CardinalSins

Never did I imagine this would be a 3 page topic. So after reading the very helpful posts from the community I figured out what is going on and yup: the game is in fact better than before. It is more challenging, but with a little bit of basic knowledge it is very playable. What was I missing: the rock knife! Here is how the game goes for me now (yeah - I still die but usually in more fun and interesting ways) 1. spawn, find a rock, make an improvised knife. 2. turn the rag in to an arm band to make room 3. break the glow stick and throw it to make more room 4. find an apple tree and find apples. Eat apples until full 5. start searching for gear at the top of the list for my search is rope. I want an improvised bow as soon as possible. In fact I've taken to skipping firearms b/c the bow kills zombies nicely and doesnt attract more zombies in the process. With practice I'm even able to stand off a little from the zombie and kill from a short distance. But the bow sucks if you miss, way slow to reload. next up is the machete. I used to want the fire axe but the machete gets the job done b/c it pulls out faster than the axes and you get to make more strikes with the machete than the axe. I find and axe still because they're great for making firewood. The usual way I get killed now is blundering in to a group of zombies. Got to Tisy and started to explore, found the military tents and as I went in 4 zombies ambushed me. After nearly 2 hours of play - oh well. Now I don't mind. Is there a way to reload the improvised bow faster? I'll have to look in the sharpened stick. I missed that from my earlier browsing. Again: thanks for all the feed back.

wow. I appreciate all the feedback. I haven't read it all yet and the basic point that I need to do some relearning is well taken. IT seems they've gone in a new direction. Before the game was sort of a blend between a running simulator and a scavenger hunt. Now they're reorienting towards crafting stuff. For instance: I had no clue about the stone knife. That would have made a difference. I already figured out hunting for apple trees. That kept one of my lives going for an hour or two. I think I was killed because of an infection. I discovered that I could stop bleeding using a sewing kit, but soon after sewing myself up it said I was sick and then that progressed to being unconsciousness before I could find antibiotics. I'll keep playing, but I'll spend some time reading up on what others have discovered first. Again: thanks for the feedback.

not really looking for PVP. Early on it was fun just exploring the island, finding stuff, generally avoiding zombies and avoiding other players. That's pretty much out the window. You can't explore because you die almost as soon as you spawn. After doing the initial post I went ahead and played again. I set a 20 minute timer. First spawn (a strong independent black woman) managed to find water but was then ambushed by zombies. The first zombie was killed but she was bleeding. Fixed that and then the next zombie arrived and was killed but she was bleeding again. no knife or anything to make rags with so off to find something to make rags or to stich up with and here comes the next zombie and dead. Respawn, 12 minutes remaining on the timer. New we have a cross dressing dude. Apple trees everywhere! find 3 apples - we're in good shape! sneak in to a house, ambushed by zombie. kill zombie, bandage up. leave house attacked by zombie. kill zombie but now I'm bleeding again. off to find something. Find leather sewing kit and stich self up but now I'm sick. eat more apples. wounds are infected. searching for antibiotics or something to cure myself with...unconscious. actually lasted a whole 20 minutes with that one. If it wasn't freezing outside I wouldn't have wasted the time. I do like that they have improved the combat so that you can kill the zombies without having to have fire axe or gun. that's undeniably better. But the absence of any findable loot moves the game beyond what I'm willing to invest in. As I said: I'll find something else and check back in a few weeks (I really do like this game and its gone through phases like this in the past) to see if they've improved things.

It's been fun watching DayZ grow but in my opinion this latest direction isn't for me. Before the game was fun and provided a nice escape. Now: might as well stay in the real world at least I can win here. I'm basically starving to death or being killed by zombies inside the first 10 minutes of play. Might as well go play COD or something else. I'll check back in a month or two and see if things improve.

I didn't know that about protector cases. Guess we'll have to conduct some experiments.... Funny bit is persistence isn't all it's cracked up to be. I'm going to guess if you don't visit your stash within some amount of time it will disappear during a server restart. I'm at a point with my current game I'm about to try and find a fresh spawned player to dump most of the gear on (everything but the axe). I've had the bus for a bit, driven the truck around, my character has everything necessary. I'm carrying about 10 glock mags an AKM with 4 magazines.......what the blazes now? Too bad I can't open a bar or something.

So....how does a person unflip a car or truck????

This game cracks me up. Finally made it back to the location of the truck I was talking about when I started this thread: it's still here! all of my gear is here too! Or at least the junk I left in the truck. Let's drive over and see if the bus is where I parked it last.... The odd bit is that the truck tent I had found was gone from the police station I had set it up behind. I hope somebody found it. I put about 6 pelican cases in it with stuff in them. Now I have to figure out where I hid the various barrels.

Thanks on both tips. So the fun continued - I had some down time so I respawned and almost immediately found a bus ready to go! Just sitting in a field waiting for me. So I learned how the shifter works that way. As described Q and E do the business. Anyway, started playing around got to the town on the north east end of the map and when I got out of the bus I just suddenly died. No idea what happened. No big deal. Had fun and now I know how to use that part of the game. And then the fun continue with a surprise: looking forward to starting over I jumped back in to the game and I respawned on the south end of the map but all of the gear I had before is still with me! WTF? No bus, but I'm no worried about that. I'm hydrated and energized, have a glock and an mp5 with ammo. Very strange. Anyway - thanks for all of the tips.

Perhaps I still need to put parts on the truck. I didn't put the hood on it but I can start the engine and if I press W the tach raises. Q & E make noises when I press them. As it is: no longer an issue. I decided to see how to throw the grenade....didn't work so well. I get to start all over. Which is actually my favorite part of the game. If you are on "DayZ TX 2-18 (Public/Veteran) 131642 - Hosted by GameServers.com" Go to the north end of the map above the air field. in one of the shop yards you'll find a V3S that is fully assembled. If you look in police stations in the area you'll find barrels filled with loot.

This is probably really lame but: how to I make the truck back up? I've finally got the V3S put back together but it's parked against a wall. In order to go anywhere I first have to make it backup. I've tried every keyboard combination, I've searched the entire internet and found nothing and nobody every says anything about it. so it's probably really obvious...but I still can't figure it out. So: how do I make the v3s backup? TIA

I'm sure this is a bug but if they fix it I'm screwed. A few days ago I noticed that running zombies up and down hills would eventually cause the zombies to die. Great new if you just spawned in and your choice is to run away or try punching them. Today I finally figured out the mechanics of it and am able to get good results ~80% of the time. What you need is a steep section of hill. The way to determine if it is steep enough is to try and sprint up. If you start walking it's good. Now lead your konga line of Zombies up to the top and then lead them down it. Wait until they are close before you start running. You want them to be running and jumping at you for it to work. Done properly the zombies end up sliding past you dead. Today I had 5 and managed to kill 4 before I just took my fire axe to them. Only problem for me is that if I use the axe I'll almost always need a bandage b/c I never get the timing right and end up bleeding. The other glitch I like to use is a house with stairs up to the first floor. Get in it ahead of the zombies and they'll end up in the floor. then you play whack-a-mole!

happened to me standing on top of a control tower at an air field. Sucked. I had an M4 w/ a RDS, fire axe, 2 handguns, and all the other cool stuff. Attempted to do a rescue using my other account but it got killed on the way in (Sure are a lot of Zombies all of a sudden). So I just rolled my player out on the strip and started shooting zombies until I was overwhelmed. Just remember the glitches cut both ways: take some zombies for a hill run and see how many you can kill by just running up and down a hill. So far my best conga line had 8 zombies. The military ones are the hardest to kill that way, but they eventually die. Who needs a fire axe when you have a hill?

How can I determine which server I'm on? I have two accounts and I have both in the same general area. I need to drop something off for the other to pick up (2 accounts/1 computer). However this will only work if both are on the same server. So how do I figure it out, besides the obvious? ie - is there something somewhere that says "you are on server X"?

Standing on top of a control tower at an air strip and all of a sudden "ouch! I think I broke my leg". WFT? The server was already acting kinda whacky so no big deal. I crawled my guy in to the wood b/c I'm close to an area where other players will normally be. For now I'm logged out. I'll just login w/ my other account and run over to the area and drop off a morphine injector.

another sorta final note before I'm done: cargo pants rock! Need more space in your mountain backpack? put a pair of cargo pants in it and then drop stuff on the cargo pants. The pants take up 4 slots but hold 6. I do cheat a little by using an online map so I have an idea about where I'm going. As you play you eventually notice where good stuff spawns and you start ignoring places that never have it. You should occasionally check those places too. In one case I found a hoody and 3 food items in a house that usually (and since then) has nothing in it. Once you have your stuff sorted out explore the map. North of the NE air strip is a field that has the outline of a man drawn on it. East of the NW airfield is a ruined castle. In one spot I found a really cool house that I've never seen before anywhere else (it's like the tavern but different). The map I use just shows a gray square with nothing there but I still found something (it had some food in it). I kick off a project this week so I won't get to play again until Friday. Once you get over the killer Zombies and figure things out this game is really addictive. Have fun.