emuthreat

It's a tough task trying to understand what DayZ is, what it should be, and how that should look and feel. At its core, DayZ is a survival simulator in a world overrun with infected, and hostile survivors; it should be harsh, difficult, complex, and unforgiving. Survival should be a chore; advantages should be difficult to secure, and require significant investment. Much in the same way that we aren't forced to carry a gun, nobody will be forced to farm; they can always choose to forage or scavenge, albeit without any guarantee of results. But just as we all know that carrying a gun is a de facto necessity for survival, farming should be a core part of the play experience for many people. You can choose not to grow your own food, just the same as you could choose to not carry a gun and avoid confrontations. But growing your food will be certain and reliable, much in the same way that having a means of defending yourself will no longer mean any hostile contact will almost certainly result in your death. Vehicles are a wonderful example of the investment/return mechanics that will help to diversify player behavior. Once they are reliable and free of bugs, I'd be happy to see them require even more investment of parts and time to get them running. This will increase their value accordingly. The whole point of adding all of these survival mechanics, vehicles, crafting, dynamic events, and zombies to the game, is to make something different from ARMA. Everything that makes DayZ what it is, can be regarded as an addition to this dynamic system with the express purpose of adding difficulty and uncertainty, to what would otherwise just be a large virtual world where people go to shoot one another. For these reasons, I cannot agree with appeals to keep from making the game too difficult or complex. There are myriad other games that exist, in which a person can easily get a military loadout and go kill other players. DayZ is not these games, although it will invariably be modded into such a state. So if we can be 100% certain that DayZ will be modded into whatever simpler, easier, version of itself people will wish to play, where is the reason in not making the vanilla version as difficult as possible? I am actually in favor of implementing certain crafting or base building mechanics that would absolutely require two people to complete. Hopefully this would require lone-wolf player to seek amicable interactions. Nobody would be forced to do anything. They would simply have a choice. If they wish to construct X, or move Y, then they must work together with another player. They can just as easily opt out of pursuing that particular task, or even seek out a mod in which such tasks require no effort at all. The goal of these "MacGuffins" would be to direct and encourage players to pursue any of a number of different actions in the game. People can shoot people, repeatedly; we know this already. I'm much more interested in seeing what new types of behavior will emerge from a game with more complex and difficult mechanics than we are used to seeing. I think the combination of zombies, weather, disease, hunger and thirst, and various technological aspirations will give people plenty to do. I would just prefer to ignore those who would complain that all these other features are getting in the way of their trying to shoot people as often as they would like. There are plenty of other games, built just for that purpose.

I'm speaking from both sides of the fence, here. I play quite a bit of running around through the forest, hoarding helicrash loot and other high-end goodies, as well as occasionally getting bored with my fully geared state and trying to get into trouble. So far this patch, the zombies are good, but not great. I still occasionally get bored enough to try some patient PVP. Just today, I sat at a helicrash, and then went to Myshkino tents by myself; albeit on a low-pop experimental server. Too few people really play on the 1pp servers these days, even on experimental; maybe that is why I sometimes feel the need to taunt some of the more self-proclaimed elite of this game. I shot all twelve zeds in Myshkino with an SVD, and looted it out for a good amount of decent gear, then went back to Sosnovka to continue my search for sedan tires. Aside from having one of my mounted tires in Pushtoshka stolen by a server-hopper (on experimental 1pp, nonetheless), my few hours solo were quite uneventful. I do not condemn KOS/griefing, but I think that the developers should try to structure the game in such a way that more complex playstyles are likely to naturally emerge from the game. I just hope that once the game is feature complete and filled to the brim with zombies, people will find enjoyment in trying to contact other players by other than ballistic means. There is so much more to this concept than constantly roaming high traffic areas of Chernarus, trying to kill anyone that you see.

Well sure, but it doesn't have to be in absolutes. Making the infected much greater a threat might naturally encourage strangers to band together for survival. Perhaps on some occasions trust can be built. It would be terribly shortsighted to not consider this type of emergent gameplay to be much more complex than the current trend of lone wolf KOSer, lone wolf hermit, group KOS squads, and group alternative squads. KOS will never go away, but I always had the idea that the game design would eventually try to steer the modal behavior towards more diverse emergent outcomes than simply a long-form opportunistic killing platform.

If the game cannot be played in a reliable fashion on the free official servers, I would consider that a fail. People can rent all the servers that they want, mod anything they want, but I am here for the vanilla experience, and hope that it can be sufficiently facilitated for years to come. I just get tired of the "go rent your own server" argument, as that should in no way be a prerequisite for playing the game. On a sidenote, thanks for the workaround on my bug report. I am already aware of how to take the safe route, regarding handling items. I play on experimental though, to try and find problems, so that they can be identified and fixed for everyone else. The way this patch works now, I can go out and come back with a FAL in about four hours of looking, provided I have a working vehicle, and I don't get plagued by the immovable car bug. No tears were shed for the lost gun, but things like that shouldn't be happening.

Select a server, and click on the details button to get more information. It is still WIP, and has some minor issues. you do not see status at this time, the icons that should appear in the bottom of your screen aren't working right now, and have been disabled. I have gotten used to just eating and drinking as often as I can, to maintain good health. Think of it as ultra-hardcore mode for the time-being, or switch back and forth between old and new UI, if you really cannot cope with the lack of status feedback.

I never could figure out how to remove plugs or batteries in experimental, without using the new UI. I guess I've just gotten used to it, and don't want to switch back and forth. But yeah, looting tents from apartments with new UI is ridiculously easy now. I kinda feel scuzzy about grabbing loot three stories up without stepping off the ground floor. Makes getting a fire axe less likely to result in alphadeath, though.

Come-on dude, it's placeholder tech. I only use it because the old UI simply cannot interact with some of the car parts. But it sure is nice to loot all those airfield towers from the ground for my hoard of 7.62x54R and .308. :P

To avoid creating tons of redundant threads, you could also use the forum search function; or for a broader base of resources to draw from, Google it yourself.

If that's a bug, leave it in. I have been finding tons of great stuff lately. I actually think that 1 hour respawn timers even make it more fair for people on foot.

Since this thread seems to have been sufficiently derailed already, might I take this opportunity to address your recurring disdain for people who simply wish to play vanilla DayZ on an official server? Just knock it the krunk off already! If I was interested in subscribing to a game that cost me as much as my cable internet service, I would have gone looking for one. Number one reason I never wanted to play WOW: I did not want another monthly bill. Number two reason: I thought the premise was silly, and I'm not into that kind of grind. I know I might have a minor case of 1pp-itis, but your constant jabs about people not mattering if they don't rent a server is elitist and complete bullshit; so give it a rest already. I'll be on the public 1pp servers. If you have a problem with that, or anything else I've said, come find me there. In the meantime, stop insinuating that people who don't rent servers are the lowest caste of DayZ. If you were as important a part of the DayZ playerbase, as you exude, I would expect you to be doing some bug reporting; or at the very least, playing the hotfix so we can get vehicles fixed before everything shuts down for the holidays.

New UI allows you to interact with all parts of vehicles without using tools. Once you get over the "newness" of it, you will find it very useful. You can also loot an entire building from the ground floor, either a bug, or a consideration for our safety, as stairs and ladders have, again, been resulting in senseless deaths. When driving a vehicle, any small error, or possibly spikes of lag or desync can result in damaged wheels, or wheels being sunk slightly into the map. Rotating and repairing the tires will likely fix this immediately; a process that takes only seconds using the new UI.

I find good loot everywhere I look. Going from Ratnoe to Pavlovo? Don't forget to check Grishino, and the various helicopter crash sites between Stary Sobor and Zelenogorsk. If you want .308 ammo, just check every house and civilian vehicle that you see. I'm not trying to derail this thread, but why the hell does it even exist? Military loot spawns in military areas, industrial in industrial, civilian in civilian, agricultural in agricultural. Just cover ground, lots of it. You will eventually find what you are looking for, or so much other stuff that you won't care what you were looking for to begin with. There is practically no thought involved at all; just look for stuff, and you will find what you find. If you want specific things, try one of the trading threads.

^^^Ignore this guy. 4th gear is where all the fun begins. Make sure you are using the new UI, carrying a tire repair kit, and have an extra tire or two; for added fun, don't ever use the headlights.

I came into the game back in January of this year. Despite the bugs, I have the impression of constant progress; slow as it may be at times. These new vehicles and their many problems make me somewhat nostalgic for the days when V3S behavior was hilariously buggy. I can't even count the times that I had warned people not to approach a truck from behind, lest they spook it and get kicked in the head. That time a couple of trees snatched up my truck upon entering it, and suspended it there like a hammock; or the time I saw a friend hit a guardrail and get sent up into the stratoshpere; I would gladly participate in this alpha for another year if that is what it takes. The schedule seems to be a bit optimistic, but I like optimism. It's nice to know that our efforts are appreciated; especially when bug reports will sometimes sit for a week before being assigned.

Two hits from a longhorn to the head/neck region in .58 was my experience. I'll take my VSS hunting here in a moment.

4:3 ratio makes me feel fat. Just kidding. 21:9, suckers!

Flares are great for getting the attention or would-be attackers. Then you just throw the flare in their direction, temporarily blinding them to the darkness in the distance, and run your bambi-ass out into the wood as if you knew what you were doing. Remember friend, there is no shame in running away; especially if faced with a pair of Lewis machine guns...

Nice name, you may soon come to see the irony in it. I must disagree with you on the framerate for .59, as I have seen improvements. I had gotten a vast improvement for myself, by disassembling and cleaning all of my computer components, and replacing a failing power supply. I also thought my PC was in good working order, until I discovered that it wasn't. To avoid going too far off topic, I'll add that I have been inordinately lucky with finding vehicle and helicopter crashes.

Burn down all of Pogorevka, and then stuff the ashes into a barrel, place the barrel right up against the sedans front passenger side fender, and wait for a server reset.

This is why I normally prefer official servers.

I'm not so sure that I have it backwards. Basebuilding will require the precise placement of objects; a feature that I have yet to see implemented into the game. I agree that it would be best to have implemented it earlier, to allow more time to break and fix it; but I have this suspicion that the devs kinda know what they are doing, and would have implemented it sooner if possible. I never played the mod, so I don't know how the placeholder basebuilding would have worked, but I suspect that they didn't want to put it into the game early, only to have to remove and remake an entire new one. I think we both know how much complaints, such removal would have gotten from the community.

What you mean, like bigger network bubble? I was thinking along the lines of them being constantly drawn towards distant gunshots, naturally aggregating in the areas where the most is going on at the time. It also would allow for the prepared survivor to draw off the infected before looping around and looting back through an area. Maybe revise that to 1000 meters. Or is 500 meters the radius of the network bubble?

I asked that very same question myself. Seems a bit inordinate.

Set up a server? I'm again getting the feeling that you don't quite get what I'm after. Renting a server is not part of my goals for DayZ. Basically only interested in a standard vanilla experience for the foreseeable future; no need to mess with any settings. If the default settings and official servers can't be used to play the game successfully, I would consider that a design flaw. I'd prefer to play on official servers; and don't see any reason why they shouldn't be stable and supported for years to come. I'm definitely waiting for .59 stable push.

The thing I most want to see added into the game sooner rather than later, would have to be better AI. I want the zombies to be drawn to gunfire from a couple kilometers away. I'd also like to see, like you mentioned, different "classes" of infected Take for instance, a system of categorizing them on a value scale of one to five, for a number of different attributes. Have them each be assigned a level of general arousal/alertness, visual acuity, hearing, speed, strength, tolerance to damage, and tenacity. This way, the infected behavior will be unpredictable and varied. The player will never really get to the point where they can routinely predict how easily they can sneak by, break aggro, or easily dispatch them with melee. Each zombie will be a gamble. But the real interesting stuff begins to happen when they start chain reactions of aggro and pursuit. Maybe you can just sneak up and knock the weak/deaf ones over the head with a pipe, but accidentally alert a tenacious one with particularly good hearing; who, in chasing you for hundreds of meters, aggros all of the good sighted zombies on the northern half of the airfield. Before you know it, you are out of breath in Grishino, and used up most of your ammo just keeping the faster ones off your tail; a herd of a couple dozen is now locked onto you, their respective strengths combining to form an unrelenting mob of pursuers. Maybe you can pick off all of the fast ones, and a majority of the medium-fast ones have lost interest. But a handful of tenacious zombies with both good hearing and eyesight catch up to you when you stop to catch your breath in the lodge at the foot of devils castle, leaving you isolated and bleeding, legs broken, with all of your clothing and food ruined.