Search the Community

Well from what i have been seeing, i don't think we will have to many running vehicles at all, it would be up to you to repair it.

PLEASE NOTE: THIS IS FOR ARMA 2 DAYZ MOD, NOT ARMA3 OR STANDALONE EDIT : The text in red below was a functioning workaround to a problem I was having when trying to join Vanilla servers, but it caused problems when trying to join Modified, Non-Vanilla servers as outlined in orange. It is incorrect information - I did not need to copy files from Arma2 to OA, despite this being all over the internet as a solution to the connection problems I was having. My own solution, until the problem is fixed in DayZ Launcher, is to use a BAT file which I've posted below. ORIGINAL POST : Can anyone shed some light on the current situation regarding connecting to Vanilla v187 servers versus the servers running v187 which have modified buildings/vehicles/loot. In my experience Vanilla servers (Eg. Europa & Terminus) require that the Arma2 'Addons' folder is copied to OA, whilst the modified servers (Eg. Dystopia, Noobs Playground, ReunionZ) will not load the game with the Addons folder copied to OA. I could rename the Addons folder depending on what server I want to play, but each time I do that, the modified servers transport me to a spawn point (with all my gear). Is this true for everyone? What is the reason this is happening (ie. whose fault is it)? Is someone fixing it?

You've basically got it figured out, but the NE Airfield was more in line with the Balota Airfield in design. A few hangars, a military prison, and a few other military-esque structures. NEAF was actually my favorite airfield in mod. You were never positive that there would be other players there, but the ones who would hang out there were always decked out in pretty sweet gear. It was more of a surprise than NWAF where you knew that you would find guaranteed trouble. Not only was the pvp good, but it was also the best place to find air vehicles. Man, I really miss hanging out up there.

So I have a couple ideas for some "minigame" events, but they all involve a modicum of stability. To seamlessly implement them you would require one massively powerful clan to run security and setup, if admins can facilitate this then that would work. Idea #1 The Race track: At some place like NEAF tents, barrels, torches, fires, tires, (whatever works) can be used to outline a race track. Vehicles can be provided or players must bring their own, and races can be held for various prizes and the benefit of spectators. Idea #2 Marksmanship contest: Similarily requiring security of some sort, a social event can be held with sniping contests, pistol contests, and bow/arrow contests for various prizes and the benefit of spectators. Idea #3 Stanford Island Prison Experiment Players wishing to participate come to an appropriate location, are blindfolded/head-bagged, stripped naked, and brought to the prison island (maybe they need to get there on their own). Once in captivity they are sorted into one of two groups, guards and prisoners, and are placed in cells/given appropriate clothes and placed in guard rooms with thew appropriate equipment and uniforms. The guards are directed to run an efficient prison. Their pension plan (their reward) will be reduced for expenses incurred to the prison, which includes loss of prisoner or guard life. The prisoners are not offered any award or given any direction beyond : you are a prisoner.

The Dead Return is the sequel to The Dead Walk. The previous server host sucked, so I moved and rebuilt! If you played on the old server, then The Dead Return will look very familiar. Ski Goggles is your owner/admin/dev and I'm always looking to add new features that promote better gameplay. Gameplay is PVP and Survivor and the server has a decent mix of heroes and bandits. No matter if you are new to DayZ Mod or a veteran, if you are solo or part of a team, you'll be able to get on, gear up, find vehicles and get have some fun. Traffic has been a bit light since the summer started, so come on over now and get going! We are always looking for new players. The Dead Return is based on vanilla with some mods: Walking+Running Zombies (sometimes they run just to keep you on your toes) 20+ AI Missions (Customized DZMS) 20+ Map Additions (New Cities, Towns, Military Bases and more) Starter Loadout (based on Humanity) Plenty of Loot (Much more than Vanilla) Group System (DZGM) Increased Max Vehicles to 100 Custom Spawn Inventory for all vehicles. New Vehicle Spawn Locations. Turned off the heat/temperature requirement. Added all allowed vehicles to the game and missions. Visit the website at http://helpthedeadreturn.wordpress.com - for info about rules, spawns, missions, weapons and more. Active admin. Max Players: 40 Max Vehicles: 100 (6 helis, 6 Boats, 1 Airplane) Physical Server Location: NY Restarts: Every 6 hours (3am/9am/3pm/9pm ET) Battleye: Enabled IP Address: 192.223.24.141:2302 Any questions?

Contents This Week Dev Update/Hicks Dev Update/Peter Dev Update/Viktor Community Spotlight Dev Update/Hicks Greetings Survivors, Since the last Status Report we've been mostly focused on .61 - and getting it ready for experimental. That said, there are a few things I'd like to cover before we talk about the current status of each of the .61 milestone goals. Over the last two weeks, Peter and I have spent a good amount of time discussing two areas of DayZ. Dynamic changes to the economy, and the external DayZ launcher. Peter will be talking about the launcher in his portion of this status report, so I'll talk a bit about the dynamic changes to the economy. The current iteration of the central loot economy allows for dynamic (no patch required) updating of every item that spawns in DayZ. This means it includes: The minimum, and nominal operating values of each item. The frequency it can respawn. The region of Chernarus it can spawn in. In the case of items such as magazines, and piles of ammo - it can dictate the minimum and maximum ranges for how much of that items capacity it spawns with. The reason I bring this up is because the design team routinely will adjust these levels based upon data and behaviour observed on stable branch, and these changes can be effective within an hour of the change occurring. Over the last few weeks quite a few adjustments have been made on everything from the availability of certain ammo types, to the available quantity of non perishable canned goods. Thus, it makes it even more valuable for those observing bugs or general issues with this system to be specific in their reports on the feedback tracker. Make sure to detail exactly what you observed, when you observed it, and most important - what server it occurred on. To give you an example of exactly how important this data is, we've been trying internally to track down behaviour in regards to certain items spawning in piles (specifically in this case firearms) despite the fact that the restock timer should prevent such behaviour. It has been a nasty issue that has seemed to occur on the stable branch significantly easier than we have been able to reproduce it internally. That said, thanks to several dedicated feedback tracker users - we were able to isolate the issue on stable branch - and have identified the cause of it. (Much to the satisfaction of both Peter and I) We'll now be able to resolve the issue discovered with .61. In addition to this, today the design team will be introducing changes to firearm and ammunition tiering and nominal values. Like all things, we'll need to wait and observe over the coming week to see the impact as existing availability within the economy (on players, in camps) can and will impact how this behaves. As these changes become effective in the stable branch wide economy, it is vital that if you notice an issue, you file a feedback tracker issue with as much information as possible. Enough about the economy though - lets take a look at where we are with .61 development goals: 0.61 Milestone Goals: Server Login Queue: Feature implemented, system under review with internal QA teams. Merge of New Audio Technology from Arma 3 Eden Update: Tech implemented fully into DayZ. Existing sounds and configs from legacy system functioning properly. (Backwards compatibility with legacy sound technology). Update of Weapon Sounds for New Audio Technology: 21 weapons ready, work continues on remaining firearms. Youtube channel dev log preview upcoming! SKS Sporter Trumpet Repeater AKM Steyr FAL SVD MP5K 1911 CR75 Derringer Flaregun FNX Glock 19 Longhorn Magnum Amphibia P1 Makarov Red 9 Dynamic Spawning of Infected: Feature implemented into internal branch. QA teams are doing initial passes and providing programmers with initial issues. Predators (Wolves) The team are currently working on several key issues with predators (wolves). Specifically being addressed currently are: Issues with navigation in urban / dense areas. Overall physics related issues. Damage application against non player targets. AI Targeting priority. It's no secret that as far as DayZ and .61 goals go, predator AI is a big addition to gameplay, and clearly the largest at risk area for milestone goal slippage. That said, we're still very confident in our progress on the feature and the pace at which it is moving forward. We'll continue to update you all as to the status of this milestone goal with Status Reports. - Brian Hicks / Creative Director Dev Update/Peter As many parts of the game are still under active development, the main menu with such crucial parts as the server browser are no exceptions either. We all love the character presence in the environment at the main menu giving you a nice feeling and it's the point where immersion starts to kick in, but why not to take it more further and personal? Everything in DayZ is revolving around your character, and the main menu with the server browser should follow the same formula. At the main menu you will be able to thoroughly list all your available characters across all shards. Coupled with additional information like visualization of character and his gear, name and actual stats helps you to select the character you want to play with. The selected character at the main menu then acts as a filter in the optional next step which is the server browser. The new server browser will filter out only the available servers from that shard where the selected character belongs to. This added layer of filtration eliminates the need of memorizing what character you have where, as well as any possible confusion after logging on to a server just to find out that it isn't the character you wanted to play with. The new server browser also comes with other useful changes and functions to provide a better and uncluttered user experience. There will be only three tabs used for high level and clear differentiation between official servers, community servers and servers on LAN as other unnecessary tabs for favorites, friends, history and remote will be removed and become filters instead. Filters are now part of the server browser screen directly so they are always visible and at hand to easier check what's being filtered. Filter parameters have 3 different states - include, exclude and ignore so their setting can be handcrafted to exactly what you want to see. Columns in the server list were also reduced to a bare minimum as most of their information were doubled in server details. You can see and sort filtered servers according to their name, time of day, population and ping. Similar to filters, server details is no longer a separate pop up dialog window as every row in the server list is independently expandable to unveil additional server details like description, public/private, mode, version, IP and others so it's easy to compare two or more servers. Above all of that, the external launcher will behave as a master filter which means that the game server browser will show only the servers related to the mod which DayZ was launched with. However, I don't want to go over the external launcher right now as it's another topic we will be talking about in the future. Happy filtering... see you in Chernarus folks! - Peter Nespesny / Lead Designer Dev Update/Viktor Animations usually take a lot of time but on the other hand when we finish a batch there is usually many new things. Fortunately in the past weeks there were couple of finished animation batches. So this time there is a bit more of news. New animations and graph for drawing a bow have been added. With advantages of upcoming system drawing will be available while walking as well. The jamming/unjamming for pistols has been created and there is already ongoing work on bolt action rifles. Not to forget about vehicles we have finished set of animations for upcoming vehicle and started on the next one. Also some more specific animations for attaching vehicle parts have been created. Last week I was going through process of reviewing and updating poses. Since the character can put almost anything in his hands we have at the moment poses for clothes, small items, large items, firearms, weapons and many more. That makes in total over 800 animation poses. I have updated some and polished to give them more natural look. And last but not least there is always some more polishing for the animation graph of the new player character. More about some recent changes from Adam our Technical Animator responsible for most parts of the player graph. Adam Oresten / Technical Animator These past weeks I have been heavily focused on making the movement system feel more natural, for such a simple term it is quite the complex task. I started reviewing the stance-system from the player's viewpoint and I think I've got a quite nice iteration for the stance changes. For example, you're lying down in the grass near the airfield's tents and you thought you saw movement in the distance. You start to stand up but realize that it was in fact another player, and any time during that animation you can decide to go back to prone, finish standing up, or to go crouch instead and aim your weapon (at the same time). If you then realize that the bandits noticed you, you start to run (still in crouch) and stand up while moving and leg it (and ultimately get picked off by their SVDs). While it is a small change, it has added a whole new dimension of feel, and I can't wait to put it in your hands! - Viktor Kostik / Lead Animator Community Spotlight Afternoon all, Summer time is usually outdoor time (when the weather allows for it, of course), but if you still find yourself indoors, NomadFreeman has provided a bit of entertainment for you. No gear, no problem: Also, a lot of you probably already know about Tatanko, but for those of you that don't, I highly recommend having a look at his VERY extensive galleries. Tatanko puts in a lot of effort into creating his screenshots and he keeps his galleries jam packed with quality visual goodness: http://tatanko.imgur.com/ Be sure to use this link in order to follow Tatanko via his Twitter account for future updates (you won't be disappointed): http://twitter.com/TatankoX Header image by: Sylvester - SMoss / Community Manager

Thank you for being polite. It's not that I want DayZ mod; that was then, this is now. And I only speak of DayZ vanilla mod as well. None of the Epoch stuff I never really liked any of those mods of mods of the mod... To be fair I don't play DayZ or any games much anymore I don't have the spare time. But the mod was excellent while it lasted. And that's the hope of the SA isn't it? To grow from the feel and the experience of the mod but into a better, bigger, harsher and more challenging version I thought? (Without the hackers as well) No I don't want a pew pew shoot fest at all, not really, but it does need to have that element in the game it's still a key part of the experience I think. As for flight yes I do want the aim of or chance of seeing a heli in the standalone.. I can tell you this, as the OP asked about being able to hide bases currently, and helis making it easy to find them - hiding a heli was usually just as much trouble as getting the thing airborne in the first place. Also flying and maintaining one would be far more difficult now than the mod; we can already see that with the vehicles we have so far. Which is a good thing isn't it. Having a heli should be a near impossible feat. And piloting the thing should also be difficult and take a lot of practice. Even in Arma2 & mod the heli flying took some practice, but as standalone will be taking the 'take-on helicopters' or Arma3 set up it probably will be very difficult and take lots of crashing and dying before mastering flight lol, & be a far rarer thing for someone to be able to fly well and keep a heli going longterm and so on. That's why I say it won't be game breaking, it will still be a hugely rare thing I think to hear or see a heli going by. But as a survivor on the ground it is another thing to be wary of and that's fundamentally what DayZ is, and needs more of to make it have the feeling of imminent doom and the adrenaline that made it so great an experience in the first place. Another reason why bases shouldn't be safe, to take it back to the OP question. There shouldn't really be a great safety net that all players have. Even when you do get a good cache of weapons and gear stashed somewhere it should always be under some kind of potential threat shouldn't it? It would be boring without that.

On the DayZ mod, aircraft were my thing, and as a result I have a pretty clear idea of how choppers in DayZ SA will impact gameplay... (and planes... everybody discounts the trusty plane) At first, there are going to be 2-4 aircraft per map. One plane and one chopper, maybe two of each if the devs so choose... Initially, aircraft will be so rare that seeing or hearing one in the sky will fill you with a sense of excitement. It was this way in the early days of the mod. They will quickly become owned and operated by only the largest and most powerful group(s) that exist on any given server, except for when they exist in the hands of random survivors, for short periods of time, when they get stolen/destroyed/respawned from the large groups who will monopolize them. When only a couple aircraft exist, actually owning, maintaining, and defending them becomes an extraordinarily laborious affair simply because the entire server is basically willing to sacrifice their lives for an outside chance to steal your helicopter from you (in many cases they aren't worth the effort of keeping them). If people see one, they follow it; if they find where you land it's only a matter of time before they destroy or steal it. When aircraft are extremely limited (2-4 only per map) they become the most valuable objects in the game due to their rarity and unique utility, and for this reason, 90% of all players simply will not give up on hunting for them after they exhaust the other gameplay focuses that DayZ offers. Paradoxically the rarity driven value of aircraft on a server where only two exist is so high that protecting them exceeds and interferes with their functional utility value; you're better off not wasting effort in trying to find or keep one and just use them opportunistically if you happen to find one. Given that aircraft themselves in this scenario become so incredibly valuable, flying them around and landing in random bases becomes far too risky, even landing in your own base has the risk of attracting players. The way helicopters will initially be used, as they were on the mod, will be mostly for picking up friends across Chernarus, especially fresh spawns, for transporting items over long distances, and scouting. I am extremely confident that the above assessment is precisely how aircraft will play out initially; their impact on game-play actually winds up being negligible because your odds of seeing one, interacting with one, or being exploited by one are very very slim due to their rarity and how greedily they will be hoarded. Which brings be to the next reality that played out on the mod which will absolutely play out on Vanilla SA too: you will be scrolling down the vanilla server list, when suddenly, "1000+ VEHICLE SERVER / TONS OF AIRCRAFT / CLAN PVP JOIN OR DIE!!!!!!!!!" Since aircraft were so highly prized, and since it sometimes took 3 months of playing the game to organically get your hands on one, essentially people got tired of not having a reliable means to enter "the end game" (aircraft ownership, at the time...) and so favored joining servers which severely cranked up the number of vehicle spawns. These servers became the most popular servers until the DayZ mod "mods" themselves arrived and brought with them supplementary forms of vehicle acquisition such as makeshift vehicle construction (bicycles and mozzies, etc...) and automated safe-zone NPC vendors (not that I want them). The real problem with cranking up the number of vehicle spawns is that it makes them very easy to acquire which cheapens their value and goes on to impact the game-play experience in multiple negative ways: It becomes to easy to project power at low levels with easy vehicle access, and they become cheap/disposable due to the fact that more will always spawn and they will be easy to find. Kamikaze'ing becomes attractive in this vehicle laden environment. So it was, so it is said, and so it shall be... The best solution to this, IMO, and the one I predict the modding community will provide upon beta, is to have some form of constructable vehicle system. It sounds like too much, but the alternative is to either have vehicles (especially aircraft) be too easy to get or not reliably getable whatsoever due to rarity. Constructable vehicles such as bicycles, go-kart like creations, ultralight planes and "mozzie" helicopters, could be difficult to create without requiring the extreme luck factor needed to stumble upon them if they are ultra-rare. It trades a hard upper limit on number of aircraft per server (defined by how many spawn in traditionally) for a soft upper limit determined by how much time people are available on a server, and are willing, to invest in the extensive resource requirements for vehicle construction. It might require many weeks worth of hard work for a lone survivor to gather, stash, and work the required materials into an actual working vehicle, but at least at the end of the weeks of work the chances of success become much higher (approaching 100% if you play carefully enough and don't get robbed during the process). Additionally makeshift vehicles are inherently weak things. Ko-karts can go fast and could tow a wagon if they have a good engine (relatively) but they have passenger and weight limitations. Ultralight aircraft would be good for transporting the pilot, scouting, and carrying compact and very light cargo, like blood bags, and that's about it. Makeshift vehicles don't make traditional vehicles obsolete, they just supplement vehicle access and lower level vehicle utility. Again, they sound like a bit much, but in reality what we're about to see is "a bit much" in the form of extreme aircraft rarity (i.e, spend three months trying to get an aircraft before just giving up) followed by "a bit more" in the form of extreme aircraft prevalence when every server and it's grandmother server jacks the spawn rates, until finally (or when) the beta gets released, at which point the entire community becomesa keenly aware of the "how many aircraft should each server spawn" dilemma and then it will be left either for the devs to address it (likely no because content wise it might prove to be too much extra work) or the modding community itself to address it, which it will, for better or for worse. My hope is that some great mod gets released which uses constructable vehicles to address the issues that are inherent in hard upper limits on vehicle numbers and then gets scooped up, refined, and incorporated into the release of 1.0. Vanilla is going to have all the same problems of the original DayZ mod if we don't learn from it's history. And to those who fear the imminent onset of full blown aircraft-syndrome, don't. DayZ players will in the end gravitate toward whichever kinds of servers do the best job, and so whatever becomes popular will be the best available version. Aircraft won't be the end of the end of the DayZ world, even if that means servers just disabling aircraft altogether. Not everyone was there in DayZ olden times, but many of us were, and those who were remember that in the end it was not super rare aircraft that was popular, nor super prevalent aircraft. Those were just pit stops on the way to new forms of the original DayZ mod which incorporated supplemental vehicle access in as many forms as the hard working modders could manage. The new mechanic of having to repair vehicles using an intricate and hard to satisfy system allows DayZ SA in it's current vanilla state to jack up the number of vehicle spawns without making it as easy to actually get vehicles as it was in the original DayZ mod, but the hard upper limit can still become an issue for high pop servers. The comments of SMoss (bless him <3) in this thread are in line with my predictions for the first stage of aircraft in DayZ... Mark my words!!!

Yes. Definitely a staple of all open world survival video games. Or no. It's been a year and a half since they introduced the V3S into DayZ and all vehicles are currently, erm -Please be patient with me as I try to word this as politely as possible- broken as fucking all-get-out (nailed it). I have very little confidence in any "realistic helicopter" operation any time in any future considering what little it's going to add to the experience other than a glitchy diversion that will get old much sooner than it finds a stable configuration. If you guys want dayz mod so much- then go play that. I wish people would stop trying to transform DayZ SA Vanilla into what the Mod was. I'll concede that there is a bunch of new tech that can benefit gameplay so someone taking SA and modding it down to the basic pew pew fuckfest would have benefits for those pursuing that type of experience. Why they're wasting any resources on choppers for vanilla is just further evidence that the dev team has lost sight of its original destination having spent too much time staring at the roadmap in search of tourist traps instead of paying attention to where it was going.

Yes if a heli flies etc etc I know. I used to run DayZ mod servers and part of the game was searching for camps in helis. That's part of the risk with any camp and part of the reward of finally getting a heli airbourne. We had a base once with over ten vehicles and 5 helis on my old mod server (the good old days ;) ) but we knew it was stupid really hoarding all that and one day we logged in and they were all destroyed, it's to be expected in DayZ. But the most fun was in finding who had done it and getting revenge; and then rebuilding of course. As for hiding them better, there are still places around Willow lake that can hide things and they won't be seen from above, under the willow trees there. That's just one example. Doesn't persistence also allow rifles and weapons to be stashed on their own under a bush or something similar and that would be very well hidden? Crates are a good idea for something like this but more permanent. I would store things strung out across the map, with tents south of Lopatino, another stash up North past devil's castle, rescue stashes around other spots like Willow lake or around the road South of Krasno and more across to Berezino in a spot along the coast there just South of the city. If it's spread out you keep from getting everything taken at once. Anyway that probably doesn't answer your original question, but I don't think helis will ruin the game at all, it would ruin the sense of safety that some might have though at the moment and I suppose that's what you might be on about. But I think that's a good thing. This is supposed to be the end of the world and there should be no safety really. Yes they should develop the stashes again like we used to have. Standalone needs them. Did you not play the mod? They would just show as a manhole cover basically. Could put one under a decent tree and from more than a few metres away could barely be seen. They couldn't hold much but were useful for vital small things. The oil barrels are a bit similar and can be hidden well in trees I thought. We used to have 4 little birds, 2 Mi-17 and 2 Hueys on the old official DayZ mod servers I used to run and that wasn't too many. And the map was more restricted then, far less player spreadout because there were less areas of interest and less towns and less loot spread. Supermarkets and firestations were pretty much guaranteed to get a shootout. You would be running into players a lot more often on the mod, but nearly everyone had some form of transportation or a friend with something even if it was only a bike. Now it's still mostly the endless running without getting tired. But, still developing etc etc... So I wouldn't worry too much. Yes if you've got a big tent city you're going to get stung. But that would happen in reality wouldn't it, sooner or later? I think this all adds to the immersion and the fear that is supposed to be there with DayZ. The first times you're out running in the woods and hear a heli flying towards you you shit yourself and run for cover. The next time you take position and wait for them to come into firing range. That's part of DayZ life hehe.

Surprisingly, I survived a full coastal run, on hi-pop servers. I did get shot up a couple of times by saddos sniping from the hills overlooking the coast road, but I didn't manage to catch any of them.There were fewer encounters than I expected, or would have liked. Most freshies are really just people who have died at NWAF or elsewhere and are running back to their mates and gear. Nonetheless, I did manage to help a few people out. Someone who seemed friendly and genuinely new to the game got my fully kitted AKM, with mags and ammo (left 500m up the road as a precaution), while I made quite a few improvised backpacks for others. Predictably I also had people trying to punch me out/assault me with fire extinguishers/run me over, and sadly had to summarily execute one or two who really were beyond the pale. Shooting up vehicles with an ACOG/bipod M4 is great fun and quite cinematic. I carefully avoided the big coastal towns and spent most of my time around Kamyshovo, Nizhnoye, etc. If you're bored with looting it makes a refreshing change - just don't take your best gear.

Once a player goes to military bases there are no incentive for moving to other areas other than helicrashes or other military areas, you will find plenty of food in military bases, lots of tents (I think the only tent that should respawn there is the military tent), best clothing in game (you will find any type, colour and condition you want), best backpacks and best weapons in game. Please consider making a shopping mall as suggested many times where you would find best tents in game, best backpacks,good clothing so the players have a real incentive to go there. Gun stores would be another incentive to move around the map, scrapyards (with a good chance of finding barrels and basebuilding materials for example), etc, the game needs more unique locations with exclusive loot in it. The loot in the residential areas is too plain, no matter which city you visit, the loot is always the same, there is no "north airfield" for civil equipment, if you're after civil loot you can just visit the city near your favourite military area (at the moment there's no need for civil loot after you visited a military base) I think the concept of travelling north for progressing is wrong, players should be moving around the map, most of the map is wasted because of this idea, there is no progress anyway, once you get into a military area you will find the best of everything and plenty of it with the exception of maybe vehicles, so why bother going anywhere else?

And since we are at it, the whole "survival" part is why I lately decided to write a - negative - review. It simply should not be advertised as any sort of survival game, because to me it is moving away from a survival game at an enormous pace. Sucks, if you bought it as a survival game. Pretty much everything which has been added over the last year has been pretty much designed to optimise the PvP aspect. The introduction of (never needed) farming is back how far? one and a half years by now`? Since then, apart from the needed player controller all I hear is: - gun sounds, weapon sway, damage box, loot economy (mostly related to which gun is where), vehicles and how to shoot from them, barricading and how to use it in PvP, obviously new weapons and ammo, gun jamming, reloading animations. I never hear about: - rework or expansion of the medical system, the rudimentary skill system they maybe want to introduce (if I only can chop wood quicker, better leave it out anyway), ways to actually make guns /ammo / food more rare. Now, I have clocked hundreds of hours in this game, yet after the first 10 hours I have NEVER, I repeat, NEVER died to a zombie, hunger, thirst or anything survival related. As long as a zombie means to run 200 meters and be safe, no matter what, is it a threat? Dying of hunger or thirst is an achievement and dying of hyperthermia is easily avoided if you don't feel the dire need of walking around like a fully armored yeti. Yes, I know, zombies are still in the works, other aspects of the game as well. But a review can only encompass past experience and realistic outlook. Currently, as you say, we have a jogging simulator with no real threat apart from the bullet in your back. Now, if I want a PvP-only game (can't call it FPS for obvious reasons), I choose a game where it does not take me 3 hours of walking to actually get this PvP. If you get it at all, sometimes after 3 hours of walking you get a "you are dead message" - whether that is a sniper, a sheed or a stair doesn't matter too much to me. If I want a survival experience, I would definitely look elsewhere. That doesn't mean I do not enjoy playing it every once in a while. But I would not recommend buying it. And personally I will refrain from early access in the future. Just my 2 cents.

Glad it made sense. More or less that is probably what is happening. I have noticed the vehicles position work for the first server restart. But any server resets after the first one the vehicle disappears.

I think I can help clarify. Basically the issue is not with vehicle persistence. Vehicles will persist through server restarts. What is causing the issue is vehicle location and orientation. It means the last vehicle coordinates are not working as intended. So although the car did persist it is not in the same location and not in the same orientation it was last left off. This is how I interpreted Hicks response when he clarified for me. I am not sure if the latest hotfix patch today is suppose to fixed the issue. But all we can do is test and see if it works. Edit: Latest patch most likely has no fix for vehicles. Just saw this "Small Stable branch update incoming (fix for missing warning/error messages). "

So does this mean vehicles don't disappear anymore as they have been throughout the entire stable build of .60? Or is the position/orientation issue the reason the vehicles do disappear?

The whole copy-paste feeling of Chernarus is what really throws me out of the experience. Even a little bit of variety - such as re-skinning certain vehicles/buildings and/or interior decorations would go a long way to breaking up that monotony. This need for variety applies even more so to unique buildings like the fire and police stations. Re-skinning these buildings won't be enough. Considering their strategic value (for people to obtain weapons and vehicles) They'd make good candidates for "destructive passes"...and/or the large empty garage is a great place to spawn fire-trucks.

You mean we should have emergency vehicles like these?:

I also wonder that. Persistance is okay but position/orientation is not. That means vehicles stay where they are now ??

No there is not enough info in regards to modding yet. Not one of us can really answer it, we still do not have basebuilding, and operational vehicles (deathbugs) PVE, PVP, RP, PVP/PVE are going to be typical of any servers. If enough want 1st, pvp/pve servers, i expect a solid hardcore clan establishment. Private, clan invite only servers will be popular to PVP.

O.O Are you talking about the conflicts in and over Ukraine? Or a source for DayZ lore which proposes a fictional civil war? I admit that I've never encountered such a story, not that Ive encountered much DayZ lore whatsoever though. (as you say it's severely lacking). To be honest I really don't like the idea of pitting Czechs vs Russians against one another in the lore unless we absolutely must; it's too political. In a civil war we would indeed expect to come across large stockpiles of food, weapons, and clothes, but there are no large stockpiles in DayZ aside from player accumulated ones; survivors scavenge bits and bobs from hundreds of buildings in order to get the gear they want; resources are sparse and scattered. I think it would be a much better conceptualization of why there are scattered guns and supplies laying around on the ground in barracks and shit to simply envision what would have taken place in an actual global zombie apocalypse. Outbreaks would spread from one region and expand, pushing survivors, including military not willing to waste ammunition on the walking dead, away from the major population centers and towards countrysides, like Chernarus. The prevalence of both Russian and NATO weapons can be explained by Russian and NATO forces deciding to work-together and hold out at the military bases of Chernarus (hence they brought with them their guns, clothes, gear, ammo, and whichever appropriate vehicles), before finally succumbing to the airborne infection once it reached them. ------------- Lore aside, Right now when you come to the edge of the game world, you see a wholly unnatural line which is perfectly straight and delineates life and no-life. It's incredibly immersion breaking and there's no point in ever going out into the debug zone other than foolish or morbid curiosity. If the suggestion of this thread were implemented, instead of coming to the existing straight unnatural boundary of life and death, you would simply keep going as there would be about 20% more actual land mass (the world would be bigger) and instead of coming to an unnatural and hellish sight you would come to a beach. Not so immersion killing when it's put this way... You like larger worlds by the sound of it, so why not? This would also enable a possibility for 360 degrees of islands, large or small, being placed off the coast, which further enhances the playable world size. There would be no one "end game island" (save for maybe a defacto largest and most resource plentiful northern island), they would all be a part of the same open and freely explorable world with no unnatural boundaries.

I havent really bothered with vehicles or jerry cans at all but i think the j cans being persistent is a really good idea especially considering you can use them for water also

If you had asked the Devs this question 1-2 years ago, they might have told you that we would be in beta by now :D. But you know, problems arise, ensue, and are being overcome! I'm betting that beta is going to be out sometime around the end of this year, with most estimates putting beta release around February 2017. And yes, there will definitely be "solo mode". There is some really good news though: If you're tired of being stuck to the run and gun playstyle, just wait about two-four months until we have bonafide base-building and air-vehicles. This will enable a new tier of permanence and incentives for player interaction. And let's be honest, DayZ is nothing without player interaction. Even before beta DayZ is going to explode in terms of long term play-ability, and that moment is ever approaching. Right now the devs are working their flattened butts off doing things like programming new movement animations and sounds for every little thing with the new technology they just finished/imported. As a programming strategy it's better to finish all the universal systems that will govern individual and modular actions and entities instead of adding in those entities first (things like permanent player built structures, placement mechanics, etc...) and then have to re-work them all and de-bug them a second time when the actual programming format gets a necessary upgrade. A somewhat under-expected ramification of this strategy is that once the core systems have become finished and refined, there is going to be a (relatively) explosive phase of new content being added in what will to us seem like rapid and insane succession. Content we aren't even expecting is going to get thrown in once the bulk of the dev team starts focusing on adding new content instead of fixing and polishing existing features. Did you know there's going to be a simulated radio system (usable radio towers for broadcasting) and a simulated electrical system (GENERATORS N SHIT!). Hmmm... Maybe I'm rambling but it's indirectly on topic!

A smaller Fire House design for rural areas would be great! Fire vehicles, as well.

I hadn't really thought about it, but you're quite right. I wouldn't mind seeing an HQ variant of each emergency building. A police headquarters in, I don't know, Novo - I think there's already a massive hospital or two - and a fire headquarters in Zelenogorsk or something. Each major town should have its own unique building or feature. On a similar note, it'd be nice if there were more crashed emergency vehicles. Police cars randomly spawn, so why not ambulances and fire engines?