Electrolyte

The burden has been placed on the players via a fairly convoluted reporting system. Looks very possible that there will be no solution for the mod considering Alt+F4'ing is the hot topic on the dev merry-go-round of to-do's and Arma, as with most mod-ible engines, isn't easy to secure within a mod. Guess the DM will be even better for the people with scripts/hacks since you won't be able to escape them after the Alt-F4 fix goes live. So it goes.

I sympathize with you OP. The frequency of hackers/cheaters has remained consistent as more and more people join the Alpha. The mod seems now to only serve as a platform for stress testing and performance optimizations until the standalone is announced. From a publishing perspective Rocket and team are treading dangerous ground leaving the Alpha in Its current condition with little communication to compensate.

Great video, shame the devs don't have time to make this info available on their own (plenty of interviews going around though!). Seems like there should either be a process that allows the DayZ devs to batch filter the server logs on their own instead of passing the buck on to the player base and server admins, many of whom won't see this forum or thread, or a debug feature should be added which allows you to report players within the game. Both require more work from the devs, but releasing a game/mod littered with hacks is not advisable for anyone hoping to maintain their success and has been a problem for DayZ longer than tolerable for most.

I guess I missed the previous XCOM quotes. Love XCOM, but every time Rocket name-drops I find myself disappointed and it's definitely revealing more hipster than insight into DayZ's future for me personally. Also, XCOM had missions and tech, might be better to stick with the Eve references. Another thing bugging me is Rocket's comment on WarZ in regards to promising features versus delivering them. A D/C fixed was promised ages ago, and now every day it is looking more and more like a feature of DayZ even in standalone form. Practice what you preach if you want people to listen to your preachings.

About the only time anything interesting happens to me any more is when I run around as a new spawn meeting players and seeing how they will behave. They might kill me at some point, but death means nothing. Good job at DM though, nothing better than a one-sided fight I suppose.

Thanks for posting the summary! Glad to see a few more survival elements being considered, but it seems like DayZ is going the direction I feared: clan-driven loot hoarding. Did you quote him directly when referencing XCOM?

The server crashes and bugs etc. are a constant in this case. I see your point but am not sure it applies to DayZ just yet.

I don't feel too bad for new players, there are certainly more challenges but there is also a lot more information available than back in May. Can't say whether they balance each other out, but it's not all bad I figure. I wonder sometimes about these people who claim to never see hackers though. I'm really not sure how someone could not have seen multiples by now if they have been playing the game a few weeks or more. I see them at least once a week, sometimes twice in a day. I guess people don't know how to spot them?

I would also guess they aren't inside the city proper, sounds to me more like coastal/outskirts sniping and there's nothing you can do about that but run into the woods. Or avoid US 578, take your pick.

Most Cherno/Elektro snipers are practicing, meaning they can't hit the broad side of a barn without unloading a mag. If the first shot misses your chances are generally good. Don't run in straight lines - at best you'll survive, at worst they'll run out of ammo while you are respawning.

Crawl to Berezino. Hardcore!

I've tried a few things that seemed like they would be fun to me, since it's sandbox in nature and all. I spent several days roleplaying as a civilian of Cherno, never using military weapons and interacting with people as much as possible. It didn't change much after the first couple of hours though, which is usually the case with anything new I try these days.

I feel ya, but I seriously doubt I would have taken the time to install DayZ if it was advertised as what you described. Not saying you shouldn't have that, just doesn't seem to represent the theme of the mod entirely and gives me no satisfaction.

I have started taking several days at a time away from DayZ in hopes of finding new interest with each patch, but it has reached a point where I get the same feeling every time I come back. The adrenaline and emotions I experienced when first playing DayZ are gone entirely. The limited sandbox options and lack of difficult decisions I encounter in a typical lifespan create a very low ceiling when it comes to variety and so adrenaline stays perma-low. Once you know where everything is on the map, how infected and players will behave, and how to generally stay alive as long as you want to, the experience falls to pieces and it takes a great deal of effort to juggle them back together due to the nature of the Alpha. The main reason I came to DayZ and have continued to play it is because it is a mod. Mods have the freedom to make sweeping changes on a whim and no one has to answer for it, such as taking away starting weapons. Either the changes are good and people stay, or they are bad and people leave. Over the past several weeks due to various circumstances no substantial changes have been made which truly affected the mechanics of the mod, the coastal bean wars were migrated to the airfields some time ago, and that's about it. Most of the dev posts now seem to focus purely on bug fixing, mostly surrounding disconnects and hacking. While those bugs are hurting the mechanics of the game, are there any plans for adding to the mod any time soon?

@Dronax - I will agree with you on the point that the vast majority of people come to DayZ not to shoot easy targets, at least not the solo players, maybe friends of existing players though. I do think however that a large number of people stay to shoot easy targets with no regard for dying themselves.