Photolysis

Definitely support it. Allows you to go and do something else while it loads and I don't have to worry about someone killing me mid-spawn.

Even if you could extract the blood properly, make sure it was kept clean and sterile, cool it, and make sure it was the correct bloodtype - all of these things are practically impossible for a layman - without preservatives which you don't have or know about it would clot within minutes. Ridiculous suggestion.

With an integrated graphics card? Haha, no. Not in a million years. It gives dedicated SLI setups a beating. Yours won't stand a chance.

A small limit sounds fine, such as 2-3 players, for new spawns only. In such a scenario it's not unrealistic that you'd be able to team up with a few friends before heading out into the wild.

In terms of a medical system, I was thinking... what about using concepts out of Metal Gear Solid 3, and tweaking them. MGS3 provides a lot of details which could do with being removed given that the player character is a layman with no medical training. What it does do well though is the injury system where treating wounds is a multi-stage process. For example, to properly treat wounds, you have to bandage them or apply a styptic to stop bleeding, suture the cut, apply ointment to burns, disinfect the area, remove bullets and bee stings, splint fractures etc. In the context of DayZ, this could translate to wounds not healing properly, becoming infected, or reopening if they are not dealt with properly. Bandaging a serious cut for example would stop the bleeding but unless stitched it would have a high chance of reopening if you sprint around. If you didn't disinfect it later then you'd end up with an infection. I might try knocking up a picture in a bit, but hopefully you get the idea. Edit: here's a very rough example which I quickly knocked together :

The PC is an open platform, how precisely would you hope to go about this? It doesn't have control over the hardware and can't stop it. Even if the game ran at a very high level of privilege in the OS (where it has no business being) for the sake of argument - something which would stop a lot of users from playing incidentally - then hijacking the audio or keyboard input, it would be very risky and potentially lead to a lot of bugs. And the hardcore players could still easily defeat it anyway.

Currency is only valuable because it's an efficient exchange mechanism in a developed economy and a critical mass of people will honour it. In a post-apocalytic scenario it would only be as valuable as the paper it's printed on. Only useful items would hold intrinsic value and the scale of trading would mean bartering with items would be a better system.

I suppose in an ideal world with infinite resources there'd be no reason not to. As things stand though I think the impact would be so small that effort is better spent elsewhere. I wouldn't have thought the casings would be that visible in most cases anyway due to the foliage/undergrowth/loot/stuff lying around. I wouldn't be against them and other markers such as blood splatters if they were well optimised and decayed relatively quickly. As long as the server doesn't get cluttered up with them.

Problem with this is that it's extra information that needs to be stored and networked. Zombie corpses and the sound of flies are a better indication of nearby activity anyway.

Is thermal actually as effective in the real world as it is in-game? I thought it got scattered over longer distances making it more useful for medium range or below.

Combining magazines is a good feature. Filling up blood bags doesn't seem like a realistic solution as you wouldn't have the means to take it under clean conditions and keep it sterilized, let alone the problems with storing it without clotting which requires chemicals and additives that you don't have. There's also the fact that blood type differs and all the blood packs are O. O blood in a medical setting is plausible. Everyone having a compatible blood type is not.

I don't think anyone's suggesting a BF3 style system where the magic defibrilator can revive you instantly and repeatedly no matter how many bullets to the face you take. People can be revived in certain cases in the real world and it's not too unreasonable for the game to reflect this without making it so players can take 10 .50 shots to the chest or head. Sufficient firepower would still be enough to kill you with no chance of revival.

The problem with this idea is that it's extremely boring. You're asking for the game to force players to stop periodically and spend their time staring at a blank screen, likely in a risk free area. The option to take a nap somewhere to increase health/stamina regeneration or something is more interesting, but forcing players to sleep is a poor suggestion, and ignores the fact that players should be sleeping when they're offline.

Some of these ideas aren't bad additions, but your reasoning for them in the first place is. Firing first gives you an advantage not only in the real world, but pretty much every real time shooter ever made. Why shouldn't this be the case?

Gotta love the lack of research people do before going on rants. I love how for all the respect you claim to have for Rocket (which he deserves), you apparently didn't even bother to read his simple announcement on the subject. A hint: Rocket won't get paid for the standalone game either as BI are making it. You know, the same people who made Arma II. The same people who got paid when people brought Arma II to play DayZ. But by all means delude yourself into thinking you're paying Rocket when you purchase the standalone game.

That's a very bad analogy, though funnily enough Blizzard did give out Diablo 3 for free to WoW players who paid for a 12 month subscription. How's that for irony. Your DICE example with BF2 and BF3 fails completely. People - a huge amount looking at the sales figures - paid BI for the express purpose of playing DayZ as a mod. These people are then going to have to pay BI yet again to play the retail version of DayZ which they are now making. They didn't pay for Arma II because they wanted Arma II, they paid because they wanted DayZ. As BI greatly profited from this, it isn't unreasonable to offer something to those who paid without having any interest in Arma II, given that they've already paid something for it.

Because Rocket has been hired by BI to make DayZ as a standalone game with him as the project lead, so it's not Rocket giving you a free game but Bohemia. If you buy DayZ when it comes out you are not paying Rocket, you are paying BI (again). If Rocket had been picked up by someone else to make DayZ then this point would be valid, but it isn't the case.

Lot of excellent suggestions in there. The UI mockup in particular looks fantastic, and a million times better than the Arma II interface. I'd especially like a weight system where with a sufficiently large backpack and pockets in your clothing that you can carry a very large amount of weight, but at a price. If I want to cram 6 weapons into my massive backpack to (slowly) walk over and stash it in a vehicle or something, that would be great. Being able to move things easily between bags, use them directly from pockets and backpacks (possibly at the expense of a delay), and move them where I want would be very welcome. Items taking up a varying amount of space is also an excellent addition, and gives you a bit more flexibility on how you use the smaller bags.

Worth noting that BI are working with Rocket to develop DayZ as a full game. So you paid BI for Arma II and you'll be paying them again for DayZ, not Rocket. Given that BI are getting the money in both cases, it actually becomes a lot more reasonable to ask for some kind of discount. And indirectly, anyone who brought Arma II for this has actually paid Rocket, since it's led to him getting hired by BI, being made project lead, and getting to create his game properly.

Basically a bunch of my thoughts after quite a lot of playtime. Some of these suggestions are more for the future when the game moves beyond being a mod, but I'm including them anyway. Weapon Customization Allow the player to customise their weapons using rare parts such as various optical sights, IR lasers, supressors. under-barrel grenade launchers. Certain types of optical sight would be reliant on batteries (Holographic, Red dot, Night sights, Thermal sights), others such as telescopic or ACOG would not. If weapon magazines are modelled properly then the player could find higher capacity magazines and manually reload them with ammo, either from pickup crates of separated ammo, from partially depleted magazines, or other weapons firing the same calibre of bullet. But by themselves, high capacity mags should not be a weapon attachment (though the magazine type limits what weapon can accept it). Weapon conditions Have weapons that have received extensive exposure to the elements (i.e. lying around out in a field or the open) be unusable on pickup due to a rusted barrel or other damaged components. As you use weapons, and depending on what environments you go through, gradually the barrel will become fouled, increasing the risk of a weapon jam and decreasing the accuracy. Regular cleaning of the barrel will prevent this. Certain weapons are more prone/resistant to this than others. An AK which is rugged will be quite reliable, whereas a sniper rifle will require a lot of maintinence to remain in good condition and ensure accuracy. Potentially this could be quite complex, and include other types of malfunction such as misfires, but I don't think it needs to be particularly complex myself. Thirst In my opinion this needs one of the bigger overhauls. As one gets progressively thirstier, their character's ability to perform actions decreases. The amount of water consumed is proportional to the character's thirst. So under this you could drink regularly and often to remain fully hydrated. However, there would be a small minimum water consumption so that if you drink too often you will waste water. Not excessive, but so you can't just drink every 5 minutes and never have to worry about thirst. Thirst would be modelled in the game according to the following stages: Stage 1: Thirst. Slight decrease in running speed, and indicated by slightly louder gasps when performing physical activities. Colour saturation is slightly decreased. Stage 2: Loss of appetite. The player loses the ability to consume food. Stage 3: Blurred vision, vision is very desaturated. Aiming becomes inefficient. Stage 4: Player is reduced to walking speed. Stage 5: Severe dehydration. Player will randomly faint and be reduced to crawling speed. Stage 6: Death Factors affecting thirst: Time of day, weather, ambient temperature, humidity Eating food The level of weight the player is carrying Whether the player is in shade or in sunlight The level of physical activity being undertaken by the player. Sitting in the shade or a vehicle will do little, but sprinting or running up hills will make you very thirsty. Water is more thirst-quenching than other canned beverages. Additional ways of collecting water: Boiling dirty water using a fire. Collecting rainwater using a canteen (somewhat efficient) or using hands as a cup (slow). Melting snow or ice using a fire (fast), in a canteen using body heat (slow, reduces temperature), or by consuming it directly (rapidly decreases temperature). New equipment: Water Purification Bottle: A very rare spawn that can purify most water automatically without distillation Solar Still: Somewhat rare. Allows salt water or dirty water to be distilled in sunlight. Slow. The higher the temperature, the faster the process. Distilation Kit: Rare. Allows salt water or dirty water to be distilled using a fire. Takes a few minutes, but much faster than a Solar Still. Water Purification Tablets: Rare consumable. Allows dirty water to be converted to fresh water. Types of water: Fresh water: Fresh water can be drunk directly with no further action needed Sources: Rainwater, Wells, Streams, Snow, Ice Dirty water: Requires purification of some kind before it can be drunk: Sources: Ponds, Rivers, Lakes Salt water: Water with significant salt content, it must be distilled before it can be drunk Sources: Oceans, Salt lakes, Sea ice Blood Blood regenerates slowly over time. Regeneration is at its most rapid when the player is in good health, and fully hydrated and sated. Hunger, thirst, and diseases can cause regeneration to slow or halt. This is meant to mimick the body's natural healing process The mechanics of blood loss are reasonably well-modeled by the game at present and I don't think this requries significant change, other than reducing how much physical activity the player can carry out. If a player has low blood then they should not be able to move as quickly and will tire more rapidly due to the diminished oxygen capacity of their blood. Food will no longer heal a player, but a player can continue to use blood packs to replenish blood. Players can perform transfusions on themselves but due to the fiddly nature of the process this wastes some blood from the pack and will not replenish as much as someone else helping with the transfusion. It also takes longer for the player who is transfusing themselves, increasing the risk. Diseases do not cause the player to lose blood, but reduce stamina, cause a fever, and have other negative effects such as coughing or sneezing. Temperature At present the game models hypothermia but does not have hyperthermia implemented. As a result temperature is not something most have to worry about, and with heatpacks so readily available, even extreme cold would not be a serious hazard at present. If the player continues to ignore the warning signs of high temperatures such as panting, gasping, and dramatically increased thirst, and does not take steps to reduce the temperature then they will collapse and die. Temperature can be reduced by: Reducing the level of physical activity Entering a vehicle with air conditioning Swimming Drinking Using water as a coolant Getting out of the sun and into the shade. Consuming snow or ice (though not likely to be applicable to hyperthermia) Temperature increases are fairly well modeled at the moment and I don't feel this requires much change, other than allowing for hyperthermia as well as hypothermia, and tying thirst into body temperature. Stamina The ability of the player to perform physical activity without rest, and is tied to hunger, blood levels, how much weight the player is carrying, and whether the player has any diseases. Hunger and weight increase how fast your stamina reduces. Low blood and diseases reduce your maximum stamina and how fast it regenerates. Assuming the player is in good health, they can maintain a light jog indefinitely and sprint briefly. Sugary foods, energy drinks and canned beverages provide quick bursts of energy but do not significantly reduce hunger. Stamina is reduced at high altitudes due to the reduced oxygen content of the air. Weight Each item should have its own weight and this should be the main influence on how much the player can carry. Small backpacks would also limit this, but with a very large backpack the player should be able to carry large amounts of gear, but this would have serious drawbacks. Very large amounts of the weight, uh, weigh the player down and decrease how fast you can move and tire the player quickly. It should be very difficult to over-encumber the player, but carrying very large levels of weight should be very risky due to the dramatically diminished mobility. Large items such as certain spare parts for vehicles would be so heavy that two or more players would be involved in carrying them, requiring more cooperation. Any thoughts and feedback?

It doesn't have any salt lakes either, but it's purely hypothetical for the future, if there were ever any snow/desert maps. Obviously for Chenasus it's not going to be much good.