LogicRising

EXACTLY. Some people play the murder counter as a score and use it as something to brag about. I don't think a significant portion of a survivor population in the grips of a doomsday outbreak would find it most important to sit around campfires and brag about how many murder's they've comitted, as someone put it in a different topic. The small number of people who play for the purpose of increasing their murder count lower the overall human trust to levels that are just a little lower than should be expected in a zombie apocalypse. Get rid of the on-screen murder counter. I can't imagine any diagnostic purpose to it now that players don't get bandit costumes. ...but I like the flies :-)

Yes it does...a little bit. Now you'd get cool little collectable trinkets when you loot the body of those you kill. Serial killers tend to do the same thing in real life. It enhances their enjoyment. The OP also talked about potentially using dogtags as currency. Certainly you can see how this makes the game more PK oriented and/or encourages player killing. True. Hopefully this will be less of a problem once the devs implement REAL solutions to incentivize (but not necessitate) teamwork. Correct. Dogtags would be no different. I don't think a significant portion of a survivor population in the grips of a doomsday outbreak would find it most important to sit around and brag to eachother about how many survivor's they've murdered without reason. So the solution is to provide additional ways for people to brag about how many people they murdered? The suggestion SHOULD be to remove the murder count from the debug monitor....though I imagine this is already a planned change once the game goes into beta. Right, because there's not much else to do as a lone survivor. But by saying "like it or not" it sounds like you've given up on the game ever becoming a more realistic struggle for survival in a zombie apocalypse. Personally, I don't think the game should be 1. Scavenge 2. Survive 3. Collect as many trinkets off of murdered human players as you can.

I don't like this idea for a few reasons: 1. This is a zombie apocalypse game, not a war game. Why would anyone have dogtags in the zombie apocalypse? 2. The game is supposed to be about surviving in the zombie apocalypse, not about racking up the most player kills. 3. Player killing is, and should remain a secondary aspect of the gameplay that emerges from more complex motivations like supply shortages and risk aversion, not a primary one. Developing a system like the one suggested puts unnecessary emphasis on player killing and only encourages player killing behavior as a primary goal within the game. 4. There are literally hundreds of first-person titles out there that treat player killing as a primary goal. This game is different, and I think it is one of the main reasons reason it is so popular.

There certainly shouldn't be MORE inventory space. The way the game is right now, after about 2 hours of scavenging you have enough supplies to last the next 6 hours of play. There's no more motivation to go into town and risk zombies at this point. It's better just to do nothing. So why play the game? Hmm...I guess it would be less boring if I started stalking people and murdering them for no reason because I don't need more supplies. I seriously can't imagine how anyone could possibly think the game needs more inventory space, or would be more fun with more inventory space.

YES!!!! ....but NOT ones you explicitly choose. What i mean is, ideally there should be pressure to specialize into roles and/or survival strategies. I don't think there should be any strictly defined, numerable 'class' list, nor should a player be limited to any particular role or survival strategy in a single life. We don't need a class system, it simply has to be made impossible to be Rambo AND MacGyver, AND Bear Grylls all rolled into one. That's the REAL problem.

I have to agree with the OP. My own concept of this follows...a list of changes that affect the inventory system. I'm going to say it up front: the motivation here is to steer this game away from deathmatch/meaningless murder, and more towards cooperation and more meaningful/gainful murder. If you think this game should always be about 50 elite military brutes in a server stalking and shooting eachother for the sheer thrill of deathmatch and less about the zombie apocalypse or survival, then don't read further. Change 1: Start off without a backpack Why it makes sense or is more realistic: Most people don't run around with backpacks waiting for the zombie apocalypse to happen, so why should we expect to have one? How it affects gameplay: Players without a backpack are more likely to request assistance from other survivors, and also make murdering survivors with backpacks more essential to survival. On the flip side, those without a backpack are a little less likely to get murdered. The potential reward to the aggressor is less when there is a clear indication that the would-be victim has little to give up.Change 2: Get rid of toolbelts. Why it makes sense: Again, I can't imagine that most people would just have a toolbelt to carry 12 things (or however many slots you get) in the real zombie apocalypse. How it affects gameplay: Now you can't have it all. You can no longer be a 'jack of all trades'. Nobody can be MacGyver AND Rambo AND Bear Grylls rolled into one survivor that everyone seems to be today. You are forced to specialize. What you decide to keep defines your survival strategy. For example: Your decision of whether to keep ranged defenses with a stock of ammo, or more practical survival items like an axe or hunting knife dictates that you either require protection from other players, or help with subsistence. Axe and hunting knife vs ranged weapons are just one example of how this could play out. Change 3: Make backpacks very rare...even the ones we now have by default Why it makes sense: They probably would be relatively hard to find. How it affects gameplay: Anyone with a backpack is essentially VIP! The most sought-after targets. The 'creme de la creme'. Someone who is able to survive as a lone wolf, or take responsibility of carrying a group's most valued survival posessions- like map/compass/food/water/bandages/firewood/etc, so that the rest of the members can concentrate solely on defending the group.I would go on, but I'm sure you can all see where I'm going with this. Thanks for reading!