MacabreDerek

I am glad to hear that. And as for the crossbow, I can understand it's low priority, I am still however curious as to why it is as it is, seeing how little time it would take to put a UI crosshair when aiming down scope. Seems like a quick fix that could be done in about 15 minutes with some code, but then again, I havent reversed engineered the mod, so I can only hope they look at it again down the line. Thank you for clearing that up. Load off my mind.

There is only so much realisim you can put into a game before it turns into an issue. I am assuming that the devs have a bit more common sense than what is being shown in the product. If we were to take the idea of a realistic zombie sim, then your death should include an uninstiliation of the dayz mod, along with a banning from re-downloading and applying it, and total server ban. It also starts throwing away numbers in the average life-span that is shown so frequently. Let's be honest, if you simply write some code to say 'if this character is dead in 2 minutes after spawn, do not add to the calculations for average life. That... has to be the dumbest thing I've heard. The worst part is, I believe it. But bad press is going to happen, catering to a public view that is entirely ignorant and in the end does not influence your product by far, while hamstringing your potential player base, just seems like a good way to shoot yourself in the foot.

So I will admit I am no pro at DayZ, but there have been a few things bothering me about the game that I am having a hard time understanding. Two primarily come to mind, but I am sure I'll have a couple more by the time this thread is done. The first one is regarding the crossbow. Having done my share of crossbow hunting, I have never encountered a crossbow to be completely lacking in any form of scope. While this normally wouldn't be an issue in a game that typically has a set of artifical crosshairs to compensate, the crossbow in DayZ has no such aiming device. It is my primary weapon of choice, but I often find I am forced to use it at uncomfortably close distances, which I guess could be a reason, but it seems like an artifical defect of choosing the weapon over a rifle as a primary firearm. I am often losing bolts because I am firing at targets at makarov range due to the odd height that the arrow flies in relation to the visuals you get aiming. In something trying to be a simulator, I can not think of a single bow hunter who has used a crossbow without some manner of sights on it, nor have I run into anyone owning such a weapon. On a side note about the crossbow, why is it you have to hunt for the bolts in a body you shot? Would it not be more practical to simply have the visual of the arrow in the body but have it come up in the target's gear when you loot the body? The second thing comes down to the respawn removal. I do not understand why they removed it, but as someone who plays with a small group, it is often annoying to have us spawn (With some degree of concerning consistancy) on opposing ends of the map. I can understand that you're gonna run into alot of people trying to spawn in the two main hubs along the coast, and much like us, restarting until you end up in a prefered general area, however, there is little stopping us from doing that now, except that now we're wasting 5-10 minutes going into a town to get killed to respawn. It was annoying enough that we had to keep respawning until we were at least able to get into our group in a half hour, but now it's taking most of our time to get together, usually in frustraiting fassion, before we even start really playing. This is a complete waste of a players time, and if there is something I do find inexcusable, is purposely wasting a players time. I understand that there is no party-spawn system, but is there any practical reason to punish players who do not have hours upon hours of simply setting up the ability to work together? It's bad enough I can lose progress due to a server hack suddenly throwing us into a deathmatch arena mid-game, but suddenly through no fault of our own, we're now scattered to the wind. Am I out of line with this train of thought? DayZ provides one of the more interesting Zombie Apocalypse experiences avalible, but is there a reason for these choices in the development?

Cant be more confused than me trying to find a server in the appropriate time frame. Some are flat out GMT -X/+X in the title, the others though I am afraid I am missing something.

Dear Dr.Phil, After putting in my first few hours into the apocalypic world of DayZ, I am enjoying it heavily, even with it's obvious flaws. I've been watching tutorials, streams, and ofcourse getting my hands dirty as I try to scrape a living that will last longer than half an hour. All this aside though, I feel like I am not really becoming the true survivor citizen that our world needs. I know I can be better through practice, but it seems like such a long road, when I try to give other surivors some goods, they seem to think I am about to kill them, and then we play this wierd game where I dance trying to avoid a slug in my small toe. I am really baffled on how I try to do the right thing to help build up this great post-apocalypic society we are building upon the sturty and proven foundations of paranoia and bullets, but it just doesn't seem to be enough. Though I would like to pass my n00bdom now, I have come to terms with it and it's simply something most will just have to 'grow out of'. How ever I do not feel like I am really making the difference in my infected infested nieghbourhoods. It's becoming to the point where you just cant trust that 9 year old with the berreta to deliver the morning paper anymore. What has this world come to, and how can I as a survivor-citizen, help? Best regards, - MD

I am sorry that this game has broken your delusions on being able to surivive a fictional world catastrophy

I think the hard part about me killing a person is in the end, I can not find enough reasons that would tell me that a second player (Or third, fourth, fifth, twentieth, etc) would benefit me more from their death than their life. More inventory to work with on the move, different weapons avalible when we find ammo, the ability to distract and sneak into small towns, watching eachother's backs, etc. seem to always out-weight the thought of 'If I kill him, I MAY get a bandage and some pain killers). I understand that greed wins out with alot of people, trust is a hard thing, but to me I've never seen much benefit of being a bandit, as all it does is re-enforce the idea of being a bandit towards more bandits, and then it just cripples your own ability to surivive. When me and another player come to the same conclusion, typically shooting eachother doesn't happen. That being said, there will always be bandits, and that unto itself inspires safty in numbers.

I just finished my first day, am having some very mixed results, but over-all it's a game I actually WANT to get better and am willing to put in the time and effort to do so, which has been strange with alot of other games failing to do so. I have yet to kill another player, and really have no intentions of doing so unless it really is a 'him or me' situation, which thus far has never been the case outside the times where I've come across a bandit. Actually had an interesting encounter much like yours, where someone told me not to move. He had me dancing like a puppet asking if I was 'friendly', and I realized I didn't know how to talk back to him (Realized later that it's '/' for chat and 'Tab' for voice), but finally I managed to find the keys to chat with him (Having not found the voice button). When I was finally alowed to turn around, I was stuck with a crossbow in my hands but no bolts (I cant believe how easy it is to lose those things), and after a very sense stand-off he finally believed me that I was friendly. A budy of his (Or so I assume) in a guille, decides it would be a good idea to shoot me. Now, for some reason I am alive, so I bandage up, since I have no means to defend myself. The first guy was being quite a gentilemen when he realized there was a dangerous amature in our midst, and though offered equipment (To which I have no idea how he could hold two primaries, assuming it had to do with a pack I dont have, because if I try to put a primary in my pack, it just vanishes) I refused his offer, knowing full well my own incompidency would simply make it 'lost gear'. Suffice it to say, that conversation ended when his friend's second bullet found my behaviour objectionable and decided to make it's counter-point. I never did get the chance to thank them both for the kindness they both shared in their own ways, one willing to offer his wisdom and equipment in order to aid a struggling new survivor, and the other willing to share two rounds of his precious ammunition, but I hope some day they will cross this message, and read the name 'Derek', and realize that though it went poorly in the end, it was one of the more pleasent moments I had in DayZ on my first 24 hours. I am hoping to get better, alot of the keys, functions and menus are really counter intuative, but for what the game offers I am quite willing to press on. Just hope that someday I may actually become the contributing member of an apocalyptic survived society.