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The thread on 1.7.2.5 specifies an ETA of 1. of August for the patch, which was 2 days ago. On the Machinima Q&A Rocket said he will actually make 1.7.2.5 not a hotfix, but a full fletched patch with new features, etc (e.g. reintroducing bandits distinguishers). Since our squad is having heavy issues with the polygon glitches around military loot spots, we are really keen to see 1.7.2.5 released. Is there a new ETA for the patch? When can we expect the bug fixes to be rolled out?

As Rocket stated on his the ArmA II engine does not allow it to have players characters remain in the world as entities, after the player drops out, which would be required to implement the solution I proposed. However, he also stated that he is currently talking to Bohemia about how to make this possible. Maybe we will see an ArmA II patch in the future that will enable this and then I'd expect DayZ to implement a scheme similar to my suggestion. The other option most likely is that we will have to wait until DayZ is released stand-alone.

*should* work in my eyes. Please note that you will have to manually save the tent after removing the gear. As I said, I am pretty sure auto-saving is not possible for DayZ as a mod. Else it probably would already work that way, since it's the most obvious way to do it.

Log in shortly before restart. Remove all gear from the tents and place it on the ground. Save the empty tents and enjoy the lulz. PS: That said, duping really needs to be fixed. I fear though that something like auto-saving after adding or removing items from a tent simply isn't possible in the mod. Maybe though server admins could run a script just before every restart iterating over every tent on the map and saving it's current contents.

I guess you're stretching it a bit there... <_< But in fact I do think allowing corpse runs in a entirely gear and personal skill based game defeats the purpose of perma death for the most part.

Rocket is working on those fixes and they will come for the mod. So much is pretty much clear. In fact, the thread states, that the part regarding wire fences is fixed already, the fix just hasn't been published yet. I'm just looking for a new ETA for the upcoming patch. Personally I don't think it's a good idea to defer a patch which will include fixes for some pretty serious bugs just to bundle some new features with it.

That's false. .

I personally think being killed on a server should get you banned from that server for some time (e.g. for as long as your corpse remains). This would not only prevent corpse runs, but also prevent you from being able to immediately hunt down and reengage your killer with your new character, which makes no sense at all.

He tells so in . This.

I absolutely agree with the reasoning, but I fear that the mod will not be able to handle the additional server load. If there is a way to make this happen without killing performance, it should imo.

Please have a look at my very similar suggestion for an Alt+F4/Server Hopping solution. It is similar in that I encourage to implement what I call a special "ritual" to logout gracefully. But instead of not saving character progress on a disruptive logout (eg Alt+4 or actual connection loss), I suggest to let the players character fall unconscious for a couple of minutes, before it is removed from the game world.

Please have a look at my try at a solution to the Alt+F4 problem (and others).

Hey Magma, Should be done eventually. But low-hanging fruit? If third-party content has to be included I personally would not consider it a low-hanging fruit. Including third-party content most of the time is a copyright and licensing hell if you're not in BSD-license land. I hate it as well and it should be fixed tonight if it is a low-hanging fruit. From my personal experience though I guess it's not really a valid assumption to assume it is actually at all possible to do proximity checks before spawning. I suppose there is a significant reason for doing it this way (most likely related to how the game spawns NPCs). If there's no serious reason, I absolutely agree with you. Since other weapons are equipped loaded as well I do can not imagine why this should not pe possible. Agree. If I am not completely wrong this was actually in the game at an earlier stage, but removed due to literally littering the servers (and this causing performance issues). I'd like this as well, but I wouldn't want to sacrifice significant performance specs for it. Editing a model rolled out with the game might or might not be a low hanging fruit, depending on the skill set available in the developer crew as well as the license under which this content is provided. You should not. However, since I believe empty mags currently simply disappear and thus mechanically wise do not exist at all, this most likely isn't a low-hanging fruit. From his post, the phrases he uses and his conclusions I'd say he certainly coded more "basic hello world"s than you have.

Actually he was talking about the game being to hard. Also, pointing out broken aspects of a game is not only fair deal, but absolutely necessary to allow the developers to improve the game further. However, the OP reads more like it is suited well by a nice piece of cheese than constructive critique. Just pointing out.

Hi Jim, I read your entire post carefully and would like to respond to it. You are right on this issue. New players are worthless. You should be aware though that this is on purpose. The whole point of taking away any valuable loot from fresh spawns is to promote cooperation and reduce the attractiveness to kill fresh spawns just to get their beans and their 2 mags of .45. That said, using your hands to push down Zeds or other players is in fact on an upcoming features list. I am not playing DayZ for months, so I am not aware of any drastic changes in zombie aggro behavior. I do know however that at least before the very latest patch (which is 1.7.2.4 and I haven't had the chance to play yet) the chance of aggroing a zombie if you are lying prone in no-visibility is very low, even if the zombie is close to stepping on you. Also, I do not know details of zombie spawn behavior, but I have already seen zombies spawn directly in front of me just to have them despawn directly after. I believe that this is a feature that should prevent zombies spawning to close to players. If you encounter zombies spawning directly on top of you, this is most likely a bug and should be reported. Keep in mind though that DayZ is an alpha stage mod. Bugs are to be expected. There's only a certain chance for bleeding through a zombie attack, although it seems like there is an increased chance for bleeding on the first hit just after spawn (if this is the case and not just my subjective fealing, then it is most likely to introduce the bleeding mechanic early). Also, bleeding is not always sever. Most of the time its just a couple of blood per second. You can keep yourself alive for more than 30 minutes with 6000 blood if you loose 3 blood per second from bleeding. Also, nobody ever said, that a zombie only inflicts a scratch and doesn't rip or bite of a lump of flesh from your neck. I absolutely agree that the current zombie mechanics are broken. Their behavior is crap. They move to fast, and personally I think you should easily be able to outrun most of them over the course of a couple hundred meters. There is good news though: fixing zombie behavior and animations is a top priority item on the DayZ todo list, according to several interviews with Dean "rocket" Hall. I guess I have to clearly disagree with you on this point. I strongly believe reducing the amount of loot available to players will actually help the game evolve and improve. I could provide you with reasoning on which effects I think a reduced amount of loot in the game will have, but then again that will only be a hypothesis without actual proof. I think we simply have to agree to disagree on this one then. I have to strongly disagree with you on this point again. DayZ is meant to be harsh and unforgiving. It tries to punish you wherever it can and whenever you screw up. This is the essence of the game. Without wanting to drive you away from DayZ, but if you cannot find fun, satisfaction or at least an impulse beating the game at screwing you over, then maybe, this game simply isn't for you. You shouldn't try to beat a game that isn't beatable, but instead you should try to avoid loosing for as long as you can. I agree with you that the night needs a fix. In fact Dean Hall agrees with us as well. As he stated on one of the plentiful interviews he conducted in the last weeks, the ArmA II engine was never designed to actually render night scenarios without the player having access to night vision goggles. So adjusting the light level at night when not wearing NVG never was a priority and simply never done. We should expect this do be fixed at some stage. Be aware though that DayZ is an alpha stage mod and such an fix, depending on technical aspects, might only come in a stand-alone version of the game. This might be disappointing at first, but then again, there simply are certain limitations to what the ArmA II can and cannot do. I know it's a week argument, but I want you to keep this in mind when arguing about how zombie mechanics need to be fixed: Zombie behavior is buggy, glitchy and absolutely not nice at the moment. However, personally I have not been killed by a zombie ever yet. I have been killed by players, I have been killed by bugs and glitches. I have never been killed by a zombie. Zombies need fixing, I don't think they need a nerf though.

I do agree that we need some form of visual customization for our characters. Since I am pretty sure though that decent character customization is not doable in the ArmA II engine (at least from what I have learned reading and listening to a couple of Dean Hall interviews), I expect we'll have to wait until there is a stand-alone or ArmA III based release of DayZ. Until then I think efforts should be focused on features and bugs that actually are well fixable in the context of the current implementation.

Sorry, but I disagree. If you want to group up, do it. Nothing in the game will stop you from it. Adding distinct group features will only reduce authenticity. Why would it be easier to find a friend of yours than any other player on a server? Of course you can simply agree to meet at a certain point at a certain time. But you don't need special group features for that.

I strongly believe that adding character customization would actually help in this regard much nicer. If you want to essential stigmatize bandits as being outlaws, allowing them to e.g. be hunted down by vigilantes, or similar, you only need to make killers (or any other survivor) recognizable. Without any character customization it is impossible to distinguish characters and thus it is not possible for bandits to build up a reputation as a bandit (and the other way around). Adding character customization will help much more in fixing this problem in my eyes, and even without adding additional "out of game" information. I personally think the "Player was killed." messages should be removed all together from the game. Currently they are an essential source of security for bandits and alike that their target actually is dead and not just prone or unconscious.

I like most suggestions but I absolutely need to add a significant point to the character customization point. People keep talking about how the PVP in this game is ruthless and there is incredible hard to build any kind of trust with other players. I believe a significant part of this comes from not being able to identify other people. Survivors basically are absolutely anonymous. There's no chance to ever recognize a survivor you might have already teamed up with or who at least refrained from killing you earlier. Character customization creates the unnecessary foundation for people actually building trust in each other. It is an essential feature to allow more ad-hoc group play.

Please have a look at my suggestion in the "Solution to Alt+F4 and Server Hopping"-thread. It would also fix this problem.

I think the whole point of evaluating to disable respawning is to prevent spawn location selection. Yes, you will still be able to run into a horde of zombies, or into Cherno, or jump from a lighthouse, but all of this will take considerably more time than simply hitting Escape -> Respawn. And they are in fact emergent gameplay to some degree. The only problem though in fact is, what is if you run through a forest, far off from any town, fall from a rock and break your leg without having morphine with you. You are stuck. You will have to crawl to the next location providing you the means for suicide which might take dozens of minutes if not hours. For this reason you could add the option to kill yourself with your gun. Most players, except the very freshly spawned ones, will have access to a firearm most of the time anyway. And that freshly spawned players don't have the means to suicide is what this is all about.

I see where this is coming from and in fact Dean stated on an interview that he is thinking about allowing you to commit suicide with your gun. He was concerned about how this would affect the games rating though should it be released stand alone. @kyle: Dean is going to remove/thinks about removing the respawn button in an upcoming patch.

+1 for this proposal. Simplification is good most of the time. Simplification that increases authenticity is even better.

As Dean himself stated multiple times on interviews, server hopping, ghosting and Alt+F4'ing are serious disruptions to the DayZ game play. They neither add to the authenticity of the game nor do they help building emergent game play. And in fact Dean is going to try fix those problems in an upcoming patch most likely using cool downs on server switching and maybe even killing players who repeatedly server hop, ghost or Alt+F4. The OP has a point here and telling him to "die" is certainly not good manner. While I agree with the OP and Dean, that there is a problem, I do not agree if either of their solutions. In my eyes the OP's solution is much too technical. Specifying different log out rules based on radius on loot locations is neither easily understandable nor does it tie into the "No Rules" theme of the game. Dean's cooldown solution suffers from a similar problem. Introducing cool downs and maybe even killing player characters when hopping servers also introduces rules, which again is a contradiction to what Dean repeatedly stated he was trying to aim for with DayZ. Also, adding a reconnection cooldown will not really help fixing Alt+F4 scenarios. So I would like to provide a counter proposal to these solutions which I believe ties better into the golden rule of "There are no rules", as well as providing an authentic mechanism which is believeable and fixes all of the listed problems. I propose to introduce a log out "ritual". Log out rituals are very common in MMOs and help preventing similar scenarios in other games. A log out ritual requires a player to undertake a certain "ritual" or activity which will then allow him to seamlessly log out. For example, in World of Warcraft you have to sit down and wait for a timer of a couple of seconds to elapse before you can log out seamlessly. In other games you might have to do a prayer, visit a tavern, sleep in a bed or similar. If the player does not undertake the ritual and drops out of the game by e.g. either Alt+F4 or loosing the connection, then he his character will remain in-game for a couple of minutes before he actually disappears. During this time, he is especially prone to PVE and PVP attacks. While a player is still able to Alt+F4, he will most likely not want to do it, because he will leave his avatar helpless. How could such a ritual be implemented in DayZ? There are two aspects to it. First there is a technical aspect and second there is a roleplay / authenticity aspect to it. From a technical standpoint an implementation could look like follows. Numbers are suggestion and can and probably should be adjusted: To log out seamlessly a player needs to perform a log out ritual. The ritual should take between 10 and 20 seconds, require a certain amount of space and maybe a special tool or item, be clearly visible when performing, and should only be possible in the outside. The actual ritual implementation should reflect these "rules" in an authentic way, so they do not appear as rules, but as a limitation coming from the nature of the ritual. If a player logs out using the ritual, he is free to reconnect to any server at any time. If a player fails to perform the ritual, when disconnecting, his character will drop unconscious for about 2 to 5 minutes. He will remain lying helplessly at the spot until a) either the time passes at which he will despawn and finally be disconnected or the player reconnects on the same server, which will bring the character back immediately or c) the character dies. For as long as the unconscious avatar remains present in the world, the player will not be able to connect to any other server than the one with his unconscious avatar. Only when his avatar despawns or dies he will be able to connect to another server (or the same sever again, for that matter). If the character dies while lying unconscious the player will get the death message the next time he connects and will be prompted to create a new character from there. There are several options for a ritual implementation in DayZ. Two I think are especially compelling, because they provide a authentic reason for the rules I setup for the ritual before. Both are simply suggestions and the form of the ritual actually isn't very important as long as it provides authentic reason for the specified rules set. So take these as suggestions. Maybe you can come up with your own ideas. Sleep in a tent To be able to log out seamlessly you will have to sleep in a tent. This requires you to either find a tent already setup or to find a tent yourself and set it up on the server you which to log out from seamlessly. Setting up a tent takes some time, requires space and is not possible inside of buildings. Also, since tents are rather rare and bound to the server where they are setup you will most likely not be willing to carry one around with you and use it to log out whenever you feel like it. Note though, that you will be able to disassemble it and take it with you again, if you log into the same server again. Setting up a tent in a combat situation is not really feasible and since it is bound to the server you log out from, you cannot use it for server hopping. While ghosting you could setup a tent, sleep in it, log in to another server, flank an opponent, log out there without a tent, receive the unconsciousness penalty, wait a couple of minutes to reconnect to your original server and then flank your opponent. This however will take some time. Also, while you are ghosting, your opponent will have the chance to spot the tent and figure out what is going on. While you are setting up the tent and while you are unconscious on the other server, you expose yourself to great risk, making this strategy basically unprofitable. Sitting at a camp fire The other scenario I would like to propose is sitting at a camp fire. To able to log out seamlessly, you would have to set up and light up a camp fire and sit at it for 10 to 20 seconds. When disconnected, the camp fire will burn out, but the fire place itself will remain. To do this you will require matches as well as either an already prepared camp fire, some logs of wood in your backpack or a hatchet and a forest. Setting up a camp fire takes some time and depending on if you have logs with you or not, it will require you to travel to the next forest. However, a camp fire is much more accessible than a tent, much more flexible in where and when you can set it up. As a camp fire is easily spotable from afar, it is not really feasible using it to flank somebody. Also, setting up a camp fire and sitting at it for 10 to 20 seconds is not really doable in a general combat situation. Using a campfire to hop from server to server however is possible to a certain degree. If you pack your bagpack with enough logs or are close to a forest, you can still rather easily hop from server to server. It will require a certain effort though. Q&A Since I anticipate a couple of questions or critique I want to elaborate upfront: Q: This is really uncomfortable. Players will hate it, I certainly already do. A: Most players hate most aspects about DayZ. In fact the game is tailored around pissing you of and showing you how much it can kick you in your balls. This ties in well in my eyes. Q: When requiring a tent or matches and a hatchet to logout, I will not be able to log out seamlessly the most time! A: Yes, but to some degree this is the point. Making the process of log out more cumbersome, to prevent it from being abused. Also, since tents are so rare, players will start using other player's tents to log out, providing another opportunity for emergent gameplay to evolve. Q: But if a tent and the fireplace will remain at the location where I logged out, then other players will know where I logged out and maybe even camp the location! A: Camping out in front of Elektro in a post apocalyptic world with bandits waiting to slit your throat and take your valuables isn't a good idea, correct. Find a saver spot to set up your camp. Q: This is technically not implementable. Get lost you moron! A: I do not know what exactly is possible for DayZ as a ArmA II Modification, I am pretty sure that this functionality is implementable. I think Dean or whoever would implement such a functionality in the end, would have to decide if this is technically possible. Q: I love this suggestion! You are a genius! I want to marry you! A: You may send in female marriage proposals by direct message. Please include a picture of you. ;)