Hoogley

Simple question, If they aren't zombies, then why is it called DayZ? If they are just infected, then it should be called DayI, or iDay, or SeriouslyBadColdDay, or DayNotZ, or basically anything other than "Z".

Ha ha. Man, I've realised something. What you guys are all arguing about in here is basically the problems of the world. All the people who play aggressively and competitively are calling the shots, have all of the power, and have the loot. Some abuse their power to keep themselves at the top. Some cheat to win. Some give little or no value to the lives of others. A lot of people who don't necessarily start off in a competitive mindset end up joining in anyway, just so they don't end up losing out. Some people consider the way the game is being played as wrong or unfair, and argue loudly for stricter rules to balance the playing field. A very few manage to maintain a philanthropic idealism in the way they play the game, but this is the hardest way to play, [edit] and they are labelled as "carebears", [/edit] so most don't. So, Dean has created an allegorical real world simulator, with zombies. Awesome. Good luck guys; sort out your problems in DayZ, and the world could end up a better place for it. I'm going to keep playing, in case Neo shows up. ;)

Like I said, more of that action.

The pirate version: "What in Davy Jones' locker did ye just bark at me, ye scurvy bilgerat? I'll have ye know I be the meanest cutthroat on the seven seas, and I've led numerous raids on fishing villages, and raped over 300 wenches. I be trained in hit-and-run pillaging and be the deadliest with a pistol of all the captains on the high seas. Ye be nothing to me but another source o' swag. I'll have yer guts for garters and keel haul ye like never been done before, hear me true. You think ye can hide behind your newfangled computing device? Think twice on that, scallywag. As we parley I be contacting my secret network o' pirates across the sea and yer port is being tracked right now so ye better prepare for the typhoon, weevil. The kind o' monsoon that'll wipe ye off the map. You're sharkbait, fool. I can sail anywhere, in any waters, and can kill ye in o'er seven hundred ways, and that be just with me hook and fist. Not only do I be top o' the line with a cutlass, but I have an entire pirate fleet at my beck and call and I'll damned sure use it all to wipe yer arse off o' the world, ye dog. If only ye had had the foresight to know what devilish wrath your jibe was about to incur, ye might have belayed the comment. But ye couldn't, ye didn't, and now ye'll pay the ultimate toll, you buffoon. I'll shit fury all over ye and ye'll drown in the depths o' it. You're fish food now." Ha ha! I was following this, and had read a few of your other posts concerning, which where pretty level headed. Then I read that one and thought, "wow, waaaay over there, on the other side of sane. Maybe I was wrong about this guy.". Fooled me. Funny shit.

Q: Do you think you'll ever find a way to satisfy both the calls for continued hardcore PvP and the calls for mechanics to support on-the-fly co-op, without watering down any of the current elements that make the game so compelling, and is a change in that direction even something you think is necessary for the future success of the game/mod?

Yeah. I do agree with this. It needs to be MORE hardcore, not less. That would help. I've been reading post for a couple of days now; is it getting killed that people hate, or getting killed by snipers? I reckon the military grade kit should be harder to find. Ammo should be harder to find. Piss tents off until they're fixed, and sort out alt+F4; replicators & teleporting belong in Star Trek, not DayZ.

I'm sorry, man, but I don't agree. Honestly, answer this; do you really question whether you should or shouldn't engage someone you encounter? I bet you don't. You even said that you play as a bandit. And even if you don't play as a bandit, nobody knows if the other person is a bandit, so most people just kill the other person, not struggle with the moral quandary of whether or not they should take this person's life (allegory: mess with their fun). Killing the other person is the safe answer. I sure as hell do it, and without hesitation. I wouldn't say I'm a bandit, because I don't go out of my way to kill other players, but if they get in my space, I'm going to fuck them up. Period. Me or them. THAT's survival. That is fucking awesome. That's where the tension comes from. It's not from the question, "is this guy a bandit?", it's from the question, "how do I kill this guy and walk out alive?". That's what's going to make me keep playing this game. If anything, I'd like to see more melee and less long range sniping. I want to ruin people's day up close and personal.

Yeah, I think this is a valid point. The unforgiving nature of this game is definitely what makes it interesting. PvP is, if not THE heart of it, at least one of the chambers.

I'm still not convinced that anything's broken, but I haven't been playing that long. I think the issue that some people are trying, and failing, to express clearly is that they wish there was an option to killing other players. At the moment, the paranoia is so thick that people mostly shoot first, bandit or not. They'd like some way to identify PvP thirsty players vs non-PvP players, so they have the option to co-op. The difficulty of gaining anything in this game means that you aren't going to trust anyone you don't know if there's any chance they'll shoot you in the back and take your stuff. So people just kill each other, because it's easier. The funny thing is, it's psychology that causes a lot of the problem, not game mechanics, or even the bandits. Non-bandits kill each other, BY CHOICE, because they're afraid to trust each other. It's a self-fulfiling prophecy. The bandit players must think it's hysterical. I get the feeling Rocket does, too. As it stands, the only people most players are going to trust are people they know. Some players - maybe those who don't have friends who play DayZ - are looking for a way around that. Is that a bad thing? Should there be some way that co-op mined people can ID each other so they can play co-op? And in the end, this might be the meat of the argument from the opposing side. It's not the bandits with the problem, so they don't get why they have to be branded for their style of play, when it's the other side who has the issue. Am I close to the mark for anyone?

Yeah, I agree. That's my thoughts on the next experiment Rocket should try out. Give people the choice to ID themselves as bandits or not, and see if they take it. Like I said, I'm not sure why a bandit would care if they are visually identifiable, since there's only a limited number of circumstances where it would be a hindrance. At least this way, though, you're giving people the option, rather than forcing it on them. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people chose to skin as a bandit, just to prove they're badass. Particularly if you make the bandit skin look badass. There's also a secondary benefit to this system, if you think about it; bandits and survivors alike can pay out on anyone who chooses to skin as a survivor but play like a bandit.

I've got to say, I'm not actually sure why the majority of bandits would care if they can be identified as bandits. The argument that people will be able to tell from a distance that you're a bandit, and will shoot you on sight doesn't really hold water. Most players shoot people they don't know on sight at the moment, anyway, don't they? Snipers don't even get seen, so why does it matter? Robbers, or muggers, or highwaymen, or whatever you want to call them, shouldn't care, because by the time people can see you you're pointing a gun in their face anyway; so why should it matter? In fact, the only people it should matter to is the traitors; the people who insinuate themselves into a group and then shoot people in the back. They have the most to lose, as far I can see (and if they were the loudest against the idea of being identified, it wouldn't surprise me). Is it just the idea of being irreversibly branded that irks people? Any bandits want to feedback on this? I'm really interested. Sorry, wrong thread for that though. Just gets me thinking. Heartbeats aren't a system I can see myself utilising to any great degree. I'm not sure the lack of a heartbeat sound when I'm lining someone up in my crosshairs, particularly when they are watching me line them up in my crosshairs, is going to make me any more friends. See what I'm saying?

Yeah, man. Big fan. In fact, that's why I got DayZ. People said that you could teleport and use replicators. I thought it was a Star Trek simulator.

I have to say that in usual game terms and even real life social terms, I'm normally a "live and let live" kind of guy. I'm the type who wouldn't kill the the Little Sisters. However, it didn't take me long to develop a "kill them before they kill you" attitude in DayZ. Interestingly, I don't really feel any remorse or moral quandary about it IN THIS GAME. I think you're mostly forced into that attitude by all of the things people have mentioned - exploits, lack of supportive mechanics, and douchbaggery. I might be wrong, but I tend to think that a lot of people would either like to be robbed and/or killed in a more interesting way than sniped from the tree line, or have the exploits stitched up so that they themselves can be a little more creative and maybe even a little less fatal in their banditry. Not everyone has the balls to pull off a robbery like the guy in the vid' a few posts up though, and you're still going to have a good percent of players who would rather not take the chance and just kill from afar, people indiscriminately killing for shits and giggles, and cheats. For me, up close and personal is where the real thrill of the PvP in this game exists. In one encounter, I hid in a building with an axe when I heard someone outside shooting. I closed the door, and waited to see if they'd pass, but the guy opened the door and came in, fully armed and ready for looting. I took to his face with my axe, and though he killed me in the end, I like to think that guy shit his pants when I jumped out swinging. I want more of that action.

Now, THAT is emergent gameplay.

Survivor's Log, Day 14235, Said something stupid on the Internet. Now all hope is lost ...

Oh, god, no ... don't turn me into a meme. I'd much rather be fed to zombies.

Yeah, well that argument just got shot down in flaming wreckage, didn't it. Still don't see the need to distinguish, however ... I believe there was a meal of justified payout to be dished. Can't server hop my way out of this one, now, can I.

I was reading posts, and got a little dumbfounded that a number of people felt it necessary to make this distinction, with the reasoning given in the title. Mostly it was as an argument against slow zombies, as in, "no, Rocket said that they're infected, not zombies, so they don't need to be slow."

I agree that the animations from the Undead Mod are amazing. That struggling shamble is awesome. I also agree that having a mixture of runners and shamblers would up the fear factor. And, lastly, I think - get rid of the Benny Hill zombies, make them run at normal speed, and make all zombies headshot kill only, with maybe the breakable legs mechanic like survivors have. Maybe reduce ammo loot spawning as well, so bullets are more valuable.

Point 5 is interesting. I like the idea of directing player activity via an event of some kind. That said, you do get an emergent version of this to some degree via player action/interaction, anyway. I think the issue with point 9 is that you're really just rewarding and reinforcing the clan mentality. I mean, why trust someone you don't know, when you can trust someone you do know? It just gives clans the upper edge, which sucks for the individuals. I believe that forcing people who don't know each other to co-op is more difficult than that, as you have to compete with the dual psychology of paranoia and detachment. I say keep the paranoia. You can probably counter the detachment by making death more punishing, but you can't really do that until you work out the hacks and exploits, so ... Besides, why on earth would we want everyone to be friends? The fear of other survivors is half the fun.

Yup. Awesome idea.

That seems fair enough. If you can keep your nutrition and liquids at green, say, then you get to slowly regain blood after a time. It would force you to make a choice between wasting food and water to keep regenerating blood, or hold off for the leaner times. Can it be done, though?

* Survivors still start with no weapon. * Re-stat zombie hit table so that body hits cause no damage (but cause knock-back?), but headshots are instant kill. You know it makes sense. If possible, do the broken leg thing with zeds same as with survivors, so they turn into crawlers if you shoot their legs out. * ZOMBIE RESPAWN TIMER RATE NEEDS TO DECREASE. Balance this by increasing initial zombie spawn quantities in buildings found in cities and military buildings/spawn points (like heli crashes), by quite a lot. Like, herd size. * Rebalance loot spawning. Remote rural buildings like barns and deer stands should spawn less loot. City buildings and military spawn points should have exclusive tier loot spawning. * Spawn more melee weapons and less guns. Spawn less ammo. * Zombie spawn mechanism needs to factor in line of sight and proximity. Long term, you could also introduce animations for zombies getting up off the ground to reduce the "magical zombie teleport" effect on spawning. * Zombies should move SLIGHTLY slower than survivors, so even fools can eventually lose them (although ... see zombie type suggestion below). * Maybe reduce the erratic zombie pathing a little, or a lot. Changing zombies to head shot kills only should offset the reduced difficulty. It would look less silly, and increase the fear factor by decreasing the "Benny Hill effect". * Introduce two different walker types: shamblers and runners. Not knowing which is going to be which would definitely make me personally shit my pants. Just imaging thinking you're in a field of shamblers, and then one sprints at you! FARK! Be a total prick, and skin runners to look like survivors! Surprise Mr. bandit, I've got your face!

I too have noticed the insta-tele-spawn effect. The only good thing about it is that you can tell when new zeds have spawned around the building, even when you can't see where. It definitely detracts from the immersion factor. The main thing that peeves me about it is that it makes it slightly difficult to scout ahead when your intel goes to shit because of continuous insta-spawning. That and the fact that it is a little hard for one loner to get in, loot, and get out again, even in remote, isolated buildings; particularly when you start out. Do we know if the spawn rate is due to the base mod, or set by the server admin? I just wonder if some server admins try to bump up total zombie counts by increasing the spawn rate.