bibbish

Was at a castle on the steps so the zoms slowed down. Was able to hatchet them no probs. When trying to hit their heads (that helps for the viral ones, right) I tend to aim high. I haven't noticed any reduced range from my hatchet, but then I wasn't really paying attention.

I've found several crash sites recently. One had a packet of antibiotics which were a relief to find. The most recent however had two models of G36. One had a G36 Mag. There was also a box of STANAG ammo. Are these boxes meant to spawn? Whereas I could have made the decision to drop my M4 and decide upon a G36 model to take and be happy that I had one of each magazine type now, instead I had 15 STANAG mags, more than I could carry. It kind of took away some of the challenge. The server I was on isn't heavily populated at the moment so I could cap Zeds no problem. I really do think finding a decent assault rife should leave you having to decide whether you are going to have enough ammo, those ammo boxes are too much and surely just fuel clan wars?

I think variety is key. An overturned truck (lorry for British readers), with a chance to find a decent supply of food.A crashed car with a variety of low end gear.Crashed jeeps and vans from foreign military and news crews respectively. The military vehicles would have decent weapons in them, though picking them up would mean you would run out of ammo until you found another similar value site. The news vans could contain lore items and electronic components which would be useful for crafting, maybe even bateries or chargers to keep your NVGs going.I agree completely that crashed helicopters are iconic to DayZ and should make a come back. They should contain weapons with limited ammo of course, medical supplies as ever, they should be a lot rarer. Some people may remember reading my post where I (and others) suggested that sometimes the map, GPS etc have notes written on them directing you to such crash sites, so sometimes these crashes would be exciting hot spots. The thing I enjoy most about this discussion is all the potential. If done well the random nature would mean that you would never quite know what to expect when you log on. People have also been talking about Dean's idea for ultra rare items. I think this all adds up to DayZ being 'your story'.

It does seem pretty backwards yes. Recently I have been up north trying to survive. It took ages to find any weapon at all. Finally I got an axe. I have no side arm at all. I've also got an assault rife with half a mag and a shotgun with a few shells. To think that I should have just ran into the nearest city and got that rife immediately is ludicrous. I mean the place is where fire fighters used to work, not police, not army. It doesn't really make sense. Edit: I should add that I have been going to deer stands and stuff. Haven't ventured to the airfields in this play through.

I'm not a big fan of Kickstarter, but I think the OP raises some interesting points. It doesn't 'feel' like there is much money behind SA. Part of me thinks that we should never have been told SA is coming until a month before it is completely, definitely ready to launch in some form. That way we wouldn't be so bothered and would enjoy the mod. 1.8 has been great. Arma III's mod is unnecessary too. These extra considerations confuse people. More people could have paid a few quid for Arma II and be enjoying DayZ right now. Instead they be like 'I'll just wait for SA', and that's no fun...

It's interesting the stuff being thrown about here. The most worrying I think is how people want to play on servers with 'extra barracks' to get the loot. Yeah, take away the challenge, that's fun. Then there are those who log out at the first sign of trouble. Well fair enough if you log in and you are in an impossible situation, because that's totally unfair. But logging as soon as you kill someone, refusing to deal with your zombies? Not cool.

My old PC was far worse and ran the game. I have a new PC now though but I must say that Arma II isn't kind to it!

Hmm. I want to play on a first person server in SA. So I wouldn't see my character much...

I'm on UK410 atm. It's okay, especially if you don't like it too busy. (Though 1.8 did make it busier). I don't know how 'good' it is though, so if people have any horror stories I'd like to hear them. It runs pretty well and I haven't noticed the admins doing anything bad...

Bludy I'm too scared to venture into town to see for myself! I guess I'll give it a go when I have the ammo. I haven't aggroed zombies in 1.8 yet but if they are as tough as people say I will want to be able to shoot my way out and make a break for it.

That sounds great Fluxley. TBH I played 1.8 a bit and encountered less 'empty' spawns.

Yeah I'd 'kill' for a nice little handgun.

Found a couple different shotguns in deer stands in 1.8. Ammo seems to be low at the moment though, which I think is a very interesting take on it. How much ammo is around in the cities?

I agree entirely. It doesn't matter what map, GPS or compass you use. Navigating should be challenging. Choosing to spawn in the place you are perhaps most familiar with takes away so much from the game. Getting back to your corpse should be a bonus if an option at all. Choosing to spawn back basically on top of it... well... Takes away so much from the 'perma-death' nature of the game.

I think all the melee weapons should have a secondary use. Hatchet - chopping up deadwood Big/fire axe - chopping down trees/chopping up deadwood (high value item) Crowbar - getting into doors, cabinets, car boots etc for tiny extra bits of loot Machete - gutting animals (low yield because tricky) Pool Cue - once broken can be burnt as fire wood (quite low value item) The melee weapons are quite large, you should be limited as to how many you can carry, just like rifle sized weapons. So you are allowed a melee weapon in your 'tool' slot which is then placed in your melee slot. They should almost regarded as the same slot and should just be ways of organising your gear. You shouldn't be able to pick up another melee weapon while you have one *except* into your bag. The Hatchet could take up 5 slots and the larger items 10. The luxury of carrying extra stuff (just like I have an assault rife with a shotgun in my bag) should be entirely dependent on having a large enough bag and the space in it to do so. This mechanic would matter to people who play together. The guy who carries the crowbar opens things for us, the guy with the sniper rife covers us, the guy with the machete kills the animals and guts them (unless of course we have someone who is 'skilled' [different tread] or has a hunting knife), the guy with the axe gathers the wood. This would mean that sometimes people have roles, because lets face it, carrying blades, a crowbar, an axe and various guns would get too heavy too quickly.

Excellent observations that I agree with totally. You wouldn't suddenly know how to repair a car better if you had lived 50 days longer. Being immune to a disease because you had gotten over it a few times or immunized yourself is more of a passive skill or 'trait' that could totally work in conjunction with these micro skills. And I agree. Learning how to play Arma2 properly (there is a lot more to it that COD) is important, but DayZ is a survival game and needs these features, however they are implemented to go way beyond the mod that it currently is.

Absolutely hate this idea. Don't think it is very realistic at all. If I shot someone and went through their bag I would have to be a complete idiot to get infected from something. I would have to find their pouch of raw meat and smear it all over my face or get my hands right in the hole in their guts which my bullet had made. The reward for taking someone out is my safety and their loot. The fact that my bullets may have damaged some of the loot or clothing is deterrent and penalty enough. Cholera is caused by a specific bacteria, and usually enters the body when infected food or water is consumed. I would not appreciate it all all if my character got very ill because I shot someone and took their Mak clips and road flares.

Also, the developers should not reveal what makes your character's skill increase. It could be that hiding your character is not very rewarding because your character's skill goes up based on crawling, crouch running or running. Just having your character sat somewhere wouldn't achieve much. There could also be a system where randomly your character will stop progressing until certain criteria are met. For example randomly on Day 2 your character wouldn't progress any more until they had crawled a certain distance or perhaps gutted an animal or something equally mundane. Since your progression cannot be found accurately in the UI and since you are not told what to do to keep progressing it would be pointless to try to grind anything or hide your character. (Something similar could happen on Day 3 or Day 5). In your journal it could say. 'I've found that I am quite good at gutting animals, vehicle repairs seem to take me a while, lighting a fire takes me even longer.' This would be the only indication of how you are doing, with no information to let you know when you would become 'very good' or 'excellent' at gutting animals. Based on this information, playing in groups, you get the guy who is 'quite good' to gut the animal you have just killed because he has a chance to yield slightly more meat than the guy who is 'terrible' at it. Perhaps the guy who is terrible at gutting has 'gutting animals makes me feel sick'. Later he might have 'I'm a bit more used to being around dead animals now, I didn't throw up the last time'. If the system in mysterious I think it would be cool. I don't know how players would react to not being able to control the way the progress. I think it is great that the journal already says that the survivor woke up and didn't know how they got there, they know it is good to find a gun and make note of who they take out. I think it is 'authentic' that they also wouldn't know what they are 'naturally' ('randomly' in this case), good at. A bit like in the Bourne Identity when Jason discovers that when attacked he can react well. I'd love to hear what people think about my take on it.

Very very interesting. I liked the bit in particular about lighting a fire. I'm sure as hell I would really struggle at first but would get better at it. I don't think that you should easily be able to transmit infections through a perfectly good blood bag, but I do think the amount of blood restored should be less for noobs. Getting better at gutting animals is an excellent idea too. I think also the tools used to gut animals (pocket knife/blunt kitchen knife/sharp kitchen knife/hunting knife/machete) should yield varying amounts of meat because some of these items would be difficult to use. DayZ isn't meant to be fair but it would feel less futile for the new player if they knew that they started with low skill for gutting animals, but if they acquired the best item for the job (hunting knife) they'd be able to reduce their disadvantage a bit. Of course there is always the chance that a noob will acquire a machete, kill a boar and because they have the worst tool for the job (and lowest skill), hack it to pieces and only end up with two edible pieces of meat. If that happened to me I'd feel more state of 'panic' because survival is difficult. I'd also feel like it was worth staying alive for longer to get better at gutting animals and also to maybe find a better knife. It's a bit like when the creators of Dark Souls said that some players would be inspired to get better at the game to overcome hardships. Of course this system is based more on time played rather than ability, but I think it is similar.

Sticks and toilet roll may help if used as kindling.

I hope a clear distinction is made between viral and bacterial diseases.Mainly because I like things to be accurate.

I suppose that helps explain why you have lost interest in the mod - you get to play the SA pre-alpha, albeit in a very broken state. Part of me is well jelly.

I've mixed feelings about it. There is forcing a game out and then there is taking 'bloody ages'. :P That said i don't even know how long the standalone has been in development, shows what I know.

On this point alone I disagree. As each day goes by the 'buzz' around DayZ diminishes. Perhaps we are past all that now and the hardcore who want the game will buy it anyway when it arrives. I intend to buy it. That said my friend who I normally play with seems to have totally lost interest. We built gaming PCs for Dayz, he'll probably buy tons of games on Steam and might not bother with the standalone. Here I think the phrase 'strike while the iron is hot' applies. Getting loads of people to buy the game before it is forgotten about will only help. Even if many are only casual players and don't end up playing much, certainly after a certain time period, DayZ will still have their money which can be used to fund further updates and improvements, because doubtless the standalone will launch with problems and will need many updates. The other side to this is what we saw with The War Z. Sure 'Infestation: Survivor Stories' appears to have bombed and has a Metacritc score of just 20% but it only takes another company with a bit more cash or the appropriate attitude (and that attitude may be a bad one) to make a game which intentionally or unintentionally takes focus away from DayZ. It may be more zombie games or someone might nail 'survival' (which DayZ is actually doing very well and is one of the main reasons I play it) but as more titles get released DayZ only gets lost in the crowd. Of course the standalone will have some sort of advertising campaign, at least via social media, god I hope it does. Anyway I do totally agree though that a rush job would probably be awful, but there is part of me which thinks the sooner the game is out and a song and dance is made about it the better. Selfishly all I want is decent servers to play on and zombies that actually work. But I can appreciate that that wouldn't actually constitute a proper game, certainly in the eyes of the developers and reviewers.

Very interesting. Certainly true at my place of work. Things end up being completed at roughly the same level of quality; it doesn't seem to matter if we spend a day on the project, a week or even 3 weeks. There is part of me that wants to agree with you but patch 1.8 just came out. I often play on server UK410. It was quite busy, the most stable I have seen it in a while and I was overjoyed at the new weapon swap feature. Shame it is broken and offered to let me carry a shotgun and assault rife at the same time... :P