serenityrick

I can take or leave the zoom. I think it's meant to simulate focusing your vision on something in the distance.. like squinting your eyes and focusing on a specific object in a field rather than just generally see the entire field. I find the atmosphere to be very different. You never know what's just around the corner.. you hear a zombie yell and ready your axe and instead of spinning your floaty ghost camera 360 degrees like a madman, you have to scan your area... granted, you could also hold down ALT and flash the camera around but that's a lot more disorienting than when in 3PP. As for KoS.. so far it's less for me personally. Everyone I met was skeptical (especially since I was in full military garb) but I was trying to be nice (supplying fresh spawns with extra can openers that I found or water bottles). No one tried to axe me in the head as I put stuff on the ground. People in general seemed more sociable.. but I could have just been lucky. Not enough personal data for me to confirm if there is less or more. I can confirm that I didn't see anyone with a firearm though. The reason I turned off 3PP was because I absolutely hated the fact that someone could see in up to 360 degrees in every direction with no downside or risk whatsoever. I'm not sure if I understand your 2nd to last question.. my guess is basically tips for staying out of sight while also getting a good recon on an area? I don't think many people look *up* or notice things on 2nd floor too often. If you're in a town and want to scope out some streets, I suggest peering out a 2nd story (or higher) window. Having the ability to smoothly peer over an edge would be cool. I think one of the first, if not the first game to implement something like that was Raven Shield (I think?). If you held down the CTRL button, you could slowly and smoothly inch your character higher or lower to perfectly peer over an edge. This helped in a couple ways: 1) the smoothness of the transition made it a lot harder for someone to notice it. Part of the problem with set stances is that they happen fast. If you see someone leaning out of a corner it's more noticible if they do it super quickly.. as opposed to slowly. 2) you could expose less of yourself. It was your choice how much you wanted to expose. The problem with that system is that I don't think the ArmA 2.5 engine can handle something like that. It's not a huge deal. Just a thought.

Jesus Christ. No.

I play on full servers and have never server hopped for gear. There is no excuse for it. Take the time to play the game.. it's not that hard.

Just let us know what server you guys are on and when you're on it and some of us will do just that :)

I don't see why not.. most of the ideas are just building on the crafting/degradation/loot system that's currently in place. Other than having the objects in the game, there's nothing intensive (server or client) about fixing up cars or removing bullets from wounded players. I can't speak for the whole expanded map idea but most if not all of the OP's other ideas just involved expanding the systems that are currently in place if I remember correctly (I read the OP last night so I could be missing something) That's because they are currently using the basic AI from ArmA... which is point-to-point. In other words.. it doesn't have AI. It's basically "Does Zombie1 see PlayerX?" - Yes -> "Zombie1 runs at PlayerX". Collision and proper AI aren't implemented yet but Rocket has stated that he's personally working on that part of the game (I believe)

So thanks to the poster Merino and his youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwNgTnj9hBE I can (along with many other people I'm sure) survive rather easily in the alpha. ALPHA being the keyword.. I obviously realize things will change such as values, mechanics and spawn rarity.. but I'm going to mention it anyway because.. well.. I'm an official Alpha tester *puffs out chest* So once you realize how your stomach works and how water and food fill it up.. it's rather easy to stuff your face full of both and then never get another thirst/hunger message again. Every new spawn after getting mercilessly killed by another player, I do the same thing; Locate the nearest water wellLoot houses for foodEat food firstThen fill the rest of my stomach with water As I find more food, I immediately open it up and eat it knowing that it would take forever to actually fill the hidden "energy/calorie" bar. Carry a full bottle of water just in case I happen to run off the excess and then run back into one of the MANY towns that have a free source of water should I run out or find it convenient. So what's the problem? Well the problem, as a survival game it's rather easy to survive.. at least in terms of keeping your survivor well fed and hydrated. So basically this thread should be a discussion for how it can be balanced once the good stuff starts getting added like hunting and cooking. Because I imagine things HAVE to change in order for either of those to be worth doing. Certainly there are plenty of variables to make hunting or cooking better food worth it even if the current food/water mechanic isn't changed.. the biggest one being zombie threats. It will probably take twice, maybe three or four times as long to loot even a small town without aggroing (hopefully dangerous) zombies so you'll probably get hungry and thirsty faster due to the sheer amount of time it would take. So even IF food values remain the same, it may be worth it to start hunting even if cans by themselves are easier to grab (in theory) But what about wells? There are many of them and all infinite. Some towns have more than one.. some even have 3! Should there be a limit on how many drinks a player can take from a well? Either a personal limit or a server limit? (so if a player had already come along and drained it, you get none?). Right now, I don't think many people get their water from a pond and that's without the whole disease element added in yet! I don't imagine that changing much once it get into beta if water wells continue to be a constant and rather easy source of water for a player. Should they be nixed completely? perhaps they should only exist on the coast where as a new player you can get water but as you travel inland, you'll have to take risks at the pond or purify/boil your own water? Again, it's alpha. I'm sure surviving on food and water is only easy because zombies pose literally zero threat at the moment.. perhaps increasing their numbers and AI and overall threat would change that completely. The biggest thing for me is the water wells though. Even with an increased zombie threat, those things are pretty OP at the moment, no? EDIT - on second thought, I suppose an easy "fix" for the wells would be the chance to contract a sickness from them, similar to still water ponds. That way you'd probably only use it to fill a water bottle to go back and boil or purify later rather than sit there and spam the "use" key on it and risk a waterborne illness.

That's all painfully obvious though.. The game isn't/won't be a surgery simulator but it also shouldn't be a context menu drop of "perform surgery". I get that the latter is basically what his idea is but at least having to worry about sterilizing tools and using the right tools would make it a bit more in depth. For instance.. perhaps scalpels will be an item in the game.. but lets say you're out in the field and your friend was shot.. you two retreat to safety but he's getting the telltale symptoms of some internal organ damage. Now.. you don't have a scalpel but you take the bayonet off your gun and disenfect it in order to perform emergency surgery. There's a VERY good chance he'll die as using a freakin' bayonet would carry a much higher failure rate as opposed to using a scalpel.. you have that option.. and THAT kind of stuff makes it interesting. You'd have some very good stories. "We retreated to a barn and he was fading fast.. I removed my bayonet and performed emergency surgery.. he passed out from the pain but the surgery was successful!". Yeah you're not necessarily doing anything difficult especially when compared to the actual profession of SURGEON but it provides a dynamic. Will your friend survive long enough for you to run/drive to a hospital to find a scalpel to have a greater chance of saving his life? Or do you perform the surgery now and hope for the best? That would be awesome. EDIT - with that said.. performing surgery might be a little much for the game in terms of realism. But again, it's about authenticity and not necessarily realism. The average person isn't going to be told of their friend's symptoms and know "Ah! You have a collapsed lung! I know exactly what to do!" However, removing bullets is something more realistic that I think anyone could theoretically do.. and having the option to remove them via bayonet/scalpel/pliers/knife/etc would be awesome and just make the game a bit more interesting

And that's part of making zombies more of a threat. Once you can only sprint for say.. 60 seconds while fully healthy (even that may be a bit much), zombies SHOULD be faster than your jog.. and once 5+ aggro onto you which should basically be a minimum if you're being completely careless in a town/city (personally, I'm thinking 10+. The more the better), we won't be able to kill one at a time as you'll get swarmed and killed rather quickly. Certainly once something like that is implemented, people will not only be more careful but hopefully more co-operative. Anything inside buildings will now be much more difficult to procure which will include food. And the longer it takes you to gather supplies, the more hungry and thirsty you get. You take a risk on getting this stuff faster by being more careless then you risk getting absolutely swarmed by zombies that are simply faster than you with no way to deal with multiple of them at a time. For me *that's* the dream. I'm kind of hoping they implement that sort of stuff sooner rather than later so the near 700,000 people who bought the alpha aren't shell shocked by the sharp increase in difficulty and the drastically increased time it will (read: should) take to loot buildings thanks to terrifying and dangerous zombies

There's nothing complex about it... If the first town you come to is looted, move inland to the next town.. and keep doing it. You're roleplaying a SURVIVOR. Move inland... go to the NEAF.. hang around Berezino (also a rather large town). The problem is you're hung up on military loot and weapons. Stop it.

If only they could put their brains to good use instead of wasting massive amounts of time (including their own.. )

I actually like this. As long as the person who died doesn't click 'respawn' and remains at the "You are dead." screen, I'd love for that to be implemented. But as soon as that player comes to live he should be at critically low blood and should need to be bandaged right away (like.. within 30 seconds). He will also be in terrible pain so he will need painkillers or morphine as well. Basically make it so it's not like when they are defribb'd they can just jump back into the action or anything. I like it. EDIT - the whole realism thing (like the poster above me said) does kind of ruin it though. In the end it's a 'take it or leave it' sort of thing for me.

You seriously need to find another game to play dude/dudette. Alpha or not, the point isn't to gear up in less than 10 minutes and shoot everything that moves. It appears the developers are trying to nip that mindset in the bud right now which is fantastic. Hopefully those types of players will just flat out leave the game.

god damn please have my babies.

Please, for the love God let these respawn changes weed out the COD kiddies just wanting to get an M4 in less than 10 minutes to kill unarmed players.. please....

lol

That's the fucking point.

The problem with that line of thinking is that your finding these supplies inside residential houses.. The average residential house doesn't have "oh shit" bags with survival kits in them. Before writing off the cooking pot and campstove, lets wait and see what else can be used with them. They're probably meant to be something you keep at a home base or camp stowed away in some (hopefully hidden) boxes and then used to make bountiful/healthy food that you THEN take with you on adventures.

How is that impossible? If I know where my friend is sniping from, I know exactly where the target is. And if I don't know where my friend is, then a compass doesn't help me at all. Besides, I'm pretty sure Rocket is designing the game to not be an all out a pvp-fest so I doubt the thought of "what if some KOS nerds need to look at a compass in the heat of stalking an unarmed bambi!?"

It did a lot actually. You don't spawn on the south coast anymore.. you spawn in the east and north east. I think the furthest south you spawn is just east of Elektro.

lol

There will be a TON of diversity in the future, that's for sure. In every recent interview (in 2013) with Rocket where gear and lootable items are mentioned, he says there are/will be at least 1000. Of course that may include new items that you as a player craft but still.. considering there are only a couple dozen items in the alpha at the moment..we, as players, will have to make a TON of decisions in the future when those items are finally in a test build. (especially when hunting and cooking are introduced). Do you take a bunch of cooking items and hunting items and try and live off the land? Do you take a bunch of guns and ammo? stock up on medical supplies? Cause you won't be able to do all of them.

The key, in my opinion, is making the zombies a legitimate threat. This will force people to work together in order to loot a small town when you come across them and simultaneously discourage other players from killing on sight since that usually involves making a lot of noise.. and a lot of noise = a lot of zombies. We need lots of zombies.. as much many as a server can hold. And more than usual should be spawned around military areas with high value loot. Imagine a KoSer on top of one of the ATC towers who has tunnel vision... sees another player and fires whatever weapon he has in order to feel dat pvp rush.. well.. he didn't think about the dozens of zombies in the area.. in no time there are zombies gathered at the ladder and tons of them piling in through the front door... he doesn't have enough ammo to kill them all.. he can't combat log because he's too close to a threat.. God. That would be awesome to see from a distance.

To my pleasant surprise, I saw a few nearly full first person only servers (the ones that say 3PP:OFF). Was so happy :) Already having a much better time playing the game. Crank my FOV up.. almost shat my pants once when I heard a zombie running up behind me and I turned around and he lunged at me.

Probably to nip the whole "get guns and kill people" in the bud.. that's not what this game is supposed to be about.

I had a problem with the zooming when the weapon was raised but they got rid of that thankfully. try looking out over a field generally.. not focusing on anything.. now squint your eyes and focus on a bush or tree and everything that's happening in the immediate vicinity of said tree. You're view isn't "zoomed in" but you're applying focus to a particular spot and, again, your periphery suffers. With that said, I'd have absolutely no problem if they wanted to get rid of that.. it's not something that's exploitable like the current 3rd person camera is. If you're "zooming" in to look at me, I can "zoom" in to look at you. If you're 3rd person ghost camera-ing me, there are many instances where I cannot do that to you (like defending myself in a building)