Tatanko

Almost always in the 25-50m range. A lot of the time we'll spot each other from a little farther and as combat progresses we eventually close the gap.

I imagine the voting will be biased, and I myself voted rather predictably. I know the game well enough to know what's most effective :)

That annoys the hell out of me. I can accept my death -- I prepare myself for that inevitability every time I log on to the game. However, 90% of the time when I am killed by another player they get the jump on me (and I am not a careless player). Killing someone you accidentally snuck up on from behind doesn't exactly require any skill, so there's really nothing to brag about. I would say there are very few exceptions to the rule of "everyone eventually KOSes". I've watched every single one of my friends have great, positive encounters with strangers in the game and proclaim that they will try and help others and avoid killing everyone they see. Then, with time, every single one of them was killed in a very devious manner eventually and it turned them sour. We still have our occasional positive encounters (myself more so than them for some odd reason), but they actively hunt for people now whereas before they were always open to communicating first.

This tutorial is great! Now we need one to help people take screenshots that don't suck in the first place :P I imagine it would be along the same lines as a basic guide to photography, since that's kind of what it is (with way more constraints).

Thanks! I'll take a look for it soon when I either switch to experimental or 0.45 is pushed to stable.

Where is that? I'm just curious. I like weird locations in the game.

So it was a reference to the pyramid all along? I figured judging by the little drawing in the corner on the sign. Neat! Glad I got some good pictures of the pyramid and showed it to a few of my friends before it was gone.

I'll give it a go when I get off work in about an hour. I have a pretty discerning eye after spending hours upon hours looking at Russian and Czech signs throughout Chernarus and translating them for fun. Oddly enough one part you translated as "ID this X"... and just yesterday I made a comment to my buddy about how there was a pair of crossed trees at the edge of a pond along the southern coast. This could lead to the best hunt of all :) What looks like a date ("23.04.2074") could mean that this is a time capsule of sorts? It kind of looks like one.

Excellent story! :P

In my experience, your backpack and rifle will usually "teleport" back to you after a short time when you make it to dry land and actually stand up. Last time I explored Skalisty Island, I did what RedGuard said and stripped to nothing before swimming across. It was worth it to take some sweet (rare) screenshots of the island. I left my stuff in the lighthouse on the cap and had my buddies protect it (and me).

I agree, even with no real changes to the castles or the area around them, we will see more action at them again someday. Right now, there just aren't enough people in a server and there's a complete lack of motivation to visit them. Newer players likely don't know they exist, and three of the five you kind of have to go out of your way to get to (Devil's and Black Mountain can be seen from a distance and attract your attention). Once there are vehicles, traveling will be less of a chore and people will be more prone to exploring I think. They will want to see what they've been missing. I also foresee castles being a great place to setup camp once that's a possibility.

I would treat these three situations as I would any other encounter: assess the threat level of the strangers in question, attempt to make contact at a distance, and proceed according to their behavior. With the two guys in the third situation, I may not make contact though... I would be more likely to try and sneak up on them for a kill because the chances of them being friendly are just about nil.

Can you be more specific about what you're referring to? Are we talking about long range hit detection from bullets? I get what you mean about them constantly breaking new things in the game. I'm being patient, and I'm trying to be understanding, but there is a lot of carelessness that seems to go on in development. Perfect example: announcing that they've added a new town to the game (Karmanovka) and then, "Oh, oops... we forgot to add it." The official changelog, which Rocket loves to remind everyone only gets published for stable and when they are certain they want to announce something, says it was added. But it wasn't. Because "oops." It's like they don't hold themselves to any standard when it comes to community interaction. Even the reddit interactions are condescending half the time, like how dare you question my game.

If you follow the logic of half the people on this forum, your PC can run the game as long as it isn't a "POS Macintosh". Specs don't matter. *rolling my eyes*

Even given that (which is totally true), I really doubt there's much benefit visually. Have they really optimized the game at that resolution, for example? If you have the hardware capable of running it at ridiculously high settings with an acceptable FPS, then I guess there's no reason not to other than power consumption.

Exactly! It would require so little effort it seems like. It's almost like why wouldn't they add this. This. Haha! :D Anyway, I totally agree with this idea. I'm not even a huge fan of soccer (oops, football! :P), but the idea of having a fun and easy-to-do diversion from the usual travelling, sneaking, and looting would be nice!

Thank you so much for sharing. The community needs to share this kind of thing with each other, especially in the "early days" that we are currently going through together.

Too true. I think death-by-fire-station-ladder is a rite of passage in DayZ. So sad, isn't it?

I like the way you make these videos! :) I'm a big contributor to the wiki myself, so I understand the need to constantly explore and set objectives for yourself.

Prior to 0.44, I had no problem fighting even as many as ten zombies all on my own with an axe. It might take a little while, but I was capable of doing it without wasting much of my own supplies or taking much (if any) damage if I was careful. In 0.44, I'm essentially forced to use a gun when I'm faced with anything more than a single zombie because it just isn't possible to kill them quick enough without taking a ton of damage and possibly dying. I don't like this at all. If stealth isn't an option, and I'm being forced to make a lot of noise on top of not being able to be stealthy in the first place, the game ends up feeling a lot more like a shoot-em-up than anything involving skill or strategy for survival.

I'm all for a timer. Really, I am. In fact, I don't think prior to 0.44 I would have complained about the timer other than, "Oh well, guess I'll go get a glass of water or make a sandwich" and most of the time I never waited more than 90 seconds anyway. 8+ minutes is just absolutely ridiculous, though. I don't see the point in the timer being THAT long. 2 minutes? Okay. 5 minutes? Rough, but I'll deal. 8 to 10 minutes? WHY? WHY WHY WHY?

I run Windows 7 via Boot Camp. I'm soon switching to a dual hard drive setup so Windows will have its own SSD.

I reallllllyy don't think the iMac is as popular as you think it is among people who would actually be attempting to game. Also, I play DayZ at full settings on my '11 MacBook Pro with the same GPU as your "business computer" and it will still kick at 20+ FPS. I don't play it on full settings because I prefer an FPS higher than that, just saying it's capable of it. Your post wreaks of not having a clue about computers. You're so hilarious. You should get paid a lot of money to write jokes.

I hadn't thought of that! It's true that each improvement made to the game engine adds a million new possibilities.

I explore and document, and gearing up each time I die is just an obstacle to continuing that mission. I love taking artsy screenshots, exploring new areas, and writing info down to put up on the wiki later.