I have recently started playing DayZ 2017 and, for the most part, I find it to be far more in keeping with the whole bare-bones, survival side of the game than the rampant, deathmatch PVP etc. For example, not only is it difficult to find a weapon, when you do the chances are it will have, at most, one bullet with it. Maybe give it a try, it may be what you are looking for.

I have to agree with this. Having played for some hours since the release of the new patch I can honestly say that the Zombies are even less of a threat now than pre-patch. While it is true that it is slightly easier to aggro zombies this is hugely offset by the fact that they just lose interest again after a few feet. As somebody who was never stupid enough to fire a gun in a city (so as not to give away my position to other players) I find the current zombie AI to be laughable. At least pre-patch there was the worry that the huge zombie train that trailed people in cities could give away your location to hidden enemies, now it is only necessary to vault a fence or slightly break line of sight and they go back to whatever they were doing. I have to wonder at the people who think this change was a good thing and the more I think about it the more I realise that the only benefits are to those risk-averse types who did not like being shot at in built up areas. The increased zombie aggro does, I imagine, make it a little harder to just fire on sight than it was before but this only actually plays into the hands of the hill sniper types. I think as time goes on we will see fewer people being killed in a stand-up fire-fight in a city and more people just dropping dead from a sniper shot they never heard. Of course, the sniper shot is still likely to attract zombie aggro but with how easy it now is to drop that aggro I can't see it worrying the AS.50 brigade. I was really looking forward to the additional challenge that this new patch was supposed to provide but so far that challenge has simply failed to materialise.

You know you have played any game for too long when you create a "You know when you've played "game x" too long" thread?

As I said, this is really dodgy "logic". It doesn't follow that because somebody is good at this game that they must be a bandit. My current character is about 65 days old, give or take, and I haven't killed a single person for their gear. All the gear I have accumulated has come from crash sites and NWAF and is stashed in various places around the map. I have even had time to pitch tents with decent gear inside in places that I fully expected to be discovered so that players on my server have the thrill of looting somebody's camp. The groups on my server have similar stashes. It only takes a vehicle and some coordination to ensure that no gear is ever lost. If somebody dies they are usually picked up from the coast in a matter of minutes and returned to their body in order to reclaim their gear. All without any need for banditry. In fact we get very few bandits on our server, a fact that I frequently lament, as many of the regular players would actually welcome the additional challenge they provide. I can understand the tactical reasons for destroying an enemy's materiel but to declare any found stash to be the work of banditry has no basis in logic. It still just seems like an excuse to mess up someone's shit.

I don't tend to mind a Kamenka spawn as I will just head to Cherno by way of Balota airfield. Done in stages like that it doesn't feel like too long a trip. I used to just head north by way of Zelenogorsk but with this mod being so glitchy with regard to random broken legs I now make sure I hit up the medical spawns before I leave the south coast.

Out of curiosity how do you derive such a conclusion? I can see no basis for this assumption. As I have stated I have several, well stocked camps and on the server that I administer so do a few other groups of players and none of us are what you would call bandits. Quite the opposite, in fact. Most of us, as far as I know, have hero skins (underneath our camo/ghillie gear). Is it possible that you use this assumption purely as a means to justify vandal behaviour or do you have something close to proof of your claims?

As the police said when Shergar was finally located.... Findus keepers. The only thing I do differently to those above is that I do not destroy what I do not take. That, to me, always seemed a little churlish and tantamount to vandalism. I don't think all camps are necessarily "hoards", I know I have several caches around the place that I use for a quick re-gear in the event of me getting killed. Sometimes several tents and vehicles just indicate a group stash rather than one person hoarding gear. That said, I still wouldn't do things that way as I prefer to spread stuff out so that, in the event of one of my caches being discovered, I haven't lost the lot.

All public servers are linked (hive) and so your character progress will transfer between servers. Private servers are not linked to the official public hives and so your character progress on a private server will not transfer across if you change servers. I use DayZ Commander as a tool to find servers. In the server list within DayZ Commander the private servers have a cloud icon with a x in it to show it is not linked. Any servers that do not have that symbol are public hive servers. As far as I understand things most players now play on private servers due to the influx of hackers into the game as they seem mostly prevalent on the public hives. Private servers still attract hackers but private server admin often have more tools to combat them. For example, if a hacker strikes a private server the admin can just "roll back" the server to a point before the attack happened and thus minimise the loss of gear etc. that players will suffer.

In light of recent events we can guarantee there is absolutely NO HORSEMEAT in our Cooked Meat steaks.

As a fresh spawn I only tend to use the cities for medical supplies.I run in, grab a couple of cans, smash the window of the hospital (or visit the med tents if in Cherno) and stock up. Morphine is essential to fix the broken legs that occur so readily in Chernarus. I honestly think there is something in the water that causes brittle-bone disease. I might run into the firestation for a quick look if I am sure that there is nobody else about but I tend to use barns and then deer-stands as my means of gearing up with weapons. One of my favourite places on the south coast is Prigorodky. There is a triple farm building complex there that can be surveyed safely from the treeline above and it is a very rare day that I don't get at least one serviceable weapon from there. Edit: If it's quiet I'll check the market for a bigger bag but there are markets up north that tend to be safer in my experience.

That spot is on the edge of the tree line that leads to one of the sniping spots overlooking the Factory near Orlovets (a place where people like to make bases) and has a deer stand close by. You have been quite lucky not to have your stuff discovered there.

Maybe, if you like laughing at stupid. If, on the other hand, you prefer your humour to have more sophistication than a lobotomised slug then you'll probably just switch off after less than a minute. It's all a matter of taste, I guess.

Oh it's possible.

As a veteran of more music festivals than I care to (or indeed am probably able to) remember I have to challenge this assertion. Dome tents have a horrible habit of collapsing in at one corner in moderate to high wind unless pitched on totally even ground and/or without positioning the guy ropes with near mathematical precision. Add rain to the mix and very quickly everything inside is soaked through. I have seen this happen to so many people so many times.

True, but there is no way I would play on a server twice if the admin was doing that. Had it happen to me and my gf once so we just left and never returned. In fact it was one of the events that led me to rent my own server. While there may not be a specific rule against it I would still class it as cheating. People like that give private servers a bad name.