Kirov (DayZ)

You may still want to do something about that Dubky line. As it is, southern spawns have access to apples but those at Svetlo are seriously fucked. Maybe some constant distance from the coast would work better?

Well, the OP's concern is one of the most legit ones I can think of, we can't just dismiss it by dayz being dayz. This is neither a 'players are dicks' thing nor an 'alpha' thing. But as far as I know, the devs do work hard on eliminating hackers and hacking options, so let's hope the problem is solved by the final release.

I believe there's an upcoming tool which will give jack shit to gamma uppers (all you'll get will be patches of grey, no contours). DayZ night needs serious improvement but when it gets one, I'm gonna play it like there's no tomorrow.

I believe it's against this forum's rules to discuss hacking in depth. Apparently, it makes people want to hack or something. True or not, it's a fact that the topic of hacking has been run into the ground around here. Although the same holds for most other issues I can think of, so there you go. I can recommend private servers, I don't know if they are completely hacker-free but I sure don't have to worry about hackers and the other bane, server hoppers/campers.

I hate to rain on anyone's parade and don't get me wrong, I love the new graphics, sounds, etc. but... wasn't the forest supposed to be much thicker now? Chernarus forests continue to look like lumberjacking was the only profession available around, I've literally seen city parks denser than that. I see no improvement in this department based on a few videos and my own 5 minutes around Kamyshovo, can anyone tell me if the Black Forest etc. looks the same?

Done.

Goodnight, sweet prince. Pity for the barrel bug, I can say that trying to bring a toon under these conditions can be very satisfying. Good idea!

I must say I wondered once or twice. You always contribute mature and informative content, and I try to know and explore the game mechanics as much as possible. Keep it up!

I'm 35, living in Warsaw, Poland. I've clocked +1300 hours and have probably circa 20 kills under my belt, all in self-defence or hot spots. Usually trying to help people (although I've learnt to keep freshies in a crosshair while I talk to them, when will the Tyson punch go away?). Once I and my friend were called by some dude 'the friendliest guys I've met in this game'. :D

In apocalypse, your life is 'nasty, brutish and short' even in a pure PVE setting, like it is for wild animals. Your most prized possession? A Glock with 3 damaged bullets, some antibiotics, matches, tools for crafting arrows or bolts. You can't raid a mil base by yourself due to the immense threat of military zeds, so you keep your radio open or leave a note in a somebody's tent you've found in order to look for a helpful hand. Unless you keep your wits about you, by default you'll be cold, hungry and just barely getting over some sickness. Bright-green energized/hydrated is how you recognize a veteran player. You're always on your toes - some zeds never shriek, some can enter high windows, smash doors in. In cities, you either crouch or crawl. You watch a huge zed intensely and wait until he shuffles away. Playing at night is like playing Slenderman. I understand this is not what many people want and that such a game would have a steep learning curve, but hey, you asked about our personal expectations. ;) I don't know what would need to happen for me to say that dayz became too hard. And I think that PVP will always remain strong, no matter what you do. Clans will always have their own "join=kick" servers and big bases with loads of boomsticks. But solo players, they should be thrilled to find a can opener. Above all, the in-game behaviour should not boil down to looting. Your gameplay shouldn't be just 'let me see here, let me see there'. I've looted thousands of buildings and frankly, I'm kinda fed up with it. Many times I want to go back to dayz, then I just see a row of building and think to myself, 'no, looting these is the opposite of what I'd like to do now and how I imagine surviving in a post-apoc environment'.

Seriously relogs and other standard approaches like thrashing around, etc. don't work? Damn, I need to watch out. Never happened to me, though. OP, it was fun to follow you entries! If you want, I can kill you and stash your gear, I'm in Krasno on your server.

On public servers, military sites will have been stripped clean by server hoppers; eventually you see that, get frustrated and start hopping yourself. This is why I stick to private servers - there are no hoppers so each player has to actually walk to a mil site. You will get your chance after the loot respawns. Try for yourself, but personally, I haven't been to a public server in like two years.

That's another issue - I think I would do something about this rule. As it is, toons which spawns in Berezki/Svetlo are seriously fucked. Maybe the distance from the coast should matter?

The need to alternate food items works quite nice, but is very hard if you ban both pumpkins and apples (which are waay better than peppers and zucchini, while tomatoes are not even worth bothering). I'm thinking - maybe you can eat apples but only to bring yourself from starving to very hungry (or very hungry to hungry)? This way, a toon has more chances of surviving a bad spawn while still be very much on his toes (you can take apples with you to keep you alive but they take up slots). And you still have to alternate between apples and other food items, like berries.

The above I played on a German server with no acceleration, just 1 hour of late evening + 3 hours of night. It has "ohne crosshair" in the name (there is no crosshair). However, last night I joined your server at dayztv and tried to survive with the following mode: you can't eat any food twice in a row, i.e. if you find berries, you can't just pick berries all the time, you need to switch to some other food (which may be followed by berries). I gave up on pumpkins but I was forced to eat two apples as I went starving. I have seeds for tomatoes, zucchinis and peppers (and a container - alcohol bottle), but can't find any digging tool. Svetlo and Olsha seem to be stripped clean. I'll give it a try in Krasno but I expect to die of starvation before I make it. I like the idea that you have to mix types of food (try eating 10 apples in real life). But we came up with so many rules that right now it is a Russian roulette - you have very little time to find all resources you need and if your town has been looted by somebody else, you're fucked. EDIT: found a pickaxe on your server and grew 3 kinds of vegetables. I can't bring myself to 'energized', but hunger is over. All in all, two apples eaten but I could do without them, it was just panic.

All right, 10 hours in and I think I've made it. By which I mean that the first stage of survival, "will I make it through the next hour?", seems to be finally over. I'm dark-red stuffed and bright-green energized/hydrated to prove that. I have a full cooking pot, 8 fillets and 2 full pumpkins. I also have a full roll of bandages, a map and compass, morphine and some antibiotics. And one purification tablet. This means that I can survive basically anything that the environment can throw at me, sans wolves. I'm at Dolina right now. I wonder what the stage two is going to be. I can either 1) hunt cows (I even have composite arrows) in order to craft leather equipment, or 2) slowly try to make it to military areas, in order to find weapons to fend off packs of wolves. What do you think, guys? I gave up on the torch altogether, it takes away more than it gives and needs more work from the devs. Currently, I'm looking for batteries for my headtorch (I've found like 4 damaged ones so far). I can consider myself somewhat medium-geared, but still without an actual gun. I stashed a Scorpion in a barrel in Shakhovka and now I found the ammo. But the Scorpion won't even kill me a pack of wolves. It's good against cows, at best. What I could use is a shotgun. But the main issue is, I have high morale now. Food in my pockets, the cooking pot, drugs... It's pitch black 75% of the time on my server but still, I'm walking on sunshine... ;) Happy hunting, kopo79!

Animals do get stuck on rocks sometimes, less so than in the past but it's still a thing. I'm going to refrain from killing under such circumstances. The firedrill kit used to be one-time only, but now can be used several times. Hey, don't make the rules too relaxed! I managed to survive under them, although this is truly a meagre life. But if I be careful with people and zeds, I don't expect to die. If anything, we can add more limitations.

All in all, 6 hours under those settings and I brought my toon to bright-green energized and hydrated with a couple of fish. But my knife got worn in the process and my supply of rags is dwindling. I need a water container, alcohol (and/or more bandages), another knife. When I get that, I'll try to find some real boomsticks in order to hunt heavier animals. I killed a cow with a bow once but it was pain in the ass. I don't think that the bow is OP, it's too time-consuming to learn and OMG that arrow crafting, something must be done about it. Why each new arrow decides to change its location? Do they crawl away to new slots or what? It's so annoying. Just moments before I logged out, I found a cooking pot. I was so happy I did a jumping jack, then I used my rag to simulate "attaching to backpack", and only then I discovered that the pot is damaged... lol. More rules to consider: - no water straight from ponds, you must purify it first (I know we risk cholera right now, but the odds are very slim under current conditions and it's worth it to drink from ponds when you're healthy) - no taking advantage of any glitches, bugs. What I'm thinking is, I spotted a deer stuck in the Elektro pond and it was so tempting to finish it with a knife; however, I decided that this would run counter to the spirit of your settings so I let the animal live.

Fair play and integrity at its finest. Hello, little bunny! You and other bunnies are the reason I left public for good the moment they introduced private. So... yeah, cheaters are bad, I guess.

Played for like an hour... At first I started to run from Elektro to Cherno (to comply with the rules) but then I figured that the rule I mention (making you leave the town of logging) is more of a nuisance than actual difficulty (I can just hop between Elektro and Cherno if I want), so I decided to stay. Do you follow this rule that you can't check the server pop via Steam? I don't know if it's too obvious to be written but maybe it should be there. What about making the bow only from the ashwood tree, like it used to be some time ago? Anyhow, I've got matches and bones for a fishing hook, which means that at the next session, my toon shall eat his fill. I'm still ridiculously low geared and I could badly use alcohol, I have only 2 applications of a bandage left. Fortunately, sharpened sticks are enough to kill zombies. God it's so dark. And lamps don't work properly in this patch. I'm stuck to the bloody torch... Oh well. Take care on your trips! In what city are you, anyway?

I have just played 4 hours with those settings, on a low-pop server with 75% night, HC, no crosshair. All in all, crazy hard! I spawned in Elektro and couldn't find a cutting device for like 3 hours (and then several machetes and saws in a row, ofc). I tried to survive without apples, but after a while just had to take them. Lowering gamma meant almost pitch black when my flare went out (for an hour I could barely see if I'm indoors or not, eventually I found matches by some luck). No damaged stuff meant that I'm still very much low-gear (I was so proud to craft a bow after just 4 hrs of playing). I gave zeds a wide berth (couldn't even see them in the darkness) so all in all had like 5 fights. No 5 players met, which is one drawback of that server - it's got very cool settings (1 hour of late evening + 3 hours of dark night) and is HC, but not many people fancy that. 4 hours in and I still need to find a water container, alcohol, a pot+stove, any boomstick (I found a lot but far from the police). However, after I scoop all the chickens in Elektro I think I'm ready to leave the city. Sure takes time to adjust to these settings - using Tab in pitch black is all too natural. And the artificial light is shit so I allow myself to have gamma only slightly decreased on condition that I use the torch (the devs really need to keep working on that). But I love it! I'm currently somewhat off my relationship with DayZ, but maybe will give it a longer try.

Damn. And here I worry every time I take unnecessary damage like from the zeds, etc. Thanks, man.

So does the bone stat exist or is it just a rumour? I must say this concept (assuming the stat doesn't regenerate) really did affect my in-game behaviour many times.

A lithium battery works great.

BTW, very good job. I always appreciate your input. I hope I'll help you with your research once we get to 1.0. I did a lot of study on my own which after some time was outdated, so I decided to wait for the final release. Keep it up!