emuthreat

I find it much more productive to look at it statistically, rather than personally. The personal approach is untenable to solve by any means other than some which I have described above in my post about making friends at Tisy by making what most players would consider very poor choices. And besides, people seem to get personally offended by the suggestion that too many people doing what they do forces everyone to do it, which makes the game a bit repetitive for many. ^^^ What can be done to get that chunk of players who want to interact but always shoot first because they think you will too, to take the chance and try talking to players more? What can facilitate that in a natural manner?

Who is this person that keeps suggesting they forcibly remove KOS from the game?!? I swear, I don't have any users blocked, and I'm just not seeing where you get this. If you can't even be honest with yourself about what you think others are discussing, how can you participate? Or have a death cooldown timer that can be adjusted from zero to infinity at the server owners discretion. Again, you make an extreme and unrealistic leap to the other end of the spectrum, that relates to nothing that was actually said here. How about dog tags and static player names so i can radio my friends on the coast and tell them to put down BadboyJimbo if they see him, because he just torched part of our base??? HMMMM? Does that sound reasonable to you??? Maybe they should just remove bases altogether so it won't even be an issue? (See how that sounds? Whiny, like a ten year old throwing a tantrum, right.) <<<Try to do less of that in the future please. Why do players who KOS spend hours on survival, gearing, building? Is it perhaps because the inherent game mechanics somehow either require or reward these behaviors to be successful in the game? Look buddy, I don't care that you KOS, I don't care that you don't care that I consider it to be low-brow. Nobody is talking about removing it from the game, nobody is talking about you personally being a bad guy. It's about trends and demographics, and the in-game systems that influence those. What I do care about is that you keep interjecting yourself into a conversation that you are categorically disqualified from by your own admission. Nothing will change your mind. You just kill other players, that's it. You are a hammer and everything is a nail, I get it. You choose to limit your interaction in DayZ to oly a tiny sliver because you seem to have a disdain for any other sort of interaction. You call it RP. I don't know what you mean by that as never really roleplay anything. Unless you consider this RP: "hey buddy I got no intentions of killing or robbing you, just trying to make it back to Sverograd and kill the asswipes who been sniping everyone there for the last couple hours." I would hardly consider that RP. When I briefly tried out RP servers to see what it's about, I quickly found that it was not for me, and I was not for them; couldn't stay "in character" or whatever. Not my bag. So when you dismissively write-off any interactions aside from shooting people as RP, and keep mentioning this. I have to ask. "who hurt you?" What did they do that was so terrible do to make you so afraid of RP that you kill all other players to prevent them from trying to ruin your life by offering a can of beans, or a tip on a crashed truck they aren't interested in? Were you harangued by a coach in front of the team for wanting to pursue theatre? Did some RP in the bedroom go someplace that nobody ever needs to know about? What is your obsession with RP that makes you feel the need to even comment on a topic that you have no stake in? If they do add features to incentivize cooperation, your crew can still benefit from in-group cooperation, and you'll just have more people found in groups of players for you to shoot at once. You don't lose anything here. What's with the bee in your bonnet?

Duuuuuude. Some of my richest interactions have been from getting the drop on people at military locations, and not shooting first. Even had a couple of mutual panic-shooting-to-apology situations happen. Seeing a player at Tisy tents and telling them that i've already looted the whole base,and asking if there was anyting in particular they wanted was a pretty good way to make a new friend and ally. A few times I met friends of friends who recognized my name, or relative strangers I've maybe met once earlier and who were glad they didn't shoot before. A few times i've met complete strangers who tell me that they usually kill everyone there regardless, but found my behavior so strange that they want to see where things go. I've found that unless they are with a partner who tells them via TS to shoot, most players will appreciate the gesture. Once I saw a member of a faction whose leader I had been talking to, and was considering killing him for the FAL on his back until we had a standoff on opposite sides of a wall and realized we knew some of the same people. One of my favorites was running towards gunshots at Tisy that had the tempo and duration of someone defending from wolves. Luckily one of the two Russians I encountered spoke some english, and his friend got a very good laugh when he translated what I said to them. Some random dude running up to you in a military base and asking if it's okay to take the meat and pelts from the wolves you just dispatched was apparently a first for them. My best PVP encounter didn't even end with anybody dying. I was running back to base on a fresh life with only an IZH shotgun and a child briefcase; the dayshift of Europeans having just logged out or died and won't be making it back that day. I came to the gates to find a couple of cagey players making a poor effort of pretending to be in charge of the place, unaware that I knew the guards and most of the regulars in that time slot. After realizing that i didn't buy their act, and wasn't going to come in to get shot, they went back to trying to despawn the base and shoot me as each opportunity became available. I had a good time of running off into the woods and creeping back to the walls quietly, taking potshots through the tents, metal buildings, and fences as I heard footsteps. They took up into a blue door tin catwalk and I had great fun putting pellets through the walls after darting around to get them to fire and give up their position. Eventually, I took enough hits that my last 6 shotshells were ruined, and I had to retreat to go loot for 15 minutes. I came back to find the place deserted, with just a couple tents packed but not yet despawned. But the other things I found brought literal tears of joy to my eyes. Tent after tent was littered with evidence of my relative measures of incremental success: A pair of ruined boots and pants here. A ruined assault vest there. A ruined helmet and jacket. Tent after tent of discarded ruined clothing, hastily replaced after taking a hit. It was like a living history museum of the hilarity that had ensued less than a half hour before (I was talking mad shit the whole time while blasting through the walls at them). I reckon I tagged them at least six times throughout the whole ordeal, just by counting the pants. I survived, the threat had left the area, and the base was repairable. Who gives a damn if nobody died? All of these are things I remember and value more than any of the countless kills that all blend together. The shameful pot-shots to steal loot, the panic fire of chance face-to-face bumblings, the last man standing after a raid on your base, going out and knocking down the sniper, the instant revenge for killing your friend... I have to think long and hard to remember any of those kills specifically. But the chance encounters, new and interesting people, someday meeting your killer under different circumstances and having him say he recognized your name from a pulse check on your unconscious body a few weeks ago. Those stick with me.

Did you not read any of the suggestions? There have been many of them made for years, some are reasonable and seem feasible even. Based on your hyperbolic response, I'm assuming you feel targeted and are making an emotional knee jerk response. You did not respond to the suggestions that the game include more options for gameplay, and incentivize players to explore them through rewards to success and efficiency for valuing the preservation of a spawn-life. How would it hurt your playstyle if those who chose to do so could carefully survive long enough to see benefits from cumulative experience at certain actions; get more meat and vegetables per harvest, or take less time to change a tire, get higher quality/faster results from medical procedures, or use less consumable resources to maintain clothing and equipment? And yes, you are absolutely a KOS player. No judgement I KOS at times out of boredom, or having to be someplace and not wanting to risk entanglements. But by-and-large, I prefer interactions and value meeting new players; even when playing as part of a very familiar group. I understand that some people like to get together with the same team and go hunt other players, or do whatever, not wanting to be bothered or risk losing a member of the group, and that's just fine. KOS is a fact of life in DayZ and nobody here is talking about forcing it out. What I have seen, are appeals to add more value to character lifespans, to incentivize more players to take that risk and reach out to others in the world. Experience based skill improvements, with such a slow return on time spent so as to prevent farming skills, and add true value to experienced specialist player lifespans. Things like having someone who has mastered mechanic skills being able to repair a tire fully with less than 25% of a patch kit remaining, so that a group like yours might just want to reach out to that lone traveler and ask for help before turning his screen to black; as even that would be a far richer experience that your stated MO would provide to the community. It's not about a bandit skin, or murderers going insane and hearing things over time. it's about adding depth of field to passively influence the choices available to players and their motivations for making them. That being said... You reduction of the argument to hardcore RP fanatics, or regular joes just trying to have a good time is, well, reductive. The notion that you don't value more diverse and developed player interactions does not render them less valuable to the player base as a whole, but comes closer to defining yourself as a kid who is just as happy melting your legos with a magnifying glass as others are by building things with them. Again, this is not a personal jab, I don't care what you do with your legos. Though if you try melt them on my stretch of sidewalk, I'll try to block out the sun and make you move on. On a server that I frequent, interaction is encouraged, and organically enforced by groups of regulars with shared interests who communicate regularly. Groups such as yours would quickly find their way onto a growing list of players who are not met with kindness or understanding. Organic, in-game, countermeasures; as it should be. But just because you don't see what it is that others find enjoyable about trying to do something objectively more difficult, complex, and unique with this game, does not render our opinions any less viable. Perhaps it's even the opposite. You are satisfied trolloping around with a closed group and killing anyone you encounter. You do not want, nor need any more complexity or facilitation of deeper game mechanics to gain any richer of an experience from this game. With that in mind, what have you to contribute to this discussion, aside from the prudent gesture of recusal? To scoff at people with more developed interests and motives? Edit: After reading up a couple posts made while typing this out, and re-reading this one, I decided to clarify a bit. Some of this may sound elitist, and that was not necessarily my intent. While I make the assertion that some playstyles are intrinsically more developed than simple KOS, it is an attempt at objective assessment, rather than out of derision. To clarify, I like fishing in moving water with spinners, bucktail jigs, and rapalas. I consider this to be intrinsically more complex and skilled than sitting minnows on the bottom of a lake. And I understand trolling with downriggers to be more complex and skilled than my river methods. Objectively.

Just to be clear, I like the idea of an NPC system to enrich and direct player actions, but do not expect or necessarily want this in DayZ, as that would make it an entirely different game and we are talking about DayZ here. My issue is that DayZ has had from the outset a goal of an authentic/realism approach to the genre, yet the prevailing meta is at odds with that. This is DayZ, this is your story. As has been mentioned before, 28 Lays Later, TWD, Land of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and numerous other genre titles would have been rendered utterly pointless by the protagonists encountering 85-90 percent KOS situations. There would be no story, no value to the experience. Other games have dedicated KOS game types, and I'm sure DayZ could cobble The Survivor Games together into a highly competitive offering with little effort. i don't know what many others expect from DayZ, but a more content rich shoot and scoot, rinse and repeat sandbox is not what I'm here for. I want persistence, base building, and some sort of skill and technology progression to invest in. Weapon cleaning kits are fine for preventing damage from lack of routine maintenance, but they should not restore a damaged or badly damaged weapon to usable status in the field. I want a real target for those unimaginative simpletons to go after. Possibly include something to capture their imagination and interest beyond simply collecting and dispensing bullets; perhaps even provide incentive for KOS trolls to take and hold developed bases for the resources and cultivated technological capabilities, rather than the simply taking the oh-so-banal scorched earth policy of raiding bases. Think of how much differently a posse of bandits would play if they overtook a base with a reloading and gunsmithing shop equipped. They wouldn't have to go back to the mil bases and risk meaningless death every few hours to sustain their ammo stockpiles. They could reload and maintain what they already have, and post roadblocks outside the mil bases or industrial cities to try and rob people of their newly scavenged goods. I am much more in favor of an advanced skill tree than NPC tech vendors to drive player interests and goals. Things as simple as taking blood or administering morphine could have a threshold of competence and mastery, aided by practicing the first couple times while in possession of a technical manual. once a player has practised or mastered each distinct skill, that would add incentive to not waste the life by getting into a gunfight for shits and giggles; and add another level of disappointment to getting killed. Sure, surface level KOS trolls could completely disregard this and still have fun, but they would forever be less capable than those whom they seek to doggedly attack. And things like this would add much need balance to the ecosystem. Without any more added depth, I'm afraid DayZ will just be adding coats of lacquer to a distressed and rotting substrate.

To your first point: For the uninitiated player who came to DayZ without any prior knowledge of BI games and the milsim mentality, they were likely drawn in by the prospect of a large scale zombie apocalypse survival scenario. I certainly was. Without firsthand experience of how this plays out in a sandbox, people's expectations were likely influenced by print and film media relating to the genre, in which people had to band together to survive, and work towards common goals to eke out a comfortable and sustainable existence. Much of this comes down to the game just not being hard enough to warrant that type of concern in the playerbase. If the map had closer to 10,000 zombies, or dynamic event based spawns, this might be more feasible; though I'm sure a portion of players would still live to be a disruptive force. Sadly, this game would be arguably much the same without zombies. Just a place where people gear up and try to kill everyone they see for the most part. I would find it much more interesting if they designed a sandbox with more dynamic forces directing and reacting to player behavior. Perhaps a few factions of NPCs with bases and agendas and goals would fit the bill. General categories of motivation would be order, chaos and neutrality. A highly organized group that tries to rebuild civilization and order, and to secure the world for human survival; a semi-organized alliance of bandits who pool resources and generally don't kill each other, but who pillage and disrupt organized good; a loose confederation of unaffiliated scavenger survivors who neither wish to participate in the reordering of the world, nor wreak wanton destruction, who forage, scavenge, farm, and trade with all parties when conditions permit. Within this framework, players could choose to work for chaos, or order, or neither; and the NPC groups would keep and share a hidden tally of interactions towards these ends, based only on direct observable contact, and treat each player accordingly. If a particular steam ID killed too many neutral scavengers, word may spread among that group, but not necessarily inform the actions of the ordered good, or chaotic evil NPCs. Likewise, a player who participated in missions for the orderly good NPCs which did not involve direct conflict with the chaotic evil, might still be able to demonstrate a tolerance for savagery which would give them a measure of deference from the evil ones, while maintaining a good standing with the good; so long as their paths never crossed. To this effect, a player "outed" to either or both groups might face alienation on said server, especially if their work for the evil group of NPCs involved robbery and murder of the neutral scavenger. Lacking any kind of organizational features to the game (or distasteful magical punishments for antisocial behavior) the game will always suffer from a regression towards the mean. Some, possibly a majority, kill for fun; because of this some will kill or be killed; fewer still impose a set of personal standards and ROE. The end result of this is that the KOS percolates through the playstyles of almost all other players by necessity, to avoid banging one's head against the wall. The only real solution to this, if one is to believe this is a problem, is for players to choose a server and stick to it; to become familiar with other players and groups, and to try to organize into a larger structure that furthers their goals and expectations. Some servers have done this, and in .62 and before, it was pretty much a crapshoot for a number of reasons. Not least of which was that the 100-200 regulars who supported an ethos would normally number less than a third of the total instantaneous population at best, and were often less than 5% of the total regular population of transient KOS players; many of who may cultivate a handful of characters on weeknights, for a tour of destruction on the weekend--simply hopping to the next geared account on a different server to shoot whatever was in front of them after dying on another server. Many of these same types of players would routinely install glitched storage bases to facilitate long term missions of destructive interference. Things that might help to combat this, if we are to assume that check pulse for names is out, would be to issue dog tags to fresh spawns, and to conspicuously log players' in-server name changes for admins to help prevent cheap impersonations. If someone wants to bandit by impersonation, they should have to establish a base and gather resources to permit the forgery of dog tags; not simply ID a target group member, kill oneself, and respawn with tags bearing that name. In this manner, players of a private server can come to know who is who and get a feeling for how players behave and who can or cannot be trusted. The anonymity and ability to assume a new name at will, allows players with no goals other than murder to operate at a distinct advantage to honest and cooperative players. In a certain sense, the current and previous SA game design favors the anonymous server hopping KOS playerbase to the detriment of those who wish to organize and cooperate. I might add that anyone who might oppose this idea, is likely a troll who wants to be able to kill and backstab other players over time with impunity outside of instantaneous reactions; once the offending player is dead, they can simply cycle names and come back to the same base to meet a different person who may not know their voice; or in many cases I've observed, use an accent or otherwise alter their voice to get an upper hand. Not to say that changing one's voice or accent is a bad thing, but unless they steal a rando's dogtags or manufacture their own, it should not be quite so easy to repeatedly infiltrate a groups base to simply troll and kill people. I'm okay with players having to impose their own rules and order within the mechanics of the game, but it would be nice if the devs would make an effort to facilitate this for us better, rather than passively favoring the chaotic evil playstyle. They sure don't need any help...

Any sniper that wants to last more than an hour will need to have at the least, an overwatch partner. It doesn't hurt to have overwatch as well as a couple of counter assault players. Most snipers I've seen don't survive more than 15 minutes without moving at least half a kilometer to scope out their old perch for the response. The roving shoot and scoot opportunistic approach seems to be the most successful in the long term. The same sniper firing maybe only twice per hour, with careful repositioning in between seems to have been the hardest to combat. I gotta respect the players who can rack up half a dozen kills in a single lifespan. It all depends on the server, the current population, and the prevailing meta of the server. Needless to say, bambis don't count as kills. lol

I just realized that it's been a few months short of four years since I got bored with State of Decay and discovered DayZ. In that time, a little over three years, they developed the sequel on Unreal Engine and released it this spring. In that time, they had pared away some announced features. Initially, they were wanting to make an open world multiplayer ZA experience, but soon realized that it would not be feasible for them, and dropped it from the plans. As it stands, it is only supporting limited multiplayer/co-op play modes. I don't seem to remember people rioting over this decision, or the three years it took them to basically port over old assets and systems from the first game to make the sequel in a much less ambitious fashion than initially suggested. We have all been waiting a long time, and this has been made much more readily apparent by the reality of having released in early access to let us play along as they eventually realized that the first platform for the project was a dead end. But in the grand scheme of things, the progress on .63 is still miles ahead of what anyone else has been doing. SCUM seems like a cool concept, and has many features that many of us wanted to see in DayZ. (Advanced nutrition mechanics anyone???) But I firmly believe that it will run its course just like H1Z1 has, possibly before we even see a 1.0 release of DayZ. I get that people are disappointed and impatient; hell, I am too. But much of this angst comes with an almost willfully obstinate lack of understanding and perspective. I'd chalk that up as a good thing, because it shows that quite a few people are invested enough in this project to care if it succeeds or not. It's really interesting to think that so many people are upset over delayed returns on their initial entertainment investment of what roughly equals a rather tame night out at the pub. 4-5 years, thousands of hours of gameplay, and still so many folks are personally offended that it isn't finished yet. Are we there yet?!? X P

@blackberrygoo It's been apparent for a while now that you have nothing constructive to add to these discussions. Your frustrations have morphed into obstinate hate and clouded your ability to make even the most modestly reasoned assumption of what is happening behind the scenes and why. Case in point: This is an entirely new engine they are working with. Do you really think it's reasonable to expect that it will work perfectly out of the gate, or that the devs will immediately materialize the insights and heuristic working knowledge of a brand new system that only experience can provide??? Of course they are focusing their energies on making sure the console release does not immediately sour an entirely new market. And based off some of the "feedback" they have received from longtime supporters such as yourself, can you blame them for letting the jaded PC community twist in the wind for a bit, while they make sure that the console release isn't a massive frustration for new customers? Really, how much worse can your opinions of this project become at this point? Trying to please such kind of players like yourself, at the expense of neglecting the nurturing of a new market, would be a very predictably poor choice. The PC audience is seemingly polarized into two camps; those who are so upset by the protracted development process that nothing short of a time machine will ever make them satisfied, and the people who are just here to enjoy the ride and watch as their favorite game slowly matures to the product we have all been waiting for. TBH, I kinda want to hop on the latest build and see if it's true that helicopters are only implemented on the console version, as that would sting a bit. I honestly can't understand why they could have dynamic helispawns on Xbox, but not PC. But as I've already said, who can blame them at this point for focusing on cultivating a new market, while all the longtime supporters are treating them like shit for still trying? At the very least, I should hope that they will show some love to the PC community post 1.0, in the form of new content and feature drops; perhaps some PC-exclusive releases of new content, or official BI mods would be nice to see. If your feedback is any indication of how such efforts would be received, I wouldn't blame them for thinking "why bother" when it comes to assuaging our hurt feelings and unmet expectations.

Controller bug is a bummer, but was not the cause of your death. If you are wet, light a fire to dry off and warm up. If it has stopped raining, you can take off your clothes, empty the contents,and wring them out; or at least you could in previous patches. I haven't played the latest one yet, but it's worth a try. I find it VERY hard to believe that you went through 6 *different* towns without finding a well. At the very least, you can drink from any pond or creek; though these will make you sick sometimes, especially if your health is already low ans your immune system is compromised. Food and drink are, and should be, somewhat hard to find. The best thing you can do is to find a knife and kill any chickens you see. hell, I met a random guy and we both had knives but no food, so we chased a herd of cows around for ten minutes slashing any of them we could get close enough to, and eventually killed one and had a feast. There is a lot to learn about DayZ, and you just started. So before you start telling the devs to fix their game, I would humbly suggest you learn to play it first. I'm gonna renew my gold subscription soon, probably tomorrow, and give the console version a try. Add me, my gamertag is the same name as here, and I'll try to meet up and show you the ropes sometime. Don't get discouraged. And remember, it's a work in progress, and there will be bugs. I've played every patch since .58, and had a hell of a good time testing new content and fighting through bugs. I sure as hell don't expect a clean and polished experience yet, and neither should you. There is nothing else like this, and you could count yourself lucky in a way to be in on the ground floor of the console version. If you stick with it, a year from now, you'll be steamrolling kids as new as you are today.

Internal builds focusing on tents and vehicles. This I like.

I was reading the status report earlier, and got down to where Peter was talking about how the soft skills are going to be configured. I'll be honest, I'm pretty disappointed. Instead of having different skill trees, which a player can add to through experience over a lifetime, he proposes a dichotomy of rough and fine actions, with a positive, negative and neutral time/material consumption, and relative success spectrum, that sways back and forth flippantly as a player performs different actions. What this means, it that rough skills, like digging garden plots, cutting trees, and performing CPR will be polarized from fine skills like stitching wounds, performing transfusions and harvesting seeds from plants. That means that a player will not have the ability over a lifetime to permanently grow certain skill profiles, but rather their skill set will be an arbitrary reflection of what types of things that player has most recently done. So if I go hunting, and skin a few animals, which for the sake of argument, I'll assume to be a fine skill, and then go to chop firewood,my axe will take damage faster, because I had just performed a repetition of a fine skilled activity; obviously having completely forgotten how to do efficiently manual labor while focusing on the fine task earlier. It makes no sense. I will get less uses out of a sewing kit than I had just an hour earlier, because I chopped some firewood and dug a garden. Nonsense. It seems that they did this because of the challenges associated with making a system of different categories of specialty, and finding a way to prevent abuse in the form of grinding. This most recently proposed solution is a cop-out, and washes away all of my wishes (and patience) for depth-of-play and the value of developing a character skill set over that character's lifetime. I feel that this solution is very poorly conceived, especially when proposed as an alternative to an experience system exploitable by grinding. Did they not think that this system would also be grindable? People will simply figure out how many bell peppers they need to carry for seed harvesting practice to buff their fine-skills for the immediate need, or how many hatchets or whatever they need to carry, to chop sufficient amounts of wood to buff their rough skills. In this light, the goal of avoiding exploitability has already become compromised, and the result is an lackluster system of a forced false-dichotomy, that fails to provide the incentive to survive long-term. Please reconsider your decision to scrap the previously hyped skill system that we have all been so excited to see, and replace it with an oversimplified, polarized, system that adds no value to the long-term survival of the character, and no benefit to seeking out players in game, who have mastered that certain specialty that you need.

Holy crap, this was nearly two years ago.

I've always played DayZ with the intent of rebuilding civilization. About this time last year, a community server started a project that seeks to do just that; and it was certainly the most interesting gameplay I've ever seen. I don't want to promote servers in the wrong thread, but it shouldn't be too hard to figure out where to go to find people who are Almost FriendlyTM. Early on, I wanted to be a mobil mechanic, working for tacbac and shotshells. As things progressed, I later got the idea in my head that a good milestone for a full survival experience would be the ability to craft a hoagie sandwich from scratch. They did implement soft skills, albeit in what I see as a completely meaningless manner. A strict dichotomy of rough (chopping wood), and fine skills (stitching clothing). With a bar that favors one side or the other at a time, with only marginal gains. Meaning that if you chop lots of wood, you will never be able to increase fine skill proficiency. I made a reaction thread when this was first announced. It will be interesting to see how well an organized coalition of like-minded players can succeed in establishing permanent bases and pushing back the FPS KOS crowds. Dominating a server by controlling access to resources, and stockpiling enough to mount a continuous response to persistent threats. We were never effective at pushing back antisocial players to the coast, mostly because when one KOSer would quit a new person would login in a different spot to take his place in the server. But nothing can stop us trying. See you around the township, or burgh, or whatever the word for that thingy is...

I'll be sure to let you know as soon as they allow community servers to run .63. The one I play on has been empty for two or three months on stable, and everybody is on the edge of their seats waiting for the chance to get the village back up and running again. Hopefully, as soon as the current stress test content patch is stabilized, we'll see some community servers making a comeback. Still hard to say if people will just keep playing stress tests for even newer content though. And I'm sure that the 100 player server populations will see no shortage of interactions of all kinds. Still not too sure about the ATVs on the coast thing though; and I'm still waiting to find that mythical M4 in a barn. Praise be Hicks, bless us this day with your CLE.

I'm not sure if DayZ SA is what you are looking for in a game. It seems like you want easy access to fast action right from the spawn points. DayZ is supposed to be a hardcore survival zombie apocalypse simulator. The Mod3 versions you are used to playing are not exactly DayZ, but people having taken DayZ and katamari'd it into mass appeal to the lowest common denominator. Not to say that's a bad thing, but if that's what you are expecting, you'll have to wait for mods. A mod of a mod of a mod of a mod, if you will. Most of those mods would have still held the same appeal without any zombies, hunting, fishing, and crafting mechanics; so equivocating them to DayZ is a bit misguided.

Kinda sad that they will call it beta and still add content after the fact. Guess they'll have to call it gamma when they are down to just bugfixes. lmfao

I've had a few instances of swimming with an M4 in hands, where it dislocates from my body by about a meter, and tags along like a jumping dolphin.

^^^ Was waiting for this. It's one thing to acknowledge that mistakes were made, and that some parts of the process were possibly not as well thought-out as they could have been. But it's never crossed my mind that they were acting in bad faith at any point. Perhaps it's true that BI knew that striking while the iron was hot would be the best chance to ride the wave of interest (which was no doubt also felt by many of those involved in the project), and proceeded ahead without the proper toolset. But to assume that they knew they would hit a dead end with the modified TOH version of SA is an inductive leap that leaves me aghast. At the end of the day, all the complaints amount to crying over spilled milk. And some of it is starting to look like knocking over each new glass of milk that was brought out to replace it. Anywho, I'm gonna hop on .63 and continue to enjoy the new content that's being added to the stress test branch. I might even try to get a few LOL kills with the new moon boots bug. Hope some of you guys can find your way to enjoying it too.

Yup. Edit: I suppose satire is a better term. But still...

*sits at bar* You know, I remember when this place first opened. There used to be a little motel, frequented by servicemen waiting for cheap flights back home for leave. Well, one of those guys thought it pretty keen to buy up this closed down Chi-Chi's location and open up a watering hole for those guys. The atmosphere was great, back in the day, lemme tell you. Place got so much word of mouth that people started traveling from those guy's home towns just to see what the fuss was about. Yeah, I guess this place is pretty cool, but I've only been coming here for a year or so. *glances at the 20-something hipster couple walking in* Before long, the old feeling was gone, this place became a noisy, crowded, mess; new customers making outrageous demands for new drinks and menu items, putting stress on the staff, wearing out the pool tables. The place got too popular for its own good, and the owner tried adding more seating onto the back of the place. They did alright too. Remodeled the place with more seating, put in a nearly 360 degree bar wrapped around the kitchen, a bigger dance floor, they even put in a mini-arcade and a couple shuffleboard tables along the walls. The place did great, plenty of regulars, karaoke nights, the new menu items were actually great; hell, there was even a bunch of D&D kids who'd come in on weekday afternoons. I heard about this place from a blog that was raving about the appetizer sampler platter. I was so impressed that I kept coming back every week to try everything on the menu. It's also a great place to meet fun new people. Looks like they are still working on adding cool new things to do here too. *sips whiskey, eyeing a group taking selfies with contempt* But for all the good things they added to this place, it just wasn't the same anymore; not to mention the location had its problems to begin with. The old Chi-Chi's was built on slabs that eventually started to settle. They actually had to rip out the whole bar and half the kitchen halfway through the remodel, and pour a level footing so the glasses wouldn't tip over for no reason. The parking lot was too small for the increased traffic, and all the people waiting around the bar, would get in the way of the servers bringing out the food. Not to mention that the first step off the new slab under the bar could be a bit of a tripping hazard because of all the old flatwork that was heaving in places. But the bar is on one side of the building, and the kitchen is on the other. And I remember when this place was built a few years ago; they tore down the old grocery store building that sat empty for years. *scoffs* I'm talking about the old place, out on Riverside. It's still open too, but hardly anybody goes there anymore. I think they are gonna close it down eventually; place had so many problems, they'll never do the kind of business this place can anyways. Was a bunch of copycat joints that sprung up after the remodel, too, while they were getting this place up and running Those guys pulled off some of the bandwagon crowd too. I bet some of those folks will never come back. Just ain't the same as it used to be; they lost a lot of folks closing down for a few weeks here and there to fix things. I don't reckon it'll ever be the same. In fact, i don't even understand why people keep coming here, the feeling has passed, they don't do anywhere near the numbers they used to, and honestly, it's not even that much fun anymore. You hear about that new place that's opening up a couple blocks down from here? I dunno mister, it sounds like that old place was kinda crummy, really. I like this place better than most places I've been, and it looks like it's still getting better. I haven't seen those guys before... (a few guys in their 40s walk in with a couple early 20s kids in tow) Dude, this place looks way better than I remember. Come on, let's get some appetizers and drinks. Seriously, you don't even know how much fun we used to have at this place. And besides, if you don't even really like it here, what are you doing sitting here telling me how much you don't like it here anyways? Can't you, like, go someplace else that makes you happy? *old grump sits at bar for another five years; slowly becoming ever more annoyed by the fancy new drinks, niche menu items, noisy drinking games, and annoying new customers who keep taking his seat at the bar* Hey man, good to see you're still around. have you tried the new deep fried pineapple rings? *HRrrrumph* ... used to be.... missed the mark... magic gone... *trails off*

Got anything besides jaded pessimism to back that up? Do you have any real evidence suggesting that the completed product marketed to an entirely new audience will be rejected because of negativity has essentially become a meme? And a meme that I might add, is way outside most people's sphere of awareness. It would help a lot if anyone could provide support to their beliefs that DayZ has passed beyond any point of relevance for a mass market. It's akin to calling a movie shit before it hits theaters because it went through 3 scripts, 5 directors, and 4 options on the book before it was made. While some people may be intensely aware of them, it has little to do with the overall quality and reception of the finished product.

Yeah, the point about the doors was more to the effect of these nice brand new doors would never have been right if I just crammed a few shims under them and left the rot. Kinda in the same way that DayZ never would have been right if they just kept adding shiny new features on top of old buggy code as they did up until .62. It just takes what it takes sometimes. And DayZ has taken lot of work over long time, for a game that was put on the market before being finished. Good discussion though. FWIW, I hope it all works out well after 1.0.

Got any hot stock tips in that crystal ball of yours? Of the 125 million active steam accounts, I'd soundly bet that there are at least few million who might give it a try once they start marketing the game in earnest. While that may be true, there is much potential for new players through console interest, even on PC. Some may opt for the premium experience after realizing the limitations of console and seeing how much better PC plays by watching streams. If players really refuse to play the finished game because they think the feeling has passed, or they are stubborn and vowed to never play again after being "duped" by BI, I say good riddance. This ain't a cold pizza, or a snack that was processed in a plant that handles peanuts and tree nuts. It's not a set of new tires that were left sitting out in the sun for 5 years. There will be nothing intrinsically worse about the finished product when it is complete, besides some people's expectations and hurt feelings. Which for new players, this will not matter in the slightest; unless you count all the salty jerks giving people guff for playing "that game," you know, the "half-decade long bad joke" that "wasted my time." Do we really need to care what those people think? I sure as hell don't.