Bakst

You missed my reply, above: abran33, on 15 November 2012 - 07:43 AM, said: hey i had a suggestion. wouldnt it be good if we made players be able to find cellphones yes cellphones so they can communicate with others they need real or fake if u know what i mean like make up ur own number or have the system give u one and call ur friends have their numbers registered oh and u need to charge the battery of course. Okay I want to respond to ComboBreaker's post but first I need to address this idea. Umm, why cellphones -- what's wrong with radios? And how exactly do you envision charging your battery in a world without power plants? There has certainly been talk about introducing generators, being able to reactivate power stations, etc. etc. but like I said: what's wrong with radios?

So -- different (sub-)topic -- how is the experience on the DayZ.nu servers? Can anyone report? I haven't tried it out yet.

Afaik that's a strong possibility sometime down the line in the SA. Rocket/devs have been making noises about that.

Anytime my man, anytime.

Good point, although I was suggesting that the mechanism only kick in when a player logs onto a server so as to reduce the rewards for server hopping. Once you've logged on and moved a certain distance from any loot spawns (or if you log into a safe spot), the spawn blocker doesn't kick in until your next relog. That has the side-effect of providing safe exit from buildings you've spawned into, provided no other players are around... although that would be another exploit I suppose, since Alt-F4 types could then relog to avoid zeds. Shit man I don't know, but I don't think either of our ideas will really work :/

Yes that's true. I was referring to the fact that you can play Minecraft on a single-player localhost (campaign was the wrong term), and that you can "beat" the game at The End. I think it would be nice to have something similar in DayZ, although it certainly is not a deal-breaker for me if they don't add it.

Meh. Irl it's extremely difficult to fly a jet, only very talented pilots with years of military training and 20/20 eye-sight can do this. In a zombie apocalypse, nobody but the most well-organized militia would be in a position to use an airborne death machine of this kind. Most of the world's remaining jets would probably be dismantled for parts, and anyone who attempted to fly one would probably end up crashing it sooner or later. Jets also consume obscene amounts of kerosene, more than you could ever find in a place like Chernarus. They're designed to conduct missions hundreds of miles away... so on a 225-sq.-km map it doesn't make sense to fly around in a jet, even if you could -- choppers are much better for that. And lastly, fighter jets are good for a military sim like ArmA, but in DayZ they'd be an out-of-place immersion killer imho. Edit: It's also a balance issue. If some players have jets then others need the ability to take them down, which means AA batteries, missile cruisers, etc. I don't think an AS50 will do the trick against a jet passing overhead at 600 mph :D

Okay I want to respond to ComboBreaker's post but first I need to address this idea. Umm, why cellphones -- what's wrong with radios? And how exactly do you envision charging your battery in a world without power plants? There has certainly been talk about introducing generators, being able to reactivate power stations, etc. etc. but like I said: what's wrong with radios? Right so I think both these ideas are deffo on the right track. The safe-zone "bubble" is a great idea, I don't see any issues with that and I'd expect it could even be introduced to the mod without too much trouble (?). As for getting people to loot across the map, I do think that the new SA map will encourage this to some extent simply by having more enterable buildings (with loot) all over the place. For that matter, as someone who never deliberately server hops to gain loot in the same spot (I mean c'mon that's so BORING!), I actually move around the map quite a bit. In fact, most of my time in DayZ is probably spent running thru the god-forsaken woods of Chernarus... anyway back to your idea, I do think that two people looting the same pile should also see the same loot. Anything else would be silly. Also, if they did it the way you suggested then a squad of four players could loot the exact same pile four times, once per player, for quadruple the loot! That doesn't seem right to me. Maybe instead there could be some kind of mechanism that prevents loot from spawning near a player who just spawned in or near a building... it would make server hopping just a tad more taxing, as you would have to gain some distance from the loot before you relog on another server and go back to it. Of course if other players are already present near the same bldg then they would cause loot to spawn, but that's fine I guess. (A long time ago, before I understood how loot spawns work, I actually thought that such a mechanism existed). What do you think?

pretty exciting stuff! I'm excited to see how all this heavy customization affects the gameplay... will log on to the server later today

Hi, on UK 172 last night (Nov. 13) sometime around 11pm UTC I killed a man on the hillside NE of Elektro near the East Coast. It looked like he had just looted Elektro, as he had all the basic gear on him, not to mention an AKS-74U and two jerry cans. A friend of mine happened to spot him from his vantage point atop the hospital, and then the guy ran right by my hillside overwatch. I didn't hesitate, and took him out from a concealed position. It was this particular character's first murder, so I feel like it's a big deal :) And I do feel some remorse for this cold, calculated murder... but I stand by my decision. We needed the loot. He had the loot. We had the drop. We took the chance. Guess that makes us bandits! But if you are out there, dude, I'm sorry for your death! I'm sure it was very annoying to gear up only to get shot on your way out. I am hereby revealing myself to you so you may attempt your revenge ;)

Interested, sent email. Did anyone else have a hard time figuring this out? I got it now: side chat, password, whitelist. PS: Love the reloadable hatchet image you posted!

haha :) I know can you believe it?

lol it's not my first murder, and I've been doing bandit stuff for some time. And I don't feel horrible at all. The point of my post was not the remorse, it was to find the dude who died at the hands of my CCO SD. And to share a fun little experience.

100%. But how do you feel about a single-player campaign à la Minecraft?

I have to chime in here and agree that such an endgame would be detrimental to this MMO sandbox game, HOWEVER I do think The Cure would be an outstanding narrative for a single-player campaign if there ever is one.

Agreed. Still, when I'm a fresh spawn who needs to gear up, I go for low-pop (but certainly not no-pop) servers, much like Peter suggested (see below). Once geared up, I prefer anywhere between 30 and 40 players. 50 is getting a little ridiculous for me given the map size, although there are worse fates... =) In the end I think it comes down to what Dr Octagon said, although I might add that I think public servers are just fine these days in terms of cheating/security: Basically, as you start playing DayZ, you want to begin a process of filtering the servers down to the ones that suit you best. The best place to start is indeed geographical location: I live in Germany so it's all DE and UK servers for me. Once you've limited your selection to nearby locales with good pings, apply further filters in the form of 3dp, ch, and death msg settings according to your preference. You could further limit your search by excluding servers that are running older versions of the beta patch. By now you should have a manageable server list, and this is where you have to start playing on a few of these servers in order to get to know the admins and regulars. If you find one you like, fav it and keep at it! Becoming a regular pays off as you become more familiar with your environment and the habits of your friends and foes :)

Not a bad idea at all. You can currently "hide" things which is like burying them, except you can't dig em back up again: they simply vanish into the ground and are lost forever. Being able to hide things in the ground would be cool, but I'm not sure it's feasible from a gameplay point of view. Also, technical limitations perhaps? I don't know but in principle it would certainly make hiding your camps a lot easier... maybe too easy? There would have to be signs of recent digging sites, like loose ground etc. Again, probably not technically doable :(

Not that I'm posting this as a bandit... or am I? lol

The only time I ever played on a server with 40+ players was back in the early summer. I was quickly discouraged from such servers, as these were still the bad old days of widespread thunderdoming & co. But I must say that these days, when I'm somewhat geared up 30-40 players is pretty exhilarating. For a map the size of Chernarus I don't think I need more than 40 though.

I second that. Expert/hardcore servers with 3dp & ch off are the way to go. In Chernarus low pop is good at first for gearing up, say with up to 10 players on the server, minimizing your risks early in the character's life. When you're ready, it's always fun to go on medium to high pop servers with anywhere between 20 and 40 players. Even with 3dp:off you're still at a significant disadvantage as a lone wolf when you're up against a hostile team or squad, but 3dp:off gives you a slight tactical edge as it makes it easier to conceal your position. Oh and another tip: before you log onto a server, check the player names in Dayz Cmdr. If you see a bunch of players with clan names like "[~XYZ~] Killer" you might consider going somewhere else since these guys will most likely be very well equipped and taking them on alone would be suicide. (Edit #2: If there is actually a playner named Killer belonging to a clan called XYZ then I apologize, the name was pure fiction on my part ;))

the focus is on authenticity, not realism. rocket's words. bowel movements don't really figure into that.

Really dude? I rarely even venture into Cherno or Elektro these days, as I prefer to gear up elsewhere across the map. On a moderately busy server you're always likely to encounter PvP action in any of the northern cities -- Zeleno, Stary, Berezino, etc. -- not to mention the "wild" way up north between the airfields, where especially on veteran servers you'll find yourself doing battle with entire squads looking to protect their camps or whatever. So, I don't really see where you're going with this. Your other suggestions have all been made before on this thread and elsewhere on the forums, but as for the one above... well it's probably also been said before, but personally I haven't seen it yet and I think it's a great idea. Maybe even make the zombies especially susceptible to physical trauma, since they're really just rotting corpses that happen to be alive :) I totally agree. I get the feeling that the gaming industry is generally speaking pretty psyched about ragdoll physics, but imo the resulting animations look silly. When a body falls from impact it tends to slide unnaturally across the ground as if friction didn't matter, or it will go flying across the room from a mere arrow to the chest, limbs flailing like... well, a rag doll! It just doesn't look natural or authentic to me.

That would be pretty cool, similar to what Notch did with the Herobrine creepy-pasta in Minecraft. But like you said the narrative should be kept in the background, you don't want to force it on the player. Mostly it would be clues about the infection and the fall of civilization. I really like the idea of it being an ongoing story that develops organically over time with the community and devs working in tandem. The important thing here is for the narrative to fit the gameplay mechanics already in place, not the other way around.

It's called a "debug" window for a reason. See HulkingUnicorn's explanation above. I don't know if the devs intended for the blood indicator to be ambiguous or not, but either way I agree that the 9000-blood level should be more clearly marked. I think a simple change to the icon's color palette is all it would take to fix this, just make the 6000-9000 range a distinct yellow gradient (for example). I've always understood DayZ to be a work in progress. Despite it being a mod in alpha stage it's already very playable a lot of fun for me, but there's also no doubt that working out all the bugs, exploits and game mechanics requires patience on the part of the community. It's worth the effort tho because of all the hard work the devs are putting into this. If you don't like it then that's a shame but so be it. Farewell.

That's true. Even so, I've ventured onto servers with 10 to 30 players and still haven't met any major cheaters -- plenty of BE script restrictions in the side chat tho. But maybe the expert servers are less attractive to scriddies *knocks on wood*