IMHO...
What the Devs need to do is create some mechanics where it brings players together to work against the Apocalypse, and stop "ALL" the player from killing each other in nothing more than a plotless PVP deathmatch. Sure, there will still be Bandits, but a common goal amongst player would really tie things in.
Maybe bring back the chance of player infection through Zeds contact or bleeding.. Create a mechanic where Bases are needed to bring players together to create and maintain infrastructure to initialize and continue medical research to try and find a cure for "The Infection" and save the world... LOL, or just that server.
Make one of the requirements to start and continue research as... The need to find certain Zeds that have a particular rare form of the infection and do medical tests on them requiring players to take both dead and later alive specimens back to a player created functioning medical facility. Successful tests result in possibly successful research towards an infection cure. A cure, once found can be time consuming and resource consuming to make, but valuable since it can cure players from the "Infection" and help clear towns of zombies over time for very easy looting of needed resources to continue the cycle.
Just wanted to express my idea I had after a fresh week of playing DayZ for the first time. I'm sure I'm not the first with this idea, as it seems like a natural progression for the game plotline.
