I found this ad from Bohemia Interactive running on Rock Paper Shotgun. Image included below. Looks like a message to fans with some helpful info regarding future Dayz in 2013. Can anyone from Bohemia confirm? Does this mean news is on the way from Rocket?

Zombies are not possible. Zombies are fiction. A zombie or mind altering violence virus does not exist, nor do I believe something similar ever could exist. Citing Resident Evil as a reference for how realistic a zombie virus could be isn't really helping your argument. It's okay to like the idea of zombies. But it's a little bit crazy to think they could ever be real. Strangely enough, werewolves do everything that you just said a zombie virus could do (turn people into extremely violent monsters that spread their disease to other creatures through violent contact). The only difference is that the zombie disease turns people into violent flesh-eating mindless undead monsters (a fiction) and the werewolf disease turns people into violent flesh-eating photoreactive wolf monsters (a fiction). The difference is in the semantics, but they are both the same level of fictitious not-real-ness unrealism. One is not more realistic than the other. They are both unrealistic.

If it takes you hours to prepare spaghetti, you're doing it wrong.

I'd probably play that too.

I have a hard time believing that the "whole concept of DayZ" and "Why people play DayZ" is zombies. You play DayZ for the entire reason that it has zombies? There are better games for killing zombies. I play DayZ because I've never had player-interactions this potentially interesting. I play DayZ because it's an interesting tense experience looking for food and worrying that players have me in their sights as I struggle to survive. I play DayZ because every experience with someone who is actually friendly is more meaningful than all those other times I get shot as a fresh spawn by some sniper. I can't get that in any other game. DayZ's core experience is so much more than just "there are zombies."

[WARNING: Very long post ahead.] Wow, OP has gotten a lot of undeserved hate for his comments. The people saying, "It has to have zombies because of the Z in DayZ!" are completely missing the point OP was trying to make. He's not saying we should add new enemies/creatures to DayZ, or even remove the zombies and put in new enemies and cal it DayZ. He's talking about taking the gameplay systems that make up DayZ and adding different scenarios, different PvE enemies or threats to create new games in the Massive Survival Sandbox style that DayZ has created. What makes DayZ the experience that it is? Is it Zombies? Certainly not. Does DayZ require zombies for its systems to be fun? Not at all. Could its systems hop genres successfully? Well, why not? Let's break down what makes DayZ special. 1. Realistic survival systems: Food and water are required, warmth is required, shelter is required to an extent, medical supplies are required to treat infection, wounds, etc. It’s about creating a realistic environment (a normal day/night cycle, varied geographical locations, etc) with realistic consequences to create a game world that feels like it could be a real world with minimal suspension of disbelief. As Rocket has said in the past, the real enemy in DayZ is the player's own body. Zombies and player threats are just a bonus. 2. Massive maps for 50+ players: Create tons of locations of a huge variety within this massive map so players have a huge world to populate, explore, and play in together. 3. Open Sandbox world: The game provides a scenario (zombie apocalypse in this case, but could easily be changed to something else with a bit of creativity), a basic framework (death conditions, basic PvE enemies that are more predictable, like a force of nature, as opposed to a malicious force like players) and the tools to interact with the world (food, water, gear, weapons, ammo, tools). The game then offers minimal direction for player actions. Players are free to decide how they use the tools they are given to interact with the world that has been presented to them. Players create their own narratives, their own objectives, and are not given “quests” by the game. 4. Player-dictated interactions: When meeting another player, you can talk to them as you would talk to another human being. No menus, no flagging yourself as a private player or chat invitiations on the server, just talking. Or shooting. Or teaming-up. Or robbing. Or trading. Or sneaking past and stealing. The game provides Lots of nuanced options for players that are only limited by the player's imagination. It's the player's choice on how they interact with players, not the game's. 5. Mixed PvE and PvP: All combat actions, and all actions in general, are performed in real-time with no restrictions (For example, there are no PvP-only servers, it’s all just thrown in together). Real-time PvP and PvE threats coexist and can take place at any time simultaneously. 6. Permadeath: You don’t earn experience that carries over to your next life. You can’t keep weapons or equipment for your next incarnation (except for tents and finding/looting your dead body, but it’s not automatic and there are risks with each of those options). Everyone starts the same regardless of previous playthroughs, and it doesn’t matter how many zombies you grind (that’s a weird mental image), it won’t help you in your next life if you die in this one. Survival becomes incredibly important because death is final. The only thing that carries over into your next character is anything you, the player, actually learned. This is what I consider the core of the DayZ experience. None of these things require a zombie or "infected" threat. So why not take all the fantastic ideas behind DayZ's survival sandbox world and create new games out of them with different threats and themes? People in this thread have already mentioned how interesting it would be to fight/run from dinosaurs, intelligent robots, aliens, etc. Think about taking the DayZ experience into space, where you need to think about the added threat of depleting oxygen levels. Cool, right? Basically, create an intense player-driven open world survival sandbox mmo with real-time skill-based combat and harsh survival conditions. Then simply switch out the PvE elements/enemies to fit the new scenario. This works with zombie apocalypses, WHY NOT try it out with werewolves? Here’s an idea: You have all day to loot, kill players for their beans, find food, build shelter, fix vehicles, etc., and at night you have extremely powerful enemies tracking you, hunting you, trying to kill you. Suddenly you have to consider how and when you travel to new locations (can I make it there on foot before the sun goes down?), and getting lost on the way to your destination eats up precious daylight. The sun is going down, do you have enough bullets to ward off any predators? Has someone started living in your usual hiding place? There’s an unsuspecting player, is it worth the risk to kill him and take his bullets/food/vehicle to outrun the wolves? Does he even have the right gear? Would his death just be a waste of bullets without a big enough payoff? Would he be willing to team up and defend a position in town with you? Would he just betray you after the night assault is over? How many nights can you survive in this harsh world without succumbing to other players, hunger, thirst, illness, the wolves, etc? Perhaps the werewolves live in settlements to protect themselves during the day when they’re human, and players could try hunting them down during daylight hours to make the night assault less difficult. But is it worth it to waste time and resources killing them instead of looking for more food/water/ammo/etc to survive the night? I’d play that game. Another example: Players are humans with mechs that can transform from backpacks to full-sized giant robots. You’re on a giant Halo-sized space station that was overrun by AI combat drones. Your mech form can help you combat the drones and is a built-in weapon and vehicle, but you need to find the right parts to fix it up. And you need food, water, warmth, and oxygen on top of all that. And the PvE combat drones can shoot you from a distance, so they’re much deadlier and much less mindless than DayZ zombies. You switch between your mech and human forms for combat and stealth, respectively. And staying in your mech too long makes it succumb to the same virus or AI that turned the original robotic drones against their masters in the first place, so you have to spend time in your human form and look for mech components that can wipe the mech’s memory and reset the clock on it turning against you. Throw in other players looking for the same resources (food water, ammo, parts to augment your mech, ) and trying to avoid the same combat drones, and you have a DayZ style sandbox survival game with SciFi elements and mechs. MECHS. I’d play that game, too. Obviously, those are just rough ideas of how to apply the DayZ formula to other scenarios and genres. And they most definitely couldn’t be made in Arma II (someone please prove me wrong and make them). But they’re proof that we could at least TRY to use something other than the generic zombie apocalypse scenario! And that’s all OP was really trying to say. I love DayZ as much as all of you. I think it has started something special. I want to see that special something applied in new and interesting ways. The zombie apocalypse was fantastic for showing how this style of game could work. Now we just have to let other developers take these design elements and apply them to some scenario other than zombies. Wouldn’t that be awesome? It sounds fantastic to me. Thanks for reading. SIDE NOTE: For those of you using “realism” as a defense for why the systems of DayZ would only work with zombies, you’re really missing the point. Just remember that 1) the realism in DayZ comes from the real-time combat, the necessity for food, water, and warmth, the ease of death from one or two bullets/bleeding out, the ease of simply talking out loud to other players, the freedom for players to create their own objectives instead of being confined to quests created by the game, etc. The realism DOES NOT come from the zombie threat. And 2) flesh-eating infection zombies are about as realistic as unicorns. They both exist in the realms of fiction. There is no virus that could ever turn a human being into a flesh eating zombie and there never will be, no matter how much we want it to. Zombies are the same amount of ridiculous and improbable as unicorns and werewolves and vampires. I mean, they’re not even the most realistic fictional threat. Robots and AIs that turn against us are more plausible. Aliens from outer-space are more likely. Zombies are just an implausible impossible fiction. I know, man. I want them to be real too. But they’re fiction, and all the zombie apocalypse preparations and wishful thinking won’t make them real, or even realistic. They’re perfect for videogames, though. Cheers.

I guess, deep down in my heart, I was hoping for a surprise New Year's Eve release even though I knew it would be crazy. I hope we get some more definitive news soon. This debacle with Greece really sucks for everyone.

Other unrealistic creatures? You mean, like... zombies?

Honestly, I hope some weird glitchiness is left in specifically at Green Mountain. Or weird enemies or features purposefully added to it that Rocket will vehemently deny putting into the game. But they're only around every once in a while on each server, so it's not consistent. That oughta build the mythology a bit.

I think limiting the amount of matches is a better solution for this. People who want to live forever in the woods will still be able to do so peacefully, but they'll have to return to town to search for matches (which are moderately rare) instead of searching for food. It doesn't remove a valid playstyle but still uses gameplay to drive players back together into tense interactions in cities.

Well, aren't we all just the most entitled little children. I'd quote people, but I'd be quoting the entire thread at this point.

On the dev tumblr Rocket said they'd be willing to let the "end of the year" deadline slip if they had to. Honestly, at that point it felt like a guarantee that it would slip, unless they're planning for a big New Year's Eve Alpha release. We'll probably get some news of where they're at and why the deadline slipped before the end of the year, but not the standalone alpha. And that's okay. It has been a crazy year and I'm willing to let them take their time. Quality over speedy deadlines.

The pain of losing an old character is numbed slightly if you enjoy the beginning of the game. I love running through Cherno and gearing up, so it doesn't feel like a big deal to die and lose it all.

Look, we both said and did a lot of things that you're going to regret, but I think we can put all that behind us; for survival... You monster.

I'm 24.

Okay, guys, using autism as an insult is uncalled for and really needs to stop. It's time to act like adults, or at least try to be civil. If you don't understand why this is wrong and offensive to an excessive degree, substitute references to autism with a race.

Hacking is cowardly. Alt-F4 is cowardly. Ghosting is cowardly. Running like a scared little dog with its tail between its legs is not cowardly. I do it to avoid killing anyone. Trusting someone regardless of the risk is not cowardly. I do it to avoid killing anyone. I do it because one good DayZ narrative experience is worth all the bad ones. But staying and fighting a fight you can't win? That doesn't make you brave. It makes you a bad tactical planner.

Geez, dude, what did you eat? People?!

When is the official time? I didn't see it updated on the OP.

Yeah, the airdrop beacon idea just doesn't seem to fit the narrative or the feel of DayZ. It's not a bad idea, just not for this game. I actually like spawning on the coast, I just wish there were more big cities on the interior of the map. I mean, we have Cherno and Elektro at the coast for spawns to get necessary gear, but then we have to travel up to Stary Sobor before hitting another big city. More cities! MORE CITIES! And more variety in the cities. Like, looting NYC would be very different than looting Chicago. Somehow we should get that kind of feeling in DayZ as well with more cities on the map. Then it wouldn't really matter where you spawned. Sorry for the ramble.

I'm in again, sorry I wasn't able to make it to the last one. If we still haven't decided when, I'm going to suggest... Oct. 6th?

I'm a player that never shoots first. I only shoot in self defense. I've only ever killed one person in all of DayZ. I either run away and hide, or die. My main goal In DayZ has been to explore and experience what this unique game has to offer. When I first started out, that meant getting nice gear and surviving: Blood bags, a sniper rifle, a coyote backpack, a ghillie suit, and Night Vision Goggles. But now, I have all those things. And I know how to survive for a long time. And it started to get boring. So my goal was to explore. I went to the mountain that shall not be named, the NW airfield, Cherno, Elektro, Stary Sobor. I looted and survived all of them. And while there are places that I haven't been yet, the novelty of looting through dangerous territory while not killing on sight and avoiding bandits is wearing thin. Even playing through Lingor an Takistan hasn't brought back the thrill of exploration (mainly because Lingor was full of graphical artifacts when I played. What's the point of having great gear and knowing how to survive if the life you lead is without purpose or adventure? How can we live meaningful lives if we have nothing worth striving and dying for? I really want to avoid the "end-game murder" syndrome, where once you have all you need, you start hunting people for sport. And I really want to have some of those amazing, iconic stories that we were all lured in here by (teaming with randoms, helping the helpless, being helped, watching people make interesting and crazy decisions when given freedom, examining the motives that drive different players, etc.). Most of all, I want stories to tell. So I'm trying to write a bucket list: A list of goals and things I want to do so DayZ has a compelling purpose again, quest ideas that will give me great stories to tell. My ideas are listed below. Please help me add to it by adding interesting suggestions. Bucket List: [uPDATED 9/25/12 ] 1. Fix up a helicopter and go searching for downed helicopters. 2. Find the highest mountain and bike down it. (This would be even cooler with a huge group of people on bicycles, all ringing their little bicycle bells). 3. Sing karaoke in Cherno / Elektro churches without dying. 4. Successfully hunt down a bandit that's killing innocents or fresh spawns. (Maybe better reworded as "Successfully hunt down player killers") 5. Get a Hero Skin. 6. Kill a hacker and live. 7. Start giving really nice weapons or gifts to fresh spawns, but intimidate them into not killing you once you try to run away. 8. Fix up cars and pick up strangers. 9. Be an impromptu medic to someone, then get to know them and become friends. 10. Play on Lingor and look for the massive wooden jumps. Get all sorts of vehicles and see how much air you can get. [submitted by sostronk] 11. Watch a sunset on top of the Cherno hotel, while standing, on a fully populated server, unarmed. [submitted by RaysGoodLiquor] 12. Attempt to activate the haunt on the radio tower on top of the mountain that shall not be named. (Go unarmed to the top of the tower at 'the place where we do not speak of' at night with no night vision. Drink a Mountain Dew, say the Hail Mary backwards and leave after leaving offerings of freshly slain goat. Also do this on a high pop server with direct chat enabled.) [submitted by Timboski] 13. Jump a motorcycle over a hovering helicopter. [submitted by smasht_AU] -- DON'T HIT IT. Bad things happen when you do. 14. Bike through Cherno while playing Brodyquest or something over Direct chat. Look for friends. [Adapted from a suggestion from DemonGroover: "If only you could run naked through the streets of Cherno."] 15. Dance Party: Everyone gets to play a single song of their choice over the direct chat, and the group just goofs off and rolls through Cherno / Elektro / Stary Sobor / Berezino, looting and looking for friendlies to grow the party. Once everyone has had a turn to play something over the chat, then cycle through and essentially just listen to fun music in a group out loud. [Adapted from a suggestion from DemonGroover: "If only you could run naked through the streets of Cherno."] 16. Find people and attach yourself to them like a lap dog. Do not speak except to say 'You are the most handsome person I have ever seen.' Stick to them like glue, never pick up a weapon, and if they bleed just stand and stare. Do not help them, just become their shadow. [submitted by Hetstaine] These are a few of my ideas and suggested ideas. What do you think? How do you avoid "end-game murder" syndrome? TL;DR: What are some cool quests I can embark on and experiences I can start seeking out that will produce great stories and keep me from going on a PVP end-game murder spree?

I lol'd. Very hard. I wonder if I could actually do this, just stand and stare at someone instead of helping... My bleeding heart would probably win out in the end. Added to the list in the OP though.

I can't handle shooting on sight, because the one time I killed someone, it profoundly affected me. Never give in to the bitterness generated by Shoot on Sight losers. One good experience is worth all the bad ones in this game. Also, it really helps if you enjoy the beginning of the game, running through Cherno, gearing up, etc., since you'll be doing it quite a bit.

The fact that you've had to blatantly bump this thread three times should be an indication of the level of interest people have in this. It sounds like you want to create a group of bandit trolls. That honestly doesn't sound like fun, and it's certainly not something that the community is going to want to promote. Why not find interesting ways to be friendly? Interesting ways to interact with randoms to find out if they're friendly and willing to do goofy stuff? Do bonkers friendly things, try to set up friendly events and get lots of people there? Do something fun while really opening yourself up to a lot of risk. That sounds like it will end up with more interesting stories, as long as you have a thick skin to deal with being killed a lot. Sure, you'll die frequently, but if having "stuff" is more important to you than having the creative experiences you claim to be looking for, you might be better off going back to the clans you were previously affiliated with.