Dagwood

Depends on the situation. Handing an unarmed survivor a loaded magnum or even a splitting axe can be a game changer in a tight spot. Ever heard the expression, " the enemy of my enemy is my friend?" It's a good mentality to hold when considering something like this. Giving an under geared player a shortcut through an hour-plus of looting is dangerous when they have nothing to lose. However, when the situation is dire enough that their survival is not guaranteed should you die, they are less likely to turn your own gun on you; especially if you make it clear that you want to get them into the firefight. For example, you are greeting a low-geared survivor, and after a short time are ambushed by a larger force/superior firepower. Simply saying, "Go fuck 'em up, dude. I've got your back" can be enough to focus their bloodlust in a mutually beneficial direction. It also helps to be pointing a rifle in their face while they arm themselves. As always, no matter how much you think you have someone's intentions figured out, they are still a wildcard. Never stop watching your back. On the other hand, bumping into a bored and simultaneously anxious stranger in a small town and handing him a means to violently interact with his environment is highly ill advised. The lack of attention-span or social skills possessed by your average survivor cannot be underestimated. Edit: grammar

Based upon what? M4's dispersion has never been better. Now that vanilla M4 (which I am also rocking) is actually somewhat accurate

Loot respawns in a new loot spawn within 1km of where the loot was taken. Get on reddit. Saw an explanation there. Pretty much allows you to cycle solo buildings but not bases or cities

Item persistence is a big problem when implemented in a pubic hive setting. With thousands of servers available, hiding a tent in a very accessible place on an empty server is laughably easy. Player dies, switches to camp-bearing server, grabs gear, and switches back to populated server. The same feature (persistence) on private hives is a whole different beast. With everyone and everything locked onto the same server, placing a camp and hoarding gear becomes more difficult and more predictable. Players can and were easily tracked back to their stashes in the mod. If you see a fresh spawn sprinting west in a straight line, chances are he's got a camp in his sites. I agree, item persistence in the public hive is detrimental to permadeath and gameplay as a whole.

Won't see much use!? It's one of the most, if not the most, iconic weapon in dayz. I for one will be ditching my kitted FNX for the first empty makarov I find.

What about the heli crashes!!!? My M4 is thirsty

Any word on heli crashes? I traded my fully kitted AK for a vanilla M4 (all plastic parts) and I need to start hunting for scopes, ammo and better parts. M4 master race!!!

What are the pros and cons of the login sound? All I see are pros unless a legitimate player gets disconnected in a high pop area and is killed upon relogging as a result of the noise. But this is a small loss considering the effect it could have on server hoppers and ghosters

0 ping minimum means all servers above 0 won't show I think...

Sorry about last night. I had a work emergency come up

I've been playing dayz since January of 2013. I played various mods on numerous maps during my pre-standalone career. I made the switch to standalone upon its release last December and have not looked back since. My playstyle tends to vary from week to week or life to life. Some lives are spent getting into trouble on the coast after a long character dies. These days I like to get geared up and hang around the new towns in the north east. I tend to avoid long range engagements (too noisy) and usually attempt communication before defending myself. My current hardcore character is fully geared with an AKM+4 30 round clips, an improvised leather backpack(most prized possession), kitted FNX+ mags, BK camo clothing, matches, binocs, ammo box, med pack, etc. Normally I would not be interested in hoarding an especially rare item, but ever since I dropped my M4 for an AKM I haven't been able to forgive myself. I have an endgame character that I hope to keep alive for as long as possible. In conclusion, I believe that my character's current status and survivability make him an appropriate caretaker for one of your artifacts. Send me a PM if you are still interested in exchanging

Because you didn't specify, I'm assuming you're on the regular (3PP:ON) hive. If you're on hardcore, I would love to meet up and exchange.

More importantly, should items like the ballistic vest be controlled by the central hive's loot economy? Because if it is not, half of the players looking for pvp on any high pop server will be wearing one.

Totally random whether novo will be populated or not. Some servers it's a bloodbath. Other servers you can sprint down the street without a care in the world. But I guess this is true for any location on the map.

All of the military structures that I WAS aware of were on the western half of the map. I found a lone military jail building on the eastern half of the map yesterday in sort of an out of the way spot that I wouldn't have expected. As I haven't seen it mentioned on the forums yet, I was wondering if anyone else has found this little gem. If you have, please don't broadcast it's exact location as I would like to keep it our little secret if possible ;)

Oh ya, the ground in that little hide away behind it is buggy and you can't pick up items you drop on it.

Ya I've even here for awhile so I should know better. Still pretty vicious sometimes.

Oh ya, dayz forums. Whoops. Sorry for trying to post about a possibly unknown location without ruining it for others. Use the search function? Can you please enlighten me oh mighty searcher of lost threads? Oh, and I'm sorry for wasting 30 seconds and one slot of your precious thread surfing.

Gotta rock the gorka top with hunter pants for real camo. Camo assault vest goes nicely as well? All of that paired with an improvised leather backpack and camouflaged AK? Best camo in game.

I have observed that nearly every controversial topic discussed on these forums fizzles out with no outcome, or leads into an endless argument with no party on either side being willing to admit that the opposing party might be right in anyway at all. While this may be the norm for all Internet forums, it is still disheartening. That is all.

Seriously, guys. If you get disconnected twice in a 2 hour session, that's 10 minutes you lose. There's your cost. The benefits? Actually finding military bases that are unlooted after the first hour the server has been up. If you could see beyond that loss of 300 seconds every now and again, you wouldn't be so afraid of combating server hopping Edit: phrasing!

Hopped onto a regular server for the first time in a while. Suicided my semi-geared player off of a roof in elektro. Spawned near novo. Attained shotgun with no shells and a 1911 with spare rounds and no clip. Talked a magnum toting, motorbike wearing player out of gunning me down next to the police station "I've got no ammo for my shotgun! Look, empty hands!" He was very shifty, repeatedly drawing and holstering his magnum, almost as if he couldn't decide whether to spare me or not. We agreed to hit the police station quickly to find me ammo for my shotgun before we headed into town to investigate gunfire we'd heard. I was in one of the first floor rooms when I hear: "GET ON THE FUCKING GROUND! DO IT NOW (unintelligible screaming/feedback)". Evidently, there was already someone in the police station. "Dude, calm down I'm cool..." I arrived at the second floor to see a cowboy looking character wielding a lowered double rifle. My original companion had no weapon drawn, yet was demanding that the cowboy drop his rifle on the ground. "I'll keep it lowered, I'm friendly dude." They both hit the roof/turret, and my companion quickly drew his cuffs and slapped them on the cowboy (unbeknownst to me until I heard the tell-tale audio cue). "Get downstairs NOW!" I led the way into a second floor room and our new captive solemnly followed, not uttering a word. "What are we going to do with him now?" I inquired, unsure as to why he had cuffed the man who moments earlier had tolerantly spared his life. "We'll figure out something fun" he replied in an almost frantic tone. At that moment, I decided that if I was going to survive a minute longer in the shitstorm that is novo on a high pop regular server, it wasn't going to be with this lunatic of a teenager. "Do you have keys to unlock him or is he stuck?" "Ya ya ya, I got keys" "Good to know". I drew my holdout pistol and looked into his hungry eyes through the helmet visor. You deserve this, I thought. I shot him in the side of the face and he dropped. "He wasn't right.... In the head. (braveheart) you're going to be ok. I'm cutting you free." I equipped the handcuff keys and approached his kneeling form. I scroll wheeled: nothing. Hmm.... I scroll wheeled again: nothing. Yellow chain appears. "Oh son of a bi-" No message received. Most anticlimactic server restart of my career.

Let's hope the current dispersion values are one of these "placeholders" the devs keep referencing. What you suggest would definitely improve the skill curve and cap.

You're only going to find 2-3 hardcore servers that are full or nearly full most of the time. The rest are 7-15 player servers. In hardcore, crouching while in or around town instead of standing can greatly increase your chances of going undetected. But in doing so, you also sacrifice some of your own ability to detect others. Experimental servers supposedly breed more dynamic player interactions (ie less KOS) than stable servers. They are often more populated as well. On any full server, you're going to have your fair share of paramilitary wannabe clans. This is compounded further by the limited number of highly populated servers. Hope that was helpful

This might be a stupid question from someone with limited firearm experience: would a handgun be more accurate than say, an M4 after exerting yourself? Or would the lack of buttstock and 3 points of contact still make it the less accurate weapon? Edit: and by accurate I mean less effected by away as a result of the exertion. I would like to think the MP5 or sawed off shotgun would be the best for running and gunning because of their small size and light weight. The weapon dexterity mechanic is nice for limiting the effectiveness of higher powered rifles in cqc, and giving lighter weapons a decreased weapon sway after running would be a nice touch as well. Although development has been slow, it's still exciting to see small touches like this added to every patch.