.

With the new energy management system this build is discouraging repetitive loot-runs in the well know places this community loves. That's good: I was tired of seeing (and reading) of the copycat lootig sprees in the military bases and such. I'm not sure increasing calories consumption AND decreasing food spawn is a sensible choice, though. Igor-vk is right, the first minutes of each new characters are crucial: if you find decent or good loot around, you maybe live. If you don't it's an one-way ticket to death. While I welcome an harsher approach to survival, I feel that there's something off with 0.50' solution to the "easy survival" problem in DayZ. I mean: you don't find a lot of canned goods, and that's ok. You can eat wild fruits/berries but, well, there are few and they give you few calories anyway. This, combined with the previous, is not good but still not a problem. You can still hunt, right? But in order to cook hunted animals you need: * axe * rags * matches * tree branch(es) * tree log(s) * knife to butcher animal or * gas stove * gas canister * kettle * matches * knife to butcher animal If we consider the time (and energy) required to actually find those supplies, it's clear we need some sort of sustainment for a while. But canned foods and fruits/berries are rare...so we have a problem. Because once we find those items we need time (and energy) to find and kill the animal, and a little additional time in order to wait for meat to cook. Better avoid the topic of "fishing", because you need a tree branch, a rope, a super-rare fishing hook, a farming hoe to dig out earthworms, earthworms, a blade to gut/fillet the fish....yeah, you've got the picture. I suggest a "simple" drop in the spawn rate of canned food, and a backtrack to the previous calories consumption system. Or keep the actual calories consumption, and return to 0.49 food spawn rate. Or maybe let people spawn with very sturdy multitool: something that does not start degrading after two or three uses. In this way you have at least a small blade (cut/fillet venison or fishes), a can opener (open canned foods) and at least another small implement (maybe a small saw to cut off ONLY kindling from trees?).

In Mother Chernarus cyrillic reads you