Zollicoffer

Ignoring everyone on here who can't give good advice: First, some elements are simulated and others are not. Many many people, even veterans of these forums, think that game aims to be as realistic as possible, when it doesn't. The aim is to make you feel the same emotions you would in a survival situation. In this case, the search for food and water has been emphasized to make the struggle against the environment feel more pressing. It's not terribly dramatic once you take into account your activity levels, requiring a daily calorie intake of about 20,000, which is about the equivalent of Michael Phelps diet when he was training for the Olympics. Changing the day/night cycle would only help to break immersion, and possibly make things easier in the future, since you wouldn't have to worry about lasting through a long night when body temperature is more of an issue. So the choices on where to compensate aren't "arbitrary," they are very intentional. Second, towns along the coast are much more likely to have been previously looted, so try to avoid looking for supplies there. Adding to that, some types of houses and building are much more likely to spawn food and supplies right now than others. That may be an alpha thing, or it may be a design flaw. Either way, when you start to recognize which buildings are more promising, you'll find that you'll be able to get food much more efficiently. Also, if you were lost and in an area you didn't know very well, would you run into the woods at night without proper equipment? It is much safer to follow roads during night than it is in day. Try that next time. Third, the fire axe does open cans. Equip it into your hands first, then right click on the can you want to open. Fourth, the hunger indicators are a little off. To quantify things, you don't get a mild indicator until you're at around 600 energy, and a severe indicator at around 300. Your energy levels max out at around 20,000. You would actually be feeling mild hunger long before the messages start popping up. Fifth, the full environmental lighting system (and sky in general) hasn't been implemented yet, so night is darker than it is meant to be. That's just an alpha thing, so sorry about that. Most servers reset pretty regularly to respawn loot and zombies at the moment, so most servers are day only, with some night only here and there. When respawns are fixed, each server will be able to set when its own day/night cycle occurs by designating a start time and resetting the server.

Quit being belligerent. As you've said many times yourself, it's an alpha. The goal is proper development, not your own immediate personal satisfaction.

Utility vehicles -- for carting larger items around. Either parts for other cars or structures.

They aren't character wipes, exactly. Whenever that happens, it's because the server you joined is not communicating with the hive, to collect your character info. Just leave the server quickly and look for a new one that can get that info. If you stay on a server with your new spawn, then when that server does reconnect with the hive, it will overwrite your previous character. Most of the time it's an issue with the server, and not the hive itself. As for the price tag, remember they expected initial sales to be a fraction of what they have turned out to be. By the original estimates, they would have made just enough to cover their initial investment, continued development costs, future marketing costs, a buffer for unforeseen costs, and anything else BI considers necessary. It's true there are a decent number of free to play alphas and betas out there, but they are usually either published by studios with deep enough pocketbooks to hold off on adding a price (and therefore making more profits overall, with a higher price on full release), or by a very small group of inexperienced but incredibly dedicated people collecting no paycheck and taking a huge financial risk. Personally, I'm pretty happy with the pricing model. It's a good inbetween, where we can get it cheap and not pay again, and Dean and the crew have a stable enough budget to comfortably be able to do what they want to do.

I'm not sure what this is, exactly. At first glance, you appear to have some serious issues you need to work through: Also, don't use the word faggot, ever. It's not acceptable for white guys to go around calling people niggers, it's not acceptable for you to call people faggots, or refer to them as "the gays." I know it's a cultural thing, and you're not trying to be hateful, but break yourself of the habit.

... That's the Greek alphabet people. Jeebus.

Holy Christ, did you port the SA to SNES?

I think it's a typo for salad. No man is a salad. This is true.

Check your history, find out what server you were in, find the server admin's username, use that to possibly find his steam account, send him a message with the KoSer's username, convince him to drop the ban hammer, then find a new server because civil servers are against the hosting rules. This game is meant to be frustrating. If there's no challenge, then there is no satisfaction in surviving. The fact that it irked you enough that you came here to complain about it says something very good about the game design.

I think he was saying that we should proofread our own posts. Thanks for posting your link. Since this is your first review, and considering the field you are tiptoeing into, I'm sure you understand the importance of being critical. Here is my advice: Writing a review is different than posting on forums. Grammar and structure are both incredibly important. To start, you should typically avoid one word sentences, unless they are being used to emphasize something. Just saying "DayZ," doesn't emphasize anything in particular, which just makes it awkward. Your writing style is very personal, as if you're speaking to the reader. Would you ever say something like that? It is good to reiterate the title of the game in the first sentence, but you should also be saying more than that. Alternatively you could also get away with "DayZ-- [rest of sentence here]," but very very rarely. Rule #1: Consider your audience, and be specific. If they're reading a review, they probably don't know anything about the game. If they don't know anything about DayZ, they probably don't know anything about Arma II, and they certainly don't understand what you mean by "fantastic," "amazing," and "realistic." You said "finally." Has the game taken awhile to be released? Explain why that is. Keep in mind that this is an alpha; it's a game still in development. So it is currently being converted into a standalone, but has not yet. Tell that to your audience, who may not be familiar with the concept of an alpha. Also, people usually read reviews because they want to know whether it is worth buying a game, so while you understand that a price tag of $30 is "hefty" for an alpha although it's still half the cost of a major title, you make no mention of that in your article. A reader might assume that DayZ is $50 or $60. Always be specific. Never ever ever ever ever tell a reader how they should feel about a game. When you say "fantastic," that doesn't mean anything. The greatest books don't tell you how you should feel, they make you feel it. The same is true with all types of writing. A review shouldn't just denote the game as good or bad or excellent. They should explain, every observation that can be made about whatever is being reviewed, and let the reader decide for themselves. It should be a cataloged dismantling of everything behind the game. From the mechanics to the emotions to the backstory. The graphics are amazing? That is a very strong word, and one you should avoid using. Strong statements dull the effect of milder ones; but more importantly how are they amazing? You contradict yourself here, later saying Now the reader is confused as to whether the graphics are amazing or just okay, and still has no idea what they look like. Talk about the ambiance, architecture, color scheme, realistic and highly detailed textures, rotational blur, any of the myriad of screen effects for certain statuses, character models, map size, tell me exactly what you mean by "lowest setting" and "playable" in fps, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc. Any one of those can set the game apart and make it unique in the reader's mind. Consider yourself an engineer. You are taking the game apart piece by piece, and examining each in extreme detail. If you have more useful information in your article, you will have more readers. Only in the last paragraph, and usually the last sentence, will you issue any sort of judgment. And when you do, always answer it to the silent question of is this game worth buying? Keeping in mind everything I mentioned above, this is what an acceptable first paragraph might look like: From there, have one paragraph on each of these topics in order: Development backstory Releases and pricing model Gameplay mechanics Graphics Other noteworthy things about the game Conclusion Hopefully you'll find some of this helpful. May I ask if you're still in school or out?

Because Barry Gibb owns the universe.

Posedown.

Apparently "survival expert" to you means the guys on TV. Cody Lundin is the guy who refuses to wear shoes. This is a weird topic.

It's 1:30 AM in the Czech Republic right now. I need my fix. Give it to me.

At least two hours. If you don't move much, then you could probably go 8 hours from healthy to hungry/thirsty. Honestly, if you are continuously active as most people are in the game, the values aren't too far off. Either way, the whole constantly looking for food and water thing is a crucial part of the game. There's no way it will be put on easy mode. That would take away a major environmental threat.

Dispersion on the FNX is being reduced to .03 from .05. Larger clip size, less recoil, quieter.

I would say it's probably going to be a side-by-side double barrel, not pump. Now when people ask "are you happy to see me or are you hiding a sawed off shotgun in your pants?" I can actually be hiding a sawed off shotgun in my pants.

Stop talking about George Romero please. He has no place on these forums.

Are you high?

Chess. Nc7 muthafucka.

Assumptions.

So let me get this straight. You're saying that people will KoS less, when their camera is always pointing down the barrel of a gun.

What do you say to the people who want rocket launchers and capture the flag?

I will argue with none of that, except for some of the more modern pulp that focuses on thirty different "zombie types" with ridiculous abilities (newer Resident Evils and Left 4 Dead). Those kinds of titles treat zombies like Halo treats weapons. And this might not be important at all, but the huge recent mainstream zombie craze came before the Walking Dead (for those who think otherwise). Number of zombie movies in each given year, with notable milestones: 2013 - 7 2012 - 12 2011 - 16 2010 - 15 -- The Walking Dead TV series premiers 2009 - 22 -- Zombieland 2008 - 27 -- Diary of the Dead (Romero 5) 2007 - 21 -- Resident Evil: Extinction (last big one); Planet Terror; I Am Legend; 28 Weeks Later 2006 - 22 2005 - 21 -- Land of the Dead (Romero 4) 2004 - 19 -- Shaun of the Dead; Resident Evil: Apocalypse; Dawn of the Dead [remake]; This was the year capitalism caught up. 2003 - 10 -- The Walking Dead comic premiers 2002 - 3 -- Resident Evil (movie); 28 Days Later; This was the year that gave birth to the modern zombie phenomena. 2001 - 7 2000 - 6 1999 - 3 1998 - 2 -- Resident Evil 2 1997 - 2 1996 - 1 -- Resident Evil 1995 - 2 1994 - 2 ... The only real cultural impact zombies had before that were Romero's movies, the hundreds of B/C/D movies it spawned, and arguably the Return of the Living Dead series. It's pretty telling that he didn't release anything between 1985 and 2005.