pttg

Interesting... however, why not stick to things like more subtle changes- such as the occasional drastic increase in zombie agressiveness, or rare periods where there are very few zombie spawns, just to drive a wave of looting (and, of course, conflicts as everyone rushes to take advantage of the easier-to-access loot). Maybe gas shortages that make it so that gas stations no longer supply gas for a period, so that players are forced to ration it. If you want to get really complex, make it so that a few players get a normal disease that spreads by contact. Being close to them, or looting their corpses, infects you. It might merely increase hunger and decrease blood a bit, or it may be more serious. Dealing with the disease, and shooting likely carriers before they can get close to you, could be very interesting.

I know that there are plans for the removal of global chat. I would like to point out that as soon as this happens, players will find other ways to communicate, largely outside of the game. Unfortunately, this is unavoidable. However, it can be mitigated by making there be very effective long-distance communication in-game that is simply harder to acquire. If one could get a radio and use it to make regular broadcasts and to quickly give information (for instance, having a one-off command to tell all allies "I'm at grid xxxxxxxx", or "I [am healthy/am bleeding/have a broken bone/am dying] and my blood level is xxxxxx"), outside com channels will be somewhat less attractive. People will still use them, but as long as you have viable alternatives, you can get them motivated to stick to in-game elements more. In particular, people will be happy to get a radio or a cell phone or what have you, specifically because it means that they are more able to communicate. That's really the best you can hope for,

Probably a good time to just change servers, man. There's no way to fight on his turf, so just get out of the situation.

Seriously? If I was paying to run a server, I would expect to be able to play with my friends on that server. Hosts are not a civil service, they're a privilege provided by the server hosts. I would certainly be upset if I was kicked, sure, but it's that server ops prerogative, and if you don't like it, don't play on that server. There are limits to this, particularly where a specific server is bringing a bad name to the whole mod, but at the same time, server hosts are doing a service with no expectation of reward.

So I killed a couple zombies and after looting them for a while I came up with two empty tin cans and an empty whiskey bottle. Can they be used for anything, or are they merely for RPing as a hobo?

My point was exactly as you say- realism needs to be suspended in some cases for fun. I am saying that one of the things that must be suspended is 24 hour days. I proposed 5-hour days because then you get a little less than four "days" in a day, meaning that even if you play for one hour at 9:00 every night, you'll still experience a whole "day" over the course of several sessions. What exactly don't you like about this suggestion?

Yes, I realize that day/night being merely a 5 hour cycle is unrealistic. What we must realize is that people crouching in a bush, vanishing for a day or something, and appearing once more is unrealistic. People constantly washing up on the beach is unrealistic. A country full of people running around at full tilt like Olympic sprinters, then dropping down and breathing for a minute or two and suddenly being totally at rest is unrealistic. Heck, zombies are unrealistic. My point is, a shorter day/night cycle is one of the most common video game abstractions for a reason- it makes it possible for one to, no matter what your real-life situation is, experience the entire game. After all, the vast majority of people play computer games in the evening. While zombie survival is generally a nighttime activity, the day affords a change of pace that I think is well worth allowing all players easy occasional access to.