Huh. Thanks, Aprone! The name thing appears to work just fine, so long as the item is loot (it does not seem to work with the give command, but spawning an item on top of the player is easy). It also works with armor, but the descriptions in the armor menu sound like they're separate from the name of the item, so they naturally show up with the real name.

hi aprone, while I understand you introducing a staminer system for maylay, I and a fiew think its a bit harsh. so how about the more points you have in maylay the more staminer you have, at the mo, you cant kill a lot with just 4 hits before you slow down, I was thinking say every ten points you have in it you get 5 seconds of staminer, of course you could have a skill staminer so you would have to boost that for anything to happen. you cant take a break on a mission at the moment and that's very bad. other than that great work.

CAE, at the moment that custom weapons thing isn't meant for armor, but it's interesting to hear that it sort of does work.

Pitbull, I plan on having a stamina skill that will work very similar to what you have suggested.  The patch I released actually had more content, such as new clan and fort mechanics, but I removed those for now because they were not yet working.  When the power went out for the server, it damaged code and forced me to go back to the last backup, which contained several annoying bugs I had since fixed.  To fix things I needed to rush this update out, and it was much faster to just take out unfinished parts rather than make everyone wait longer while I finished them all.  So that's one of the reasons why a stamina skill wasn't in this update along with the introduction of the stamina system.

I would suggest you handle those situations like they do in the movies.  The hero swings and swings, bashing back enemies, but occasionally pulls his gun from his side to blast several away.  It's a few moments to catch your breath, or a way to stop from being overwhelmed when the numbers get too high.  A few seconds is really all it takes for your stamina to be right back to full, and you can continue on with your melee weapon.  Special care actually went into letting players do this easily, since weapon switch times were modified for melee weapons making sure you can switch to a gun fast.

Darren, I think my short answer would be yes, but with some alternatives.  In the vast majority of multiplayer games, there is no pause or special AFK mode where you're invincible anywhere you happen to be on a battlefield.  Choosing to go on a mission does mean you should have the time to do it.  You don't sit down to play chess with a friend if you know you'll be leaving the house in 5 minutes.  Perhaps you play a game that's shorter instead.  In Swamp, you actually set the number of crates and zombies, so you don't have to be walking into a 90 minute mission each time.  You also have the ability to retreat from missions and take the rewards with you that you've earned so far, so in an unexpected emergency you can still leave the mission.

In Swamp you have the ability to choose precisely when you will do a mission, set how long it will take to complete, and you can leave it early if you need to.  I would say the game is bending backwards for the players more than most (at least mainstream games anyway).

I understand what you're saying with the AFK command.  You'd like a way for new players to wander around watching a hard mission take place, without really being there.  Almost like ghostly spectators that aren't in danger and also don't get any rewards.

It's a neat idea for some things, but in general I wouldn't want this.  For starters it would let more people scout for the crates without actually putting anyone in danger doing it.  New players who just need to learn the maps can load up any of the warehouses in single player and practice all day long if they like.  When they finally want enemies they can add zombies and even ramp up the amount as they desire.  For players who really just want to hear the exciting 200 crate death bringer missions, that's what recordings are for.  I just don't see justification for the new and changed code, for the times when new players want to watch a mission in complete safety.  If I'm missing something though, I'm open to listening.

also aprone if you're going to add a stamina skill then i think we need more skill points because as it stands at the moment there are a lot of skills but only a finite amount of skill points that people can use. so i do think that the amount of skill points as in the max amount needs to be increased if there is going to be a level cap like there is at present.

yes rl does have to take president. it's not like you can run back to the truck to retreat then answer the door or answer the phone etc. stuff like that needs to be acted upon there and then. the afk command would solve that problem. as long as it takes you effectively out of the action without giving you any benefits. no movement no interaction with the game at all apart from the command console and like i say if the mission completes whilst you are in afk then you don't get any reward. although i guess if you picked up any crates then those rewards could count as long as you dropped them off previously.

Aprone, on the topic of stamina and how it effects melee weapons, maybe things function a  bit differently for online play, but so far in custom map mode the new stamina effect is making it impossible for me to get far from the safe zone. I'm lucky if I get 4 decent swings before the tiredness kicks in very suddenly and drasticly, too drasticly and far to suddenly. Since I generally play starting with axe and pistol only, really not much chance to switch to the pistol until I've had a chance to gather some ammo (I usually play multi1 with only 100 zombies and 200 loot), so I usually end up having to fall back to the safe zone to heal after being mauled. I'd suggest lengthening the time before tiredness starts kicking in and make it more gradual yet, even if just by a couple seconds would be an improvement. And a couple other things, I'm sure have already probably been mentioned for years, but I'm not as active around here as I used to be. :$ Zombies I kill during mid growl/snarl/groan or whatever, most still continue making sound for several seconds after they've fallen dead, rather then the sound cutting off. Also, the campaign guide's list of items needs to be updated, as none of the titled weapons appear, and there are still pieces of armor listed there that were removed from the game earlier in the 3.x series. Still a wonderful game you have though, I just wish I could play it more.

jsymes, how many of your swings miss when you engage those zombies?  I only ask because I'm trying to figure out if the current stamina settings are working as intended.  When I load up a custom map, I'm able to kill zombies with the axe without any real change due to stamina, but then again I'm only missing a few swings every now and then.   If a player holds down the button and fights zombies by swinging 10 times until the zombie wanders into range, then this new system is going to really affect things.

of course rl gets in the way and so it should it's real life. but should you have to lose out on a game every time you have to do a given thing? listening to a favourite tune on the radio etc is not my idea of a logical and necessary reason for having to go afk.

Aprone, hmm, probably not as frequently as I'd want it to.  Judging distances never was one of my strong suits in Swamp. :$ Now that you mention it and looking back at my game earlier today, I found I was frequently a step or two short on the axe's range when I'd start swinging, then have to take a couple steps to actually get the zombies within range, which was why I suggested just adding a couple seconds would probably be the difference, for me at least. I'm not one of those that run around swinging away all the time.

Regarding the issue of a way to "pause" the game, there were already ways that this came up via bugs in the past, and I have to agree with Aprone that there's no easy way to put such a system into place without having it be abused. What's to stop someone about to get killed during a mission to go into a state where they can no longer be harmed, only to get out of it just in time to get the reward at the end? Personally, I've found the ability to retreat to be a solid solution for those instances where life gets in the way. However, if I could make a suggestion, Aprone, it would be grate if we could retreat with the option of not removing our contribution. It's fine when it's a solo mission, but I always feel bad having to leave for some reason and setting back those still in the mission by taking away the work I've done. Personally, in a case like that, I'd prefer to leave my share of the reward for the others than take it with me and create more work for them.

I've tried looking up how GTA5 pauses its online play, and so far everything I've found states that it cannot be done.  You can open menus, but the game continues to run even if you don't see it happening behind the menu screen.
The closest thing I've found is that there is a passive mode setting, that marks you in the game so that others know you are AFK.  Your character sort of floats in the sky a bit with the word "paused" (or something) above them.  This is not an actual pause since the game enemies, cars, fire, and even other players can and will still kill you.  It seems this setting is meant as more of an indicator to let other players know you aren't around, hoping they are the sporting type that will choose to not shoot you in the head as they pass by.  Typing AFK in Swamp's chat and opening up a menu is basically the same thing as this.  You might not have other players kill you (if it were a CTF or something), but the zombies still would, and nothing actually stops players who want to still kill you.

if you go with a team an other member can protect ya if it's a short time. For long time too except if only you are strong it causes -1 person to search but everything have a cost. And if you don't have to stand up, e.g phone call etc then go in a guardable place which only has one exit, then answer and listen whether if they find you. And if you have to do something which takes more time, then retreat. Or tell to the person outside the door "Just 5 minutes, i have to bring in 10 crates to 200!" In a mission there's no good way to write an afk system, and on maps too, cuz if you rounded by zombies it's soo unrealistic if you disappear and just wait until someone can dest those bastard from you