Etherimp

Well, first of all I think it's important to realize that until you select a "default character", your character model is randomized.. So some "girl" models in the game may actually be dudes who simply haven't selected a default model yet. They may have no reason behind being that character model, they just got randomly selected that way. Currently I play a female character because through the random selection I found I quite liked the way the Latina Female character looked.. Not sexy/pretty.. Just liked the way it looked, and it's a change from the norm. Don't see many people sporting the Latin female, so I've stuck with it for a while.

Big Axe, Strafe Right, Plant Axe in Face.

From the perspective of an experience DayZ Mod player, former Hero (11k humanity in the mod), and about 1 year total playing DayZ Mod/Standalone combined. The first thing that you must understand about DayZ, is that it is NOT a quality First Person Shooter. If what gets you your kicks is tight gun mechanics and fast paced game play, then there are better FPS games that do it better. Insurgency and CS:Go, as example. If what gets you off is driving around in military vehicles firing heavy weapons, again, you should look to games like the Battlefield franchise or even ARMA III. If zombie apocalypse games are your fancy, DayZ probably isn't the best for that either. What makes DayZ unique is the role playing element of player interactions. In other games, the lines between "good" and "evil" are easily distinguished by "Red team vs Blue team". In DayZ, the lines are blurred between friend, foe, hero, bandit, and survivor. Odds are, none of us fit into any one of these labels perfectly at all times. I think I can speak for most heroes when I say; sometimes we make questionable calls and we may kill someone who didn't deserve it.. Or maybe we should have killed someone when we didn't.. True bandits steal from people and hold them up, but the word "bandit" has become synonymous with "murderer". People who camp the coast shooting fresh spawns aren't "bandits", as the traditional definition of the word would imply. They are just bored players looking to get their thrills by bullying fresh spawns. Not that Fresh Spawns are innocent. Anyone on the coast (except for a first timer), go there by dying somehow.. Many of them probably at an airfield or within Elektro or Berezino where they may have been trying to kill someone else who may or may not have had it coming. The reality is, everyone makes their own justifications for why they did things and rationalizes why it was the right thing to do. There's a lot of people on these forums (and in game) who have this "trust no one" mentality, and take a cynical view of the entire community, assuming that everyone is out to get them. This may actually be true in their world. There are KOS murderers out there, and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. There are also "bandits" who will hold you up, take your pants and shoes, feed you disinfectant spray, then laugh and torture you, beat you up, and leave you handcuffed and sick in the middle of the road... If you're lucky, they might kill you. There are also epic heroes which will counter-snipe the Elektro/Kamy/Solnichny/Berezino campers, and even come give you food and medical attention. These people do exist, for better or worse. But... These are the extreme ends of the spectrum, and the odds are the majority of the players you meet in game fall somewhere in between these extremes. What defines skill in DayZ is not your ability to kill other players, or how long you survive. It's not difficult to survive for 6 months, if all you do is camp out in the woods and loot unoccupied servers. It's also not difficult to wrack up 20+ kills on a single character life if all you do is snipe from a hill, shooting people who don't even know you're there. It's not difficult to murder someone who has no gear, or who has their back turned, or who is outnumbered 5 to 1. Skill in DayZ is the ability to balance risk, and make an impact on the world. If you never see anyone then there's no point in even playing on a multi-player server.. And if all you do is camp fresh spawns, how does that make you skilled? It's clearly an unfair fight, and you're a bully. You have to ask yourself what is more rewarding for you, and what is more rewarding for the people around you. I have had amazing gun fights with geared players that dragged on for several hours, and even though I may have died (sometimes more than once), I felt blessed to be involved in such an epic battle. People usually will KOS you if they feel you are a threat and they have an advantage on you. If you are a good player, you can mitigate the chances of people KOSing you by outwitting everyone on the server and not putting yourself in harms way to start with. Likewise, you can avoid being held up by being the one on your toes and avoiding the situation before it begins. Here are a couple rules of thumb to help you avoid unnecessary deaths and KOSing.. 1. DO NOT depend upon anyone else but yourself. It is good to have friends, but you should carry/have access to everything you need without having to beg, borrow, or steal from anyone else. 2. DO NOT loot bodies. Really.. Unless you are 100% sure you are safe to do so, DO NOT loot bodies. One of the major mistakes inexperienced players make is running up to a body and attempting to grab some quick loot off of it. You do not know who else could be watching or where from. If you stop to loot a body, you're taking a risk. Sometimes this risk may be worth it, but it's usually not. 3. DO have a clean and organized inventory. Have your important items on your hotbar. Personally, I set it up as follows: 1. Primary, 2. Secondary, 3. Melee, 4. Bandage, 5. Compass, 6. Canteen, 7. Morphine, 8. Handcuffs, 9. Handcuff Keys, 10. Misc (Map, med kit, carry case, etc) 4. Learn the map. Know the hot spots, cold spots, good loot spawns, wastes of time spots, and know the lay of the land. Hills, mountains, valleys, rivers, water pumps, tree lines, etc. 5. Know the common sniper/ambush locations and the angles you can scout them/counter snipe them from. 6. Carry your weapon in your hands as often as possible, if you are in high/medium traffic areas.. Zelenogorsk and Cherno would be considered Medium traffic.. Elektro/Berezino would be considered high traffic. 7. Use 3rd person.. If you're on a normal server. IF not, then use your peek function and have high fidelity headphones with proper settings.. 8. Pay attention. Open doors, left-over loot, lack of zombies, active zombies that you didn't aggro, gunshots, eating/drinking sounds (when they get sounds fixed!), etc.. All of these and more are important cues you should take note of when entering and operating in an area. If you see a magazine on the airstrip 20 minutes after server restart that has been left empty in a closed door barracks.. you know there is a person on the airstrip within the last 20 minutes that has an M4 and is smart enough to close doors behind himself. 9. Close all doors behind yourself when you leave a building. Never leave empty cans/ammo behind. Leave them in your inventory until you are out of an area then drop them in a field/wooded area somewhere. 10. Never stand at the crest of a hill. Just don't. Never stand still inside of towers/on top of roofs. You're an easy shot for a sniper. 11. Communicate with people. If you come across a fellow survivor, or someone comes across you.. Try to communicate with them in a polite manner. Some are bad people, some are good people, most are just people who are looking for something entertaining in the game. Whatever the result of the encounter is, do not take it personally. Be happy you had it. You never know who you may run into. 12. If you're not geared, take big risks.. if you are geared, stick to the tree lines and be a ghost. 13. If you are sniping or shooting from 1 location, whether you kill your target or not, change positions as soon as reasonably possible. Retreat into the tree line/through town, and loop around to another position. Never stay in 1 place for too long. 14. Don't run across open fields. 15. Check your 6 every minute or less. 16. Don't jump the gun. Be patient. Don't fire the second you see someone. If you miss, and don't secure the kill, then it becomes a gun battle that you may lose, especially if you're not in a superior position. Think things through tactically.. If you're ambushing someone you want to wait until they are out of cover and in the worst position possible before you engage/communicate with them. They're less likely to shoot back/run if they are out of cover, and you are in cover and have them pinned. 17. Know when to retreat. 18. Never put yourself in a position you cannot get out of. The top of the firestation sounds like a good idea, until a sniper pins you down... then your only options are to combat log like a pussy, or attempt to climb down a ladder and hope they miss every shot... or simply outplay them and win from a disadvantage, which is unlikely. Better to avoid those positions all together. 19. Never over-estimate yourself/your group. Good players, good shots, and large groups die all the time. Don't become one of them. Nothings more embarrassing than having you and 3 of your closest friends camping the ATC at Balota looking for fresh meat, just to be completely wiped and taken out by a single sniper. And finally.. 20. Have a code. Every man must have a code. (Edit): A few other tips: 21. Stay healthy. (Bag O Rice + Water fountain = good to go.) 22. Always double-tap a target you've downed (If you wish to kill them.) IF not, remove their weapons/ammo. 23. The berries are a lie. 24. I've heard that haste can be folly, but I've never seen delay that was wise - Sun Tzu. 25. Don't carry too much food.. Eat it as you come across it and only keep enough on you to replenish your supply after long treks. 26. Try to avoid eating/drinking in highly populated areas. People can hear your food/drink sounds and track you down. 27. Always carry a morphine/splint, and have it on your hotbar.. Never know when you'll break your legs. 28. Don't press "respawn" right after you go unconscious.. A lot of times, you can come to.. Sometimes to the surprise (and demise) of your attacker. 29. Split ruined ammo to make it pristine again. 30. Pristine or Worn.. Nothing else is worth your time.

No offense, but if you let this kind of thing happen it's your own fault. 1. You could have been more aware of your surroundings. 2. You could have shot back. 3. You could have been carrying morphine or a splint 4. You could have had bandages on your hotbar, instead of 4 empty sodas 5. You could have been away from the coast... 6. You could have had healthy status, which may have helped you survive assuming you fought your way out of the situation.

It doesn't matter how you play the game, and it doesn't matter how I play the game.. though you'd be wrong in assuming that my "FOCUS" is engaging in firefights. I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who has 20+ years of experience playing FPS games, and 30+ years experience with video games in general. Random dispersion is not good for the game. Period. Your arguments are all just hyperbole and rhetoric.

My buddy Hoff Suppressant and I are making our way down south, to meet up with some friends on the experimental server. We had been coming across looted buildings and it seemed the person was moving south (same as us).. Turns out we were right.

The most recent updates which are being tested... check the "announcements" section of the forums for more information.

Go to your Steam library, and right click "DayZ" then click "properties" on the drop down menu. Go over to "Beta" tab, and "Opt in" on the scroll down menu, to the experimental server. DayZ will download a patch, and you can join only experimental servers. Separate hive, separate characters.. only a few servers per region and they're usually high pop.

Nope.. I don't want a twitch shooter. I like the way DayZ plays, but the dispersion just encourages people to do 1 of 2 things 1. Snipe with mosin w/ LRS. 2. Spray and pray.

I disagree that the game would favor younger people with better reflexes. I'm 34, but I have been playing FPS games for probably 20 years. Any reflexes you lose with age you more than make up for with situational awareness, tactical knowledge, communication, teamwork, confidence in yourself, etc. Aside from that, DayZ isn't exactly a fast paced twitch shooter which requires super fast reflexes. It's more based on positioning/awareness. But yes, I think they've currently gone too far with the dispersion.

Thanks! Check out the other video I just posted, I think the thread is called "Vigilante Justice in Elektro".. Or something like that. It's recorded from my perspective.

This, exactly.

Firstly, we have to make it clear that you and I, as people who bought this game, are PLAYERS. I am the player, you are the player. Our avatars in game are CHARACTERS. Our CHARACTERS have no back story. We create our own story. Maybe our characters were hunters. Maybe they're former military. Maybe they were trained with weapons. Maybe they weren't. That's not determined by the game. The only thing the game says is "You wake up on a beach, hungry.. there's infected running around, try to survive!" Some players are going to have bad mouse settings, leading to inaccuracy. Some players are going to have experience in FPS games, leading to better accuracy. Some players become nervous when being shot at in a video game, leading to shakey aim. Some players are cool under pressure and do not care about their gear, leading to steadier aim. These are a few of the many factors going into ACTUAL ACCURACY. In reality, guns do not have "dispersion" the way the game has implemented it. They have recoil. They have bullet drop. They have wind which may effect a round at longer ranges. Outside of those, and a few other factors, the accuracy is based on the shooter, NOT the gun. So, there are a few logical reasons why imposing arbitrary dispersion values on guns doesn't make sense from a logical/realistic standpoint, but the most compelling argument in my opinion is from a gameplay standpoint, and I'll make that argument now: If DayZ abided by exact realistic specifications for weapons and left the accuracy 100% up to the PLAYER (not character) aiming the weapon, then shots would land where they were fired after compensating for wind/bullet drop/recoil. In the scenario Mr Jizz is suggesting, there is another random element introduced to the weapon accuracy which is based off some arbitrary factor of "hey these guys are civilians!"... Which is completely relative/subjective and totally irrelevant. A 12 year old white boy from the Suburbs can be taught how to accurately fire an M16. If you take these scenarios to their extremes, what do you get? With ultra-accuracy, you get a first person shooting experience that is completely dependent upon the skill, accuracy, and reflexes of the player and their hardware. With ultra-dispersion, you get random bullets flying around unreliably and without logic. With ultra-accuracy, you have a game based off of skill. With ultra-dispersion, you have a game based off of luck. With ultra-accuracy you have a game where players save their shots for when they know they can hit, and they use as little ammo as necessary to finish their target. With ultra-dispersion, you have a game where players spray as many bullets as possible to push the odds in their favor.. thus they go for weapons with higher magazines and which are fully automatic. See the problems with this? Which game would you rather play?

This is a stupid argument. Stop making it. I know there are a lot of people who make this stupid argument, but it doesn't make it any less stupid.

Bumpity

So you don't give a shit if he's hacking in vehicles, and hacking his humanity to make himself look like a good guy even though he's murdering 'survivors'? If he was on a friends server and the friend authorized him to spawn in a helicopter and crash it, that's one thing.. I can be okay with that. But the fact that he has 7 murders and is still wearing a survivor skin means he is killing survivors, as a survivor, which means his action are affecting others who are not involved in the production of the video. If you're okay with him making a LOT of money by deceiving and victimizing others, maybe you're the dumb one..

Sigh. Yeah..

I don't mind the narrative. I don't mind "smart" editing.. But there's a fine line between editing, and completely faking what happened. People are attracted to what's REAL.. What's TRUE.. There are many instances in Frankies videos that are clearly "scripted".. It's a little off putting to hear him acting through scripted material, but it's another all together to realize that there are certain scenarios which were completely set up. For example, there's an episode where he "steals" a helicopter, then he flies away, and the helicopters engine cuts out. At this point in the video, he has 7 murders, but he's still a survivor. The heli starts floating downwards like it's going to crash, then the video cuts, and he wakes up on a shoreline, on a different server, using a different skin, on a different life.. he now has 1 murder, is still a survivor somehow, and there's a heli-crash next to him, and he announces that he survived the heli-crash. A few questions about this: 1. How was he still a survivor after having 7 murders? Last I checked, 7 murders would definitely get you a bandit skin. Hacks can allow you to change your humanity. 2. Where did the helicopter crash come from? It was a different server, different life.. He didn't crash and wake up on the shore, so that had to be a different helicopter crash. Did he spawn in the helicopter and crash it, for the footage? Spawning in vehicles is a well known hack. 3. Helicopter engines don't just randomly cut out. He faked this. In a recent video in Standalone, he met up with "Morgan Freeman", and in one of the scenes, he is talking into a Walkie-Talkie.. He says he found the Walkie-Talkie in Berezino, but I know for a fact that there is only 1 place which spawns Walkie-Talkies.. and that's in Firestations. He had to have... 1. Got the walkie talkie from a fire station in NWAF, Balota, Cherno, or Elektro, and then lied about where he got it from. 2. Taken the Walkie Talkie off of a dead body. 3. Hacked in the walkie talkie. There's no footage of him actually finding it, or how he came across it.. The only thing we know for sure is that he had one, and he said he got it from Berezino.

There's proof that Frankie hacked, and that's all the information you need to determine what kind of person he is. Hero, bandit, KOS.. Doesn't matter. He hacked. His editing and video production skills are there, but his content is full of hacks, set up scenarios, and fanboiz slurping on his E-peen. Don't get me wrong.. Frankies videos are the reason I started playing DayZ, but since I've gone back and watched a few of his older episodes with a lot more knowledge of the game, I've gone from a fan to a critic.

Hilllllarious.

Probably between 80-100.. For various reasons. 339 hours played in SA.

Yeah, as I said, it's very situational.. Mistake many people make though is killing someone and immediately attempting to loot the body. You never know who heard the gunshots and is coming to check it out, and often times the person you shot may have a friend. I know this from experience, as this situation has unfolded many times in teamspeak. "OH! Shit! Guy just shot me." "Where?" "blah blah blah.. He's looting my corpse! Gogogo!"

Life expectancy does not equate to difficulty. I played on a PVP Mod server for a few months where I would KOS.. I would immediately run to the airfield, kill people with a baseball bat if I had to, steal all their gear, then camp and kill people and gear up along the way until I died, and then it was rinse/repeat.. My life expectancy was low, but it wasn't difficult to get geared and kill people, and my "life" didn't really mean much so there was no focus on staying alive, so it took the difficulty out of that aspect of the game. I would die several times in a session and just run back right into the action. I consider staying alive for over a month on public hive, playing on populated servers, and having dozens of friendly and unfriendly player encounters much more of a challenge. Re: The video.. If he was associated with the guy I saw inside the building, then odds are he got what he had coming because he probably knew we were there.. He had his gun out and had it aimed, so it looked like he was sneaking in to try to kill us.. But, the other possibility is that he was just a random player who happened upon the building, opened the door and had no idea we were in there, in which case he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.. but I felt justified in firing on him the second I saw him due to the circumstances. And if he were on these forums he may come and whine about how I KOS'd him, and how I was a bandit and a bad guy and he was just a friendly guy looking for some gear. Hence why KOS arguments are stupid. We do what we have to do in the moment. Some people, though, do nothing but KOS, even when they could have handled the situation differently but equally safe, and as I've stated a dozen times, I feel that robs them of some of the fun of the game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA8OageSspA

I was saying the position I was referring to was 400-500 from the firestation. His position may be 200-300, but it's not very smart as in order to fall back he has to go out into the open, and he can easily be flanked because he has no vision of anywhere else in elektro.