Egg90

These are scary times in the zombie apocalypse, you're gonna need to change your pants every now & then... or loot some washing powder.

DayZ is probably just poorly optimized for your set up at the moment. I'm sure they will work on it. I've only got a phenom II & Ati 6870, it's just playable but hope for a performance boost in the future.

The end of my last character was at the jailhouse by the giant radio tower NE Zelenogorsk. It's a pretty remote place and all gates & doors were closed so I walked in without a weapon drawn. Turned the corner & there's a fully kitted out guy crouched in the corner with an M4 pointed at me. I tried to reverse back but wasn't quick enough. The annoying thing is, the time it took him to react I could've pulled the trigger first if I had my gun out. He must of gone in there, closing everything behind him, and just sat there for god knows how long just waiting for some poor bastard to come in, which happened to be me. It was probably a 1/2 populated server so he could of been there for a long time! Patience pays off I guess... asshole.

You can also make a sawn off shotgun with a hacksaw (& a shotgun obviously!) that only takes 4 horizontal inventory slots. So you could carry an axe, both types of pistol, a sawn off, a rifle on the shoulder & a rifle in the hand. So 5 different guns & your axe theoretically.

I started off my DayZ days very cautiously, logging into sparsely populated servers while I learnt the mechanics of the game. Dying from zombie related bloodloss, dehydration, drinking too much throwing up resulting in starvation etc. I got pretty well equipped then got reset from an update & decided to play proper where there was a higher chance of running into somebody, as it should be. Actually come to think of it, this thread should read "2nd encounter" really. In the town I spawned in I climbed a ladder to discover I'd unwittingly cornered a freshspawn wielding a baseball bat, who to be fair was quite justified, given no means of escape, to swing it at my head as I beat a hasty retreat! Anyway, I made my way north, feeding my way up to healthy status with an axe on my back & reached the town of Novy Sobor. All the doors I came across were closed & I went merrily looting until I came to a farmhouse complex. I zoomed my sight to a zombie who turned & ran, but not towards me. Zooming back out, another survivor was running head on to the zombie & downed it with a couple of rounds from a handgun. He then turned to me & I darted into a barn while hearing some muffled speech I couldn't make out. He had a hiking rucksack on, and wasn't decked out in military gear so I didn't feel too intimidated. I ventured out while still aware of the cover around me & saw his gun wasn't raised and he was keeping his distance. I said I was having trouble hearing him and asked if he could hear me ok while turning my volume up. Apparently I was coming through very clearly which was good to hear & we had a bit of a chat on either side of a big pile of farm debris. He said he wasn't going to attack me which I know is no indication, but his manner seemed genuine & he didn't try to flank my cover. He asked if I needed any food or anything which I replied no thanks I was fine & informed me of a water bottle & cereal in a certain house, which was great as I hadn't found any sort of canteen yet. We parted ways, he said he was heading for the airfield & I said I was going to log soon after picking up the bottle. So after reading so much about the lack of decent players I was pleasantly surprised and hopefully this story might reassure some people. Maybe I was just lucky. I know not every encounter will be like this & I still expect to get attacked & attempted to be tricked in the future, but this makes me think it might not all be as bad as I was made to believe. I play on hardcore (1st person) servers and this happened between 2 Brits at 3am (utc) if that makes any difference.

I'm amazed about the lack of 1st person (Hardcore) servers. They're less than 10% of the servers, which for a game based on realism is incredible. I guess this is due to the playerbase demand for 3rd person as I can always find a hardcore server to join. Surely people feel more immersed 1st person, is it all about making pvp easier for you?