SalamanderAnder (DayZ)

Maybe the backpack and some of their loot strewn about on the ground. Food items would be torn open and eaten by the zombies so they should be instantly destroyed. Personally, however, I'd rather see some varied mutilated carcasses. I'm talking exposed rib cage, strewn guts, crushed skull, the works. Let's make it happen. The reason is that there's this whole "study body" feature which has been in the game for ages, and still barely works. I want it to be obvious when a player was eaten by zombies, or shot, or whatever. It should be disgusting, and gritty. I want flies buzzing around it, crows picking at it when I walk up and discover my friend's mangled carcass. Memories!

KoS will not be stopped. Ever. It can only be shifted away from the norm for player interaction. What we need are more cooperative actions. We need more things to literally require the presence of another player. That is the only way to alter player interaction in a way to decrease kill on sight and increase cooperative action. It still won't stop banditry though, and that's certainly a good thing, because bandits will have to be smarter about their banditry. Even the most ruthless KoS bandit might want to build a fort one day. If he literally couldn't do it on his own, he'd have to team up with other players - these could be his personal friends, strangers, who knows - or he could even force someone to help him at gunpoint, which would be interesting behavior indeed. The point is that human labor and skill is highly valuable in real life, because human beings have limitations. Of course KoS won't stop. That's ridiculous to even think. The difference is that people who actually want to form groups would have something to do and accomplish. Currently the real problem with the game is that there is no meat. There's hardly anything to explore, loot, ect. The zombies aren't really that much of an issue. The mod just feels like Orienteering plus basic survival plus guns, plus other players, plus some pretty easy zombies. It doesn't really feel like the zombie apocalypse. There's nothing to survive from, nothing to build, therefore nothing to do. Once you've seen every nook and cranny of the empty map the game begins to feel precisely that way - empty. So people kill each other, for fun. It's the only challenging opponent in the game. Other players have become the equivalent of "boss fights." So what we really need is more cooperative gameplay.

The average lifespan ticker on the main site is 1 hour and 9 minutes! So basically you would suggest that someone would play one hour and 20 minutes, die, and then be fucked for the rest of the day? Guess what buddy, some of us have lives and we can't just play games any day of the week. I can't be planning my day around a video game. It's completely absurd. WarZ did this crap and look how damned terrible that game is. It's putrescence disgusts me. Plus, this would only increase banditry and kill on sight, not decrease it. Trolls would troll harder because they would know that you have a whole day of death. They wouldn't care more about interactions, they'd care less. Eventually at the end of every day, all the servers would have 1-5 players, all the same group, who have murdered everyone else to join the server. It would paralyze the game.

No. Animals should be ai controlled, plain and simple. But I do think there should be a food chain. Scavenger animals, like ravens, vultures, rats. We also need deer, and some predatory animals might be cool, like the Eurasian wolf and maybe certain types of bear. Could be a threat to both other animals and players. More wildlife in general would really make the game "pop" for me. I want to be able to hunt, and I mean really hunt. Deer should be fucking hard to sneak up on and kill.

Blood on clothes is a feature I really want. Dirt, I could take it or leave it.

Does this look like Infestation: Survivor Stories to you?

Yes, yes, and yes! Very good idea.

Good rappers. You know Brother Ali? He's tight. I use this name, unless I'm looking for vengeance.

I don't think it has to be that complicated. Even if your friend gets displaced a few hundred meters, it's not a big deal. It's a few hundred meters. He could just walk back. It's just to keep an enemy from popping up behind you. Maybe overlapping spawn areas could allow both tent owners to spawn together.

I kill when I feel it's justified. Although sometimes I've killed out of extreme prejudice, I'll admit. It happens. The thing is, I'm not an unfriendly player, nor an unfriendly person. But other players do pose a threat in this game and when that happens, they just gotta be neutralized. I remember a particularly good day when I had a dmr that saved my life through five firefights. Loved that fucking gun.

No house building. It's more practical to capture an existing structure. What we need are some more basic construction tools like walls, maybe boarding up doors and windows, large tents, stuff like that. It's got to work, and be available. Since zeds can now be cleared out of areas and will no longer spawn in the presence of players, I think capturing structures, towns, ect. is actually going to become practical. Also all of the towns seem to be undergoing some modernization. So with evenly spread loot, people might be able to capture small structures or convenient in-between areas like green mountain and use them as trade posts. These things should always be persistent and always subject to attack from the outside. However, I think there also has to be some sort of anti-ghosting measure involved. Perhaps the creation of certain objects, (say, a tent that acts as your spawn point) would have a radius in which players (who are not the owner of said object) could not log in (on that server). If they did, they would be automatically displaced by a few hundred meters or so, well outside of the log in suppression zone. But of course they could still approach from the outside when you are not there.

Yes. Also forced teamwork structures. Also some kind of anti-ghosting measures for player made bases. That is absolutely necessary. It just cannot be possible for someone to spawn inside another player's camp. Otherwise the gameplay will be completely broken.

First of all I'd like to say that this is a long term suggestion for DayZ. I don't expect something like this to work in an alpha. I think it would be rather compelling for each server to have anywhere between 1-10 large, crewable, oceanic vessels. Different types of vessel would have different types of equipment that could be advantageous. For example; a fishing boat would be able to gather food from the ocean, whereas a military vessel would have weapons, whereas a large civilian ship like an oil tanker might have a large supply of gas on board, ect. Each vessel would also be equipped with an instance-based "internal" cell (i.e. you could enter a door on deck, which would teleport you to a corresponding internal cell somewhere off the map. Exiting the cell would teleport you to the deck of the ship.) If the boat were destroyed, the cell would be reset, killing any players inside and destroying all gear automatically. This way, it would be possible for a group of people to actually capture and utilize a large vessel, as well as enter the "below deck" and log out, secure in the knowledge that they are actually still "on board" the ship. They would be able to respawn inside the cell (assuming the ship was not destroyed in their absence) and exit the below decks to be transported to the poop, at the vessels current position on the map. I also think there should be broadcasting equipment that players can find, or build, which would enable in-game short wave radio stations to be utilized by players. Pirate Radio, anyone? Imagine being able to use a boat to actually go around, pick up supplies, establish communication with other players, provide medical or refugee assistance, ect. Boats would also require certain types of crew to fulfill it's multiple operations, obviously, which is a great motivator for team work. Players could man guns, repair engines and other damages from inside the engine room, (a.k.a the instance based area connected to the ship) as well as opening the door to a whole new dynamic of naval gameplay and conflict that would be quite compelling. These suggestions also fall in line with something Rocket hinted at, which was "more explorable islands" in Chernarus. If more landmass was added throughout the vast ocean, we would have even more incentive to operate a naval vessel - small or large. Piracy by organized bandits against - or with the use of - large ships would be an exciting and organic extension of this type of gameplay. Imagine, actually waiting until nightfall to sneak up on a large schooner with nothing but your wits and a RHIB. Under the cover of darkness, you and your group stealthily climbs the ladders and board the deck. You send two guys to storm the lower deck and take control, while you and your other team mate dispatch the gun operators and capture the captain. The schooner is yours! For now... Just a few thoughts. I'd like to hear opinions. Like I said, this is a long-term suggestion and I mean it to be considered as a gameplay objective that would be added later in the Standalone development.

What are you talking about? I never said "every man is a killer at heart." What I said was, there will always be individuals who want to kill other people - in DayZ. You seem to forget that we are in fact, playing a video game. The reason players act the way they do is out of simple adaptation to the game environment. Change the environment, and you can change player behavior *generally.* However, human conflict is always inevitable. " If we are such killers at heart, we never could of advanced this far." No way. Look back through human history. Time and time again we see people (individuals and groups of people) demonstrating violence and savagery that is present in human nature. Look at the holocaust. Terrorist attacks. Everyday murder in the streets of America. Did you know that over 3,000 African Americans are killed from gang violence every year? Let's not forget that the United States, as well as other "civilized" countries around the world, actually upheld the doctrine of human bondage for centuries! Did you also know that to this day people are still captured and sold into slavery? If human beings were so "advanced," we wouldn't do this type of thing in the first place. Even then, it is often true that human advancement reaches a point where conflict is the only thing that can bring advancement. For proof of this, one need only look at the Civil War. Conflict that brought advancement. My point here is that Kill on Sight is never going to completely end in DayZ, and to assume it will is horribly naive. You'd have to disable friendly fire. People are going to kill each other, whether it's group v group; group v individual; or individual v individual. This will never change. Some people just want to play the game as a murderous bandit, and those people will always kill on sight. The only way to balance the gameplay is to give cooperative players something to do and the ability to defend themselves from said destructive players. Please don't misunderstand me. I agree with your views on the current gameplay issues. I'm simply pointing out that there is a more fundamental issue at large, and I don't think an "insanity" system is an effective way to make banditry harder. It's both a: unfair to certain players, and b: kind of gimmicky. The real solution is not to take away gameplay options, but rather to provide more options for coop players. This way you actually make banditry harder by giving them better defended targets. Instead of getting "easy pickings" all the time, bandits might actually find themselves going up against cooperative groups of players who have built a base. It's a total shift in gameplay. It gives both sides more to do. Honestly, it would give me a reason to be a bandit at times, (sort of) since I love action stealth games and sneaking into an encampment guarded by real human beings is a splinter-cell die hard's wet dream. So I might even violate other people, but it would be for my own survival if I did. I would probably use said items to support my own group. Or, I might choose to approach the other group and trade with them as a friendly passerby. The different decisions will always exist. That is literally what separates a bandit from a hero. People have choice in this game, and you shouldn't try to take that away from them. The reality is that humanity is very ambiguous. This is why we ask ourselves questions like "do the ends justify the means?" For some people, the answer to them is automatic. They've played FPS shooters before. Zombies, not much to worry bout. Survival, rather easy actually. Now what? Oh look, a sniper rifle. And we wonder why kill on sight, sniper camping, griefing, hacking, ect. are huge problems. Clearly there is just very little to do. I think rocket recognizes this, which is why he's said on multiple occasions that the solution is "giving people more to do." I agree. And I also think that giving people more to do together is even more important. Seriously, this game absolutely must support persistent, reliable base building, or else I fear it will shrivel and die. It has to become more of an accomplishment to get a vehicle running. You should be looking another player in the eye and thinking "Thank you! Yes!" At least for a moment. These are the kinds of things that will make the game seriously compelling. Right now, everyone's complaining that they're "bored." They want more "scary stuff" more gore, ect. ect. What we want is more story. I think most people who play a video game really enjoy the experience more when they start getting emotionally attached. And think about it, what better way to get someone attached than to let them do things with another real human being? Suddenly that moment when your partner dies is would become much more grim. It would be a true loss. What if he was particularly good at fixing cars? Fuck. Ect. On the flip side, the people who want to play as lone-wolfs, or as bandits, will have even more to do. More to interact with. Imagine coming on to a player controlled trade post? You have so many options! Attack them? Steal from them? Snipe them? Maybe, you could trade with them. Maybe, they could ask you to scrounge up some gear, thus earning their trust a little. Maybe you could join them. Maybe you could betray them. Maybe they could betray you. The possibilities are endless.

Yeah, I want subterranean tunnels under major cities. Maybe some sewers, some subway type tunnels. Would be excellent for say, sneaking into enemy camps, or avoiding snipers in Cherno. Plus people could choose to use such areas as bases. I wouldn't mind if they were instanced, as long as they actually connect to Chernarus in a believable way. For example, it would be awesome to find map variants that specifically map out the subways, or something. Also the tunnels should actually allow players to move around the map. I want to be able to follow a tunnel from say, one side of Elektro to another. Or from Elektro to Cherno, entirely underground. Tunnels would also have the added benefit of supplying us with more "spooky" environments. They might be full of zombies, debris, other players, maybe even player camps. Plus it's be dark as all hell. Just sounds like an awesome experience.

You already can cancel actions. It just takes a second. Like the antibiotic idea. Pain pills work the same way so I don't really see why not.

Fair enough. Maybe I'm thinking of the first Arma.

Yes. I wish all servers would support JSRS or other sound mods. Hopefully the SA will have some really nice, high quality sounds to improve the experience.

I think I just suggested this, along with vultures and rats. But yeah. Should be implemented.

I killed a ghillie-suited sniper on Sniper Hill in Elektro with a crossbow once. I felt so fucking powerful. Took all his shit and made sure to tell him he was a scumbag before finally driving an arrow into his skull.

I get what you're saying. But I don't think "insanity" is the solution. The fact of the matter is that other players are not very valuable to you as a self-oriented survivor. Their items are often times more valuable than their very life - and it goes both ways. They could betray you at any moment to their immense benefit. So you're right. The game does pamper lone-wolves and banditry. A lot. The approach must be multi-faceted and some serious fundamental gameplay changes are going to have to happen in order to change people's motivations on an individual level. 1: the environment needs to be harder. Fortunately zombies are already getting pretty difficult to ignore, and infection has already prompted player trading, as antibiotics are incredibly rare. 2: We need cooperative actions in the game. If certain actions literally required another player to be present - then "lone-wolves" wouldn't be able to pull these things off. I'm talking about big projects, like building structures, repairing vehicles outside of your skill range, ect. Also moving heavy items and construction materials should be seriously considered. Providing players with logistical challenges that are easier with the help of others is a great way to get people doing things together and cooperating. (Also, it would be nice to see some kind of "zoning" feature for bases or camps. Say, if a player has placed certain items in an area, that area will become "off-limits" as a spawn zone for returning players. So if someone tried to "ghost" into a camp via another server, they might come back to the original server and be automatically displaced, say, 300 m away from that location. That way people would actually have to infiltrate player camps on the server.) 3: Which brings me to my next point. In reality, individuals have specialized knowledge - which makes people valuable. Some kind of "learning curve" for certain actions would be really nice to see. Not everyone knows how to rebuild a car engine, or replace a fuel tank, for example. Our characters should have to go through learning curves and figure things out with repetition. Cooperating with more experienced players should assist players in learning new skills also, so people can teach each other these skills. Death should penalize these skills to some extent, making your life and therefore your acquired skills a highly valuable asset. Even with these kinds of implementations, "banditry" is not going to go away. It's not a "problem" to be solved. The destructive side of human nature is what makes the game compelling. So imagine that a group of survivors gets together and constructs a base and collects lots of supplies, ect. Other players who are not friendly are going to raid those kinds of camps, and even kill for fun still. There are always going to be players who do not want to cooperate with other people, and that's fine. They can do that if they want to, and in fact, it actually adds to the gameplay. Watching out for lone wolf bandit elements would become a major priority of cooperative, constructive survivors. Furthermore, groups of bandits could also take advantage of these cooperative features and build their own bases, ect. Adding cooperative gameplay features does not "punish" lone-wolves. It punishes everyone by giving them completely reasonable human limitations, which will prompt more cooperation from necessity. Even then, as I said, players could still survive on their lonesome, and it would actually be easier in some ways because it would give lone wolves or bandits yet another way to hunt down supplies, and/or prey. But that's just my opinion. I'm sure a bunch of people are going to jump on my case and come up with 1001 reasons why they should be capable of erecting thousand pound walls and carrying entire engine blocks in their backpack by themselves.

I'm almost certain you can shoot the birds that are currently in the game...

They are making a new, expanded chernarus map for the SA in which they will be adding Utes as well as possibly other islands.

We are all but yeast in the ferment, consuming one another to survive.

So we know that in the standalone, rocket has mentioned animals like deer. (which I think is an excellent idea. Every time I hike through woods I see bunnies and pigs and such, but I'm like "man, what if I just ran into a big ol' buck right now. I got this Cz 50...") Anyway with that being said I just want to put out a few more suggestions for wildlife that might be interesting to see, and maybe very interesting when it comes to gameplay. - Vultures, ravens, and mice love to feed on dead things. Mice are also especially attracted to humans because of the food waste we leave behind when we congregate. So in areas where lots of players are dying, these kinds of scavenger animals should randomly spawn. Areas like Cherno, for example, might be crawling with rats. Vultures should actually pick on corpses that are; a: outdoors, and b: not being eaten currently by zeds. Since the zombies exhibit this behavior at times I feel like similar a.i. could be applied here. Ravens and other birds are already in the game, so I feel like they should be relatively easy to implement. They would also congregate in these areas. This would be quite beneficial for players. Imagine coming over a hill to see Elektro, with vultures circling, ravens congregating on power lines. It'd be a clear warning sign, not to mention kind of spooky. That's one thing I really love about DayZ, is being completely paranoid by those little environment traces of player activity. Like a gate that's open, or empty cans in a field, or the sound of flies where a body was hidden. Imagine walking into the supermarket, hearing the sound of flies, and... squeaking? You turn the corner to find rats eating a corpse, and as you approach they scatter. Here's another interesting point - what if you could kill said rats, and vultures? Just like rabbits, they should be edible. Just think about how grim it would be, eating a disgustingly gamey vulture or rat that had been eating another human being. But it might become necessary, if you can't find anything else. This wildlife could also tie into another function which I think should be implemented, which is for birds to fly away from gunshots. This might actually give a defensive player a chance to spot where they are being shot from and defend themselves, plus it would just be wicked cool to be watching cherno from a distance and hear shots, to see ravens and vultures suddenly flock up into the air. Which brings me to my next point. I was playing once and quite successfully farming a few zeds for their beans. (I was desperate and overcoming a nasty infection so gimme a break) Anyway. I have a habit of hiding all the corpses I kill. This is because I know they will remain there and I do not like to risk being tracked. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that interacting with those disgusting bodies is actually a very good way to give yourself an infection. I mean think about it. One wrong move - say, wiping sweat off your forehead while you handle a corpse - and you could pass a transmittable disease into your tear duct, or in your mouth, ect. And it should have some risk, in the game. The risk should be varied, of course, according to the zombie type. The viral zeds should have a higher chance than others. This also brings up another interesting vector possibility - player corpses. What if hiding the body of an infected player corpse had a risk of passing the infection on to that player? This ties into another suggestion I made, which was to add medical mask items, maybe even gloves, as tool-belt items. While wearing said item, your risk of catching an infection from these activities would be greatly reduced.