PhilB

Jetpack, baby! jk, but maybe not. Maybe twice a year a jetpack spawns; It only has a few hundred kilometers of fuel, no refueling. Just twice a year, a fucking jetpack! Bullet proof riot shield. I like items as eggs, not fantasy characters. Bullhorn. Triples direct chat range. Fireworks. for fun or scaring Zombie bear (two per server per cycle) Special vehicles. Oddities and collectibles. Maybe once a year a server spawns a working tank. Def special guns. Flamethrower, rocket launcher, tazer. I'm all for spawning an L85tws twice a year on the server. It has to be at least remotely plausible, but there's some amazing things possible.

Also, the mod ain't going nowhere! The SA will probably be quite boring at first. I'm thinking it'll be more like a proof of concept more than anything. I mean, let's get real here for a moment-No tents!, no cars!, no base building! The mod experience has progressed quite far. All players are now accustomed to all these things. The SA is gonna feel boring at first. In fact, so far as I know, still just gonna be the one gun (m4cco? i think) at launch right? Everything I've seen so far tells me this thing is gonna be kick ass and huge when it all comes together. But that's still a few years off and I think it's great we can learn lessons from the private hive scenario that improve the SA. However, there's some majesty to us all being on same hive, the same server! so to speak, that I can't really articulate but I think a lot of us were drawn to that concept. If you do some feat on your own Epoch server, it don't mean that much to me; that isn't my world. As far as I'm concerned you're not even playing DayZ, just some mod heresy with 8 trillion vehicles! And you think the same of me! One day it'd be cool to run into OP, Karmaterror. Right now, that ain't happening. The player base is SO DISPERSED! For certain playstyles, makes it feel like the game is dead.

Scripts/exploiting and combat logging are huge issues. Those two quite clearly forced this whole "re tool the engine and make a proper game" development. I think your complaints about public and what you like about private are, at root, still a result of scripts and combat logging. Let's all pray to the DayZ gods there is a solution! You've pointed out the richer social experience a player gets when playing with "regulars" on a private hive. I totally agree. I play a single Epoch server. I also frequent the last busy U.S. public server, us3480, as a regular. There's a few other regulars there as well. But it occurred to me recently that 30 of the 55 avg players on at any given moment are basically drifters. They are these guys, like the buddies Karmaterro mentioned, who rent their own public server where they admintool hack in all items and gear up there in solitude and safety and then log into the few remaining busy servers to pvp. If the SA remedies the loopholes, I think there is good reason to believe it can deliver the persistent social experience that private hives offer. Of course, there will always be drifters. But a healthy core of busy servers will allow all of us to sort of choose or settle into our own "home servers". You'll start seeing the same names again and again. You'll create your stories. To your point though, this is all hinged on their ability to create a network where servers stay busy and we don't get the mess we currently have where dayzcommander displays 100+ public servers all with good ping all empty! What's more exciting is that with the performance improvements and the negation of ping, there's more opportunity for travel and more options for where you might create "home servers".

Oh sure, that too hehe

Thanks to OP for bringing this up. It is a good question, one I also had. Will loot re spawn or not? Certainly Rocket did say that loot will spawn server side (with the zombies) at restart. That suggests that loot won't re spawn but we just don't know for sure. Definitely need clarification here I think before speculating. I'd also be concerned if loot is a one time deal, though. How long is a server cycle then? 3 hours? 12 hours?! Clans or no, storage or no, after 12 hours that map will be picked clean, especially at increased pop numbers. However a few considerations to allay our fears about initial launch at least. First, no vehicles and no tents mean individual players can only carry so much. So items won't get depleted that quickly (caveat:what if griefers purposefully pick up items they don't need themselves and dump them in fields or whatever? For instance, when I'm in a high traffic area with fresh spawns about, you bet your ass I destroy those shotties, winnies and enfields in my backpack, similar tactic but no remedy by way of re spawning loot). Second, there's a ton more loot! With the addition of Utes and all the new infrastructure, there will be plenty to go around. Third, assuming the new damage feature isn't crazy, there will be good loot on dead dudes. And presumable more dead dudes to loot, once again bigger pop numbers. When vehicles and tents are implemented, a reduced loot system might perfectly remedy excessive hoarding issues and the over accumulation of items.

I'd like to see them run some contests during launch. Make it fun! How about a contest to see who can keep their initial SA dude alive the longest? I know my first dude is gonna be the most precious. I'm immediately running inland and playing it as safe and smart as possible (assuming a glitch doesn't kill me, lol). How bout first to 100 kills? 1000 kills? Whatever, just to add a little festivity to the festivities.

We got onto a toughy here, lol. I'm reminded of the fact that in ancient urban areas there was an abundance of lewd graffiti and we still see it in places such as the inside of a bathroom stall. These are places that didn't have police or are places where policing is impractical. Much the same exists in DayZ. But we do have a meta law guiding some fundamental things. For instance, there is no racist comments or racial epithets allowed on side chat. And rightly so, I think everyone will agree. So one could say the same for racist graffiti in the game. It may be in the rights of the server owner to ban a player for that kind of conduct. Or maybe not. It would be amazing if the game could regulate that behavior on its own. Pretty much everyone knows and abides the no side chat rule these days. At least that's been my experience last few months. It'd be cool if a server population could vote on a server action in which a voted player would be suspended or permanently killed off that particular server after he got killed. Kinda stupid idea, but the end goal would be to make it so that the other players on the server can take it out on the bad dude in a contextually realistic way. So the same might go with the child zeds. There may be servers that have unwritten rules that say no killing child zeds ever. And if caught doing it, you're gonna be kos.

Damnit, you just stole my thunder! Oh well, thanks for the segue I suppose. I'm in line with SalamaderAnder on my thinking. But a few thoughts: I played for awhile as female skin to see how it might affect my survivability. I can't know for sure, but it did seem like I got less random kos, especially long distance kos. Part of DayZ is manipulating player's sympathies whenever possible! Bandits would not run into the fray yelling "Friendly" if it didn't have an effect. As a child player character, you might have diminished abilities. But it might be harder for other players to so willy nilly put a round in your temple. You'd be smaller target too. In a real apocalypse, we might in fact use children as scouts on account of their size. I could see this option favoring many folks' play style. The fact that some players are uneasy about shooting children zombies is exactly why it should be in game. Somewhere between 25%-50% of Dayz players are uneasy about shooting other players. Knowing full well it is just a game and entirely fake BUT ALSO suspending disbelief and pretending on some level it is real so one can identify emotionally with the content displayed. I don't know yet how I'd be about shooting children zombies. My sense is I'll try to avoid killing them when possible. Because it is disturbing and when the game finally forces me to cross that line, I want to be disturbed! Among all the other genre defining/genre bending elements this game includes, is not one survival horror? Horror? I want horror. You want horror? Probably nothing more unpleasant than having to put a child down. But if it's true that half the player base is removed because of local laws, then forget it.

Compass! I know Chernarus by heart but still so easy to get turned around and confused.

Have you tried placing a small tab of paper in between the w and e button so that the w stays depressed? That's what I do!

Don't give up (after a few hours)! So much "Really, no map?" "No" "How the hell do I know where to go?" "You don't at first." "Say what!?" or "Were's a car?" "Uh, yeah, isn't that easy, that's like weeks away for you" "Say what!?". So much frustration, disbelief, etc. from most folks I recommend the game. We talk a lot about the learning curve, but it isn't so bad except for the first few hours. Don't give up after 30 minutes thinking this game is too hard, too crazy, too boring.

I always head north/inland. Lately I've been hitting zub castle along my route and then around stary. It's more dangerous, but like someone just said, there's a chance one might stumble upon a kitted dead player or surprise a kitted player. I like hitting zub now because occasionally it spawns a cz or dmr. I like doing this instead of hitting up multiple red barns along the way to only get a winny, etc.

I struggled for days with my small team to get a little bird functional. The little bird was our stepping stone to find and repair the huey. At this point we were fairly certain the huey was on skalisty island. So we fly out there, hoping to find it and hoping it doesn't need massive repair, although we've prepared with most parts needed. We fly around the island a bit, no luck. But then we spot it! Hooray! We land and run over to it with some excitement. And then our excitement turns to legit jubilation as we discover that the huey is already fully repaired and stocked with enough spare parts to last a lifetime. (Keep in mind this is hive server during 1.7.7.1-the infection epidemic). So now we've got the black little bird and the huey! "We own this server!" we think. But we have a problem. One teammate is newer and doesn't yet know how to fly and the other teammate is a bit of a wild card when it comes to flying, although he can do it. Formerly, I've always been the pilot, which isn't a good scenario since of the three, my internet is the least reliable. And now we have two choppers. We need two pilots. So a long discussion ensues about who is going to fly and to whom should each chopper be piloted. We agree that the huey should be piloted by the wild card pilot since he has experience and primarily with the huey too. Now we're getting prepared to depart with our two choppers back to our base. Then my internet goes down. And I'm thinking, "Hey, this day is perfect! Not only have we finally, after all this time, finally gotten the huey but my internet was kind enough to hiccup on me while I was on ground and not up in the air!" My internet comes back and I sign back on. I spawn in and casually look around. The huey's gone. I ask them, "You guys left!? Did you take off already? You shoulda waited for me, for safety" and they both start sheepishly chuckling. There was something about the way they were laughing which didn't sound right. I instantly knew something was amiss. I look around again. There it is. The huey crashed into the ground, smoldering. My heart plummets a bit. What happened? Out of instinct, out of a desire for consolation, for reassurance, I run over to my little bird. Just to sit inside and feel the comfort of my baby, my hard fought reward. "It's okay" I think. "I still have my baby. As long as I have my little bird, everything will be okay." As I run closer, I see the windows are cracked. No no no! I hop in, everything's broken. My heart sinks. Turns out my 'buddy' decided to start up the huey and take off a bit while I was disconnected. When he tried to land he clipped a tree. He crashed, and close enough for the explosion to damage the little bird as well. They both died in the explosion. So now I sit there among the wreckage of my dreams and over a week's worth of work waiting for them to swim out to the island to collect their stupid fucking gear. I'm not an angry guy, but I was pretty disappointed.

I don't understand why OP, if he's such a stone cold killer, has apparently lost his patience for player whining and crying. I thought you bandits "drank the tears" or whatever? So survivors don't understand your labyrinthine rules of etiquette? What do you care either way? Your goal is to kill other dudes, and that is fine, no one really cares what are your motivations. We're all just looking to put you down before you put us down. It doesn't matter whether this unarmed runner under discussion did the right thing or not by running instead of standing still. Trust me if there was any chance he could turn the tables on you I'm sure he would. He was probably trying to run someplace, anyplace to find a gun and come back and find you and try to kill you. And if he stood still? That just means he was gonna try the other route and guile you into some mistake by which he might, for example, take a gun out of your backpack and shoot you. I don't believe there's a clear line between bandit and survivor. Most agree that we all fall somewhere in the middle. There's unique context to every engagement. Some say, "I don't shoot unarmed players". Well what about an unarmed player 10 feet from entering a military barracks? Can there be any doubt he will be armed shortly? Is it really wise, considering it's only now a matter of time, to wait until he reemerges from the barracks to kill him based on some silly honor system you've decided on to only kill 'armed' players? No, of course not. You shoot that guy before he enters the barracks. Why unnecessarily increase your own risk? I find it laughable how 'bandits' concoct all these absurd rules of engagement as if that gives them justification for their actions. If your heart is troubled by what you do in a video game, then stop! I don't think OP should even give a second thought to shooting an unarmed player in the back. I guarantee that player doesn't care; poor guy has probably been shot in the back a hundred times just like all the rest of us. If he does whine about it, then that simply means he's a new player, that's all.

-Assuming you mean "when was the dire need to cooperate ever gone?-In 1.7.7.1 vanilla official hive, even I became extremely hesitant to spawn in without my comrades, knowing it's a bad idea. But today I spawned fresh in Berenzino and within two hours had camo, coyote, m249, dmr, nvgs, rangefinders, full toolbelt, full health, took down 4 heli crashes by myself, etc. -Assuming you mean "when was pvp ever gone"- in 1.7.7.1 vanilla official hive, side chat was littered with players begging for help, begging for antis, begging to team up. There was very little opportunity for pvp since players who could survive were busy getting vehicles and everyone else never made it to a point where they could become pvp targets. I understand that was too extreme. People were hating it. The server population was decimated. I hope the easing will bring folks back. Hopefully all the new kickass features like camo nets, crafting and fishing will entice folks as well. I'm great at scrounging and surviving but not so good at combat. It was nice to not have to worry so much about mercenary types. At any rate, I love pvp. I love getting mercked. I'm ready to fight!

Oh, btw, I know this must be old news but just in case. Did you know there's a bug where tents, vehicles, etc. will glitch out over an entire server restart cycle? People on my server seem to think it is a hive issue. Any info on this or is it just a problem with the server I play on?

Performance improvement is stunning, nice work. Inventory and weapon switching is tight, nice work there. I can confirm no gear option on dead animals, at least goat. I tried zooming but no luck there either. Also, when I had mp5 equipped and did quick action menu to pickup m4cco it dropped mp5 and mp5 mags (like it should) but also pdw mags as well. This is an "imho", but I think infection rates should be tweaked up a bit maybe, I ran absolutely carelessly through berenzino letting zombies wail on me and I couldn't even get the sepsis. I was afraid of how heavy the damage would be on new zombies but is totally reasonable. I took so many hits and only went half blood. Respawn rates on loot are hella quick. Might want to consider that when adjusting industrial loot spawn. At current performance I could probably farm the factory and get enough to fix a heli in two hours or so, instead of the previous 3 days with 3 men looking all over the map. Should be fun, thanks again Razor and crew. I'll miss 1.7.7.1. I'll miss the dire need to cooperate. My prediction is this patch will bring back pvp in a massive way.

It's being tested on two private hives. I'm trying to figure out how to get it, lol. I just can't wait any longer!

Thanks and sorry to geesio, I didn't intend to give a "fanboy" response. I'm being totally serious. Do zombies run in buildings now? Can you not pull out your hatchet and kill them safely. I've never had a problem with that strategy. Some buildings are easier than others. I avoid the sketchy buildings. I agree I wouldn't want to take 9 minutes to go 50 yards in cherno. I hardly ever sneak anymore. Sneaking is a great way to get yourself headshot. But I'm reading about "swarming" and apparently a total inability to manage zombies. Is that true? Also let's not forget that zombie performance has everything to do with the quality of your rig. When I had a shit computer I could sprint right past zombies. Now they seem to aggro from 100+ meters away and sometimes there seems to be no amount of juking to avoid being hit. However I think most times it comes in as a false hit. I hear and see the animation but no damage, knockdown or infection from those long armed zombies. Just annoying. I've got a warning point on my account here, so don't think I'm a mindless lemming. I didn't think there was enough communication and sympathy towards all the rage during the scripting crisis. I agree it's not always perfect. When 1.7.7.1 came out, those first few days one simply couldn't play at all. The zombies were insane! I remember the knockdown feature and infection seemed to happen every last time one got hit . It required some tweaking and tweaked it was! I'm trying to figure out how to play the test server right now so I'll let you know what I think. I'm not sure if I like the idea of one zombie hit reducing blood so drastically and food metaphorically falling from the sky. We'll see. I know I'm going to be learning the game all over again. I don't enjoy that so much, but such is the mentality of DayZ. I felt like we really hit the sweet spot with the infection because I learned how to cope but apparently no one else did since it did in fact seem to decimate the player base. I don't doubt the stalwarts who say all their squadmates quit the game after 1.7.7.1. I share your concern about new players, bibbish. Now that the scripters are gone, I've been encouraging my friends to try the game. So far they all hate it. It is too hard for them. The infection mechanic does nothing for me. I admit, I hate it too. When I dream about the standalone, the 5+ infections are the last thing on my mind. But Rocket likes it and it is here to stay, and I can deal with that.

I think base placements tend to follow trends on individual servers. A good strategy is to be ahead of the curve. Guys build bases at top right corner. Those bases are secure for a few days then raided. Then guys build bases up and to the left of kamenka (a good spot generally btw. except for me, no one walks north from kamenka, kamenka's primary role is a suicide spot, lol). Then those bases are raided. Then guys build small bases in the interior, then those locations become known, then guys build bases around skalka, then those get raided. Then it starts all over again with bases at the top right corner. It's also wise to understand the hows and whys of bases being compromised. There's a big difference between a lone wolfer stumbling across one of your tents and a clan methodically combing the north for heavy loot stashes and vehicles. Allow lone wolfers to periodically take a little from your base; they can carry only so much. Conversely don't place big bases in the areas where large groups with the intent of cleaning up are purposefully looking i.e. the whole northern woodland area. And a bit cheaty, but one can feel secure with bases on 'dead' servers that are used as supply depots for your regular shenanigans on busy servers.

try us3480, its busy! You're almost guaranteed to find someone nice who'll take you around. Plus all the assholes that'll kill you, that's really fun as well! I reside on us 229 right now. Good server with a good mix of regulars who are friendly and not. Stop by for a visit, we'll hook you up!

No worries, I can confidently report that the scripters are gone. I've gone back to the official hive and haven't experienced or heard reports of hackers while in game for months now. Oh well, I just jinxed myself.

Welcome dude! But two words of caution- Bear in mind the stuff you've probably seen from DayZ are from top tier players. And videos are almost always edited for highlights. Don't expect to be having epic clan battles on day one. And don't expect to not get your ass kicked a bunch while you're first learning. I play on a server that happens to attract many noobs. It's amazing the incidence of quitting after an hour or so (very often much less time). You're gonna have a bad time at first. If you don't actually like that, then maybe reconsider the game. Also, the game is less a zombie sim and more of a cooperative survival sim. The zombies exist primarily as an effective third party opponent. You won't be getting classic scares like from early Resident Evil's or anything like that. The trick is managing the zombies so that you can maintain your own health while surviving all the dudes out there that want to kill you! I'm posting this because I've recently convinced many acquaintances to try the game with very little luck. This is not an easy gratification game. The game is 90% drudgery and 5% utter despair and 5% massive elation. For instance, a few days ago I spent all day (like 12 hours) fixing a heli (very boring), 1 hour woohooing as we raped all the bases on the map, then we got careless and landed at a tent base we'd never reconned before. I got killed right as I accessed the first tent's inventory. Next came one hour of yelling, recriminations, despair and disunity between me and my partner as I tried to run back to the battle and do whatever I could to help my partner reclaim our chopper. I got a lucky spawn and lucked out on a tent along the way with weapons. I made it back and we had a battle and WE WON. We fucked them up big time! We turned our failure into a massive win by outwitting these clan fucks. Awesomest shit ever! But it took like 3 days of drudgery to get there. As a modest two man team, we really felt we achieved a david over goliath moment. At the end we netted 6 dmrs, 2 mk mod48s and a ton of antis besides all the other goodies. Our little bird was a little fucked since we had to kill one clan dude from inside the cockpit and general battle damage. We managed to quickly fix it though while defending our position. We raped their base hardcore and I flew away on top of the world. Then I landed on an inaccessible tower at a castle. After the restart the chopper was misplaced by the server and glitched in the walls so as not to be recoverable. Then two days of back to basics, much drudgery. But then we netted the huey, well stole it actually.

I don't think your post is pointless. I welcome all frustration and complaint (and you did it in a humorous way). This is an opportunity to offer another player encouragement and possibly some tips. First, don't give up! Infection always existed in the mod, it was simply nonfunctional. Now it is functional. Yes, the game is harder. But isn't that why we like this game? It took me some time to get better so as not to be easily defeated by infection. And I suck. I know you can do it. Second, antis aren't that hard to find. Two posts in this very thread giving shout outs to tmw for saving their asses. Where do you think they got those antis from? Apparently they can survive enough in this game to have spare antis and go help you. Personally I have a backstock of 8 or so antis. Last, for quite awhile the game was too easy. One could go around doing stupid shit with no consequences. No longer. One should know better than to run into the nwaf barracks with no ammo. That's like me complaining about every time I go on top the firehouse in cherno and start saluting I promptly get my head blown off.

Patiently waiting for the new patch to be released on dayzcommander! Pre thanks Razor for all the good work. Now, some questions and a few points. I don't understand how the patch updates work with the mods of the mod. I am wondering if the people who are unsatisfied haven't played the latest patch on official hive? It is very difficult. Maybe they're reacting to zombie difficulty increase from patch release of appx. 2 months ago. I continue to see twitch streams and youtube videos of players running carelessly around zombies while the zombies do nothing. No offense, but the mod variants look like a freakin joke. Btw, I love the difficulty. As others have said, it's doubling rewarding watching the kill messages stream down the log while I cruise through the game unconcerned. Why? Because I got better. I learned, I adapted. I still find myself in hairy situations. I had a close call in Elektro earlier today and nearly died at nwaf atc this afternoon (doing stupid shit, mind you). This is exactly how the game should be. Kudos to Razor. I'm wondering if the camo nets made it in? Can anyone report on their effectiveness? The "zombies glitch-hit through walls" argument carries no weight. To second this point, everyone knows where those glitches are-Just avoid them! In regards the danger of aggroing zombies in towns, can you not anymore run into a building and pull out your axe and silently dispatch immediate threat whilst preventing further zombie aggro? I mean c'mon, that's a standard tactic. I'm just going to assume that hasn't changed and if you don't know that tactic, then you might want to team with someone who plays better than you and learn some stuff. Besides, it must be a known tactic since they worked to improve the functionality by adding the weapon changing hot keys. Last, infection is not a death sentence! To validate again what another intelligent poster just said, you can live indefinitely with the infection. Trust me, I've done it. I never suicide and I never, ever quit. No matter how dire the situation. This is the mentality of DayZ. This mentality has allowed me to overcome the infection. I could care less when I get infected. So my blood drops a little, eat a fucking cow! Also, don't give up my friends. When you get good at the game and learn how to look, you will find all the antis you will need. They are in stashes, in tents, in vehicles, at heli crash sites, in warehouses, in hospitals (yes! hospitals). Do some stealth, watch a battle go down, kill the final survivor(s), take all the antis left on the bodies. Was gonna say "no sweat", but yes some sweat, that's what makes it rewarding. I'm not here to shame you for your lack of gaming fortitude. I'm here to encourage you and let you know there are still greater levels of accomplishment in DayZ if you'd only stop complaining and start trying! p.s. Razor-the hard zombies have finally given me an edge over other players; now I'm a good player! (no longer the self-styled Worst DayZ Player of All Time) Please don't make the zombies too easy, don't make curing infection too easy. But yeah, dude, kudos again and again, the mod is shaping up to be one kick ass game. Me and my mates are absolutely loving it now!