Bribase

Yup. Been mentioned before several times.

I don't think that hanging from a ledge is feasable, try doing it with a full compliment of tools and an assault rifle in your backpack and see what happens. More likely would be to sit on the ledge and lower yourself down slowly.

Another interesting part of this suggestion is the ability to use it as defence against other players; They might be advancing on your base in the dead of night with NV but once you switch on the floodlights they are lit up like Christmas trees while all the attackers can't get a bead on you, all they see is the light sources while you fire from behind them. Beans to you!

Wasn't there talk of a zombie type that behaves more like the classic "slow" zombies of the George Romero movies? One that moves slowly once aggroed but will follow you forever. Not noticing him would be an interesting situation, you're deep in the woods minding your own business when he decides to take a chunk out of your arm.

Well, it appears that my reasons for it's inclusion aren't enough to convince you. It's probably not worth persuing our discussion any further. I've done my best to explain why it adds complexity, tension and realism but you don't buy it. Fair enough. Oh... And it isn't my thread. I'm beginning to think you haven't read it. The ability to administer transfusions, use weapons, fix vehicles and gut animals doesn't sit perfectly well for me either. They fall under the banner of things that I'm willing to suspend disbelief about for the sake of the game. The difference between these things and piloting a helicopter is that while weapon use, first aid and vehicle maintainence e.t.c. benefit the player to some degree, access to a helicopter means total domination of the server. As it stands, any player that has the heli can literally rise above the dangers of being a survivor. Once you're airbourne most players and all zombies are no longer a threat, you can zip around the game map, helping yourself to the best loot and picking up fallen squad members from the coast in an instant. I maintain that requiring some skill and knowhow to be a decent pilot is neither unrealistic, too difficult to code nor too demanding of players.

Like in a real life post-apocalyptic situation? If you read the thread you'll find that the startup, if performed improperly, results in the chopper emitting an alarm and resetting. We're not talking about some catastrophic explosion if done wrong; just a little knowhow and patience to ensure the chopper is ready to fly. I'm not excluding that. I already explained in this thread and the one I linked to why a short startup sequence should be suitable. I addressed this point in the thread I linked to. The bottom line is that the success DayZ (and the Arma series as a whole) can be attributed to a single factor, it's that gamers crave a challenge. People want DayZ to be tough and a well implemented and convincing design of helicopter use is another extension of this.

It's clear that you haven't paid a great deal of attention to the discussion board so I'll explain. People have suggested xp, skill, microskill and perk systems and the overall opinion is that these kinds of systems seem artificial and tacked on. My personal problem with them is that they make the game easier for players that are good at the game already. I appreciate the need to create a sense of development to one's character and a sense of loss upon death, though. But an RPG style points system is too heavy handed for DayZ IMO.

The need to familiarise yourself with the startup sequence reflects the difficulty of being able to operate a helicopter IRL. Secondly, having a 1min startup sequence while the engine warms up would increase tension and risk by making lots of noise and being essentially immobile, leaving players with the difficult decision of whether or not to keep the rotors spinning while landing in high PvP areas. Thirdly, the helicopter has a massive payoff in game for a player and should be considered endgame equipment, this should be moderated by needing to be a sufficiently experienced pilot to operate one. You could make a similar point about about sniper weapons that employ mildots. They are incredibly rare, why would they bother to make players have to account for bullet drop? Whats the point if you find a DMR and no one knows how to use it? Because rare items should require some experience to use effectively, because such mechanics reflect the difficulty of using such things IRL, and finally because players learn to use them. Good idea.

That thread arrived at about a 1min startup sequence with varying consequences is performed incorrectly. FinKone's OP contained plenty of ideas about increasing difficulty from dealing with tolerences to stress to handling adverse weather conditions.

Increasing difficulty in terms of control and startup sequence is being discussed here. There are plenty of forum members that think that a heli pilot needs to know a thing or two about it before he takes to the skies (Finkone got 18 cans of beans for his OP).

This came up about two days ago. Here was my contribution. In a nutshell, I think that fear, in game, should only be a significant factor if you, the player, not the character are genuinely scared. As far as I can see there is plenty of room for panicked shooting, making bad decisions, even breaking cover and running for it out of sheer terror in-game allready. The best way to capitalize on this is to give us more to fear, not to make us feel like we are inside the head of a person that is frightened when we might be perfectly calm IRL.

I was thinking something similar. The problem is that the application of it is difficult to get right. One way I see it going would be a QTE where you have to shoot them before you take damage, this would be completely immersion breaking and out of keeping with DayZ's design. The second way would be for the zeds and players to have some kind of prerendered animation but this would be hard to make to look convincing; the zombies would end up attacking you ambiguously way and you would be unable to move. I think perhaps the best way to implement something like this is instead of them being able to grab you, give them the ability to trip you up or knock you to the floor (falling on your arse,side or back). This slows you down and forces you to deal with the attacking zed but avoids the design issues that come with a grabbing mechanic.

The other problem with secure item storage in SA is that with weapons behaving as objects in game they will be persistent on a server. If you give people the means to store their loot indefinitely then servers will be flooded with high grade weapons and equipment. The value of loot and correspondingly the value of life will drop and the game will truly become a PvP game on a large scale map.

I'd like to know how broad the range of animations will be in SA. Any chance of some information on the number of animations being recorded for each zombie variant? How many zombie types?

- I've already written about it but per server generated maps. Multiplying the playable space and the sense of being in unfamiliar territory while making certain places on certain servers recognisable and notorious. This includes the ability to make extensive notes on a map, some players can even act as a cartographer. Scouting areas of interest for themselves and other players. - A well implemented physics engine for all objects in game. From destructable terrain, to proper vehicle physics, to your weapon and equipment obeying physical laws, to corpses persisting as giant walls and mounds of the dead. - The ability for players to engage in a range of activites that are easy to learn but hard to master. I want to see everything from skilled hunters, medics, pilots and soldiers to crafting skills like weapon maintainence and ammo production or vehicle mechanics. Even carpentry and architecture (base building). I want players to make their way in the world dealing with the dangers of zeds, infection and baditry that everyone faces but being valuable to all players for the skills they provide to the server. - Zombies that aren't just a credible threat but a source of fear as well. I want them to move in hordes and overrun whole bases. I want the sight/sound of a zombie horde to scare me, the player. I want death by zombie to be such a visceral experience that I would want to turn away from the sight of other players becoming their victims, I want the game to make me want to take my own life rather than experience what it's like for them to pull me apart. I want the brutality of the zombies to match the tension of PvP. - A broad and complete range of movement. I want players to seek cover like soldiers (like in the SMK mod), to be able to jump though windows, to bound over small gaps between rooftops, to fire from cars, to lower themselves gently from ledges, to make hand gestures. I want to be able to perform every concievable movement to avoid gunfire, evade zombies, interact with players and cross terrain that I would be able to do IRL.

Good point. I like the idea but considering the amount of trolling that's done with razor wire on some servers imagine what people would do with these kinds of explosives. The fuse could work well to give the victim a few seconds (the wiki says 4.0–5.5 seconds with an M67) to avoid certain death. When the trap is activated you hear the distinctive sound of a taught wire snapping a tin can hitting the floor and the safety spoon releasing, as long as you're paying attention you can make a run for it. Hopefully this kind of blast is reduced when you're behind hard cover but I haven't had the missfortune of having to find out. I would like to see this implemented well enough that dilligent players can disarm the trap easily (perhaps with the addition of an M67 to their inventory) or simply vault over it but players that are clumsy or reckless falling foul of it. The last thing I'd want it to become is another trolling tool.

I don't remember that screenshot. Do you have a link?

That's much more clear, Anubis. And I think you're right, too many of the mechanics as they stand seem probabilistic and somewhat arbitrary. In pain? Use painkillers. Bleeding? Use a bandage. Broken leg? Morphine. Coughing? Antibiotics. These mechanics, while an interesting feature of the game and worth keeping, often boil down to having the equipment needed to solve the problem or needing to find it. Once the problem is solved there are no subsequent issues. It makes the features seem tacked on in their present state. SA, with it's broadening of the survival system is going to turn this around IMO. Infection will be trackable and there will be ways of lowering your risk, there will doubtlessly be side effects of morphine/painkiller use and long term effects of major injuries. This will work to make the features an intrinsic part of the game instead of an artificial hinderance. The zombies will no doubt be smarter and less easy to exploit in the SA. The simple fact that they will run indoors will amplify them as a threat, and that's without the extensive recode. I really want to see hunting become a skill in itself in-game, though. Something that players can dedicate their time to, to make a "living" out of.

I really don't think that this fits with the game. DayZ is all about immersion; About the gameplay illiciting genuine feelings like tension, distrust, fear and desperation. It's a game that works hard to make you feel embodied in your character. A mechanic that makes your character scream, run in fear or shiver because you are meant to be scared pulls you out of that feeling; making you feel like a person sitting inside the head of your character instead. If the zombies are meant to illicit a fear response the answer is to design them to be a credible threat, to scare the shit out of you, the person playing DayZ, not your character. Make them trip you up and slow you down, make them grab your weapon and disarm you, show them clawing at your body and causing actual physical damage, screaming at the top of their lungs while they do it. Make them make you behave irrationally out of fear.

I'd like to see this happen. Is it reasonable to think that this would be relaitvely easy to expand? The landscape and assets are all there, as are the abrupt ends of some major roads heading North. This should be pretty simple shouldn't it?

Excellent ideas. I had a similar idea a while back.

I don't see them as binary options. I hunt hostile players and I'm happy to lend support and aid to pacifists.

I love it how Rocket fails to realise that at this point a peak at some reskinned beans is enough to get the fans moist.

There was some trouble with the loot/zombie spawns last night at around 9:00pm, Mac. From what I what I understand, the server restarted as usual but neither loot nor zeds were spawned a second time around. We tried to contact admin for an unscheduled restart but no one was available. NWAF was eerily quiet. Do you reckon it was an issue with the new patch or just a hiccup from the server?

Absolutely. It's customary now to scan the TS3 channels to find out who killed you if you didn't know already, talk about the experience and even share tactics on how they got the upper hand. It's often nice to realise that even the most bloodthirsty, remorseless arsehole on the server really isn't one IRL. They just like to play a certain way.