Bribase

I honestly don't think that SA will qualify as a mod in any way. Although it's pretty subjective i guess.

Theres a part of me that feels as if a new map based on a recognisable city will detract from the atmosphere. There is something unsettling about reading all of the placenames in cyrillic that adds to the sense that you are an interloper in Chernarus, similar to the way that everyone in S.T.A.L.K.E.R (sorry to keep labouring the comparison) Barks orders at you in Russian. You don't belong here, this gameworld is not being handed to you on a plate. Personally I would like to see a lot of work put into an entirely fictional city that is part of Chernarus. Not a metropolitan hub but a sprawling industrial city. One with a small commercial and business district but kilometres of industrial and residential areas puntuated with setpieces like a lumber mill or steelworks, a crashed plane or a sea of abandoned cars leading out of the city. Don't take an instantly recognisable city with convenient placenames and main roads and make it look post apocalyptic. Make a city that goes on for miles that I can get lost in. Cherno and Electro might be dangerous to visit because of snipers, I want a city where getting lost is a genuine possiblity and something to genuinely fear.

No real need for a saftey feature but we're overdue for the ability to holster your active weapon, it could have saved the lives of countless players by now.

I just don't think that such a mechanic is worth implementing, it doesn't really seem to contribute much to the game. Adding this is comparable to adding a blister indicator or a chafing gauge.

A very interesting idea. It's going to take some finesse to get right though.

The shotgun tier has an immediate advantage. No magazines.

This has been suggested a whole bunch of times before and I'm pretty sure that was what Rocket was hinting at in his blog entry.

Fine. You want a new sound? You provoke one by shoving a mic in it's mouth.

The actual lead slug wouldn't really go anywhere but the brass cartridge would (the slug is of higher mass than the cartridge), possibly shattering while discharging without the support of a chamer around it. Red hot high velocity brass fragments are unlikely to be lethal but could potentially wound you. You might have guessed, theres an experiment in Mybusters that confirms it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAK2dDQ-S4Q

I was going to mention the same thing. Pretty difficult to come by in Eastern Europe though.

I spent a long while deliberating over what my five will be. I'm sad to see that a better range of movements (SMK Mod) isn't included, only "better character animations".

I like the cut of this man's jib. Beans to you for understanding that many of the things that seem like arbitrary game design choices (3rd person, HDR and peripheral dots) are actually intended to better mimic human experience, whether or not they succeed, become exploitable or downright gamebreaking is another matter. These things were included to increase immersion, not to break it.

That needs fixing ASAP and I would imagine is a serious overhall of the engine. It's amazing that the engine includes adjustment to glare and light levels but no one thought "perhaps torches shouldn't shine through walls?"

Fair enough, Smash. For the record, the only server I play is a private hive with no crosshair (3rd person enabled but I hardly use it unless I'm on a motorbike). I don't fear the challenge of having to use ironsights and never feel like it's gamebreaking but I do see it as an arbitrary limitation on things that I should be able to do IRL (fire from the hip and get a headshot at close range), I think in much the same way that some players see 3rd person as an arbitrary extension of things you cannot do IRL (peek around corners and over walls, see people sneaking up behind you). Gews' video is convincing and it's clear that the current crosshair is far too accurate. I still think that a less accurate crosshair has it's place in game as both a tool for interaction and a means to fire from the hip. What do people think of my Button activated crosshair idea?

I have a sneaking suspicion that the awkward weapon switch key will be removed in SA (it's a terrible solution, binding everything from what to throw through to your fire mode) but I see melee being toggled in a similar way to that.

Short of causing yourself and your squad injuries and death while you Barbecue, ammo campfires could be an awesome distraction tool if the bullets take time to warm up. I can't think of any tactical advantage in eating zombie meat unless you want to infect the people around you. You could deliberately infect a rival squad (and their loot) before necking the antibiotics you have in your posession I guess. Becoming DayZ's equivalent of Typhoid Mary.

Great idea with the reflection thing. This would aid playing at night and be much more realistic. Seems like a lot of stress server side though.

Excellent points. Military (as in red) flashlights are in game already though.

Sorry for butchering your post (trying to keep the relevant parts concise) This is the problem of proprioception again. Lots of games out there get by just fine without third person but few games have such an emphasis on where your body is and how it looks to others in the gameworld. IRL if you are hiding in a bush preparing to snipe from cover you would be able to tell if your legs are sticking out and giving up your position, if you are trying to fire through a doorway you intuitively know how much of your delicate flesh is being exposed to gunfire. But FPS games don't do a good job of this and in DayZ self awareness is everything. Even when driving a car IRL you have a better sense of your clearance than in a game, there is always something about dealing with these things in a virtual world (not to mention dealing with dodgy hitboxes) that makes you missjudge distances. It's notoriously difficult to reproduce human vision in a game and this is not just a question of processing power. We have a wide field of vision (almost 180 degrees) that is closer to the one you get in 3rd person but a 180 degree FOV in 1st person would look very odd (like you're using a fisheye lens). Head bob doesn't exist because your entire body and visual system correct for it. You're always going to feel like a camera floating above the floor but the ability to go into 3rd person is a compromise. I'm not saying that 3rd person should be kept because the FOV you get is more realistic any more than I'm saying that having crosshairs is closer to an intuitive sense of where your gun is pointing. It's just that these are compromises for things that computer games can't do yet, not crutches to aid players.

The bloodsuckers were essentialy ported from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to the Namalsk map.

Anything like the Bloodsucker is just not part of the DayZ narrative. Get out of here, Stalker! I would like to see a few other kinds of enemies included though. My money is on bears as Clumzy mentioned. Fast moving, hard to take down, scary as fuck. I also think that stray dogs in large packs would be a serious danger in the post apocalypse. Rabid or healthy. Of course contracting rabies would be a death sentence.

He's using it wrong. A bambi is simply a newly spawned player trying to get enough loot together to make it off of the coast.

I see your point but IRL you do not need to have a "fairly good feel" for whether or not you'll score a headshot at certain ranges. At close enough range I should practically be able to press the muzzle against their head, be it assault rifle, sniper rifle or pistol. No guessing required. How about this: How about a crosshair that can be activated (not toggled) at the press of a button that is redesigned without the accuracy of the current one (I'm thinking of a circle like the hatchet)? If you want to aim from the hip you have to do it actively, the grouping can be sharpened up in the same way as your zoom button (RMB). This has the benefit of being able to use it for finding the "sweet spot" on doors and vehicles. The interface is clean but a less accurate crosshair is there when you need it and ironsighting isn't an option (too slow or a weapon with a scope).

I'm 180° different from the presiding opinion on this topic and it's kind of a bone of contention for me. The bottom line is: No Crosshair ≠ More realistic Some weapons are specialised for long range, some for mid and some for short range, sure. But in real life there is absolutely nothing that stops a person from pointing the angry end of a sniper rifle at a zombie's head and pulling the trigger at close range without having to look down the sights. In DayZ (or any other FPS for that matter) there is no stand in for proprioception (a sense of where your body and limbs are located in space) so it is perfectly normal to augment the HUD with something that gives a sense of where your gun is pointing. It could even be argued that a crosshair adds realism, the alternative being that you are carrying a weapon that if you shoot from the hip you have no idea where it will fire. I propose that DayZ includes a dynamic crosshair like in the first Deus Ex game. Having a crosshair that varies the grouping of your shots based on movement, stamina and weapon choice. A well implemented one means that ironsights will always be the prevailing way to aim (instantaneous accuracy over delayed) but shots from the hip will have a likely sense of where you are shooting based on how long you take to line up the shot, just like in real life. This is particularly frustrating because I like to apply some aiming deadzone when I play but I frequent a no-crosshair server so using a hatchet is particularly hit or miss.

Um... Are you aware that they are already subject to bullet drop? That's what the need to zero your rifle is for. Wind effects I'm all for though as long there is an elegant way of measuring it's direction and speed.