DayZ (Zombie Survival, Persistant World)

[JimBob]

There is one thing that totally puts me off for playing Day Z. Aside from the server issues and how hard it is to connect sometimes. I got a small child and a very busy life. Meaning only time I get to play is during the nights. And because the realistic day cycle all the UK and EU servers are always on night time. Which is kind of unplayable, even with full gamma settings and what not. For me to be able play I need to use US servers, which mostly work fine, but of course there is more latency. So not only the connection issues and the general jank I need to deal with freaking latency.

Well, that's family life for you, and why gaming is primarily the reserve of the very young. I'm an academic/student with a small child too and consequently spend much more time reading about "the experiment" than participating in it. Playing from 10:30pm till 11:00pm doesn't quite cut it for a game like this, where I would ideally spend an entire day or two in the game before trailing off and playing occasionally for a few hours here and there. I haven't had any problems with US servers though, and on a UK server recently there was still some daylight at 10pm, enough to find my way around.

Aside: that Bean-finder map is awesome and really handy for the time-oppressed.

[palindrome]

I have the same issue tjv. I play on US servers most of the time and to be honest lag isn't an issue, it appears that ARMA can handle 150 pings quite easily. Chicago 10 seems particulary stable, I have more desyncing issues on some EU servers with a 40 ping.
Some EU servers also have inverted day/night cycles but I cant remember any specific ones.

[Kelron]

I like night. People need to give it a chance, rather than immediately swarming the daytime servers. It's different, but it's definitely not unplayable. You can nearly always see something, even if it's just the outline of terrain, and the moon should be coming out in a day or two anyway. You have plentiful tools for further illumination. You start with flares, chemlights and torches are common. Obviously they can be dangerous to use, but that doesn't mean it's never worth the risk. It's very hard to spot where a flare was actually thrown from.

Once you get the hang of moving in the darkness, it offers plenty of advantages too. You can crawl up and kiss a zombie tenderly on the cheeks without it noticing you. You're much less vulnerable to snipers and being spotted by other players in general.

[palindrome]

The level of darkness varies on peoples machines (or the server or something) as there is definately a difference between what people can see. With all the visibility sliders at max and HDR at full I can just about make out where I am going (in an unatural monochrome world) while other people on the server say that its nearly day light for them. Night time for me is no fun at all.
If I leave the sliders at standard daytime settings all I can see is the sky and objects silhouetted against the sky, nothing more. This makes Navigation impossible and really where is the enjoyment in stumbling around in the pitch dark?

[rhizo]

It wasn't before?

Nope, I've never fired on survivors and was never killed by one. Always fired on bandits when I felt I had a decent shot at them. Subjective experiences and what not, maybe I was lucky. I had fun however, more fun than I suspect I'd have had trying to murder everyone I met.

Real human behaviour simply cannot be represented within a game when the players are removed from all personal contact and proximity from each other.

That's pretty much how I view things. FPS gaming as is is certainly not a valid platform to experiment with the full range of human morality in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.

If indeed the devs are adamant about not guiding player interaction, then it'll be interesting to see where this goes. To me that would seem like the easiest way to make this game a sandbox (t)dm with zombies, loot and limited ammo. Sounds a bit like a waste of an interesting concept.

[airtekh]

RE: Darkness Discussion

I play almost exclusively at night. As a solo player I find it's necessary to reduce the odds that bandits will spot me from a distance, and either follow or kill me with a sniper rifle.

Sure if they have NVG's I'm screwed, but I counter that by staying away from larger towns and airbases, and sticking to forests and small towns.

Gamma up + HDR + the occasional chemlight sees me through a night session. I'm really getting good at night-time navigation too.

[Kelron]

The level of darkness varies on peoples machines (or the server or something) as there is definately a difference between what people can see. With all the visibility sliders at max and HDR at full I can just about make out where I am going (in an unatural monochrome world) while other people on the server say that its nearly day light for them. Night time for me is no fun at all.
If I leave the sliders at standard daytime settings all I can see is the sky and objects silhouetted against the sky, nothing more. This makes Navigation impossible and really where is the enjoyment in stumbling around in the pitch dark?

I suppose individual monitor or graphics driver settings will have an effect, but it shouldn't be a huge one. Light levels will vary between servers based on the weather and time the moon rises. Sometimes the time can get very out of sync between clients which is the likely cause of some people being able to see a lot better than others. It's a problem but not one I've encountered very often. If it's pitch dark for you it's probably pitch dark for everyone else as well, you can't navigate without a light source all the time.

[Cooper]

The issue with PvP at night time is that whacking up gamma in the game, and contrast and brightness on your monitor basically turns the game into Dayz: Monochrome edition

It means all the benifits airtekh listed of playing at night for those of us who lone-wolf the game are rendered moot. Contrast & gamme tweaks = your very own NVG.

I've tried it out myself and it's just as easy than playing at daytime. If not more so because your eyes only have to differentiate shapes, not colour: So that the person in the distance which before might have looked like a bush or shrub without binocs. is now, very very clearly, another player...

You no longer need chemlights or flares, you can very easily spot other players and get the jump on them (especially if they've not changed their settings). Hunting down and sniping is even easier in some instances.

I suppose individual monitor or graphics driver settings will have an effect, but it shouldn't be a huge one.

Nope. They have a -massive- effect. Try it next time you play at night: Turn up the gamma in game (not to the top, but relatively high), turn up the contrast on your monitor to max, then adjust the brightness of the monitor until you have a clear & not blinding image.

I used to enjoy night time play, but it is now ruined for me becasue of this. I'd much prefer to play without tweaking my monitor, but knowin git places me at an incredible disadvantage, I'd rather just not play night time.

[Wolfenswan]

I used to enjoy night time play, but it is now ruined for me becasue of this. I'd much prefer to play without tweaking my monitor, but knowin git places me at an incredible disadvantage, I'd rather just not play night time.

It's rather easy for mission editors to implement post processing filters etc in Arma2. I wouldn't be suprised if rocket and his guys will introduce a filter later that activates at dusk/night and gimps the gamme/contrast cheating to a degree.

[Duckee]

There is one thing that totally puts me off for playing Day Z. Aside from the server issues and how hard it is to connect sometimes. I got a small child and a very busy life. Meaning only time I get to play is during the nights. And because the realistic day cycle all the UK and EU servers are always on night time. Which is kind of unplayable, even with full gamma settings and what not. For me to be able play I need to use US servers, which mostly work fine, but of course there is more latency. So not only the connection issues and the general jank I need to deal with freaking latency.

There are many servers that have reversed time zones in Europe. You just have to do some investigation to find them! I know of one, but its so popular already that I will not send more people towards it :P Sorry!

[Rauten]

There is one thing that totally puts me off for playing Day Z. Aside from the server issues and how hard it is to connect sometimes. I got a small child and a very busy life. Meaning only time I get to play is during the nights. And because the realistic day cycle all the UK and EU servers are always on night time. Which is kind of unplayable, even with full gamma settings and what not. For me to be able play I need to use US servers, which mostly work fine, but of course there is more latency. So not only the connection issues and the general jank I need to deal with freaking latency.

PM sent with the reverse time EU servers I know of.

Personally, night time DayZ can go take a hike and die on a fire. So mind numbingly BORING. If I can't join a reverse time server, I go to the US servers.

[tjv]

Thanks Rauten.

I've tried the with HDR/gamma and monitor settings already. And even turned off the light in the room, but it still borderlining unplayable. With chemlight and flashlight it is surely doable, just find it to be unnecessary hassle. Ie. not fun.

[Unaco]

Looks like DayZ has got some mainstream media attention. Jim is even quoted in the article... though it's a little confused (fact... derived from anecdote). And I don't know what to make of the academic quoted at the end, saying Zombies are a metaphor of our anxieties over capitalism. Or something.

[mrchinchin25]

So here's the question - I have the original retail version of Arma 2, and am looking to buy Steam version Operation Arrowhead. Once installed, will DayZ work using both of these combinations?

I suppose in theory I'll have two separate installs of Arma 2, in two different locations (one in progamfiles>bohemia something and one in steam>common something) so do I just add all the dayz files into both (or into OA's location?)

Anyone got it to work this way?

[Unaco]

So here's the question - I have the original retail version of Arma 2, and am looking to buy Steam version Operation Arrowhead. Once installed, will DayZ work using both of these combinations?

I suppose in theory I'll have two separate installs of Arma 2, in two different locations (one in progamfiles>bohemia something and one in steam>common something) so do I just add all the dayz files into both (or into OA's location?)

Anyone got it to work this way?

For DayZ you need what is called Combined Operations, or CO. CO is Operation Arrowhead when it's run and pointed to the location of an original ArmA2 install. Operation Arrowhead and ArmA2 are 2 separate games, OA having a number of engine improvements and the like. CO is OA with the ArmA2 assets (models, maps etc) loaded/available as well. You can use any combination of retail/steam/other to run CO. If you have retail ArmA2, installing and running that at least once (to set some registry things), and then getting OA from Steam will be fine for CO and DayZ.

Also, because it's a CO mod, and CO is essentially OA, you only need to install it to the OA folder.

[Moraven]

I would not mind the day z use a 4 hour day/night cycle. You can get a full play session involving different elements of light and having use of flares more. That transition from day to night is one of the best times. Then you would have to stay warm, play it safe until day.

Wonder how many people play to not play at night? You do not see any screenshots in gaming site articles in the dark, nor many player videos.

[Battle Programmer Spike]

Well... nighttime in ArmA 2 is quite pitch black dark in most of the areas, so that's one of the main reasons for not having videos/screenshots of it around. But I agree. A shorter day/night cycle would help a lot.

[jnx]

I'm pretty sure there are about zero "legit" night time players. Others have tuned displays and settings so that they can see as well or even better as day time. And there isn't any point doing it legit, you might as well turn off your display and imagine you're playing something.

[Bobtree]

DayZ 1.7 has a plausible amount of light at night. I'm playing without cheating it, in part because windowed mode doesn't allow device gamma changes, and I use windowed because the device gamma ignores my driver color adjustments (needed to keep an aging CRT from making everything look green). I can turn the brightness up to 1.5, but that's all, the gamma slider does nothing.

What I discovered trying 1.7 yesterday is that despite being dark the mod is enormously more enjoyable without the garbage HDR lighting, which is basically absent if you play at in-game nighttime. Stealth is also less tedious, and bandits throwing flares around are easier to avoid.

[Kelron]

I don't think 1.7 did anything with the lighting, you're probably seeing the moon start to come out for longer.