breetai3

I've been playing for over a month and a half, and the new beta finally prompted me to create a forum account to discuss the starter weapon change. As a disclaimer, I do not find survival difficult. I finally died after two weeks yesterday simply because I spawned right behind a guy in a random house...what luck for him, enjoy your free MP5SD. I think the game actually needs to be a bit more difficult, but spawning with no weapon is not the answer to that. I can only tell you from my experience, that by spawning with no weapon last night it threw my respect for living out of the window. With nothing, I could care less if I died. I also had no respect for the lethality of zeds...nothing to protect? who cares? Never in the hours and hours of playing had that thought ever crossed my mind previously. I spawned near Kamenka, so I just ran to the airfield and without care for bandits or zeds, aggroed the entire base and ran them around in circles while searching for weapons. Inside the hangars, up the radio tower, I imagined the Benny Hill music playing in the background as 20 zombies chased after me. Oooo...an AK in the radio tower....grabbed it, ran down the ladder and off into the woods for 5 minutes until they were all gone. That made it a video game, not realistic survival. It was silly, and it was ridiculous. The zombie apocalypse already HAPPENED. If you are a still a survivor in the zombie wasteland, it's because you are able to defend yourself. At least start us with a melee weapon. Who wouldn't have a blunt instrument in the zombie apocalypse? I think starting with no weapons creates the exact opposite conditions that were intended with the game. It created an experience I never want to have again...where survival meant jack. I love this game because it's just about the only one that is supposed to care about living.

Ive answered this already on the first page. Here it is: "That is not true. With the starter kit you had everything you need to start heading wherever you wanted to go and assume you'll start gathering things along the way. You had enough to survive travel to another area. There was no instant requirement of gear gathering that makes you do silly things like aggro entire areas because it's simply easier that way to get stuff quicker than traditional sneak and gather. It's turned the coastline into the standard FPS style video game where living doesn't matter. I'm not even asking for the traditional starter kit. Just give me a blunt object. Heck take the painkillers in trade. Wink"

99% of the surviving population would be able to use a rock....

Well that's fine and it sounds like you haven't died so haven't had to experience what I'm talking about. But others have and happily I'm seeing by posting here that I'm not the only person who felt this way. My survivor has indeed always been a precious commodity to me....until last night. That's really my point.

But why bother when your chances are reduced? Why should I bother running inland for 15 minutes with nothing when i will respawn again on the coast if I die? Much easier to act like "the roadrunner" as someone else said, and finding what you need in the spawn areas. I'm the Dad of a 7 year old. It's all about conservation of play time for me because I don't get enough of it. =)

Fine, then replace "intended" with "part of the reason why 200,000 people play this game." How about start us with nothing and litter the coast with 2x4s? =) because it removes the immediacy of instant gear requirements that make a player do silly, unrealistic things to get it.

That is not true. With the starter kit you had everything you need to start heading wherever you wanted to go and assume you'll start gathering things along the way. You had enough to survive travel to another area. There was no instant requirement of gear gathering that makes you do silly things like aggro entire areas because it's simply easier that way to get stuff quicker than traditional sneak and gather. It's turned the coastline into the standard FPS style video game where living doesn't matter. I'm not even asking for the traditional starter kit. Just give me a blunt object. Heck take the painkillers in trade. ;)

That's all that is needed. A bat. A board. Anything that would prevent me from not caring whether I live or die. And yeah as was already mentioned, you can't make the "you wake up in the middle of nowhere so why have anything" argument when I have painkillers and a bandage.