I give you credit for wasting your time on this, especially when you're not willing to look up the news on the SA. All items/zombies spawn at server restart (or at least, that's what they are going towards). That is, unless you're cycling every server right as it restarts, you're unlikely to find anything of value in the military spawns. And the reason people avoid nights is because they treat night much like every video game since the dawn of time does--just simply drops the ambient light down real low and calls it a day. I've noted before that, even though when you take off the NVGs there is an EXTREMELY short adaptation time to regular night-darkness (~30secs), there is never an actual adaptation to how dark it is without NVGs. That is, nighttime is just as dark 10 seconds in, as it is 30 minutes in--and that's wrong. I'm not sure on the status of this for the SA (nor do I want to derail this comment into a treatise about nighttime games), but I want you to know why large portions of the gamers out there don't play night-time. These are all good points (except farming, which, again, is moot in SA and Nighttime, which again isn't relevant) for why server-hopping is morally wrong and cheap. The entire thing reeks of straw-man, though--who is actually defending server hopping? More importantly, what could be done, server-side, to prevent server hopping? That's where the sausage is made, that's where you should be directing your (currently misguided) energies.

Hate the necro, love the topic.

How are these choppers crashing in the first place? At least two by each other suggests a (near) collision. Obviously a real collision would leave those helis more wrecked then they are in-game, but avoiding a near collision can almost be worse than the actual collision, if the pilots overreact/backwash into each other.

Razor also noted that if helicrashes are spawning, there is something server side that admins should be doing that fixes it (rather, he said that helis not spawning was a server-side issue)

Cannot believe more people didn't make the comparison to the L85 AWS. Apparently popular opinion drove that out of the game (good riddance--OP as heck)...it was too one-sided, with nothing to counter it but another l85 AWS. Likewise, the only thing you can counter an NVG with (and still be on the same playing field, you pedants who insist that flares are a legitimate option BECAUSE YOU'VE GOTTEN THE DROP ON A GUY WITH AN NVG) is either another set of NVGs or the ANPVS FAL (which, because you can only look through the 4x scope with, is a lot more balanced--can't quickly scout out an entire field in 3dp). I'm all for getting rid of it.

As a board-certified-completely-totally-legit-Internet-Psychologist (M.D.), I used my internet skillz to find this article. I MAKE NO CLAIM ON ITS VERACITY, NOR DO I PARTICULARLY FEEL LIKE VETTING IT BECAUSE IT ESPOUSES MY OPINION. http://www.mprcenter...=218&Itemid=186 PREPARE FOR LONG BLOCK COPYPASTA[boldface mine]: Sicart argues that when players enter a virtual world such as the one created in Deus Ex, they are still “morally aware and capable of reflecting upon the nature of… acts within the game world” (Sicart, 2009 p. 62). Sicart points out that playing a game does not change the nature of who we are as human beings, and that actions, even in a virtual world, still carry implications (Sicart, 2009). This point is important to the present discussion, because if players enter a game world having left all morality behind, then moral concerns make no difference and in-game actions are meaningless. But if players enter into a game as moral beings, as ethical agents (Sicart, 2009), then what they do in the game is meaningful. Screenshot: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 "No Russian Mission" Zagal (2009) considers the ethical implications of playing games which present players with moral dilemmas. According to Zagal’s reasoning, games that have components with ethical implications built in encourage moral reflection. For instance, consider Ultima IV which forces players to favor certain virtues over others (such as valuing honesty over compassion or humility or honor; Origin, 1985), Zagal (2009) argues that Ultima IV “attempts to make the player feel personally invested or responsible for the decisions they make…” (p. 4). If players, in fact do feel responsible for what they do in games, what then are the psychological mechanisms by which those feelings are wrought? What happens in the mind when players either choose to or are required by the game system to violate their own "standards of morality?" Klimmt and colleagues argued that players can and do disengage their usual sanctions against morally questionable behavior in order to enjoy acts of violence in video games (Klimmt et al., 2006; Klimmt, Schmid, Nosper, Hartmann, & Vorderer, 2008). The authors offer a theoretical perspective known as moral management; a process by which disengagement cues imbedded in the game narrative interact with players’ desires to win the game (Klimmt et al., 2006; 2008). The result is a cognitive abandonment of moral concerns, which allows players to enjoy games even when they are expected or required to perform morally reprehensible acts. Hartmann and Vorderer (2010) found that moral disengagement cues in violent games both increased and decreased enjoyment. Acting as the “bad guy” in the game enhanced negative feelings, but did not impact enjoyment of the game. The authors argued that gamers may have felt effective, powerful, and excited, diminishing guilt and negative affect and allowing enjoyment to continue (Hartmann & Vorderer, 2010). Furthermore, Hartmann, Toz, and Brandon (2010) reported players feeling guiltier in the unjustified violence gaming condition, or if they knew more about the enemy’s background. So far, research on morality and video games has concluded that moral judgments are an important part of game play, and that players take steps to absolve themselves of guilt for violent actions taken in virtual worlds. /copypasta I'm obviously cherry picking, and the article goes on to say things that run contrary to the above. BUT THAT DOESN'T MATTER. My only point is that the literature is mixed, and we may be getting causality and correlations mixed (eg violent turns in videogames may in turn make people more violent, rather than violent people seek violent choices/solutions in videogames). ITS A NEW THING TO STUDY, AND WE'RE STILL LEARNING. Also, just to reconfirm--I'm an internet psychologist, I know absolutely nothing about psychology (or the internet for that matter...series of tubes amirite). In conclusion, Bandits simply 'are' and attempts to categorize them as misanthropic are usually misguided and/or stupid.

No one has yet to really address this--keep hearing again and again how OP gamma/brightness is (it isn't, at least not in-game settings-wise). What do you think it does? It's certainly not the be-all, end-all that NVGs are...and are you also against swapping out the FOV values? That requires editing a config. I just feel there is a huge gulf here between people that feel it's dishonest/cheating to have high gamma/brightness, and these same people do not play with high gamma/brightness (because of their decision that it's at least cheap)...but this in turn results in them having a huge misunderstanding of how powerful (or rather, how NOT powerful) a high gamma/brightness is.

So much win. Inside jokes aplenty. Yup, this is awesome.

True story, navy uses blue for it's command centers on boats, because blue is even harder to see than red (and consequently, less useful for lighting things up). Army/most ground forces use red lights (and red-light readable maps) because red DOES fall off in the distance, but it also still makes things visible, moreso than blue. Modern-day NVGs are just a single (monocular)-mounted to a helmet. This is to prevent both eyes from becoming used to the NVGs and being completely useless in the event a flare goes up (you'll absolutely blind yourself looking at a flare w/ NVGs). In this manner, one eye becomes accustomed to the night and, over a period of time, has some form of night vision while the other eye sees 'relative' daylight.

Everything I'm about to post is just my experience, but bear with me here: No idea how you got an infection. Can't help you there, BUT antibiotics now have a much higher rate of spawn--last three times I've been to a hospital in Cherno or BZ, i've seen more than 1 antibio in there. From [http://www.dayzwiki....ersion_1.7.5.1] "[uPDATED] - Changed Loot tables to increase the supply of Antibiotic drops Also, your blood level drops 3pts/sec, until you hit 3k blood (25%). Pretty serious business. Vision starts dimming around 5k, so it will absolutely mess with your sight. Same source as above, from the same patch: [FIXED] - Infection is now fixed loss of blood 3 per sec (will not drop below 3k blood) In regards to lowering your temp--running around/moving naturally raises body temp, so in order to 'get' cold, you have to remain relatively stationary, at night, in the rain. Day time raises temp, moving raises temp, and no rain at least doesn't decrease it further. It's pretty hard to get low enough to trigger an infection, and thats the main reason antibiotics were so rare before. There's a whole bunch of fun new ways to catch infection. Drinking any kind of unboiled water (including from the taps), receiving a blood transfusion, eating uncooked meats, receiving a hit from a zombie (used to be 1/1000 chance, now it's 1/500). Try to pay attention to see if your guy is sneezing, that's usually the giveaway. I don't know your proficiency at DayZ, but sneezing, rather than trembling, is the giveaway for a cold. Trembling 99/100 is just a need for painkillers. I've personally seen the temp gauge at less than red-hot since the patch (happened when I spawned in the middle of a rainy night, started at purple), but a bit of moving around got me up and going--so I know the temp gauge works, at least occasionally. Your blood, as noted above, should also only have dropped to 3k from the infection. If you actually died from an infection (and nothing else), that's a bug. According to the link above, the following G36's were added: [NEW] Weapon - G36C. (HeliCrash) [NEW] Weapon - G36C_camo. (HeliCrash) [NEW] Weapon - G36A_camo. (HeliCrash) [NEW] Weapon - G36K_camo. (HeliCrash) G36C ["]http://www.dayzwiki.com/wiki/G36C] NOT SD G36C_Camo ["]http://www.dayzwiki....wiki/G36C_CAMO] NOT SD G36A_Camo ["]http://www.dayzwiki....wiki/G36A_CAMO] NOT SD G36K_Camo ["]http://www.dayzwiki....wiki/G36K_CAMO] NOT SD So no, there's no SD G36 in the game currently. A whole buncha camo-ed ones (and both the A and the K have a double-sight setup, seems legit). THE MOAR YOU KNOW

Appreciate the offer, but my buddy in Hawaii is at GMT-11; there's no way he could do a server in the UK. It's literally on the other side of the world. Thanks for the input, all the same! I looked into Balota, but it again seemed to be UK-based. If I'm looking for a 'vanilla' DayZ experience (that is, no extra vehicles/starting with weapons/extra help), is that hard to find on whitelist servers? I'm still trying to get my bearings here, but is it par for the course that all whitelist servers are also private (note: I know nothing about server admin stuff, so while a private hub may be required for a whitelist to operate, I wouldn't know that)? And following that, are all whitelist servers modified to some degree off the original DayZ mod? Seriously appreciate the input, it's difficult to ask about this stuff without coming across as a complete noob, when in reality i've logged over 150 hours playing this game[inb4 WATCH OUT WE GOT A BADASS OVER HERE]. Beans to both of you.

Anyone with a sniper gets gunned down, no hails. Snipers are exclusively for hunting Man. Ghillie is just icing on the cake. ARGLEBARGLE XOT and Xian beat me to it. Well, here, have some beans, you two.

XOT, you had me RIGHT up until you said SMG meant they fired subsonic rounds, then I stopped. As a sidenote, "WEAPON DAMAGE WEAPON IMPROVE" is one of the best tags I've seen so far. Great Job, OP!

...hence the (*gulps*) before asking for input. But I'll elaborate further on why I'm asking for help, in hopes of dissuading further posts like that. In DayZCommander, I have no way of differentiating whitelist servers from each other. All I can see is whether they run the current version and server population (which, while the latter can be used as a yardstick, is no guarantee of server utility). I'm assuming I'll be able to find their forum by searching the name of that server on the internet, but that's no sure thing. Moreover if anything is going to be over-the-top-supportive, it's going to be the website of a whitelist server. I'm not looking for blindly supportive, I'm looking for input. They can't all be great--that's silly to even think about, that every server meets your goals/expectations. I also can't look and see how my buddy in Hawaii is going to ping. Just because I have a great connection doesn't mean he will (and the difference between our pings can be startling--only 10-20 in some servers, well over 100 in others). So let's not be dicks about this, right? Can you help a guy out?

I KNOW WHAT WILL PROVE MY POINT: NAME CALLING. THAT'LL SHOW THE BASTARDS.