Tonyeh

So, let me get this straight... I am at the moment gathering stuff to stash in my wee camp. So, I found the Varga shotgun last night and I've buried it for later use. Does that mean that I've basically "locked" that particular gun away and it will only spawn in my crate now? And not anywhere else on the map? If so, that does create a very real problem.

Sure. But it essentially kills the character for me. Running around laughing like someone who just got out of Bedlam means that that particular character is useless for my play style, which can involve a lot of stealth. I think the brain disease is a good idea. But it really should kick in over time and after prolonged consumption of human flesh. I had to eat human remains once. I found it in a police station and I was starving. Not wanting to die, I cooked it up and scoffed it. An hour later I was giggling like Jeffery Dahmer. So I ate a 12 gauge. It was fun to begin with, but after a while I got sick of it. As said, Brian prion disease is a good idea. But the mechanics need to be looked at.

Wash your hands. Then drink. Don't catch a cold. The sickness factor in DayZ is one of the better additions in recent times AFAIC. The only thing I'm not gone on is the instant loony you get from eating human meat. That should only kick in if you constantly do it.

Ummm...stay alive as long as I can. Never really played with any one group of players for any length of time. But I was running with a few lads from Eastern Europe for a wee while and then one of them went psycho and started trying to kill everyone else (he probably got bored). We ended up hunting him down in Gorka and eventually caught him. His best mate executed him, after we made him strip and divvy up all his gear. But, the vast majority of the time, I lone wolf it. At the moment, I am in the process of gathering materials for my stash (looking for a USG to replace my SG5 for example), while avoiding contact with other players. But still observing. There's a genuine thrill at simply watching others from afar and studying what they're doing. I was hitting all the camping sites the other day, from first light (on the server), when this pair rock'n'roll up to to the one I was about to check out west of Vavilovo. I heard their car and ducked down. I just watched them doing their thing through the sights of my Mosin, but I wasn't too far away. I could have taken out one of them with ease. The Mosin is a great long range gun with little drop off. But I left them alone. I had thought of nicking their car, which would have been gas. But, I haven't driven a vehicle in DayZ since the beta days. So that might have been a disaster. And if they were smart, they would have disabled it somehow, before they went on their loot grab. They ended up rifling everything they could and taking a tent that I had my eyes on. I came across them again, just as dusk was falling. They had the car lights full on and were checking out some town I was near. I just climbed up a hunter stand and watched them through the binoculars. They were geared up, so that usually means interaction is out of the question. Other than that, I've been hunting cow and stag and leaving the cooked meat along the cost for newbies, because DayZ is a massive pain in the bollocks when you're a fresh spawn. It's been funny watching bambis cautiously approach the meat and not know whether to stop and pick it up or jog on. I had to shout at one to "take the feckin meat", cos they were wondering whether to do so for ages. All I did was scare them off, cos they bolted out of there like they were running the 100 metres. I've begun leaving the cooked meat in the supermarkets too. I don't think you can poison food in DayZ 1.08, so I'm not sure what people are afraid of. Probably think it's a trap for jerk off snipers.

I've been playing 1.08 since it was released. I have many hours pumped into that version alone and I can say that I haven't met a single one.

Look, this is simple. I KNOW I have more hours played on, for example, Napoleon Total War than the paltry 28 that Steam tells me.

Steam's stats for how many hours I've put into each game is off. WAY off.

I only play on public servers. I have NEVER seen these 200kmph players and I've been playing since 2014. I know it can exist, cos I've seen it on a YouTube vid. But, I have never, not once, seen it in the actual game and I have nearly 800 hours logged on it. And it's probably more than that, because Steam is rubbish for gathering stats. As for being "sceptical", I'm not saying that hackers aren't in DayZ. But I am wondering if it's really as widespread as some people claim.

I don't know what the player base is these days. But I do know that I'm meeting more people in DayZ than I ever did before, which is a double edged sword, cos that usually ends in Bang!

How do you know?

I can honestly say that I have never seen any of this. Is it largely an American thing? Cos living in Ireland, I usually play on EU servers and I have yet to see anything that I can qualify, for absolute certainty, as "hacking". I have never, once, seen any player running at 160KMPH on any map I've played. In fact, even with all my years with DayZ, I've only ever even saw someone doing the ghost exploit once, and I shot him dead as he logged in. So it wasn't too successful. 🤣

Quick question... How do you know that a player is a hacker? I've been playing DayZ since 2014. Took a two year break and I'm back. But I honestly cannot say that I have ever encountered "hackers" on the public servers. The only servers I play on.

Press TAB to see what's in the vicinity of something. You'll know an object in in something or someone because there will be a little + beside their info when you hover the mouse of them/it.

You'll learn. Dayz is ridiculously punishing on new players, because you start with a practically empty stomach. But you do get better. I came back to it after two years away and I too "sucked". But after a little while you figure things out and this place is good for tips as well. Get a knife ASAP, this will allow you to cut bark and long and short sticks. This means that any wildlife you kill you can cook if you make a fire using a bit of the rags you start with and a short stick. When you eat cooked food, you're on the pigs back...so to speak and you can last for hours. Head inland, don't stay on the coast. Don't drink from rivers or ponds and pour out any water you find in bottles. I don't use any online maps, but in most towns and cities, there are water fountains. Drink from them. If I had my way, I'd change a number of things about the game. I'd start each player on a full stomach, to give them a fighting chance at the start and not make the early part of the game JUST a desperate race for food and water. That gets dull real fast. I would make sources of food much rarer. In other words, less canned food (although there is a LOT less than there used to be) and less wildlife (to make room for more zombies). Trust me, in a while you'll get to know the ropes and realise that 5 hours is nothing. I've hundreds of hours in the game and I've only just started farming and hunting. LOL. You'll get to understand that it's not hunger or zombies that will kill you mostly, it'll be other players, cos they're mostly arseholes who can't think of any other play style but shooting. In a few weeks, THAT is what you'll be most pissed off about.

Playing last night reminded me of why I returned to this game. I had my character for a few days and was in the process of gearing up nicely. This character was going to concentrate on hunting and survival, but I needed more gear to be able to do that comfortably. It's also the first character that I've set up a camp for and I am going to be stashing loot for as long as I can last. I was up around the north of the map heading west and I foolishly wandered off the trail I was on. It was the evening and getting close to nightfall and I heard in the distance wolves howling. I thought "Cool, I've never seen or heard wolves in DayZ before". I wander on a bit further and heard the howls again, only this time it was louder and I got a bit worried. After another few minutes of heading west, I was suddenly attacked by a pack of at least 10 wolves. They were all circling and growling. Part of me thought that it was great and part of me though Oh crap. A few more attacks and I was losing blood rapidly. I had gotten out my Mosin rifle, the only firing weapon I'd found so far and tried to pick off the wolves. I'm a bloody awful shot and was also panicking about the rapid blood loss. I killed one wolf and then I noticed a barn structure so I ran to that and went inside. The wolves followed me, but I managed to kill 4 of them with the rifle and my axe. The rest ran off. I was barely able to bandage my wounds, before I blacked out from the blood loss. When I came to, I sat there for a while, going in and out of consciousness. I couldn't stay where I was, because I had no way of sealing myself off from another attack. So I looked outside for somewhere to go. Luckily enough there was one of those static caravan trailers beside the building, so I ran in there. I was going in and out of consciousness, when I head the sound of footsteps. I thought it was a person, but then heard panting and figured it was another pack (or the same one) of wolves. They couldn't get into me in the trailer, so I took a quick peek to confirm. There were 5 wolves hanging around the outside. By this time I had regenerated enough blood to stop blacking out, so I decided to shoot the wolves from the trailer. You can't shoot out of the window of the trailer, so I had to I open the door to fire. I popped one of them, but not before another one jumped at me and got me good again. I bandaged the wound with my last bandage. Another blood letting and I was dead. But I had to get rid of the wolves before I could move off. I opened the door again, and killed another, then quickly closed it before the rest could attack. I repeated this one more time and eventually had three dead wolves outside. The others fled. I skinned the wolves outside the trailer and in the barn building and the headed west for a few more kilometres, where I found a remote farmhouse. I would settle there for the night and regenerate my blood levels. I chopped some wood and put it in the stove. I then cooked the wolf meat that I gathered earlier and sat out the night, nice and warm, and well fed and watered. All in all, the whole encounter lasted about 45 minutes to an hour and it was one of the most tense experiences I've had in any game I've played. DayZ has a lot of problems still (which is remarkable after 7 years of development), but it still retains the ability to provide these kind of tense moments that no other game can provide.

^ So, the above may have been a bit of an over-reaction. 😬 I've been back playing DayZ for about 5 days now and getting more and more used to it...again...after 2.5 years of not playing it. I think the last version I played was 0.60 or 0.61? So there have been a lot of changes made. I am playing this time around without using izurvive or any maps and also I'm staying away from the DayZ wiki too. So, it's been a pretty big learning curve. But, also quite enjoyable...once I figured out how how to kill game, skin it, make a fire and cook it. LOL. I still think the player should start with a full stomach though. But, I'd make food sources scarcer, if that makes sense. But as things stand, the first hour or two can be just far too punishing on new players. A few points about what I do like though: The new stamina mechanic is great. If only for stopping players from tear assing around the map like a load of maniacs. Getting from here to there now requires some time and patience. The new interface is nice as well and let's me know at a quick glance what my stats are. Playing this game without the use of a map has been a real journey of discovery. I'd totally forgotten all of the locations, except for Cherno in the South and the NWAF. Imagine my surprise when I finally got to the NWAF and saw just how much that had changed. It's MASSIVE now. Christ almighty, that viagra shotgun (or whatever it's called) is a doozy! Took down two cows with one blast! I'd also forgotten just how tense this game can be and remembered that DayZ was one of the few games that could get my stomach tightened and my heart racing. I've only met 5 people in 5 days, but every encounter has been extremely exciting. Except for one KoS, but that happened because I got too complacent, after hours of jogging about the map, apparently by myself. Duh. Never think you're alone. The added animal life is great. I love killing chickens 🤪 I had a completely random encounter with a wolf too that was really weird. It just kept looking at me and sort of running away a bit and then back to me. I almost felt like I could have tamed it as a companion! But I killed it instead and cut up the meat. I understand that there have been more animals added too. Don't tell me, but I swear that I can hear stags grunting. I like the fact that P no longer brings up the names and number of people on the server. There's probably another way to do it, but I don't want to know what it is. It just means that you really have to be careful where you go on every server you play. Diseases are great. No more filling bottles from still bodies of water, or just drinking them where I find them, cos you might end up with cholera or whatever. Also, one of my toons caught a cold and was sneezing all over the place...🤣 The new zombies are great. I really like the priest. Nice touch. A few bad points: More knives are needed in the game. I spent about 7 hours yesterday looking for any kind of knife and found none. Yeh, I know it's possible to make a temp knife, but I haven't found any rocks yet to do that. But seriously, steak knives and kitchen knives need to be more readily available in civvie areas. The lack of AK47's is just odd. It's Russia we're playing in. 🤔 What's the story here? Combat with zombies is still a bit of an issue. Hit detection can be a little "off", shall we say. This has been a problem since day 1. There should be waaaay more zombies in the game. Although I did see about 10-15 all gathered outside a police station in some town, which I thought was great. But I reckon someone was either inside or had been just recently to attract them there, It still looked good though and I had to abandon my plans to check out the cop shop and go somewhere else instead, which should be a feature of the game. Duct tape is silly. It's the cure all for everything. I really shouldn't be able to repair a gun with it. Footwear wears out far too quickly. The length of life on shoes and boots needs to be looked at. I really shouldn't have to change boots every session.

I've jumped back in after a couple of years away. I'd love to be able to say the same things as you OP, but I can't. I've tried changing my key bindings so I can use the arrow keys (my preferred layout), but they won't change. Plus the up arrow is locked as a volume control for the mike. I've tried to change my gender a number of times and I couldn't. Eventually had to throw myself off of a building and then respawn as a man. I mean seriously. This game has been in development for YEARS. On the plus side, the game seems harder than it was the last time I left it. Maybe that's just down to me being a re-noob.

That's why they need to be made dangerous. Real dangerous. I've said it here and elsewhere, I think the zombies should have a very real chance of killing players. If you're unfortunate enough to be attacked and hit by a zombie, I'd make it so there is a good percentage chance of the player getting infected. This infection should have a serious chance of killing the player. Perhaps the player can counteract the effects with medicine of some kind, which means their focus will then be either on keeping the blood levels high or finding the medicine. That'll put the shits up you when you see a group of zombies hanging around your area.

Yeh, me too. I know a lot of people complained about them, but I thought they were great and really added to the game. You had to be super careful around them. What I'd like to see in DayZ regarding zombies, is to make them a really serious threat to player survival. There have to be lots of them, of course, but also I'd make it so a there's a 50/50 chance of the player being infected if one lands a blow. Infection doesn't necessarily have to mean death though. It can simply use the mechanics that are already present in the current build when your wounds get infected, but I'd up the ante. The infected should be a true danger and one that the players shouldn't take lightly. That'll up the stakes considerably when dealing with them and it'll also eliminate much of the PVP sniper bullshit that goes on in the game. The zombies in DayZ should be a threat worth reckoning with, not the empty gesture they are (or non-existent as of .58). Players should have to think twice before going into a town with a group of them hanging out. It's also make co-op more rewarding. One or two zombies should be ok to handle in a malee, but six to ten or more, no way. You should either have to run away or resort to the gun, which should then attract more of them you your location, making gun use a final option. They also shouldn't announce their presence either. One of the great things about the silent zombies of a few patches ago was that they could pop up anywhere and the player really had to be on the lookout for them. A number of times I was suprised by a zed in .56 (I think it was .56) and to be honest, it was bloody great to have that level of tension. I remember crawling through a town at night, looking for an item, trying to avoid the zombies that were there and it was absolutely exhilarating.

Played last night for six straight hours on quite populated servers, running from Berezino to the NWAF. Didn't see a single soul.

The basic reason people are so fed up consistantly with DayZ is that there is a two steps forward, one step back syndrome with development, as there is with many types of software development, it has to be said. The problem DayZ has is that it's already "in the field" as it were, so the flak will be drawn from the public and not the dev team/shareholders. Also, many, many people are wondering if DayZ will ever be finished to the level that was anticipated and when constant problems arise with the likes of zombies, etc. it's easy to see why.

.54 was on the right track with the zombies. I loved the way they didn't announce their presence and sometimes their numbers were nearly overwhelming in some places, which was great. I would love to see the day when I look through my binoculars and see 50+ infected milling around a town and have to say, "nope, not today Vybor..." As it is at the moment, it's like "Yeh, whatever..."

Social interaction is pretty much dead in 'DayZ' standalone, sadly. 99% of the time it's "hi" *bang* > *You are dead* The only time I have any interaction is with new spawns, because they haven't found a gun yet. I recently switched to 1pp servers only, because the 3pp gives KoS'ers to big an advantage. I would personally like to see 3pp done away with TBH. Whether we like it or not PVP is what 'DayZ' will always be about, unfortunately.

Well, I have yet to see anything approaching a significant amount. Although I did have to kill four in a row at the NWAF last night. That isn't a patch on the very real threat they were in .55. At one stage I have about a dozen after me in one small town and in .55 the could do you some serious damge. That was full shitting myself and it was great. Personally, I'd have the infected infect YOU if they land a strike, meaning that a player would then have to locate some description. There's a whole new level of danger right there. There's a tiny percentage chance of blood infection in the game already, but it's too low. I only got it once and went into a panic looking for antibiotics, but it was fierce exciting.

I can't be the only one finding it really tedious? And no, I'm not a PVP'er or gear up in 30 mins type.