pozo15

This release is great. Pretty buggy, but that'll get fixed. I love the fact that you spawn with a flashlight but no weapon. This completely changes the COD noobs killing each other. There is now very little incentive to prey on freshly spawned players. I wouldn't complain if we got an empty water canteen but this works fine. The new zombie LOS is awesome, it feels like you can actually outsmart zombies and not just play the system. Between these changes and no global chat the game feels completely different and sooo much better. Keep it up!

*** This post has been updated on 05-23-12 due to an improved explanation. *** One of the only issues I have with the game experience is spawning. I don't mind spawning in a random location, that's great. The problem is when you are all joining a server as a group (in my case 2-3 people total). When we join, the fun part is being in the group, not spending half of our playtime finding each other. Nothing interesting has happened so far while searching for my buddy. We don't get immersed during that searching time, we just try to get that part over with and get into the real game. This is not a difficulty issue, it's a time issue. As it is right now, what we end up doing is spawning/de-spawning until we get the same location. I would suggest being able to select your general spawn location from the existing coast spawn points, that way friends can coordinate their arrival. I don't see a huge game breaking issue with a system like this. It could even be used to avoid spawn campers, and we could get rid of that immersion breaking bottom right message magically telling you current location when you spawn. Here is how this system would work: The system would use the spawn points we already have now (Three Valleys, Kamenka, etc), but instead of spawning immediately, you are presented with all available spawn points in a list (no map, just a list). The spawn points would just be called by numbers that way you don't know what you are selecting. For example: Location #1 Location #2 Those spawn point numbers would not always be the same. The hosting server would randomize the spawn point values at an hourly rate. For example, for 1 hour: Location #1 = Wilderness Location # 2 = Kamenka and then it would rotate the values for each spawn number to a randomized result each hour. That seems do-able and non-game breaking to me. And with that system you could remove the message that appears when you spawn that gives you your current location. Also, the group spawn can actually make sense in the zombie survival context. Groups of survivors could have banded together before entering Chernarus. Can anyone think of any major issues with this idea? I think we're onto something here. I wish Rocket, a dev, or a mod would weigh in on this to say whether they'd ever consider this type of setup.

I've updated the original post to be more clear and elaborate. Please re-read and tell me what you think.

Read my thread about this here: http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=5305 It covers group spawning at the coast spawn points and in a non game-breaking way.

Also, the spawn points could just be called by numbers that way you don't know what you are selecting. Example: Spawn #1 = Three Valleys You could even randomize the spawn point values at an hourly rate. By that I mean, for 1 hour: Spawn #1 = Wilderness Spawn # 2 = Kamenka and then it would change the values for each spawn number to a randomized result each hour. That seems doable and non-game breaking to me. And with that system you can disable the message when you spawn that gives you your current location. I think we're onto something here. I wish Rocket, a dev, or a mod would weigh in on this to say whether they'd ever consider this type of setup.

While it's a nice idea in concept to be able to group up, forcing any mechanics through systems goes against what this mod is trying to do. This mod wants to be as open and minimalistic as possible. It doesn't want to assume that you play a certain way. If you want to form a group, the you have to do so organically and not through a coded grouping system. Also, Rocket seems to want as little GUI stuff as possible. And I'd have to agree with his philosophy. PS @mkrrr, you should try to at least be constructive in your lazy replies. What is the point of even stating "no group spawning plz hurr durr" without a reason why you are against it?

After spawning and finding each other, my friend and I, headed North in order to get away from the coast and other players. After some unfortunate encounters with zombies in a couple of towns, we were low on ammo and food, and dangerously low on water, but I had managed to get a hunting rifle with a scope. We were scouting a town we had run across but decided to go around it, because there were too many zombies. We walked around the town to some hills overlooking what seemed like a military quarantine area with lots of body bags and zombies. We were going to skip it and keep moving North until we heard gunshots down below. We hid among the grass and trees, while I scoped the area and saw another player running from a group of zombies. He ran into the quarantine area. The player had figured out that he could stand in the middle of all the body bags and zombies couldn’t get to him while he shot them. As he was taking down zombies, we had to make a decision. The choice we came up with were: Help him and gain an ally but risk getting killed if he wasn’t friendly. Wait and see if he would be killed by zombies so that we could grab his gear. If he survives the horde, wait for him to leave and loot the area if anything was left. Kill him with my sniper rifle after he cleared the zombies and loot him and the area. It was an intense decision to make because we had to choose quickly and consider all the pros and cons at the same time. Finally, we decided, and seeing that he had finished clearing the zombies and was now bandaging himself, I held my breath to stabilize my aim and fired a shot. The bullet him in the torso, and I fired again to make sure he wouldn’t survive. We descended the hill towards the body bags but my rifle had drawn the attention of a couple remaining zombies. We ran to the body bags and dealt with about 4-5 Z’s. Once it was all clear we checked his gear, and jackpot! He had a map, a compass, binoculars, a Remington shotgun with a flashlight attached. He also, had some food, chemlights and an empty water bottle. We divided the loot and moved North. Jump to a couple days later, and things hadn’t gone well at all. We had no ammo, no food, no water, and I was losing blood from starvation. We had nothing but bad luck after that encounter, and ended up roaming around Northern Chernarus frantically looking for an opportunity of any kind. In the end, we found a radio tower. We ran to it and climbed to the top past a group of zombies. The zombies obviously notices us, but we didn’t care. We had hoped we would find something up there, anything. But no. And with no ammo or supplies there was no way out. We stood over the edge of the railing and jumped to our deaths. The End.

All of this would be awesome. One great use for non-lethal would be incapacitate a player steal his gear, hold him prisoner or evade. I can then keep my humanity and save my real ammo for zombies.

This would be awesome. Also, a "Surrender!" and "I Surrender" gesture, for muggins or captives.

@ Zarlak. I understand that this is a brutal mod. It can't get brutal enough for me. I wouldn't have it any other way. I hate people that bitch because all they have ever played are shitty middle of the road arcady games. Your argument above doesn't quite stand up though: When I spawn I know exactly where I am, you know why? Because it tells me my location on the bottom right. Also, I've played Arma extensively (and many other players have) so Cherno, Elektro, Kamenka, Three Valleys etc, are familiar. If you really want to get serious about this location stuff, let's remove the name when you spawn. Also, idiots will simply look at the Chernarus map on the internet. The reality is that people know where they are when they spawn (except maybe the first times playing). If I want to get to your precious base up North, I'll just keep de-spawning until I get the desired spawn location. So the issue you are worried about already exists. At this point, we need to either make the spawning more hardcore and remove any indication of where you are (simply remove the location name when spawning), which would be great, or go a step in the other direction and let players select their spawn. I just don't like this half-assed difficulty right now for spawning.

This is not a needed feature. Like TeaLeaf says it can be done through player behavior. Yeah it's risky, but if you outnumber a player, you're gonna get his stuff one way or another. I'd rather get mugged than killed, especially if I was far up North, or had a tent stashed somewhere etc. Obviously if you just spawned as a new player there isn't much incentive for you to not just take your chances and blast the robber(s). Forcing a mechanic where the player being mugged is artificially being restrained and can't make his own decisions, doesn't sound very fun to me.

I played briefly (until the server went down) and loved the temp system. With the fixes incoming it will add a whole new lever of play. The coughing works as I was hoping and makes your life much harder but in a fun way. Don't back down for all those carebears, this is good.

Goodbye then. It sounds awesome IMO.

Did the Zombie spawn rate get lowered a bit? I know it was in the changelog before, did you change your mind since then? Just curious if it's intentional or accidentally left out of the log.

I would love to be kept on my toes out in the wilderness. I think multiple but smaller persistent hordes of 4-5 zombies should be roaming aimlessly/randomly. 4-5 zombies is plenty to take you down when you're low on ammo in the woods or get surprised. This would greatly enhance the gameplay to not only look out for players out of towns. This would also make people really paranoid at all times and increase the potential for amazing stories. I would imagine that this is already a planned feature though. It makes too much sense.

Restricting brightness with a script would be useless, because people can still change gamma and brightness settings on their video cards and screens. It's unfortunate, but we kind of have to rely on an honor system. Maybe hardcore servers have less shitty cheaters since they are only looking to play the system for an easy difficulty? Also, those guys get smoked during daytime, because they aren't actually good players to begin with. I've killed so many bandits that were just dumb as rocks, and totally clueless in how to navigate stealthy during daytime. Without their little crutch they are nothing. Unfortunately this attitude comes from people playing nothing but aracady games where it's just about memorizing and knowing how to cheat the game vs relying on actual mental skill to deal with unexpected/unforeseen events. This lack of creativity is why we have so many retards trying to min/max everything in this mod like loot spawn rate and locations, spawning into other servers at loot locations, etc. I have yet to understand how that is any fun. If you play this mod like that, you are the most boring person ever, also kill yourself. Just because these people feel powerless in their real life they feel they need to min/max anything they can control. It's sad. This whole game is about not knowing where things are and getting stuck in shitty situations, that's whats fun. Anyways, the brightness issue is just part of a much bigger mentality problem, and it's not going away. I hope Rocket goes out of his way to remove as much control from the player as possible. By that I mean, very randomized loot and locations etc. Anything to keep people on their toes constantly.

You're right OP, we should all make more of an effort to post what we're happy about. People who enjoy the mod are less likely to make a positive thread either because they are too busy playing the mod or they don't feel that their happiness needs to be expressed. It's annoying that human nature gravitates so much towards negativity while barely voicing positivity. There is obviously a good human/societal preservation reason for those immensely uneven proportions, but in the context of a relatively consequence-free community, such as forums, it just stifles any chance of productive communications. All we're left with is a small amount of people essentially spamming their discontent, and with no real world limitations that would otherwise make their numbers insignificant, they get their way by whining and being insufferable 5-year-olds. Luckily Rocket seems to be extremely clear and determined on his vision of the mod, so he most likely won't buckle to anyone telling him what to do unless it fits into his vision. Anyways, love the mod, been waiting for years for something like this and I'm constantly amazed at how much Rocket "gets it" in terms of what is interesting about zombie apocalypse scenarios. Also, what better game to have this mod on than Arma! Fuck yeah!