Weatherman

One thing that would make cities more interesting (and scary) is an increased spawn rate at buildings near where gunshots are fired. So, if you fire a gun in a city not only would you aggro nearby zombies, but a new wave might spawn. It seems way too easy and unrealistic to be able to hole up in a building, kill all the zombies within your gun's audible range, then waltz out at your own leisure. I'd like to see them respawn faster in these situations, so that you have to come up with some sort of plan to shoot your way out. This might also have the side benefit of discouraging bandits (or more accurately, psychos) who like to shoot unarmed people who are trying to gear up in cities and have nothing that they want. If it is more dangerous to run around a city shooting your gun off like a lunatic for the thrill of murder, then people will think twice about it. You can still do it, but it'll be harder to stay alive for long. It might only seem worth it if they have gear you want. If you're sitting on a roof sniping, your gunfire should eventually draw a giant herd of zombies.

It appears that you searched for "radio" only in this thread. If you search the entire forum, there are many more results.

You do not, in fact, appear to be on a boat. You would know because it resembles a great big watery road and may involve fornicating with mermaids. I don't see any of this on your live feed.

You can come up with RP explanations. Dangerous military experiments=>Zombie outbreak=>Increased military presence=>lots of military gear lying around. If you want group pvp, then it seems like finding high grade weapons easily would make it easier and more fun for you. Hatchet duels don't seem fun (I think the melee system sucks). Just find a group through steam or facebook. It might also be the server you're playing on. If you have a group, it's pretty easy to get some level of item persistence. On servers with older communities, higher end items might build up over time in tents and whatnot. You might try switching to a younger server, if literally everyone is wearing a ghillie suit. I mostly play on a server that started last month, and maybe 1 in 15 survivors that I see have ghillie suits. I usually have a better weapon than people I meet, although I don't consider sniper rifles "better" since they don't suit my play style. Obviously, pvp areas attract people who want to pvp, who also have nicer pvp gear, so you'll find higher concentrations of stuff there. But if pvp is your goal, then I don't see why getting good pvp gear easily is a problem.

I've only been playing for a few weeks, but weapons seem fairly easy to find. I don't think the point of the game is to get the best weapons (maybe it is for some people). If anything, getting a set of special equipment (map, compass, hunting knife, matches, hatchet) seems harder than finding a nice gun. Also, staying alive can be quite a challenge--especially when you get ko'd by one zombie hit. Or if you like to walk into sniper traps. Even if you die, though, you can always just run back to your body and probably get most of your gear back. It sounds frustrating, but the most fun I had in the game was when I was looting a heli crash site, I agro'd a zombie, killed 3-4 and one came up behind me and knocked me out with one hit. I sprinted back to my body after respawn, snuck as close as I could (my body was surrounded by zombies) sprinted to my body, quickly looted my gun and ammo, cleared out the zombies, grabbed the rest of my gear, then gtfo'd. I accomplished almost nothing (looted an FN FAL with no ammo) but had lots of fun, and felt like a badass. Once I get geared up, I either try to get a high zombie kill count or make allies. Killing zombies means constantly finding ammo and making decisions about which guns to keep. Finding a cool gun is great, but if my goal is to kill 500+ zombies and I can't find ammo for it, then it's useless to me. Finding gear isn't too hard, but you need the right gear for what you want to do, which is much harder. I usually make allies by sneaking up on solo people, telling them that if they move, I'll kill them, but if they don't I'll share supplies, and ask them what they need. Sometimes they fight me, but often they become friendly--either way it's exhilarating and a challenge. It also reflects how I would act if I were in that situation irl. I wouldn't trust people, but I also wouldn't go around murdering people on the off-chance that they have something I need. But yea, if you view this as a single player game where the challenge is to fill your backpack with decent gear, then it's not too hard and kind of boring. But if you role play a bit, and immerse yourself in the atmosphere of the game, then it's way more fun. For me the game is about player interaction, which you miss out on if you go around killing everyone you see.

It would be cool to loot radios that enable global chat, which you could toggle on and off. You could even have different ranges depending on the civilian or military grade radios.