BleedoutBill

Welcome to the apocalypse! As you have discovered, the apocalypse does not come with an instruction manual and neither does this game. It would be pointless as things are changing too quickly. Besides, as you mention, figuring things out is half of the satisfaction. I am glad to hear that you didn't give up. You will find, that even though everything doesn't work properly yet, there is a lot of depth to this game. Sometimes this can be frustrating. Here are a few tips to get you started: NEVER trust anyone, Don't fight a zed unless you have to - use stealth, Don't get attached to your gear - when you die, you start with a clean sheet of paper. You are going to die ... a lot. Try to learn something from each death. If you are fascinated with the mechanics of the game, as I am, you may wish to check out the WOBO youtube channel.

I don't know where you are, so I can't suggest a server that is local to you. Your friends should be able to look at the server properties of your favorite server and give you the IP and port number. You can use that data to manually connect to a server. Launch parameters - Right click on the name of your game in the Steam menu. Select "Properties." Right click on "Launch Options." Clear everything out of here, as most launch parameters have been deprecated and can cause problems. User Interface - A few weeks back the devs gave us a sneak peak at the new user interface. One of the problems with this interface was that it wouldn't display the servers for some folks. At the time we had to use the -oldui (I think) launch parameter in order to get the old interface back. The game has since defaulted back to the old interface, but it is possible to see the new interface with a -newui (I think) launch parameter. If you can't connect manually and / or if removing the launch parameters doesn't fix the problem, submit a help ticket.

Removed your launch parameters? Using the old user interface? Fails when manually entering the IP address? You may wish to submit a help ticket.

I don't expect anything to change in the short term. However, once the new character controller is implemented, this should open up many new options for the devs to work with, such as simultaneously holding a different item in each hand.

I couldn't compose a good shot if my life depended on it, but I know it when I see it. You definitely have an eye for this.

Some of those pics would make perfect, "Welcome to fabulous Berezino" picture post cards. Good job!

In the last status report, the devs indicated that they were working on "fall damage mitigation," a "new damage system," as well as the new "character controller." Of the three, I believe that the new character controller will provide the foundation for the solution and the other items mentioned will address our concerns once and for all.

So we had this bright and very distracting dot in the center of the screen and the devs tried a much less distracting transparent circle, instead. After that, based of feedback from the community, they tried transparent brackets "( )." It seems to me that the alpha stage is precisely when the devs should be experimenting to see if they can improve the user interface, and as it is in alpha, they can readily get feedback on what works and what doesn't. I don't see how this sort of experimentation leads to the end of civilization, as we know it. Personally, I'm glad to see that the devs trying to make improvements to the UI, rather than slapping any old crap into the game and calling it a day.

DayZ currently uses a lot of bandwidth, but the average DSL connection is more than adequate. If you have DSL and others in the house are also using bandwidth, you may run into issues.

I found a broadsword, so naturally I felt compelled to head to Devil's Castle to test it out. Once my destination was in view, I broke into a sprint and I suffered some of the worst desync and rubber-banding that I have ever experienced.

The base isn't there yet, but they have "paved" the roads and the building foundations have already been "poured." Still, that's probably enough activity to attract spectators, with nothing better to do (I resemble that remark!).

I hopped onto the EU server and I had a thorough look through the Myshkino military camp and I didn't find anything. There were no clothes, no shoes, no books, no nothing. The place was completely bare. Where are you finding loot, on the US, or EU server?

If you go up there and have a look around, you will find that the roads have already been paved and the building areas have been cleared and concrete foundations poured. It looks like it will be a considerable facility, perhaps on par with the base outside of Pavlovo.

I have a Phenom X6 and 8GB of RAM and I get 5-15FPS in the big towns and 35-45FPS out in the woods. I've had both a GTX470 and a GTX780 in this box and the FPS is roughly the same.

Detailed recommendations don't make a lot of sense at this stage, because the game changes with every build. For general recommendations, both the devs and the forum admins have linked to this guide on several occasions: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=216291078

Run - yes. Playable - probably not. Of course, everyone has their own idea about what is playable and I am sure that several folks will chime in and say that they've played on less capable hardware, but the bottom line is that this game's performance is disappointing on purpose-built gaming machines. Personally, I would recommend that you wait until some optimizations are implemented.

Correct, when we have the full release of W10, MS will be offering free upgrades for select customers.

You can download the ISO here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/preview-iso If I recall, for the time being, it will only install on a machine with UEFI. This is beta code, so do not use it on a production machine. The full release will be towards the end of the year.

-nosplash and -nopause have been depricated. If you experience a crash on launch, -winxp is a common cause. Since the OP does not provide any hardware details, the other recommendations may not be compatible with his rig.

According to the Quarterly Report, they have decided to skip DX9 and go straight to DX11 ... with DX12 support implemented at a later date. http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/223250-quarterly-status-report-quarter-1-2015/

Eugen has already provided quite a lot of information about the CLE, but sadly, many players would rather complain, than inform themselves. Below, I have compiled and gently edited his comments, so that they are all in one place for easy reference. (The) Central Loot Economy is a system which controls the quantity of items in the game, per server. The old spawn system was hard to configure and even harder to control. And, with survival gameplay being core to DayZ, we had to move away from it sooner, or later. Item settings can now be changed in real time through our front-end, or directly in the database. Each item class is tagged as crafted, or not crafted and it carries a nominal/minimal/maximum amount. The nominal value directly controls the quantity of items the server is aiming to deliver at initial start up. After that, the system is controlled by a combination of the Clean-up and the Real-time Respawn mechanisms. When an item class reaches (nominal - minimal) it will start restocking. The maximum amount of an item class on a server is (nominal + maximum). There is also a setting that dictates maximum quantity of all items on a server. In the current iteration each server oscillates between 19k-25k items, with the total maximum set to 45k. The Respawn tick happens every 5 seconds as does Clean-up. Each class has nominal/minimal/maximum values defined. When a item's class gets to a minimal value (usually about 50% of nominal) it will start respawning based on priorities. Each item in persistence also carries a lifetime value, AKA the time in seconds it can stay on the ground before expiring. Tents, backpacks and cases have the value greatly increased (on the order of several days), while other items diminish in a matter of hours. Thus only tents, backpacks and cases should be used as loot caches. While the system cleans these expired items, it quickly starts restocking the original spawn points (memory points on buildings). Items in tents, backpacks and player inventories are not part of this calculation. The configuration of the system is still in progress as are the features. Bugs : Items can disappear in vicinity of player. Also, there was a misconfiguration yesterday (April 01), which caused items to disappear instantly. Rarity items except guns have not been configured yet so their spawn points are illogical. And a lot more. Future : We will continue to fine tune the system over the next couple months. New features, such as logical distribution, timing and item class logic (that evenly distributes items over all regions of the map) will be added. You can expect some fine-tuning of item numbers over the next week and a lot more configuration changes when 0.56 hits. In the meantime enjoy the hardcore survival, and try to stay safe. EDIT : Since the question was asked more than couple of times, items have tags, as well as buildings and there is a heat map that coordinates the distribution to proper area/place. Only guns and police stations are configured now. *** I explained in the original post, that with the exception of guns, every other item is not configured to proper building/area. This change requires a client update so it is scheduled for 0.56. *** 9-12 days without any activity, will cause the camp (tent) to disappear. This value may be adjusted in the future. *** As vehicles are endgame (once they are built / repaired) they will only be deleted and respawn, once they are damaged beyond repair. *** Server restart has NO EFFECT on the respawning of loot! *** ... (the 5 second tick rate is) a performance saver, if it would tick every 5 minutes it would probably cause a server freeze. The oscillation graph for total items goes up and down in cycles as do the items. The longer the respawn tick rate the higher the differences get. *** (If I eat an apple, or just pick it up and put it down, will it immediately respawn, or immediately clean up?) No in both cases. *** Heli crash respawn is not tied to server restart but is on separate (long) clock. *** A whole city probably takes about 52 minutes to replenish. *** There are currently 1,737,859 possible loot spawn locations on the map.

It looks like choppers will not spawn expected loot until 0.56 at the earliest. Per Eugen: I explained that in original post, every item except guns is not configured to proper building/area. This change requires a client update so its scheduled to 0.56

That was my thought. With adequate lookouts, I think it will be easy to vector early responders, in order to repel an attack. Spawning in will be their only option to do serious harm. We may need a squad to address snipers on the mainland, though.

Stamina is planned for introduction sometime in Q2, but so far only zeds seem to have stamina. Since we haven't seen player stamina in 0.55 exp, it's pretty unlikely that it will pop up in 0.55 stable. http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/215848-dayz-moving-into-2015/

Just in time for the next party! Hopefully no "Rolling Thunder" skiddie grenades this time!!! Eugen Harton ‏@eugenharton Veni Vidi Bani #2ndround #hackertears