Katana67

This.

Sinking only makes the issue worse, by enhancing the contrast between the high-res player and the boring low-res LOD terrain texture. So instead of a natural human silhouette, you get a highly visible polygonal silhouette clipping into the ground. Sinking would be great if it were coupled with this alpha layer method.

This, much in the same way that having ATOC turned on blocks your vision through foliage whilst having it turned off might reveal you. There should be no advantage to be had by willfully turning down graphics settings. That said, I do believe I remember hearing a solution to this via an ARMA II mod. I'm not entirely sure it worked, or is feasible, but perhaps when they yank the renderer and are able to implement heavier occlusion culling, it might be possible to obscure or partially obscure folks hiding in grass from a distance. I've always been displeased with how games handle LOD at range, one of those important items that hasn't really changed in 10 years of video game development. It always is shitty. EDIT - Check this out, seems like a fairly low overhead solution http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?148861-Rendering-grass-at-long-distances-My-thoughts-about-it

They shifted the spawns to the east coast.

So I mean, either way, the primary purpose of a ghillie suit isn't/wasn't to fool zombies. It is/was to fool players. While I think it could be made to fool zombies somehow (via a revamped "sight" mechanic or a new "smell" mechanic), that's sort of an afterthought.

Two of them I mentioned (and three of them are Western), and four/five (there's a PSL included in the screen of the SVD) of them are derivatives of the SVD/AK. We've got both an AK and SVD inbound. Don't see any reason to add more derivatives that are functionally and aesthetically the same. We've got the M4, we don't have a battle rifle counterpart for it. Plenty of weapons to go around without the need to discriminate. I have no issue with Warsaw Pact weapons being included. Just the same, no issue with "Western" weapons being included.

Just did some kinda' crazy eyeball math, and by my calculation (eyeballing)... in order to render the whole of Chernarus (rather than just South Zagoria), the map would have to be at least 16 times larger than it is now. Pretty daunting.

I think an AR-10 would be much better than the mid-length AR-15 Torchia was talking about a few weeks ago. Doesn't have to be an SR-25/Mk 11/M110 (I think the L129A1 or HK417 would do fine), but I think they need both more battle rifles (which the Warsaw Pact nations are distinctly lacking). I certainly wouldn't be opposed to a Mk 17 either, pretty heavily featured in OA and is seeing regular use throughout USSOCOM these days. The way I always envisioned the weapons was that the Warsaw Pact stuff would be common, easy to find ammo, but not as modular. Whereas the NATO stuff would be rare, harder to find ammo (not sure this'll be the case, as 7.62x51 is pretty darn common as it stands in DayZ), but able to fit a wider variety of attachments. But I believe they'll probably go for a G3 or FAL first in that regard, which would be great as well. Also would love a M14, doesn't necessarily have to be an EBR/EMR as there are a lot of surplus vanilla M14s in Eastern European stockpiles. I wonder how the SVD will work as well, I assume they'll have it looted sans optics so we'll have to make use of the irons until we find a PSO.

Hasn't been rendered in-game as of yet, although might be an interesting idea. I remember reading a cool 28 Days Later comic collection a while back, and one of the storylines noted that the infected used certain scents to home in on survivors. Could be an interesting consequence if you try and disinfect yourself, or apply certain items to your character which make the player more susceptible to zombie aggro.

Err, why the Mk 12 or Mk 11/M110? Both are used pretty damn regularly, both were even in ARMA II (Mk 12 in vanilla, and the M110 was included in OA). Never mind other AR-10 variants, like the HK417 (which can be purchased throughout Europe and in Russia, and is used by a variety of militaries) and the L191A1 (which is used by the BAF, and has been purchased in the thousands). I mean I can see it with the WA2000, and to an extent the AS50 (which was in ARMA II as well), but the Mk 12 and Mk 11/M110 are pretty standard fare for the US armed forces.

I uh, didn't? My response really couldn't have been more tame.

Agreed, this is what I think is the case.

Check the post above yours and the quote in my signature. Still up for debate as to whether it's in the Armaverse (i.e. in the same timeline as the ARMA franchise). But it's clear that DayZ is at least in a separate timeline which branches from ARMA II. And, even if it were in the same timeline as ARMA III, DayZ could be taking place afterwards. We have no idea when DayZ takes place, only that it's after 2009 (ARMA III is 2033 or something, right?)

Yeah, I'd love to come across some sniper's hide via persistent objects. Would be wild.

Well, as per the recent Torchia statement I think we can conclude that DayZ (Chernarus), if not in the actual Armaverse, is a continuance from the events/happenings of ARMA II.

Perhaps it's being added because it might have a purpose in-game, and isn't meant to be wholly realistic in depiction. I guarantee their thought process is a bit more nuanced than "People can shit in real life, so let's put it in." My point is that people use hyperbole around the concept of realism to create a straw-man against something they just dislike. "Pff, pressing R to reload our rifles! What the fuck? Do we have to press B to breathe now?"

I love how whenever someone mentions "realism," the immediate reaction is "well, we better add rape then." As if that's the logical next step.

Neat! This is one of those nice posts that I didn't read cause I was on my forum hiatus. Very good, before they announced construction/barricading, I had this whole long essay typed up. This is awesome. I have a few quibbles with the specifics of certain things, but the overall theme of making things into active "skills" (in the sense of, you as the player has to know how to do X) is awesome. I always found this to be lacking in DayZ. I mean, when you used to fix a car, you just clicked "Repair LF tire," and your character just accomplished it 100% of the time. It didn't require you to seat the tire. Didn't require you to tighten the lugs. Didn't require you to jack the vehicle. This game needs more of this. DayZ has a ton of actions, not a lot of activities.

I had advocated for this a while back, when they first were going to have purposefully included "civilian" weapon stances to make our character look less competent.

No, I'm just stating a fact with the last bit. I have a geared character, what gear I actually want, comes from barracks. So I loot barracks. I would love it if barracks weren't the most expedient way of maintaining gear, but they are for me at this junction. Nothing to do with my playstyle, just the current status of my character. I agree about too many weapons spawning at the moment, especially in relation to the overall number of populated servers. As to your third section, I'm not proposing the addition of anything or increasing the odds at finding X any more than it is now. Just the moving of current piano house spawns to a more appropriate (in my opinion) building model. Wouldn't necessarily have an affect on the overall loot, but it wouldn't negatively affect it either (assuming that gun stores match or come close to matching the number of piano houses). If anything, it could be used as a tool to tweak the loot down or up by giving a new building to be placed around at the discretion of the developers (which isn't necessarily the case with the piano houses, as many of them were pre-existing). However, this is primarily born out of a desire to have the increased weapon spawns present in the piano houses spawn in a more appropriate location. I feel that putting in a gun shop building model, would be a nice way of doing that. EDIT - Trying to find how many piano houses there are in-game, anyone offer any assistance? DayZDB is a bit cumbersome, as it marks piano houses as mid-level clothes loot, along with a ton of other buildings. I believe the piano building is "housev2_03b".

I giggled.

To your first point, again, fiction is flexible. They can have as many gun stores as they wish, do I think they should be all over the place? Certainly not. But would I rather be going to a gun store vice some random residential house? You bet. Do I want gun stores to be the only place to find guns? Absolutely not. This isn't a huge issue for me personally, as I loot primarily from barracks currently. If anything, I'm actually suggesting that there be few gun shops in Chernarus. As I'm suggesting moving the spawns of a building that's already very numerous (i.e. the piano house) to a dedicated location, up to the discretion of the developers. If there were to be numerous gun shops, it could contribute to loot decentralization, so perhaps a balance is needed. Again, I'm not opposed (and in fact, have proposed in the past) to decentralized loot. But some loot rates need to be specific to certain buildings, whether it be military loot, food, weapons, etc. I like the idea of decentralized loot just as much as I like the idea of high-value buildings, so perhaps there's a middle ground to be found there. I'm merely suggesting that they transfer the existing loot spawn of the piano house into a dedicated gun store building model. Would it add anything tangible to the game that's not in already? Perhaps not. Would it be a small step in the direction of plausibility? Maybe, and that's what sparked this discussion. Would it be nice to have an increased variety of buildings? Absolutely, that's why they've been adding new buildings methinks. Most of the loot in police stations spawned elsewhere prior to their inclusion as well. As to the last bit, it's not so much about what a building spawns so much as how often a building spawns a certain item.

I'm not undermining anything, I'm providing a counter argument to those who are arguing against something that I've proposed (which I'm not 100% sold on, hence why I'm engaging in discussion). People are still obliged to follow their own opinions. I wasn't originally saying one way or the other "this is what would happen in an apocalypse," I'm merely postulating that firearms are more likely to be found in a store selling firearms than a residential house. Which is an assumption, sure. I'm not assuming Chernarus would have gun stores, I'm asserting that it should. And said fiction (i.e. Chernarus as rendered in DayZ) should accommodate for that. Likewise, I'm asserting the above, that a firearms store would make a better place than a residential house for a level of increased weapon spawn likelihood. The fact remains, that a specific residential building (i.e. the piano house) spawns weapons at a rate as to make it a high-value building. So why not just have the same increased level of weapon spawns, spawn at a building which is more likely to have an increased number of weapons. Bear in mind, I'm not asserting that X would happen in an apocalypse. I'm merely asserting that firearms stores are more likely to have weapons, given their nature, than a household. That's not to suggest that houses cannot have firearms in them, but the likelihood is slanted in the favor of a dedicated building whose sole purpose is to sell firearms. What I think people don't understand is that I'm not proposing any actual changes to the spawns, I'm merely suggesting that I think a gun shop (i.e. a new building model) would be a more appropriate place than a residential building (i.e. the piano house) to have an increased weapon spawn rate.

Well, I mean certain items are (debatably) more likely to be found in certain buildings. Does that mean they shouldn't be found elsewhere at a lesser rate? No. I think all loot should, generally (with a few exceptions) have some chance of spawning everywhere. I do agree that loot needs to be decentralized, but some stuff (like weapons and looted food) has to be spawning in certain buildings at a higher rate, if it's to remain plausible in my mind. Otherwise, there may not be enough incentive to venture away from the main loot spots. I think that they've already made marked improvements from the mod, I mean, big time. I don't think people (not saying you don't) appreciate the affect that having all buildings open to spawn loot has had on how we play the game, it's already become vastly decentralized. Likewise, I think that people are placing too much emphasis on the upcoming loot management system. As I understand it, it will primarily be used to regulate so-called "high-end" loot. I'm sure it will be applied to all loot as well, but I think the effects will only be readily apparent with the high-end stuff. Not sure I'm down with random spawns in the woods, however random stuff in things like trash cans, boxes, and all that would be nice.

Can you expand upon that? Perhaps I can address some of the issues.