Okay, I've been playing this game since may, and I absolutley loved it, untill they decided to remove the side channel feature. I understand this game style is prone toward realism, but getting rid of side channel was just horrible move (my personal opinion, somepeople may disagree). There is no sense of community anymore, it's chaotic. I know this game is supposed to be chaotic since the setting is zombie apocalyptic world, but it's little too much by my standard. Survivors just shoot eachother on sight, rather than try to help eachother to survive. I understand there are alot of bandits outthere who would just shoot you on sight and rob you and hide your body just to be an extrordinary asshole. I'm not against bandits, even thou I don't play as a bandit but they make this game more exciting and and suspenseful in my opinion. The problem is other "nice" players decided not to trust anyone when that kind of stuff happen to them, and turns into hostile player who would kill you just to survive. This is why we need side channel, so we can communicate from distacne to distinguish friendlies and bandits. This doesn't work all the time but worked most of the times for me. When I play on an official server with no side channel, people are intense. They will shoot you without saying a word. I play alone, because my gaming group decied not to get this game untill standalone comes out. When I play alone, it's way harder. Noone can give you blood bag when your blood is low, when you pass out, you are pretty much dead. So when you are playng alone, you need to rely on kindess of a stranger, WHICH NEVER HAPPENS.I don't think there is a one time I got help from a stranger since side channel is gone. About a week ago, I started to playing on a private hive. Ca1, a toronto server with side channel, and PEOPLE ARE NICE HERE. Not only because they are Canadian but I think it's because of side channel.There are multiple benifits you can get from side channel, you can team up with a stranger, get help from a stranger, warn other strangers when there are snipers around big cities, and complain about how you died! On the first day of playing on this server I got blood transfusion from a total stranger, and he offered me a ride with his blue van! HOW NICE IS THAT?? If it was an official server he probably shot my legs and ran me over with his van. anyway, those are my thoughts, comments are welcome.
