TheSwede

Someone put it really well in another similar thread... Went something like, "We shouldn't have any mechanics that manipulate our character's state of mind in the game, because it's up to the player to create those feelings for himself." I'll be honest, I've actually felt a bit sorry for killing other players before. Once, my brother and I went to Stary to check the military camp. We waited on a hill overlooking the town for a good 10 minutes, making sure the coast was clear. I finally spotted someone crawling away from the camps into a big building. I notified my brother (whom had a sniper rifle at the time) and he took the shots and killed him. Our justification for taking him out was that he could have just finished looting the camp and was heading to a good spot to camp it himself. We waited a few minutes and snuck in to check his body: the poor sap had a crossbow and some food. I honestly felt bad for killing him because (albeit after-the-fact) he wasn't much of a threat. For the next 3 hours playing I kept thinking about it, felt sorry for the guy... but eventually i moved on. Similar event happened with me and two friends rolling up to NEAF in a bus.. gunned down a poor chump just crouch-running through the airstrip, he didnt bother taking a shot at us. Must've assumed we weren't gonna mess with him. His buddy in the ATC tower had some bullets for us though, but he wasn't much of a marksman. They both Alt-F4'd to avoid death. We didn't take any damage. tl;dr, people are going to play the way they play no matter what, and ANY sort of penalty OR bonus for solo, team play, murders OR helping, would ruin the game. It's up to us to create the environment, and eventually survivors will be able to help each other for the sake of helping, and bandits will be able to continue their shenanigans knowing that people will eventually band together to stop them.

Because, as far as I know, RV4 is just more stuff tacked onto RV3, polishing, and fixes. It's still RV3 at heart, meaning it still has potential to be garbage.

I haven't been lucky enough to test this theory since 1.7.5 came out, but before it did I'd saved two ATVs and a V3S (or whatever the non-Ural 3axle truck is). After the saves, the server had a scheduled restart. Came back in, they were gone. 8 hours later, another scheduled restart (my regular server has 3 scheduled restarts daily), and THE VEHICLES WERE BACK. I asked the server admins on their forums about it and they said that vehicles will despawn after a restart, saved or not, but after a second restart, all saved vehicles will spawn back in where they were saved, and be permanently available (until moved, resaved, destroyed, stolen, etc). Not sure how reliable this information is, but I did witness our vehicles disappearing after the first restart, and then reappearing after a second restart. Who knows :blush:

I think the Adrenaline idea is a great idea, but I'm wary of it activating when YOU shoot at a player. The way you worded it sounds too close to a hit indicator.. I'd be worried it could lead to some abuse, if someone has a suppressed weapon they can just plink around building parapets and hidey-holes until they get a positive indicator, without having to even see a player. Now, obviously with the ammo duplication taken care of, people would be less likely to waste ammo this way, but I still have an uneasy feeling about the way you worded it. Additionally, the biggest issue with the Alt-F4'ers are that they disconnect when they get shot AT. I don't think the bandits hiding in the treelines feel it necessary to disconnect when they start shooting at people and are still undiscovered ;) Other than that though, i think it's an awesome way to address the situation while adding a very real aspect to the game. I know I'd sure as hell be crappin' mah drawers if I started getting shot at IRL. Beans to you, good sir.

I'm not a game developer, i know nothing of graphic architecture or coding, or modding, or anything. I'm willing to bet $100 that you aren't either. Why do you want people to brainstorm ideas on fixes when the real developers are already hard at work on their own fixes? Also, Real Virtuality 3 engine (the one that ArmA II uses) is garbage. Rocket needs to move away from that engine immediately. A more stable engine would mean more development time, but the end result would be a solid standalone game. I know Rocket wants to make his own standalone and move away from the mod aspect, it's just a matter of how much time, resources, etc he has to devote to moving away from Bohemia Interactive.

For the multiple characters thing, I'm not a huge fan of it. While I do admit it'd be nice to "screw around" and get used to the gameplay, the map, the habits of zombies.. but that should be limited to a single player style or tutorial, or maybe limit only one character per server. This prevents getting killed on your one character, then turning around with a second player and getting a revenge kill. Problem with that though, is that it puts an enormous strain on the HIVE, unless each individual server tracks that character instance on it's server. Issue THEN is that individual servers have access to character files and COULD (not guaranteed, but possibly) result in some abuse. The point that Jacy made is valid: that YOU are trying to survive the apocalypse, and by surviving, you have to choose your actions carefully, and reap the consequences if things go south. Your (and many others') reasoning for wanting multiple characters is to team up with their friends and not risk losing their hard-earned gear to help a fresh-spawn. Why? My brother risked his NVGs and GPS for me when I first started playing with him; he ran all the way down from his comfortable roost in the north to rescue me from Elektro. I did the same for my friend when he started playing, and we've continued to do it for our other friends as they spawn in fresh, be it new additions or unfortunate deaths. It's actually a really great way to simulate your own morality: would you risk your life to help your friend in the event of an apocalypse? I like the idea of a system of trade, but it has to be a completely player-driven barter system: No arbitrary values set to items, no form of currency. In the zombie apocalypse setting, no one's gonna sell their ammo or food to someone, just as no one's gonna buy those items either. If I need food but have plenty of ammunition, i'll trade bullets for beans, and vice-versa. Adding NPCs and "safe zones" and all that other garbage other people have been suggesting would be stepping away from what Rocket wants this game to be. Biggest issue right now for implementing some sort of barter interaction would be Real Virtuality 3's limitations as a game engine. The sooner Rocket moves away from RV3 and RV4, and ultimately BIS and their intellectual property, the sooner he'll have a genre-defining release, and we'll have access to it.

Unless you're playing on a 3rd Person View Disabled server... You shouldn't be getting snuck up on by axe murderers... Even then... situational awareness, breh.

http://1800sunstar.com/GFX/icons/zmap-oahu.jpg I think Oahu would be AWESOME. It's slightly larger than Chernarus, plenty of hills, mountains, forests, beaches, cliffs, and a very nicely sized urban area with airfields, military bases, and smaller towns all over the place. Either that or Okinawa, same deal. Or Malta, Staten Island, Santa Catalina Island.. Any 200-500 kmsisland would do the trick, really... Point being, an island so that people can't hide their vehicles off the edge of the map like a buncha chumps :lol: (but add lots of buildings where you still had options to hide them, or add the option to hide vehicles with camo netting or tree branches n' nature n' shoot.) Also, DayZ needs to be on a new engine. RV3 is garbage. RV4 is gonna be just as garbage.

It is a very good point, and I'm sure Rocket does indeed have some plan in the back of his mind. At the moment though, DayZ is terribly far from Beta, let alone Standalone. Guaranteeing Alpha testers a place in Beta testing is a good start, and then from there, all Alpha Testers that move to Beta test and maintain an account could be eligible for a small discount, or at the very least some exclusive content (clothes, faces, anything purely cosmetic... And before someone says "omg no not wow/tf2/whatever," it's just an idea. NOTHING to give any sort of advantage, just bragging rights / ego boost). It's simply too early to ask for anything other than a monetary discount, as the Standalone could have some exclusive content like that added.

I haven't heard anyone suggest that before, honestly. I really like that idea too. If body armor were just another addon in addition to ghillie or camo, then a ghillie'd guy could also have body armor.. little over the top, IMO. Maybe add some sort of riot police "outfit" that would have the body armor bonuses. But yeah, as decapitator put it... there are so much more issues that need to be FIXED first, before adding new stuff.

The biggest issue with more and better is that the RV3 engine has major issues with implementing melee. Punching might be a less than favorable idea in the reality aspect of it, since you don't want to risk breaking your fist on a zombie face, or cutting your skin on their protruded bones, etc and risk infection. Grappling / pushing zombies would be good though, to avoid being hit. I like the idea of improvised weapons like pipes stuff, but I don't like the stuff in bold above. Scythes are terribly unwieldy. A shovel on the other hand is far more common and simple. Ornamental swords and stuff are simply that: Ornamental. They would break immediately. Real swords and stuff are very dangerous if you don't know how to use them, and are pretty impractical for zombie killing. The whole cut-off-their-heads-with-one-swipe stuff from the movies and games is pure BS. Bayonets... Ehhh... a little more practical, but less common and also unwieldy. Optional throw... I don't like it. It's extremely difficult to throw an edged weapon accurately, let alone well enough to inflict a serious wound. Shovels, YES. Props to you, Dalegor! That's my input, anyway.

This, absolutely. Have my beans. The day that DayZ gets AI controlled guards or some other garbage like that will be the day I stop playing. New patch is definitely a step in the right direction. The next step is to add true incentives to play styles (even though the title of this thread has that word, OP missed the mark). One way would be to make teaming up much more beneficial, doesn't matter if you're a bandit teaming up with another bandit, or a survivor teaming up with another survivor. And before people say "omg im lonewolf i hav no friendz beacuase thats how i role blehblehbleh," tough twinkies. If this is to be a true apocalypse survival simulator game mod whatever, then teamwork has to be more beneficial. In reality, there's strength in numbers. Playing this game as it is is far too easy for a solo player.

No, no, no no no, and NO. This isn't some carebear game. If Rocket ever adds "safe zones" or "NPCs" or any AI controlled guards or anything, I'll stop playing. I'm sure the same goes for half, if not more, of the other 1 million players that play DayZ.

Definitely agree. Arma2 has been using basically the same engine since it was Operation Flashpoint. All the same scripts and hacks people used back then still work (for the most part) today in Arma2. Rocket needs to seriously start looking into a new engine if he plans on releasing his own standalone, separate from Bohemia Interactive and the Real Virtuality engine. There was a thread on here a few weeks ago suggesting the CryEngine (that farcry and crysis and so many other games use). Very informative thread, if you read past so many of the crybaby posts by people who didn't know what they were talking about :) Either way. New engine would stop all the current hacks instantly. only later will people start making new hacks for the new engine.

The standalone will no doubt have better melee options. As it is, Real Virtuality 3 engine (the one that ArmA II uses) has a lot of difficulty properly implementing melee combat. Perhaps RV4 (the one ArmA III will be using) will have better melee possibilities. Perhaps Rocket will try to move to RV4 eventually, or perhaps he'll move to an entirely new (better) engine for the standalone. Anyone's guess is best at this point, until Rocket says something official.