oktyabr

He has a point though. There should be more cars, some not even needing repairs. And some Ural and Kamaz too! Love me some cars... :D

It's already in the game. "Free target" in the debug HUD. If you get shot you have some time (I don't remember how long) to shoot back without a humanity penalty.

I would never want to see the PVP component removed. Rather I'd like to see the non-PVP aspects improved and made more complex. This should be a fun game to play even if you are the only one on the server and yet I read a lot of comments (in this thread and others) where people use the words "bored" and "dull" a lot... When PVP is the most exciting game in town it's the one that everyone will want to play. When PVP is the best game in town (the most exciting aspect) it will attract PVP'ers. When zombie survival is the highlight you will see more people playing to survive zombies.

EDIT: Informed 10 hours ago on dev-heaven: Could a mod please close this thread? Thanks. ========================================== I imagine something like this is already on the drawing board' date=' after all isn't a major character (or player) supposed to fear changing into the living dead a central plot hook in most shows, books and movies? But here is a rough outline on how I think it could possibly work: ------------------------------------------------------------- [b']IF you disconnect from the server, view changes to third person bird's eye view so you can see a fair distance around your character. A count down timer appears and runs down what, maybe 15-30 seconds, before you actually disconnect taking your stats and gear with you. A delay like this would help derail the "leave to escape" exploit. IF you are fired upon or any other player comes within looting range within that time frame you instantly get the option to jump back into your body for a chance to defend yourself. If no one attacks you or tries to loot you then waiting to disconnect is the only course of action. This would prevent people from using the overhead view as an exploit, disconnecting and then rejoining before the timer runs out. A similar delay upon joining a server (if it's not already inherent in trying to join in the first place) would likewise discourage disconnect/reconnect used as an exploit. I know it's difficult to force a player to wait to disconnect but perhaps a "hard" disconnect, as we have now, would NOT save the player state to the db server. Want to keep your stuff? Select the optional disconnect method detailed above. When you die you get the bird's eye view again, perhaps you died while trying to disconnect and are already in the overhead view, the result is the same: A countdown timer gives you perhaps 120 seconds to disconnect and respawn as a live player again OR come back from the grave. This timer is in place of instant zombification which might work out badly if the people who killed you are still looting your body. The over head view is to assure that they aren't just a few feet away waiting for you to rise. IF someone used "Hide body" on you within that death timer and you select "come back from the grave" you randomly spawn, in zombie form, perhaps within a 200m radius of where your body was. Player zombies are different from regular players: You loose all your gear and you cannot use any you find (you died... you'd loose all your gear anyway!), in fact the entire mouse wheel menu might be pruned to only "open" and "close" and "climb up" and "climb down". Normal PTT and text chat is blocked, pressing the PTT button only makes you make zombie sounds. Eliminate showing a player's name when you look at them too, to prevent "friendly" zombies. Make a player zombie automatically attack *any* player character that is in range, again, to prevent "friendly" zombies. Player zombies burn food, water and can bleed out just from damage just like normal players. Sprinting burns food and water at an accelerated rate. When they reach critical you are permanently dead and must respawn as normal. Eating fresh, human flesh is the only thing that restores these levels. Disconnecting as a player zombie reverts control to AI, like a normal zombie. "Zombie" is NOT a persistent characteristic. Once you die as a zombie, or disconnect, that is it. All over. Player zombies are different than AI zombies: They can't use flares, etc. so give player zombies a limited night vision or thermal. Blurry vision (insert favorite special effect here) could simulate the otherwise poor vision that zombies have. Player zombies can take more damage than an AI zombie to prevent a single headshot takedown upon spawning as one in a PVP scenario. To extend that thought player zombies might be given an option of what type of zombie they want to play... a couple basic suggestions would be "The screamer", fast as a fast AI zombie, better eyesight but lower damage capacity (both attack and defend) and "The shambler", slower than the screamer but with higher damage capacity (both attack and defend), etc. Player zombies can press PTT to make loud zombie screams, a call to dinner activating any other nearby zombies as well. Perhaps pressing attack while looking at a player also makes the scream and "shows" the location of them to other nearby zombies. Attacking players as a zombie helps restore fading food, water and blood (which again, I would want the zombies to use much faster than a regular player, especially if running.) I think this might work and add quite a bit to the game... who wouldn't want to try playing as a zombie, at least once? This is also roughly true to the zombie genre, with dead players possibly coming back from the grave. This makes zombie encounters more unpredictable and dangerous... AI or smart player? The Insurgency co-op mod works similar to this (if I remember correctly) in that the player team is working against an AI team that is enhanced with one or two live players as well. This concept is also expandable if the players ever find themselves with an "infection" level and a search for "serum" enters the game. Perhaps most importantly this could be used to help curb wanton PK'ing and also leave PK'd players a chance for revenge. I think PK would happen a bit less if the PK'er had to consider the possibility of a smart zombie coming after him minutes later. This might even be a plausible replacement for the current bandit skin/humanity system. Thoughts?

Good morning! I see at least some people are reading the *suggestions* (there really needs to be more of these). Again, I'm not suggesting these because I want to run around as a zombie... it will probably get used very little. But that's part of the whole idea! It's not the player zombies you should be afraid of, it's the chance that there might be one out there that will make you more careful, reintroduce tension into crossing a city at night (besides some bandit with NVGs and an assault rifle). As I said you are very unlikely to ever run into a player zombie since at any given time only a few players on 50 player server are going to be dead, the first requirement, that being a player zombie is an option (and it's obvious very few people would take it), and lastly, the player zombies just don't live long enough to be that big a threat. But you would never be sure would you? You have to treat every town and every zombie as the potential "smart" threat that it *could* be. And that's the whole idea. Do you think any of what I have said, hard d/c exploit, bandit skin, etc. are problems currently? What do YOU suggest? Everyone has these half baked reasons why my solutions won't work but I don't see any of them posting solutions of their own. It would really be used mostly in the case of PK to help discourage it. As it stands now you might shoot another player for a can of beans or maybe that high end rifle he spent hours getting up at the airfield. Your "punishment"? A bandit skin that looks cool (in the daylight). Knowing that guy has a couple of minutes to come back as a zombie will increase the risk and thus lower the "crime rate". The guy with the rifle is still going to die but the n00b who just spent $30 to get shot for a can of beans might live a little longer. Viola! No more bandit skin needed! Nice one Griff :) But don't get me started writing story lines too! I like to write! After three years the ammo' date=' petrol, medical supplies and canned foods would all be gone anyway. I get this feeling that DayZ isn't that far after the infection ;) Well, this isn't Minecraft, is it? But you had good questions that honestly made me think before typing this so here is my honest answer. No. And No. But again, this isn't Minecraft. I just wanted to suggest a way to help curb PK without the use of bandit skins or a complex humanity system.

Heh, the current state of PVP seems to be a kind of positive feedback loop. The more it happens the more it makes players cautious enough to shoot first which in turn heightens the violence even further and so on. I did my good deed today! I was actually on a quick screenshot safari and was up high looking for something interesting before it got completely dark. In the distance I could see a new spawn, revolver in one hand and a flare in the other, running down a street with a few zombies in hot pursuit. He'd stop and shoot one or two but more and more kept showing up until I bet he had close to a dozen after him. I had a AK-74 and plenty of ammo and without hesitating to think about what I was doing I just started plinking zombie heads for him. I dropped the few closest to him while he was reloading. I know he heard my shots but he didn't have long to look around for where they were coming from. I bet he got half of the rest and I took the other half. We never said a word to each other and never met close up. It felt good.

Yup, in fact I think it should be mandatory for climbing ladders and then you have re-arm with the weapon when you get up/down (not automatic).

Yeah, the one server I DID get on today we had this one kid who was talking to his buddies on TS and I guess didn't realize that he was broadcasting on side at the same time. Then he got into a conversation with his mom and I was laughing so hard I just had to leave the server.

Thanks for the response and taking the time to read my work. I understand why some people might be dismissive of my suggestions but what it really comes down to is my empathizing with what I perceive as some common complaints and trying to come up with potential solutions. Don't want people "hard" disconnecting to escape you? Well, there you go. It's in paragraph one of my first post. Don't like the idea of having to wait to disconnect? Third sentence of the the same paragraph. Angry that you won't be able to escape death by hard disconnecting? My zombie suggestion is tailored just for you. Don't like having a bandit skin and "humanity" to deal with? With the player zombie suggestion player killing carries a much higher risk of revenge and thus should make players rethink their action before they commit to it. Wanton murder and robbery would become a less frequent event without removing PVP entirely. I hope that this could be made to work to offer an alternative to the skin and humanity system as it should accomplish the same goal. I'd like to hear others suggestions if they don't like mine?

Just a quick rough to demonstrate: What YOU see as a player: What YOU might see as a zombie:

I appreciate the attempts at solid feedback instead of just "No" or "Yes" but hey, how about actually reading the whole suggestion instead of just assuming things from the title? Here, let me recap: Player zombies are short lived. Some human flesh might keep them going a bit longer but for the most part they are only going to be on for a minute or two before they die a second time (from accelorated use of food/water/blood levels). This also reflects the "hunger". Then you respawn as normal. They are also meant to be an *option*. No one HAS to play a zombie. Just respawn as normal if you like. They DO have poor eyesight (imagine how YOU would like the player zombie's vision to look) and CANNOT communicate. They can't even read the name of the player they are attacking! And they *automatically* attack anything within arm's reach so no "friendly" zombies will ever exist. A player group of zombies will NEVER happen, the way I described it in my first post. I didn't say a player in a zombie suit! Think more like a player getting to sort of remote control one of the AI for a short bit with no communication and terrible eyesight. I'll just throw a number out there... Let's suppose you come back as a zombie and your food/water/blood meters start moving down already. Run and they move down even faster. Don't eat a human within say 100 seconds and *poof*!!! "Your" zombie is now just another AI zombie and you are respawning again as a human. Catch a human each chunk of damage might buy you another 15 seconds of life as a zombie. Quickly kill and eat a human, you just bought yourself maybe another 45 seconds. Tweak these numbers until they work. Lastly you are no longer quite as bored just crouch-walking through a town because who knows, there is a slight chance that there might be a player zombie around. With 50 players on a server and maybe 5 of them dead at any given time and a zombie life span of maybe two minutes, how many player zombies do you think you will ever meet? Probably none, but you have to be extra careful... JUST IN CASE. I'm just trying to suggest a way to kill three birds with one stone: Bandits are ticked because people are hard d/c'ing to escape robbery. Suggestion: Put a delay in the game that keeps your body (and gear) in game for a short while. This in turn ticks off players like me who don't want to just loose all their stuff! Suggestion: If you get attacked or looted while you are waiting to disconnect you get a chance to fight back. Some bandits are ticked about the skin thing and humanity. Suggestion: Balance the the PK some other way (and remove the bandit skin), maybe by giving a dead guy a chance to get a little revenge. And as a bonus you are adding in a little bit more uncertainty and excitement. Oh, and I wouldn't mind playing a zombie for a minute, now and then!

Yeah, it's not like Russian is alien hieroglyphs or something. I might not be able to "read" a Russian road sign, pronounce it out loud or write it down again but it's close enough to English that you should be able to get the idea.

Unless you are a bandit yourself or REALLY want that gun the bandit in question is carrying you are probably better off just avoiding them, as you might anyone else. Gunfire draws zombies and the bandit skin is negated by darkness anyway. Now on the other hand, if this bandit thing were expanded upon to show very low levels of humanity (your mass murderer types for example)... covered in blood, hockey goalie mask, a necklass made from human ears or something, yeah, I'd feel a bit better about shooting at them. Kick it up a notch and make some sort of reward system for killing the REALLY bad "bandits" and hell, I'd want to try my hand as a bounty hunter! :D

Besides, you aren't supposed to be traveling the roads anyway, not if you don't want to get shot!