Spademan

Thanks for the info and suggestions, guys (especially Mentize-I'll change my profile up just in case). I guess I was looking for the same servers that hackers would like (low ping, populated, no nametags, no global chat). I'll stick to low population servers while I figure all of the mechanics out, and I'll look into the private servers and alternative maps too.

I just started playing Dayz about a week ago. I've run into a number of hackers in the last couple of days, and I had a couple of questions about hacking. Can hackers track people between servers, even if you have a generic name? What's the best way to avoid hackers? Should I stick to smaller servers and avoid the larger cities, especially when there aren't many servers with a lot of people on? Here's why I'm curious: Last night, I managed to get everything I needed to survive out in the wilderness for days (good gun, good sidearm, food, water bottle, medical supplies) in Elektro without getting myself killed. I moved out of Elektro towards Staroye, and I stopped in a random field. Then, somebody appeared out of thin air and started chatting (Hey budddddy...what's up?). That was pretty shady, so I decided to just log out for the night and preserve what I had. I logged back in this morning to a different server. I turned to my right, and instantly there's some dude in a bandit skin holding nothing. I just ran at this point since I was in the middle of nowhere, and he shouldn't have been there. Then, I got hit by what I'd best describe as "force lightning". I got hit tons of times with small damage each time (buzzing sound), and I died. I switched servers and spawned in another server, and within 3 minutes, some random dude is next to me again. He seems friendly enough, and I guess that I could have just bumped into him since I spawned in Cherno. I followed him into a building, where he dropped a box (is this even possible without hacking?). He said he had a gun in there for me. When I looked in the box, it contained what had to be 5 of all possible upper level equipment in Dayz. Ok, lesson learned. If somebody "shows up" next to you, he's probably a hacker, and it's time to switch servers if you want to play the game straight up. Also, running into three hackers in a row like this seems unusual. Dayz is a great mod/game, and hacking is the only problem that I've had with it (and inventory control and breaking every bone in my body falling off of deer stands, I guess). Unfortunately, the hacking takes a lot away from the survival and resource management aspects of the game that make it great.