Buzzo (DayZ)

You gotta admit, that hold up was cool as shit. Much better than lawl killz. I've ran into a number of people where we've had peaceful encounters (much less lately). I play solo a lot and I've had to get help from strangers for food or transfusions. Usually I will offer some goods in exchange and at least half of the time it works. I like the PVP aspect of the game, but I also like the realism. Hopefully we'll get some RP servers where you can actually play a survivor or a bandit in a more immersive sense. If anyone is running a server like that, let me know.

How many zombie movies start with the main character having a gun?....very few and almost zero good ones. Getting a gun should be a "fuck yea!" moment, not a birthright. Starting without a gun sets the tone for this game - it's not a shooter, it's a survival game and it's brutal at times. The objective of the game is "learn to deal with it." Before you shoot zombies, you should learn to avoid them. Starting without a gun ingrains that in their head from the jump off. Maybe this tough beginning also serves as a filter. This is a niche game for people who want a challenge without hand holding and I hope it stays that way.

In 1.7.1.4 sneaking was broken, but nothing is broken about it now. Crouching works fine now in 1.7.1.5. If you see a lot of zombies, out flank them. Zombies slowly travel toward you, so the longer you stay in an area they become more dense. If you are outflanking it works to spread them out. As long as your visual indicators are at 2, you don't have much to worry about being seen if you are keeping reasonable distance. If they start to get too close or you're in open areas, go prone. I do more crouch walking when I'm navigating difficult areas than I do crouch running. Try to scout out an escape route before you draw agro. Look at what buildings you can use to drop line of sight before you enter the town. "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

It's tough. You have these options afaik: 1) find someone and explain your predicament in direct chat. Maybe go to the coast and find someone without a weapon and offer them a piece of gear for giving you a blood transfusion. 2) Pull some zombies and try to die in a spot near the coast where your body will be hidden and run back as fast as you can. I played this game for a week or two solo and it's hard to survive. I've gotten a few friends to play now and it's much easier when people can give you blood transfusions. That's the breaks!

Not everyone is a bandit. Yesterday I was starving, scrounging through a town and saw another player. I said "friendly" over direct com and he responded the same. I asked if he had some beans and if he wanted to trade goods. He dropped 2 cans of beans free of charge and then left. You can kind of tell how people are posturing as to whether or not there will be trouble.

I play this game mostly solo. I've been playing it for about a week now. When I first started playing, it was hard, but it's getting easier. The challenge of acquiring a gun is half the fun. How many zombie movies have you seen where the main characters start with hand guns?...Very few. The fact that this game has 3 simple instructions: 1 - Scavenge 2 - Kill Zombies and Bandits 3 - Survive ... is the attraction. This game isn't about being newbie friendly. Every other game in the world worries about how new players could possibly enjoy the game unless we make it easy for them. This game isn't for the mass market. Not every player is going to enjoy the challenge of it. It's for jaded and arguably sadistic gamers that crave something they aren't getting from the focus group driven games EA is shoving down our throats. Especially now that with patch 1.7.1.5 you can drop zombie agro by line of sight, you really don't need a gun like you did prior to that. Yes, you will probably die a lot when you first play, then you will die a lot more after you start getting good at it.

I had some awesome zombie escape moments in Electro yesterday. The new patch did a lot to improve survivability of an unarmed player who has agroed. The more you practice escaping, the better you get. To reiterate what everyone else is saying: break their line of sight, then try to get hidden. When you run around a corner, the crest of a hill or through a building, hit crouch to crawl run, then go prone in a spot where you can hide and crawl away. The awesome thing about zombies as of this last patch is that they start searching for you where they lost line of sight. It's satisfying to leave a pack of zeds behind scratching their heads.

The game is actually much easier than that to install now. Follow the install instructions with six updater linked off the main page. Download Arma 2 and Arrowhead. If you have steam, close steam, relaunch it by using Run as Administrator. Launch arma 2, let it get to the main screen then close it. Launch Operation Arrowhead, let it get to the main screen and then close it. Close out steam if you want to now. Download the latest beta patch for arma 2 http://www.arma2.com/beta-patch.php . It's the link in the green box at the top of the page. Extract that somewhere and find the executable. Right click and Run as Administrator and it patches arma 2 to the latest beta. Now go to the link http://dayzmod.com/su.php Download the Six Launcher Software from the link on that page. Run it. There is an option there to update Day Z to the latest patch. Click on that and it patches you up to the latest build. Browse through the games on the Six Launcher app and find one with a good ping that isn't full and play. The game is now very easy to install if you follow directions.

I'm happy with the current patch. I'm playing mostly solo, so when I reset, I have the bare bones loadout, but it's not too difficult to find a weapon of some kind. The zombies are behaving a lot better. The new "zombie search" ability is a lot of fun. I was able to drop agro and stealth around a building, then crawl away, but it was fun to look over my shoulder and see them trying to piece together where I had gone. I finally got some friends to try out the game tonight and it was a great patch to introduce them to Day Z. They loved it.

Suddenly I have the urge to watch Flight of the Conchords.

The random nature of their super powers has made me uninstall this patch and wait for a retweak. Outsmarting zombies shouldn't be about glitching them to drop agro. I've had zombies spawn in, while I'm crouched motionless and relatively well concealed and had them immediately agro on me. I've been prone, had a zombie spawn in and agro on me immediately. I've been inside buildings and walked up stairs only to agro a group of zombies through the walls. For me, this is the first patch where I dislike the game. I hope we get a quick fix, because this current iteration of zombies is worse than having the server crash every 30 minutes.

The zombies aren't behaving in a realistic manner. The fact that I can sneak into a building undetected, close all the doors and then crouch walk up 5 stairs and draw a horde down on me is bad design. It has completely removed stealth from the game as far as I'm concerned. The only option in daylight is prone and even then you have a good chance of being spotted. I love the slow pace, but crouch walking interspersed with crouch running and crawling should be how it's done. Right now, the only option is to run in a building and exploit LOS. If you don't already know which buildings to raid, then you are screwed (read any new player). I think the zombie stealth detection had been well balanced in the last couple of patches. If they wanted to increase the difficulty, then I'm all for the attacks while running or increased damage per swing - but give me a break with the removal of stealth from the game.