Electrolyte

How come only the threads with flaming titles always get the most responses, when most people just complain about the flaming? I agree with most of the problems Op except that I don't blame Rocket or his interviews for the lack of progress in the mod. Perhaps Rocket has made some misteps along the way, but I think it would be fair to keep things in perspective: that he is a military vet who built a user database in an attempt to simulate some of his experiences for others as a sort of experiment. Popularity of the mod has brought its demise as numerous security and population stresses have pulled any feature development resources away from the exciting areas of modding in an effort to keep it barely running (certainly no small task when compared to most major titles on the market). Hopefully things will turn around soon, until then just try to survive alpha.

There is no measurement of succes other than surviving Alpha. Dying 3 million times to have the same loot as someone sitting in the woods and never dying is the same in terms of success. Neither have achieved anything other than spending time with the DayZ Alpha.

I hope for the same but have my doubts. Most of his posts suggest that DM is what makes the game tick, making DayZ nothing more than a clever way to trick hardcore enthusiasts into playing a messy military Sim for casuals who can't win at anything else. This is a very cynical perspective, but it didn't stop Tom Clancy games from being made. Fingers crossed we'll see a different direction.

Or run straight to Cherno or Elektro repeatedly until you kill someone who has all of said gear above. It might take about the same amount of time, but it will be way more exciting than wandering through the woods alone. Your call.

Anyone playing for keeps will shoot you in any situation that they have a good chance of winning. Death means nothing to experienced players, so they will often even shoot at you when the odds aren't great just to make things exciiting, or as you suggest more like COD. Gear is the name of the game, and even some beans and a bandage qualify as gear. Your best bet is to be invisible and hope DayZ separates itself from games like COD or just go back to playing them.

I hate saying it because I thought DayZ was a survival Sim when I first started playing too. It isn't, as Rocket has stated it is whatever the community makes it and the community has figured out that you should always shoot anyone you see before they can shoot you. You'll have a lot more than some matches and food the next time you have a chance to murder someone. Anyone else who doesn't attack either realizes they are at a disadvantage, or is new to the game.

If you are a bandit, you should always shoot first. Once your position is revealed you lose all of your advantage, and a dead survivor is worth far more than the living based on the current mechanics of DayZ (this applies to non-bandits as well).

Thanks for sharing Zed. I imagine significantly more new players die to infected than bandits, at least that's how I got started. There are a lot of ways to avoid dying even after being shot to account for, and I know I've let people die to infected fter knocking them out just for giggles. I can't speak for the latest wave of new players, but something I've noticed a lot of is how terrible most of coastal snipers actually are. It's really appalling to be honest.

On point, although I usually find more Enfield ammo than Winchester. Enfield is great if you like to party hard.

You sir, are quite the master chef of troll. Hardcore games don't exist, but you'll argue what makes a game hardcore. When your definition starts looking a little shaky, cook up some piping hot troll. When the troll isn't being happily devoured, defer to general social commentary based on self-serving assumptions. Well played, but please do have the last word in our discussion. Troll me once, shame on you. Troll me twice, shame on me. Enjoy your casual games!

If I'm west of Elektro, grab a hatchet usually at the train stations and bee-line to the Cherno tents/hospital. Get morphine and bandages, slip past the snipers, head north. If I'm east of Elektro, head up to Berezino and hit the hospital/stores/aparments. It's a longer trip, but Elektro gets me killed more often than not.

I agree with most of your points with the exception of your comments about visiting Cherno/Elektro. Don't get me wrong, going solo into those cities is generally a death sentence if you don't know what you are doing. I often go as a bandit killer though, so many tears...

Usually true Alpha is a dangerous stage to be making big changes, at least in terms of adding new content. If anything it should be about making the hard but necessary changes that often create the most headaches so that when beta rolls around the bug fixing, balance, and feature tweaks (if there are to be any) have a meaningful impact to the quality of the mod/game. DayZ being a mod gives the developer certain liberties in calling it Alpha/Beta/etc. as he/she pleases, and there's really no reason not to exercise them. As far as I can tell, DayZ is still in proof of concept phase. The frustrating part for many I think is that Rocket has stated that his focus is on the mechanics, but the exploits run so deep they have made intended mechanics of the mod indiscernible to the point of inducing apathy. People don't care if DayZ is supposed to be about survival or DM, they just continue to run around killing everything or griefing to get their money's worth out of the Arma purchase before moving on. Rocket's hope was that the community would rally together to test the mod to its furthest extents, which has gone well for the most part, but the unprecedented and I'm sure overwhelming popularity of DayZ combined with the assumed limited dev support of an Eastern Euro studio known for low budget military sims has put the brakes on quick iteration.

I see far more DMR's and Kobras in Cherno/Elektro than Enfields or Winchesters. Maybe low tier weapons are more common on low pop servers? I can get to my camp in 15-30 minutes and have most of what I need to kill someone if that's the name of the game, that's 15-30 minutes of bloat to get the same result as running into Cherno/Elektro with a hatchet. Hell you don't even need a hatchet, just get a train going and run to the med tents or hospital. Someone will take the aggro off of you whether they meant to or not (works best against groups). And for your healthy serving of troll I only ask that you please refrain from telling Quake/CS/etc pros they are playing casual games to their faces. I'd hate for you to enter a Dayz situation of your own!

They are certainly not opposed, apples and oranges situation I'm afraid. I'm stating that the adrenaline highs of DayZ DM can be experienced much more often and with greater satisfaction in other polished DM shooters, hence making DayZ into a bloated DM mod is pointless and people will move on. I love mods, have thoroughly enjoyed the phenomenon of DayZ, and will be sad if it collapses as quickly as it came about because it turned in to a proudly unbalanced hardcore military deathmatch. I doubt that will happen though - the active users on the forum seem to welcome DM from most of what I've read, but forums typically represent a small percentage of the total players. To your second point, death means nothing in DayZ based on its current mechanics (version 1.7.2). You can join and leave at any minute, deaths mean nothing, and you always respawn instantly (almost instantly, you have to micro the UI minigame a bit). And do you honestly consider pro Quake players casual? I used to get pumped about DayZ firefights, but they end faster than most alpha bugs can kill you. The bugs are far scarier frankly, I got whacked by the same bug three times today. So it goes.

Alpha is buggy. I'm on my third life today because of server restarts. Snipers are having a blast I'm sure, even though most still can't hit the broad side of a barn...

I play as lone wolf and sometimes with a friend. I've tagged along with several random people I met, sometimes for 10 minutes sometimes for 2 hours. I don't think what you are hoping to achieve is very possible in the DayZ environment, but do feel that it would make the game more organic and create more unique situations if it could be done.

This list is pretty fair as of 1.7.2, although I think the only reason it is so long is that the only gear DayZ offers to players are self-survival tools and weapons made for killing people. If those are the only items any person you meet will ever have, what benefit could that person possibly serve other than to take their gear? As for Competition, I would change "Not really the point of this particular mod..." to "negates the purpose of DayZ's existence", because there is nearly an unlimited number of shooters that offer much better DM experiences and much quicker gratification. I personally feel that most people who come to be competitive in DayZ are bored military shooter vets or people who generally suck at real hardcore shooters. They have found weaknesses in the mod which are easily exploitable, so they stick around. Griefing is a part of online gaming the same as complaining is the backbone of internet forums. It should be mitigated at least to prevent the mod from dying. Rocket fortunately understands this, unlike some developers.

In the wide world of online video games, DayZ is about as unfriendly to team building as it can get short of removing chat completely and forcing you to use a blind matchmaking system. The primary play-style of people who post on the forum is anti-social to say the least. What's your goal here?

I recently stopped going north because staying alive serves no purpose. Better to cut the fat off of the DM where you can, and the best part of the southern area is that 99% of people can't aim for jack (which is why they play DayZ and not competitive DM games). Most of the people up north have bigger guns to compensate for their bad aim, making it a much longer journey to a much more certain death and often you won't even see who it is shooting anyway. I've been running around Cherno all day with a hatchet and have only been killed once by someone in debug forest on joining a server (at least I think that's what happened). So it goes.

I brute force always. Sure I may not live for a month, more like 2-3 days, but you can definitely brute force through zombies with a little effort and creativity.

I ran around Cherno to offer supplies and a guy broke my arm with his Makarov, I was carrying my hatchet. Word to the wise, the fellow with the hatchet does not enjoy being shot. Good news is that after I sorted out that bit of business, I was able to pass on supplies to someone hiding in the store. Kids do the strangest things...

I cannot answer these questions with any authority, but I'm pretty sure there is more to it than sound/vision when it comes to detection, namely smell. But this could just be me developing superstitions based on the randomness of the 1.7.2 AI, who knows. To answer the rest of your questions from my perspective, in the current version (1.7.2) you are much more likely to be seen by infected than heard. To avoid being seen, do not stand or crouch in front of them, especially the hoppers who seem to be better at spotting someone crouch-walking than the walkers (again subjective). Their attacks can be avoided if you practice enough, but there is no end all be all solution to dealing with infected under any circumstances. Expected the unexpected, and expect to die.

Just like real DM. Win!

Infected are not the main threat once you have a hatchet, some bandages, and morphine - morphine being the hardest to obtain and most likely to get you killed. I'm more worried about starving than getting killed by infected as of 1.7.2. Otherwise there is nothing to do but kill other players or make up your own objectives, and it takes a lot less effort to hunt players than brainstorm a mission that has no tangible reward. There is the possibility of dying and then having to run however long to get back to your camp, but the excitement usually stops there. The "don't get dead" objective loses its meaning since it is incredibly easy to survive once you get basic tools, that is until a bug kills you. So it goes.