pillock

I've been doing this. The best way to appear unthreatening, in my experience, is NEVER to carry a backpack of any kind and certainly never carry a visible weapon. You can walk around Berezino and Svetlo relatively unmolested, because people tend to think you're a new spawn. They don't know you've got a sawn-off in your rider jacket, and your cargoes are full of reload clips and ammo. If you carry an SKS, even if it's on your back, too many people shoot before asking questions; if you appear to be unarmed (no back-pack makes this more likely), you are much more likely to get friendly interactions. I've done it: it works, I swear. All the non-combat-orientated player ever really needs to carry is: a gun (just in case!); some ammo for it (not much - 1 or 2 stacks - it's easy to pick up more on your travels), a can opener (or equivalent), bandages (maybe some morphine in case of accidents/glitches); binoculars are quite useful too, and I like to carry the in-game map because it's cool. You don't need a melee weapon, because you can kill a zombie in 3 punches (or shoot it). And you don't need a rifle unless you are actively looking for gunfights. You don't need to carry food ever - just eat what you find where you find it. You don't need a canteen. Walking makes you appear less threatening than running, I also find, and it also makes it easier to observe your surroundings. When you leave town for a yomp in-land, by all means find a backpack and put some supplies in for the journey - but in the high-traffic coastal places, you're safer without one. (Hopefully this changes soon, because it's a bit silly how easy it is to survive with virtually no kit at all - you could probably live forever with just a can opener and some rags, as long as you steered clear of the "competitive" bits of the map).

I don't see what the negative outcomes there have been of releasing the alpha to the public when it was. By doing this, they have made a shitload of money, which will help BiS (and maybe enable the execs to buy themselves new Porsches or whatever), and also enabled them to speed up development of the game by hiring a large number of new staff to work on it, which is good for them and us. Also, by achieving the level of coverage and exposure, there is now more incentive - if they needed extra to begin with - for the developers to get the game right. If it was a minor title which only a handful of fanatics knew about, it could be allowed to fail without major reputational consequences for the developers and publishers. But it isn't: DayZ is massive now. It'll be a massive embarrassment if it flops now, or fails to realise what's been promised. And that is also good for us punters. It's not a guarantee, but I think it counts for something.

It's not that much of a gamble. It was only £20. I think I've got that much value out of the game already. I've pre-ordered some games in the past for more money than this, and they have turned out to be fucking terrible - and finished products without much further development.

I agree that an open-access, paid-for public alpha does have a responsibility to its customers to keep the latest version in a playable state. But, I also think DayZ currently fulfils this responsibility and is perfectly playable. The fact that fists are OP doesn't actually matter that much to me at this point. It is pretty silly, I'll admit, but the results can be quite amusing. As long as they DO actually balance it properly later on, it's fine. Given how shit the melee combat is in general, I don't think that fixing the wonky damage values is particularly urgent. They do need to completely overhaul the physics for melee combat and player movement, otherwise the finished product will look pretty amateurish compared to its competition - and in a full-price standalone game, that isn't acceptable. But I don't mind if they aren't doing it right now, as long as some content in some area of the game does keep coming. And it is. So I think it's fine. Yeah.

It's not an issue of whether the improvised pack looks more or less threatening than a Taloon; the problem with using it is that other people think it looks cool, and they want it off of you!

It looks a lot like a man eating dogfood while pointlessly wearing a high-vis vest on a boat in the middle of a flooded town. Crazy Russians.

5 : 5 is the fastest way to get killed I've ever seen.

What an absolutely fascinating discussion this is. Please continue.

I'm honestly not trying to be a smart-arse, here. Just wanted to make that clear before I talk about grammar! If the message you received said what you quoted, word-for-word, then I think a server admin has fucked with you somehow. Because of this: "Your character have been resetted" is very badly composed English. If that is a direct, word-for-word quote, then I find it very unlikely that it came from an official source like BattleEye - they are professionals, and they wouldn't put a sentence like that in their product. I realise these things aren't always easy to spot for non-native speakers, and the grammar isn't always perfect in the genuine in-game messages, either, but knowing your verb conjugations can actually give you a clue as to the authenticity of things like this, sometimes!

I was wandering through the woods to the north-west of Polana just now when I heard a noise; I looked round and there's 4 zombies running at me. Four! All together in a gang. What the hell are they doing so far out in the boonies like that? I had to take the bloody sawn-off to them (chambered Amphibia would've been too fiddly, I figured, and I've got fed up with the tedious boxing matches. Is there a magazine for the amphibia? I don't think I've ever come across one, if there is.)

The lad Dean Hall pronounces it "Die-Zay". I've seen him do it. Heard him.

Keenly anticipating the introduction of shepherds' crooks as a melee weapon, then. And I want an animation so I can use it as a walking stick! Herding sheep ought to be an amusing mini-game distraction.

Zeds are fine? Are you off your head? Pablo: don't run away from them, run around them. Just jog in circles, they won't touch you. Get used to their patterns of movement and lunging. This doesn't take long. I've been running around Berezino herding up groups of 6,7,8 zombies, and just playing with them. Once you get the hang of the way they move, they become VERY easy to avoid. After this, you can pretty much get on with your business undisturbed by them, even if they are trying to chase you.

I think you're pretty much fucked if a bear starts chasing you. Zig-zag all you like, those fuckers can run at 40mph!

I don't understand some of the logic being applied here. Why is it beneficial to the balance of the gameplay that you can fit 5 fire axes in one hunter backpack? The answer is: it isn't. This sort of thing does need to be changed: it's stupid, and it doesn't make sense. But it's not a terribly urgent matter right now - I'll concede that.

Slings and catapults are definitely weapons that should make it into the game somewhere along the line. They just make so much sense in DayZ's scenario.

Maybe if you could throw the .22 rounds, they might actually deal some damage?

It's a shame you can't throw stones.

cowsheds

The community is an early alpha version of the planned finished product community. It is riddled with game-breaking buggers right now, but the objective at this point is to add as many new members to the community as possible, then iron out the problem ones later in the development cycle.

there's a spider in your ear

That exact thing happened to me with broken legs under the scaffolding - but it was in Svetlo instead. You cannot escape - hopefully there will be a fix introduced in time to allow you to crawl over low-lying objects... I got myself killed by shouting into the direct comms and bashing the wall with a crowbar to make noise and attract attention. It took maybe quarter of an hour!

I'm not sure there's much to agree with in your post, I'm afraid. As I understand the development process - which I freely admit may not be correct! - there is no such thing as a "fix" at this early stage. The objective is not to provide a well-balanced, properly working "game" until much further down the line. Everything is a work in progress, and much of the content is incomplete or functioning poorly. (And the timer for swapping servers is not pointless, by the way.) The objective is just to develop the game - the order in which new features and technical adjustments are made does not necessarily make sense from the player's point of view, but I assume that it does make sense from a development point of view. The "game" as a playable experience has got worse with the latest patch - I agree - but the development process is still going on, and it will get better again. When the game is released, nobody will care that version 0.44 was a horrible mess. It just doesn't matter, as long as we get the end product. Yes, we've paid money, but we've paid less than we would have if we waited for the final version. I still think it's a good deal.

I found a pair in one of those long (usually empty) sheds - the ones that look like farm warehouse type structures. Then some fucker snuck up on me and shot me dead a little while later so I lost them, not to find another pair since. But anyway. I would suggest you look in every building, barn and shed, and not assume that they spawn in a particular type of building only.

The way I interpret it, the timer does not actually make any real technical difference to server performance in itself - it doesn't require 180 seconds or 300 seconds or 600 seconds in order to load your character and inventory. But user connections and disconnections do cause general strain on the servers, and the timer is there only as a disincentive for players to swap around. It's a punishment - a blunt, inaccurately-targeted punishment - so that you and I will be less likely to want to disconnect from our current server and then connect to a different one. It's supposed to be a pain in the arse - that's what it's there for. They can't stop people from disconnecting and reconnecting, obviously - all they can do at the moment is try to encourage players not to do it unless they really need to (like at the beginning of your play-session and at the end). I may have got that wrong, but that's how I read it.