lorneagle

Regarding the 3rd vs 1st person debate: The answer is rather simple. Neither 3rd person nor 1st person is 'easier'. It is just different which means you have to adjust your play style to it.
 
It is not easier because the advantages that come with 3rd person (looking over walls) quickly become a disadvantage if you are the guy who is approaching a wall.
 
3rd person vs 1st person is just a matter of taste, and taste as we all know, is not debatable.
 
I played both, I prefer 3rd person because I like to see my character in a game where you can customize you character's outfit, it is that simple.
 
 
 
Back on topic:
 
The search for easy mode is a result of our fast paced society and the way video games work. Most AAA titles will shower you with rewards and even if you fail there aren't any consequences. It is games like FTL and DayZ mod that brought back the idea of a game being a challenge. And it was interesting in the discovery phase of the game. But once you developed a routine, some aspects of the game become boring, so people want them to be removed. As a result the game becomes 'easier'. The trick is to find a perfect balance :)
 
I ran an A2 Epoch Server for about two months with a couple of friends. We specifically created a server without the easy-mode mods like self-bloodbag, or being able to buy locks @ traders. We also limited the amount of heavily armed cars by increasing the price. That way we had the focus on infantry battles and we had a good money sink for the UBER rich. We also kept a fairly vanilla loot table.
 
We had a decent population at around 30 to 35 at peak times and 10-20 off peak, and althought we had the occasional request for easy-mode mods, at the end of the day people generally enjoyed having to work for their stuff.
We had a pretty good balance, however, we made the mistake of setting up some fair play rules, which caused us soooo many headaches with all the kids out there.
 
It is funny how you don't feel like an adult when you are in your thirties, until you deal with an angry 13 year old kid who is convinced that it is his god given birth right to get his gear back which he just lost due to a game bug.
 
I wish I was able to create a stable community of mature people that understand that a game is a game is a game. That have fun with it instead of being childishly competitive all the time.

There are different flavors of easy mode:
1) The one that tries to allow casual gamers to enjoy the same content as hardcore gamers
2) The one that impacts the gameplay
 
As a guy who managed to spend an average of 12h/day over a span of 6 months in WoW (back in 2006), but has a job, wife and kid now with an average of 1h /day I know both sides of the medal.
Back in vanilla WoW, you weren't able to enjoy a good chunk of the end game content unless you were a student or unemployed.
 
Now things like: More cars and less expensive building materials allow casuals like me to still enjoy the full content of the game. The flip side however: People with plenty of time and a good squad will accumulate ridiculous amounts of wealth in a short time. The only way to fix this is to create appropriate resource sinks.
 
An example would be to make base upkeep grow exponentially in relation to your base size and limit the storage.
 
Things like Self-Bloodbag are of the game changing flavor: For example when I'm able to bloodbag behind a rock after being hit by a sniper and as a result being able to take another hit and escape.
 
I personally don't like the easy mode options that change the nature of the game such as ridiculous amounts of loot, self-bloodbag, being able to buy locks at Traders instead of having to farm Zeds (A2 DayZEpoch ).
 
I do like more cars so I'm able to meet with my friends faster and don't spend my 1h/day running to them just to log out.