Few Weeks In: Observations

[chrismgtis 55]

I am absolutely what you would call a hard core gamer. Been doing it since I was able to hold a controller in my hand back when the Atari was around (but not during it's release - I'm not that damn old). I was born in 1982 just so you don't get any bright ideas and start calling me old. I'm only 29. Anyway, so after somewhat avoiding Arma 2 for a long time I played Arma 2 Free for a while then picked up the game about 3 weeks ago specifically for DayZ.

From the stand-point of a semi-newcomer who learned about the game from a friend then learned more through YouTube videos and having spoken to people in the clan and others, I think I speak for damn near all of the player base in the following points:

:idea: Observations:

- Bandit skin: no legitimate excuse to remove. So I must ask whether or not this will return and why it was disabled in the first place. A massive percentage of people purchased this game (one of many reasons) because of the bandit skin. Regardless of what reason some person comes up with (and will) in this thread: the reason will not be good enough.

- Helicopters: Alright, so I understand the lag issue. God knows, I know how bad the engine is for dozens of reasons: netcode, AI, passengers in vehicles, performance optimization (lack of), etc. But at the same time I have to ask myself: How is DayZ any different than vanilla Arma 2 where people fly dozens of aircraft at the same time on servers. How does one helicopter effect anything? Not that I don't believe you: I just want to know the TRUE technical answer. Not sure I can see how a modification of A2 suddenly has issues with helicopters.

- Removal of side chat on most servers: absolutely no legitimate reason. Bandwidth: text does not effect bandwidth or increase lag. I might understand that excuse back when I was on a 2400BPS modem. God knows text loaded slow as dirt back then on BBS's. So what IS the legitimate reason (not that there is one)? People want it. I can't imagine one person that doesn't. How many games have had the same exact thing (including Arma 2) for years or even decades now.

:idea: Features that can like be turned on and NEED to be:

- Death messages: Who died and who killed that person. Makes it a hell of a lot easier to find out who a hacker is and is beneficial in a dozen other ways. I can't even imagine why this isn't on.

While I'm at it, not sure what is up with the chopper crash sites lately. Normally you can spend an hour and find five of these on one server. I've spent the past 2 days and found maybe 2 on about 30 servers. Seems like something weird is going on? Thoughts? :-/

:idea: Conclusion: You have to admit, reason upon reason people purchased this game, for the features like those above, have been disabled. I understand disabling Helis. Doesn't bother me. But please do tell the reason that bandit skins and side chat has been messed with. Not that I'm complaining, but I am making an observation here as I've been thinking to myself what the deal is with so many features being turned off that should be on.

[Stonedknight 26]

I agree with the removal of side chat. There is no reason what so ever my character should know WTF is goin on in Cherno if i am not near there. And I honestly dont give a fuck. Unless you have a radio there shouldnt be a way to find out what is goin on all the way across the map.

Death Messages. Once again not needed for the public to see. No reason you or your friend should know that "Tom" killed "Dick" who previously killed "Harry".

To the rest. Bandit skins can come back. Im all for more options on looks. Heli's.. meh.

Conclusion: I dont have to admit to shit because what you think is a reason people purchased this game (of which this is a mod that you did not pay for) for features that can and will be removed and changed around because this is an Alpha.

[chrismgtis 55]

I agree with the removal of side chat. There is no reason what so ever my character should know WTF is goin on in Cherno if i am not near there. And I honestly dont give a fuck. Unless you have a radio there shouldnt be a way to find out what is goin on all the way across the map.

Death Messages. Once again not needed for the public to see. No reason you or your friend should know that "Tom" killed "Dick" who previously killed "Harry".

To the rest. Bandit skins can come back. Im all for more options on looks. Heli's.. meh.

Conclusion: I dont have to admit to shit because what you think is a reason people purchased this game (of which this is a mod that you did not pay for) for features that can and will be removed and changed around because this is an Alpha.

You're bad at trolling. Move along.

[Killerbeavis 1]

Let me try and answer from the knowledge I have

Bandit Skins: I believe one factor is that people who are not trying to be bandits get this skin because of self defense, and after that people just assume you will kill them. (I dont know too much about such skin)

Helis: I am under the assumption you dont know much about programming. One little change could make many things screw up, that is why each patch has many bug fixes because you cant fix them all in order and have perfection. And the lag it creates when it desyncs with ther servers cause the players to crash and die. And dying in this game sucks when you are geared up.

Side Servers: I believe the reason for removing it is to create more realism. Do you think everyone in a zombie apocalypse is going to have a radio that will reach 225km all synced to the proper channel. NO. So this creates more realism into the game.

Death Messages: I understand the hacker aspect of the argument. I have been killed by such a thing before. But the reason it is not there (Like previous argument) it creates more realism. You shouldnt know who killed someone unless you see.

Crash sites: I am not sure if the spawn rate has changed, but I see many people say they can not find one for their lives, then I see some people say they found 5 in the span of 30 minutes. So I think it is just one of those things to get lucky at.

That is my 2 cents. Comment if you please (And dont quote me if I am completely wrong)

[Nuingaer 0]

- Removal of side chat on most servers: absolutely no legitimate reason. Bandwidth: text does not effect bandwidth or increase lag. I might understand that excuse back when I was on a 2400BPS modem. God knows text loaded slow as dirt back then on BBS's. So what IS the legitimate reason (not that there is one)? People want it. I can't imagine one person that doesn't. How many games have had the same exact thing (including Arma 2) for years or even decades now.

:idea: Features that can like be turned on and NEED to be:

- Death messages: Who died and who killed that person. Makes it a hell of a lot easier to find out who a hacker is and is beneficial in a dozen other ways. I can't even imagine why this isn't on.

While I'm at it' date=' not sure what is up with the chopper crash sites lately. Normally you can spend an hour and find five of these on one server. I've spent the past 2 days and found maybe 2 on about 30 servers. Seems like something weird is going on? Thoughts? :-/

:idea: Conclusion: You have to admit, reason upon reason people purchased this game, for the features like those above, have been disabled. I understand disabling Helis. Doesn't bother me. But please do tell the reason that bandit skins and side chat has been messed with. Not that I'm complaining, but I am making an observation here as I've been thinking to myself what the deal is with so many features being turned off that should be on.

[/quote']

I don't know about the first things - I believe bandit skin was removed so as to remove the ability to tell if they are or not... they are trying to put as much realism in as possible - anyone could be a murderer, you just don't know. In real life you don't suddenly look different after killing a few people. Also, you could become a bandit just by killing people in self-defense (if they didn't hit you first) - thereby becoming a 'bandit' when you aren't, and possibly ruining your gameplay style.

Side chat - servers can opt to turn this on and off I think, I've been on a couple who have it on and a couple who don't. Honestly, I hate it, and so do most people I've talked to. It completely ruins immersion, the feeling of being isolated in a zombie-infested wasteland. You can't just 'telephone' (sidechat) for help. There is no 911 (000). 50 players worth of sidechat spamming my bottom left is annoying as hell, and is a horrible feature that should always be turned off. If you want to talk to people, get on the teamspeak's that many servers have.

Death messages? Again, its bad enough that you *know* someone died - you shouldn't. You definitely shouldn't omnisciently know who killed that person. This is the same reason as people shouldn't get bandit skins. I believe server logs etc can still see who killed who and therefore be used to identify hackers. What are the 'dozen' other beneficial ways, beyond making it easier for players in that they *know* this 'friendly' person they just met has killed several people and you should therefore shoot them. Ruins the game.

And the age old story - no one cares if you bought a whole game to play an alpha mod. Thats your own problem, not the problem of the development team.

[Evito 4]

Hardcore player my ass hah.

You get the answers you ask for then insult the person by accusing him of trolling, although from the look of things you just looked for people to worship you for having the guts to claim youre a hardcore player then contradict everything you said at the start of your post.

Realism is not an absolute value apparently with the team (Hell if i know for sure though) but authenticity certainly is, twenty kids screaming on the sidechannel thirty clicks away from you about what they had for breakfast without radios is certainly not authentic.

[Max Planck 7174]

- Removal of side chat on most servers: absolutely no legitimate reason. Bandwidth: text does not effect bandwidth or increase lag. I might understand that excuse back when I was on a 2400BPS modem. God knows text loaded slow as dirt back then on BBS's. So what IS the legitimate reason (not that there is one)? People want it. I can't imagine one person that doesn't.

Well' date=' here's one. Me. Can you imagine?

Sidechat was horrible, trying to sneak around in the dark while the left half of the screen was blue with all kinds of bigoted shit was not my idea of fun. It ruined the immersion and served no purpose. You want to chat? There are places for that, places where your chatting won't ruin other people's experience.

EDIT:

[You're bad at trolling. Move along. ']

That was pathetic. Can you not stand having people disagree with you? Go to your room and be ashamed of yourself.

[Mastiff (DayZ) 42]

---

I agree with the removal of side chat. There is no reason what so ever my character should know WTF is goin on in Cherno if i am not near there. And I honestly dont give a fuck. Unless you have a radio there shouldnt be a way to find out what is goin on all the way across the map.

Death Messages. Once again not needed for the public to see. No reason you or your friend should know that "Tom" killed "Dick" who previously killed "Harry".

To the rest. Bandit skins can come back. Im all for more options on looks. Heli's.. meh.

Conclusion: I dont have to admit to shit because what you think is a reason people purchased this game (of which this is a mod that you did not pay for) for features that can and will be removed and changed around because this is an Alpha.

You're bad at trolling. Move along.

Is this marik dude for real?

[Zombie_chew_toy 2]

I agree with the removal of side chat. There is no reason what so ever my character should know WTF is goin on in Cherno if i am not near there. And I honestly dont give a fuck. Unless you have a radio there shouldnt be a way to find out what is goin on all the way across the map.

Death Messages. Once again not needed for the public to see. No reason you or your friend should know that "Tom" killed "Dick" who previously killed "Harry".

To the rest. Bandit skins can come back. Im all for more options on looks. Heli's.. meh.

Conclusion: I dont have to admit to shit because what you think is a reason people purchased this game (of which this is a mod that you did not pay for) for features that can and will be removed and changed around because this is an Alpha.

You're bad at trolling. Move along.

LOL

I agree with StonedKnight. And just because he disagreed doesnt make him a troll.

And just so you know I dont play this mod for any of the reason you listed. As a matter of fact I'd say youre pretty wrong on your conclusions.

[naizarak 41]

I am absolutely what you would call a hard core gamer. Been doing it since I was able to hold a controller in my hand back when the Atari was around (but not during it's release - I'm not that damn old). I was born in 1982 just so you don't get any bright ideas and start calling me old. I'm only 29. Anyway' date=' so after somewhat avoiding Arma 2 for a long time I played Arma 2 Free for a while then picked up the game about 3 weeks ago specifically for DayZ.

[/quote']

No one cares about your age. My grandma is 85 and my cat is 6months old. Big whoop!

From the stand-point of a semi-newcomer who learned about the game from a friend then learned more through YouTube videos and having spoken to people in the clan and others' date=' I think I speak for damn near all of the player base in the following points:

[/quote']

Please don't make such an overarching assumption.

:idea: Observations:

- Bandit skin: no legitimate excuse to remove. So I must ask whether or not this will return and why it was disabled in the first place. A massive percentage of people purchased this game (one of many reasons) because of the bandit skin. Regardless of what reason some person comes up with (and will) in this thread: the reason will not be good enough.

It was removed because the game became black and white. Spare survivors and shoot bandits. It removed the tension from meeting a new player and deciding whether or not to trust them.

- Helicopters: Alright' date=' so I understand the lag issue. God knows, I know how bad the engine is for dozens of reasons: netcode, AI, passengers in vehicles, performance optimization (lack of), etc. But at the same time I have to ask myself: How is DayZ any different than vanilla Arma 2 where people fly dozens of aircraft at the same time on servers. How does one helicopter effect anything? Not that I don't believe you: I just want to know the TRUE technical answer. Not sure I can see how a modification of A2 suddenly has issues with helicopters.

[/quote']

1. The "engine" is not bad.

2. DayZ is different from vanilla Arma in that all vehicle are constantly saved to server databases and ultimately to the hive. I would imagine this puts added strain on the network especially with another 50 clients connected.

- Removal of side chat on most servers: absolutely no legitimate reason. Bandwidth: text does not effect bandwidth or increase lag. I might understand that excuse back when I was on a 2400BPS modem. God knows text loaded slow as dirt back then on BBS's. So what IS the legitimate reason (not that there is one)? People want it. I can't imagine one person that doesn't. How many games have had the same exact thing (including Arma 2) for years or even decades now.

Actually there was a legitimate reason: it's unrealistic. I would imagine that an addition of a radio would re-enable global chat for players - maybe it's something they'll implement in a future update.

:idea: Features that can like be turned on and NEED to be:

- Death messages: Who died and who killed that person. Makes it a hell of a lot easier to find out who a hacker is and is beneficial in a dozen other ways. I can't even imagine why this isn't on.

While I'm at it' date=' not sure what is up with the chopper crash sites lately. Normally you can spend an hour and find five of these on one server. I've spent the past 2 days and found maybe 2 on about 30 servers. Seems like something weird is going on? Thoughts? :-/

[/quote']

The whole point of the game is that it's not a TDM. No one's keeping score and you're not supposed to know who the bandits/good guys are. That's the whole point of the game. You have to decide who to trust and who to kill without the game telling you.

And, yes, chopper crash sites are too common and spawn too much overpowered equipment

[John (DayZ) 62]

I think some of you need to chill the fuck out.

I agree about the bandit skin and the helicopters, I'm ambivalent about sidechat. Didn't hate it, don't miss it. I want a system, though, where I can choose what I wear. This game has hundreds of skins - many of them far more "authentic" and suited to this kind of mod, and we're all forced to use one skin (with the exception of the Farmer John half-retarded looking camo skin and the ghillie suit), and it just confuses the living tits out of me.

[naizarak 41]

I think some of you need to chill the fuck out.

I agree about the bandit skin and the helicopters' date=' I'm ambivalent about sidechat. Didn't hate it, don't miss it. I want a system, though, where I can choose what I wear. This game has hundreds of skins - many of them far more "authentic" and suited to this kind of mod, and we're all forced to use [i']one skin (with the exception of the Farmer John half-retarded looking camo skin and the ghillie suit), and it just confuses the living tits out of me.

Not all skins support backpacks

[John (DayZ) 62]

I think some of you need to chill the fuck out.

I agree about the bandit skin and the helicopters' date=' I'm ambivalent about sidechat. Didn't hate it, don't miss it. I want a system, though, where I can choose what I wear. This game has hundreds of skins - many of them far more "authentic" and suited to this kind of mod, and we're all forced to use [i']one skin (with the exception of the Farmer John half-retarded looking camo skin and the ghillie suit), and it just confuses the living tits out of me.

Not all skins support backpacks

Oh, fair game. Still, more do than we currently have.

[Soviet Hawk 0]

I think a side chat you can toggle should be brought in. As much as I prefer avoiding other players a bit of chating here and there between cities/destinations would be nice

[chrismgtis 55]

Let me try and answer from the knowledge I have

Bandit Skins: I believe one factor is that people who are not trying to be bandits get this skin because of self defense' date=' and after that people just assume you will kill them. (I dont know too much about such skin)

Helis: I am under the assumption you dont know much about programming. One little change could make many things screw up, that is why each patch has many bug fixes because you cant fix them all in order and have perfection. And the lag it creates when it desyncs with ther servers cause the players to crash and die. And dying in this game sucks when you are geared up.

Side Servers: I believe the reason for removing it is to create more realism. Do you think everyone in a zombie apocalypse is going to have a radio that will reach 225km all synced to the proper channel. NO. So this creates more realism into the game.

Death Messages: I understand the hacker aspect of the argument. I have been killed by such a thing before. But the reason it is not there (Like previous argument) it creates more realism. You shouldnt know who killed someone unless you see.

Crash sites: I am not sure if the spawn rate has changed, but I see many people say they can not find one for their lives, then I see some people say they found 5 in the span of 30 minutes. So I think it is just one of those things to get lucky at.

That is my 2 cents. Comment if you please (And dont quote me if I am completely wrong)

[/quote']

I know plenty about programming. I've been programming since I was 9. I am 29. And I can tell you that since Arma 2 is a vehicle based game and has dozens running around on Chern in vanilla, it makes 0 sense that it effects a mod when one is in the air and I'm looking for the legit explanation. I've yet to see one.

As far as chopper sites: I normally find 5 in a hour quite easily. Was doing it consistently for a while. In the last few days they have just seemed amazingly sparse. I thought something was up and started just sitting at a place where several spawn and switched to dozens of servers and never saw one. I've walked over 30km in the past few days looking at spawns and never saw one. Feels like the chance was reduced or something. I don't know.

---

Hardcore player my ass hah.

You get the answers you ask for then insult the person by accusing him of trolling' date=' although from the look of things you just looked for people to worship you for having the guts to claim youre a hardcore player then contradict everything you said at the start of your post.

Realism is not an absolute value apparently with the team (Hell if i know for sure though) but authenticity certainly is, twenty kids screaming on the sidechannel thirty clicks away from you about what they had for breakfast without radios is certainly not authentic.

[/quote']

Not even going to read this post. You're obviously yet another troll. I've been around the Internet for a long time and don't care to bother with trolls like you. Move along and stay out of my threads. I don't mind reporting you.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

- Bandit skin: no legitimate excuse to remove.

Bandit skins were a lazy' date=' broken, inelegant mechanic that made no allowance for mitigating circumstances and was incredibly prone to false positives.

[list']

[*] Players A and B open fire on my partner and I from a distance. Player A kills my partner, I kill player B. I now have a murder and likely a bandit skin for acting in self defense. This can be extrapolated into larger groups - large firefights where who is and who is not a bandit is determined largely by who is the better shot.

[*] I come upon a player looting my tent, stealing my survival supplies and equipment and depriving my group of hours of hard work. I act in defense of my possession. I am now a "bandit" for defending my home.

[*] I park my truck near a gas station to refuel. A player comes charging up and jumps in the driver seat and tries to take off. I shoot him through the windshield to stop him stealing my vehicle. I am now a "bandit" for defending my property.

[*] A player fires on me or a teammate and then gets into a vehicle to escape. In the vehicle are 3 other "innocent" survivors. I am now a bandit 3 times over if I fire on the fleeing vehicle, even though these players are in clear collusion with a murderer.

[*] A player shoots at me and misses. I return fire and do not miss. I am now a bandit.

etc., etc. ad nauseum. The list goes on. If those are not legitimate enough reasons to remove the skin, then consider that the mere fact that they require a divine, third-party judge and jury to exist within the machine in order for their existence to even make sense. Why should we rely on such a silly brute force mechanic when there are far more robust and immersive means to identify players and categorize their behavior?

HardTarget has a great suggestion here.

My own system of identification and classification would work too.

Players need to take responsibility for witnessing acts and being their own judges.

Stop asking the game designers to be your witness, jury and judge.

Bandit skins are gone forever. They're never coming back. rocket has reiterated this in recent interviews, and it's great that he's sticking to his guns despite misguided opinions like yours.

Cheers.

[Bitey 10]

Hey Marik, im of the same age-group and your story seems similiar so let me give you my two cents. Remember, its just my opinion.

- Bandit skin: no legitimate excuse to remove.

This Mod is about atmosphere and removing the bandit skin adds more of it. Its about tension and how you act with another survivor when being confronted with him.

- Helicopters: Alright' date=' so I understand the lag issue.

[/quote']

Its a Alpha, Netcode is not optimized perfectly yet. Give it some time.

- Removal of side chat on most servers: absolutely no legitimate reason.

Again: Atmosphere. Communication is limited because of your own personal gaming experience which should be more intense when not reading about bandits in cherno' date=' a helicopter crash north of Guglovo and someone nagging about errors.

Not to mention the people who talk on global channel via Voice IP.

- Death messages: Who died and who killed that person.

Death is certain, life is not. Paranoia will help you with this because you dont need to know. What does it help to know who killed who ? You would know that this person is a bandit so i refer to my bandit skin argument.

While I'm at it' date=' not sure what is up with the chopper crash sites lately. Normally you can spend an hour and find five of these on one server.

[/quote']

5 Crashes is a lot. 2 Crashes in an area where the military got surprised by the infection more believable. The other aircrafts will be long gone because of evacuation.

You have to admit' date=' reason upon reason people purchased this game, for the features like those above, have been disabled.

[/quote']

Not true. People bought ArmA 2 + OP Arrowhead to have an accurate Military Simulator with deep tactical combat.

Day Z on the other hand is a modification, programmed voluntary by someone called Rocket. It is in Alpha State and can be downloaded for free. When playing DayZ see yourself as Troubleshooter and Alpha Tester.

Hope that helps :)

[eddie820 2]

Bandit skins yes, but not to identify bandits, just cause it looks cool, although I would prefer MARPAT since it blends in better. If you mean bandit skins to identify bandits then no, no no no no no not at all, don't be silly, go ask in your local police station how many robbers, thieves and murderers wear a goddamn uniform.