Rare weapons not the slightest bit rare, survival isn't an issue

[Pheasant 6]

Eyeballing server logs, its hilarious to see the amount of expensive equipment people are armed with in a zombie apocalypse. Out of 20 people, 15 will have nvgs, 10 will have high class sniper rifles, 5 will have thermal weapons. Several of those will have silenced primaries also in their equipment. Ignoring the fact that it would take an ungodly amount of cash to outfit large numbers of troops with these weapons, one still has to factor in that most of this would be either destroyed in a crash, or fouled while sitting in the mud all day, or generally just being rendered unusable by any number of conditions. Additionally, gadgets require power, guns require cleaning and repair, etc. It isn't hard to see why people only work together with people they know: the only real threat is other people. At no time does a person with this equipment feel truly threatened by a zombie, let alone the few who aren't similarly equipped. Factor in duping, and its almost impossible to make this a game about surviving the zombies. Will it even be possible to stop all the duping? The people at Blizzard had a hell of a time with duping in Diablo 2, and I'm not sure they ever solved that issue completely, even with a decade to work with (though I might stand to be corrected on that). I've personally seen camps filled with vehicles, with enough fuel cans to power an armored battalion. People are now offering equipment in game for cash, which is probably a scam, but they did the same thing in Diablo with legitimate sales of items by third parties. People hoard items, others steal them, or destroy them. Within a day or two, another cache is gathered up, and the cycle continues. Hell, one can die somewhere, and arrive soon enough to pick up their equipment again, with a small amount of luck. Is this really a new experience? This doesn't promote 'emergent gameplay.' It doesn't promote working together. It doesn't really promote anything, other than people picking on 'noobs' or camping a particular spot, which is hardly a new experience. Now, I'm sure I'll see the normal crass comments here: suggestions that I'm 'butthurt' or whatever insult someone will come up with, but I earnestly wish to see this game become something different. Deathmatch is not new, having people work together to accomplish something other than killing other players is much more rare.

TL;DR

Deathmatch is old, and will get old quickly for everyone but a few grognards in this game, like it has for every other game (not faulting grognards, I am one in certain games). Let's put up suggestions for making this game into something a little more, shall we?

I've already mentioned some, in a manner of speaking. Weapon repair, batteries for gadgets, weapon cleaning would all be good additions. Less complex weapons would benefit from these dramatically, fancier weapons should require considerable effort to keep in operation, if one is capable of repair at all. How many spare military grade thermal scopes do you think exist, and how knowledgeable does one have to be to keep them in operation?

[sealteamaus 16]

What you're sayig might apply if it was one set map with a finite amount of equipment but people play on multiple servers which regenerate gear over time. Naturally the best players have found the best gear and keep it.

So just relax dude

[Yatagan 62]

Yeah, people will have that much gear if they aren't killed out of nowhere by a single shot in their first 10 minutes of play. (Me 95% of the time...)

[sealteamaus 16]

Keep your head down, move amongst the trees, be patient and stay frosty

[McHadies 2]

What you're sayig might apply if it was one set map with a finite amount of equipment but people play on multiple servers which regenerate gear over time. Naturally the best players have found the best gear and keep it.

So just relax dude

Yes perhaps this mod's greatest strength, the hive, is also its greatest weakness. The fact that your character carries from server to server while other server things are more static.and others still less so.

The high end military equipment bothers me, where's my airsoft gun?

[Pheasant 6]

Keep your head down, move amongst the trees, be patient and stay frosty

None of this is difficult to do. Ironically, I've wandered into more camps than I've seen people. I've even taken to blowing shit up as I come upon it, since its of virtually no use to me. It doesn't seem to matter much, as people just reacquire the materials in short order anyways. As for a few posts above, equipment regenerating over time might actually be something of an issue.

Again, there's really nothing here other than deathmatch with a higher learning curve, and that isn't terribly special. Once you've learned, it becomes very standard. While I'm aware this is alpha, people seem to keep wanting to point this mod in the direction of more pvp. PVP has its place, but this needs to be more. If it keeps going in that direction, one will never face a horde of zombies in a fortified area, built up over days by hard scavenging by a team of people, with limited ammo, mounting a desperate defense. One will however, sit on a hill, eyeballing an air traffic control tower for 5 hours, until someone who hasn't learned wanders into their crosshairs. This second thing isn't new, its just taking longer to do it than other games.