oktyabr

My "card" idea doesn't have to be limited to the coast. I just figured the devs had their reasons for wanting new players spawning there rather than inland.

~cough~ troll ~cough~ Anyone who bothered to read the forum rules before clicking "I agree" would know that not only is what he is asking illegal... it's also against the forum rules.

Hey, you can come mow my lawn, wash my cars. I even have an oil change I need to get done. Seriously, you don't have neighbors or anything with chores to do?

+1 lulz!!!!

I doubt it can be fixed, not if you still want 1000+ AI in the mod.

Pick a card, any card. There is approximately 40km of coast line. Have cards 0-9 (ten cards). Tell all your buddies you should all pick #3 for example. Each "card" represents about 4km of coastline so if you all pick the same one you are reasonably sure to be starting approximately in at least the same general area. Cards are shuffled randomly every 15 minutes or so. Wanting to spawn together, yes. Wanting to spawn in a certain area, I don't think so.

This is been happening to me on every server I've tried to join for the last two days straight now. I've posted in "bugs" but since it seems like most players don't experience this I wonder if I'm doing something wrong or others have found a fix. Spawn looks like rolling countryside with no trees, buildings or other objects. Often there are many other player skins standing around too. This morning I tried to join a half empty server just to see if that might have been the problem. It was pitch black (with stars), could hear the ocean, got the "Wilderness" spawn location message and that's it. No pistol, no gear, no canteen, no flares, nothing. Food and water icons are both flashing red, soon to die. Latest updates (I always check each day before I start to play), but this happened before I updated too so know it's not just that. Anyone discovered a fix for this?

Technically our distant ancestors DID live at the time of the dinosaurs. No, I don't mean cave men or anything even closely resembling modern humans. Mammals bonding together into packs, mobs, clans, tribes, troupes, etc. for the benefit of the group is as old as warm blooded animals themselves... we are no exception. The show Meerkat Manor is a fascinating example of these behaviors still occurring today: http://animal.discovery.com/fansites/meerkat/about/about.html

The *only* way I can think of to prevent players from alt+F4 is to make an optional path for disconnect that offers the chance to save your gear and location to the database and takes a minimum amount of time to complete, 10 or 15 seconds say. You could select it with the mouse wheel if you like. This would only work IF everything else was committing suicide. Currently (I think) the mod saves your current state to the database every 60 seconds or something like that. I'm not even sure why it needs to do that... the only advantage I see being that if the server you are on crashes, or your connection is lost, you still have your last saved location and gear when you join a server next time. How often does this actually happen? More accurately how often will servers be resetting (or crashing) once the mod reaches beta or beyond? If your status were only fed to the database when you are disconnecting (or die) the frequency of automatic server updates could be greatly reduced, maybe every 60 minutes or something instead, reducing the workload on the current system as a bonus. This would mean someone alt-F4'ing out would only be able to rejoin with gear/location that they had at the last db update. Worried about all your l337 gear? Disconnect once an hour to make sure it's backed up.

Arma's pathfinding is the way it is because it's meant to be very fast and light on resources. You can have 1000+ AI that all move at the same time, or you can have 50 AI that move "smartly".

Zombie frickin bears! Love it! Anyone old enough to remember the movie "Prophecy"? The original 1979 classic? Here is a taste: http://youtu.be/5dx5cDaTIzg?t=6m

This has been happening on every server I've tried to join for two days now. This morning I thought I would try again, ended up spawning in the wilderness with absolutely no gear, no pistol, nothing... in total darkness. I can't even tell which way is "east" and my food and water icons are both flashing red so I probably wouldn't make it 2KM anyway. No one has found a fix for this yet or the reason why some are affected and others are not?

We (I used to do a lot of software testing) used to define "alpha" as the first version complete and stable enough to even be tested. Just beyond proof of concept. Since there were a lot of unknowns it is also the stage where major components could still be changed or removed all together. "Beta" is usually after the software is gelled into pretty much it's final configuration and is used primarily for smashing bugs and testing stress limits before it's "released" to the public. Neither should be considered "stable", "complete", or no longer subject to changes.

Imposter!!! What did you do with the Baby Stomper I was arguing with not so long ago?!?! ;) I actually agree with almost everything you said. The only sentence that made me post this was this one: "Survive" being the key word there. I know it's easy to push a topic to one extreme or the other in a debate but what a lot of people are forgetting (or ignoring) is that we are basically all in love with the same mod here. The very pro-PVP side likes to suggest that *anything* should be permitted *anytime* against *anyone*, in the name of "survival". The anti-PVP players, and I really hate that term because I don't think any of us would really want PVP removed, simply want something to reign in the potential for mindless violence, especially the more established players against those new to the game or just respawning. You actually did a fantastic job outlining what must be done and what effects it might have... I just have an issue with the word "survive" always being used to defend whatever.

Thanks man! Yeah, something like that anyway.

The only problem I think I see with it is that most would likely want to spawn next to Cherno or maybe Elektro, just to go shopping. You'd probably have the majority of players spawning on a relatively small section of beach which would potentially heighten the "bean can wars" as well as drawn in the more heavily armed hyenas that already linger there. A possible solution would be simply offering one of a handful of random choices, like "select A through F"... kind of like "pick a card, any card". You don't know what the card is but if you plan with your group beforehand so everyone picks the same card at least you spawn on the same section of beach, even though it's random.

I like it! Of course good guys always attract the attention of bad guys so wearing a recognizable skin, because you have good karma, may make you a target just as the bandit skin does them :)

Yup, level 1 guys should be very easy to recognize whatever way you want to do it. It's not realistic and it's not fun for them but it's needed to help balance the game play. The complaints you have with what I suggest could be easily solved by simply adjusting the humanity/penalty levels and how long it takes you to recover some. I say this because I can actually see reason in your argument about having to kill to get the really top shelf stuff. A few a day even isn't a game changer nor should it be if you are risking your life for the uber-bling! But popping one every five minutes from the top of some building in Cherno, just because it's fun, needs to be curbed (NOT to be confused with eliminated all together!). Some one wants to play the psycho mass murderer, fine, but it must come at some cost or the only thing preventing a server from being blistered by them 24/7 is running out of bean carriers. My solution seems reasonable? PS Yeah, I know ;) Hey, bounce this around a bit and see what you think... Put the "humanity" skins on a sliding scale around the average number of kills per hour alive or whatever. I know these devs have the stats, they seem to like stats quite a bit actually ;) Put your basic bandit skin on when you cross the median. If the player base starts leaning harder towards PVP then the bandit skin comes on after more kills (same with the psycho) and vice versa... people start cooperating more and shooting at each other less then it might only take three or four kills (they was after yer stuff!!!!!!!) to put it on. It would basically be a self correcting system. I haven't thought it all the way out yet but thought I would share it anyway.

Sweet Jonnerz! Thanks! If you want to put up a tip jar or something (and maybe an MoTD so players know where to throw their change) I'd be happy to point my friends at it too.

And that's exactly why I would never want PVP removed. It's not black or white you know... I'm just trying to navigate the "grayness". :) Ok, so the topic starter is probably getting pissed we've wandered so far off... You want custom skins... I do too.

I've been north ;) Your reasoning on treating other players just like a pack of wolves consuming supplies you would otherwise have for yourself (as well as the Hindu argument) is that both only really apply to the real world or at least movies, books, etc. In the game the supplies will respawn... an endless supply of goodies for everyone, even if the server is full. And the people... wolves if you like... respawn too, so that reasoning doesn't really work as justification in this game. Some might say they are "role playing" it correctly but others would say they are just making the game unnecessarily difficult on other players. There has to be a balance or Munchy & Co. will have all the empty servers to themselves, get bored and shoot each other over and over again. /end sarcasm

I don't think it would be that hard, code wise. Whether the additional calculations on an already very busy server would cause problems I'm not too sure. I mean in the simplest sense a game detects a weapon fire event then draws a ray from the tip of the barrel out into the distance. If the ray coincides with a player's hit box the game starts a hit detected routine (damage, etc.) and "free target" is enabled for the person shot. The obvious answer is to create a second much larger hit box around each player that would be used for activating the "free target" routine instead. That way it's activated whether a bullet hits the player or not. I'm sure Arma uses a much more complex and probably entirely different technique than what I just described but the point is that there should be some mechanics available to make this happen. EDIT: Of course the real problem with this system is what happens if you are standing there, wondering if you and the guy you just ran into are about to get in a gun fight when someone else (mr.pewpew on top of a silo) takes a pot shot at you. He doesn't hit you but now you have two minutes of free target that you could, in theory, use to shoot the guy standing right in front of you... without repercussions. This begs another question! With the current "free target" system does that time of no humanity penalty apply *only* to the person who shot you or can you shoot anyone you like? Yikes!

"Free target" is a good idea, giving you time to defend yourself without penalty. As someone else said the problem with it is that you have to be shot first to use it. What if it could be coded so misses aimed at you also enabled free target?

Thanks rocket! Can hardly wait! :)

And I respect that :) An opinion isn't worth anything if you don't share it.