e.m.saldanha@hotmail.com

I trust nobody in this game unless I know them as friends outside of DayZ. As such, I love luring bandits into ambushes. There are some who are dodgy as all hell, claiming to be friendlies. I tell them I'm looking for someone to team up with because I've got good gear and don't want to be shot. In one case, a bandit asked me to meet him south-east of the castle - You know, the one east of the airfield. His proposed meeting place was a clearing at the bottom of a valley, surrounded by trees. Naturally, I knew it was a trap. So I snuck up the hill, climbed the castle, unslung my CZ 550 (surprised that he wasn't up at the castle himself for his planned ambush) and after some searching, saw him lying prone in the trees at the far edge of the clearing. One shot, nine hundred meters. You should've seen him rage.

As exciting as it is to run around blind, tossing flares ahead of you in the pitch dark, I'd like to point out two things. Hope you see this, rocket. Night time is virtually unplayable. Bandits with nightvision equipment haunt these servers perpetually while those without NVGs stumble about blindly and get shot the minute they light a flare. As a result, one needs only to glance at the server list to see that servers based in timezones where it is night are relatively empty - The day time servers are full. Do you really want it to be easier for survivors to move by day than under the cover of nightfall? It does draw from the decidedly more haunting atmosphere granted by a dark, but playable night. At this time, DayZ is the single most unique gaming experience I have ever had. The realism is astounding, especially with the recent patch. That said, there is nothing even remotely realistic about the level of darkness at night in DayZ gameplay. Ideally, (and if you agree with me, fellow players, please say so) I ask that the darkness at least be modified to resemble the 'clouded' night setting in the vanilla editor. It's still difficult to see, still very dark, and yet not impossible to navigate without a million flares and a deathwish.