I'm afraid I've had to advise friends/family against this fine mod (why?)

[Mr Muggles 19]

I (like others) Spent money on a pvp game I had no interest in/didn't want... thinking it was a zombie survival game!?!? That's what it looked like on the youtube vids I watched of Sidestrafe's Diaries, countless other online vids of Dayz and articles written online about the mod. There was nothing that I came across that mentioned the rampant pking going on which would have saved me money. So to say it is misleading would be an understatement. I doubt Rocket would have wanted his efforts turned into a pk bloodbath, I honestly don't.

I'm sure the 500k who also made this ill-fated decision are regretting getting caught in the crossfire of a load of keyboard warriors enjoying their sandbox pvp/ deathmatch arena...... called Dayz.. The game is currently overwhelmed with tossers killing each other indiscriminately and I repeat, that's not what I wanted to spend my £25 on. If I had known it was a pvp game on a big map I would have saved myself £25. The bandits are loving it, I'm not.

If you hadn't realised, I am also sick of the pking, I was sick of it three weeks ago. It's a great mod don't get me wrong. I'm in a group (that's fine) and we get killed regularly just like everyone else.

We don't dupe, hop, hack, sos, camp, bully or any of that tiny minded anti-human play style. We are killed regularly and when we can be bothered (which is less and less these days) we go for another meaningless run in Dayz counting the minutes before we get sniped :)

When it is made into a standalone you can be damn sure I wont be buying it as I don't think Rocket wants to/can't do anything about pking. The "tools" to help us counteract bandits will be welcome but it might be too late by then for most of us who will have moved on.

Suggestion:

Introduce bandit NPC's and turn off the ability to shoot other players, that I would pay for, happily.

[Frissy 31]

No. Banditry and pvp is part of the game. bandits should not and will not be punished.

[Mr Muggles 19]

No. Banditry and pvp is part of the game. bandits should not and will not be punished.

People have made the game that way, not Rocket.

[z-layrex 175]

People have made the game that way, not Rocket.

So? That's the whole point. Who says what Day Z is supposed to be? It's whatever the community makes it.

[metal (DayZ) 46]

You didn't pay a dime for DayZ. You paid for Arma2. Instead of whining about how the game should change maybe you should change yourself, or go find a game that will suit you more, nobody forcing you to play DayZ if you don't like it.

[SumoS 168]

The money you spent was on Arma 2.

If you are looking for a sandbox game please play the campaign or the scenarios in this excellent game.

You may have purchased this for DayZ but in reality Day Z is free and still in Alpha. If you want it your way please wait until it is released as a standalone game in which you may have your own closed-server or direct connect.

In reality please read up on what you are paying for it future.

[Danneh (DayZ) 14]

I have about 70 guys in our group, my one rule is that when you are in the southern 'new spawn' citys you cannot shoot without at least trying to 'make contact' with the other player, or unless shot upon!! I think the consistant PVP in the newbie areas is killing the game... :(

Some of my most trusted members and now more than likely long term friends have come from meetings in DayZ!

[snowcrash 82]

..yes i didn’t like this PvP at all, i remember not so long ago /a month maybe/ u could find in game m8s with no problems, and than i got shoot two times, once from back and the other time, from front running towards some1 that wonted to "team up"..so i changed my gameplay, i can go around for days and not to meet any players, or i can hunt a group of players for hours just to try to get 1 clear shoot ... or/and as i usually play slow and stealth, in many cases i have the option to run away just not to shoot/be shoot at on at/from another player ..so its like real world, you have to adopt, or just go find something that suites your needs more…

But u must admit hitting someone from like 700m and than waiting for his teammates to show up and try to help him, and than another nice hit,,,gives nice hunting thrill :P

And there I have some rules: .. I never kill just for the kill, I never shoot at ppl if I don’t have the chance to loot them up..and never shooting at fresh spawned players at the coast..

GL&HF

[void.false@gmail.com 300]

Why don't you shut up and join our awesome battle in Cherno that is going on right now?

[DZR_Mikhail 2424]

I (like others) Spent money on a pvp game I had no interest in/didn't want... thinking it was a zombie survival game!?!? That's what it looked like on the youtube vids I watched of Sidestrafe's Diaries, countless other online vids of Dayz and articles written online about the mod. There was nothing that I came across that mentioned the rampant pking going on which would have saved me money. So to say it is misleading would be an understatement. I doubt Rocket would have wanted his efforts turned into a pk bloodbath, I honestly don't.

...

I repeat, that's not what I wanted to spend my £25 on. If I had known it was a pvp game on a big map I would have saved myself £25. The bandits are loving it, I'm not.

...

Mr Muggles, I'm addressing you with all the respect and serioussness.

You got yourself misleaded by the videos and players responses. I know it's not too obvious, but you should have read what the developers say about their own game. Dean "Rocket" Hall said this:

"This isn't really a game. Maybe a real game, from a studio, will come from the concept. For me, this is art. My intention was to generate real human emotions: high on the list was frustration, being pissed off, and a general distaste for some elements of society and what happens when the shit really goes down.

If you're fed up, frustrated, maybe even angry then I've done my job. I don't want money, fame, power from it. I've achieved precisely the effect I wanted even if you never play the game again, and hopefully made people think about a few things along the way."

"DayZ was designed to be impossibly cruel, dark, and brutal. It was not designed as a game it was more of an experiment, I prefer the term "anti-game" - in other words the mechanics are not designed to be balanced, or offer a way out for different situations. These are things game designers normally take care with.

I discussed this with the our team members at great length of many arguments, the idea behind safe zones. The eventual consensus was that it went against the ethos of the project. This whole concept, and the reason it "works", is that there IS no safe zone (unless you make it). Your actions have real and brutal consequences. There are no game designed safety nets.

It is the kind of system/environment that will sometimes make you want to punch the computer screen. But with that kind of risk, comes great emotional reward when you carry something off. The sniper you describe - there are people like this in the world, and in the breakdown of order I can bet that there would be people who would sit on a roof and shoot people "just for the lulz".

The system makes no judgement on player actions, and this is one of the only real rules that was adopted for the development. While consequences may occur for a particular action (e.g. humanity loss), no judgement is implied or placed on that behavior. Beyond hacks, and misuse of exploits, regulating player behavior is not a scope of this project. If players, themselves, wish to group together and attempt to regulate the behavior. Well, that's entirely up to you.

This kind of activity is not for everyone. It really is more of a social experiment than a game. There is no intention to change that, if you dislike the PVP, then I would recommend playing Dynamic Zombie Sandbox or Celery's excellent Chernaus Apocalypse - there is no point in these being recreated through this mod.

Why make something that has already been done?"

You needed to be more attentive when buying something. You didn't buy DayZ, you bought Arma2. Arma2 has so many mods, and some of them are not just bloodbath, they're obscene. There's a mod of a "prostitute manager". You need to run with guns and protect hookers. There are Life mods which are plain GTA gameplay followers, which is bloodbath too. Arma2 is a military simulator, with open editor system in sandbox environment. You can create your own mod of cow farm simulation, you can make a mod where one team is playing boars, the other team hunts them down… Well, rocket made a mod about zombie apocalypse with his own vision.

And before advising this to your friends and family, please consider ARma2 rating which is PEGI 16 and ESRB M:

"Games with this rating contain content that is considered inappropriate for people under 17 years of age. The content is strong or intense in impact. Titles in this category may contain more blood and gore than the Teen rating would accommodate, intense violence, and sexual themes or content (which are often censored) and strong vulgar language. Most retailers stock games with this rating, but have policies not to sell them to people under 17 without parental approval."

But I have good news for you. This mods is in so early development and now all of us are lucky alpha-testers. Now the most crucial is the optimization and stability. When alpha testing is finished and dev are in for a standalone game with a price, they will add many attributes and features and balance it more as we expect from a decent game. Now it's a mod in alpha stage, please, understand it.

I follow every interview with Dean Hall and I can assure you there will be more features related to group playing and other stuff to improve the issue you described. Be patient sir, bear hope as I do :)

Edited July 17, 2012 by -=PA=-Mikhail

[Dirtdiver (DayZ) 12]

I think the consistant PVP in the newbie areas is killing the game... :(

I agree man I can't count the amount of times I've been hit by a squad packing some heavy heat right out of the spawn.

[mesmichael 6]

as a newer player i like how hard it is to get away from spawn. it keeps a lot of rageing loud mouth (sry for the language) ass holes from play the game. my beans to

-=PA=-Mikhail

Edited July 17, 2012 by mesmichael

[FieldMedic 7]

I sympathize but a cursory glance at the forums would have told you how much player killing exists in the game. Quite frankly you learn to deal with the zombies fairly quickly, as they are, by and large bugs notwithstanding, predictable. What gives the game tension and excitement is other players and the possibility of them being hostile.

[Zexis 127]

I'm sorry, but it's your fault for buying arma if you didn't want arma. Maybe PvP will be addressed in the future, maybe it won't. But buying a game solely for a mod usually isn't a good idea.

[Mr Muggles 19]

I might check out some of those mods mentioned above.

Thanks :)

Edited July 17, 2012 by Mr Muggles

[Venick 6]

This sooner people realize that a "realistic zombie survival" game wouldn't be just a bunch of happily co-existing people ridding the world from infection the sooner you'll actually be happy with the game. People are going to kill you, people are going to betray you - it's human physcology and one thing that makes this game realistic. And yes, killing for the lawls is part of that physcology, unfortunately.

TL:DR

Deal with it.

[Izbj 0]

I haven't even seen another player yet.

[liam@venturefox.com 13]

I agree with the original poster, this has evolved into too much of a PvP game and less about survival from the zombie hoards. It would be nice to have some sort of boobytrap you could place in your bag or around your person that would take out those f*cking useless bandits + destroy your kit after death. Anything to take incentive away from the constant deathmatch battles.

[Jehangir 52]

I (like others) Spent money on a pvp game I had no interest in/didn't want...

You didn't pay for DayZ it's free.

You are not playing a game, it is a alpha version of a mod.

[vandrel 36]

Suggestion:

Introduce bandit NPC's and turn off the ability to shoot other players, that I would pay for, happily.

This, while I do enjoy PvP, is not a bad suggestion. This idea can follow suit much like MMO's with your PvP servers and PvE servers, the databases should be kept seperate and not allow you to cross-deck items.

[LockeDown 144]

I've had my moments of absolute frustration from Pking; then again- I've had badass moments where I give it back to a group of bandits via some good ol' Stanag ammunition. The constant paranoia a gunshot creates is just wonderful. Keep your senses keen, and your gun up. Good luck out there.

[G0V3RNM3NT4L 132]

I'm against sniping for fun. It's like what the American's did to the bison: eliminate them. No, they didn't need food, no, they didn't need fur. Just to kill. To hurt. It's stupid. If I kill somebody, I kind of say "kudos" to them, for giving me the stuff to survive a little longer.

[bbilbo1 149]

No. Banditry and pvp is part of the game. bandits should not and will not be punished.

I agree and disagree with that statement, actually.

I, personally, have played many Sandbox games. My first was Ultima Online in the late 90's, and that's just one game in a list. I'm very familiar with the open-world, do-what-you-want-when-you-want, freedom of such genre of game.

And while the developers generally try to step back and let player sort out their problems themselves, there are definitely situations where staff have had to directly intervene in cases where gameplay degrades:

• Hacking,
  
• Exploiting,
  
• Unbalance
  
• General re-evaluation of what is "fun" or "within the accepted scope of the game"
  

For instance, if the gameplay community discovered that one feature was significantly more advantageous, resulting in a massive shift of player focus to only one aspect of gameplay (gee, does that sound familiar?), the developers would investigate and come up with a plan to tweak the game to be a bit more balanced. Hopefully without breaking anything else.

So in a nutshell: Regardless of sandbox or not, sometimes fixes need to happen so that all the players aren't overcrowding the same corner of said proverbial sandbox.

I think the common line of thinking for the majority is:

• we're fine with dying. A lot if necessary.
  
• we're fine with perma-death,
  
• we like the survival elements!
  
• Contrary to popular belief, we're actually fine with the game having PvP elements.
  

But at the moment, PvP is eclipsing every other feature and the general scope of the game. It's so disproportionate, it's the point where you say. "You know, If the main thing players wanted to do is ignore zombies, and kill other players, you'd think they'd go play a multiplayer deathmatch shooter."

Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

[A Classy Emu 24]

Your sense of entitlement is showing.

You spent your money on a game in order to participate in an ALPHA of a MODIFICATION to that game, then feel slighted and ripped off. Classy.

Had you done even a rudimentary google search on DayZ, watched 10 minutes of youtube, you'd have known fully what you were getting yourself into. You either didn't do this, and are a fucking tool for spending cash based on the tiniest bit of information you had (which didn't account for the majority of the game experience), or you DID do this, were fully aware of banditry, but thought you were a fucking badass. You found out real quick you haven't got the stones, and in your butthurt, turn your frustration on the developer who has said many times THEY ARE PROVIDING THE FRAMEWORK FOR THE PLAYERS TO DO WHATEVER THE HELL THEY WANT. That includes murder. Right on the mod's homepage is the current MURDER COUNT. 2 million + murders. 90,000 living bandits. You claim it was misrepresented what you were getting in to, and I'm here to tell you you're either a goddamn liar, or fucking stupid.

I am not a bandit, and I almost always ignore and avoid other players. I don't want there to be no players or bandits around, I enjoy evading them, and always knowing I could be sniped anywhere, anytime. It makes things exciting and intense. Go watch one of the classic, great zombie films and pay close attention. The zombies are merely a catalyst, not the antagonist. The antagonist is always another survivor. If you can't get your mind around that, this will NEVER be the game for you. Period.

This is the part where I call you a whimpering, spoiled little bitch, and then tell you to kindly fuck right off and not to let the door hit you on your candy ass on the way out.

Pretty much this (although I would've been a lot more polite about it instead of scolding you). Some advice which you might or might not know: live in the woods if you want to avoid hostile contact from survivors. My buddies and I have moved on to greener pastures (both literally and figuratively) and we're doing great. Lakes to fill canteens and animals for endless snourishment allows us to survive near-indefinitely. Also, I believe this should be in general discussion and not Survivor HQ?

[Doyle McPoyle 77]

i love the bandits/pvp aspect. Makes the game different from others although people can be assholes.