ZTrainz

To be fair, the "casual/carebears" were wrong too. Emotion made them cry on the forums but taking away the source of those emotions made each in-game accomplishment matter a little less. One thing that UO had/has is the ability to visually identify a murderer/bandit/pk/"red" immediately. The community started to police itself and whole guilds were created whose sole purpose was to hunt reds and help those who were preyed upon. People started collecting the heads of reds and posting bounties for their heads (yes, you could dismember player corpses - awesome, I know). This is why I love the fact that bandit/hero skins were brought back. The potential for new aspects of game-play is enormous. Are skins currently flawed in many ways? Yes. Can they be perfected as a system that supports community morality and consequence? Definitely. Maybe the OP would still kill indiscriminately but many of the punks that we're complaining about wouldn't have the stones for it. Look at you trying to define "true snipers" in a video game. Guess what? If you learn to use the mildots for any of the rifles that have them you'll be MUCH quicker at ranging target for a center mass shot than a rangefinder. In addition, the rifles without zeroing are quicker to shoot once the range is estimated than one with zeroing - provided the operator has the chevrons/dots memorized. This is where the DMR shines. Someone who is competent with the DMR (has the particulars of its scope memorized/listed) can easily range, adjust and shoot in 2-3 seconds without coming out of the scope view. But wait, you know all this already 'cause you use the DMR everyday, right? My point is that the act of killing with a "sniper" rifle in DayZ can be insanely easy or it can be something that requires a bit of practice and talent. The guys that prefer AS50s on nametag servers are the most likely to get flanked and shot in the head. The ones that use CZs, DMRs and SVDs without mouse wheel ranges are probably much tougher to kill and actually deserve some respect. Then there are all the rest of the "snipers" somewhere in the middle. We can all recognize the distinction but to put labels on them and tie those labels to an arbitrary feature such as zeroing is pointless at best and ignorant at worst. To each his own - especially in a sandbox game like this. I love your sentence about the shot, not the kill. That's the joy I take from using a "sniper" rifle. But don't knock others for wanting to experience it at a different difficultly level. You've killed with an AS50 too. Oh, and an essential part of your shot is the target. Stop picking fresh spawns for targets, dick.

If you care so much about bringing the "cruel, dark and brutal" experience to the snipers, go hunt them. If sniping is too easy for you don't do it. If what you really meant was 'DayZ is too hard for me because of the snipers,' STFU and go play Farmville.

I like the OP's idea. Maybe add some complexity that adds layers of risk for both sides. "Sleeping" in a tent locks the inventory and any potential looters are given a choice to try looting it. If the looter decides to try to loot the tent the game rolls to see if he succeeds. Failure = death (you woke the occupant and he shot you in the face). Success allows you to loot a limited number of items and each item you take rolls again with greater odds that you wake the occupant and die. You could go so far as to give the looter a very small chance to kill the occupant outright and have access to all the items. Of course you'd have to tweak the system to keep it from being manipulated (spawn and run back to the same tent until you get lucky, for instance). Both sides of the equation trade risk for either security or loot. If you decide the risk isn't worth it, don't use the tent to sleep/loot.

Saw this thread and wanted to try to explain what I think the OP doesn't get. DayZ is loved for the experiences that are created within it and the intense emotions linked to these experiences. The two hours you spent crawling with a busted leg were rendered pointless because you quit. If you had persisted, crawled to a hospital and managed to patch yourself up it would have been a truely memorable gaming moment - one that you share with friends years from now. How many of those have you had in other games? I still fondly remember the first time I was killed by a player in UO back in 1997. The key to these intense and memorable moments is all the crap you have to endure to find them. Have you ever watched a graduation ceremony (high school, college, doesn't matter)? The ones that seem to be the happiest are the ones that had to put the most effort into it. It's the single moms, the ones that busted their asses for a C and the ones that came from nothing that appreciate it the most. It looks like War Z also misses this concept completely, btw. TL;DR The unique experiences of DayZ are the best part but only because you have to wade through so much crap to find them.