Louis13245

Simply, all I propose is to give zombies the ability/chance to 'grab' a survivor on a successful hit for a couple of seconds. Honestly, one of the biggest issue that I see in DayZ is how non-threatening the zombies are. Even in your first couple of encounters with them, your chances of death by zombie are very slim while later on leading a train of zombies and killing them isn't anything more then a chore. More zombies might fix the issue, but I can imagine the problems with lag and pathing that servers might face if you were to add enough zombies to make them a credible threat. Making them hardier and stronger isn't really a solution since they very rarely seem to be able to land hits anyway, especially with how their attack animations work. Special infected derived such as L4D2 seems to be straying away from the shambling zombies that the game is portraying. I feel the solution would mean a single zombie isn't much of an issue, but multiple zeds, perhaps 3 or more, pose a credible threat to your life if you make a single mistake. Looking at The Walking Dead, a lot of the more high tension moments where lives are at stake are due to a person being grabbed by a zombie. In L4D2, while the common infected don't grab so to speak, a hit from them is enough to slow your character down which is enough to deal serious damage if there are more zombies around to hit you. Translated into DayZ, I'd imagine you could probably still lead those zombies around town to your hearts content. If however, you make a mistake and get hit and grabbed by one of those zombies, suddenly you're immobilized and swarmed by the train you've been leading, taking possible fatal damage. In terms of mechanics, I'd like to see chain grabbing becoming a credible threat. Lets say that on a normal zombie hit, a zombie has an chance of around 60% to grab the survivor. One zombie could grab you and you'd be stuck for a couple of seconds and you'd be able to sprint off with no real harm done. However, if there were more zombies around, and they hit you just after the first grab ended, each zombie carries the same chance of grabbing you increasing the probability that you will be immobilized for another couple of seonds and take even more damage. Likewise, there would always be the chance, no matter how slim that you would be able to escape from a horde of zombies. Thus one zombie is a not a real issue and 3 or more become tangible threats to your health. Finally, in terms of coordination, the zombies shown are coordinated enough to be able to throw themselves at survivors and sprint which would implies both the strength and coordination to grab or in one way or another immobilize a survivor for some duration of time. Thanks for reading.

I'm suggesting possible changes to the zombies mechanics which make them more of a credible threat. The patch you mentioned could contain a plethora of changes, and I'm just suggesting one possible method.

Fair enough, then also use forum activity as a side along indicator of community size. There has been a significant drop off in forum activity since a month ago. While the forum is still active, it is no where near as active as it was a month ago. Thus, there has also been a significant drop in the community size. The community is more then large enough for you to still enjoy the game though. Its not like you're coming across only empty servers.

Have a look at the Dayz mod homepage. It has a statistics panel on the right. Since the statistics panel has been relatively unchanging for quite a while now, and since active players within 24 hours are around 51000 people, the vast majority of people have stopped playing. There's still a reasonable community, just not that big.

Same case as the Lingor island. They'll run seperate hives. Modding isn't the same as hacking. I hear the large majority of hacks are due to the fact that the Arma 2 servers allow scripts to be run or something, I'm not too sure on the technical side. If DayZ didn't allow modding, I'd be surprised. The standalone started off as a mod. Bohemia Studio seems to support modding in Arma 2. I don't see why they wouldn't support it in DayZ. In fact, it would be almost hypocritical if they didn't. If the standalone allows for modding, you'll see PvE servers. Live with it.

Worst reply. Read the topic title, it even says shock status.

As long as the standalone allows modding, it will. You can count on it happening.

I've seen the other posts for a monetary system and their justifications. I've seen what the replies were. How it is unrealistic. How it isn't an RPG. How DayZ is a survival simulator. The thing is, not having money would be unrealistic. Cash wouldn't just up and vanish, it would still be there. The question is whether people would value it or not. So, money should be lootable from the vast majority of zombies and other players, along with certain loot spots in the standalone. Less in miltary installations, more in cities and refugee camps. In addition, a trade interface which facilitates but doesn't force the use of money between players should be implemented. In other words, using money is an option not a nececssity, you can still just trade items between players. No NPCs to spend money with. No banks except your own tent. No 'sinks' other then when a body despawns and no one found i And thats it. From there, the Developers take their hands off and leave. They don't say, use this as a currency. They don't say that this gun should cost this much. They don't set any base prices. It's up to the players whether they trust it enough to use it as a currency. In other words, it expands the sandbox. But there will be more then one server, how do you keep prices constant? You don't. If something costs less elsewhere, go there to buy it. What if you can't? Say your ping is too high on that server? Well tough, in survival you couldn't just up and travel to another place to get a better price. What if the market crashes because of hackers? Well it's going to crash. Live with it. Its a zombie world and nothing is certain. What if no-one uses money? Then so be it. The game's parameters allowed the creation of a currency, and if no-one wanted to then thats how the sandbox rolls. You can still gloat and pretend to be a millionaire if that floats your boat. Since I don't expect everyone to read all of this, stated simply: It would be unrealistic not to have money available.

Those are balancing issues. I know theres no trading interface to facilitate it yet, but it will be implemented eventually, in some form or another. Some people won't trust others. Some people will. It's cliche by now, but its part of the game. In the current state of the game, you would be almost right. People wouldn't get close to each other, they can't trade, all of which spells doom for currency. It'll change in the standalone.

I'm sorry, but what Rocket says isn't law. Half of it sounds good but doesn't actually apply to the mod he made. For example: Quote Have you guys actually studied the classic and recent zombie movies a bit? The romero movies y'all rave about? Dawn of the Dead, the modern variant with 28 days later, the Walking Dead. In every single one, the greatest threat comes not from the Zombies but from the breakdown of society and from the other people. Because they can think, they can plan, they can strategize. The zombies can't. And the people are desperate. Rocket The greatest threat comes from the people. Thats true. But only because the Zombies are actually life-threatening, causing the break down of society. Without life-threatening zombies, the argument is moot. Applying it to DayZ, the zombies aren't actually a threat, hence its an artifical break-down of society which is brought about by how the game is set. In otherwords, it's not actually that much of a sandbox in terms of PvE or PvP. As to PvE or PvP servers, it doesn't matter. If the game allows modding, then PvE servers will arise naturally. If it doesn't, Rocket is turning his back on the origins of the game, something I don't see him doing anytime in the near future.

I can't say whether people would value it or not. The thing is, currency dosen't have to have a use in real life. We can't use paper money for anything. What matters is confidence, and part of that is implementing the fondations. From there on it's the player base that controls what it becomes. If money is valued, then it would become useful. It could mean the difference between startvation and survival, between being infected meat burgers and a survivor. Your logic is false for two reasons. People will always want helicopters. Always. I don't know why, but they will. Live with it. The other thing is, just because it's rare doesn't mean its valuable. Someone who plays it close and personal wouldn't give a monkey's arse for a .50 Cal sniper rifle. Likewise, a ghillied sniper wouldn't want that M24 machine gun. Currency plays the go between, which is way almost every barter system has eventually evolved into using a currency of some form or another. It's liquidity. Thats the thing. I don't know if it will work or not. We all don't until we try it. Given a strong enough player backing, I believe it could work.

No, its a good idea. They don't have to be generated at all. Say theres an are with 3 high-end loot spots instead of 2. That note could give a clue to the permenant location of those loot spots. Say a note said that the airforce was receiving a rather large amount of weaponry, to the point where they had to start stashing it in the local firestation. They don't have to be quests. They could just be little pieces of info that flesh out the backstory a tad bit more.

Then how did money originate in the first place? There was no central bank, only a general consensus of value. Money itself is a very simple thing, it only gets more complicated when the playing field expands. Essentially, the central bank would be the player base. How about vehicles? Assuming you don't shoot the guy in the face for it, what can you give him thats worth a Helicopter or a APC? Theres only so many guns and so much ammo a person can need. Thats where currency comes into play. Even in smaller cases, its easier to have a median commodity to get what you want, rather then finding someone who has what you want in addition to you having what they want. The thing is whether or not people would trust the currency enough. Thats the sandbox of it.

So there's nothing wrong with implementing it. Sure, it might not work, but the option within the sandbox is available. Farming money is similar to laundering money, just easier. Who knows? Someone out there might try to stop it. Just as a side note, why did people use gold and silver as a standard? They both are pretty useless metals, except for some few high-end science experiments. They don't actually have a use in the world, they're valuable because we deem them as valuable. Likewise, the standard in-game would mimic the gold standard, most likely the gun-ammo standard. I'm speculating that you'd find the gun-ammo becomes a standard to base money off.

Incidentally, very few cultures still retain the barter system. Not having money would be unrealistic. Whether money would be used as a currency would yet to be seen. I agree. In real life, inflation would most likely ruin our current valueing system. But this is an in-game economy. There would be no artificial inflation as there is no pre-existing standard. Money is generated not pre-existing. In terms of real life example, I'm thinking you're thinking the German Mark in 1924. I'm not denying that it might also occur in-game eventually. But thats the experiment of it all. You could view money as a nonsense item. Indeed, as the posts show, some people do. Adding other nonsense items and saying you can use those as currency too is basically the same thing as adding money, just less realistic. While the Fallout sentiment of using bottlecaps as currency is interesting, and I'm sure other 'unusual' items would also have their appeal, they would suffer from the same inventory issues as money, most likely more so.

True =P Thats true enough. You can't expect a in-game currency to work like a real life currency due to the spontaneous generation involved from farming. However, thats due to how the players create the system. Farming gold would be akin to laundering money in real-life, and some creative individuals may work against it. Such as killing those that farm for gold and letting the body despawn. It's just how the player base will act which makes it an experiment. Its a sandbox, you leave the tools, those inside create. Or destroy.

True. That is what happens now. If the community decides to use cans of coke as a form of currency then so be it. If they decide to barter only, then fair enough. You'll find on of the reasons why there is currently no 'currency' so to speak, is because that there is nothing in the game that is suitable. Cans of coke are hard to use as they take up too much space.

Then you don't have to use money. What matters is the expansion of the sandbox. I used that as an example to say that currency does arise from a sandbox enviroment. But I see your point. However, that's part of the sandbox. Some servers would accept and utilize the currency, others wouldn't. Likewise in the real situation, currency could be accepted in one area, rejected in another, two places which could potentially be very close. I don't know whether everyone in all servers would use it. In fact I doubt they would.

You sure? Look at Minecraft servers. The game doesn't have anything that is conductive to a monetary system, yet servers still use thing such as gold, slimeballs and others as a form of currency. In the game, money may or may not have value. It doesn't matter whether it has value or not. It's up to the player base to decide that. Incidentally, I said not having money would be unrealistic. Whether money would have value or not is irrelevant. You destroyed someone elses point, not mine,

It takes skill to get a ghillie suit. You shouldn't just kill the victim, you have to humiliate them, dominate them, break their will. You have to have them under gun point and force them to strip while begging for mercy before you earn that ghillie suit. Shooting on sight is the cowards way. If they didn't give it to you, you don't deserve it.

Just add money in. It's up to the players whether or not they want to use it as a currency. In real life, money wouldn't just up and vanish, it would still be there. The question is whether the players would give it any value.

Automated turret systems which are hideously expensive to run?

After running across the plains and finding myself at a loss with what to do, I thought that maybe there could be something more passive to the countryside. Less of another chance to get more stuff, more of a 'Oh, thats interesting' sort of thing. So maybe, while you're running across the plains to the next town, you can come across a couple of interactive setpieces which can be 'read'. For example, that dumping ground of dead bodies with the truck nearby could have a journal which details a couple of days that the driver experienced. Perhaps he used to carry corn, then was forced to carry the dead. Another example would be two dead bodies in the middle of the corn field, with bullets in their backs, again with journals and a bit more information about the outbreak. To keep the variety going, players could submit their own stories for certain setpieces, maybe even create new setpieces to be generated. The devs would then pick suitable ones on a constant basis, meaning that there's always more backstory about other people. Apart from random setpieces in the wilderness, you could also have unique information found at key locations within various towns. In the hospital, you could go to the front desk and read an outbreak report, in the government offices you could read official documents, in small villages you could read dated newspapers and personal diaries. These would be the same across all servers, so the same report will be found in the same location for all servers. This would then, if only for certain types of people, encourage exploration of the entire map, not only the hotspots were loot is found. Perhaps one day someone might compile a list of all the information across the map and everyone would be able to get a deeper understanding of the story behind the outbreak. What do you think? Too artifical?

Actually, you probably could. You'd just re-skin a helicopter and make the bullets ultra fast and red and.... get the lead singer of Queen to personally sing over your VOIP while in direct communication?

Fair enough. Seems a recurring theme is how the server would deem a player in combet or not. Your suggestions, if I read correctly, are: 1. When a person fires a shot 2. When a person is hit by a bullet The issues with this is that it doesn't prevent combat avoidance or disconnecting before a bullet even hits you. It punishes those who are shooting animals for food, something I do at the end of a run to ensure I have enough food and health. It also punishes those who are kicked by the server, disconnect because of computer glitches and other various mishaps which do happen quite often. I think your parameters for what defines in and out of combat should be cleared up a bit. Otherwise, the only thing I can say is that instant death is too harsh and sudden of a punishment for disconnecting.