dicemanrick

This is a longish post, but "noobs" might want to read before they invest time in the game. I'm not new to this kind of game.I was a WoW player for years on PvE and PvP servers. First, get Dayz Commander..it mkes life MUCH easier! To clarify, I not only played the tutorials for Arma II, I played through 7 solo scenarios and two or three segments of the campaign. I'm not a rookie at this. I logged into 8 servers over the last 5 days to try DayZ after I set everything up through DayZ Commander. They were all US servers and some were day, some night. I ran through roughly 15 "lives" DayZ is NOT like Arma II. In most servers you start with a bandage and some road flares (what a dumb set...who would have road flares when the dayz hits?) Nobody smokes I guess, so no one has a lighter in their pocket. No one has a pocket knife. No one has a rain coat (five of my "lives" were in the rain and one died because he caught a cold in about three hours game time and DIED). If you don't have a bandage you can't rip your shirt? You have to scavenge for everything including drink and food. The most common loot seemed to be empty cans and broken whiskey bottles. You can DIE if you don't find drink or food (and this is in less than 4 hours play!) You can't drink from lakes or ponds and you can't fill an empty can with water (huh??) . Real people can go for days without water and longer without food. With all the damn rain, can't you drink out of a puddle? Zombies (Zeds) are wierd. Even the "hoppers" can catch you if you run. This ain't "Walking Dead""---these suckers all "motor" like fast bloodhounds.Of course as you run you get thirsty too. The only way to lose them is run into an open building ( it seems like this is about 1 in 10) or run into a forest or up and over a hill. I did a LOT of running, particularly since the Zeds seem to see through walls and spot prone guys with ease, EVEN at NIGHT. Sometimes you can lose them if you use a smoke grenade or flare, but mostly they will chase you down. Some things in the game are asinine. You see an ax stuck in a stump in a backyard. You can't get the ax. You can't have a melee weapon like a two-by-four or a tree branch off the millions of trees on the map. You can't even hit them with a brick. You can't trip them but they can knock you down when you try to ecape. Good luck trying to find a weapon! In my 15 last "lives" I managed to find a machete and ONE asssault weapon with bullets. Mostly I found guns without bullets and bullets without matching guns. The one assault weapon lasted five minutes in my hands because some griefer "bandit" shot me in the back and took it. Once I approached a building at the same time as another player. He got there first. The loot was a gun with bullets and he promptly shot and killed me. My deaths in the game were roughly 10 percent from hunger/thirst, 60 percent from Zeds, and 40 per cent from other "players". It's a known fact that idiot players love to camp out and snipe at other players. How this is fun, I can't say. I think I'll give up for now until the stand-alone game is released. It's really not that much fun to play for three hours and die from thirst. My two cents worth of suggestions: Modify the drink/food issue over several game days (if you live that long). Don't let players "catch a cold" and die. Allow simple melee weapons (clubs/kitchen knives/rocks) Either slow the chase aspect of the zeds or have them break off after a while Have "noobie" friendly servers so people can learn the game ...this means banning PvP combat. Thanks for reading!

My constructive feed back was that dying of thirst as it's implemented in the game is bad. Humans can go a long time without dying of thirst. You shouldn't have to worry about it in a three-hour online session. Nightfall didn't even hit...and this sure ain't in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Make the thirst meter go down a lot slower, that's all. The same with getting sick from being outside...it's way too quick. I don't have a problem with it happening, but you shouldn't get symptoms that quickly.

Hi Plexico...I've seen your name on some of the servers I've hit. I said in the post I was a noobie. I'm learning by dieing a lot. In my last spawn I found the FIRST hatchet!! I still have not found ONE water baottle in roughly 17 respawns. I did find a ghillie suit... In the last spawn I killed 6 zeds and NONE of them had anything on them. Maybe my luck just sucks. I'll keep trying but it's very frustrating when you can't find the necessities of life. And I STILL think it's a bad decision to let a player die from thirst in 3 hours game play!

Yeah, but I could fill empty cans with water and drink it. As I mentioned above, I still have NEVER found a canteen.

Sorry you got the impression I wanted a replacement for WoW. I don't. I know this game is VERY different. I mentioned WoW only because I'm familiar with multiplayer on-line games. I also play Far Cry 3. I just talked about my experiences in DayZ so other noobies can see what I went through.

I only found matches once and a hatchet once...not at the same time. I have NEVER found a canteen. I know the basics...I read up on the game on forums before I started. I got killed three more time today...once by a bandit, twice by zeds. Still haven't found a canteen....maybe I'm just unlucky. At least I'm learning the maps.

Thanks for the info. I haven't given up on the game as there are some aspects I enjoy. I just hope some small improvements can be made, not to take away the anticipation of survival, but to make your enjoyment a bit better.

Experience with finding things depends on where you spawn and luck. My experience is what I recorded. I found 1 pistol (but had bullets for another), 1 shotgun, 1 crossbow (no arrows), 1 assaault weapon, 1 machete, and on the last run 1 sniper rifle (no bullets). Most of the guns I did find were in Electro. YMMV.

I compared PvP WoW to DayZ PvP. There's no real difference in method. In WoW you end up dead if you are a noob. The same happens in DayZ. The only real difference is that in DayZ you can loot your killed opponent. This may give you a higher motivation to "turn rogue" in DayZ. In Wow it's more a status thing to kill an opposing faction member.