Onearmdude

So after a few months absence, I decided to reinstall DayZ after noticing the patch notes on my feed. Everything went smoothly until I encountered an error message. "DayZ.exe is not a valid Win32 app". I took to the internet, hoping to find some kind of fix that would allow me to play the game, and instead found the same response over and over again. Rather than invite the same responses here, I'll summarize and preempt them: "The minimum reqs for DayZ never included XP, so you shouldn't be surprised when it grandfathers out. Upgrade to a modern OS if you want to play." Usually the responses are much more snarky and passive-aggressive; their authors demonstrating contempt for idiots who can't even read the requirements. Now, I make a point of checking out those kind of details. I purchased Bioshock: Infinite upon its Steam release only to find that I couldn't run it, and since then I've taken great pains to ensure I wouldn't make the same mistake twice. About 9 months later, I remember looking at the DayZ store and finding that the system requirements were in line with my computer. Obviously, this is only a recollection, and thus prone to error. It can be argued very easily that I simply don't remember right. ---------- Only I've found some evidence to the contrary. And while my recollection of the original minimum requirements can be dismissed as faulty, archived pages cannot. I've been able to find a couple mentions of the standalone game's original requirements that include Windows XP as a compatible OS. [link removed] While the screenshots are mostly from the DayZ mod, they refer to the game as "the full game developed by Bohemia" and "released on Steam". [link removed] Although the "free download" aspect seems somewhat shady, this is an even more clear example. The screenshots are of DayZ SA and the XP OS is mentioned explicitly. ----------- It's possible that these sites are merely reporting the minimum requirements that they were able to use to make the game run. But I also find it possible that Bohemia changed the minimum system requirements soon after release, perhaps in response to the increased scope of the game. In which case I'm extremely disappointed. While XP users like myself only form 4% of Steam's surveyed users, that still represents thousands and thousands of people. Given that over 3 million copies of DayZ have sold on Steam to date, it's clear that this change will have disenfranchised a not-insignificant portion of the userbase. I understand the need for progress. If you talk to some people, they'd argue that if anything it's happening too slowly. Yet there are many instances in other games like Eve Online and World of Tanks that retain accessibility despite having been continually improved and expanded upon in the years since their release. I can't see why XP can't be similarly supported. I could be wrong in my assertion that XP was supported originally. But even if that is the case, I see many reasons why it should continue to be supported. If you still feel a need to post a reply simply telling me to "upgrade to a newer OS" after all this, I'd ask you to please eat a dick refrain from doing so.

I understand that they weren't the most reliable, but I could find very little documentation on requirements for the original steam release. If Vista was in fact always the minimum OS, then I stand corrected. I knew the day would be coming when I could no longer depend on my current computer. But since I'd prefer to keep it for older games, it means I'd need to build a new computer from the ground up. I knew what I was doing in 2007, but that was a long time ago. I could use any advice you can give me.

I'm really interested in this. You can only do so much playing alone and while I've got all the gear I could ask for, it'd be cool to play in a regular group. Count me in!

A car I'd spent 12 hours fixing up disappeared, so I went south and stalked a group of newly spawned players for a few hours. I freaked them out by taking out most of a mob that was chasing them with my M14, getting close enough for them to hear me whisper nonsense in voice chat then running away, that kinda thing. At one point they were messing about in a barn around Msta, so I dumped a ton of tin cans outside then cheesed it before they got out. I could have just slaughtered them at the start, but psychological shenanigans like this are so much more rewarding. And I'm not so insecure that I need to kill bambis.

The norm for crash sites seems to vary server to server. I've played on some servers where I'll go weeks without seeing them, and other servers where I see several in an hour. Dumb luck and the gods of random make it hard to predict their appearance with any regularity. In my experience, if you have NVGs it's easier to find them at night since the smoke plume stands out so well, even over hills and forests. If you see more than 2 or 3 crash sites in a 500m area though, I'd be wary of looting them.