Soyajam

Thanks guys! I have since seen the damaging effects of ladders (bodies littered underneath which I gleefully looted) ^^ I suspect this is more likely to be why I was so lucky - one day I hope that rather than helping me because I look so pathetic, they might run instead. (Gotta have dreams you know!) ;) :P

Since this is my first post - Hi, I'm Sam. (You might see me in Dayz as "Sammyjo") I've been playing Dayz for a grand total of two days now. I've not played the mod version, so coming into this fresh, considering it's in Alpha, I think it's doing amazingly. Nice one Rocket + co! :-) Anyway, I want to tell you a brief story. I'd had my first death already - being chased down and pummelled by a group of zombies (this is before I discovered sprint and realised I could toggle running/walking...) so I'd just spawned again and was looking for some food and drink. I was about to rummage through an old shack when I heard some heavily artifacted audio... Spinning around wildly (and I mean wildly), I noticed what looked like a zombie running towards me. And it had a gun. OHSHITOHSHITRUNRUNNNN I had begun to take off at a blistering walk-pace when I heard the voice again - I could just make out "Are you a new player?" Oh god it's a player. No... NO THATS WORSE Not having a clue how to activate push-to-talk (nor knowing whether it would be private or public) I fumbled in the vercinity chat window that I was new. It turned out that instead of the troll bandits I'd heard so much about, I'd been lucky enough to run into a good samaritan. He loaded me up with food and soda, showed me how to crouch (I'd been running about like a fool in open space), and beckoned me to follow him as he searched for loot. On this little excursion I discovered a mountain backpack, an axe, more food... and even a half-decent gun! Considering I'd only been running around DayZ for a few hours, I considered this the equivalent of striking gold. And that's when it began to go south. The veteran player, much more au fait with the controls than I, had already manoeuvred down to the bottom of the building we were on before I'd finished fumbling with my pants pockets on the top floor. I went to the stairwell and headed down after him, and decided to go from the second step to the landing to save a bit of time. Character wouldn't feel it, right? Wrong. "YOU ARE DEAD." screeched the white text on my monitor. WHAT?! It was one step?! I stared at my screen open mouthed, listening to my good samaritan in the background - "Are you coming down from there?" No... No, good samaritan, I was gone. I typed this into vercinity chat, but I never know if it reached him. I ragequit. 30 minutes later I logged back in, but I couldn't remember the server I'd picked where I met this epic person. Nor do I remember his name (as I never asked, idiot I am). The whole glorious 10 minutes, swimming in loot, full of food and drink, was gone. Three lessons: 1. Steps will kill you - even one. 2. Learn how to use the Fking voice chat and ask people their names in case, you know - you die. 3. Don't get attached to your gear because... you know, you'll die. While this was no doubt frustrating and resulted in outraged mumbling over my dinner, I still think it was incredibly good fun. Noobs - there are nice people out there. I mean, he might have been planning to shoot or harvest from me, but I'll never know. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Veterans reading this - if you see a noob, I'm sure you can spare an item or two of your junk. I'm sure you know how much it helps - and if they look like they're standing there looking at the can you dropped in front of them, they're either trying to figure out how to pick it up, or figure out how to enter chat to say "thank you". Also, if you help a newb and you find lots of loot... who knows, they might fall off a ladder and you can steal it all anyway. And, in the miniscule chance the guy that helped me find all that stuff... Thank you. And, I'M SORRY I FELL OFF THE STAIRS

I get that content updates are all based on priority - so the biggest thing I'd request (and I'd probably still request it until Beta), is just smoothing out graphic performance.