JerFeelgood

...and I would take it one step farther... 1. their should be no differentiation between PvP and PvE. PvP is PvE. The players ARE the environment.

Do people actually get the concept of permadeath? it's not just losing your gear. You're supposed to lose all your friends etc. Simply running back to your friends to continue your old life means your PC hasn't died, merely been transported naked to the beach. To embrace permadeath, one must willingly give up every part of your PC's previous existence and start afresh. However, that is anathema to most people who want to simply play with their mates.

having no anti-beans means it's impossible to avoid engaging with trolls and spammers and wingnuts. Actually how about a wingnut button :)

More zombies is not the solution. The servers couldn't implement/path for them. And your gpu/cpu would have to hammer your fps in order to code for the volume of independent AI's. Harder/smarter zombies are the solution.

now I can see your trolling here. As far as i can see, the PvP tools exist because they were very easy to add as the mod is derived from and uses milsim environment/engine. The survivalist tools will have to be manually coded into the engine. So I ask you this, if guns were nerfed by massively restricting ammo supply, would you still play? If beans were strictly rationed, and matches ran out so you were forced to cooperate to trade for what in reality should be the highest value items in the environment. I am not saying the environment as it is at the moment is not flawed considering it's stated purpose. But a whole tranche of people who've come into the environment are corrupting it as they are not willing to cede preconceived gaming agenda's to generally try something new. *edit* in fact. I'm going to stop engaging you now because i've gone and read some of your other content and........

I apologise. I used the wrong phraseology. Intended would be a better word. The deathmatch attitude is crushing any creativity. It renders the environment unusable for participants who are trying to explore how to enhance the survivalist aspects of the game and forward good feedback to the devs. That was my point. It reminds you of another "game". Again, read rockets statement. It's not supposed to be a "game". It's supposed to be a tool to simulate an apocalypse environment to explore emotion and interactivity. I've never once called for a reduction in the PvP, just argued that the current deathmatch environment has completely surpressed any usefulness I could possibly get out of this tool. I am not here to *play a vidoegame*.

To counter your argument. You have subverted the environment provided to achieve your own gaming goals The mod was never designed for that purpose. You are the corrupting influence. Read the stated objective of the mod.Your entire approach to the "game" is anthitecal to the desired environment. That you can't see past using the environment for your own gaming agenda is what is going to kill this. Read the last line of rockets post linked above. Then actually think about it. You're just porting the CoD deathmatch agenda into an environment for which it was not intended.

dude. I think you've completeley missed the point of what the devs are aiming for. completely. see here... http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/6487-wtf-is-happening-to-the-server-community/page__st__200#entry67815 this was never meant to be a PvP deathmatch mod.

what is truly lost in the modern FPS environment is how insanely difficult it actually is to USE a gun. If somebody handed me a sniper rifle now with great optics, I could *maybe* hit a head sized object from 200 metres, and I stress maybe. To accurately hit a human sized object from 800m, one has to compensate for, gravtiy, trajectory, wind speed, temperature, air density, coriolis effect, number of shots fired through the barrel, barrel temperature, level of debris in the barrel, the build quality of the weapon, the build quality of the ammunition and probably a dozen other factors of which I'm unaware. A sniper is an insanely specialised craft requiring years of training. The rifle itself requires very highly specialised skills to maintain. Yet in game we pick up a sniper rifle and we're gods of the battlefield. This argument can be applied to most all high tech high specialty kit. I argued elsewhere that all high technology kit is virtually worthless in the post apocalyptic environment as their would be no supplies or specialists to maintain it and should either be taken out of the game or made ultra rare. In the post apocalypse, knife skills, martial arts and a specialist trade are what will give your life meaning and currency. However this mod is derived from a military sim, and so the military mindset is carried over. You simply wouldn't kill someone because at the end of the day, he might just be able to fix that broken piece of kit you have stashed, or might be able to teach you something that makes your existence easier. and by the way. I've shot pistols, shotguns, rifles, bows, crossbows, all manner of homemade projectile devices.... anyway this is a bit of an IRL rant. I thoroughly approve of what the dev concept is aiming for, but trying to drill that into FPS deathmatch junkies is looking impossible. I thoroughly appreciate the alpha nature of the mod. and the good grace of the devs for allowing us so much access to the mod in it's current embryonic state. I can't imagine how frustrating these forums are for rocket. how he doesn't suffer from permarage is beyond me....

I've argued I've argued elsewhere that it's the ease of access to guns and bullets that's driving the PvP element of the game. As long as military kit is on a respawn, then players are gonna kill cos the bullets don't have any value, so spray and play. If you participate in the environment for 2hrs and only find 6 measly makarov bullets. you're not going to waste them killing PC's, they're going to be your last line of defence for zeds. If you play for 4hrs and find no beanz, then that axe, knife and matches are going to be your best friends. All readily consummable goods should be ultra rare, beans and bullets should be a treat. I would suggest people have a good read of "lord of the flies" to see where power lays. Takeaway all the guns and see how quickly all the deatmatch jerks move on. And I would argue from a european POV and here I expect to be massively flamed, that it's only americans who expect bullets to be lying around on the floor after the apocalypse. Where I'm sitting right now (uk) I have absolutely no clue where I'd have to go to find one single bullet. I certainly wouldn't expect them to be lying around in farmhouses. But maybe i'm just naieve. When I lived in the US, my direct experience was that you could find guns in cars, in everyones homes, in peoples waistbands, at work, in the shopping mall, everywhere. But maybe I'm just a euro pacifist care bear.

And therein is the heart of the concept lost. Another "popular" FPS game is not the goal. If participants approach this mod as just another PvP deathmatch game (and I can't stress GAME enough), albeit one in an open and large world, then what I believe is the ethos of the devs has been lost to them. People are already deliberately circumventing the core principle of the mod, The persistence and permanent death of ones PC. I don't believe the core principle of the mod was to provide another social medium to go whack people with your mates, even if that is what it's being used for at the moment. The idea here is survival. My idea for cranking up the zombie difficulty factor is that it makes one much more wary of exposing oneself to the environment, an environment which caused the apocalypse. I'm not saying PvP should be taken out of the game, just that it should have serious consequences if that 's the route you choose to go. If this goes down an open world CoD path then the project has failed in my opinion. Even if that is what the consumers want. Rocket has said, I believe, that is the antithesis to what he is striving for, and that his goal is not to provide just another FPS with which the market is already saturated. and as for "You need to realize that now and get over it or move on." I would argue that is you that needs to move on. that your thrill seeking FPS CoD attitude is detrimental to the project.

this is genius. events like this will be the way forward for DayZ. Can anyone find the axe murdered guitar hero for a concert at the castle. you could create a big TS server and everyone could listen in.... Axe murdered guitar hero vid

I posted this in the Newbie discussion group when I meant to post it here so.... Yo yo, I recently discovered the world of DayZ and ArmA, but unfortunately do not have the sys req at the moment to actually play the game. I've watched a lot of videos online re the project and been reading the forum intensively... newayz.... I like what I think Rocket was aiming for when he started this project. To use existing tools (The ArmA engine with which he was familiar) to simulate a post apocalyptic world in which a social experiment regarding which direction humanity would take in such a situation. I believe when I get back to my PC to actually play the game, I would like to play keeping the ideal of the original concept in place. In looking at the way the game plays now, I believe that their are several problems outside of his control in a F2P open server environment (and that he will never be able to control with ANY update) that limit the viability of the experiment. Players will not give up ingrained tools and concepts to actively participate in the experiment. The biggest tool/exploit is communication. In a paranoid post apocalyptic world, communication should be extremely difficult. The existence of global chat, where you can assess someones intentions from miles away should be strictly curtailed. All communication should be restricted to within the game. With the existence of TeamSpeak and Ventrillo this will be impossible to enforce. Absolutely impossible. And without this restriction it makes it way too easy for clans and squads to dominate the combat environment. Imagine a group environment where you had to communicate with flashlight or visual codes to transmit outside of ingame audible distance. I think if players were willing to give up their communication tools, it would go a long way to making the game a lot more interesting from a survival point of view. It would be like reinventing the wheel in terms of gameplay. How would you assess someones intentions without these tools? would a community reinvent signals and tools to advertise their friendly intentions? Imagine your squad of four hunters trying to coordinate an attack without an independent comms tool? Imagine they had to make sounds audible to all in-game to actually communicate and coordinate, you're set up in your sniper position and one of your squad scouts 400m away to your west, and then wants to return, how does he identify himself when returning to the squad to prevent infiltration? After player death, how do you safely relocate your squad? I think this would MASSIVELY increase paranoia levels in the game... and go a long way to increase the seriousness of the permadeath experiment... How would you even relocate your friends after you wake up on the beach? how would you identify yourself to them to come within the security perimeter that would inevitably spring up? How could one enforce this in the current game environment? It could only be done voluntarily. Players would have to choose to give up the tools on which they rely. And that could be maintained with closed access subscriber based servers or a code of conduct signup in the installation of the mod/EULA. A server where one must sign up to a code of conduct before being allowed in, and being banned for breaches of the code of conduct. It should be fairly easy to determine from admin observer mode whether someone is using illegitimate modes of communication. This code of conduct would only relate to the use of tools external to game and the post apocalyptic world which the devs have not deliberately given you access. Anything in game would be fair game. PvP vs PvE seems to be a massive argument ongoing in these forums at the moment.... I would argue that it should be possible to make the PvP element part of the PvE so that there is no difference, but this would only be possible if you could limit access to the tools that make PvP play so easy i.e. ease of communication, the abiity to bring equipment from one server to another... I have no real problems with lone nuts on killing sprees, they may well be a reality of the post apocalyptic zombie world. I do have a major problem with players using tools not given (external comm programs) to them to clean up in the game... is the use of ANY external software not an exploit in itself? anyway, I also think the 3rd person look around corners exploit is a bit broken when a tool (mirror on a bayonnet anyone?) could do the same in a much more immersive and realistic way. I have no problems woth loads of guns lying about but surely in the post apocalypse ammo would get really rare really fast. Readily consummable items should have the highest rareity value (ammo, matches, food, fresh blood, meds, batteries etc) and making them extremely rare woud go a long way to absorbing the PvP element into the PvE one as camping cherno wouldn't allow you to survive. You'd have to get out into the woods to make your own food. Similar to how vehicles are restored with parts, a limited access to lead, saltpetre, fire and relevent casting tools would allow you to make your own ammo and make it a tradeable commodity, It's the ease of access to these resources that makes PvP style of play so easy. it would be so easy to make an ingame specific tool which is a container, into which you place the required elements, then use it at a relevent spot an out pops what you where aiming for. Mouldy fruit + mortar and pestle + distillation equipment + fire = penicillin. Blood extaction kit + container + well hydrated/well fed indiviaual = bloodbag. Thinking along the lines of potion making from oblivion or skyrim. An ability to perform certain tasks could be restricted to certain environments. Imagine a garage building in a couple of towns where you would have to push/tow vehicles to in order to perform certain sorts of repairs, a chemist where one could make meds, and so on for all of the in game essentials..... Why are people so absolutely willing to circumvent the dev inspired game concept of permadeath? With a player death, surely all previous knowledge and ties should be lost to you. This includes knowledge of your friends and the surroundings.... It has always been true that the two greatest tools to humanity are knowledge and information. An ability to store and transmit these. In the post apocalyptic world, so much of both should be lost as to make certain specialist equipment both unusable and unmaintainable. In game high end electronics would suffer quickly, and as a result should disappear relatively quickly, and thence their value should be huge. This would imply the game would have to have a skill acquisition system, and massive penalties for those individuals without access to certain skills i.e. PvP bandits. These simple couple of things would inspire communities to spring up around certain resources, become protective of those resources and thence make those resources tradeable as they would have value... And with restricted access to bullets, meds and beans, I would not see a player killer surviving very long. With no comms, coordinated raids on burgeoning communities would have a much lower chance of succeeding. And lastly, the threat element from the zombie apocalypse should be massively strenghtened. If it was bad enough to take out the world in the first place it should should still present a massive threat to all human life. Ideally adding extra senses in game would add to the realism, touch (think wind sense, heat sense), smell and taste via a pc odor plume (and other odour plumes) and wind directions for upwind/downwind combined with a colour code to identify the type of odour. A zombie awareness of these elements would lead to an increased threat factor, a group of people would generate more odour and thence would attract more zombies, staying in a place too long could massively increase risk and should prevent camping.... I really don't know how many of these game devices could realistically be added to the game engine without overwhelming the server and user hardware.... Anyway. Sorry about the essay. I'm all for some PvP play once it's made intrinsic to the game device. I apologise if some of these ideas have been discussed in other threads.... and big up to the devs for the concept. It seems clear that the PC gaming public are fairly homicidal... will that be the result of the DayZ experiment...? My closing thought... do players want a survival based community game or a modern-day PvP persistent world warfare game with a zombie threat... do zombies in modern culture not just replace the wolves and bears and dragons that represented the horror threat of the medieval and dark ages? whew. that was almost to much. hope i don't get flamed... Jer

probably the funniest of the axe murder scenarios I've seen on youtube

Rocket has said he likes surveys and stats so. E.g. A squad with TeamSpeak is stealthily hunting a survivor, coordinating their actions via the 3rd party comm software (equivalent to telepathic communication as it is non detectable in game). The lone prey, through mad paranoid counterdetection and stealth skillz, becomes aware of their presence and evades, circles around behind the preator, closes on a target and dispatches him with a silenced pistol shot to the head from behind. The player announces his death at close quarters via teamspeak (constituting psychic communication as he his communicating from beyond the grave). This completely negates the stealth skills of the lone player as all of his prey are now aware of his location. Is this in fact, an exploit? Discuss

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I guess what I'm asking here is, what are peoples objectives in participating in the DayZ experiment? What motivates your involvement? For myself, I play FPS games a lot (CoD, BF etc.). I sim a lot (FlightSim, Racing Sim, etc...). In my experience there is a completely different mindset associated with operating in these two seperate but different past-times. I come from a background of non computer gaming environments. Role play games, board games, table top strategy simulation and diplomacy. I like to immerse myself in the environment and ethos of the environment of the situation. I feel that pc gaming in the form of thrill based high speed action has ruined the attention span of the modern gamer. Game: A distraction I play for cheap thrills. A completely throwaway experience. After I put down the controller, after we finish a throwaway board game/card game, I walk away and the experience does not transcend into my day to day life. It's just a game. Simulator: I look to wholly and willingly immerse myself in the simulated environment with the aim of achieving a set goal. It's not fun, It's not cheap. It can be fulfilling. e.g. I flight sim. I do it online via vatsim etc. I own extra and expensive flight sim hardware to attempt to provide hyper realism to the experience. I've learned the theory of modern flight. As a result of this simulated experience, I set myself a goal of taking a real world flight lesson with the aim of, at the end of a single lesson, being allowed to attempt a take-off, circuit, approach and landing in a light aircraft. I achieved that goal. I take lessons with the goal of achieving my pilots license. Now that's a thrill. What I want from DayZ is to simulate the apocalypse so I can test my personal survival skills against the apocalypse environment. Now before you say it, zombies ain't real. I am fully aware of that. To me the zombie threat is a simple vector by which we can simulate the threats of our modern world reverting to a more natural environment (wild predators etc). Each different scenario provides for me to learn a different and new personal skill to take into the real world. Gut a cow in game, I'll read about the correct way to butcher an animal. Have to learn how to camouflage in game as that may save my PC, well there's another skill I can learn in real life. Need to learn how to use firearms, more skills, more skills. How would I behave in an apocalypse environment? Would I care bear, would I turn rogue, would I land somewhere in between? Will this drive me to take go on a Bear Grylls style survival course. I'm all for a good attempt at hyper reality. If DayZ is to be another FPS zombie apocalypse game you play with your mates then it's not for me... and from what I've read of the devs motivation, it's not the goal here. If it's to be a simulation tool to explore the moral and emotional questions of post apocalyptic behaviour then I'll dive in with open arms and an open mind. This is what motivates me about the DayZ experiment. What do you want from DayZ?

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OMG this ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ if I could give you more beans I would :)

I'm not saying VoIP isn't a useful tool. Just that it's completely counter-productive to a simulation experience. One would have to make the argument that the game itself does not provide communication tools. but that's just not true. there IS in game VON, you could choose to use visual cues. My point here is that by choosing 3rd party comm pack age of any kind (phone, VoIP etc) which confers a telepathic communication ability as it is communication that is completely undetectable within the game, you are giving yourself a tactical advange not awarded to you directly by the simulated environment in which you're operating. Again this is about choice. You are choosing the mode of communication. If you choose to use 3rd party comms knowing full well that comms are provided for in game, then you have chosen to use an exploit. Just don't expect me to be happy about you ruining a perfectly good simulated environment. There is nothing physically in the game at the moment that stops me from server hopping to gain positional advantage. It's an exploit. I don't condone that either.

I'm not saying try and stop them. Just force them to acknowledge they are cheating. And punishable as cheaters. D/C'ing for survival and server hopping to teleport are exploits. Should we just roll over and say cheaters gonna cheat and there's nothing we can do about it?

again I say it. make non-use of 3rd party comms voluntary in a code of conduct/eula. No spyware. If I am a server admin and someone complains to me about players ghosting/ using alt comms s/w, I can go into observer mode and observe their group. Coordinated behaviour with zero evidence of how that communication is being achieved in game would be retardedly easy to observe and thence punishable as cheating. Admin records evidence with FRAPS. Make that punishment appealable. In my experience sim enthusiasts are more than willing to go the extra mile for realism and don't deliberately attempt to circumvent the sim environment. obviously, fixing the in game VON, adding a whisper/speak/shout and radio facility would be paramount to it's success.

That is strategic metagaming, not tactical situational awareness imo and devs have already said that's okay. ...again strategic information.... Surely hand sinals which are an ingame visual signal, and whistles in game could be coded into the game quite easily, and players could use them for that purpose for tactical situational control. My problem here is that players are using non detectable cues for tactical advantage. I thought the purpose of this experiment at the moment was to simulate how we would deal with an apocalypse scenario. It's not a game, It's a simulator. It's not supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be scary, tense and paranoid. We're supposed to be exploring the emotions associated with the apocalypse environment, not playing for shits and giggles. That to me means wholly casting off every tool not handed to you by the devs who have created the environment, and wholly/willingly submerging yourself in the simulator environment. Yes there is pleasure to be derived from the experience, as with every simulated experience, but that pleasure should be derived from a wholehearted plunge into the environment proscribed. Otherwise as you say, it's just a game.

d/c'ing and server hopping for tactical/survival advantage is a different discussion, and AFAIK is widely regarded as an exploit already. Compounding the d/c exploit with the comms exploit is a deliberate attempt to circumvent the intention of the game and cheating imho.

Re meta-gaming: In this example, there is no way possible to describe the groups actions as meta-gaming, how can ghosting to deliberately circumvent a players stealth be described as such. he's not given away any information on any level to be infiltrated and exposed to any third party. I would argue in favour of strategic meta-gaming, but using third party comms for telepathic/necromantic communication is a tactical exploit. I would argue that it could be policed fairly easily... Write it into a code of conduct/eula that the use of non proscribed communications methods is condidered cheating and a kickable bannable offense. Make it voluntary. It will be very obvious to an admin in observer mode if a group is using 3rd party comms and could react accordingly. Fun: Rocket has said this is an apocalypse simulator. It's not supposed to be fun. Restriction to in game comms would make the gaming environment much more tense as groups out of earshot would have to communicate with non verbal line of sight methods, or use of their wrist watches to coordinate assaults etc, and would make group security methods an absolute must as it would make your group a hell of a lot easier to penetrate... i.e. a lot nore paranoia... perfect for the apocalypse... I'm not arguing against basic radio communication but it has to detectable in game to circumvent the tactical advantage described above i.e. your player has to make a sound to voice into a radio and the receivers have to generate an audio footprint on receiving the signal, no matter how quiet, the earpiece could be included as a piece of kit. The radio channel could be eavesdropped. Friends: The idea of friends is surely completely contradicted with permadeath. Your PC is dead. What cares he for friends. Your new Pc has no friends and encouraging a system that allows him to simply run back to where he *died* pick up his mates and kit and stroll on flies directly in the face of the concept of permadeath. Ninja lore (carrying real world knowledge into the gaming world): Could be explained through a pc who wakes up on the beach had much more experience from his pre apocalypse life, was a local who knew the area well etc etc... My solution: Have a look at FsInn software for the provision of radio communication in flight sims. very simple and easy to use, is PTT, has programmable channels and range factors built in and is built coded to support masses of flight simmers online on a server at the same time. If a similar radio comm program/concept could be coded into the engine to run parallel to ingame VON for in game speech.... And surely the freshness of the mod is that it flies in the face of other styles of gameplay. who's to say that 3rd party comms are good for the gaming experience that this type of mod is aiming for. Rocket has already advocated in favour of keeping comms in game and controllable... I personally would like to explore the issue of group trust in a world of difficult and sketchy communications, but can't because of these 3rd party programs