mrducky (DayZ)

Yup. That's the way it goes. It is a game (or anti-game, or mod, or social experiment, or alpha, or whatever you want to call it) - and people will play a game as they see fit within the game's rule set (and some a-holes even exploit outside those rules). And apparently one of the major rules for this game is that there is no rule about killing, you are allowed to kill others at your own discretion. So, people do it. No surprise there. And yes, it's a bitch for those who would like to have another kind of experience, but they really should just blame the game for that, not the people playing by the game's rules. If this game had achievements.. I'm sure one of them would be the "Get killed 10 times by some random player while you are unarmed". I think I would have been a proud owner of that achievement since yesterday. Is it those player's fault who shot me? No. Its just a (mis)feature of the game... And I've adapted to it by shooting others as well, sometimes even the unarmed ones - at my own discretion. Just waiting for the game to change the rules. Hopefully that happens soon.

I have no doubt that many of the players who played the game some 2 months ago or so may have stopped playing having nothing more to do. But the number of new players pouring in seems to be quite high, so that should offset things nicely. It probably depends on how much new content / interesting new features there will be on release... That will define the popularity (i.e. how much of the existing playerbase will migrate, in addition to the new players). Personally, I will probably wait for a while after the release to get some proper info on what the standalone release will be like, then make my decision based on that. (Well knowing that initial hype might differ from the reality - specifically in a sandbox that constantly evolves with its playerbase, as has happened with the current mod.)

First of all, the GF 550m is sounds like a mobile version. (mobile = slow). So even though I have no actual benchmarking data to back that up, but something like GF 550m could pretty much be crap compared to even the oldish non-mobile GF 260 or such. So a minimum of say GF 260 does not mean a mimimum on that model number for the mobile versions. If that is the case (you are GPU limited, rather than CPU limited), then first and foremost you should check the following settings: - Antialiasing off - Set the vsync off (specifically while experimenting with other settings, otherwise it will mask any small changes) - Don't try to use some kind of high resolution. Being GPU limited means it usually almost directly correlates with your screen resolution. If you halve the total amount of pixels by dropping resolution, you usually nearly double the framerate. (Go see the 3D resolution setting). If dropping the resolution has no noticable effect on the framerate, then you're probably not GPU limited, but rather CPU limited. Arma 2 and particularly DayZ is a CPU hog. - Drop the draw distance. Just drop it to the minimum 500 meters first to see if it has any effect, go up later on if your framerate can handle it. Its pretty much the only video setting in the game that has any significant CPU effect (disabling shadows helps a tiny bit too). Disabling those obviously reduce the GPU load as well. - If you are CPU limited, then you obviously should also stick to the low population servers. Go to a server with max 30 players. Forget about the 50 player servers. Also, I'm not sure how well it has been fixed, but earlier the servers that had been running DayZ for a longer period of time caused the engine to crap out and use most of its CPU time doing some total nonsense. So finding a freshly restarted server had a great impact on your framerate. I haven't really seen that happen anymore though. - Also, you should get a rather new the arma 2 beta patch installed if you have not already done so. The older versions had horrendous performance in DayZ. At the moment of writing this, 94876 build is the latest you want to use. The newer 94945 does not work, at least it did not work for me a few days ago. Most likely you are both GPU and CPU limited. Possibly GPU limited and once you tweak the settings a little bit to relieve that issue, then you quickly become CPU limited. Any sudden random short framerate drop spikes or such could be the disk access. (To which the use of ramdrive might help). But the disk is not the issue, if your framerate is always bad. About vsync (which you should turn off if you cannot get the game to run otherwise): If you want, you can get a few extra frames per second by setting the vsync off. If you have vsync on, then assuming you have the usual 60Hz display, you can only get a framerate that the 60Hz is a multiple of... Meaning that the framerate options are: 1/1*60 = 60 FPS, 1/2*60 = 30 FPS, 1/3*60 = 20 FPS, 1/4*60 = 15 FPS, etc. So, if you had vsync on, you probably keep getting that exact 20 FPS, until you get it running at at least 30 FPS or above. After which it will be that exact 30. This may be relevant, if you're just below the 30 FPS limit, say, at 29 FPS, in which case you'll be getting 20 instead. So, by setting off the vsync, you can now possibly get the 29 fps or such. (unfortunately with some screen tearing) In short about vsync: You should only use vsync in games if you can get a consistent 30 FPS or better. If you go below that threshold with the vsync, then your framerate will drop dramatically. All in all, you should experiment with the settings. It pretty much depends on whether the biggest issue is with the GPU or the CPU how high you can get your settings to. (And how much you can affect the framerate from the video settings in general). And yeah... Frankly... Arma 2 (and DayZ mod for it) in particular have been one of the most power-hungry games I've come across in a while. Had to overclock my somewhat oldish rig to get any decent framerates out of it. :P And despite that, I was losing hope on actually wanting to play the game with the crappy framerate, until some time ago some arma beta patches and dayz patches came along and fixed the worst framerate issues.

Yup. Just keep shooting 'em all. Much less trust issues and all that to worry about. Besides, it's a deathmatch game after all. ;) Or if you really want to spend a few weeks getting bored, I guess you can go with the survival play style by mostly avoiding people. Hunting others is more fun though. It's your choice.

The "loot cycling" as you say, I think is completely acceptable. It's a bit lame, yes. But it is acceptable, since it really does not count as exploit of a game bug or some other clearly unintended misfeature. As far as I can tell, the loot respawning to empty spots is an intentional feature, the fact that some people use this to their advantage by clearing the buildings, to hasten the respawn is thus within the game mechanics. Probably not quite as was intended, but if its a big problem, why not just add a longer item respawn counter? Make it at least, I dunno, 30 minutes or so? That's long enough to render it generally non-useful to "exploit". Also, it requires you to hold that area for that period of time (otherwise others might just come in and grab the spawned gear while you're elsewhere). At least as long as the server hopping possibility exists (which should be rooted out), using it would be much more effective to gain more stuff than to do than waiting for 30+ minutes on the same server for the new loot to appear. Naturally, some even more elaborate loot spawning system, specifically concerning the high end loot spawns, would be preferrable. (And, for example, loot cycling the downed choppers should be made impossible, assuming it currently is... Because being able to do so is just some silly crap...) PS. I once tested out "claiming" one of the residential house near cherno as my temporary residence. Constantly cleaning out all the trash from the house throwing it out from the doorstep, then heading off to the nearby storagehouses, cleaning them... Shooting the spawned zeds... Then repeat that over and over again. Naturally, it was mainly useless crap that spawned there, so I wasn't really doing it for the gain... Rather just for the fun of it. I think that type of gameplay is currently the closest one can get to establishing a base in the game at the moment (other than placing up tents in the woods). Now, I naturally couldn't go to the NWA or stary to hold on such a location on my own. That's just next to impossible. So I chose a residential house instead. But a larger group of players naturally could do the same with a higher yield building/area. And if they can hold it and survive there for a long period of time, then why shouldn't they have the reward of getting the loot spawning there.

Definitely this. I'd even go as far as to make the different radios to perhaps have different fixed channels. (Maybe only make some stationary locations, like the military tent radios, to be able to change the channels.) (Otherwise it easily becomes the side chat where everone can listen to everyone and the use of the radio to communicate would be way too risky as all the bandits would be constantly listening to all the channels. At least if they had to carry multiple radios if they really wanted to use it to home on the unsuspecting survivors, it would be a chosen tradeoff of either losing precious inventory space or not being able to do it effectively (on all channels) - i.e. having to assign one person to be the dedicated signaller/radio spy. - or to just keep hold of one of the stationary radio locations.) I'm not even trying to think of this in-game radio system as something the bandit clans, established groups, etc. would use to communicate. Of course they would not. Why would they trade their already functional secure TS/mumble/whatnot "radio-communication" to some unsecure in-game one? Never gonna happen. The whole point would be to facilitate communication between "random" players (which is currently next to non-existing). A good range might be something that reaches from, say, cherno to elektro. Use of the radio should not immediately tell the other receiving it that you are definitely in the same town. The guys at the neighbouring towns should be able to receive the transmission. Probably not much further than that. It would allow you to start guessing the source town of the transmission from the nearby towns, but not to know it for sure, at least not without moving around and listening to a prolonged radio discussion to home on it. It would also make it safer to ask "Is anyone out there?" on the radio, without exposing your position too accurately. (Yet having some chance that someone else actually receives it). This would really give a new kind of way to be able to contact with other random players before they are in point blank range (and getting shot). And with some careful tuning of how secure/unsecure those radios really are, use of them would still have some of its risks. Bandits could still try to hunt down the survivors using the radios or use them to lure people into traps, but only to some extent... Oh, I'm just imagining the amount of drama these things might give us... And naturally when approaching the city... "Anyone at cherno?". :D

The real issue with the game - as to why there is no realistic, possibly friendly, interaction upon meeting someone - just shooting on sight... Has to do with the core of it... Its a game, with anonymous pixelated player models running around. Rather than real people. TL;DR: I'm just blabbering and pondering here about the basic nature of the game in relation to real life. Feel free to read and ponder yourself or to just skip the entire following crap. :P You don't know the player behind that character. You have no psychological touching surface to him... Any other than perhaps the assumption that he must be one of those guys who would shoot on sight for the laughs - Just like the X number of people met in the game have done so far. The only feeling you might have towards the guy is probably some sort of hate at this point. In a way its a somewhat realistic depiction of the human mind at times of tension/war... If some of your friends (or you yourself in this game!) get killed by the people of the, say, ethnic group A. Then your ideas of that entire group will be based on those experiences. You hate them, you think they all deserve death, etc. Even if it had been the deeds of some few criminal individuals... And before you know it, it all spirals out of control and a full blown war is raging. (Because the people on the other side are all evil!!!) Remind you a bit of what's going on in the DayZ chernarus at the moment? ;) There is only one difference that has happened somewhat lately... Most importantly, the removal of the bandit skin. Because that was, what set the people apart in the game previously. There were the 2 different groups. Survivors and Bandits. Back then, if you were still playing as a survivor, and met another one in the survivor skinned player... Even though it was in no way a guarantee that the guy would not just shoot you, it was at least a little hint of it. And most importantly, it placed that guy in the same group as you. You would have some psychological association with that. Like: He's a survivor, just like you... Trying to scavenge for supplies, trying to stay hidden to survive the zeds and the bandits... You could relate to the other guy, even if you knew nothing of him, except for the survivor skin he's wearing. It wasn't much really, but at least it was something. Now, that there are no 2 groups anymore. There is no-other random encountered players in the game to relate to. The only gut feeling you have to the other guy is that he's probably hostile and better kill him than to be killed. The only groups there are is you and then all the rest (this from the point of a lone survivor/bandit, for a clan/group of people, its obviously your group and all the rest). The only way to combat this issue is either add artificial mechanics to push people in some direction (as the OP suggested), but I guess that isn't really in the intended nature of the game. Or to allow people to somehow get some kind of grip on the other person behind the other character, before they are faced with them at point blank range and have to quickly make the decision of pulling the trigger or not. There would be a much greater psychological process going on in peoples minds at that point. Sorry, for going badly out of the initial subject.

Its totally fine that the game has some high-end weapons.. It should have rare stuff like that. When the game is a sandbox and lacks other goals, at least having some rare loot works as a goal. And yes, the sniper rifles really serve no other sensible purpose in the game but to kill other players. And I basically never go sniping myself or even generally pick up the sniper rifles even if I find one (because they are useless when I run around cities and have to pop the zeds I aggro or players at close combat) - so I'm not talking from the point of a sniper bandit. And I sometimes get sniped, but mostly only when I'm too bored and get totally careless. I think the issue is just that the "rare" aspect is not really working in the game that well. For one, the mag re-fill on reconnect, etc... It totally defeats any point of having a rare ammo type. Add the duping, server hopping / high end loot farming to that (and DC to cheat death and loss of the stuff), and the overpowered weapon that should be limited by ammo availability (and thus make you consider if you waste a bullet or not) in reality is a shoot everyone you get a chance to shoot weapon, ammo is not of that much concern. (As long as you don't simply waste them on the constantly respawning zeds) At least the ammo usage related bugs and duping exploits should be fixed, but without adding some silly artificial limitations, I doubt it is ever possible to really limit the accumulation of the high end weapons and ammo to those who systematically hog them. Yet, I think the game should have that high end gear, regardless of the great inbalance it brings. As long as those weapons are aquired fairly and used fairly. No ammo exploits and such applied. Rare is supposed to be rare.

Yeah, I would have certainly preferred that the side chat had been just made client side toggleable thing. An option that can be enabled/disabled by player preference. Then everyone would have been happy. - Those who didn't want to look at the text/hear the voices would not have had to. (might have defaulted to this) - Those who did like it, could have continued using it. Its not like it would have been an "exploit" or unfair advantage to those using it. After all, a whole lot of players are already using TS/mumble, etc. to communicate at long distances. So I see no harm if there had been an integrated chat for the random/solo people on the server, that are not part of a clan and not in TS. I guess it would have decreased the immersion for those using it, but it would have been their conscious choice (just like the use of TS). Obviously the radios or such would be much better. But yeah... I'm ok with this direct chat only stuff too... If I'm outta its range, I'll just use the bullets to do the talking. And in range, I might sometimes use the direct, if it seems safe, and if there is no answer (maybe its buggy or just the player unwilling to reply), then I go back on the shooting on sight mode. And usually people don't answer. (Ain't my fault if the other players prefer a mute shooter, rather than any other interaction - that's what they get then... or if the game chat is bugged and someone dies because of that.) I do not bother going north anymore though, etc. There is nothing to do there. Not even the chat. No other people usually (except those high end geared snipers waiting to pop my head, whom I have no way to communicate with, so little point in that)... So I'll just stay at elektro/cherno where you might actually encounter other people at close range. (It usually ends badly for someone though.) But, I guess we'll be experimenting that at the moment... while waiting/hoping for the radios.

Frankly, I think having the female skin on may have a small effect... I certainly seem to notice a small hesitation before pulling the trigger myself when I see one. Yet, I try to treat all people equally and overcome that hesitation and shoot the female skinned players on sight as well. :P I do think that as men in real life generally have a less aggressive attitude toward women than to other "rival" men, this also reflects itself in the game as well. Any hint that the other player might be a woman causes the male brain go all "oh its a woman, not a threat, rather just the opposite" and therefore causes a slight attitude change. Of course, since most players don't really think that there is real a woman behind female skin, it might not always show. I once decided not to shoot someone based on the female skin. Not because I would have thought he was a woman (based on the player name, he was not). But rather because I was out there to hunt down the group of 3 guys who had shot me for no reason. And because this guy was equipped with only a crowbar, crawling around the supermarket floor with broken bones asking for help - and most importantly he had the female skin - so there was no way he could have been one of those guys I was out there to hunt down, so instead of shooting the guy, I decided to give him my last morphine and went off to continue my hunt. So the female skin saved his ass that time. Some three other guys, all with male skins, that I found around the neighbourhood all got to taste some lee enfield revenge. At least two of them were pretty surely the ones I was after, the third one I was not fully sure about, might have been collateral damage. Equally, if seeing the female skin may make me hesitate, the ghillie is always sure to remove any hesitation. I may randomly make contact with other players instead of trying to shoot them, especially if they don't have proper weaponry, but the guys with the ghillies... I always try to shoot them - probably even if they claimed to be friendly.

Yup. DayZ is probably the only game I can remember in recent years (or ever) that actually managed to evoke that sense of "fear" and the adrenaline rush associated with that. (As well as the feeling of remorse, after the first unprovoked murder of a survivor in the game.) I still remember those times shortly after I had started playing DayZ, when I had headed north, when suddenly out of nowhere I hear some shots landing on the ground next to me and I stumble to cover behind some nearby small rock-wall. Then, pretty much hands shaking, I got up from there and quickly started running towards the closest bushes. Then running further in the cover of the bushes until finally jumping down to some of the bushes... Just anxiously waiting... not sure if the shooter would find me or not... Finally, relieved seeing the bandit (back then, they still had the bandit skins), run past me, with a few zeds on his tail. And then quickly running off to the opposite direction. The rush back then, and in some other encounters, was something no other shooter game has been able to provide.(And I've certainly played plenty of them). In that sense DayZ has provided a unique game experience. Though, like with other games, all that fades away after a while. Right now, I'm so used to getting killed, and killing, and I don't really feel the fear anymore nor the remorse. The fear fades away as death has become a common enough experience. And when you know you can easily acquire the same gear you have. When there is nothing to lose, death becomes meaningless. Similarly, the remorse of the kills fades away when there are no more survivors and bandits. After enough experiences of getting killed for no reason, its becomes easy to rationalize that most other players in this game are bandits who would kill you in a heartbeat if they had the chance. So, its more that okay to kill them. They deserve it. Sometimes there is still that small glimpse of remorse when you shoot a guy in the back, when all he had was a hatchet and some random stuff... And he was crawling from one place to another... Like one might expect from a new player, not from anyone experienced. But then, you push those feeling aside and rationalize that he might have been a bandit as well. Maybe not a very experienced one, but a bandit nevertheless. Better safe than sorry. The small remorse of an unwarranted murder is easier to deal with, than the annoyment of letting the guy live only to find out that he repays it by killing you and gets off scott-free. Oh how I miss those initial days of survivor innocence in this game... When everything was still new and pure.. A death was a death, something to fear for. And a murder still felt like one. But now, being a bandit, tainted by his past experiences and deeds, all that has lost its meaning. Oh, those first few days... They were the true DayZ. :rolleyes:

Never go to the roofs. That's when things went wrong in the first place. There are almost always snipers on the hills near cherno and elektro on any populated servers, so the roofs are simply a deathtrap. (And quite often, its not just a single guy, its a group of bandits) If you really must go to the roof (really desperate for the med supplies, better do it fast and only risk a single person). And at least try to take a look around at the hills before going to the roofs. Also, you'll be easy targets on the roof, even from the ground level when you stand up / climb at the ladders - so you'll just end up getting trapped on the roof if someone sees you and you don't have people on the ground to help. If your friends were stuck on the roof while still possibly under the enemy scope, you should have just told them to try to get down from there and then give them blood on the ground where it is safe. If they aren't able to get down without being shot by the sniper, then how will you going up to the roof change anything? (Other than you getting shot too, probably.) If they bleed to death on the roof without your help, then they had screwed up by not carrying bandages. (And unless they happen to go unconscious for a relatively long time, it'll take you nearly as long to climb up as it takes for them to wake up by themselves, so probably not that much difference in the bleeding time anyway.)

Oh, you might be right on that. It never occurred to me that the new players might actually be affected by that. I've always taken that water bottle for granted, even after it stopped being a spawn item. But yet, I doubt that the water drinking is a major issue, lots of coke and pepsi cans to be found all around even for the noobs. There are several other issues that are much more relevant ones - some of which you already listed. Getting rid of DC, duping, etc. exploits would be critical to keep trust in the validity/fairness of the game. Also the communication related stuff, I think, would be necessary for any sensible interaction to occur between players (any interaction other than the usual exchange of bullets on encounter).

Ok, that's just trolling. :D And yes, I agree that most people at the moment are buying Arma II just for DayZ. So yes, BI is making money thanks to it. Yet... When you buy the game, you are not really buying DayZ (you are buying the game that enables to you to play DayZ). And I can understand that many players who bought the game based on the youtube videos and such hype, may get disappointed because in reality, the game is quite far from that. At least 99% of the time. Yet, your complaint should rather be directed at those youtube videos / reviews for giving a false impression of the mod - not at the mod for not meeting the youtube video hype. (And the "official marketing video" on the dayzmod main page... Frankly, I think it should be changed, because it is nearly false advertising for the mod in its current state... but when has advertising videos really been honest anyway? Ads are just ads.)

Yes. Its either that or sitting in the woods and avoiding any contact. And if you want to have any interaction with the other players, just use the thing that you have in your hands... You know, the one that makes the loud sound. I'm sure that won't go unnoticed by the other players. They'll usually even interact to such an event in some rather interesting way.

TS, etc. are a totally believable feature added to the game. An organized group of people (one that has sniper rifles and all that crap) would probably have some form of radio communication even in case of a zombie outbreak. (You know those cheap walkie talkie toys they sell for kids for like 10 bucks? Its not like radio communication would be that high-tech these days! :D ) But yes, from the perspective of a mostly lone-survivor/bandit (or one temporarily cooping with random people), they obviously do give an unfair advantage to the other guys using it. Yet since it's impossible to get rid of those programs to balance things, the best thing would be to have some kind of similar radio system inside game. At least it would bring a bit more balance to things and would allow proper communication in game for others than established clans too. As far as the usual "meta gaming is allowed"... There is a fine line here... What exactly is this meta gaming, and what should be considered as a "mod" to DayZ or just a plain cheat? - Apparently it is ok to have a voice chat application running on top of the game (as well as a graphical overlay for it). Or say, the steam overlay with its chat features, etc. - Now... suppose one were to add an automated position tracking for the player, and then automatically transmit those to the other players in the group, and draw their positions as HUD elements on the screen. And possibly allow them to add enemy position markers etc. on the hud for others to see. (...And yes, this IS techically possible to implement - even without modifying the arma/dayz files, so in theory it's no more a mod than TS/mumble/skype, etc. - it could be done as an external program.) But would this be considered cheating? I think most players would say it would be. Yet, its not really that different from TS - other than being much much more elaborate and based on visual things, rather than audio. That was just to note that the line between "meta-gaming" and outright "cheating" can be kinda vague in general. PS. the drinking without water bottle... How about you just always reserve that one slot for the water bottle? Just think of your inventory for all the other items as being one slot smaller and that one water bottle slot as the drinking user-interface. Now you can always drink when you find water and there are no issues with immersion or realism regarding that. Problem solved.

It's part of the initial fun of the game when you have to actually navigate the map by looking at road signs that are written in letters you can't even read and try to navigate by the stars, position of the sun, etc. :D And it actually gives some value to finding the map item, compass, etc. The initial survival part of the game of being kinda lost and having to explore can actually be the most fun the game offers. Don't ruin it by "cheating" and looking at some online loot maps and such. They just take away all the fun of exploring. Once you've played the game way too much and you are past that point where there is actually something new left to explore, you don't really even usually need the map or to know the name of the town. It's more like looking around 360 and then noting that "oh, I must be near that town again". Also, the servers with the silly player position indicator on the map enabled... ugh.. just way too easy.

Have a good duck hunt then. Just be careful, some of the ducks at cherno can be quite vicious. ;)

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is one. If it looks like a bandit and kills like a bandit, then it probably is one. Unless you are fired upon, or you can undisputably say that the other guy had an intention to kill you or someone else, it is not in self defence to shoot the guy. Hence, that makes you a bandit. Welcome to the club.

Probably some 90% or more of the killing really isn't for the loot. Its for the fun. There isn't much anything else to do but to kill in the game. Why are there weapons in the game? To kill - the zeds or the players. Pick one. (And killing zeds is useless, they just spawn at the same rate you kill them. I've massacred hundreds of them from the rooftops. Its fun for a while, but kinda futile and a waste of ammo. Besides, you can just easily kill the zeds with the hatchet if you really want to kill them, no need to get a weapon for that.) So, what you have left, is killing the other players. And often, the other guys don't have anything you need anyway, so why risk it and go loot the corpse for nothing. Of course this is unfortunate for all the players who would actually wish to have some more interesting experience out of the game than just a bloody deathmatch. Maybe one day it will change (back) to such a game. But for now, we'll just have to do with what we have.

Yeah, the game has a tendency to desync really bad at times. I mean stuff like, having a situation where an entire zed population of a small town has frozen still... Or you just won't be able to pick up any items without a 30 second delay. That's when you know its time to run away from that location if you want to have any sensible firefight. Because then you know that there is another player around, who is desyncing really bad. Which basically means that he can just walk right next to you from around some corner, without you ever even being able to see him, unload a whole mag of bullets to you, and then, suddenly, just when he suddenly appears on your screen, that same moment you just drop dead on the ground for no apparent reason. (...Luckily, this usually works the other way around too.)

I totally agree with the OP on the killing on sight situation. But if you really want to try to coop with a random stranger, it is possible... You just probably have to die at least 10 times before you find the one person that won't shoot you on sight. And even after that, its likely that your coop play will still be short as someone else will shoot at least one of you. (Since all that is quite tedious, I don't even bother with it anymore.) If you have good gear and you want to keep it, you can forget about cooping (unless you have a tent to store that stuff to, while you go cooping). Thus, attempting to coop is usually only sensible if you've just died and have very little gear. The one thing to understand is that the game is NOT what it seems like in the two to three month old youtube videos. Probably a lot of players get the game+mod expecting it to be something like that, and end up noticing that it is just another complex deathmatch with some zeds thrown in the mix. (Naturally, the situation is a bit different from the perspective of some bandit group, I'm mostly referring to the situation from the point of a single solo player.) I can only recommend that while waiting for the game mechanics to get somehow fixed, join the bandit bandwagon and just start killing others on sight as well. Its much more gratifying to shoot the other guy, than to get shot by him. Sure, it further screws up the game and makes it even more into a deathmatch - but hey - its not the players' duty to try to fix the game mechanics by pretending that they are something they are really not (by trying to play all friendly and that, when that's just suicidal and less fun). I sure as hell shoot everyone whenever I can, nowadays. A horde of zeds behind me? It doesn't matter. Just run and shoot any encountered player asap... As long as he dies before the zeds get me, it's mission accoplished... Is the other guy unarmed? All the better, its basically a free kill with no risk! Does the guy have several heavily armed friends? Who cares! As long as I can kill one of them, it does not matter if the others manage to kill me after that. Since the game has no real punishment on death, why should anyone care about that. It takes less than 30 minutes to get an assault rifle and most of the other gear to efficiently start killing people again... And its just in this game... I never go team killing and trolling in any other shooter games. Because that would be just being a total dick, trying to screwing up other people's fun intentionally. Still, I certainly do it in this game, because this game basically says "its ok, its allowed by design, you can freely choose if you want to kill other players". I'm sure it was not intended to be as bad as it is right now, but it is what it is. Maybe it will change some day.

Yes. Exactly. The unfortunate choises this game presents you, is to keep dying as a survivor and then eventually either just quit playing or becoming a bandit. Being a friendly survivor, all you have to gain is eventually getting killed by another player or possibly a bug. (Once you've learned the basics of the zeds, they no-longer pose a real threat - except when they are being buggy.) Whether that death happens at the average survival time of 30 minutes or so, or after 30 days is just a matter of choice and luck. Once you know the game well enough, it isn't hard to survive 10+ days compared to surviving that average 30 minutes - Mostly, its just more boring, which is why not very many players are willing to choose that, and rather just risk it at cherno or elektro. (Which aren't really even that bad nowadays, compared to what they used to be.) And regardless of your choice of surviving a longer time at the north or a shorter time at the south, eventually, you'll come across that person who is a bandit and who manages to shoot you. And generally the one who is willing to shoot first, no questions asked (a.k.a. the bandit), is the more likely one to survive. ... Or, alternatively you choose to become a bandit yourself and go killing others instead. That way, you'll at least rack up some kills before someone else gets you. You'll live a shorter life, but it will be a much more interesting one. You trade the meaningless survival time metric to the equally meaningless kill count metric. I've played countless hours as a survivor, then briefly gone to banditry, then back to being a survivor, and now finally playing as a bandit again. The only regret I have when shooting other players is that I cannot see who's a new player and who's not. I would gladly leave the noobs alive or even help them (cos they actually might still be true survivors) - but since there really is no way to tell if its just a bandit who just died and respawned or some noob, I'll just shoot them all on sight. And as the OP made the point about veterans hating the noobs and griefing them away... Its not that I would hate the noobs - its rather just the opposite. Its just that the game won't really let you know who is a noob and who is not. Sure, if you were to spy on them long enough to make some deduction based on their play-style, etc, you might get some idea. But then again... You would be giving that possible bandit a chance to get a jump on you instead, so its better to just eliminate the guy as soon as possible. Any noobs getting killed in the process are just colletaral damage. (And I'm guess there might be some other veterans who actually do like to specifically grief the noobs) No point in blaming the player base for the rampart killing if the game mechanics essentially keep driving the players to banditry. I would certainly welcome any changes that would fix the situation to some extent.

Just find a hatchet and use it to hack the hospital windows to pieces. Much more sensible than trying to spam possibly countless magazines of bullets to the windows and still not being able to break them. Also, sometimes the windows appear to be buggy / desync... At least once I have seen another guy run inside the hospital, but curiously, for me, the hospital windows still appeared to be intact.

I think this was an excellent thread/post. Even though DayZ is different than any minecraft mod due to its military sim base - and it most probably should stay that way too, it always makes sense to compare a game/mod to other similar games/mods. It always helps getting some insight on where the game has succeeded or failed... And which of the features are clearly causing which of the resulting player behaviour, etc. It's not like those things could not be deduced by carefully looking at DayZ alone, but its always easier to see them and to validate the deduction when you have something else to compare to. I certainly hope rocket at least considers the points presented by OP / tries out the MineZ himself, as it would be a sensible thing to do (even if he rightfully decides not to implement any of those features or to take DayZ to that direction).