O'Malley

Most of these ideas seem very good, though may need some refinement. Fishing, car jack, stun gun, hands up, all seem very simple and good. Communication ones, like texting and squads may need more discussion.

I've been tossing and turning the exact same idea in my head, and I think it would be in general beneficial. It's also good that it is indiscriminate, and does not punish bandits directly. If a survivor kills a bandit in self defence, they too would have damaged some of the bandits gear. Like the OP suggested, it should only take affect if you fire at the body, not the head (nor arms or legs). How much gear is destroyed should be determined by how much you are shot, the calibre of the weapon etc. Perhaps certain items should be more likely to be destroyed than others as well. I think some of the benefits of this would be making trading rather than mere killing a far more enticing option, whilst still allowing the killing option to be perfectly viable. I'm hoping for more discussion on the option though, I'm wondering how bandits would feel about this, as many of them get gear from killing other players. Perhaps I've understated the effects this will have on gameplay.

What would be the point when there are bandit groups out there any way? And engaging bandits is far more complex and satisfying anyway, as they are humans that you can negotiate with, possibly even team up with, have actual intelligence rather than the artificial kind, and can challenge you in far more interesting ways.

Let me just make it clear straight away that I don't want safezones. However, I think it could create an interesting dynamic. Say there is a safe zone, but with food and supplies scarce. People could argue that the safe zone brings a lot of people into the one area, perhaps, and that it would: However, I think the most significant thing would be the bandits. Bandits would make venturing to the safezone very risky indeed. A group of survivors trying to bring back supplies to the safezone could be ambushed by the bandits, practically destroying the whole thing, as those inside begin to starve. If bandits are seen as a problem, people will stop trying to go to the safe zone. People would risk going off on their own, and trying to make it elsewhere. When the people begin to die down, so will the bandits, and they will all begin to spread out across the map. Yes there will always be some people in the safe zone, there will also always be some bandits outside the safezone, and there will always be people trying to get in and out of the safezone. But it would not end the game or destroy it. The bandits would act as a great balancing force, and make it incredibly risky to try and get to relative safety. I still think imposing this is a bad idea, and I would prefer the game allowed for the players to develop safezones by themselves. A small abandoned military base, for example, which is hard to breach and easy to defend, would let a small group of people set up a 'safezone', where inside it's walls you are protected by a few guards. Of course, even with things like that, it would probably only take one person to make one shot and start a total killing spree and massacre.

A roaming group of bandits does this far better. Human controlled, far more varied, you're interacting with other players, they're smarter, keeps it more sandboxy. I don't see the need for this. I'm in the camp that wants this as human controlled as possible, it should be our decisions and how we go about those decisions that shape the game world. Not AIs or scripted events.

I would also like a log of previous character journals, even if they are stored in a .txt file within the the game's folders. While I think seperating each journal from each character is a good thing, I wouldn't want what I've written to disappear for ever. I would like the ability to re-read adventures of my pass lives if I so wish. But other than that, I think this is a superb idea. It could be incredibly interesting. I can see someone trying to collect a library, as well as others using the books as 'tropheys' to mark who they have killed.

So, I'm in the general 'Bandits need to be nerfed' group, and I think you're idea is by far the simplist and most effective. I can imagine a fire fight between two teams of bandits happening, and spawning a lot of zombies. They then need to decide whether to gang up and trust each other to survive, or go their seperate ways and risk the zombie horde. That would lead to some incredibly intense gameplay.

I think it would be alright if people got the shakes or so after their first few kills. But afterwards you become more desensitised to it and it stops impacting your gameplay.

I'm hoping that future updates will bring in items and things that make it beneficial for players to co-operate. Fixing cars together is a current example, as it is a task often too hard for just one person to complete. Having items that are best used on other people (defribulators maybe), for example, could help with this. This will make it co-operative play more viable than I currently feel it is, without having arbitary rule sets forcing it on people. This system will also rewards groups of bandits, which I think is fine. My main problem at the moment is letting someone into your group, and then having them backstab you after gaining your trust for a while. They should still be able to do that, and reap the benefits of your loot, but they should also lose more than they currently do.

I got nothing against you bandits, but the OP seemed incredibly ironic to me. The survivors are fully of immature kids, while the bandits are mature skilled adults? The mature adults who kill for fun? Who mock attempts at forming civilised society? Swap 'bad-ass' stories? Have fun kneecapping people? Again, I don't have problems with banditry, but claiming to be the mature ones? Even if you take a Realist approach to life (resorting to banditry because you are the only one you can trust, not for the fun of it) that's just cynicism- not maturity.

Make the weather more variable, fog in the early morning rises to complete visibility past/around mid day, then settles back in for night.

Fresh, completely new players spawning together in the south I'm fine with. So, if your friends character is less than twenty minutes old, you can spawn (as a fresh character) besides him (or vice versa). This only works once per character. Now friends can start playing together, but it won't be exploitable. More acceptable would be for the game to spawn friends near each other, within a few kilometers of one another. Not right beside each other. Co-ordinating to reach one another via chat or other means already gets rid of much of the challenge, and turns it into more a grind if you happen to spawn on opposite sides of the map. This feature isn't very high on my 'want' list, and I would shed no tears if it were never implemented. But if it had these limitations I think it could be alright.