archamedes

Here is a debrief written by my buddy explaining a night we had on Dayz Epoch. Its long, but its funny. If you don't at least raise a smile reading this, you are devoid of any sense of humor, so without furth ado, here is the story.... Roadtrip Right from the opening, when we decided to take the spare chopper to the safe house we knew it was going to be perfect. The way you flew above me giving directions while I trundled along in that heavy-as-hell truck. Looking up at you off over the sea and occasionaly passing over me felt like we were really working together, but also ominously exposed. Like watching Dawn of the dead 1978 when they are moving the trucks. No dramas though - all worked out fine, with me parking up as you landed. Such a simple thing, but that felt like an achievement. All was set and we were going to go out for our usual scavenger hunt. Then... things changed. Incident 1. When I heard the chopper I wasn't worried. I knew your neighbour had one, and the server had become like a little suburb now. Lots of bases, high end kit, etc. I was stood out on the platform (dressed as a priest), GPMG over my shoulder and smoking as fag watching it get closer. I saw him coming in slow, but decided to take out the binoculars (fag still in my mouth of course). You said "don't fire at him unless he fires at you" and I cast you a look that said "I'm not a retard you know", knowing that you were downstairs packing the safe and couldn't see it. As he got closer I took the ciggie out of my mouth, put down the binoculars and saw he was getting curious. Maybe it was my recent conversion to the Russian faith, but something felt 'off'. The way he went into a hover and turned his side to me just felt like I should switch on. Fag back in my mouth, I took a step back into the doorway and hovered over the switch to SAW option. Then I saw the tracers coming. Fuck. In an instant, I'm huddled behind the wall and the whole room and platform is filled with rounds. I've got the GPMG out, but I can't move because he's literally hosing down the place. EVERYTHING is getting hit except for one guy dressed as a priest cuddling a light machine gun with a slowly burning fag in his mouth. I hear him moving position and realise that I'm not "leaking like a fucked fridge" yet, so I decide to take the moment to go out and give him the good news. Father Dogmeat leaps round the door, takes aim and pumps about 40 rounds up at him. I see him back off a bit and think "yeah, you fucker! Didn't expect that did you? Cunt! How'd you like - " <sounds of gunfire> Ok, NOW I'm leaking like a fucked fridge. The last thing I see is your concerned face coming up the ladder and hear the pathetic hiss of a cigarette extinguishing in the puddle that used to be my head. I see you slam the door shut and lock it and I can't help thinking "who's gonna give ME my last rites?". I loved that he was mocking the base, saying "what is this Minecraft shit?". And Robyn, bless her (Dave's Wife) - "can you go and help James?". Seriously? The only thing Dave can do now is get a hosepipe and wash me off his helipad before it rusts... Incident 2. So, "TomClancy" is off terrorising other players and causing a stir. Personally I think it's awesome, because people are now remembering that this is Day Z, not Sim City. Suck it up, princess - time to defend all those pretty buildings, cars, jeeps and toys. By now you've washed the remains of a priest outfit full of tomato soup and kibble off your deck and now you're on your way to pick me up. I've got a tin of beans, some sodas and I'm keeping a low profile. Yay! We're together again and off back to the safe house to pick up my stuff that you folded away neatly in a safe for me. Then we see the chopper. Like a yellow barrel popping up in Jaws, it's an "Oh Shit" moment. And straight away, that motherfucker is on us. Now I wasn't as worried, but that's because I haven't spent weeks building up a base, scraping toether the funds and resources to get all of the gear you have. Also, you're in an armoured truck, but he's got a gun designed to take you out. There we are, driving through a storm of bullets and I wish I had my priest outfit to truly give thanks for the wonders of Russian workmanship as the armoured hull stands up to what sounds like a large bucket of nails being thrown on a tin roof. I know you're intention was to say "armour holding... hull slightly damaged... wheels at 80%... engine taken a hit..." - but what you actually said (screamed) was "FUCK FUCK FUUUUUCK OOOOFF NO, NO, PISS OFF YOU CUNT FUUUUCK!!". But while I'm calmly saying things like "5 o'clock high, coming in to left side, watch the hill" (Ok, so I'm actually screaming "DRIVE DRIVE DRIVE!!") I notice how he moves. He's always flying to keep us on his left, then going into a hover before firing. I realise he's operating the chopper alone and switching seats. I test the theory by saying "wait..wait...". Then I see him go into a hover and I say "BREAK RIGHT NOW! GO GO GO!" and you swerve. And sure enough, we go through a quick spray, but it ends suddenly. The fucker can't keep us lined up. Now you've got us to the factories and we're trying to find somewhere to hide the truck as it's starting to feel the damage. I keep screaming for you to let me out so I can open a door, but you know that to stop means we get wiped out. Then we hit the huge barn and realise the truck won't fit adn now he's hovering behind us - so I decide to go decoy and leap out. Now I'm running 10 meters to the barn and he's spraying the truck as a "fuck you". But that's when YOU realise that he thinks I'm the driver and you stop dead. And sure enough, he's ignoring the truck and he's now hunting round the barn trying to get an angle on me. I realise it's like that scene in HalfLife, only instead of a power suit and weapons I have a machete and a tin of beans. I'm so fucked. Like, Palestinian throwing a rock at a tank fucked. But again, you're thinking ahead and you know that while he's watching me he's not watching you and you sneak out the truck, lock it and come into the hangar. We don't have the GPMG, but he's only looking for me - if I can distract him you MIGHT just pull off the sniper shot of the year. So I run like a bald prisoner on a space prison being chased by a pissed off alien. Sadly, it's not enough and I'm splashed up the side of a wooden shack like a sock full of meat and sauce being thrown up a window. Shit! Still, when the cunt lands to loot the truck, you'll be there to fuck him up. But he doesn't land... he flies away, leaving you in a barn with all your kit and the damaged remains of your truck and your wing man coating a cheap shed. Fuck! Dave the Mechanic and James gets PTSD James respawns - naturally I'm as far away as goddam possible, but hey. It's not like you're going anywhere. You're already planning how to fix the truck. While I'm scaping for tins of beans and fighting my way across the map, you're scavenging wheels, engine parts, scrap metal and somehow fixing the truck. I'm having a Rick Grimes adventure and every now and again I'll hear progress on how you're doing. However, my journey was... not without incident. My navigation was going fine, but I'm now being chased by about 5 runners and I have nothing but a machete and I can't find a single building to hide behind or lead them into. So as I run I have a moment of "fuck it" and slow to a jog...then a walk... than I turn around with the machete like I just realised I'd left the gas on and I'm pissed of about it. Robyn is saying "oh no, what are you doing? There's loads of them, they're going to catch you". It's ok... I'm about to go Zatoichi on these guys. I am Rutger Fucking Hauer. I am Blind motherfucking Fury. I am motherfucking Conan the Barbarian. One of you cunts will have something useful on you, so I'm going to kill every last motherfucking one of you to get it. <"...ok, I've found a windscreen, got it back to 100%..."> I'm getting bitch slapped and bitten, but I keep dropping these walkers and I seem to just find enough bandages and water as I go to stay alive. I didn't intend to survive, but I'm now knee deep in corpses shouting random things like "Form an orderly queue, I'm going to get you all eventually!" and hacking away. <"...ooh, I found a wheel! I've got the truck back up. Just need to fix the engine..."> Another swarm coming, but I'm running TOWARDS them shouting "I'M RICK GRIMES, BITCH! I'M COMING FOR YOOOOUUU!" (Robyn finds this hillarious for some reason). They look a little startled as I plough into them, screaming "really? empty cans? That's all you got you fucks?!". I'm up to about 18 kills by now. <"...I don't believe it...I've found a fucking engine! I can fix the whole thing..."> "WHY! WON'T! YOU! DIE!?!" I scream as I hit the crawling zombie for the 8th time. Even Robyn is shouting "Really?! How is he not dead?". I realise I'm bleeding, but there's more of them coming and I don't have time to put on a bandage, so I run at them. My vision is washed out, but I can still move and swing the machete, so I'm going to take as many as I can <"...YES! It's started. The truck is fixed. Just loading up my stuff..."> I'm hacking at a monkey style zombie with a blunt machete, screaming like Jake the Muss cutting down the tree that his daughter hung herself from. At this point I may actually be sobbing like him, too. Fragments of words can be heard between the sobs and screams, but they're mostly "YOU FUCKS!". There's another one, and I'm up to about 24 kills now, all in the open with a machete. <"...James, I'm about 2 minutes out. Find somewhere to hide, I'll be right there..."> Hide? Fuck you. I need another bandage. One of those 5 zombies up the road are bound to have one. I'll go and ask them. I'll just wipe the blood off my teeth first. FUUUCK YOOOOOUU!! Two minutes later, a heavy truck comes up the road and sees a lone survivor covered in blood with a zombie's T-Shirt wrapped round his leg, intestines round his head like a bandanna and about 10 bandages on, a blunt machete and the glassy stare of someone who knows he washed his jeans with the winning lottery ticket in the back pocket. The driver beeps the horn, but he takes his time to walk over. "Any problems?" Without a word, James gets into the back of the truck, places the machete on the dashboard, turns off the radio and whispers "cigarrette". The kill counter is at 35. It's easy to see because everything else is in black and white... Is...Is that guy OK? I didn't even see the human. I was too busy smiling at the sensation of morphine and hearing the wet thud of zombie killing repeat in my head to notice him running to us. Fortunately you did all the talking. Nick was like us. He had been killed by TomClancy and was walking through zombie territory to get to his kit again. We gave him a lift and we chatted about what had happened. I took a while to join in because I didn't know the key to talk, but I like to put it down to being sat in the passenger seat with PTSD. When we did talk it was cool though. Loved going to the safe house together, watching the sky for that chopper, generally shooting the shit. Then you letting him into your base (while covering him with the rife). One wrong move and he'd have had the life expectancy of Morgan Freeman's pants. Shame he glitched out later on, would have been fun to keep him. Incident 3. Off to the trader finally. We're going to sell something or buy something. I don't know. I've picked up my GPMG and axe again, but part of me misses the machete. Then we see the chopper. Seriously, this motherfucker is like Jaws. He's the terminator. He's fucking RELENTLESS. But maybe he hasn't seen us. We stay perfectly still, but the fucker changes course and we know it's on. Dave goes from "I fixed my truck for free!" to "NO YOU CUNT I JUST FIXED IT FUUUUUUCK!!" as the bullet rain starts. There's nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, so I keep watching the chopper for his tell-tale pause and hover and shout when to turn. Then we see the tree line. I'm actually calmer now, saying "treeline... go right. Right. Right to the trees. That's left. Go Right. Right. Right". You're shouting "Fuck! I know!". Robyn hasn't taken her eyes off the screen and says "Dave what are you doing?!" and Dave looks at her and calmly says "panicking". Then he (finally) swerves right and loses the fucker in the trees. But he's still there, hovering around, searching for us. But then in a moment of clarity, we hit the plan. You stop for a second and I jump out under the cover of trees and you drive on. He hasn't seen me get out. You drive down the track and he's shooting at you, but he's getting cocky. You can't shoot back. You helplessly loop around, but he can easily keep up with you and spray you at his leasuire. Only he doesn't know that I'm waiting on the side of the road with a GPMG. I hide behind the tree as you roar past and I see him coming behind you T2 style. He has no idea I'm there as I step out and unleash half a box of GPMG fire at him, raking the fucker from nose to tail, sparks and smoke everywhere. Yeah, that scared the fucker. he thinks it's your rear gun come to life and he goes up HIGH to avoid it. I notice that he's having trouble now. But that Westworld terminator motherfucker is STILL looking for you. We can hear him, but we know he has to get back to base soon because there's a server restart. There's a few more passes and I fire a few more rounds at him, but eventually he's gone. Now! Drive! Get us home! GO GO GO!! Payoff I didn't see it until you pointed it out. The burning wreckage over in a field as we drove home. The sign of a crashed helicopter. I also didn't see it before you pointed it out - but the lone survivor running through the nearby town being chased by 20 zombies. I wanted us to help this guy - but then you said "no, it's probably him" and turned the truck away from him. We drove on - both hoping it was TomClancy. "What if it was another guy he shot down? Or a burnt out vehicle?" "Fuck him. We can't risk the gear with the server shutting down in 10 minutes". So I get on the group channel. Dogmeat Who's stuck in <town name>? TomClancy You didn't see anything ;) Dogeat Engine trouble? TomClancy Something like that Dogmeat You're welcome <pause> TomClancy Nice shot. And Dave, who survived the whole thing without dying once, who fixed his truck twice and kept his gear and bases smiled - because TomClancy has no idea he even exists. Oh, and Dave has his toys and didn't lose a helicopter today... Seriously, dude. This was all ONE evening. Like... what the fuck? Different level of awesome. Glad I had a few more comments with TomClancy later, because I really thought he made it fun. Even if he pissed off a bunch of players, he didn't take their things or target inactive vehicles. He just made the threat REAL for a while. And as always, we FRAPS'd nothing. Hence the long ass email. Awesome shit, dude.

absolutely not. Its more rewarding to find the bits and pieces yourself and build your weapon. It also makes you spend more time looking around and looting. If you just opened a door and found a fully modded gun then where is the effort? Its not like there is a whole bunch of hobbies and pass times to do ingame yet unless you count fishing or hunting.

Um you do realize that the suppressors dont actually work yet, right?

I switch from my main gun to my side arm when i enter a building or small space. Its easier for the fact that you enter a close quarter combat enviornment and the last thing you need to do is open a door in the barracks to find some dude hiding in there and you have a scoped weapon

looks good to me, uusally helps if you have the resolution set to your monitors main setting. One thing that took me ages to sort out was turning off ambient occlusion, didnt realize that was what was causing the ugly shadow effect over grass and objects on the floor

What other game allows you to sneak up on someone trying to open a can of tactical bacon with an axe and then you handcuff them, only for you to strip them of their attire and force feed them disinfectant while you are blaring Justin bieber songs over direct chat as a form of torture, then teabagging them as you yourself are only wearing underwear? When you are done you force him to watch his friends (if he has any) stab each other with knives that my friends provided to them while under armed guard to see who will survive the onslaught. Then when they fail to answer your questions you can just break their leg, and leave them cuffed while you skip off on your merry way doing the happy surrender wave dance. (Trying to explain this to someone who has never played DayZ got me a raised eyebrow.)

so when did Steve Buscemi start playing Dayz?

But, but, I don't like the little things you cant notice I like the big things, i want cars, why hasn't anyone said we need cars yet. I want to build a base with a walmart on the 2nd floor, I want to laser designate a drone to attack people so if i miss they wont shoot me back, I want trucks, I want to be able to build optimus prime at a workbench I want a helicopter with miniguns and all the charracter skins from COD, They should even add the option to build a rocket to fly to the moon so we can fight zombies up there too. But no seriously dude, you are right in what you are saying, but some impatient people really just dont get that the small fixes and invisible updates are actually important, just because the devs havent included things that ONE person wants out of the 12 million players who have bought the game, then its just not going the way they want it to. Then you get the others that whinge that they want the game to be more like the mod... Well go play the mod instead, buttercup, what is the point of recreating the exact same game to something else thats already out? I like the fact that SA has a different dynamic to the mod. The game is being developed at a steady pace, and all the little bugs and invisible fixes that you don't notice in game doesn't mean the development is going slow at all, it just means its becoming more and more stable, but if its one thing i have learned from the gaming community is you can never please the impatient needy man children who want it all their way and want it now.

...You're driving down a country lane and you see an isolated farm at the back of a huge field and think "Hmm, looks like a perfect place to hold up and barricade."

You will only lose faith if you have little patience. If this game was funded on its own and kept as a development releasing only screenshots and videos you would have nothing to complain about. Whether you like it or not, you are an unpaid beta tester that paid a small fee to have the privelige. If you hav lost faith. Uninstall Dayz and come back next year to see whats new

Never trust a server admin, especially one that owns a server that says "Do not shoot on sight, friendlies only" then he and his buddies try to shoot us on sight until we get the upper hand

We joined the server shown in the video because one of my friends had only just got the game and had no idea how to play so rather than jump in right at the deep end into a typical server with 30+ players that would shoot, rape and eat my buddy on sight, we wanted to find one that looked quiet and seemed friendly so he at least had a fighting chance of surviving longer than 5 minutes before we located where he was.

flame throwers? Why the fuck not? Throw in a BFG from doom 2 & a particle cannon from Command and conquer while you're at it. Why not add in some mech warriors too, really make Dayz stand out. Or try to concentrate a bit more on useful non weaponized items or a barricading system.

they may very well do, but thats like saying people only get the highly telescopic rifle scopes just to shoot long distance zombies

its not so much the flashbang, its the direction this game seems to keep getting pulled towards. Whats next barret 50 sniper rifle, full spec ops outfit, call in predator drone strikes on people at berezino? may as well get all the call of duty gear in, we already have the players

well done, because we all need flashbangs in a zombie survival game. Way to make Dayz lean even more towards being a pvp tactical military simulator with the odd zombie thrown in. killing on sight is going to be made even easier. Sigh. I think im going to play some state of decay, because at least i know where i stand with that

I like most are really looking forward to vehicles because it will be a big game changer, but I feel they should be unarmed vehicles. Civillian cars, trucks, vans etc... yes. I even think that civillian aircraft such as cesners and news/police helicopters will work too, because those are the sort of things you would find at an airfield. I think where it will all go wrong is when they start to militarize them, The one thing I hated about the mod was the fact I would drive around in an old pick up truck, then out of nowhere a fucking Blackhawk armed with twin miniguns would appear over the hill & open up on me. Because Dayz then just became arma 2 again. I even think the odd unarmed military Humvee would work because again as I said earlier, its what you would find at a military base or when a zombie outbreak kicks off. You should have the option as a car passenger to fire your gun out the window but not have any 50 cal guns or stupid high calibre missile launchers or miniguns attached to them. it will be a more ruthless kill on sight game than it is now if vehicles are armed, because you cant run and hide like you could if someone was chasing after you. That said i think it would be awesome to have the option as a passenger to shoot out the window. It at least gives you a better chance to run to the other side where he cant get the angle on you (unless there is one in each seat or you get run over first.) In the mod someone would be mounted on a 50 cal in a Humvee and spray rounds in your direction eventually getting a lucky hit. it was too easy. Can you imagine trying to shoot single rounds from the mosin at a player in a moving vehicle while the player is trying to dodge your shots? A lot more fair for the player and a bigger challenge for the car passenger. I also like the idea of customizing your car and repairing it when it gets damaged, those spraypaint cans finally get to be used for their original purpose. Cut down wood or smelt metal to create protective covers for your windows mad max style, that sort of thing.

A hot campfire or oven (Now an option ingame) would be able to smelt metal, apocalypse or not, we have been able to enjoy the miracle of fire since the stone age & had the ability to smelt metal since the iron age, that was a couple of years before the human race de evolved into retarded iphone/facebook addicts, but I think if an apocalypse happened, we would have the basic tools at our disposal to do it.

I think any vehicle in an apocalypse be it zombie or natural plague is an absolute basic necessity. Yes it reduces the risk when you are on the road to get from a to b, but there have been many times when playing the mod I would pull up to a building, loot it and run out to a hail of gunfire only to see my precious lada getting driven away by a bandit. Its no different than a bandit looting your corpse

Yeah i have to admit It did start to get stupid with the amount of bases and base building options you were given. some guy created a 100 foot high cross shaped base you could see for miles. I like the idea of keeping it down to the apocalyptic realism where you barricade and fortify with the stuff you have at hand, and can do basic crafting with certain tools. In fact i remember a time when I was in my base doing crafting and out of nowhere i heard "Ride of the Valkyrie" blast out of my speakers. I was like wtf is that? I went outside and there were 2 helicopters hovering over my base and they opened fire on it, the music was being blared out over direct chat. It was hillarious but also scary as fuck

Yeah i should have specified in my opening post, I played the Epoch version of DayZ as I didn't enjoy the basic mod on its own. I used to be on a server where there was an equal amount of heros and Bandits and everyone got along on side chat. if you died by another player you didn't bitch about it, but towards the end, the server just got Fraped. People were flying around in armed Blackhawks and blowing up peoples locked vehicles when they weren't online and generally being a menace. It became a competition to see who was top gun on the server who had the biggest and best armed vehicles and they would wipe out anyone else who tried to follow in their footsteps. In the end it just wasn't DayZ anymore it just felt like it was a bad day in the Ukraine... with zombies thrown in. The admins decided to change servers (I don't see how that really solved the problem when anyone could just join the new server) As a result everyone lost their bases and gear which killed off the community because it took fucking ages to build up a really nice base with a helipad on the roof, not to mention the ultra rare items you couldn't just get from a trader.

Gamers will descriminate no matter what the reason if they are losing or are keyboard warriors. When getting beaten or losing an argument in side chat they will resort to belittling, racism, making mom jokes or generally just swearing. Experiencing this as a woman doesn't mean you jump to the front of the queue waving the discrimination card about. We all get it one way or another, its the way it is. We are all grown up and can handle a bit of name calling or what not because for god sake we teach children about sticks and stones, why is it that the older we get the more offended we become and find it harder to deal with name calling or discrimination? We all say we want freedom of speech & freedom ff expression until someone says something we don't like then we start whining that we need more censorship. Now im not saying i agree with racial or sexist descrimination, but I'm big enough and old enough to brush it off and feel pity for the poor unfortunate fool who feels he is angry enough to use it on others in a computer game.

My wife plays the Dayz epoch mod religiously and she is known on some servers as the black widow because she is deadly and takes no prisoners. If you are nice, she will help you, and she has gone on quite a few missions with other players on numerous occasions. if you upset her, she will hunt every corner of the map to find you. Theres no prejudice against her for being a girl. Armed only with an axe she went charging at an armed player, swinging away like tiger woods on crack. Injured and unable to get a clear shot at her, he jumps in his car and runs her over and drives away, with only a broken leg she fixes it with morphine and notices that in his blind panic, he left his base open, so a woman scorned craving vengeance with warm blood still dripping from her hatchet, what's she gonna do? That's right run inside and destroy all his cars and his aircraft. Not leaving until everything is burning behind her. That poor guy is gonna return home and see that yet again the black widow left her mark. My wife is awesome. So if you feel you are getting prejudice in game, shoot them in the bollocks, then you will have bigger balls than they do.

My fps dropped considerably making it almost unplayable for me. I thought they may have turned on some of the graphics options, but even whgen i lowered everything down to low it was still about 5-15 fps