DeadManWalking2

---suggestion--- use body parts (foot/shoulder), tools or objects to break into locked buildings. Lets face it. 99% of buildings in a real zombie apocalypse would be locked. so both in turms of gameplay and realism it makes sense for most buildings to have locked doors. so to get into the locked building you must either break the door or the lock. for e.g using an axe to smash the door or a foot to break the lock. either method will make noise and attract zombies. this will prevent players from staying in one town and farming a city for there entire game. keep the exploration factor while still allowing players to chose any building and force there way in if pickings in unlocked houses are slim, or there simply desperate for supplies.

in the standalone we will be able to enter every building. however I think that most of these buildings should be locked, forcing you to affect an entry. Forcing players to pick a few choice looking buildings before moving on, because otherwise players could spend literally hours simply going from building to building untill there inventory is full. a locked building would have a higher chance of spawning decent loot. However, the method you use to get in will result in different levels of prolonged noise which would obviously attract zombies. methods for entry could include (amongst others). 1) kicking the door 2) using a battering ram (convert pile of wood into a basic log battering ram) 3) crow bar 4) hack the door appart with an axe or other suitable wepon. 5) shoot the lock (wont open the lock, but about 5 shots into the lock should make kicking door open easier) 6) breaking a window and climbing through 7) lock picking. (some form of lock picking mini game should be used so that players actual skill is used and there attention realistically distracted from what is going on around them) Doors should have 2 health statistics. 1) door health and 2) lock health. some doors it should be impossible to hack open and take allot to break the lock. such doors would be for eg metal and have high value loot behind them. while other doors would be possible to hack, but the lock impossible to break (because it's a solid metal bar for eg. door smashing would be done by using mele wepons or explosives against the door, while lock damage would use right click on object or scroll down on door and select option. once this mechanic is implimented for doors and possibly windows, it would be a simple matter to export the same mechanic to crates, chests, safes and other things. thus making scavanging that much more interesting and the axe and crow bar both a vital tool for succesful looting.

I am not a whining player. nore am I a noob who doesn't know the controls. The guns have weight argument doesn't fly with me because of the whole Negative mouse acceleration thing. (It's the worst way to simulate gun weight I can think of) To those out there who don't know what negative mouse acceleration is It means slow movement results in more turn distance than fast movements. This is a TERRIBLE thing because it means that even on fine movement knowing how far the gun will move is almost impossible. making hitting a moving target with any degree of accuracy harder than if I were wielding a real life gun.

I expect this has already been suggested somewhere before. but Just in case... the single biggest problem with DayZ (apart from hackers) is the mouse lag, smoothing and negative mouse acceleration. mouse lag and mouse acceleration are a plague worse than an actual zombie apocalypse that has descended upon the PC gaming platform as games companies try to somehow improve the accuracy of the mouse by utterly destroying it with smoothing, lag and acceleration software. Turning it into a blunt sluggish tool that distances you from game play. Edit: I am not a whining noob gamer who doesnt know how to use the controls. Negative mouse acceleration is a terrible thing and is probably THE worst way to simulate gun weight. (because it doesn't) What Negative mouse acceleration means is that slow movements turn the character MORE than fast movements does. as a result it can be nearly impossible to predict just how far the camera/gun is going to turn. Making it impossible to aim with any degree of accuracy (for anyone used to playing with high mouse sensitivity it is all the more noticable) A better way to simulate gun weight would be to institute a maximum camera turn speed towards where the mouse pointer is telling the game to point to. I am a pritty decent instinctive shot with any gun I have so far laid my hands on and I can say with utmost confidence that I am a better shot in real life than DayZ will currently allow me to be in game. to make a good mouse to game interface is ridiculously easy. simply use the raw mouse movement data to move the camera, then add the gun wobble on top (nothing else). It's fast, responsive and immersive. Resulting in a much better gameing experience. If the games company wants to add limitations to the speed at which a gun can be whizzed around there are better ways than destroying the responsiveness of the camera.

your version of the suggestion gives a numeral value of how long ago the corpse died (which only a pathologist could manage). It also does not show OBVIOUS causes of death. if you cant tell the difference between a bullet ridden corpse and a zombie slashed corpse you're going to need your eyes tested.

I don't think you should be able to visually see who killed you. because if your part of a team you can then tell the team where they are. however I do agree that text should say who killed who. that way if your on a server and someone is going around killing people at a rate of knots you can leave on the basis that there is a hacker abound.

only if I were a hacker and could give myself such a rare item. or were SUPER lucky

when you come across a player corpse there is currently no way of knowing how or when they died. this should not be the case. even someone with limited medical knowladge should be able to tell the difference between death by bullets, axe, blunt instrument or Zombie laceration. In addition you would also be able to tell whether the corpse died recently or not. I.e. is it still warm, rigamortis has set in, the corpse has began to decompose. I therefore suggest that when you scroll down/up on a corpse as well as getting gear and hide corpse options, you also get examine, which would if sellected tell you 2 things. 1) cause of death (bullets, axe, zombie, blunt force trauma) 2) roughly how recent (still worm; rigamortis; starting to smell; filled with maggots) so examining a corpse would therefore produce a message like upon finding this out you can then act accordingly. because you now know there is likely to be another player around.

because there should be many more zombies in the cities than any server could sensibly handle, or would ruin game play. it makes sense that the majority of the zombie hoard are laying dormant somewhere. these places would be zombie nests. a zombie nest could range from a barn filled with stationary zombies all the way up to a full blown zombie dug cave system. new zombies should spawn at the nests (which are randomly placed at surver reset or under certain conditions) and then venture forth into the world from there. meaning that zombies wouldn't randomly spawn right in front of you all the time. underground cave systems could easily be randomly placed buildings as they would exist below the normal street level. these caves should end in a bottomless pit from which the zombies emerge. all zombie nests should be filled with stationary zombies that attack any player mad enough to enter. however attacking a nest would be a worthwhile activity for groups as there would be lots of player corpses and goodies at the end of the tunnel. possibly even some items that can only be found in a zombie nest tunnel. I believe that zombie nests would be a believable thing for them to do, because in nature parasites are well known for altering the way the host looks and thinks for the benefit of the parasite. sometimes even causing the host to commit suicide. (isn't nature fun) therefor if zombies are creating nests there would very likely be some kind of parasite breeding facility or zombie activity. this could possibly be used an excuse for some kind of zombie boss. all this would give players some kind of mission to give themselves. (tool up, group together, attack the zombie nest and kick zombie but, then scarper with as many goodies as you can carry.)

Having read your post twice to make sure I didn't miss anything I think you have some valid points. I like the idea of how long you have the book on you as part of the unlocking of abilities process. I don't think that going out to "ability farm" as you put it would be a bad thing (unless like you say you start doing something silly like shooting each other), as this will give the player a long term mission and a reason not to die. (having to do it all over again) I think perhaps performing a task a set number of times AND having the possession time thing as well would make for a great mix. If you want to limit it more you could add specific slots for books into the UI. so that you can only learn from the one or 2 books that are in these slots. as for hording... I think if bases are going to be added, hording is going to become part of the game. and with the timing thing added then all the while your learning from the book you're risking loosing it. regarding the slightly confusing passage on one selection of mastery and not being able to attempt an action unless you have the book. all actions unlockable by book should be the kind of things that you are unlikely to be able to work out without some kind of help. I.e. someone telling you or other kind of help. (like a book)

I agree with example 1, but not with example 2. simply because if you read the original post more carefully you will notice that I said you have to not only read a book, but perform the skill as well, during the 5 minute window reading the book confers. for many skills you would have to perform the skill multiple times during this window. for example lighting a fire without matches is a really hard skill, so you may have to do it 15 times or more. this means that in order to learn to do something without needing the book you will have to lug it around with you until you have had opportunity to perform the task enough times. which will very likely require you to find things like 5 wild pigs for eg. as a result, stashing books in a safe place will not mean you can open up all the abilities simply by visiting that location. in this way book hording is no more of a problem than hording any other item. also, if you are given the opportunity to be GIVEN skills at spawn. all that is going to happen is that groups or individuals in need of a new skill will simply put there items somewhere safe and suicide in order to obtain that new skill. totally not realistic in any way. also there is no reason you could not also learn skills from other players as well as from books.

no not like fallout. because that simply increases your stats. DayZ should not have stats. this unlocks new abilities. like knowing how to light a fire without matches for example.

before you spam this thread with flames about no RPG elements hear me out. Because I'm NOT suggesting a leveling system. when it comes to survival, knowledge is more useful than a bag full of survival tools. The trouble is your average survivor will have lived a city life and therefore know almost nothing about some basic survival skills. I therefore suggest that books with various titles, when read open up a range of new options or abilities for 5 minutes. once you have used an option or ability a set number of times (based on how hard a skill is to learn) you are deemed to know how to do it and the option is permanently available to you without needing to use the book. we currently unlock abilities with items. so this is not that big a leap when you think about it. btw. the books dont magically dissapear whenever they are read. That's just silly. edit: also this is not like in fallout. because that increases your stats. DayZ should never have stats. I'm talking about learning how to light fires without matches for e.g. Here are a few possible examples

Ok maybe not the nades. but the kind of accuracy I was thinking of for the zombies, is that they have a hard time hitting the broad side of a barn from 5 paces.

I say let the noobs drink seawater. HOWEVER!!!!! doing so will actually INCREASE your thirst. if idiot noobs don't know that drinking salt water is a bad idea. I say let them find out the hard way. let them kill themselves and we shall laugh.