dekartz

With Day Z basically being a "sandbox" game. It can be said any 'boredom' is partially the fault of the player(s). If one can't use the tools presented in the game to keep their self entertained then perhaps they should move on to something else and come back to it? I take breaks from playing DayZ all the time, and as such the game tends to remain relatively fresh for me when I come back to playing it.

The whole point to DayZ is that it's a sandbox. No? Scripted instances like this would take away from the sandboxy nature.

Most of those pumps tap groundwater though. But that's neither here nor there.

Less guns wouldn't curb the PVP. It would just make it much harder to fight back. In addition, melee weapons make zombie-killing pretty damn easy. If anything should be taken out or re-balanced its hatchets and crowbars. At least with guns you have to measure effectiveness with noise-level and keep track of ammo. Instead of making GUNS rarer, ammo should be made rarer. Or at least magazines. Boxes of loose rounds would be easier to find and reloading individually would likely take longer.

I don't think a realism stance can be taken here. I mean, we're talking about a heavily fortified island-nation not having military rifles. Perhaps all of the weapons should be changed to appropriate former USSR equivalents, but that would just change the type of rifle people are complaining about. Also, the idea that "looted" items magically disappear from the world is silly. Sure, military bases would be looted. But given that those looters aren't still running around, its safe to assume they either A. Escaped the island. or B. Got infected. A is a lot less likely than B. Especially if they were carrying heavy large-caliber rifles around. This being primarily a sandbox game, you can't really enforce a "fun factor" so all I can really suggest as a way to balance the .50 cal rifles is to fix the duping issues.

In addition to this, perhaps make it possible to eat raw meat with a high chance of getting sick. This "sick" status would make your character's aim shake and you'd have a chance of vomitting. Throwing up would immediately send your food and water down by a color level (green to yellow, yellow to orange, orange to red) and make noise that either other players could hear or zombies would investigate. I suppose the same could be done for direct pond-water too with canteens sort of representing water purification tools as opposed to just a canteen. (That's how I think of them now at least.)

Would there in turn be a penalty for killing the infected? Because they're people too. Perhaps over time the more people you kill, your character becomes more and more rugged. So bandits will be easily recognizable by their beards and ability to dual wield AS50's.

There's one thing your missing with your logic behind the military bases being stripped and all. Chernarus is an island, so even IF the military bases were stripped of everything, said weapons, ammo, and supplies are still restrained to the confines of that island. The assumption here is that the players are the only survivors at the time of play. So any of the people who looted the military bases would either have to be one of the players, or a zombie at this point. So, again looking at it purely from a "realism" standpoint, .50 cals should be a potential zombie-drop item. Great. Now there's a reason to kill zombies.