Badlywrapdkebab

I admit I've been away from DayZ for some time and this is probably common knowledge but I've just discovered the same character on the official servers persists no matter which map you're playing on. Seems wrong to me. I was under the impression the character I played in Livonia would be different to the one I played in Chernarus in the same way I have a different character for 1st person servers and 3rd person servers (or has that changed as well?). The really annoying thing is if I want to play a different map for a bit of a change I have to put up with the whole changing location thing because I've changed servers. Wasn't this introduced to stop people ghosting during combat i.e. logging out of one server, changing position on another server and then logging back into the original server to shoot your opponent in the back. Obviously this can't work when moving to a different map so why should I lose my position in Livonia just because I want to play in Chernarus for a bit? And why do I always get teleported to Lukow when I change servers in Livonia? A couple of miles from my last location would be OK but to the other end of the map, really!? Whinge over.

Thanks I'll give it a try.

So we can now do melee attacks with our rifle buttstocks but how exactly? What are the key/mouse combinations to do it? I can't see anything in the keybind options.

... got to within about 50m of it and it despawned :(

I don't know if they can spawn inside houses but I regularly shut zombies inside houses, it's how I deal with half the zombies I come across. Sometimes I like to see how many zombies I can shut in one room. Maybe this is what happened with your wolf. Another player may have come along and shut it into the house then left while you were logged out. You sometimes see zombies on the roofs of buildings so I guess they've spawned there as there's no other way they could get up there.

I always used to play the official servers but I like to play 1pp. There's only a few official 1pp only servers local to me (UK) with a good ping and they tend to be low population especially at night. Recently I've been playing on the TheRunningManZ 1pp server which has higher pop'. I don't hang out in one part of the map but I tend to avoid the NWAF. I should probably head up there when I get bored instead of hitting F11.

Well I'm gonna keep using whatever light source I can get hold of. It may attract other players but I say bring it on :-) I spend too long wondering the wastelands by myself anyway and I've committed suicide way more times than I've been killed by other players.

I'd be interested to know what other players do at night (assuming you don't just log out). Until now I've been using torches or the road flare at night but my experiences today have left me questioning if that's what others do. First I was looting a house as a fairly fresh spawn. I'd seen the sun was setting when I joined the server so I made sure I had a crafted torch ready with plenty of rags but at this stage my road flare was still going strong. As I exited the house I heard a voice from the shadows. "That's far enough." My sphincter closed tight just in time to stop any poop escaping. After a quick interrogation it turned out this guy was cool and we had a chat. I asked him if he just walks around in the dark or does he use a torch and he said he walks around in the dark because others can see your light source from miles away (obviously this is how he found me). I knew this but explained that wondering around in the pitch black was just no fun. Up until this point I'd always assumed that anyone playing at night would use some sort of light source. After all it's the way I play and this was the first time anyone had ever approached me at night. Later I was on a different server and it was night again. This time I already had a working head torch which I prefer because you can still use a weapon - easier to deal with zombies (I just wish there was a key binding to turn it on and off). Anyway I was running across some fields heading towards Gorka when I saw a faint light source in the distance. I turned off my head torch and headed towards the light. As I approached the light went out but I could hear a fireplace crackling. Crouching with Mosin in hand I crept around what I thought was a wall, stumbling into unknown objects and getting generally disoriented. Eventually I realised I was outside one of those small power plant buildings with a red door and raised platform outside. I could hear a hissing road flare as well as the crackling fireplace. I crept around to the windows at the end of the building and could see a glow stick on the floor inside. Whoever was in there had some lovely atmospheric lighting going on. Then my sphincter clenched again as I saw the silhouette of a survivor, crouched with gun in hand creeping around the doorway. He'd obviously heard my footsteps outside and now he was facing me just the other side of the window. I hesitated then fired. I'm sure he hadn't seen me crouched in the shadows but I couldn't take the risk. I've played over 300 hours of DayZ and this is my first cold blooded murder. It left me feeling cold inside. I should have tried talking to the guy but then who knows what might have happened and he knew someone was outside but didn't speak up. Anyway the point is it was his light sources that led to his demise. I'd seen it from hundreds of meters away, probably when he had the door open to the shed and it led me right to him. It just made me realise how vulnerable you are when you use torches etc. It was also the most chilling and realistic feeling experience I have had in DayZ yet.

Since the last update the server browser is showing very high Pings (like 500) for all servers the majority of the time. I'm no I.T. guru but if I ping the IP address of one of these servers from windows command prompt I get a response time of about 21ms when the DayZ server browser shows 500ish. Is the server browser bugged or am I misunderstanding something about pings?

If you want to get kitted out quickly the best advice I can give is to join a low pop server and follow the advice from the previous replies. But thats so boring. Personally I think you're better off joining 30+ servers and don't rush to get fully kitted. The game is so much more fun when you start out and every bit of loot you find means something. Once you've got your primary and secondary weapons and all the ammo and food you need there's very little left to do and it becomes harder to get much out of the game. So much so that I regularly become suicidal and start looking for tall buildings or zombies to stand next to! This game was definitely the most fun when I was a complete noob and I learnt everything the hard way. I'm up to 150 hrs now and its lost its appeal to the point where yesterday was the first day I didn't play since I bought it. (I'm just about to load it up now though :) )

Well I always play 1pp purely for immersion, I've never liked 3pp on any games I've played. However I've recently been playing mostly on regular servers just because there's a higher level of aggresion from other players and thats what I've been looking for. I've spent most of my time on Hardcore servers but have got fed up of either finding no other players (its often hard to find high population hardcore servers) or everything being a bit too freindly. I actually consider the regular servers to be the hardcore ones just because the challenge to survive without being KOSd is that much greater!

Just painted mine and it dissappeared. Ran around the house I was in searching every room and floor but finally gave up looking for it. Walked outside and it was lying in the grass.

Ok will try that. Thanks for the quick reply

Hi, I'm totally new to DayZ and never played the mod. I've been playing for about 6 hours now and find that occasionally my character loses the ability to run ie the shift button stops working. I can still use turbo with 2xW but can't run. The first time it happened I thought it was because I was sick but I'm cured now and it still keeps happening. Is this a known issue and is there a work around? The only fix I've found is to log off and back in again which isn't exactly ideal especially if I do eventually meet another player...