Saethkept

I can see where you're coming from. The tone of a private server depends on the owner/admin. Some do nothing at all to modify their servers. Others cater to the crowd of which you speak. Still others have gone the other way ... trying to make the experience more difficult. I've had a private server for four months. Before renting a server DayZ was a much different experience for me in that I really had no clue what happened behind the scenes so to speak, both in the game and server code and via different admin control panels. I can see someone with less control taking advantage of that newfound knowledge at the expense of their players. Of course, that is not too cool. Truth is, it is amazingly simple and cheap to rent a server - but quite difficult to both be a fair admin and to run a server properly. Some take it to the extreme; some use their servers as money making vehicles; some like to play little dictator or use their admin panel to mess with players. I think that right now the most important thing to remember is that public DayZ servers must remain true to the original vision and must operate within a set of enforced rules and standards. I would only begin to worry when that changes. To each their own I suppose. I certainly - as an avid player - would never "donate" to a server admin for perks that any experienced player can acquire for free from the game world. Some however must be willing to do this, as you see tons of servers that ask for donations. As for the starting gear and million vehicles, that is not for me - either as an admin or a player.

On foot has been covered quite well. When in a ground vehicle however, speed is your best friend. Speeding through a large town is a great way to draw out the bad guys. Some will just shoot, but others will ask for rides. For some reason, many will wait on the side of the road and then open up when you get close. Since it can be a bit tough to judge the speed of an approaching vehicle from head on, I recommend using whatever vehicle you've got as a rather large flyswatter. Lots of heroes complain about the sometimes difficulty of finding bandits to shoot. The Skoda or Hatchback or Hilux make great "mousetraps" for bandit trolling.

As a fellow Pennsylvanian who lives within a short distance of a Harley Davidson Plant, I have to say "right on". Of course there will be a 'Pagan' faction, yes?

It's odd for me really. As an older gamer I think back to 'Quake 2' and 'Quake 3' and 'Unreal Tournament' the original, which were my first experiences with the online deathmatch, along with games like the original Tribes. I enjoyed the heck out of those experiences, struggling with a slower internet connection in the late 90's and early 2000's, but nevertheless addicted to blasting other players nonstop for hours, Megadeth or Metallica or Cathedral blaring though my headphones. I think that the reason the deathmatch aspect of those aforementioned games was so much fun was because that was all there was to do pretty much no matter the game mode you played them in. That is also why the deathmatch aspect of a game like DayZ can get so annoying, because there is so much more depth to the title. Really what you have is a collision of play styles in DayZ that causes much discord among the community. Not everyone is playing the same game, even though everyone is playing DayZ. Can you dig it? But, that is also what can make it so suspenseful and interesting. OP I hope you stick around and give it another go.

Were you on a Seek and Destroy, was Killing your business, and was it a Good Mourning or a Black Friday? At least you did not Wake up dead.

Essentially OP, I think what you are missing - and I sympathize with you to an extent - is that DayZ is basically this giant, messy gift given to gamers "as is" and riding the back of something we like to call free will. In a nutshell, what needs to happen to balance the game for everyone - hero and bandit and griefer alike - is for player communities to police themselves. What I am getting at is, all forms of players in DayZ have the "right" to exist, because that is how the game was handed to us. In order for some "fairness" to exist perhaps as you would define it, either alone or in with a group you must enforce or create that fairness or order on the server you play on. DayZ takes place in the wild west, the drug lord shooting gallery of some South American city, the streets of Fallujah - in otherwords it is a warzone, a lawless zone, it's the apocalypse. The greatest gift Rocket gave us was absolute freedom within the defined parameters of the game to do as we please. I may not like the behavior of some other players, but ultimately - by the mechanics of the game - it is up to me or me along with some friends to eke out a somewhat safe existence, to hunt and kill bandits - to do whatever must be done to survive and make the in game world a better place ... better by your own definition.

Zombies are supposedly governed/driven by the most primal, savage of needs; a relentless hunger. To that end, a pack hunting mentality would be very interesting to face - both for the lone player and player groups. Zombies that split into packs, packs which perform different behaviors such as charging at the player, encircling the player, flanking the player and cutting off exits from alleys, streets, fenced in yards, etc. I do not want "Einstein" zombies, however base instinct is a powerful tool of nature and the in game the outbreak has been going on for over a year. It's time the infected/zombies learned a bit about how to best their prey ... about how to catch ... us.

We don't always talk about GM, but when we do, we do it with really, really high capacity magazines loaded with HE rounds slammed into really big weapons - safeties off, fingers on triggers and all vehicle engines spooled, our foots on the gas, our doors locked, and with the pins pulled from our grenades, we grit out teeth and do it in paranoid whispers.

- As long as you keep running, zombies will never touch you. - Often it pays to go prone and low crawl into a high density zombie area. - Doing the above can prevent zombie aggro, which can prevent players from detecting your presence. - Read the zombie sign before going in. Running, growling zombies indicate a player's presence. - Take care when acknowledging another player or meeting them. Always prepare for and expect the worst from most everyone else. - Beware helicopter crashes and vehicles. Bandits/Player Killers love to use them as bait. - Take care killing zombies in doorways, as it can be hard to get over their bodies if they pile up. - If zombies are entering your building en masse do not panic. Get to the corner furthest from the front door and go prone. - Always use buildings and terrain to your advantage when entering a new area. Beware rooftops and high ground. - If shot at do not panic. Panic will get you killed. Stay calm, keep moving, get to cover, return fire. - If another player seems to be threatening you, do not hesitate. - You do not have to kill on sight. Instead, you can shoot another player in the leg and later give them medical treatment if a misunderstanding. - Do not believe that all Admins are good because they are Admins. Bad behavior is bad behavior. - You do not have to bend to the wishes of an Admin. If one demands you help them or give them a ride, find another server. - Remember to have fun.

I think that the DayZ experience can be revitalized for us, with new content, new features, unpredictable zombie behavior, etc. Whether this happens with the standalone, a new DayZ mod, or by tinkering with the code ourselves ... the next new old thrill is out there. What I do not think would do it for DayZ veterans, is a new mod, the newness of which is defined by a few new weapons, vehicles or slightly different terrain. I do not care if there are 600 new weapons to try out because I'd be using them - however cool they were - on the same old zombies and bandits in the usual garb. It's going to take a real imaginative concept to bring back that feeling.

I went the other way ... I made them faster. I had the force speed set to 15 at one point. It was not pretty. I overrode the zombie_agent.fsm serverside in the mission.pbo through zombie_generate.sqf.

I don't KoS. Why? Because the game does not require it, and choice is a good thing. However, if you're looking at me funny in game, following me or waving a bullet launcher my way, I will let you hold two rounds of ammunition ... one in each leg. Funny story. What I don't get are the protracted sub psychological acts of drama some even very experienced players play at. Such as one who announces to the players on his server that he is friendly at the moment - but not always, and not for much longer. Probably another reason I run my own server. Less wacky drama. Consistency in play style is important. All of this I was a hero but went bad guy drama belongs in a soap opera - not DayZ. Most KoS'ers I've met tend to get real whiny when on the receiving end. I wonder why?

Reanimated dead? No. Zombies? Yes. Apparently their organs still function, as when you perforate their innards, they stop trying to get you. My thinking follows and has been influenced by zombie genre examples. Headshots only or mostly indestructable means they likely just stood up out of the grave or slid off the embalming table in some small town funeral home. Shots to the chest and down for good ... they were still alive when they started trying to bite you.

Good and helpful guide you've written here. Nice job.

Absolutely, without doubt, no way.

Some months back I was a regular on a public server that seemed too good to be true. There was on it a small but slowly growing population of players who all seemed willing to work together. Must have been a new server because there were several helicopters available and the goal of most regulars became the repair and operation of those aircraft. Myself, I had found and repaired a white Skoda, and in the spirit of cooperation started a taxi service up and down the east coast and from the coast to Kamenka. All was going great on a daily basis. The six or so other regulars who logged in every day were busy fixing two helicopters on Skalisty, and I was taxiing them to various industrial spawns for parts, as well as driving new spawns around. A medic player I had met on another server also became a regular, and it turned out he was one heck of a pilot in the An-2. So he decided to start an "airbus" service which began at Balota airfield and transported players to NWAF and other points north. One day when my Taxi business was slow I agreed to pull overwatch for the medic/pilot at Balota AF since some bandit clan members had recently stirred up a bit of excitement around Cherno, wantonly shooting at all moving vehicles. So I was perched prone on the air control tower while the medic/pilot fueled his plane and loaded passengers. All went well, I had yet to fire at another player with my M16 ACOG and was getting somewhat bored with the duty. The pilot/medic was loading up his last group of passengers for the day - all regulars I thought I knew well enough - when one of them shot some part of the An-2 and caused both myself and the pilot and everyone else to panic a bit. So the pilot orders everyone aboard the plane, starts her up and they take off from Balota. A few seconds later I see the pilot and all the passengers bail out at about two hundred feet, and the plane explodes. The teamspeak explodes as well with the chatter of accusations as the survivors float to the ground. One of the regulars to the server comes running out of a hangar, pointing an assault rifle toward the survivors. I get down to ground level, draw my PDW and open up on him as I had assumed he was the one who shot down the plane. I kill him, and think that I have done right but then he respawns nearby and starts lighting up teamspeak about how some idiot betrayed him and shot him in the back. Long story shorter, there had been some kind of misunderstanding on when the plane was supposed to take off and the two newer regulars to the server who were supposed to get a ride on the plane thought they were getting shafted and so shot at it when it took off to supposedly let the pilot know they were there. I had ended up killing an innocent player, and from that point on, no one trusted anyone else and all the regulars becam killers on sight. So in a way, my own paranoia ended my stay on that server as all trust between the regulars was gone.

Welcome. You're in for a great time; tears, cheers, virtual beers (not really), blood, sweat, bandits, car and helicopter crashes, and on some maps invisible monsters that stalk you across frozen wastes. All of that and more await you in this thing called DayZ.

Not about DayZ. When I dream zombies, it tends to be the terrified, barricading myself into a building while they break through sort of thing. For some reason they are always the zombies from Return Of The Living Dead. Now if I could just dream Linnea Quigley into the scenario with me ... I'd be set.

I don't care for it either. On one hand the lack of permanence is much of the appeal of DayZ - for me. On the other, I think endgame should be about restoring infrastructure, finding a cure, ending the zombie situation. But, doing that would sort of end the game as well.

A zombie struck me through the canopy glass of a helicopter as I was taking off. The blow knocked me out, yet I could still use the controls. When I panned around the hull in third person, I noticed that I was hanging half through the cockpit floor. I quickly landed and in doing so crushed myself against the ground.

The L85 - the model with the holo sight - is a quick, pointable weapon useful in close quarters and up to medium range. The L85 SUSAT is great because it has a scope for fairly long range, and open sights accessed by pressing "/" for up close.

I am pretty sure camo clothing spawns only in residential loot class - i.e. houses, etc.

Zombies should be the greatest threat overall. I've said it many times, I will say it again. The zombie genre has been confused these days, with a similar but different genre known as the post apocalyptic thriller or aftermath thriller. Take for instance one of the greatest zombie films ever - 'The Return Of The Living Dead'. In ROTLD were humans or zombies feared more? Most any zombie film not made within this millennium followed the formula of zombies as the vastly central source of horror and threat. Apparently, the gaming industry/mod communities have yet to pay proper homage to the classic zombie genre. That or the ridiculous belief that zombies cannot be enough of a threat to players in a video game reigns.

On Namalsk. I had just run across the rocks and shallow water down from the dam and was mounting the small ridgeline beside the airfield, when crouching, I turned to scan my six. It was a wolfpack clan server with first person disabled. I spied another player about 100 meters away, prone and in some pines. He must have been tracking me but luckily was armed with only an AK-74, versus my DMR. He popped smoke when he realized I had seen him. I decided to move on and get some distance between us, as I had been recently banned from a few servers for shooting the wrong people evidently, and I was not a clan member of the server owner. The tracker decided to fire at me from within the green smoke, I shot back once intending to get his head down while I ran away. That blind shot from maybe 125m finished the guy off. Think I got a GPS and a pair of NVG out of the confrontation.

Actually, with rmod running the AWS is easily added. I have them on my server, but at the moment it is for testing only. Just look for a half decent rmod server, hop in and ask a regular if they spawn.