For all we know the standalone game is going to be $5 for the first few weeks and then $20 in alpha. We have no idea how much it's going to cost.... So people should stop freaking out

Yes that's the one. It's on special on some website (Can't remember which, for $23). I recommend Dayz commander instead of six updater/launcher. Much much much better imo. Also remember, you are buying Arma2, Dayz is a free mod.

That is exactly my point. The reason they work is because they aren't as popular and there isn't as much load as the official hive. If there was as much load on a private hive as there is on the official hive the problems would be 100x worse. It's kinda like WoW private servers, they work okay usually, but what happens when the private hive goes under (And it will eventually, who's paying for it), all your stuff is gone. I see the appeal and see absolutely no reason to try and stop people using private hives, but personally I'm going to stick to the official hive and wait for it to get better. You can't really compare the two, they both have pros and cons.

The ONLY reason private hives are working well at the moment is because there aren't as many people on them. If there was suddenly a massive explosion of players using private hive servers, you bet there's gonna be lag, hackers, and longer loading times. The only positive thing I can see is admin control and being able to kick and ban people.

It's because the hive is located in or near America. I'm the opposite tho, never come across a hacker in aussie servers only one in a US server. Only got about 12 hours play time tho.

I've never directly experienced a hacker on Australian servers, one time on an American server a friend of mine was shouting on Skype that he'd been killed by a hacker or something and I saw on the bottom left everyone was dying but I managed to get off the server in time.

The game is alpha and it is buggy, if you don't want to test the game any more that's totally fine and I'm sure any feedback helps the developers. I agree on some of your points but I still find the game fun and I think it has a lot of potential growth. I think you'll be back tho once the game is a bit more polished :).

Finding nothing but empty cans and empty whiskey bottles in a pile is so annoying and frustrating. I don't mind the trash loot but a bit of diversity would be nice.

I still think you should be able to swing the torch. I don't see why we can't have more (better) melee weapons and be able to switch to them quickly, so when you aggro a zed and lead him into a house you can switch to a sword or bat or whatever and beat it to death instead of alerting the whole town of exactly where you are.

I think there should be a wipe at every patch or something similar, we're in alpha, people seem to forget that. I think once hackers/dupers are fixed there should definitely be a wipe, as well as a wipe going from alpha to beta and similar major updates.

As they stand currently, yes. If they were changed to stop or slow down zeds (Maybe they have to climb over them then fall and move in prone for a while before getting back up) then they'd be useful, as they are now they're annoying and stupid.

Try playing regular Arma2 specifically the bootcamp missions and the firing range, then you can figure out whether the problem is Arma2 or Dayz or something else.

The other day I was playing with friends and some zombies followed us into a house, I figured why waste ammo on my lee enfield and alert the rest of the town of our presence when I have a perfectly good hatchet? I might as well just take them out silently right? wrong,by the time I made sure I had enough backpack space and moved everything around we would have all been dead :(

1. Instead of getting rid of it completely why not make it zoom less, I don't think it's that unrealistic it doesn't zoom a crazy amount, it's like concentrating on one area. 2. This would be another problem, running around is a big part of the game, sometimes you have to run for 20 minutes to meet up with friends, and I think the fact that you get thirsty quicker balances it out. 3. Technical restraints.

Maybe, if there was a chance of infection or dying or something (Not having the same blood type), then it could only be used in dire situations when there are no blood bags but someone NEEDS blood.