bfisher

Building an above ground base out of stuff you find makes sense. Building a below ground bunker complex only makes sense if you also find and fix a working backhoe, cement mixer and a bunch of teamsters to build it for you.

Now for this to work, I am assuming most people starting a firefight at night have NVGs. So, tonight I walked into an ambush. Really "rode" as I was on an Old Bike doing the Tour de Cherno up the coast road. Anyhow, I was able to ride to cover and get off the bike. And I have the whole NVG / Range Finder / L85 Thermal night package so I'm ready to battle. Unfortunately I accidently set my weapon to "Road Flare". The effect was to immediately sear my eyeballs as the NVGs turned white. But I have to assume since my bandit friend also stopped firing, he experienced a similar effect. Anyhow, the moral of the story is that in a pinch or as a tactical option, throwing road flares at NVG wearing opponents might buy you some time to either escape or outflank your enemy. Although the SOB ended up stealing my bike and escaped.

I think it's a dumb idea to be able to dig anything bigger than a one man foxhole. I mean do we really need Cherno criss-crossed with a network of Viet Cong style tunnels? I would much rather be able to fortify structures against zombies and other players so they can be used as safe houses.

The problem IMHO is that there isn't much to "do" once you get outfitted with decent gear. I could spend forever in the woods living off pondwater and cow meat. Problem is that gets real boring real quick. I disagree with making weapons, vehicles and whatnot more rare, Except the AS50s. If anything vehicles should be less rare. Bases are a cool idea, but I don't like the idea of digging tunnels all over Cherno like damn Viet Cong. Just boarding up a building is fine with me.

Yes, I was able to clearly see him ride off on my bike;)

I usually do full-on sprinting, occassionally sidestepping, then running backwards, then sidestepping the other way. My logic is other players can see you no matter how fast or slow you run or how much you crouch. But a faster target is harder to hit. You're also harder to track in a full-on sprint. In a CQB situation like around buildings, slow and low, that is the tempo.

Oh...ok, I'll just toss my L85 in a pond somewhere, Seriously, it's not a great sniper rifle and it's just an ok assault rifle. Thermal imaging is really helpful, but you can see targets a lot further away than you can kill them. And the thermal / NV sight doesn't do much for you in close combat, especially during the day. It's the AS50 anti material rifles in the hands of a battle-logging bitch that are the problem.

I wouldn't call walking up to a domesticated farm animal and double-tapping it in the head with a silenced M9 "hunting".

Otherwise known as "servers".

Honestly, I am getting a bit bored. I feel like there isn't much to do besides run through vast wilderness or go into Cherno or Electro and stir up trouble. Today I spawned in Kamenka and decided to just run along the coast agroing zombies to see how many I could get to chase me. I got to Cherno with about a dozen, then got killed by some player.

I liked the ending. I mean up until the point where you Alt-F4'd away like a little bitch.

Last week, wind and flooding from Hurricane Sandy knocked out power and all public transportation in the Hoboken/Weehawken/Jersey City area where I live. So I did what any new spawn would do. Threw on my "player skin" of workboots, old jeans, a North Face fleece vest and baseball hat and went exploring/scavaging for loot. I have to say, DayZ really does capture the look and feel of being in a wrecked, deserted city. And actually, it's a lot easier in real life. There were no zombies (although my wife wasn't so sure). No snipers. No hackers. You do have to be aware of potential bandits though and there are a lot more "players" but most of them are friendly (and unarmed). Can't smash open the hospital with an ax to steal medicine though. They'll arrest you for looting.

guns and ammo are easy. Sneak around a populated server on the outskirts of a major city and you'll find bandit camps full of all sorts of goodies. Unfortuantely you may also find bandits. Heli crashes around Stary Sobor. NWAF barracks always have AKs. Vehicles are another matter. Honestly they are a pain to find and even if you find one, they are an even bigger pain in the ass to find the parts for. A lot of running back and forth into population centers to grab an item that takes up half your backpack.

Then why was the entrance to my neighborhood Stop & Shop blocked by some jerks tent?

I suppose Weehawken Cove could be considered a beach. I did see a lot of people try to assemble a working vehicle after the flooding.

There was some...unpleasentness...when I ran up to a National Guardsman screaming "friendly" and then tried to hit him with an ax to get ahold of his M-16. Close to it. My wife and I managed to find someone with a camping stove so she could grill up some leftover chicken while I stood in around a generator with a crowd of people charging our cell phones. And one of my neighbors even had NV binocs!

Berezino is definitely not the shitstorm that is Cherno and Electro for the simple fact that you have to hike your ass all the way up there and it's not full of new-spawns trying to gear up before they get sniped. But while it seems quiet and I've had few problems up there, I have found a lot of camps with a lot of hard-core equipment. So it's not all care bears and unicorns.

I'm with bad_mojo. I don't pay attention to the day counter. I could survive a long time if I wanted, just finding an isolated spot in the woods, sitting there for weeks on end, grabbing food and water as I need it. But that gets as boring as sitting in the woods for weeks at a time in real life.

Seriously. The other day I get killed by some hacker. When I respawned, he teleported me to my body so I could retrieve my gear. Then they had the audacity to offer me a ride in their convoy to go take out some other camp!

Nothing is that rare. There is so much hacked equipment, you can find an AS50 or any other gear within a few hours in some tent outside of Electro or Cherno.

Yeah seriously. I respawned next to what appeared to be an abandoned sniper/bandid camp just outside of Electro. They had an AS50, L85A2 AWS, a ghillie suit, some satchel charges, NV goggles, a busted helicopter and who knows what else. Even with all that stuff, I stil keep a hill between me and Electro. I kept hearing a constant *BOOM* of sniper fire, but I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Even had a round graze me!

If people don't act threatening, I'll leave them alone. Problem is everyone with a weapon is threatening. Any anyone without a weapon starts acting like a threat as soon as they find one. Plus on any populated server, it feels like Cherno and Electro are surrounded by sniper camps. Within 15 minutes of respawning, I had myself a ghillie suit and some sort of sniperized assult riffle with thermal sights and a bunch of satchel charges. I'd really like to get an SUV working though.

Three(?) awesome kills today. Can't decide which is my favorite. I'm reconning the hills around Electro and all of a sudden I feel some drops of rain on my head. Wait a minute! That's not rain! That's some bandit firing his Spitballkarov at me! I turn and SAW him in half with the M249. Later in Electro (after having been killed and respawned several times), snuck up behind a guy with an AK and played him some chin music with my hatchet. Shouldn't have brought a gun to an ax fight! Not sure if this is a kill, but later I'm in the Electro supermarket stocking up on groceries for the long trip to the NWAF. I see movement in the stockroom so I fire a warning shot with my Enfield Zombie Caller. He doesn't leave so we get into a point blank shootout in the stockroom. All of a sudden at least half a dozen zombies burst in the door. I'm prett sure both of us died from a combination of lead poisoning and being torn limb from limb.

It would be cool if you could repair the power plants and generate power for the nearby towns. More vehicles. Even if they need repairing. In-game methods of communicating with other players - portable and fixed radios that act like "side channel". Leaving notes or maybe even spraypainted messages. Ability to fortify buildings.

I'm running around Balota and this car drives up honking its horn. I have a bunch of zombies on me so I jump in, thnking, what the heck, I just respawned recently so I don't have much to lose anyway. Anyway, these a-holes drive me back towards midle of nowhere Kamenka, stop the car and start shooting at me. I figure they were going to do that anyway so I charge the closest dude with what I thought was my hatchet. Turns out I didn't have my weapon set to hatchet. It was still set to the hand grendade I picked up in Balota. The last thing I could see out of the corner of my eye was a massive orange fireball where their car used to be. Anyhow, it would have been more fullfilling if they didn't just hack their car back together. I assume at least one was a hacker since he had soldier gear on.