ziekke

Just as a small suggestion, something I've been thinking about while reflecting upon my own deaths and player encounters. The PvP/PK aspect of this game is great. No holds barred, no rules confrontation with other players is exactly how a game like this should be. Removing the players choice to kill another player under any circumstance removes a lot of what makes this game feel authentic. A solution that I was thinking of would be to incentivize co-operative play (whether it's co-op survivor or co-op banditry doesn't matter). The idea is to give a reason not to shoot the unknown person in the face when you meet them - not remove that choice. This can be characterized by something along the lines of a morale boost, or "comfort in company" and can give bonuses such as increased recovery rates, you become "calmer" and therefore less jittery under pressure or while under attack. The bonus can take effect when within a certain proximity of another player for a period of time - 20-30s? - There can be more/others bonuses that I haven't thought of, ones that take effect as the time frame is extended (group levels, if you will) where the players are close together but haven't murdered each other. These are things that could push me to want to make the friend, rather than kill him. I still have the choice to kill him if I please, though! One way is to let players form formal groups (e.g. /join, /invite, etc.), another is to just let it organically happen through the engine. Player A and Player B are within 30 m of each other, and aren't killing each other, therefore they get X bonus. They have stuck together for 10 minutes = Y bonux. 60 minutes = Z bonus. When players have been together long enough it can be semi-permanently registered on the database server so these players always enjoy the benefits of grouping together even through play sessions. It is really key that the no-rules aspect of this open game remain. If it is removed then it won't be worth playing anymore. This can be likened to the situation in Ultima Online years ago when the split the world into PVP and PVE. It ruined the "hardcore" "intense" feeling of the game, and those feelings are what makes Day-Z as good as it is in my opinion. In this vein, it makes some sense for "bandits" to be identified somehow but I don't think skins or other in-game visuals are the way to do it. Why? This removes the social-engineering aspect to the game where you could con people. Perhaps a "leaderboard" where each player has a single name, and they are placed on it based upon how many murders they've committed across their lifetime along with a server they were last seen on. This way we treat the whole of the Day-Z community as one rather than so obviously splintered by servers, and the possibility to hunt down notorious murderers. Similar to the UO murderer bulletin board, except the prize for hunting them down is satisfaction. I have no idea how this would be implemented, and I'm sure others will poke holes into this idea and that's fine, but it seems like a cool solution to me.

What happened to your eyes Vices? :( Thanks Garbled. With that idea I was aiming to encourage co-operation without outright requiring/mandating it. Giving nice little bonuses to groups which make some realistic sense seemed to be a good solution than taking things away from the solo players (e.g. inability to do things for themselves without a partner, etc.). The idea probably won't see much traction but I figured I'd throw it out there.