chaz gelf

I support the general idea of giving players more power than items. I definitely like the idea of requiring more than one player for various actions. Maybe things like pitching a tent could be done faster with four players than one, for instance. I hesitate to say "Skill sets" or "Class system", but I think something like that might work if pulled off right. Being asked what you were doing in Chernarus before the infection hit would be cool. Say, if you were a doctor/nurse, you'd start out with some medical supplies and be faster/more effective at treating medical conditions, if you were a cop, you'd have a pistol and a small amount of ammo, if you were a farmer (or chef) you'd have some food and drink to begin with, and food you cook would be more effective at restoring hunger/blood than if another person cooked it. (And if you're a tourist you start with a hawaiian shirt, a camera and a credit card which is useless. :D) All that said, a class system probably wouldn't be a good idea, and it's probably been suggested a bunch already, but I just thought I'd throw my thoughts out there. As I said, the basic idea of making players more important than the stuff they're carrying is probably the best way to discourage PVP, even if it doesn't outright eliminate it.

I don't know about removing it entirely, but I can understand the concerns. Personally, the only time I'll switch into 3rd person is if I'm doing something that's liable to make me dizzy or puke if I keep it up too long. That is, rolling while prone and using Q/E. Seriously, that is the single most disorienting thing in ArmA 2, for me.

It's possible (though not recommended) to make a "Lite" version of Combined Operations using ArmA II Free and Operation Arrowhead. Here's the guide.

Amen to that, fellow survivor! I died quite quickly the first few times I played, but I just kept trying, using my previous knowledge to help me in my next life. Right now I'm doing good on my current life, got some medical supplies and food, and I'm ready and willing to help any players that come my way. Unfortunately I haven't found any blood packs yet, I'll have to look more for those. But yes, in a game like this, perseverance is very much key!

I dunno about that. I've been staying friendly as much as I can. I encountered a player on one of the US servers just now called Loutt (Loutt, if you're here on the forums, hi :D). I'd heard some gunfire and went to investigate. Hungry and thirsty, I was desperate to find food. I helped Lou kill some zeds (I had a hatchet so I was able to finish them off without attracting many more), and he gave me some of the food he'd found. He'd also said he was happy to find a friendly in the server, so I guess he's had runins with bandits before. If I find a fellow survivor nearby, what I like to do is hide somewhere out of line of sight, and attempt to communicate with them. If they continue acting hostile, I'll either defend myself or sneak off. If they seem friendly enough, we can chat more and maybe exchange supplies. Gotta stick together in times like these. :D

I will say I often have bad luck finding bandages when bleeding out too. I too believe I'm probably the victim of bad luck or being somewhere that's already been looted. That said, having a way to at least temporarily stem or slow the bloodflow without a bandage would be handy!

As far as I can tell, the latest beta patch is backwards-compatible with all previous beta patches. I'm on 94364 right now (The latest one) and I can still go on servers running 94209 and earlier. The main issue is the SixLauncher not keeping up to date with the beta patches for some reason. After 94209 came out I was getting frustrated because I kept getting "Bad Version" errors, even after running the latest patch. It turned out that both SixLauncher and SixUpdater were constantly reverting me to 94103 regardless of what patch I had installed.

A top-3 servers list sounds good. I'd also still want to be able to log into different servers and just have a different character on each server/top-3 server range. So for instance if I have a character locked to EN1, EN2 and UK1 (I don't get why EN and UK are two different server types but hey), and decide to log onto, say, EN6, I'd have to create a new character for EN6 but my character on EN1 is still there and can be accessed from EN2 and UK1 as well? I'd definitely be able to live with a system like that.

I just recorded a video of the darkness in DayZ because I actually love it so much. Being in near total darkness with just a flashlight and a few chemlights I picked up from the nearby gas station is exhilirating. No gamma modification here, I'm loving it as is. Due to my weird schedule and the fact that some of the UK servers don't seem to be running on UK time, I wasn't able to witness just how dark nighttime was until just a couple hours ago, and it's fantastic. I didn't hear anyone complaining about how dark nighttime in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. got.

I kind of like the server persistence for a few reasons. Primarily because it means that if the server I usually log onto is full or down for maintenance, I can just log on to another server and continue my game without losing too much progress. I do think there needs to be a reasonable limit put on server-swapping, mostly to discourage or punish players who log out just to avoid dying on one server. Maybe a "You can't log out now, you're in combat", or a tweak to how the Shock status effect works might work.

I don't mind the PvP. That's part of what makes every survivor encounter thrilling for me. What I think does need to be punished is combat logging (Quitting the game and logging in to another server when you think you're in danger, whether it be by zeds or by bandits). If a player logs out shortly after taking damage from zeds or players, they should die the next time they log in, Or at least be rendered unconscious for a long time, like the Shock status effect.

Well, I didn't know what button was for the mic, hence me only chatting in text, but now I know! And knowing is half the battle, etc etc.

Mad props for not just disconnecting. I might be a new player but it's this level of realism that made me want to play DayZ in the first place.

I was so enamored with this game after playing it that I doodled my character (The weird green alien fellow you see there in my avatar) trying (And failing) to survive. The last couple comics both had some mature language so I either censored it out or replaced it with alternative text, just to play it safe. Attempt 1: In which I went into the game thinking I'd get a revolver or at least a Makarov, and ended up with nothing. Attempt 2: In which I ended up stranding myself on a zombie-infested island and lost a bunch of useful stuff. Attempt 3: In which I find that although the Lee-Enfield is a fantastic rifle, firing it outside of Elektro is a bad idea, as it attracts all of the zombies WITHIN Elektro.

All excellent advice in this thread. If I'd exercised some more situational awareness while hunting down zeds, I wouldn't have been surprised by the one that jumped me from my blind-spot, so I might have still been alive :P The beauty of Permadeath is that it's not about winning, it's about trying to get a little further before dying each time. Trial-and-error, it's why I love these kinds of games.