Tarman

Sounds like paranoia... Thanks for the decent answers =)

I've been having this problem all morning.. Tried all sorts, but turns out it was the Arma 2 beta patch. Something must have gone awry during the initial installation. I re-downloaded the beta patch, installed it and everything worked fine. So that fixed it for me. I didn't uninstall the patch first.. just re-ran the beta installer once i had re-downloaded it.

roaming hordes in the forest would make it ultra brutal (in a great way) At the moment, the forest feels like a refuge from the zombies.. which is fine with me, but roaming hordes of various sizes, endlessly roaming the wilderness without a cause, just makes it that bit more scary.

I had terrible problems setting the mod up for the very first time.. and used to get the same problems as yourself. I was told I was simply running the wrong version of arma2. So after much fidling about, i think I got it down, using a tool provided by one of the devs (not official).. I was helping my friend setup DayZ also, so I sent him an email.. If anything there can help.. then good =) But its also worth noting that not all servers run the same verison. You may be best to filter by build number (visible on main menu) ---- Heres what to do... Though I'm not sure if the story will be different as you are running the free version of Arma 2; but i'm confident it won't cause any problems. First off... Go to you're steam folder and make a BACKUP copy of arma 2 operation arrowhead folder; stick it on you're desktop or something,.. incase something goes tits up during installation, you have a nice clean installation to fall back on without having to redownload 10 gigs again. http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2705492 Follow the instructions on that post. Download the simple installer; online or offline, doesn't matter, offline comes with all the files in a single download, online gives you an installer that downloads the files when you run it. Once you've downloaded that, go to this site http://www.arma2.com/beta-patch.php and download ARMA2_OA_Build_XXXXX.zip (top of the page) Install the exe in the zip file, and you should be good to go. The simple installer will give you 2 desktop icons (batch files). One called DayZ and the other DayZbeta. Run the beta one. The game will start in windowed mode, but you can ALT+Enter to full screen once it reaches the in-game menu. You can tell if you have installed the mod properly by looking in the top right corner, it should say @dayz, EXPANSION, beta and maybe a couple others. If that doesn't work, resort to you're backup copy of operation arrowhead and try find a walk-through that works.

I headed out into the forest to scavenge the land rather than the cities. After a few days out there, I became quite complacent. Running in the middle of no where, a village appeared through the trees, so I scout it out a bit; count the zeds, spot buildings of interest; then I make my move into the village. So I'm going house to shed, I enter a home (as I had done hundreds of other times) but I didn't bother to clear the rooms, as the hundred houses and rooms before this one were always survivor/bandit/zombie free; I ran straight to the first piece of loot I saw, which was in the doorway, to the right; making me turn from the enemy. I took 2 rounds in the back for letting my guard down.. my laziness. Another harsh lesson learnt.

I agree with OP. Sound plays as big a part as any other element of the game, no better time than the present seeing as you are still laying down the foundations.. I would happily donate throw money at the devs to make this happen.