DeKamme

Huntin' bandits The first bandit gang we encountered, had an initial smart approach. They advanced on our position through thick underbrush, only after one of us fell bleeding to the ground, our marksman noticed their location. Bad call, we thought: although their position gave them quite some visibility cover, it consisted only of 6 trees in the middle of a grass field. They had fired too soon, not realizing we had already half surrounded them. The only one of us that was close to our downed guy opened up towards the trees, effectively pinning them down, as we moved to close the net around them. Once we reached our entrenched positions, it sounded like world war 3 started. All different calibers were echoing through the clear sky, and the comms were a mix of cheers and confusion. When the sound of both guns and our pounding hearts died down, someone said "we need to check them out". I decided to take a chance, we can't just let the situation rest there. There's too few of us, if they patch themselves up and take out one of us, they have an opening towards better cover. I dropped some gear, leaving my trusty carbine and a spare magazine on me, and rushed towards the lonely trees that were ground zero of the earlier barrage. Reaching a point where I could see clearly through them, I noticed a crouching guy patching another up. Acting too fast, I emptied half my magazine in their direction while still running. Although I clearly saw blood coming from the medics shoulder, it wasn't enough - my vision soon went black, lying half unconscious on the ground, I could only hear the sound of one of their guns, and rummaging through a backpack or medkit. Man down, I was just able to whisper through our comms. To my surprise, I stumbled back up, to see (through a blurry haze) the crouched medic shuffling backwards. Moving away from my 3 teammates advancing from the opposite direction. Emptying the remainder of my mag into him did the job, he fell down, and didn't look like he was going to do much in that stage. Woozy nights filled with vodka had prepared me a bit for the next bit: still in the haze, I grabbed his backpack and some other stuff, and ran back to the spot I assumed our sniper was hiding. More guided by his calm but alert voice then my blurry vision, I reached his fox hole, dropped my gear and body, and only started regaining my bearings after he pumped me full of saline, vitamins and some other stuff that left a strange metallic taste under my tongue. Is this survival? Half an hour later we were still rummaging through the combined loot, spread out over our camp floor. So much ruined equipment. You can't ponder the meaning of it all too much: we equip, they equip, we encounter eachother, lose buddies, lose equipment, use up meds - and repeat it. I start to wonder, we call ourselves uninfected - is that really so, or have we just caught a more slowly acting variant of whatever the zombies have? Maybe they have an easier life: they don't gear up, just attack everything that moves with bare hands. Maybe that's what's at the end of all this deja-vu waking up on beaches stuff. It's not reincarnating until we reach nirvana, it's a cycle that ends in the zombified state. I ended up in hell, and don't quite realize what I did to deserve this. Drinking the alcohol tincture gets more tempting every night we survive this living hell...

Deja Vu All Over Again After yet another blackout, I awoke in another coastal city. My fogged mind was trying to decide whether this was a deja-vu, if I'm in a continuous nightmare, or - no more time to think, 2 zombies have picked up on my half naked self sprinting through the streets. I punch one to the ground, then flee to a shed, where I find a hoe. The tool, you know. When both of their skulls were turned into whant I usually see inside a can of spaghetti, I pick up my usual routine of finding some goofy but spacious clothing and other essentials. With some food, water, a mosin without ammo and the hoe, I decide to head for a police station to find ammo. There I encountered some guy, rummaging through trunks of beat up cars. I casually said "hi dude, just passing by, how you doin". To my surprise he swapped his shotgun (with ammo) for my mosin. I figured, better to run around with a loaded gun looking for better stuff, then with an empty precision rifle. I pointed him into the direction of the airfield, said I'd rather stick to moving through woods - and lost him in there. My calls to him were only answered by a curious sparrow. At the airfield I encountered a corpse holding a mosin. That cleared that up. Moving towards his corpse, but sidestepping at the last moment proved effective: I heard the distinct crack of another mosin in the distance, and a bullet landing nearby. This made me run into the nearby building, grab some loot I saw readily available, and sprint back out into nearby underbrush. At that time my comms started crackling, and cleared up with the familiar voice of a brother in arms. He said he saw some guy with a mosin run out of the woods, followed by a guy with a hoe... And he took out the mosin guy. Doh. A few minutes later my buddies gave me their emergency loot stocks, turning me from a survivor into a hunter. Time to find some bandit gangs!

I think I saw this naked man walking through Cherno. From the size of his junk, he'd been walking some days in the freezing cold. As he was looking quite bewildered, I threw a can of tactical bacon wrapped in a yellow coat. Don't know if he grabbed it, or if I knocked him out by it.

One of the longest sentences I ever started to try to read. Gave up after some 1/3rd of it. Constructive feedback: - You are talking to people. Think about what you want to achieve from this interaction. - If you want to achieve multiple things, divide your questions/statements into paragraphs. - Keep people interested by insterting blank spaces between longer texts, not repeating the same word too often (and ... and .... and ... ), and not ranting but telling.

From the glitch room, afaik, you can't shoot anyone. Tried it, couldn't shoot a zombie that was standing 20m away. 'Hacking' away the buildings alltogether makes them pass-through, you can see, walk and shoot through them. Haven't tried that 2nd option, but as it's still active in the bug tracker, and I've seen people just run through the jail buildings, I am pretty sure it is what you experienced. Those are the ones that usually kill you from odd angles. Killing those in the room should be pretty easy: camp them out. They can't leave the room easily, it requires some wiggling, during which they can't move or aim properly. Or try and lead a zombie up the stairs, it'll go through the walls to the one in that room.

You got my beans meat pie, good story :) And good first time experience Michael! We also took in some newbies, giving them guns and gear... Most aren't foolish enough to try them on a group of better equipped people. They'll soon realize that just good gear won't let you survive long in this game, you need stealth skills and knowledge of how people react, or a solid band of brothers. *edit* Michael, you'd better post your timezone if you want friends. People from all over the world play, but not all when you are on.

In standalone (SA), you just have to mind your inventory - when it reads "energized" and "hydrated", you're good for a while. Just pack some good stuff along, like re-fillable containers (liter bottle & canteen), and rice, cereals, or random cans of food. Too bad the texts will be removed, I indeed find it more immersive with the current very minimal hud (only text + when drawing / zeroing weapon) loot: If you play a few hours every day, it'll take you a week or 2 to encounter most of current loot drops. The only things that remain hard to find without camping large airfields, are full camo clothes, weapon attachments like mosin compensator, Magpull attachments for m4, 60 round magazines. What you need to survive, you'll find in every medium sized city. You can spend quite some time trying to interact with friendlies (good luck with that), finding the accuracy of the different weapons, trying to approach people undetected, ... Which to choose: If you like experimental gameplay, that can change with every release, and which you can influence/contribute to by posting suggestions & feedback, go for standalone. If you want a fleshed out game full of gear and vehicles, go for the mod.

Tip: press enter sometimes, makes for an easier read than this wall of text :) I encountered a guy once, talked to him over both voice and text chat, but he kept voice and text chatting to me "do you have a mic? can you talk?". Sometimes direct chat just doesn't seem to work. The next guy I encountered, on the same server & same spawn, could hear me just fine.

Get used of using the map to know where you are, and find random Z's. Use the map to get a range estimate. Zero scope to that range. Shoot - rinse, repeat. Try to remember what range equals to what distance. Play around with the FOV setting, and see what zoom setting works for you. The only issue is indeed working with leading. A few days ago I saw 3 guys running at 500m. I shot a few meters in front of the first guy. The middle guy fell down unconscious. Experienced people will zigzag in an unpredictable way, good luck tring to hit that from 700m...

Airfield is KOS zone. People only come there to get weapons. And what do you do with weapons? ...

Since most people that shoot you after talking, start with "friendly". I don't, I say "hi buddy", give them some time to adjust. I hold my weapon in my hands, but not readied. When they are accustomed to my presense, I start chatting a bit more. Ask if they need some stuff (or can miss something), ask if they know where they are or need directions. This has resulted in an average of 4/10 friendly encounters, which I find a very good ratio. Mind, that's not counting the full military gear people with 2 long rifles, a fireaxe and tactical vest. Some things that will get you shot: - Walk into any airfield carrying a good rifle (m4, sks, mosin), especially when looking geared - Same applies for the big cities (Elektro, Cherno) - Sneaking up on people, when I notice a guy with a gun readied walking around me, I assume he's up to no good Some things that help not getting shot: - Wearing colourful clothing (yellow raincoat) - Bright colourful backpack - not the xxl one (xxl screams "I've got tons of gear") - One visible gun and one melee (if you like a 2nd, get sawed off shotty or pistol) - Random chatter, in a clear, calm voice, stating your intention (looking for food/trade/team up/...) - Stick to smaller towns in center of map I don't understand people complaining from getting KOS on an airfield. It's a military site, you only show up there to get guns. Once you get your pimped out guns and good camo gear, what are you going to do there? Start a campfire, roast beans and sing kumbaya? Once the game is a bit more fleshed out and they actually have things to do for friendlies, like farming, or building a camp, it may get more interesting. Right now, I see no other end goal of all this gearing up then shooting. Mind, I try to stick to one rule of thumb: shooting happens on even grounds, against someone with a good weapon and enough gear. Thats why I head for NE airfield. If I encounter someone on the way that needs help, I'll gladly explain how to find stuff, and warn him he should be geared up before seeking out NE.

About Proto's map suggestion: In-game you can call up Steam with shift-tab (default). There you can open up a browser. In that browser I have my dayZ map open, with city names, loot drops, water wells etc. It's better then alt-tabbing to a regular browser, because in the ingame steam window, you can see the background feintly, and hear your surroundings. And don't have to move your hands to a smartphone or other device. or just print it and hang it on the wall, for the oldschool paper touch :)

I can help: - open google - type "rent dayz server" - press enter Should get you where you want to be. It's what I'd do. Seeing as I'd have to type then what you can read yourself, it seems more efficient for you to search it directly. Could have taken you the time to go to these forums and make a post... Tip: watch the "caps lock" light.

Probably he had so much alcohol in him, to not notice he was poisoned. Welcome Rhys! I'm fairly new too, and share your sentiment. This is a truly unique game. Not for quitters or stupid people, so I hope natural selection will leave a lot of nice and odd people in the game. I'll try and remember your name, if you see some guy dancing/boxing with zombies, just try to talk - might be me. I usually wear a gas mask and a beret.

Will do! My ingame nick is "deka". I play with ] FiB [ on our server, always welcome there. I think it would be nice to have a "generic" teamspeak, not tied to a clan. Our group (talking Dutch) logs off around 10-11pm. Then I sometimes hop to another TS and meet new people, and I often encounter guys (like I assume are replying to this topic) just looking for a good chat, some laughs and some tense moments after a hard day's work. I do skip the ones with squeaky voices that are talking military style. Would be nice to meet up with 10-20 of those good people and just join a large server, and not camp NE airfield for a change. Find a noob, and escort him with a small army. Go sightseeing into castle ruins, take a hike to the other side of the map. Surprise spawning bandits with 15 nude hoe wielding nutjobs. Yesterday I saw 2 guys running around Berezino, close to eachother, but not noticing eachother or me. I started chatting, then describing their actions, hiding in a bush - seeing how they would react. They never replied, and soon hopped servers. I think some people don't understand the meaning of multiplayer. I encourage the dev's vision of sharing shards of the loot DB between specific servers, so we can start communities. I'd like a Roleplay community, PvP community, PvE community, language zones - so we can choose how to interact. I'd log quite some hours on the Roleplay server, just meeting people, helping them fend off the occasional bandit, trade gear, hold a farm...