Mr Mouse

It's not free if you have to pay.

From what you've said here, it doesn't sound like you know much about computers, and from that I would say that your computer won't be able to run DayZ because of a lack of good hardware.

The game had double the number of viewers on Twitch than DaZ last night, so yes it's still very much active.

I don't agree with pre-orders or collector/supporter editions. Many companies make false promises before a game's release, and a few companies have folded not long after I've purchased their games. I'll reward you in the long run, not the short term.

No tent/camp is safe from a chopper with plenty of fuel.

Just change combination of Alt+F4 so that it suicides your character.

Yes, it will be released as a standalone game, at some point in the future. No date has been set, but the development team are working on it. Release might be this year, or next year. Your guess is as good as ours.

Takistan and Taviana because of the massive FPS gains.

Don't play an online survivor game if you're going to press a combination of two buttons in order to survive.

Flashlight is a terrible descriptive word for the device. Who wants their light to flash constantly during dark situations? I'd very much like for my light to remain on, thanks.

In the standalone they simply need to increase the zombie damage with every zombie hit and increase the percentage chance of getting ill/infected. That way, with zombies spawned everywhere by default and in vast numbers, it won't be worth it to go guns blazing in a city as you'll get swarmed and die. You'll need to pick your shots more carefully, therefore reducing the aggression, or team up with others to handle the zombie threat - which in turn increases player interaction and grouping. Don't cater for the people who expect an easy game. Make zombies tough, or don't bother.

The lead developers initial response was shocking - very immature. I was considering downloading the mod, but have since decided not to. Cheers for bringing this to my attention.

Base building is just an option. In an apocalypse, I would imagine the human population would do one of the following, 1) find a group of survivors and start to build some sort of settlement - a place to call home, or 2) stay on the move in an attempt to look for items that could keep you alive - food, water, shelter etc.

The DayZ mod isn't free (well it is, but...). You need to buy ARMA 2 and Arma 2: Operation arrowhead first. DayZ is a mod of that game.

Never been banned from an online game since online gaming began (yes I'm that old). You're doing something wrong if you get banned, and I'll leave you to work out why that is.

Yeah, agree with the others. You just need to get whitelisted.

Another reason is the number of YouTube gamers that we have these days. While they are great for promotion of a game, they can just as easily harm a games content and the approach that people take in the game itself. Like anything in life, people emulate the people that they idolise. If you're watching someone playing the game a certain way, many people would think that's the correct way of doing things - that streamer has 50k subscribers, so he must know, right?! When I used to play a number of on-line games some eight years ago, YouTube and Twitch didn't exist, so you were never influenced by anyone else, ever. The only thing we had were clan videos - compilations of kills that showed players playing well (or highly edited to make themselves look amazing). You played the game how you saw fit, with no external guidance. People mimic and copy - it's human nature. The fact that the highly popular DayZ gamers/streamers mostly shoot on site encourages others to do the same, unfortunately. YouTube is a great form of entertainment, but it also serves as a negative.

Arma 2 Combined Operations is on Steam, currently priced at £16.99, or roughly $27. Then check the helpful guides Orlok posted.

Which was my point. Congratulations!

FPS is not graphics card dependant, especially when it comes to the DayZ mod. What are your computer specifications?

That's my biggest gripe with how the game has evolved. I bought the game to play a survival role, helping others through the apocalypse. Right now, it's FPS PvP with everyone shooting at you. Can we blame modern games, making everyone crave kills and gear? Perhaps. but I personally think it's children of today and their mentality towards gaming. Sounds old-fashioned, but on-line gaming wasn't wasn't like this when I was young (gaming for close to two decades); every community I was a part of was far friendlier in game. The only positive thing is the standalone should be full of melee weapons in the early stages. They need to introduce far more co-op elements. Rocket has said something about a skill based system that's a long long long way away. To explain very briefly: people can become great engineers, or great medics, giving them the ability to fix cars to a higher level/cure the worst diseases. You'll have to actively seek out these people and request their help. Why kill someone when you need them? It should help build camaraderie..

Don't be forced into changing your play-style because of others. Don't follow the crowd like a sheep. There are nice guys out there, but because DayZ is morphing into an FPS game filled with combat loggers, it's not currently played how it ought to be played. Shame really.

The new Jackfrags series is a bloody borefest. Each to their own though.

This really. People struggle to even play the game, let alone record/stream it. Your fps will take a hit (as you know), so be prepared for that. Make sure your fps is high enough to begin with, which for many players simply isn't the case.

Like someone said, the game is very random at times in terms of performance. I have a very old dual core processor, Radeon HD 5770 card and teeny bit of ram, yet run DayZ at 30-40 fps constantly. Not amazing, but certainly playable. Other gamers have far better rigs and struggle for 30 fps. Trying various config settings, different servers and using Ramdisk help some, but won't help others. Trying different in-game graphic settings help some, yet barely improve performance on other systems. DayZ, the mod is not very optimised. I can run ArmA2 itself with very high frame rates, yet the mod suffers. Because of this there is no sure-fire way of improving performance.