Troll_Hunter

- Chapter 2 - It was getting dark and the medic put on the car's headlight; one of the bulbs had burned out. In a few moments we get close to town, but it is very dangerous there with z's and gangs roaming the streets. They'll see our lights and hear our car so we go in on foot. Do you know a outdoor store I asked? Yes there is one, and you're in luck it's close to where we arrive the medic replied. I think it's time to fill up the radiator the mechanic said pointing at the dashboard's temperature gauge. I think I can help I have two canteens the hunter replied. Ok, let's agree to be back here in 20 minutes, and please be careful to stay stealthy. I'll put a red chem-light in the car so we can easily find it back. Walking through town there was an eerie silence, on could hear only the sound of wind and leaves. Sometimes a rustle scared me to only discover a couple of tiny rat's eyes digging through the trash. In the distance I heard an owl's whistle. We passed the houses because those are were the places most of the infected were. We tried to use our lights a little as possible because that would instantly attract them. As we saw the outdoor store come into view I noticed there was light in there? Hunter told me to remain extremely careful, because any sound would lure out the infected. Hugging the store's wall we circled the building to scout the premise. Hunter gave me the stop sign and signalled me to come close whispering "I see moving shadows, at least two". I've an idea, let's lure them out and club them. "ok, search for a rock, and throw it against the front door, then get your axe and be ready, I'll be at the back door, ok?" The rock hit the door, the sound was very clear and I was afraid that the infected neighbours might be alarmed too. Then I heard footsteps heading my way, then the door swung open and I planted my axe right in his face. Carefully peaking inside I saw hunter clearing the room, "all clear" he said. "We've 10 minutes left, quick", and we started stuffing our backpacks. Our softly lit car was easily relocated, and hunter put the spark plugs back in, "the anarchist's way of preventing theft" he explained. We let the car idle to warm our selves and waited. I was starting to get worried about the medic and the mechanic when I noticed a light blinking in town? There was a pattern to it! SOS! That's them! I cried to hunter, he saw it too, but wasn't instantly reacting as he said we don't know who's light it is, it maybe trap.. But, but, can't we do SOMETHING? "hold on, I've a plan" Hunter put the car in gear and stepped on the gas, turning off the road through the grass fields along the town towards the other side of the valley. The ride was very rough and loud with rocks, gravel and grass hitting the fenders and the bumps made it harder to see what was going on. Then hunter steered the car hard left sliding facing the town and said, "Now we use our lights and horn, and distract the infected to come to our way!" It worked right away, but my God those where a lot of infected! "Get in!", hunter shouted, and we drove backwards luring the rushing infected further from the village. Hunter turned off the lights and said ", this should give them a chance to escape, we now drive around to our rendezvous, hopefully they'll be there". A short few minutes later, nearly exhausted them Mechanic and medic arrived. "I don't know how to thank you" the medic said, "we got everything, but in the hospital our flashlights got spotted an we got swarmed" "We were clubbing many infected for what felt like ages as I noticed we and you should already be back. My friend used his flashlight to sos, that would at least tell you we're in trouble!" - "I don't know who thought of it, but your distraction was great" the mechanic mumbled. Hunter, "thanks, did you got what you need?" - "Yes, let's fill up the radiator". "Ok, then I'll put back in the spark plugs" hunter added. "Smart guy you are, you're a fortunate man to have around, let's go I'll show you the way" the mechanic replied. On the way back the mechanic suddenly said: "stop the car!, stop here! I need to get something!" he got out and went to the berm lifting up a small deer, and putting it in the trunk. "Now you know why our radiator is leaking, I'll fix it later, now it's time to enjoy a little bbq and share a story with our friends waiting at the barn".

I thought of presenting my thoughts in a story way, Initially I thought what about a small sketch? but it went a bit longer as more ideas popped into my head. I also liked the surprising actions my fictional characters went through. I think this is also what makes Dayz great, the surprising unique actions of unique characters. They should do everything in their ability to attract those to play Dayz.

"In addition to this, the idea of an economy of scarcity should give said agency to players engaging and interacting with each other, but far too frequently, it ends up being a drive to either completely avoid players - or to just destroy them on sight. I truly hope that as we move into BETA, and begin to see mechanics that give players more of an option and feel of having an impact on the world, that we see the core game loop expand past loot-shoot-survive. As my most memorable experiences in gaming all come from those types of interactions with DayZ, and DayZ Mod.To achieve this however, we need more than passionate developers. We need to hear from you all. Constructive, and engaging feedback on the systems and mechanics of DayZ that either drive, or hinder player interaction is key - and I hope you all will engage in this more often as we move into BETA." I too want to see more then loot-shoot-survive. Question is can we do more? Want we to try more? Do we need to do more? Are we the right person able to appreciate more options? In short I think the game should reward cooperation and creativity more. This will attract more players with an explorers' and builder's mindset. Destruction is an easy way of having influence over others. Creating is the difficult way of having influence. Make the creative way easier, more useful, more meaningful, more powerful. Example: The game starts you off as being a lone survivor, you've nothing but your life, whistle, candy-bar, flares and a worn lifevest. Travelling along the coast in search for warmth, food and help. Abandoned villages with only hostile mad people. I grab some clothes from a washing line, rips a few cans from a cupboard and head inland. Drinking from streams following the roads I see a farm. As I pass the shed I pick up an axe and knife which I sharpens on the sharpening stone. The cowboy head will keep my head warm and dry, and the scarecrow's burlap sack is a nice place to store the vegetables and fruits I found in the garden. In the quiet farmers' house where flies and mice flee from my soft sneaking footsteps I starts to walk the creaking stairs to the upstairs bedroom. I gentle push open the door and there is woman lying face down on the bed. I steps forward to see if she's .. suddenly a mad man cries and aims his double barrels, in a reflex my axe swings and lands on the farmers head, blood splatters across the axe, the wall, the floor, the bed, dead couple. Still shaking I leaves with a box of 12ga and a gun in my bloody hands. Night is about to fall as I travels along the woods edges and fields, his stomach rumbles, as I hears another stream. Arriving at the stream I notice fresh tracks, two kinds, one with split toes. He recalls his pathfinders' book and believe there maybe dear ahead. Glancing up I see the treetops waving in the wind that is probably coming strait at him, good, the dear is not going to smell my approach. Carefully avoiding making sound brushing my clothes and stepping on branches I move slowly forward gun in hand. There they are! I see a dear drinking from the stream. Shaking with excitement, or was it the cold, I take aim and fire. The gun sound echoes through the forest, the crows fly off in panic and the dear jump off and flee. The chase is on, rushing in I notice the dear I shot is not there, but the fresh blood trail shows it's wounded. Tracking the blood crest a small hill and there it is, limping and falling. I fire my second barrel. The dear is small and I swings it over my shoulder to carry it to a warm place for the night. Arriving at the forest edge I see a barn. After eating a quality BBQ I falls asleep on a warm haystack. In the morning I'm woken by the sounds of barking dogs? I look down and see a pack of wolves fighting over the bones of the dear, right next to my sack, axe and gun. Oh shit, how do I get out of this mess? Trying not to attract the hungry wolves' attention I searches the haystack and finds a hayfork, it's not much but it is something! I lean over the edge and watch the pack fighting over the bones and wonder which one to hit first. One seems to be the alpha, scaring that one may just give him enough time to get down and grab my gun and ammo. The hayfork flies through the air and lands right behind the shoulder blade, the wolf cries in agony and keels over. The others are surprised and scatter barking in panic. Quickly I climb down and grabs my gun and ran out. A shot whizzes by followed by a riflesound! My feet slide as I quickly turn to sprint back in. More shots follow, and the barking stops. Moments of silence pass, my heart is racing hiding on the barns attic gun sweating in hand. "Come out, come out where ever you are..." As a shadow dressed in hunter camo enters the barn. He checks the fireplace, the bones, then sees the killed wolf and says, "nice job killing that alpha wolf, I think you have a talent!". A talent? At school they always told me I was useless because I did not care much for modern life. "I'm up here, I'm armed, don't make a move, drop your weapons!" The hunter kneels, and places his rifle and knife on the ground, then put his hands above his head, asking: "are you going to shoot me?" Maybe, tell me what is going on, why are you here? - "Well, yesterday I heard two shots in my woods and I followed your dear's blood trail and found a pack of wolves and now you". What I mean is: what is going on in this country?, everybody seems either dead or crazy and hostile! - "well you don't think I'm crazy do ya? Actually I think you're the one that needs help". He's right, I need some help. What can you do for me? - "Well I know how to hunt, and I have a save warm place to stay." How can I trust you? "I all fairness you cannot, but you can rely on knowing I could have shot you 5 minutes ago when you stepped outside". A few days passed and I learned the advanced hunting skills from the hunter's manual. It was now easy to spot blood trails, walk quietly, aim faster and longer, skin and use sounds to attract game like ducks and dear. In this god forsaken lonely place my new friend has provided some great friendship. He explained that a few years ago this country was struck by a strange disease. " Initially the government tried to help the people, but when the economy stopped working the panic chaos overwhelmed the local authorities. The army was called in and blocked off the area, but was to ill equipped to deal with the gangs and groups of slowly dying desperate civilians. The UN sometimes drops crates to places they believe still has survivors, containing foods and weapons." Why weapons I asked? - "I'm not sure, maybe to help the survivors, maybe to help them killing off each other faster? after a while everything seems to becomes possible". He continued: "anyway, today it's time we resupply, we need to stock up and get ammo and all the other stuff that only can be found in town". We emptied our rucksack to the bare minimums of food and tools and closed our cabin to head for town. A few hours went by navigating through the woods. We used a compass and a piece of paper to take notes, and draw our map. We came to a road and the hunter explained: "I believe this will lead us to the nearest town" - How do you know? "Well this road follows that river, which will lead to an artificial lake where they generated the power that travelled over these powerlines" pointing at the lines and posts along the swirly road. Walking on the road was much easier and I enjoyed the sounds of nature around me. "Take cover!" jelled the hunter as he dove to the side behind some rocks. Trusting his instincts I did too. "Listen in the distance a car is coming!, hide". But why? "because they are probable a looting gang on their way!" ok, and what if they're just like you? "They are not, trust me! - the best thing is to let them pass by and then resume our way own way". What if they got what we need? I mean that we may be in the minority but we have the element of surprise. "Are you sure? I mean there is no way back once we open fire!" I'm tired of walking, how should we stop them? "well the best way is to make them somehow stop, have them exit the car and then shoot them, Oh and off cause make sure they don't see us." I think I know, let's shoot one of the tires and when they ge.. "No bad idea, shooting the front tire makes the driver swirl of the road and wreck the car; this is what we're going to do.." The car cruised along the curvy forest road, when it suddenly came to a screeching halt. A tree had fallen over the road. Two men exited the car and begin to chop up the tree into logs and putting them in the trunk. I shouted from the bushes: Hands up! drop your weapons! The two men took a knee and complied. "Please don't shoot us" one of them said, "we're on a mission to help our wounded friend, he has a broken leg and we need to get medical supplies in town!". You're bull shitting me, you do not know how to fully heal a leg! "No really I can proof it, I'm a medic! take a look in my backpack and you'll see the medicine book". Yeah right, and the other guy? what's your speciality then? "I'm a mechanic, a very pissed off mechanic to you that is". You're kidding me? Can you repair water pumps too? "Depends on what you have to offer in return!" Well lets see, how about your life? This moment the hunter interrupted "That's not what I've taught him!, he should learn some patience, maybe we're better off working together, remember the barn friend?" not waiting for my reply the hunter said: "Ok people let's try this, You put their weapons in the trunk, and we have our new friends sit in front and drive to the nearest hospital" I put all weapons in the trunk, but kept my knife in hand and sat next to hunter in the back, keeping a close eye on the mechanic in front and the medic behind the wheel we drove off. The uneasy silence of this strange kidnapping situation was just getting unbearable when the hunter said " let's turn on the radio", rotating the knob landed on the one radio station that was still broadcasting, and it was John Lennon " All we are saying.. is give peace and chance, all we are saying.... ".

I hope the AI can be server adjustable and modable. So server admins can adjust the pvp ratio pve by adjusting the z' AI, equipment etc. I also like for some map global effects or events some day. Weather changes, seasons, plane crashes, shipwrecks, military convoys, refugee invasion etc to shake things up.

Exacomvm, impressive work you show here. Thanks for the thoughtful replies. I hope the modding abilities of Dayz allow you to have some fun with that too. I hope that Dayz will have some decent shaders for wet surfaces, like BF1 has, shiny wet roads, roofs, guns and gear, maybe mud too! It will make wed night time look much better. I also would like to localised gore, wounds, and scars, so I can tell from people's appearance where the are or have been wounded. I also Love to hear players scream and agonise from the wounds or pains they have. And please add brushing and contact sounds for Walking through brushes, bumping into walls, trees, through puddles. The more sounds there are the more physical and tangible the game will feel. In general I get a feeling that now the base code is starting to come together, content creation is speeding up. For the next Status Report I love to know how the Z's AI is doing. I wish the Z's play a more interesting role, have more a human feel to them. Their current cartoon like movement, behaviour, sounds do not fit the realism Dayz is going for. Please eliminate this cartoon realism contradiction. Maybe the Z's live of eating the Dead players? Maybe there roaming gangs patrolling neighbourhoods? Maybe players can cause some infighting? Maybe some have melee or other weapons?

According to the team, Modding will be allowed with 0.63 beta I believe. Love to see your skills in there! Aside from your skills I think I would not hire you because of your attitude. If you are skilled and this stuff is easy for you to do you could be successful if you present yourself more supporting and encouraging. I think the BI engine has a lot of unique features and (complex) ways to do them. I think you should investigate more before you pass judgement. What skills and experience do you have?

Real life FOV and eyezoom. I like the eye zoom. In real life I have a FOV of ~180. The width of my monitor cover only about 60 degrees. I think the Eye-zoom should match that 60 degrees. Speed dependent eyezoom. I also like the idea that one cannot use this eye-zoom function when walking fast, or it's effect being reduced dynamically by the player's speed. Binocular. To promote Binocular use, make it's use easier, press B to use the bino with your left hand and see a near instant wide clear view with a 8 x zoom, FOV 8 degrees. Most scopes are 4x, show only a FOV 16 degree circle, while the 8x bino will offer 2x 8 degrees fov using the full with of our screen. Hopefully we can find a military bino with integrated compass and distancing reticle so we can use it as a spotter. Level Of Detail: In order to avoid the very immersion breaking popping up of objects and object changes I would set the LOD in such way it does not change for FOV 100 to 60. Maybe the LOD's models need more work to make their transitions SMOOTH? - I believe some engines have this. When I have to choose: I rather have less detail up close to avoid having immersion breaking popping of LOD models. Key layout. I believe the devs need to consider the hours people put in the game, designing ergonomics that are easy on player's hands. Holding a middle or right button and pressing another to fire is not ergonomic. Although you don't want 'a toggle' to aim down sights, I do think it can function when connected to player speed and movement to avoid jogging or running while aiming down sights. I can envision the following action and key use: When running with a gun in hand, pressing 'fire' will 1) slow player to jogging pace and point his moving gun from the hip forwards. (Bayonet charge?) Pressing fire again will fire a shot from the hip, accuracy heavily depending on movement. Pushing the 'scope key' slows the player to a walk and brings the rifle to the shoulder and into ADS / scope if mounted, gun and camera moving a lot since the player is walking. Pressing the walk forward key would cancel the aiming, bring the gun down and have the player jog again. Double forward brings the gun down and start sprinting. The 'scope' key can also be used to cycle between scope/ irons or zoom levels. Pressing fire when not holding a weapon brings the fists up, in initially a blocking pose then transitioning to a regular boxing pose. This way players have a better chance blocking a sudden melee attack. PS. On the LOD, when I notice the LOD detail popping, like on the startup screen, I notice that the it first cycles through the lower quality models before arriving at the appropriate LOD model. Loading the lower quality models first and changing them does cost cpu cycles, maybe the model chosen must be simply based on the distance from the player? Maybe the LOD setting for graphics should mostly affect the close and medium distant models, so the medium long and long distance models are not affected, not yielding visual gameplay advantages. Maybe the objects need more LOD transition models to make the transitions appear smoother? I would love to have a LOD transion slider like in the old Flashpoint days. I wonder with today's GB's of graphics memory if the models could be stored in there so the gamed does not need to fetch them from the RAM or HD? Maybe have a LOD setting on depending VRAM size?, so the game can load the most used models and textures in VRAM and cash the rest in RAM. Avoiding copying memory around would be important I think. Hopefully my rambling will trigger some good ideas. Finally, thank you for your hard work, openness, status rapports, questions. I think the new player controller and smooth animation system will help BI a lot for their future projects. Maybe an overhauled LOD modeling module would just as beneficial? Courage!

What game functions has a house? Why have a house?

Interesting. - love to have an ranking, and statistics of my own characters.

I like to hear more realistic car sounds. Like the tire sounds, Like winds sounds, like the sounds of suspension, like the sounds of gravel and stones hitting the fenders when off-road. Also the car/ truck interior environmental reverb, and dampening of the exterior sounds. In addition to this a radio that could receive a local FM transmitter (a cool long term DayZ DJ goal), and cassette player where you could play found (collected!?) cassette tapes. In Chernarus you can find many radios in houses. Wouldn't it be nice to find an 90' gettoblaster and play and record cassette tapes?. Memo recorders would be cool as well! Anyway I mostly want realistic interior car sounds, second, car radio cassette players.

I love this! It adds much more new depth to weapon use and choice. Now bull-pups (like the Steyr AUG) make much more sense! In addition I would like to see a melee animation for every gun, so people can hit infected or players close by with a rifle bud / stock. Hipfire may be an option too?

I believe currently the map that can be found in game is divided in 4 pieces, make it searching one not worth my time. Personally I'm using an online map on my second monitor, a cheat I believe is easy and often used. I think using the in game map should be made much more attractive, so people will start to use it. - easier to find at certain locations, - 1 map to cover of the whole of Chernarus, - with a pencil one should be able to write on it. - create shareable treasure maps! - if the player has a gps, their exact location is marked on it.

For me I like to see starting players have a wide base knowledge, matching that of a regular man who has had military service, including basic survival, first aid and shooting skills, as it is now for the regular players. The advanced skills should be rewarding extras. Abilities that are valuable to the player and a group. I think it is specialisation that makes organising in groups more valuable. I think Dayz can offer more then FFA and TDM. In Dayz people can exchange more then med kits and gunfire. How can we encourage players to seek more rewarding, involved, interactions? In my view at this moment the game severely lacks depth. There is nothing more to do then to get guns, find your buddy and hunt others. What attractive ambitions are there to work towards to? I think attractive Individual goals, group effort goals should motivate players to build and traverse dangerous Chernarus for many hours, dayz. To do so the rewards should be awesome. Getting a helicopter operational, and flying it could be one of those (team) ambitions. When such a craft passes overhead people should be amazed and impressed by the effort and skill it took to make it happen. Learning the right skills to me is just as logical as getting the right parts. However for the most rewarding goals you'll need a team of people to support, protect and succeed. Obtaining the skill to me is just one of things to do in order to reach that self chosen ambitious goal.

It is a lot of work to chop 1 of these pine trees, let alone chop the fallen tree up into small burnable blocks, way, way too much work! Instead gathering a few blocks from those houses, a torn down wooden picket fence, or gathering lower dried branches from pine trees is the natural way to make a fire. Love the idea of making liquids. Coffee, tea, soup, oatmeal such things give a big moral boost in cold hostile environments. Wolves should be afraid of fire, and cannot enter within a 10 M radius. I think Wolves should have a hunger and health variables. With more hunger they'll travel faster and be less afraid of gunfire or casualties in their own group.

I like to actually see the apples on the tree, and be able to grab them. If I don't see them, or cannot reach them I'm out of luck. I hate the artificial 'searching for apples' wait and animation.

I've proposed crows, seagulls to do this! Adding to this I would like to see / hear flocks of birds and other animals fleeing from loud events.

I hate any pop in happening. It's so distracting and immersion breaking. But the grass draw distance should be more.

They could start off by showing the player in a place where you can see plenty of detail and features, and can check shadow and grass distance. Moving the video settings in the upper corner / centre allows players to tune the graphics settings and instantly see the effects.

I like the idea of only looking around, but not moving/shooting or actions awaiting the log out. I would add the players eyes slowly closing (vignette) to simulate falling asleep. This I posted in one Anti server hopping thread:

I love the idea of seasons in Dayz! I think this would be nice for Dayz DLC, or a Dayz Mod.

Maybe I'm thinking a bit too simplistic, but why not make the log out system have your character remain on the server for 2 or more minutes longer in a sleep position? During this time you can be found and killed, and you cannot log in on another server. This will force players to seek a safe space ;) to log out. Log out time will make hopping servers dangerous and time consuming. I think BI needs to make sure the servers are stable, with a solid net code. When a player connection is lost the in game character should fall and go into the sleep animation. When the connection comes back alive the player's eyes open as he stands up. Maybe, if the connection has more then normal ping and or packet loss, a small packet loss +ping graph should appear in a corner alerting and warning the player with numbers and colours indication the severity of the connections' problems. Information that will help players to choose a better server and or internet provider.

My proposal is to use 'a book' as way to specialise to enhance role-playing. How? Normally survivors start of with a basic knowledge. To be able to do advanced skills, and do some base skills faster, on needs to consume 'a book'. Books should be rare, exchangeable, but only 1 time consumables - a gameplay compromise. Upon consuming the book, the advanced skill is acquired. This skill is perishable, it has a timer. The timer will be reset (and the advanced skill ability extended) if the advanced skill is used. If the player does not use the advanced skill, it will time out and the skill will be lost. RPG. There are many games with diverse player roles. Sniper, Assault, support, medic, etc. These player classes, roles and abilities stimulate different play styles. These unique player abilities stimulate team-play, communication, experimentation. This adds a lot more depth by offering people different challenges and therefore much different experiences. Should a player be able to acquire multiple skills? - Yes. and it will work fine because the advanced skill's perish time and rarity can be tuned to make it hard to find and maintain multiple skills. To be clear, normal players should already have all the base skills, equal to what players now already have. The advanced skills should offer players very useful and unique extras. Like CPR, tuning a car (restored performance and range), seeing animal trails, gun trigger job, starting a helicopter, all things that normal laymen don't know. As an extra: There should be an SAS DAYZ survival pocket book in the game. It should be the game's survival manual, explaining how to survive, all the basic pathfinder survival principles and skills. But also how to craft everything. I think it would be very dayz if there is no help menu but the player actually needs to find the game's manual in game :D

Wearing motorcycle helmets sounds pretty dumb to me. My helmet weights ~1700 grams; ~3 1/4 pounds, reduced hearing (!!!!), reduced field of vision, inertia makes running and looking around slower. Soldiers may wear helmets in dangerous places, but usually don't wear them over long distances, I wonder why. oh and btw soldiers helmets do not stop nato or soviet ammo, only pistol and lesser bullets. I think I want to see a more fluid animation, and an accurate animation. So I can see exactly where the strikes are going. Hopefully the upcoming new player controller and animation system improves this a lot.

Looting / checking a house takes already enough time for me. Finding some loot is nice, when it's rewarding. If there is a high chance of useless stuff it will make killing others (with the good stuff!) much more attractive. Hence it will create more KOS. The houses / kitchens etc could have a bit more papers / clutter, but that should be just part of the house model. On the streets, in the forest, the wind could carry dead leaves, papers, roll a can over the pavement, have the wires move, ripple pools, curtains moving, flags moving etc. I don't think players should be able to do delicate repairs because it's unrealistic and it's finicky. I rather have a an easier time finding loot. For instance wind that (slam) closes doors (sound) when new loot has spawned in a house. In this way you can be a bit more sure to find something in a village where all the doors are closed. The sudden slam door sound could scare players, and have zombies scan around. Adding randomness to the looting town experience. I too hate to see my long typing gone because I was logged out unnoticed before I submitted!

Just an example of some nice cliffs: http://www.dumpert.nl/mediabase/6951717/783ad5d8/nederlander_met_speelgoed.html