krazypenguin

2 nights ago me and my friend were doing some sound tests. He sat on the ground and waited for his breathing to quieten down then I sprinted right past him at full speed - he said he only heard me literally as I passed by him so I told him to check his effects volume. 5 seconds later, over comms: "Shiiiiiiit, zombie!!! Gunshot, someone's shooting us!!!" Man, I was laughing... I have lots of memorable moments - my first high five with a stranger, my first (and so far only) player kill, just walking across country and being able to see for miles and miles, raiding a barracks at night time in my first few hours of play and spending 10 minutes crouched in a bush convinced another player must be right next to me because I could hear noises (which I now know are just ambient noises), driving a truck down the middle of the NWAF blaring "Freebird" over comms, but for my all time favourite I think it has to be one from within my first hour of gameplay when I didn't know anything at all at the game was really glitchy. As a new spawn I walked up a road and found some wooden planks on some scaffolding. I walked up the planks to the first platform and then simply fell through the floor on the ground, breaking my legs. I didn't know how to craft splints and there was no one to be seen and no zombie to finish me off. I crawled for about an hour, looking for morphine until I came to a massive barn with a ladder inside it. Having had enough of a game where you spent an hour crawling around I decided to cut my losses so I climbed up the ladder and then crawled off the top. At the time I was really annoyed with the game but now I look back on that experience with fondness.

Nice idea, beans to you. 2 suggestions from me: 1) if possible make the coat a raincoat - spawning in the pouring rain, getting instantly soaked and then dying from hypothermia is very annoying... and/or 2) include matches. As they are the only way to make a fire they are something I always look for as soon as I spawn and they can sometimes be difficult to find, though I appreciate that the majority of players probably don't care about hunting animals, cooking steaks and relaxing by a fire. Edit - another thought, might a splitting axe be generally more useful for a new spawn than a pistol and, whether you have an AK pointed at them or not, be a little bit safer for you? ;-)

I had a quiet DayZ. Played with my son on some random high pop private server he was on and discovered that we were nice and close up North. Met up in the train yard at Svetlojarsk where we discovered a blue truck with 20 litres of fuel. A little bored, and not too worried about the consequences, we decided to go for a drive. Passing through Svetlojarsk in an incredibly loud truck is bad enough I guess, so opening voice comms and asking if anyone wanted an ice cream didn't really feel like an excessive risk. Sadly there were no takers so we left via the coastal road, passed the wrecked container ship at Rify and cruised South. We reached the outskirts of the Berezino sprawl in fine mood, singing various trucking related songs over open comms. Now I know that we can't sing, but the criticism we received from one angry Berezino resident was unduly harsh - he started shooting at us! I do love the mindset of some people - Oh look, 2 random players driving a truck down the coast, no threat to me, not bothering anyone, just chilling and having fun. Right, I'm going to shoot them. I threw a few choice but tame insults in his direction, engaged turbo boost (yeah riiiiight...) and sped past him. A few hundred metres down the coast we met a new spawn who panicked and ran for it - fair enough i guess. As we passed him I shouted to him not to head North as there was a bandit up there and we continued on our way with our fuel down to a meagre 10 litres. And then we both lost connection to the server without warning. Pfff, spoilsports. Honestiy admins, how difficult is it to have a "server restarts in 5 minutes" warning? (Answer, it's not difficult at all). I don't know may, maybe it just crashed. Either way, I don't fancy the idea of standing still for 30 odd seconds in the middle of the road on a new spawn run next time I log in... Anyway, my friend sprig had logged onto a public server by then so we joined him and then had the usual 30 minutes of "where are you" "I'm in Zonky Bonk Tronk or something" "Well I am definitely in Dubrovka. 100% sure. Oh hang on, this isn't Dubrovka" shenanigins before me and sprig finally met up but my son was hopelessly lost, ran out of time and had to log off. Our public characters are reasonably well geared (sprig's packing an SKS with over 200 rounds of ammo - just lol - and a Makarov with 3 clips) and I'm carrying a Mosin with LRS (but only the 5 rounds loaded in the gun - no spares at all), my own Makarov with 3 clips and a sawn-off shotgun with about 20 shells. I'm also packing a 30 round mag for a Sporter just in case we find one. As per my previous posts in this thread, just like nillie (post above) I've always wanted to try one and recently forsook the opportunity on a different character in favour of the Mosin & LRS which this character also has. But the "Last Stand Against Evil...with a Sporter..." video (here) really made me want to try one), We've also got 2 canteens each and lots of food. So....what to do? sprig says "I'm easy, not fussed, whatever you want. But I do have an AK-74 mag so I would quite like to get the gun to go with it" Ok, that sounds like an invite for a few hours of jogging through the countryside! I decided to show him the military base in the South West, which was pretty much in the opposite corner of the map to our location and, since we were well equipped, we decided not to take any uneccessary risks by looting towns on the way. So off we set on an epic cross country jog using sprig's compass and only visible landmarks (power lines, deer stand, tree lines and the occasional distant building for reference. Amazingly, we didn't get lost once but we did have one major scare. We'd been using out of game comms to chat on the way but then sprig had to take a call from his wife. Typically, 30 seconds after we cut comms we crested the brow of a forested hill and saw 5 players running across our path just in front of us! I dropped to the floor, got my gun out and typed "Down!" in direct comms, hoping I was far enough away from them for it to show on their screens. Fortunately, sprig was paying attention and also got his gun out and dropped. We watched for a second, expecting them to turn towards us and open fire, then relaxed, put our guns away and got out our fire axes. The 5 players were actually 5 zombies chasing a deer through the forest! We waited a few seconds to let them pass and then carried on our way. Although we had plenty of water in our canteens we wanted to stay fully hydrated so we dropped into the small town of Nadezhdino to fill up. There's a police station next to the well so we decide to take a quick but careful look inside and are rewarded with the discovery of....a Sporter! Sometimes DayZ can be very kind. I slap the mag into the Sporter, sling it on my back and take the Mosin in my hands then ditch it in the forest. After a long jog we finally reached a hill overlooking the airfield at Balota. sprig scans the runway and buildings with his binoculars and it looks clear. We drop down and carefully check out the hangars and buildings but it's been stripped - there's literally nothing here except the low tech gear that people arrived with and dumped in favour of the good stuff. By now it's getting quite late so we retreat to a nearby forest and call it a night.

Use the shift key ("turbo") to boost speed and make sure that, just like a real truck, you take hills with a decent run up and already at speed - momentum is key. Trying to drive a truck uphill from a standing start is a painfully slow process...Edit - OP, nice work, have some beanz. :-)

Using a low pop private server is pretty much the best way to learn the game since there will be very few players on and those that you do meet are probably slightly less likely to KoS (kill on sight) than on a high pop public server. IMO, the best DayZ experience is on a private, 1st person (1PP) server but that might be a bit too much for your son to start with - 3rd person (3PP) is a bit more friendly for newer players. To find a good server for him, click on Change Server on the main menu screen, then sort the list of servers by the number of players (lowest to highest). Find a server with either 0 or maybe 1-2 players on it, which has "Private" in the Hive column, and 1st/3rd person in the Mode column. Check the description and, although they are mostly meaningless, try and look for one that seems to be reasonably friendly and welcoming - it *might* help. Make sure the the icon in the first column is a green circle (not a gold key) and then click on the name of the server one to highlight it. Once it is highlighted, click on "Add to favourites" at the bottom of the screen - this will add that server to the favourites tab at the top of the screen so you can easily find it next time you play - this is important because it's easy to "lose" a server in the main list of servers (where there are hundreds) and because this is a private server your son's character will be unique to that server. Good luck!

1 - No, not according to the map\spawn table I am aware of. It must have been left there by another player. 2a - High capacity vests can spawn on the bed, under the bed or on the floor in the barracks. However, they are one of about 90 possible items. I'm not good enough to calculate the probability of finding one across 5 barracks but i do know that one of the golden rules of DayZ is that if you want to find something, you won't find it. 2b - I'd also point out that if you were server hopping other people would be too, so the chance of you being the first person to hit the same barracks on 5 restarted servers in a row is probably quite low. I'm willing to bet that at least one or more was already looted by the time you got there. 2c - This is precisely why I dislike public servers nowadays. Private servers FTW! ;-)

Hi guys, I also want to join in and help out in any way that I can. Eno - I meant to reply to your PM to say that I tried to find your server but even using the filter option I just cannot find it. Can you try this for me please? Next time you play, highlight the name of your server before you join it and then click "Details" at the bottom of the screen. You should get a box appear with the IP and Port details. If you can post or PM those we can then connect directly to your sever :-) I appreciate that we might not be on at the same time much (Eno's in Canada, I am in the UK, not sure about others) but I am happy to collect whatever supplies you think new spawns might need to survive (maybe bottles of water, canteens, boxes of matches and rags, etc - am open to suggestions) and leave them in bags at your location. I also cannot advise about the burlap sacks but I can answer a question that I think you asked earlier Eno, which was if it is possible to light a fire in the rain under a tree? Yes it is, I did this last night :-) Oh yeah, re the Repeater. The thing is that almost all weapons will one shot kill if you can hit the head. Assuming I am reading it right (and I think I am) looking at the DayZ wiki here for example, you can see that a Repeater shot does 500 shock damage on a hit but 20,000 shock damage if it hits the head - that's 40 times more damage! Even the Sporter .22, which only does 200 shock per hit, will do 20,000 shock damage to the head and one shot kill another player. My only player kill was also with the Repeater but mine was a full-on panicked self defense spray and pray where I didn't even try and aim - I just unloaded 9 shots into the guy's body mass at close range. I obviously didn't hit his head once, I may even have missed quite a few shots anyway, but he only dropped in the end because I managed enough of the "500 shock" hits to take his health and blood levels down enough to knock him out... So to summarise for those of us who aren't experienced in killing other players - either spray and pray, hoping to hit enough times to take them down (but more likely make them bleed so the subsequent blood loss knocks them out), or try for a headshot.

Intro The first time you play the game, or if your previous server is offline, or if you just click "Change Server" you will see the "Servers:" screen. There's a lot of information here and not much explanation of what it all means so this guide is designed to explain the various server options to newer players, to help them understand why sometimes their character appears to be reset and, perhaps most importantly, to assist them in getting a more rewarding DayZ experience. Throughout this article I may refer to various server hosting rules and guidelines, all of which are taken from the official thread located here. Otherwise, I mainly draw on my experience of playing 200 plus hours of DayZ SA. At the top of the screen is a row of buttons: Internet (largest section so placing in a spoiler) Column 1 is either a green circle or a gold key. The green circle means it's not password protected, the gold key means it is. Trying to join a password protected server will prompt you to enter the password - get it wrong and you cannot join. Note that it is against the server hosting rules to put a password on a public server, only private servers should be password protected. Column 2 is Host. This is a description of the server that the server admin chooses, and ideally should be something that is easy to remember (in the above screenshot I always remember one server - guess which one...hmm bacon) and should also provide 2 key pieces of information not displayed elsewhere - whether persistence is on and how often the server restarts. However, the server admin may not include this information in the description, in which case you will need to work it out for yourself. Persistence on means that most gear dropped on the floor should stay there after a regular server restart (but still not a Wednesday morning server maintenance) but can also lead to odd loot distributions and will not feature helicopter crash sites. Persistence off means that loot will be respawned after every server restart (so a tent or backpack left on the ground will disappear) but has the advantage of spawning helicopter crash sites where you can find some of the top end military loot.Server restarts will tell you how regularly the server is restarted which controls the respawn of loot. This is particularly important on persistence off servers (for finding helicopter crash sites) and just generally for getting a feel for how hard your game might be - join a high pop server 3 hours into a 4 hour restart cycle and don't expect to find much loot! Server restarts are typically 1, 2 or 4 hourly, but almost anything is possible.Note - Many server admins will chose descriptions that actually break the server hosting rules, either to attract more players or to try and warn them away. The most common of these is by promising different amounts of loot ("high loot" to attract more players or "low loot" to try and keep people off of the server) or put warnings in the descriptions like "Join=kick", "server not working", "Character reset if join" etc... The server admin has no control over loot spawn (outside of how regularly they restart the server which might help a little) and kicking players without just reason is against the rules. Column 3 is Hive and is a very important piece of information. There are 2 types of hive, public and private. In DayZ every private server you join will have its own character. So if you join a private server you have never been on before you will start as a fresh spawn on the coast. If you then switch to another new private server you will create another new character. Each character exists only on the private server they were created on. If you want to be able to play the same character across servers you will need to play on Public servers - however you also need to consider the mode of the public derver (1PP or 3PP - see "Mode" below). One final consideration when deciding between a private or public hive is that because characters on private servers only exist on that specific server, if the server is offline you cannot play that character and, even worse, if the server admin ever stops paying the bill you will lose that character forever. Column 4- Mode. This shows whether the server is a 1st Person view only server (1st Person or just generally referred to as 1PP) or a 1st Person and Third Person server (1st/3rd Person (or simply 3PP)). 1st person only mode is considered a more hardcore mode and requires significantly greater situational awareness. Switching to a 1PP server for the first time after playing a lot of 3PP is a very disorientating experience. However, it is also more rewarding. Note that you have a different character on Public 1PP servers from Public 3PP servers. Therefore, you effectively have 1 character for 1PP Public servers, 1 for 3PP Public servers and then one character for each Private server. 3PP Public servers are by far the most common and popular. 1PP servers (be they public or private) are considered "hardcore". Column 5 shows the current version of the game that the server is running. Column 6 is the in-game time - most servers are daytime so this is useful if you specifically want to play on a night time server (which is a great experience!) Column 7 shows if you have any friends currently playing on that server. Unfortunately, it doesn't tell you who the friend is, so if you have 2 friends playing on 2 different servers you'll just have to guess which one is which if they can't tell you. Column 8 shows the number of players on a server and the maximum number that can play on that server at the same time. Obviously, the more players the greater danger, but also the more opportunity for interaction. Some people also find high population servers "laggier" due to the server having to calculate more objects and items (the players and their bullets) especially when some very high ping players are on. Note that even on servers with a low number of players or even zero, the main hotspots such as the North West Airfield can still be very dangerous as people hop in and out of servers to repeatedly loot the same location across multiple servers. Even on a zero pop server you should regularly press "P" to open the player list and see if someone else has joined. Chernarus may be 225 sq km but there are lots of stories where there are only 2 players on a server and they run into each other in the middle of nowhere... Column 9 is the ping - the lower the better, obviously. Favourite When you select a server (by clicking on it once to highlight it) you'll get the option to add it to Favourites. Once you've done this, it will appear under this tab. History For me this is a bit buggy - when I switch to this tab it shows my Favourites list, then after about 15 seconds it fills up with a load more servers but not really with any that I recall playing on and certainly not in the manner that it should, i.e. most recently played server first. Friends This view lists only servers which you have friends playing on. Unfortunately, it doesn't tell you who the friend is, so if you have 2 friends playing on 2 different servers you'll just have to guess which one is which if they can't tell you. LAN Presumably it is possible to play the game over a LAN if you can find someone to host it - I've never used this. Remote This is a really useful tool for connecting directly to a server if you know the IP Address and Port. These can be found by highlighting a server in the server list and clicking on details at the bottom of the screen. Note the IP and port and put them directly into the Remote screen and you can connect in without having to search through the full list of servers. Sadly the "add to favourites" option does not currently work if using the Remote tab to find it. Finding a server - tips Another way of finding a specific server is to use the "Filter" option at the bottom of all of the screens except LAN and Remote. However, using Remote is generally easier and more reliable. If you've just played on a server but cannot remember which one it is you can check your C:\Users\yourUSERid\Documents\DayZ folder for a file called YourDayZName.DayZProfile file - open this in notepad\word\whatever and you will see the name, IP and port of the last server you played on near the bottom of the text file. So...which server should I play on? This is the big question. Ultimately, it really depends on what gaming experience you want. Public 3PP By far the most common and most popular choice, 3PP public servers undoubtedly offer the "easiest" and "quickest" game mode - whether it is frowned upon or not, the ability to transfer your character to any other public server allows people to raid the same military site across multiple servers in rapid succession and thus quickly accumulate a lot of high tech gear. It also allows ghosting and combat logging. The 3PP mode itself is also significantly easier to play than 1PP mode, offering the ability to see around corners and over walls. This sort of gameplay naturally appeals to the less patient\hardcore\serious player and thus KoS (Kill on Sight) is much more common on this sort of server. Life is just cheaper here and thus these servers, whilst offering the potential for great reward, are incredibly dangerous, especially the high pop ones. Public 1PP In my opinion, this may actually be the hardest game mode to play on since 1PP public servers are much less likely to have casual players on (becuase 1PP is "harder" than 3PP) meaning that those players you do meet will probably be more experienced players, possibly groups or clanners on team speak - this will put individual players at a serious tactical disadvantage. Also, because this is still a public server hive, these players can still gain military tech quite quickly by hopping. Private 1PP If you want a slower paced, more serious and challenging game, a 1PP private server is more likely to reward you. Since this hardcore mode is less appealing to the majority, you are more likely to find a more serious gamer, possibly an RP (Role Player) and thus less likely to be KoS - though you should always exercise extreme caution around any other player on any server. Typical player numbers on these servers are very low. This is my current favourite type of server. Private 3PP However, perhaps the best balance is the 3PP private server. This offers the easier 3PP mode but combined with the inability of people to server hop (because it's a private server) which means you are less likely to run into gangs of 5 fully kitted out military types who just want to torture bambis in Electro. However, as with all private servers, the gameplay can be a bit slower - just raided a barracks and not found anything? Tough luck, either wait for the next restart or start running for the next installation. If you are sick and tired of getting gunned down with minutes of spawning in Electro or Cherno a Private 3PP server *might* well be the answer to your problem. I hope this guide is helpful to people and feel free to make comments on where you think I can improve it. Thanks, krazypenguin

Trying the Sporter with a 30 round mag is on my DayZ to-do list - I recently gave up the chance of using one in favour of taking a Mosin with LRS but this video has really made me want to try one out (even though it appears to have very little stopping power!)

Was the rusty cooking pot in pristine condition? :-p

The pistol grip on the MP-133 with pistol grip is pretty much right at the front of the gun so there's nothing to cut away. It's already a very short weapon as it is, in fact when slung over the back it's barely visible from the front. That said, you still cannot store it in a backpack which is a shame, so it's still sawn-off shotgun FTW in my opinion.

Tried out a new private shard I had seen advertised in the Servers section. It's a 1PP, private, persistence-off server and IMO this sort of server offers the best DayZ experience. Yes, you could still meet a KoS player but generally speaking, on a server like this you tend to meet a better class of survivor. ;-) Found myself on the beach in the pouring rain but right next to a couple of fishing boats crammed full of wellies, raincoats and fishing nets. Picked myself a pristine green raincoat, tan boonie hat, brown wellies and then loaded up on a bunch of nets since they were available. Not a bad start! Looked one way down the coast - nothing. Looked the other way - also nothing. Hmm, normally you can see at least some buildings in the distance but this time I seemed to be truly in the middle of nowhere. I had decided to try playing without the map so I had this vague suspicion that I was somewhere far down the South East coast and decided to face the sea, turn left (so East in my mind) and start jogging. I quickly located a small village which had just enough supplies to keep me going and a pick axe for self defence. I kept moving up the coast, following a long stretch of forest on my left before hitting another small and unnamed village. I looked through the buildings but there was nothing to be seen - someone had already been through and picked it clean. I was just starting to worry about food when I noticed a can of sardines sitting on one of the gas rings on a cooker. Then, in the next house I saw the same thing - possibly someone had left them as they didn't need them but something tells me that they searched the houses quickly and just missed them. Whatever, they were vital in giving me enough energy to keep going. Concerned that the coastal towns may have been stripped completely I decided to head inland. I quickly came to a very familiar junction, although I could not remember where on the map it was, I took the route that I always take at that junction and passed by more familiar scenery and buildings, all of which had, worryingly, been looted. I was starting to fear that I could well simply be following in the wake of a fellow survivor who was collecting all the food that I desperately needed. Fortunately, there was a well by a barn which I could drink from and yet another can of sardines on a cooker. The third one now! After a few more minutes of knowingly exactly where I was and yet at the same time not actually knowing where I was I caved in and consulted the map. I immediately discovered that I had been WAY off the mark with my idea of a South Easterly spawn and had actually spawned on the South West corner of the coast, opposite the island of Skalisty. I thought I was running West but had actually been heading North... I had then cut inland at 3 Valleys (a small village just below Solnichniy) and was approaching Msta. Ok, I'm back on track and this is good news - I know Msta well and it's usually pretty safe and reasonably well stocked. I reach the town in a few minutes and although as before it's been mostly stripped, I do manage to grab a bag, a little spare food, a canteen, 0a splitting axe and even a Repeater (without ammo). So I am confident that I've got a decent chance. Besides, the next town along is Staroye which has always given me good loot and I would expect to find some .357 ammo there. Leaving Msta I see a deer in a field. One of the things that I always try and do at the moment is to play a more "natural", self sufficient style of survivor and the greatest manifestation of that is, for some reason, a bit of an obsession with using natural backpacks and eating only natural foods (animal meats, fruit and vegetables). I've only got the splitting axe but I reckon if I run at the deer and time my swing right I can take it down. I charge and miss. The deer evades but stops almost immediately so I charge him again and this time my axe connects with a resounding whump. The deer again runs off but then something weird happens. He reaches a fairly shallow but noticeable dip in the ground but seems to sort of jump it, then when he lands on the other side of it he keels over dead - as if he's taken fall damage which has finished him off. Whatever the reason, I break out my improvised knife and I'm now packing a new leather sack full of juicy deer steaks. Something I really like about the leather sack when playing on a 1PP server is that you can still look behind yourself whereas the drybag I just ditched is very restrictive. At Staroye I find a ton of fruit and veg (hurrah) and in the police station a 30 round .22 mag for a Sporter rifle. The Sporter rifle is a gun I have never used and it's on my "to do" list so I grab that. I also find lots of ammo for pretty much every type of gun, expect the Repeater. Then I find a pristine LRS and PU scope which I grab, just in case. My inability to find a working combination of gun and ammo is annoying me so I decide that I'll head North through Shakhovka to Polana where I should be able to grab either some .357 ammo for my Repeater or a gun for the various other ammo types I already have. With depressing familiarity, Shakhovka is looted clean of anything I need, including matches, which I want so I can cook my steaks. Sigh...come on devs, give us the ability to create fire by rubbing twigs together already! Leaving Shakhovka I decide to take the smaller back road to Polana rather than the main road and this highlights one of the things I really like about DayZ - that if the terrain is right you can see for miles. And indeed, thanks to a valley in between us, in the distance I can see the next road that I will need to take, above the intervening forest. It's a small thing but I just really like it - the sense of scale is awesome. A short but pleasant jog though the countryside brings me to Polana. I know this town well so head straight to the first place I expect to find a gun and hit the jackpot: a Sporter .22. Finally, it's time to try out this weapon! I sweep the rest of the town and find another canteen (I like to have 2, just in case) and other bits so inventory space becomes a bit tight because of the limited storage space I have - the biggest disadvantage of all the "natural" backpacks. Time to get brutal with the gear. The pristine LRS and PU scopes get ditched (honestly though, why can't the Sporter take a scope? It's a hunting\target rifle - read any sort of gun magazine and there are tons of adverts for .22 rifle scopes!) along with all the 7.62mm and other ammo types. I run out of town past an abandoned car and something catches my eye. There's a Mosin on the back seat. Ah DayZ, why do you do this to me? Sigh... The Sporter gets ditched (sorry, but I am not passing up a Mosin + LRS opportunity) and goes back on the list as a "thing to do in DayZ" and I run back for the LRS and ammo. Now that I have a Mosin I finally decide to do something with the nets and burlap sacks that have been wasting my inventory space so I craft a gun wrap and ghillie hood. With the freed up inventory space I grab the PU scope too and also some shotgun ammo (I also have a thing about sawn off shotguns at the moment too!). There's still one thing that I cannot find though - matches. Deciding to throw caution to the wind I point myself towards Berezino and there I find a shotgun, a hacksaw to cut it down and a snaploader for it. There then follows a gratuitous shotgun induced zombie slaughter, which is needlessly risky but very enjoyable. But still not a match to be seen. I move along the buildings, searching most of them until I reach the lumber mill on the coast. I've had an enjoyable time killing zombies but being in a town, especially a big one like Berezino stretches my nerves a little, so I decide on a cross country stroll Northwards toward Olsha. There, I finally find a box of matches....with a whole four matches inside! Well, it's better than nothing so I grab it. In the next building guess what I find? Another box of four matches. Then a few building later I find a third box, this time with over 80. That's sorted then, what to do now? I'm not sure why but I decide to take a look at the NEAF and head in the direction of the radio tower just to the East of it so I won't get lost. And that's when I meet my first survivor. He's geared up in a similar fashion to me and hasn't seen me. I decide to risk it and open comms and say hello. For a few seconds he seems to be surprised and doesn't know where I am so I keep talking to reassure him and direct him to me. He's carrying a gun in his hands because he already has a rifle on his back, but it's lowered and he says hello. We approach and I ask if needs anything. Guess what he says? Yup, matches. Lol. Eh, what the heck, easy come, easy go. I hand over my box and he asks if I can cut some kindling which I do. He takes it, makes a fire and lights it and we cook some food together. He's got a friend coming who he says has a spare fire axe, which he offers me. I'll be honest, I'm still a bit nervous but he seems friendly enough so I decide to risk it - after all, he could have shot me in the back as I cut the kindling if he wanted to. After the food is cooked we run down to the airfield and meet his friend who, as promised, delivers me a shiny new fire axe. I realise that my new friend is packing a Mosin so I give him the pristine PU scope, we exchange a few pleasantries, all do the "friendly" dance and then I leave. I run to the end of the airfield and then for a few more minutes or so and log out. Total session time was between 4-6 hours and was a really satisfying and enjoyable experience :-)

Thanks for the server - I probably spent about 6 hours on there today and had a great time. IMO 1PP, private, persistence-off servers offer the most rewarding DayZ experience. I just finished off my session by bumping into a guy at the Olsha radio mast, just to the East of the NEAF - we ended up meeting his friend in the middle of the runway and all did the hello dance then exchanged some gear. Nice guys like that make the game worth playing and servers like yours are the best place to meet them.

I'm creeping up behind a guy looking at a door through a PU scope in Cherno...

My first and only ever player kill was with a Repeater. I was walking into a building when he shot me from from behind, without any warning, and fractured my legs. I tried talking to him but he didn't respond or reply. Even if I could have run I had no way out as the building only had one entrance\exit and before I could even try and bandage myself he just walked into the room and shot me again using a Longhorn - I guess he figured his second shot would kill me but it didn't. I already had my Repeater in my hands which had about 9 rounds loaded and by the time he fell down it was empty.

I get this problem a lot and did not know this solution. Thanks for making the video and sharing. Beans given!

Server maintenance is every Wednesday starting at 06:00 GMT for an expected 3 hours. Edit - obviously, leaving it to the last second to pack your gear up is risky in the extreme. Edit 2 - I just saw a more recent post that says it starts at 07:00 GMT.

Were you using any inventory exploits? I have read that if you do, it can cause your character to be reset...

As above, use shift for additional power (but presumably at a greater cost in fuel? Not sure...). Alternatively, just like a real truck, get a good run up before you hit the hill and your momentum will help.

Funny that you guys have been talking about cooking - I just cooked my first food last night. In case you don't want to know how it works I'll put this bit in spolier so you can find out for yourselves :-) So, in addition to learning how to cook, me and my friend sprig found a truck as we were looting our way to the NWAF on a low pop, persistence off, private server. We jumped in and started rolling through the countryside and towns, stopping occasionaly to loot the odd building or junkyard before approaching the airfield. I guess we weren't too fussed about meeting other players because we decided to simply drive down the runway! However, as we entered the airfield I checked the player list to see that 3 players had just dropped leaving only 2 people other than ourselves. No matter! sprig gunned the truck's mighty engine and we picked up speed as we started down the runway. And then the engine stopped. "Out of fuel?" I ask, to which sprig says "No, I turned off the engine. Oh, no wait a minute, yes, we're out of fuel" Epic runway drive denied :-( Looted the airfield and military tents, didn't find much, hid in the forest whilst the server reset. I went back on 10 minutes later to find I was the only person on the server and I looted a metric ton of ammo for my SKS, some bits sprig wanted, and then hit the jackpot in a barracks when I found my first ever AK-74 - but no mag of course ;-) Happy DayZ :-)

Yes, but I suspect it's done on an epic scale. Example, rent out a public server, find some tents, park them in the highlest loot location possible (e.g. in the middle of the NWAF), kick anyone who tries to join your server, loot your location, restart the server (and thus spawn new loot), loot again and repeat over and over. Also, this alows the offenders to server hop between the NWAF and not even have the hassle of having to carry loot to a remote and well hidden location - since on their server their tents don't need to be well hidden. Example - a guy on these forums who found the hill overlooking the NWAF covered in military tents - on a public server which he had just joined and was then immediately kicked from. Yeah - it's not difficult. Start a recording session, search for a public server with 1 or 2 players on it, maybe also including the words "join = kick" in the description (just lol at the brazeness of that!), join the server and press P. If it's a dodgy one you'll be kicked within 30 seconds. Stop recording and there's your cast iron bang to rights evidence. Mail the server host and rely on justice to be done. Also, just to provide some balance, privates can be abused too but I think it happens in a slightly more subtle way - I frequent a lot of private servers (generally a much better experience than publics IMO) and sometimes see that a server I want to join is suddenly now password protected with just 1 or 2 players on it - - when it is not usually password protected. Now why would that be? (Answer - because the server owners are looting high loot locations and don't want to risk running into another player!). The password lock usually disappears within 30 minutes or less (i.e. when the server owners have safely looted and got out of the danger zone) Reporting server abuse is the responsibility of all of us - if we make an effort to keep it under control we can, but if we cannot be bothered it will get out of control. Personally, I plan to spend a half hour session every week server hoppping low pop servers with my recording software running and report any where I get kicked. :thumbsup: EDIT - @ Lok - would it be possible for a list to be published of servers that have been shut down due to abuse? A named and shamed thread would give the community a bit of confidence that the problem is taken seriously and being dealt with (I am sure it is, but justice is best served when it is seen to be done), and also maybe give offenders something to think about? Just a thought...

Here are some "firsts" that happened to me in the last few DayZ... Killing my first human being It's a small world Taken 4 - Almost Taken

Nice. I don't know about how this works, but if it's the same as the "sick" effect you get from using sewing kits to infect your wounds then it's a 4 stage process and whichever product it is that "cures" it (I guess charcoal tabs since it's a food sickness) simply jumps you to stage 3, effectively shortening the duration of being ill. If it is the same then simply maintain high levels of energized and hydrated will let you get through it if you don't have charcoal, it will just take longer.

I joined a private server today where my character was camped at the NEAF. The first thing I noticed was that it was darker than usual - I never look at the time when I join a server and it's almost always daytime when I play on any server. But this was the end of nighttime The sky was full of stars and looked amazing. I looked at the player list, saw that there were only 2 other people on and figured the chance of either of them being in the NEAF (or Dumpsville, Chernarus as I like to call it) was slim enough for it to be worth the risk. I stood up, jogged out onto the runway, sat down and looked at the sky as the sun came up. It was spectacular. Possibly the best 20 odd minutes I've had in DayZ. Edit - it got me thinking that I would like to try a orivate night server so if anyone knows of a good one I'd be grateful if you could post or PM me the details. Thanks.

Epic necro...The energized status needs to be bright green and the energized one at least dark green. Only then will the "healing" status appear and your colour start to come back. Edit - oh, misread. Energized, hydrated and healthy but still grey? Hmmm...have you checked your video options for your gamma setting? If that is set high the screen will be very washed out, which can look grey. Maybe it's that?