Killlg

The rules my group follows are that when you place a tent and save it you must wait for the next server restart before you can actually put anything in the tent and have it stay there.

I completely disagree with the idea of character skills and a progression of these skills based on how often you perform activites within that skillset. I disagree with this because your actions in DayZ determine who/what your character is, everyone should be able to do everything perfectly well. The difference between every player should always be what they hold in their inventory, that's the true tale of our characters. I like your idea of being able to use a splint to enable walking with a broken leg and even your idea of weapons breaking down and requiring maintenance. I do not think gun maintenance should be a progressable skill within DayZ. Every character should be able to repair guns equally well, it should depend on the parts you've collected, stored, and scaveneged. I believe this would add depth to DayZ in the sense that certain guns could break down more slowly while others may degrade quicker. Pistols, melee weapons, crossbows might be easier to repair than more advanced weapons. Maybe scopes and lenses could crack? As for your storage arguement, I feel it's weak. I'm under the impression that when I place a tent and put items in it that they may as well already be gone. Anyone could find that tent, steal from it, destroy it. Who's to say my next character doesn't find that tent? And I do mean my new character, maybe you don't take those days survived as seriously as others do but I can see them one day being represented by your total play time and every death of mine is tragic and permenant. In order to retrieve something from a tent or even my own rotting corpse I have to first make it there alive, secondly my items have to still be there for me to retrieve, and thirdly I have to place them there in the first place. While I can agree with lowering the inventory count on vehicles and tents, and more importantly lowering the weapon storage slots would help. But destorying the items I put there, just why? Any moment I'm not sitting next to that tent is a moment another player has to steal from it without my knowledge. With duplicating and other such exploits removed from the game I don't see why I shouldn't be able to store items permenantly. If storage as it exists now was removed or altered I can't say I could give two flying shits, I haven't gotten around to storing myself some start-up camps but I was planning on it. Death is practically inevitable in DayZ and feel I should be able to prepare myself for it. Who's to say my current character didn't have a kid and tell him the location of the tent with awsome gear in it with his dying breath, or at anytime for that matter? DayZ doesn't need too many new mechanics, it needs more things, giving me items to collect and things to build in the world permenantly. When I drop a tent and put something in it I'm not just thinking about stopping by later and picking my stuff back up whether I've died or not, I'm also thinking about those who might stumble upon it. I'm putting something in the world that won't go away until someone destroys it or takes it from me and then it continues to exist with or without me and that's why building will be so intriguing in DayZ. Just imagine stumbling upon an abandoned camp, a bunch of tents that have been looted several times over only leaving the most undesireable items and maybe a few gems that couldn't be carried off. Duping sucks, yeah, and what you suggest would negate it a bit, but duping is a bug and one that will be squashed before DayZ is fully released. The same goes for hacking. This storage suggestion seems like a silly attempt to stop part of these issues which will be resolved without the need for drastic changes in the games mechanics.

What you speak of is referred to as artificial difficulty I believe. Although if I had a gun in my backpack I imagine it might take some time to put it away/take it out. I wouldn't want it to be loaded probably, so I'd also have to find a clip and reload the weapon. You refer to a sling, but I don't think I'd want two assault rifles or any other combination of weaponry hanging from my shoulders. Your prime example is with a hatchet and I hope there's a melee weapon slot in the standalone game but unfortunately I think the clunky UI is here to stay until the game goes standalone and Rocket fixes it. Also, bugs are bugs, DayZ is in alpha as I'm sure everone knows; trees may kill you but being a proper adult means you should understand that this is unintentional and while frustrating easily excusable. Aside from the UI though I can't think of too many instances of artificial difficulty present in DayZ and even the example you've shown isn't all that bad, it requires planning and forethought to know what weapon you're going to need and having it out when you need it.

This pretty much sums it up.

I'd say that it's quite rare for me to be shot at by AS50's near the coast. It usually happens at the NW airfield. I suppose we'll just have to wait for a fix from BI because I doubt Rocket would remove both of the weapons you wish to be removed on the basis that those items are being duped. All items are being duped, not just the two most powerful items in the game. So how about we remove all the higher-end weapons from the game until we're left with nothing but pistols, shotguns and the occasional Lee Enfield, that sounds like a fun game!

Simile? I'd rather not argue semantics so I'll just let you figure out where you went wrong.How would you implement a loot spawning system that can't be taken advantage of? I've never seen loot recycling as an exploit and from what I understand neither does Rocket. It's a lot of work to remove all the items for a high value building, then move far enough away from it for loot to respawn while also guarding the building and yourself from other players. It's especially risky if you're doing it to the barracks at the NW Airfield which is really the only place it's worth spending the time and effort doing it. Unless of course you're saying that loot recycling is "unrealistic" so I guess the fix is making it so that items only ever spawn on the day the server goes up and never again. I guess it might be a little less fun for those joining the party late but it seems to be the game you want. Better tell Rocket to get on it.

As opposed to what? People who play games to suffer? But I agree, DayZ is a game that focuses on permadeath PvP and while I don't disagree that it can be fun or heartwarming to help someone in DayZ it's not nearly as exciting as the alternative. I like raiding high value areas with a large group of people with the assistance of a vehicle. So that's what I do. If someone we don't know show's up we kill them. Their own damn fault for approaching an area with a helicopter or a Ural in it, of course there's gonna be six+ people waiting to shoot you.

You can still put vehicles outside the map. You just need to make sure you save them every (or within) twenty-four hours so they don't disappear. At least these are the rules my group has followed and we still have out heli's.

I must say that I agree. At least for the most part. I think even you can appreciate that DayZ may have become more popular than Rocket intended or envisioned. It was supposed to be for the ArmA 2 community and now the whole industry has taken a look at it. I for one wouldn't be here if it weren't for word of mouth and I'm glad I am. While I can deal with all the bugs and instability that could possibly happen I think the DevTeam (read: Rocket) may be concerned with the fallout were the game to become too unstable. He can't test it if everyone stops playing it for a week waiting for the next patch to fix everything the last patch broke. Of course there's the whiners and the moaners and right now I feel there's a healthy dose of them in the community. What I would fear if the game became too unstable is a mass exodus of players/testers. I'm sure all the recent bug fixes have mostly been for performane, for instance we likely wouldn't have the helicopter back in the game (legitly) were it not for performance fixes. I'm looking forward to more clothes, as I understand it there will be more and they'll hopefully be a little easier to find and of great variety and use. The dogs they're working on also look interesting even though their function doesn't really suit my playstyle. I'm sure there're plenty of other features that are in Rocket's head that he just hasn't spoke of because he siimply hasn't had time. I suspect by October we'll have quite few new bells and whistles and possibly see the game go standalone as it enters beta.

Watched this video several times last night and absolutely loved it.

Riot isn't trying to make the game realistic but he is trying to make the game authentic. I think everyone here can agree with the logout timer, however I think there may be some limitations of the ArmA2 engine that prevent an easy way of implementing this feature. Rocket recently spoke of a patch coming next week that would be the first attempt to address the Alt+F4 exploit in a punitive way and how players behavior changes will determine future fixs applied to this end I believe. The ArmA2 engine is exactly what DayZ needed, it's why DayZ exists and while it doesn't do the things you seem to be upset about very well it does that it needs to well enough. Rocket never expected DayZ to be this popular and I think it's clear that while some issues with DayZ will remain because of the game it is a mod of the standalone version will hopefully eleminate these issues. You can say what you like about the ArmA2 engine but it does what it was purposed to do well. The Unreal Engine does a lot of things well and a lot of big flashy games use it because of this but clearly it's not what ArmA2 needed or wanted when it came to a military simulaton. Finally, to the bullet damage. Just no. I can't say I agree at all with your stance here. I enjoy the game just fine and have never found the damage the weapons do to be too much. The game is cruel and unforgiving, it's not fair and sometimes you will get unlucky. How much of an opportunity do you think three or four more bullets needing to be pumped into your body going to give you? I can let off a while pistol clip pretty quickly and some rifles have very little recoil. It can be difficult to shoot at longer ranges with unscoped weapons and if someone is so close to you that aim is barely a consideration so much as whether or not you've detected their presence yet before they let loose a hailstorm of bullets then I don't see how lessened weapon damage will do anything other than possibly lessen the tension of firefights, thus destroying the authenticity. Your life in DayZ is and needs to be fragile otherwise your heart won't race and dread won't fill you when you hear gunshots, a vehicle or detect the presence of other players in the area in the number of ways you can. You're right, absolute realism would not male DayZ fun, its ability to evoke true emotions other than excitement from the player is what makes it fun.

Too bad this isn't a game but an anti-game.

People can and do run servers that are not connected to the hive. Some of them are advertised as such while I notice that some are not. Player interaction will always be unforgiving as will the way in which you perish. My biggest gripe would have to be players ability to server hop and spawn in locations that you may know would otherwise be secure and of course the posiblity of someone logging out of combat only to relog after taking up a superior position on another server. Luckily it's still in Alpha and these problems are being worked on.

You can play the game however you want and that's the beauty of it. If you like hiding from other players and letting them go past then that's ok. If you feel as though shooting on sight is better then go ahead. There are no limitations to the way you choose to play and that's how we end up with the true Bandits who steal yourself without killing you and the medics who trek across the map to save strangers lives. It's up to you how you play. So yes, killing on sight might increase your odds of survival but may also weigh on your conscience. If you think that there's only one way to play the game then you'd be sorely mistaken. And thinking that the game is supposed to be fair or balanced is silly. It's not and it never will be. It's silly to call the game a deathmatch as well but that's a whole other can of beans I don't wish to argue right now. Simply put, play however you want, do what makes you happy just like others are doing. I enjoy killing other players at contested locations just as much as I enjoy scaring the crap out of hatchet weilding fresh spawns in Cherno and Electro before letting them go just as much as I enjoy aiding those in need. I guess I'm really all over the place and see the value and fun in all sorts of play styles. Changes will be made and options for play will be added that will eventually lower the number of those simply murdering without rhyme or reason. Furthermore there is no player-killing problem and the game isn't likely to fail longterm, I could see myself playing this game as is for months on end and as Rocket has said before, the game doesn't need a million people to stay strong and survive, it just needs those of us that enjoy it for what it is and not some silly concept some individuals concot in their own heads of what it should be and what it isn't.

Making Zombies more prevalant and dangerous could very well be a way to encourage co-op play versus just straight out killing other plays, it would also make the game more challenging overall. The issue with this seemingly simple change is that it punishes solo play, I don't think we want to punish any kind of play so I feel there is only a certain amount of tweaking to the zombies before they cross a line that begins to punsih solo play, I feel it will however be through a combination of changes and additions that co-op play will be more encouraged. Personally I already feel the pull of co-op play, that's not to say I don't take great joy in ending anothers life and scavenging what I need from their bodies and when I die I know that it was my fault. I think this is an important lesson many people fail to learn. No matter how unfair the advantage you must always accept that it is your fault when you die. It's easy enough to hide from other players should you wish to, entering the big is always your choice and they're known PvP hotzones. What you must ask yourself is, do you reall need to kill on sight? From the statisitics Rocket has mentioned most player deaths are not by the hand of a bandit. Co-op play is already greatly encouraged by the structure of the game. More players is always better than less. You must choose the way you play, if you want to group up with strangers then you better be careful about it . Running at them screaming friendly will get you no where, I propose stalking them and observing their behavior before making contact from a hidden location. The first time I was killed by a player I was unarmed and he had a pistol. I thought he was my friend, we had met maybe 60 seconds before he shot me in the face as I examined a pile of tin cans. I remember this because it was cool, it was exciting. My playstyle has evolved over the course of the game and I've been in situations where I'm running towards a building that I know a player is in saying to myself "Ohh, I'm gonna get this guy sooo good!" after seeing him fall from the top of the ACT building to the second to topmost floor breaking his legs. You know what I did then? I bandaged him up, gave him morphine and a blood transfusion and went on my way. I'm a kind person at heart, I have as much empathy as I do bloodlust. What I love so much about DayZ is that I can choose in any one moment what kind of player/person I wish to be. I can literally express myself through the gameplay without having to worry about arbitrary punishments. I can kill a freshly spawned player (not like he has anything to lose) and giggle to myself one second and the next be in that same situation. When I come upon a player I know nothing about them and that's both frightening and exciting. If anything about DayZ was changed to make that different I don't know how much longer I'd continue to play. If you don't like PvP then you must avoid it, that is your course of action and nothing else.