Synchronicity

This is a great idea that I would support except that bandit skins are about to go away in favor of outfits you can loot and wear, so it looks like automatic skins that are determined by humanity are a thing of the past, for now. If they ever come back, then I'd love to see this, or something like it, happen.

There are some good ideas here. I like the idea of snacks, though I think it is only fair that it restore your hunger a little bit, if possible. So far the only foods restore completely, so I don't know if partial replenishment is implememted. The meal limit is an ok idea but I question if it is really necessary. I don't know how other people play, but the blood from 3 meals is too paltry to justify wasting that much, so there wouldn't be a need to track meals. Besides, even if someone ate 5 steaks it would only be 4000 blood. Sounds like a lot, except that steaks are very time consuming to acquire. Not much room for abuse here. If this were implemented, I imagine it would go mostly unnoticed. Alcohol is a good idea. Personally I would not make it's effect temporary (logically painkillers should be, too, so we've already broken that rule) but instead make it increase thirst since alcohol is a diuretic. The only problem is alcohol makes you drunk, impairing coordination, so it would in effect cause the problem painkillers are meant to solve. Cigarettes don't make sense as a painkiller since nicotine is a stimulant, not an analgesic. I agree that soda should restore less thirst and give some blood. It is well known that sweet beverages are inferior to water as a hydrant, but sugar is just what your body needs to produce red blood cells. Anyone who has given blood knows that's why they give you juice and cookies afterwards :)

I would have no problem with a points system, though I would personally end up ignoring it. Points are wholly subjective and I'm sure I'll disagree with whatever point values they assign to each feat. Additional stats, however, I completely support. I would be happy just to see how long I have survived, since I consider that my sole measure of success.

I consider logging off to be analogous to "sleeping", which makes sense since your blood replenishes slowly while offline (or so I've observed). In the short term, this is reasonable, but in real life you don't actually sleep for 48 hours and wake up dying of thirst. I think the loss should be capped at a certain level, such as 50%, after which you stop gaining thirst and hunger, but also blood. The problem with the current system is not just that it penalizes players for being away for a long time, but that it also penalizes them for playing for shorter periods. If I can only play for an hour or so and don't manage to find food or water in that time, I'm screwed.

That is a feature, not a bug. It's been discussed many times, though I don't know if there are any plans to remove it. The wind certainly seems to be blowing that way, but that's the public's opinion. Who knows what the devs are thinking? I actually think it makes a certain kind of sense, but it still needs to be tweaked for the sake of those of us who can't spend every day playing. Anyway, for now, just make sure you have food and water on you before you log out. You'll never die from hunger or thirst while offline, but you will soon after you log in if it's been too long.

Be careful: they're deliberately keeping humanity in the game. There's no telling what they'll do with it or when, or even if they'll get around to it at all, but it's pretty obvious that they intend for it to serve some purpose in the future.

I'm sure that's not by design. Just another little flaw they need to iron out when they have the chance. Setting a time limit before they can go aggro is a good temporary fix, but ideally they should not spawn within a certain radius of a player. Doesn't have to be huge, just enough so that immersion is not broken by zombies teleporting in from space.

Mein Deutsch ist nicht zu toll, aber mein Englisch ist sehr gut. Maybe we can teach each other a little while we're out surviving? I can handle broken English, and it might be a nice (though dangerous) experiment trying to communicate in a difficult situation. Though we'd probably speak mostly English, because you're already way better at it than I am at Deutsch :D

I have to say quite bluntly that safe zones are a terrible idea. The entire goal of the game is to survive in a hostile world however you can. If you create places where people are safe, the game ceases to be about survival and becomes an adventure game instead. Why? Because once you have a place where you are secure from all danger, the survival goal becomes redundant. You can just relax in your magic protection field past which zombies cannot tread and guns cannot fire, only to venture out when you feel like enjoying some action. The usual goal of staying alive as long as possible instead becomes a measure of how long you can wait around before getting bored. I suppose there's still the necessity of finding food and water, assuming there is none in the zone, but it would still radically alter the balance of the game by creating a central zone to which people will flock when the feel like taking a breather. You'd rarely see people venturing very far from their safety net and much of the map would become uninhabited. Bandits would stake out the perimeter to prey on people coming and going. And then there's the simplest probably most important reason not to do this. It's unrealistic. It curtails player freedom by forbidding them from doing something they should by all reason be able to do: kill. If any collaborative group tried to set up a safe zone of some kind right now, there is no reason why a team of bandits couldn't attack and destroy their operation, and no doubt that's exactly what would happen eventually. What are we supposed to think when an invisible hand suddenly comes down and jams all their weapons once they get into range? Everyone should be able to attack anyone at any time for any reason, because that's how it works in real life. Of course, there's always the option of players creating their own safe zones, but there's no need change anything in the game for that purpose: just round up as many trustworthy people as you can find and hope to god you manage to make it work.