MouseDenton

I helped him last night. Thought he'd updated post

Okay, okay, okay, maybe not exactly hats. But that's exactly what I think about when it comes to in-game items used as recognition of the player's contribution or activities thanks to TF2. And, like many of us here, I think it'd be cool if there were some way to differentiate those that played DayZ in alpha from those that joined in beta (I'm assuming that'd be the standalone) and everyone who joins after it's finished. In other words: GIMME!!! Maybe this could be a small symbol in front of the player's nameplate, a tweak to their player skins like a badge, or something as awesome as a hat or unique melee weapon that's consistent between lives (that last one's a bit of a stretch, pushing the whole "rebirth" thing of respawning). Such a bonus would help ease the pain some people might feel after having bought ARMA II combined operations (or even all the expansions) just to play DayZ, and then find out that the standalone is coming by the end of the year. The way I figure this could be done is if, when you're creating your character for the standalone and registering with the central hive, the game can scan your computer for your ARMA II OA folder and check your GUID, then search the current hive's list for a matching one. If you're on there without a ban or other black mark, boom! There ya go! A green beret, just for you, you trooper of the ARMA II engine! What do you guys think? Should we get some sort of recognition over everyone else just because we suffered through the ARMA II bugs? Does every game need hats*? (Both actual and/or metaphorical.) EDIT: A friend and I were talking about character customization, and he mentioned Battlefield 3's dog tags. The idea would be very similar to that of BF3, where on the front one is your player name and on the back is a custom image (or chosen from pre-sets), but they would be visible on your character while you're alive as well as removable from your dead body. Right off the bat my mind went nuts imagining bandits with necklaces filled with other people's dog tags, or even hanging from their guns. Ideas?

Does it say exactly "You have been kicked off the game" or something like "Host rejected the connection"? I'd suggest doing all the basic stuff you've probably already plodded through: Verify integrity of game cache (both ARMA II and OA), restart computer, try connecting Reinstall Battleye Anti-Cheat on ARMA II, restart computer, try connecting Check versions of ARMA II/DayZ/Lingor/etc in DayZ Commander to ensure they're all up-to-date, install where needed, restart computer, try connecting Beyond that, you'll probably need a specific error description or code to get more help. One thing you could try is having a friend join a server that has death messages, try connecting yourself, and ask him if the server announces your failed connection attempt with a specific error code. Sometimes it won't tell you when you get booted during the loading screens.

Call me a communist, but I would prefer a "food web" of weapons balance over the current styled "food chain" where rarer weapons get continually more beneficial. Look at the one thing Call of Duty does right ('cos they haven't changed it since 2007) where weapons are suited for specific play styles, even down to their attachments. In CoD4's multiplayer, they're all perfectly balanced (with a few exceptions like the scorpion's infinite range). So instead of the most experienced or well-equipped players having the "top tier" damaging or beneficial weapons, everyone's are equally balanced but suited to different play styles through mechanics such as rate of fire, recoil control, bullet spreads, drop and speed, and ammunition type, which would then dictate base damage and range. Attachments would also have balancing pros and cons, so even having no attachments could appeal to someone's style. Thoughts?

Wound size is an awesome concept! With that you could consider different types of ammunition like AP versus hollow-point, or even fragmenting for slow-bleeding but difficult to heal wounds.

If you ever go up to a group of gun enthusiasts and tell them one gun is the best, you will earn the title of greatest troll in history. Sure, a lot of real-life guns are shit, but just look at how heated the debates are between the AK and AR crowds. Essentially, in real-life it's not a question of which is outright better, but which you prefer. And that's what I'm getting at here. Do you want that knock-down power of the heavy 7.62mm at the cost of high recoil? Or would you prefer to put a lot more of the lighter 5.56mm rounds at a blazing pace? (Another great series of debates in the firearms community is that between calibers.)

I figured the unlockables (strictly cosmetic) would be a way to offer players some consistency and progression, without ending up with the goddamn MMORPG ladder of levels. Functionally, you're still the same scared mound of flesh with legs and loot as everyone else, but since you didn't screw up too bad last life, here's a cookie :D And I'm totally with you on deference to the developers. All hail! If it wasn't for them we'd be stuck waiting for the next CoD game to slam another nail into the coffin of creative gaming!

I'll just got over to my local home and garden store and get some! Thanks! Seriously though, that camo netting is a good idea since no matter how well you hide a car from random survivors, that one team that has the heli can pick you out of the shrubbery like nobody's business. Done it myself while playing manhunt on a private hive. Vertical cover is a joke.

Well the issue I saw with this is that there'd be code for that item somewhere in the game, since items in the world are server-side. Someone could then duplicate, intentionally spawn, or otherwise hack it, and at that point you might as well just give it to everyone, which is where the GUIDs would come in. Plus, matching up players registering for the standalone the with hive's list would ensure that people banned during the alpha couldn't get anything (or maybe they'd get a bright red T-shirt they can't skin over :P)

A friend of mine actually was going through the coding and stuff when we finally got our own server, and found that there's actually a skin specifically for Rocket. It might be that all the devs have their own ARMA skins, but that was another factor that got me to post this. But really, it's not like I'm going to participate in a beta just for an in-game item. It'd also be interesting if certain items that you could use to customize your character (which has been mentioned in for the standalone) were unlocked through achievements, like survive for 10 days or get 500 zombie kills in one life. Things not impossible, but hard enough to make you appreciate the hat/badge/colored socks you get for it.

Just as shoutout to any gas mask fans out there, a lot of the ones on the market are affordable for a reason. Those Russian models that float up everywhere are not approved for actual use, and you've got to check the manufacturing date on your filters: the chemicals they use will settle (forgot technical term) over time and only filter out dust and particles, not aerosols/gases.

My friend did that accidentally to the same building. Thankfully he survived and I was outside it. And oh god, that motion blur.

Was totally expecting this :P I was actually inspired by Blacklight: Retribution's offering weapon tags and a limited-time-offer weapon to those who played prior and during the STEAM release. Before then I could only remember seeing this sort of promotional stuff being done in TF2 (and amazingly at that), which is why I use the phrase "hats" to describe that sort of stuff; something strictly cosmetic but unique for something you did or happened to take part in that doesn't necessarily have to do with the game it's in.

Whitelist hopeful medic standing by to help, currently in the area of Stary Sobor. Message me on STEAM: ee_mouse

I've got a couple things I'll just leave here instead of making my own thread for: Police skins - When someone has a high bandit-to-murder ration (as in killed a crap ton more bandits than non-bandits), they get a police skin, which could be a black KGB-like trench coat and Ushanka cap that could help conceal them from night-vision. Clan/Legion skins - Maybe official clans could create their own set of clothes or something with a custom logo to verify their membership. It'd make something like the TMW easier to identify. First-aid kit - I came up with this while playing a lot of stalker: basically it's a large bag (could replace backpack or go into secondary weapon slot) that can be used to heal all medical ailments. It has durability meters for each treatment available, and they must be resupplied, but at a much more economic rate than, say, using painkillers or morphine directly. You'd pick up some painkillers and put them into the bag, and it'd multiply their use since you're doing through this large, somehow encombersome, utility. Hand drawn HUD - I also got frustrated with the ARMA HUD and dreamed up an alternative that could fit in with the whole scavenging-zombie apocalypse. All information is presented as hand-drawn/written on scraps of paper, and when injured the pieces get more and more blood splatter on them, making the info harder to read.

We only seem to care about stuff when it happens to us. +1 interest.

My $0.02: Keep it simple. The great thing about DayZ is that it's realistic in the sense that there's almost no carry over, making your life infinitely valuable. And the more complex you make the game, the more frustrating and ultimately unplayable it will be when all those intricately woven features are suddenly null and void because you cut across a friend's line of sight during a shootout. Just a thought.

A few suggestions from the squad's quartermaster: 1) READ: INVENTORY WARNING! When an inventory store space is full, the game still allows you to drop whatever it is you're trying to deposit in, but it'll get eaten (or something else will, sometimes it's random). Now the item doesn't actually vanish, but is teleported to some random location. My team has lost some rather valuable items to vehicles "eating" them, or, worse, tents. Perhaps a mechanic that doesn't allow you to do this, or at least warns you? And if that doesn't work, maybe a small counter next to inventory names when you've got them open to show their current loaded status. For example, at the top of the menu it'd say something like "Ural: 0/10 3/50 17/200", first number's the packs it can carry, second is the weapons/tools, and third is everything else. This way a player can see if there's room beforehand. 2) Lockable tents. I hate tents. They're stationary, vulnerable, small, and compared to something like a Ural they're horribly inefficient. The main benefits are the low profile, frequency, and camouflage. But I feel there should be something more to it. Perhaps, when the squad mechanic is implemented, you could lock them up (bypass with a toolkit) to restrict access by players not in the tent creator's squad. Or there could be a set number of keys that can be traded between players for a specific tent. Then again, if I'm being practical, I'd just like a capacity boost for the tents, which would be much easier and keep with the vulnerability of all server side (and client side) items. 3) Keep the magazine, spend the ammo. What with the dozens of types of the same caliber ammo in different mags floating around, maybe it'd be easier to require players to take loose ammunition and fill magazines themselves. When a full mag is emptied, the empty mag goes back into their inventory, and must be refilled or discarded. Magazines should then be somewhat more difficult to find than ammo, particularly for rarer items. This would solve the issue of there being five or six types of ammo of the same caliber. I'm not sure how this could be modified to prevent it from negatively impacting the mass-storage inventory system, where each individual round would take up a single slot in a tent/vehicle. Maybe putting them in stacks of 5 (a common denominator for all that caliber's magazines)? C&C appreciated.

Perhaps, if there were a way to lock the tent, the only way to access it could be a toolkit (to disable the lock) or a hunting knife (cut the canvas). At least then it would offer some small form of protection, making it a little more valuable as a storage place. But like I said, I'd be more interested in the capacity being boosted.