unconsciousobjector

I'm a firm believer in "hunters". I dont believe that infected just mill around until "food" just happens their way.

If as a infected your need to feed was greatly accelerated your time as a infected would be short, not to mention survivors have weapons. Hunger would drive the "savage" and if you dont feed quickly and often you die then I dont see it being a problem at all. It certainly would add some VERY dramatic but, short, momments in the game.

Probably been said before but, what the hell. How about becoming the "infected"? Similar to the current sickness mechanic, it would be a great addition if one could actually become the infected. Maybe some limited form of the radar could be used as a infected "ability" along with some of the obvious limitations. Human players that have become one of the infected would add a degree of realism that no AI could ever hope to match. It would also familiarize players with the abilities and limitations of the infected and allow that knowledge to be applied to the next go at survivor. What an impact infected players would add to the DayZ world! I also think that the possible addition of infected stages or slow loss of abilities due to the virus eventually destroying the host completely would offer the infected player a "out" returning them to the land of the living, both literally and figuratively.

Good ideas on Rocket's part but, if I may, I don't think he was talking about increased difficulty but, rather more along the lines of various states reduced effectiveness. If memory serves me right his brother is a virologist and he wanted to get his brother involed in the project. What I'm talking about is introducing new dangers into areas that currently pose no threat other than other players. New dangers and new challenges other than the current formula that involves infected in towns. I think trying to model "advanced infected" (for lack of better term) or rather "early infected with advanced intellectual capabilities" would be much harder to do convincingly than dogs or another form of simpler minded creatures. One would expect a "person" that has recently been infected to be somewhat more capable than one that has been infected for a longer period of time. Unless of course Rocket decides to go down the path of mutated infected that gains abilities outside those that would normally be associated with uninfected people. Dogs or similar creatures have abilities (and limitations) that humans simply do not. Sight, smell and hearing to name a few and that can be easily explained without going down the path that so many other "zombie" games have traveled. To simplify, the mad has become a PvP playground where infected are little more than a nuisance at best and a tool used by killers to aid them in murdering other players. For example zeds that are active more than 200m from your location usually indicates another player in the vicinity of said infected. Certainly aggroed zeds not aggroed on the players is diffiative confermation another player is around. Or take the debug menu and the active zombie count, yuou can almost certainly tell when player(s) enter a large city due to the sudden increase of active zombies and the number thereof. Forty active zombies suddenly jumps to over a hundred then you can bet your behind someone or someones are in Cherno or Electro and raising hell. Basically, make the game about surviving a hostile world again. Hostile world in the sense that the "world" itself is harsh and hostile if not down right deadly as opposed to other players being virtually the only real danger that's not directly the result of a simple mistake. Infected dogs would be a great addition IMO. I'd also love to see a tornado come ripping through the world too. When DayZ was in it's early days people worked together because they simply didn't know that all you have to do is run through a building to lose zeds or faceplant in a bush/tree to lose them. Things were fresh and the unknown was in and of itself a danger. DayZ is in it's current state a very limited COD or BattleField3. I hope the Dev team Gets back to the "man vs. the land" experience. Certainly other players will always be a threat/danger but, as it stands, other players are the only real danger.

I think animals offer a alternative form of Zombie that is more believable than "mutated" forms. If that makes sense? Regular "zombies" behaving like described would mean ALL zombies would have to do it. Dogs offers a alternative while leaving "regular" zeds as they are. Maybe a new form of Zed would suffice?

The main reason I would add infected dogs is this: I believe that DayZ should be about man vs. the environment. Environment meaning the post apocalyptic pandemic that is the DayZ sandbox. It would seem to me that at the moment the main focus is on PvP as opposed to surviving. The zombies/infected aren't anything more than a nuisance right now and the only thing you have to "survive" is other people. Probably 90% of the suggestions I've seen are directly related to surviving PvP and has very little to do with what I believe was the original intent or at least suggested premise of DayZ. Make the world tough enough to survive and people will pull together out of pure necessity. Packs of infected dogs would inevitably lead to "herds" of people traveling together just like in nature. Think wolves vs. buffalo (Canada for example) or impala vs. dogs in Africa. If the environment is severe enough alol creatures will adapt to overcome the challenges. If they do not, there's plenty of examples of creatures that have gone extinct. I can envision a "world" where it's just too dangerous if not down right impossible to enter a city alone, where even the wilds are fraught with danger. Danger other than or more prevelant than killers. Damn I wish I knew how to write scripts for Arma2.

Ya but, it would suck to be stuck in a tree with infected dogs snapping at your toes!

Posted in another thread, thought I'd put it here too. During my weeks of playing DayZ I've been trying to think of a way to add some "oh shit", or I should say more "oh shit" moments. Why not infected dogs? Imagine making your way through the forest or a field and hearing a dog (or better yet dogs) howling in the distance. They have picked up your sent, or another's sent? The sounds grow closer as you scan the horizons for movement. A survivor breaks from the forest line followed by an infected dog hot on his(her) heals. Another infected dog and then another are hot on the survivors trail. Clearly the survivor is losing the race. In all four infected dogs are steadily gaining on the doomed soul. You raise your weapon, draw a bead on the damned soul and mercifully take the survivor out before the dogs rip his guts to shreds. Big mistake. The sound of your weapon alerts the dogs to your presence, they mill around sniffing at the ground and looking your way as they slowly approach your position. The lead dog lets out a howl followed by the rest of the pack. They have YOUR sent. Do you run? Try to hide? Hope you can take all four out before they're on you? You check your ammo count, 12 rounds, probably not enough. You choose to run. There's a town a click away. Running for your life through the forest the sounds of the infected dogs grows closer, Half a click, you might just make it. More howls come from the left, then more from the right, other infected dogs have heard their infected broithers and answered the call. You exit the forest into a field, you can see the town, so close. Dogs are also breaking from the forest to your left and right, there's 10 of them now. The dogs at your heals are so close you can almost hear their bated, hungry breath. A shot rings out from the town, someone has taken mercy on you and ended your miserable existence before the dogs have their way. Big mistake.

I have two sons. One is 11 and one is 14. Both kickass in DayZ and display more maturity than most guys on the servers. It's all in the person, not the age.

I like blue.

Cool stuff. "Living the dream".

I've found at least 30 heli crash sites over the weeks and ALL of them were near Stary Sobor and Novy. NEVER EVER seen one anywhere else.

What's the proper way to install 1.7.2.5?? I've tried everything I can think of including several "tutorials" or "how to's" to no avail. I downloaded the full install that had a bunch of dayz.* and dayz_.* files, copied them to the existing dayZ folder (where they supposedly go) and no luck. Please, before someone says "use search" or "google it", I have, several times. Now my Arma2 single player option is disabled. Pulling my hair out. Help please?

not really sure how to upload a bug to the devheaven link the OP posted but,graphic glitches/artifacts are still present for me. My machine specs: AMD Phenom X4 965 BE 8gb Ram AMD 7770 gddr5 Windows 7 I'd upload some screen shots if I knew how :(

well that explains why I spawned at the beach after several attempts to get 1.7.2.5 to work. Scared the crap out of me. Finally tried 1.7.2.4 and bam, spawned on the beach.

Problems for me too...stuck at loading screen for over 45 minutes...:(

Tried DayZ Commander, no luck. Sticks at loading screen for ever and ever and ever..............

You guys are a bit late to the party.

Apparently I'm running 1.7.3 and have a hard time connecting to anything but, the handful of servers running the same version. WTF? God I hate the Six launcher. Links are broke, refresh servers takes for ever. You never know what the hell your getting when you hit the update button.

regardless of the final verdict regarding a hoax, the Devs should definitely look into implementing shit like this.

Wow. That's a long time. Would be great if we had access to data/stats.

Great, as if scriptshits weren't enough now we'll have a bunch of assholes running around as the joker, anime and other stupid ass shit. A matter of time until teenage retards turn this into Saints Row Arma2 style.

Was doing really well, alive for a week until some scriptshit teleports the entire server on top of the international hotel. Managed to abort before I died only to realize I was stuck up there. Couple of friends spawned to guard my body after the death leap. Might as well have some fun after the scriptshits ruin my guy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgdwfmNOd5U

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!

Good points. Point #1, I agree. ScriptShits have made it entirely too easy to get great gear. Point #2, agree again. An Island would force players inland and greatly increase the chance of encountering others, not to mention significantly increase the vehicle turnover rate. Point #3, Refer to my comments on point #2. The problem isn't the hunting and pond water, it's the "ring of safety" that surrounds the map and keeps mountain men (and women) away from the fray. An Island would greatly increase your chance of encountering another player while "living off the land.