Dayz Standalone should go exclusively Private Hive with name plates.

[scaramoosh 162]

What I generally find is people (including myself) tend to pick a few favourite servers and stick to them. Right now the problem in doing that is if they don't update you need to look for another one, however with Dayz standalone attempting to fix that, it wont be an issue.

The problem with having a persistent character is it means you can take that character and join whatever server you want with no consequence. That basically acts like a forum troll on the internet and since you don't have to use your real identity, you can easily say something without fear that you'd have in real life.

This is why we have a bandit problem in the game, you can just kill and kill without any repercussion. People who claim they like it that way because it is realistic and they don't want any game mechanics to control, well that just isn't true of life. We have lots of social mechanics in place in our lives that stop this from happening. If society broke down then we'd eventually have have groups of people coming together as it is more beneficial, with Bandits being the outcasts and being the ones that are hunted. Dayz doesn't have any of this purely because there is no consequence, the likelihood of running into someone twice is low over different play sessions on different servers.

What Private Hives do is generate a community of people who usually know each other and that encourages them to stick together and be wary of new people or bandits. I remember reading a book years ago from Richard Dawkins that really translates to this, however it cannot be done in this game if you're always nameless. Obviously Private Hives are so much better because the admins are generally active and I've experienced less hackers as a result. However they offer an advantage of bringing together a community and as your character cannot move servers then you're encouraged even more to stick to the same community.

There will always be bandits, it is fun to be one and I'm not asking for a Care Bear PVE only game as it's the PVP I love. However they have all the advantage and none of the downside and there are no mechanics in place to encourage people to get together. No nameplates is a big one, I don't want them to be sticking out as a big warning that there is a player there, however when you get close and put your crosshair over someone, it should bring up their name. That way you can be like "I've been burnt by that person before" and stay away or kill them as retaliation.

This is a much better solution than adding fake mechanics of bandit skins and what other crap developers try to add like the whole dark and light mechanics in Bioware games.

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

I stopped reading at nameplates. Most experienced players hate them for obvious reasons.

[Timberwolf (DayZ) 118]

Standalone should not have private hives. Ever.

[hawkygaming 43]

Nameplates? That removes the realism from DayZ and it's basically what makes DayZ so great.

[lvg 1690]

So you're not going to be a person who complains lets say when the Private server goes down due to lack of funds or the server is always full and takes about 1 hour to get in each time, or the server is full of abusive admins, or the server host refuses to update the server and after playing there for weeks you have everything you need you simply have to start again and then the cycle continues.

For me that'd be pretty annoying.

The option should be what it is now, you have a choice to join public or you go private, there's no need to remove that option at all.

[GeordieMarv 293]

Nameplates suck, and make the game far too easy.

And people should have the choice between both types of hives. Forcing people to use private hives and nameplates is just (rightly so) going to annoy people.

[scaramoosh 162]

Nameplates are essential for telling who people are, however they shouldn't be a trick to spot people like it is in most games. They're the only way to add an Id to people as there is no customization to make you look unique enough from other people. If you don't add social mechanics into the game it'll end up as another shoot on sight borefest that Dayz become when it got popular.