Kirov (DayZ)

Russian is used outside of Russia, notably in Belarus and the eastern half of Ukraine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_where_Russian_is_an_official_language

I think the term 'fictional Ukraine' is in place, much like Fallout is based in fictional US. I know, I know, the names in Chernarus are different and there is no match in geography, but the question is surely there - it is a fictionalized... what? Or to put it in another way, which real cultural setting inspired Chernarus? When I run around Cherna, I definitely look for any semblances with the pre-'89 eastern Poland I vaguely remember as a kid. And it's fun. ;)

Before this escalates any further: pilgrim, I'm not sure Whyherro meant what you think he meant. Nobody here is saying that Chernarus is like the Czech Republic now or before '89, or that the CR is backwards, or has access to the sea, or uses the Cyrillic, or relies on 56kb/s modems. It was just stated that Cherna uses a topography layout taken from the CR, while the rest of its 'atmosphere' goes more along the lines of a struggling, ex-USSR, Orthodox state, definitely far from NATO or EU structures. On the other hand, it can't be too far into Asia, culturally speaking, among the something-stan countries (yeah I know, it's near Green Sea). Personally, I feel quite cozy in Chernarus, as parts of it do resemble eastern rural parts of Poland in the good ol' days of one Party. I think you can still find this kind of layout, architecture and the general feel of shoddiness in countryside Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and last but not least, Russia. Never been to the CR/Slovakia so I wouldn't know, but don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about. ;)

Just to make sure: yeah, I know it's fictional and doesn't really belong on the real world map, it's just food for thought where Chernarus would fit the best if we had to squeeze it in somehow. I'd say it can't be too far from Ukraine, probably not on the far side of the Caspian Sea where Kazakhstan is.

The topography means nothing, it's just a layout used by the devs, those woods are not Czech in nature. The geography on the other hand is definitely non-Czech, as the CR is land-locked. So we were basically wondering where on the actual map (and don't tell me it's the CR because of the topography) Chernarus would be located due to its national flavour, i.e. language, flag etc. There is a difference between western countries of the Warsaw Pact (Poland, the CR), western ex-Soviet countries like Belarus and Ukraine, and more eastern ones like Kazakhstan. And we're trying to deduce it here. Also, I'd need to browse a bit, but I'm not sure if it would be historically correct to use the '-rus' suffix for regions so distant from the European parts of the ex-USSR. Territories between Poland and Moscow can definitely be '-rus' this and '-rus' that, I wouldn't be that sure with Georgia and farther east.

Yeah, but the cardinal directions are somewhat off. I know it's just a rule of thumb, but on national roads, when you have a road sign pointing to your right, the destination place is usually more or less to your right, not behind you. Imagine you have Berlin straight to the North and have a right arrow saying 'Rome xxx km'. While possible on motorways due to ring roads and what not, it's hardly likely with local roads, like the one south of Lopatino. Not a definite proof, but I would still hold that Moscow is somewhere in the most general direction to the right (i.e. North) of the avatar in the picture. Somewhere between NW and NE, at the very least. And Moscow is more ENE for the Czechs.

One more thing - this image is taken S of Lopatino and the avatar is facing West. That could suggest that Moscow is past Lopatino in the general North(ish) direction. So maybe it's the Caucasus area, Armenia or Azerbaijan. Or the other side of the Caspian Sea, Turkmenistan/Uzbekistan/Kazakhstan.

Ah yes, I forgot about that roadsign, I've seen it as well. Well, that would put Chernaus somewhere in Central Asia, wouldn't it?

Speaking from the Polish perspective, it looks like Chernarus is just a generic fictional country in the area of Eastern Europe, probably ex-Soviet Union (as evidenced by the Cyrilic, although it was not used in the Baltic ex-Soviet states but used in non-USSR Bulgaria). The flag is not Ukrainian, but definitely looks like inspired by it. And as Tatanko pointed out, Chernarus just means 'black Russia', a wink to Belarus, 'white Russia'. So more a general inspiration than a 'fictional Ukraine'. Think Austin Powers' 'Kreplachistan' or any other Cracovia, Ruritania and what have you.

I'm not 100% sure, but I was carrying around raw steaks for a long time and they stayed ok, so I believe you don't need to worry. Also, there is no item like 'rotten meat'. Interesting stuff about those campfires, thanks guys for the info.

Some more minor info: 1) add more firewood or stones (minable with pickaxes) for faster cooking; 2) stones can also improve axes from 'badly damaged' to 'damaged'; 2) cooking time varies even with the same amount of wood/stones; I got results from 3 to 11 minutes, so you need to watch it as said above; 3) cooked steaks get burned in ca 10 seconds; 4) try to go for pristine or worn knives/machetes (bayonets won't work); worse condition yields little food; 5) the percentage yield decreases with every skinning/preparing, even if your knife stays at the same condition; for this reason, you may want to replace your pristine knife with a newly found pristine one; 6) meat seems very nutritious, taking little stomach volume for a great amount of energy and considerable hydration; 7) campfires don't warm you up indoors as of now

The ingame map is one of the most important items to me and, combined with a compass, gives me much more of a peace of the mind than a loaded gun. I wonder how many people around here actually bother to use it instead of the online version? And for those who do, do you aim to get a hold of one piece of a complete map or do you prefer two complementary parts (e.g. W+E) for better zoom-in scale (if you put the entire map together, you lose a lot of resolution)? And a few more issues/questions that follow: 1) Is it only my impression that the ingame map is much less accurate than the online one? I'm not talking about the roads, those are fine, nor the fact that the Northern town names are not updated. What is off is mostly greenery, i.e. woods, grasslands, crops, etc. Sometimes it's confusing and very hard to navigate without any man-made landmarks. You can compare the wood areas south of Sinistok to see what I mean (I've checked and I'm quite sure it's the online map which is correct). 2) Some time ago in mid-August I played on a hardcore server and noticed I got a GPS on my map! There was a yellow circle in my exact location and it moved whenever I moved. However, this disappeared on the next day and I never saw that again. Do you think that some kind of a GPS device was tried out? I must say I'm in two minds here - navigating with just a compass and a map can be quite frustrating, but also very realistic and I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to a 'You are here' dot moving around on my paper map, and in a game where walkie-talkies are considered high tech for that matter... 3) Currently as of .48, you can make notes on your ingame map but these disappear every time you change the server. Do you have the same experience and does anybody know when we'll get to make permanent map marks?

The main problem for me is that currently I get 'I'm cooling off' messages on most servers, but only on some of them this actually means anything. I start on a rainy server, get 'cooling off' for half an hour with no apparent effect, switch to a morning-sunny server, immediately get the actual 'cold' status, switch to another server (I'm not making a fire in the middle of the NWAF) and keep 'cooling off' and 'shaking' for another hour, but this time again with no effect. Fully agree on stacking top clothes, it's ridiculous that a T-shirt excludes a raincoat but you stack infinite gorka jackets one within another.

Check out this sheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V5TON6e76xzXyLWcE4hOY5BCuMKJiM4uK7W3JeQDgvg/pubhtml preferably after watching 2 wobo's videos on temperature, the first one is here: On at least one fact he's wrong, though - I'm quite sure the condition of your clothing affects your temp, to the point where ruined clothes are useless or next to useless.

That was simple and went away, but cooling off in paramedic clothes on a normal sunny day is something I'm less fond of, due to the lack of variety. ColonelBurton, the bug decribed is indeed hilarious. Looks like an ice wizard came to Chernarus.

Something is broken in my opinion, too. Before the hotfix, the paramedic outfit (worn top, pristine pants) worked just fine, at least along with an ushanka, military boots and pristine gloves. But this time I was cooling off immediately (no rain, full sun). After some time I was 'cold', then found a wool coat and put it on. I stopped being cold, but the messages were still like 'I'm promptly cooling off'. To check it out, I waited for many minutes (10-20), but I never got 'cold' again despite a hundred messages to that effect. Switch a server and voila, I'm suddenly warming up. Now, normally I have nothing against the game being tougher than reality. It's still just arbitrary mechanics designed to make our lives harder, not an actual apocalypse simulator. If we had realistic food and clothing, people would just ignore them altogether (you can live for many days without food, after all) and run to their death in Elektro. If you believe it's unrealistic, try to think it's balanced by so many things our avatars have it easier - they never have a toochache or diabetes, can run forever and apparently can wear any pair of shoes regardless of their shoe size. But these most recent restrictions are too hard, IMHO. People shouldn't be forced to choose just from among a gorka, raincoat and woolcoat. I want to run around in paramedic clothes, or fireman clothes, or any other outfit i want without the need to have my backpack full of warm clothes. I hope they rescale it back at least a bit.

I though rabbits are super scarce and hard to spot? I have yet to see and eat my first one.

I just checked both options, indoors and outdoors, and both cook my steaks just fine. I'm pretty sure when people say fire is broken indoors, they only mean its warming up feature. Now I'm quite positive the cooking time is greatly randomized. With 1 Firewood it could be as many as 11 minutes, today it was only 2 minutes and I burned 5 juicy boar steaks. :/

The axe must be 'badly damaged'. Just drag a stone over it in your inventory to sharpen the axe to 'damaged'.

I'm not sure what you mean by cooking being broken. It's still true that the portable gas stove immediately burns all the food (I haven't tried it in .49 but heard no news it got fixed), but cooking in a campfire works perfect for me. Also, I'm not sure about that sticks vs cloth first - you just need to combine them and add at least one firewood. The time of cooking varies greatly in my experience even with the same amount of wood/stone - from 3 to even 11 minutes. But this is certainly affected by how much wood/stone you used, prepare to spend some time watching your steaks if you used only 1 firewood. As for the percentages - one of the must-haves for a hunter-gatherer is a kitchen knife (or a machete, which is unfortunately bigger) of at least worn condition. Remember it gets used up when quartering animals and cutting fish. A new pristine knife yields ca 90% food, it drops by several per cent per quartering even as the knife remains pristine. After many quarterings this drops to ca 50% and the condition becomes worn. I never use any damaged or worse knives. And when I have space, I try to carry 2 pristine knives. You can find some in apartment blocks in Novo (the ones with a big staircase), upstairs in kitchens, along with gas canisters and other cooking stuff. Cooking stuff seems like a waste of time compared to finding beans and peaches, but although the exact stats for steaks and fillets are yet to be published, I find them very nourishing, with a lot of hydration as well and taking really little volume of your stomach. Once, when I was already quite well-fed, I ate like 10 boar/deer steaks of 60% and still wasn't stuffed. However, I was light-green energized for many many hours and could safely ignore found cans. Another tip: if you are worried about the condition of your axe, remember that the size of a tree trunk affects how many chops you need to fall it. Try to chop apple trees, they give only 2 firewoods but need less chops and your axe lasts longer.

There are many orchards, off the top of my head I can recall a bigger one near Berezino (NE of the construction site, S of the lumber mill) and in Dubrovka (at the intersection of the N-S road and the one to Berezino). You can and in fact you should search them multiple times, that's how they work. You should find something (as with berry bushes) within 10 attempts and one tree can provide several apples. I haven't tested it enough to say if you deplete any particular tree and it stops yielding any fruit at some point or decreases your chances, but very often you can just eat 2-3 apples and move to another tree. Usually they come in bunches of at least a few, like in Msta or Dolina. It's a drugdery, sure, but I do that sometimes when I'm a freshie and want to be more 'realistic' - you know, I'm hungry so yeah, I'd rather eat something before I embark on any adventure. :)

Although I do eat canned food, I've spent a lot of time working on my survival skills, crafting, cooking, hunting/fishing, map navigating, etc. A lot of fun for a long time, but gets too easy and repetitive after a while as there are simply not that many things to do yet. I'm still waiting for the horticulture (which was mentioned by the devs before .049, but apparently didn't make it), more varieties of animals and so on. Maybe crafting your own clothes. And I believe all man-made stuff should be greatly reduced in numbers, so that living off of land is a necessity at least to some extent and not a 'crazy hermit' option. :) And the bow should be better, currently it's only good for animals and zombies and I stick to the crossbow even in the 'hunterer-gatherer' mode (and waiting for craftable bolts). No to mention that right now you can solve all your eat and drink problems just by clicking 'search for apples' for like an hour. ;)

I see combining parts of the map as a mini-game, like finding all the accessories to the AK, although I always wondered why I keep finding pieces for areas different from my current one, like an N piece when I'm South and vice versa. Maybe it's just bad luck. And yeah, I prefer combining them in one piece even despite the loss in accuracy - no point in carrying two better maps if the full one will do most of the times. As to the GSP marker - I read in the STALKER guide that it used to be there, but I have seen it only on a few occasions. And although this is super useful, it's also very unrealistic and non-immersive and I'd rather play without it at the risk of getting lost every now and then.

I'm very squeamish about taking life, but was told that airfields are strict warzones, regardless of the server or any other circumstances... So I went to the NWAF with a friend of mine, the jail building, when I noticed a guy running towards the jail from the hangars. I stepped back and waited for him to come over. Shot 10 rounds from my SKS, reloaded and repeated with another 10 rounds straight into his ass. :D Everything was absolutely ruined on the poor chap. A firing squad would have been more gentle. My friend had a good laugh at my perseverance in making sure the guy's completely and doubtlessly dead. Well, what can I say, a warzone is a warzone (although now I plan to refrain from KOSing altogether unless on PvP servers). And I remember the first situation when I was by myself on an HC server. Spotted two heavily-armed guys north of Berezino, near a supermarket. I hid under the stairs in one of the blocks and waited with my longhorn (a single-shot gun, mind you) drawn. Then a Zed appeared before me and screamed like a Zed does. I frantically axed him with shaking hands and hid again, silently begging the guys not to investigate (I thought I can get the first guy and the second one will get me). After what felt like eternity I ran away. In short, nothing serious happened and can't recall when was the last time I had so many emotions in a video game. That's what I like in DayZ. :)

I feel for you when it comes to being forced to kill the people you were trying to help. However, I guess nothing can be done about the a-hole behaviour in question directly. The only thing we can hope for is for the game to develop in directions which will drive certain types of players away. I think the body temperature is one small step closer - try camping the NWAF in a heavy rainstorm now, smartass. When people will need stuff like antibiotics and water purification tablets, when zeds will become a serious issue, then hopefully we'll get some more interesting forms of interaction. Until then, keep your distance when helping freshies and don't hesitate to draw out your gun if you feel something is off about them.