Target Practice (DayZ)

But that's prioritizing for you. I (and you, by the sounds of things) certainly don't want to start things down the road of bashing the guy who's able to invest large amounts of time into his gaming - that's fine, we all have our hobbies and the amount of time we feel comfortable dedicating to them varies from person to person. No judging and all that. I have no doubts that there are people out there who regularly spend 12-15 hours a day playing this game. I'd put money on it. That guy is GOING to get your car at some point if he wants it, and if that's the level of effort he's willing to put in, then he deserves it. There's no fair way of stopping him. But as Dallas points out, that level of dedication comes at a price - while he's sat at his keyboard looting your shit, you're taking his mother out for a nice seafood dinner and not calling her back (Sorry, but it made me giggle).

I don't use tags, I don't use waypoints, and I only use third person for travelling, as I find the first-person camera tends to make me feel a little ill after extended use. I'm glad you were able to accurately tell exactly how I play the game based on the fact I don't believe that having magic little dots appearing on my screen to tell me there's something to look at is something that belongs in a game designed to be harsh and unforgiving, though.

I think you're mistaking something that's been slightly simplified for the sake of playability for something that people are using as a crutch because they don't want to learn how to use a map properly. Anyone with half a brain knows that morphine will not cure a broken leg. However, we suspend our disbelief and say a little 'thank you' to the gaming gods for giving us a game where breaking your leg is even simulated/considered. Same with bandages. The blue dot without a GPS is ONLY there to aid the player. It serves no other purpose. Once a player has found a GPS, I have no problem with the dot being on the map, but until they find a GPS, it's up to the player to fix their position manually.

Either you see something or you don't. If I spot something that I was alerted to by a peripheral dot, I have been artificially assisted by the game. I don't play DayZ to have my hand held like that.

I don't really see any way around this in a persistent-server environment - any situation like that is obviously going to favour those who are able/willing to spend more time in it, and to find a way around that would at best be potentially unfair to those players who invest the hours into the game, and at worst utterly break the very nature of the game - if you want 'premium' gear like cars and camps in DayZ, you have to work damn hard for it - finding a way of giving something to person A for three hours' work what person B had to work twenty hours for is just going to cause all kinds of upset. Above all else, DayZ is a brutally 'fair' game. The guy with 200 hours' experience and an AS50 is just as vulnerable to a hatchet in the face as the newbie wandering round Cherno for the first time. It does not and cannot start making concessions to certain groups/people, because at that point it stops becoming a world that's trying to kill you and becomes a game that's trying to help you. That's not what DayZ is about.

The zig-zagging I believe is something to do with Arma's pathfinding system. I'd expect that to be resolved in the SA. Doesn't make it any less frustrating in the short-term, mind. The solution I've generally found is to make sure they don't see/hear you in the first place. ;)

You need to install all three, I believe - the Beta is just a few extra files added on to the original OA. That would likely sort your problem.

Ah, so I'm not talking out of my ass then. Makes a refreshing change. :D Have you done that, OP?

Ah right, my bad. I see what you're saying now. Apparently I can't read. :P Still, not convinced it's encouraged spray and pray - nerfed damage or not, spray and pray in an Arma-based game = hitting everything except what you're aiming at.

I'd assume optimally you'd want a bit of air in there for the liquid to slosh around, as well as to make sure the thing doesn't go off before hitting the ground. Off the top of my head, I'd guess filling the bottle around halfway to two-thirds full would probably be about right. I'd google it, but I don't really want to end up on an FBI watchlist. :P

Wait, I'm not sure whether I'm an idiot and have grabbed the wrong end of the stick here. Are you complaining that four assault rifle bullets to the chest killing someone is reason to NERF a gun? Hold on, reality's calling. It's for you.

Remind me never to pick a fight with you. :lol:

You might need to launch both ARMA II and Operation Arrowhead (normal, not beta) normally once just to get the CD key to tie to the Steam account. Can't remember where I read that or whether it's true or not, but it can't hurt. Right, as for finding your ARMA/OA paths, bring up the settings menu. You'll see something like this: (Don't know if that's EXACTLY accurate, as I just googled and found this - might be slightly out of date) Under the 'Arma II directory' path, navigate to where ARMA II is installed (usually [steam directory]/SteamApps/Common/Arma II or similar) and make sure that's correct. Then do the same for OA, although obviously making sure the OA directory is selected this time. Try that.

Probably considerably more than that, as you don't really want to fill the bottle to the brim when making a molotov. Not unless you happen to be wearing an asbestos shirt, anyway.

In DayZ Commander's settings tab, there should be something along the lines of 'ARMA II path' and 'ARMA II OA path' (can't remember exactly, don't have it installed on my lappy) - check those are pointing to where you have ARMA II and ARMA II OA installed, as I think they default to something other than the Steam installation paths.

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/118848-addon-ca-communityconfigurationproject-e-requires-addon-ca-air-e-mq9predatorb/ Check your path to ARMA II and Operation Arrowhead in DayZ Commander, that seems to be the most likely cause.

Of course, there's a school of thought that says thinking ahead of the curve never hurts. An i7 might be overkill for games right now, but in 12 months' time, who knows? Sometimes it's a better move to spend a little extra now than to have to replace components in a couple of years. It's swings and roundabouts really - it's all going to need replacing sooner or later, it's just a question of when. The one I don't really understand is people's obsession with overclocking. With the extra money you have to pay for cooling and the risk you run of potentially shortening the life of your hardware for what usually only equates to an extra 10FPS or so, surely it makes more sense just to buy a better processor and run it at stock?

lol@ the body falling down the stairs in the Elektro fire station.

If I'm travelling solo (on a private hive or something), I'll carry two - one for me, and one as an emergency backup if/when I'm replacing my first one. Alternatively, I may use one to help out someone who needs it, depending on how trusting I'm feeling. If I'm playing in a group, I tend to default to playing 'group medic' (must be a hangover from my Team Fortress 2 days) and pretty much fill my backpack with as much blood and morphine as I can find - no matter how much I bring, somehow our motley crew usually ends up finding a way to need most of it!

The ones I get annoyed by are what I refer to as the 'hacker' zombies - no matter what you do, you can't shake them or get more than a few feet in front of them - looking behind you reveals them sliding over the floor and moving impossibly fast to catch up whenever they're more than a few feet behind you, then when you turn round to shoot them they move physics-defyingly quickly from left-to-right, causing you to miss a few times (and usually get a few hits in) before you take them down. Those guys are pretty frustrating.

On the subject of DayZ requiring and encouraging real-life skills, this is something I'd really like to see encouraged in the game, as it gives people a chance to shine and to contribute to the world in ways that don't just involve shooting other people in the face. It's already in display in a mild form even in the current game - a player who can read the Cyrillic alphabet is going to be a useful asset to have around, particularly when no-one in the group has a GPS. Talented helicopter pilots are always in demand. Having someone in your group who can read a map and fix positions without a GPS makes things much, much easier in the early-mid part of the game when you're travelling inland from the South coast and all those valleys and forests look very similar to the untrained eye. There's no reason some semblance of realism couldn't be brought into other aspects of DayZ. You find a car that has no visible signs of damage, but for some reason won't go anywhere. When the player tries to drive it, the car starts up for a second and then stalls out. A mechanically-inclined player might recognise this as a possible faulty clutch (I have no idea if this is true, I know nothing about cars!) and therefore saves the team a lot of hassle finding and replacing parts trial-and-error, as they know that the only thing they need to switch is the clutch.

I can only imagine the state of the 'report bugs' thread after that one. ZOMFG MY COMPASS SED NORTH BUT I WUX GOING NORTHWEST, COMPASS IS BROKED! But... there are points all over the map you can use to orientate yourself! Hell, that's the primary method I use for finding my location after I log in slap-bang in the middle of nowhere - find a prominent landmark I can see in-game, take a bearing with the compass. Find another landmark I can see, take another bearing. Where the two lines overlap is where I am. Alternatively, just find a powerline or railway and follow the tracks - they're rare enough that there's usually only one or two heading in any given direction on the map, so use them to get a rough fix. Although I would be very much in favour of being able to make 'personal' marks on my map rather than marks everyone can see. Would make the process much easier and safer. Has this been suggested/confirmed?

Haha, oh man, that would be utterly evil. If you were a real bastard, you could even work in deviation for proximity to large metal structures such as in cities. I can only imagine the rage. :lol: Of course it is technically possible that in whatever year this takes place that the GMA could just so happen to be zero, if the magnetic pole happened to be directly North of Chernarus that year. :P

I'd find a nice daylight server to start with - it's much, much easier to learn the ropes when you can see what you're doing. Nighttime is fun, and you should definitely try it at some point, but maybe once you've got to grips with the basics.

No problem - have fun, and remember, dying = learning! :)