Thom_Dee

I think for the standalone this idea has merit and I'm glad to see that more melee has been confirmed for it. I also agree that compared to a gun, melee weapons should be next to useless, unless and this is a big one YOU HIT THEM IN THE HEAD, random panicked slashing and bludgeoning shouldn't be rewarded. In this regard even the hatchet is overpowered in the zombie war at the moment. 1 or 2 swipes to the head to kill or 2-3 to the legs to disable should be the only effective strategy with these weapons. In the long run I think any military hardware should be a struggle to come across with ammo being worth its weight in gold, if an infection broke out in the UK I can be pretty sure there woulldn't be marauding bandits with AS50's and assault rifles being common currency, Farmers shotguns and rifles would be the common firearm and even those would be fairly sparse. I remember spawning for the first-time with nothing but a flashlight in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and it was terrifying, it was also the best gameplay experience I've ever had which is why I love how this game is developing. With the hacking duping and exploiting that's rife in the game at the moment, aswell as the limitations of the engine this isn't necessarily the right time to move in that direction but for a standalone I'm looking forward to how this is gonna turn out. N.B Before anyone flames.. Comment regarding AS50's doesn't make me think these should be removed from the game, I just think you should be able to consider yourself one of the luckiest people in the world if you wash up on a beach and have managed to find one of these"

I <3 this post You should seriously do random hotfixes like that to mess with people :)

Not sure I want this idea to have wings. Much as I like the idea of wandering the wastes in a sexy suit. I'm against the whole starting profession / "class" ideas that have been floating about. I see you've careful avoiding giving any distinct advantages unlike those deluded souls who think perks would be a good idea but likewise I don't think any of the suggestions above add enough to the game to be worth the amount effort it'd take to bring these cosmetic changes about. Having more clothes / skins to be found would as loot would be cool but as far as past life goes, we've washed up on the shore of this thrice accursed country, we don't know why or how we came to be here, who your character is defined by the actions you take from that point on and that's my personal preference.

Loving the idea of hordes, would be cool if they were endemic in big cities and occasionally get roaming hordes that head towards large concentrations of players they'd start at a city and then head off toward towards the concentration. Just imagine cooking your meat in the woods where you think your normally safe and having 20+ Z's come shambling through. Secondly in terms of horde mentality when a Z aggros I'm not saying every zombie in the area should suddenly go mental, but they should definitely converge on the player at a shambling rate to increase the peril the player is put in. I wouldn't even be that upset if this led to more z's being spawned in around the player but would prefer it to come about more naturally.

I think perks take away from the "players skill" required to survive, if you can read maps and know how to conceal yourself its on you not some quasi-mystical perk given by the game engine. I'm all for things that make the community work together (damn bandits) but I think they need to come naturally from the community rather than being artificially introduced. I'm sure this is something that they'll be looking at for now, while it's in alpha I'll just be glad when they've worked out the kinks with the z's.

Not necessarily safe areas, having so few villages it'd just make it bandit hell and half the fun is how tense the game is when coming across another player and observing to see if you can figure out if they're a bandit or survivor. I think the problem at the minute is its easy to be a bandit and it's hard to trust people. I'd like for there be a way to encourage player co-operation but I think artificially forcing safe zones isn't the way. I do however think they're should be specific log out zones that occur frequently enough that means both people can easily reach one and make it harder for bandits to predictably camp out, I think this would help with the alt-f4 and the ghosting issue that people exploit. You could even have it so you can still log out anywhere but it leaves your character sitting there vulnerable for another 2 minutes. Just my thoughts.

Not had a problem running the latest beta, M1911 shots to chest kill in 1, at worst it's taken 2. The only time it's taken more than that is when I've panicked and fired off shots quickly, as long as you pace your shots z's should fall down after the server catches up with you.

Have to say I think this is a good idea and accurately reflects our ability to recognise familiar individuals in real life, I think the 20m limit, prevents it from being exploitative and will still make approaching players a tense affair. I'm not sure how well it'd be implemented as a game play mechanic when assigning the tags, maybe if the ARMA comms system was adapted to tag a player but that's still pretty clunky. Could be used in tandem with both the clothing ideas floating around, (although I'm not a big fan personally, I can see why large groups want this.) and even with the wanted posters, where seeing a poster would enable you to identify the individual, making notoriety a significant factor. I think a player dying would remove his tags from everyone that has seen him, as that character is now deceased and I agree, I think your memory should be wiped completely too, when you die mostly for the reasons for the reasons you've already outlined, it makes sense with permadeath as a mechanic. I don't think the average life expectancy is that big a deal as I think that's been significantly diluted by the people re-spawning when they don't like there starter position and I know I've been guilty of rage suicide to my new survivor, after one of my longer runs comes to an inglorious end.