ssimmons

Personally speaking, the game just isn't fun at night because it's just too dark. With a full moon, the outside areas are playable, but interiors are virtually inaccessible in darkness even with a flashlight. This is largely due to the way flashlights illuminate in a laser-beam-like fashion ... they just don't give off any ambient light like they would in real life so the close interiors create a lot of disorientation. Here are my suggestions on how improve the player experience with nighttime in DayZ SA: - increase brightness by ~25% - add ambient lighting for flashlights/torches/etc - fix flashlights so they don't shine through walls ... currently they illuminate the exterior of walls when you're inside -- this broadcasts your location The way I look at it is this: when you're watching a MOVIE that portrays nighttime, the screen isn't pitch black (usually it's daytime with a night filter) because if you couldn't see anything, it wouldn't be interesting to the watcher. Why should DayZ be any different? In the end, this is a game and based on my observations of community feedback it looks like the majority of players don't think nighttime is fun.

Currently in experimentals ... based on historical data, that means it will be released within the next week.

Thanks for the update -- will give me more time play KSP .23 ;)

I think a lot of people are getting antsy because there's been almost no information released through official channels lately -- two months since the last dev blog update is pretty pathetic IMO, especially since it was supposed to be a weekly thing. I know a lot of time has been spent going to conventions and cranking through development, but how long does it take to at least put out a few paragraphs and a screenshot? Just a nugget of information every week (or two) is enough to show people that progress is still being made. I would say that people's frustration with the current lack of information and lost interest is justified.

You can add zombies to ARMA 3, but that wont make it DayZ. There's a very specific formula that makes DayZ special and fun -- it would be difficult for anyone to reproduce without a lot of effort. Besides, the SA is going to be so much more than the mod so it's worth the wait.

I've been playing Guild Wars 2 for the past five months -- took a break from DayZ because the hacking was so bad when I left. Are things still bad? I've seen mention of private hives? I am starting to get really bored with GW2 and I need something to scratch my DayZ SA itch while I wait ... is it worth coming back to play the mod?

Nice work. I am very excited to play the game! Stick to your guns Rocket! Don't let the loudest/impatient voices derail the path to a great game that will be loved by the masses.

Rocket should publish his Google Analytics stats for the Tumblr or Twitter site tomorrow ... I bet there's a lot of traffic!

Let's play: NAME THAT TOWN in the first screenshot!

I find it a little bit disturbing that we're a week into January and it's been crickets since November with regard to the status of the Standalone.

Has anyone else noticed how slow the "Loading" screen has become after "Waiting for character to create"? Most evenings, it takes between 10 - 15 minutes to finish loading with a high-end gaming rig ... which is especially annoying since the graphics glitch forces us to reload every 30 minutes.

Agreed. A lot of people seem to think that if you're not playing the game the same way as them, you're doing it wrong and should stop playing.

I get what you're saying, but there's still plenty of stuff to do. How many vehicles/helicopters/boats have you found (original spawns) and repaired to fully-functioning? Have you tried helping new players instead of just killing them? The game is what you make it -- for most people, it's hardcore Call of Duty.

Simply put, yes. Between the hackers and the CoD rejects thinking this is a fragfest ... the game is losing its appeal quickly. Remember when strangers could actually play together? The Humanity/bandit mask has helped a bit -- if you have a bandit mask, I will shoot you on sight.

I have to frequently logout because of this ridiculous graphical artifacts bug, followed by this stupid big ... game is virtually unplayable right now.

No. I disagree with the statement that they are too common.

Do you play solo? If so, I would recommend you find a group of people to play with instead of relying on strangers -- I don't think I would play DayZ without friends.

I actually did searches on this forum and Google, but couldn't find the links ... thanks for posting them!

Pick less populated servers or use version 1.7.2.3 of the MOD and you wont see any hackers.

I keep seeing new messages in-game about these new features, but have yet to seen an ACTUAL announcement of the features.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's failing ... it's definitely very hard for newcomers, but those players not willing to fight to survive probably aren't going to have fun anyway. Personally, I welcome the difficult challenges created by the sandbox environment. The game is what you make it, even if the land is riddled with lunatic murderers everywhere. As players, we should learn to adapt ... the newcomers will learn to stay away from Cherno and Elektra or they are just feeding the bandits. The absolute worst thing you can do when respawning is to visit a coastal town of any sort -- this is a brutal lesson that must be learned by all newcomers unless they don't mind dying every 15 minutes.

Now if only Battleye would do hardware bans ...

Now, you realize that the PS3 has been inferior to PC's graphics-wise since the DAY the PS3 was released, right? In fact, the PS3 has been inferior to the PC in everything since the day it was released.

I wouldn't count on it since it is not a released game -- just think of it as a challenge getting re-geared ... that's how I spent my yesterday.

The artifacting and ammo fixes listed in the patch notes are not fixed -- they still happen and are easily reproducible with the same steps as they were original reported. It doesn't look like this was actually tested internally by the developer that supposedly fixed it.