Assorted suggestions

[rittenhaus 0]

1. It's been said many times before and threads have been devoted to it, but night time is too dark. If you are striving for realism, this is not what night time looks like, even where there is no light pollution, unless it's overcast and a new moon. Had high hopes upon seeing the note about tone mapping in the latest patch, but there's been no real change here. I'd recommend allowing people to see what they're doing. Sure, make it harder to see at night. Just not impossible. Hopping servers for ten minutes to find one that is lit during one's precious free time is senseless. Flashlights are fun, but do very little to let you see what you're doing, interfere with the use of weapons, and alert all zombies and players near you to your presence. Everyone has seen a show in which someone uses a pistol together with a flashlight. That this is not already in DayZ is puzzling. Shouldn't it be rather straightforward to implement?

2. Inventory nerfs with every other patch are really getting tiresome. I know this is alpha, but it takes a while to get your kit all together, and once you do, it's frustrating to have your 870 and your GPS and so on replaced with a bandage and a can of cola. Lots of people are having such problems. It might be good to plan for the future in the way persistent inventory is implemented so as to avoid these issues. The most horrifying thing I've seen in DayZ was opening my inventory window and watching my flashlight Remington being replaced with a PM and two clips.

3. While zombies did need to be more of a threat than they had been previously, the buffs they've received in the recent patch together with nerfs to player characters and starting inventory result in an experience that is simply too frustrating to be meaningful, like a zombie Waiting for Godot or some other existentialist work. It is my understanding that LOS is now in the script. Seems to be very, very broken at this stage of development. Zombies are still seeing through walls and walking through walls. In most games, if players could do such things, it would be considered cheating. I'd suggest further work on LOS, as it's evidently not working yet.

4. Get help with coding. There have been some posts on other forums where snippets of DayZ code have been copypasta'd and critiqued. It's not pretty. There are plenty of good coders at BI. Maybe someone there can help.

5. Bandit skins based on humanity, while not terribly realistic, provided some assistance to survivors and some disincentive to DayZ becoming nothing but a PvP game. As it stands, there's nothing standing in the way of everyone killing on sight. That's frankly rather boring and I can get that just about anywhere. Maybe let murdered players come back as zombies, with their uncanny strength, speed and hearing, to take revenge.

6. Keep having great ideas for sandbox mods and games. DayZ is something special, even with its alpha problems. It has fantastic potential. Keep trying out ideas. The most recent spate of ideas, perhaps not so much. ;) At the moment it's a die horribly every five minutes simulator rather than a zombie apocalypse simulator. Looking forward to coming back to DayZ once things shake out a bit.

[sgtsnug 26]

The only thing I'll comment on is #5 - There is no situation where you'd be able to come back as a zombie, case in point; the only situation you'd want to come back as a zombie is when a player killed you....the player would have killed you with bullets and bullets does not = zombie, it = dead corpse.

Rocket has identified this is an infection, not raising the dead so...bullet = dead, no reincarnation.

And if your killed by a zombie IE infected, then there's no reason to be a zombie...plus you'd be practically half eaten and as stated above..no reincarnation.