optimate

You're right, it's a totally spurious argument made by people who want to play the game a particular way (griefing people who do want to play some kind of survivor game mainly) to provide cover for their actions. They seem to have forgotten that it's a freaking game with about as much resemblance to real life as an episode of The Simpsons, probably less so. To illustrate let's take a scenario and compare game to life, as best we can. Let's say there has been a zombie apocalypse style event and by happy chance you've managed to snag a rifle, several clips of ammo and enough food and drink to get by on. You sneak into town to grab what else you can. As you come out of the shop a little further down the street a stranger comes out of another shop - obviously with the same idea in mind. He's got a gun but he's not pointing it at you. Now in DayZ, and in real life according to these self-appointed survivalist experts, the correct thing to do would be to open fire at once. But in real life a few other thoughts might cross your mind, such as: Firing guns will attract attention from zombies. This could be bad for your health. You've got enough ammo for a modest shoot out but you don't know for sure that you'll be able to get any more in a hurry. In real life ammo does not conveniently materialise out of thin air at numerous locations. You might be better off saving what you've got for the zombies (see above). You might think you're the deadliest gun in the West but there's always somebody faster and more accurate. It could be that guy and if it is your one and only life will come to an abrupt end, you will not find yourself on a beach ready to have another go. And even if you do manage to kill that guy he might have friends nearby who'll be keen to have a word. In real life you do not have the option of exiting to some alternative reality where they aren't, you'll have to live with the consequences and maybe die of them. If the guy is not hostile then he's an asset worth far more than whatever's in the backpack. For starters two can carry more than one. Also in real life I like to spend some time asleep, having someone to take watch is better than a can of beans any day. A corpse with a few cans of food is worth a few cans of food and a few cannibal meals if you're that way inclined, a reliable partner with a gun improves your survival chances no end. And it would be ironic if you shoot someone who turns out to be only medic in a 100 klicks and the next day you get appendicitis. Now for these, and numerous other reasons which are obvious if you take a moment to think about it, in the real world I wouldn't initiate the Gunfight at the OK Corral every time I bumped into someone. I wouldn't exactly rush over with a bunch of flowers either because psychopathic bastards do exist. So sounding things out in a cautious fashion - finding out their story and testing it for credibility, seeing if they were willing to trade perhaps - would be the order of the day. Even if I was truly desperate robbery might make more sense than outright murder, spin 'em a sob story ("my daughter, she's only six, going to die without these supplies, sob, gulp") and you might get away with a bit of a beating instead of a bullet in the head if your victim and any friends ever catch up with you. In DayZ no mechanisms exist to replace the cues that in real life would help you make such life and death decisions - you can pick up a lot about someone (a lot of it unconsciously) just from their body language. And with chat crippled and the absence of any real consequences it's not surprising it has degenerated into deathmatch. But please don't waste anyone's time with the "that's what I'd do in real life" argument because it's utter bullshit.

What amuses me about the whole PvP thing is that threads like this invariably get posts on the lines of: 'it's part of the game, suck it up loser, it's kill or be killed in the bad-ass world of the zombie apocalypse' although generally with more spelling mistakes. And yet all the evidence suggests that when the going gets tough these self-proclaimed bad-asses pussy out. Sure, they're tough as old boots when it comes to shooting unarmed survivors and sniping people who haven't seen them but when faced with someone who shoots back they can't hit Alt-F4 fast enough.

Try barns - ones out in the sticks where you'll only get 3-4 zombies max. - for starters. Zombies outside will wander away, sneak in behind them and don't worry about any groans coming from inside. When you're close run in and up the stairs to the top. If you're luck's in you'll find a hatchet and you can dispose of any zombies inside silently. Or you may find some variety of shottie like the Winchester '66 which I've found you can use indoors without attracting any zombies from outside.

I'm up north doing a bit of shameless deer stand farming. I've acquired an excess of painkillers and bandages and, most usefully, two morphine injectors. The quiet life getting a bit dull so anyone needing a leg fixed in the area PM me and I'll see if a house call or drop off can be arranged.

By and large 6launcher does what it says on the tin, but there's one quirk that is a nuisance. Once fired up and I've done a verify the server list is as you'd expect and you can order it by lowest ping or whatever. But after launching the game and later exiting all the ping times shown in 6launcher are 9999. The refresh button doesn't fix that so I quit and reload but am I missing a trick and there's a better way to get it to refresh the list?

Some servers do seem to get stuck at that stage from time to time. The character creation stage usually only takes 30 seconds or so. You could try to find a server with a low population - where it's night-time in Chernarus as most people don't bother playing then. If a low pop server still hangs for ages then at least you'll know that the problem is your side. If so you could try verifying the game cache (https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=2037-QEUH-3335) as an alternative to deleting and re-installing. That should, in theory at least, ensure that your local files are present and correct. Another thing you could look at is Windows Firewall or equivalent. When firing up multiplayer for the first time I recall being asked a couple of times what level of network access to allow. If you inadvertently disallowed access that might cause you to hang up somewhere along the line.

All new players since the patch that deprived you of any starting weapon have been through the same I'd guess - I certainly have. Here's a couple of things to try: Barns: Find one remote from towns where the zombie count can be a bit high. If you're lucky the zombies may wander away and you can sneak right in. Possibly a zombie will be lurking inside but don't worry if so, when close run in and up the stairs. If you're luck's in there'll be a weapon on the top level and if not then try the other side - you should be able to dodge the zombies, they're pretty slow indoors. If you get the luxury of a choice grab the hatchet and use that to deal with any threat inside as that won't attract any attention. Deer stands: Make your way to one and a few hundred metres out go crouched and move forward cautiously. When zombies appear wait - they usually wander off away from the stand and I've only ever seen three of them at a time. When they're a good distance off you should be able to scuttle along to the stand without being spotted and see what you've scored. If you get a gun resist the temptation to have a pop at the zombies until your a good way from the stand. A surprisingly large number can teleport in, I burnt through three clips worth of an AK making that mistake. Following this sage advice may still result in death from one cause or another but it should shorten your odds.

Assuming the fresh and fast zombies mixed in with slower, more rotten ones got implemented here's a thought to liven things up. If a player kills another then that spawns (not immediately, after some random interval) a zombie in tip-top condition, insofar as that can ever apply to a zombie. Conceptually the victim has reanimated and moreover they're pissed, so they'll be coming after whoever killed them. Running away might delay the moment of retribution but sooner or later it will catch up with you. This is something that could form part of the player mission data so server hopping would be no escape.

Hi, I've added you on Steam. I'm more into the survivalist side of things rather than shooting newbies for flashlights that seems to be the prevailing trend, if that's your thing too then I'm sure we can help each other out.

Does the vanilla game run? Try running OpA from Steam or whatever your platform is. If that doesn't work then obviously the mod won't either and you'll need to re-install that first. I don't know you installed the mod but on the d/l page here it recommends 6launcher and my experience suggests that's a good idea. Makes installing and running the mod pretty simple and patches up the client when there's a new release.

There are no dedicated PvE type servers (not supported by the mod so far as I know) so there's no guarantee on any server that your warm reception won't consist of a hail of bullets from the griefers. Best bet is to get to know a few people via here or the numerous Steam groups and see if you can hook up with them. Doesn't mean you won't get shot at but at least there'll be a helping hand if you do.

For a game in development this makes excellent sense. Each dot release is hopefully bringing with it enhancements and changes to the gameplay. Having loads of survivors already fully equipped will obscure whether such changes have improved the game or not. Say the zombie player detection was improved. If that then made it near impossible for a survivor with nothing to sneak into an area to loot (or conversely made it way too easy) putting everyone back on the beach would show that up rapidly. It's an alpha and our part in the process is it test it and being put back to day zero at regular intervals lets us do our job better.

The justifications for PK'ing are getting increasingly laboured. Basically they amount to 'the game allows PK'ing so we're going to do that all the time "to survive"'. So far, in a few days playing, I've been shot at (and bar two times killed) 6 times. Each time I either didn't have a weapon or was just going about my business and was shot at from cover by someone of whose presence I was unaware. I was therefore no conceivable threat and I doubt if the extra flashlight the killers bagged enhanced their survival chances much. The only time I'd give the guy a pass was when me and the other player entered the same barn from different ends - he panicked, loosed of a few shots, missed each time, ran out of ammo and legged it. Friendly (possibly at least) players met: 1. He was stuck behind barbed wire which maybe accounted for the friendliness. Unknowns: 3. Two of these were potentially friendly in that they sidled of into the undergrowth instead of immediately opening fire. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say they didn't want a confrontation but weren't inclined to be trusting, though they could just have been out of ammo or angling for a better shot. Since they didn't want to talk I didn't hang around to find out. The game really needs some medium range comms so that players who want to play a zombie survival game instead of Arma multiplayer deathmatch can have a chance to talk to each other before it becomes as up close and personal as the final scene in Reservoir Dogs.

Perhaps more use could be made of the zombies to randomise loot as well. At the moment there are no wandering zombies, they just hang around where loot is. This could be changed so that civilian zombies just hang around the areas they used to live in - clinging to the familiar as it were - whilst military zombies who came in from outside and had no home would wander the countryside. The former would perform the current function of protecting loot sites whilst the latter would be sources for military ammo and rare weapons and gear like NVG in the usual random fashion. That way players who wanted such things would literally have to hunt them down rather than just camping and server hopping through a few areas to get them. Would also spice things up in the countryside by introducing a bit of danger.

Per the map (http://dayzmap.info/) there was, at one time at least, supposed to be some kind of probability involved. So some hut by the side of the road had a 30% chance of spawning any zombies (triggered by an approaching player) and then the number might be in the 1-4 range depending on the dice roll. Although the numbers seem a bit off to me - you don't want to be strolling in unopposed 70% of the time - the idea seemed right, there should be a chance (say 5%) that you can get loot without a fight, particularly as new players don't get a weapon. In actuality zombies seem to spawn 100% of the time and the max. zombie value seems to be ignored also. Hopefully a future build will sort out these issues but for now it's a right pain, particularly for an unequipped or injured player who can't afford to take chances.

This arose from a discussion on another thread where an self proclaimed camper complained because people had meta-gamed him by server hopping and killing him. My take was that camping loot sites is itself a form of exploit as it relies on the world having fixed points of interest and all the other players knowing their location. In actuality nobody would waste time with their telescopic sight fixed on a random pile of baked beans in the expectation of a string of people turning up to be shot, for whatever motivation, as in a more realistic world chances are nobody else would know they were there. Since the loot location issue is not one that can easily be fixed my suggestion is that a player who stays in a fixed location, firing shots and dropping bodies, will over time attract more and more zombies to him. Conceptually they've 'got his scent' since he's cumulatively making far more disturbance than the poor saps he's shooting at. In time his position should become untenable - an organised camper with friends watching his back would and should last longer of course. If he moves often - as a good sniper should - then his 'zombie attractiveness' will dip somewhat but not disappear entirely. Moreover even if he leaves a regular zombie spawning area zombies will still be on his trail so for a period of time so wherever he goes zombies will pop up nearby. Since this attribute is tied to the player, not a specific server and location, disconnecting won't get him clear either. Camping isn't something that should be banned (even if there was some way to do that) but when campers find they're burning through ammo fighting the horde it should reduce it's popularity. As a bonus it could be arranged that the zombies that normally hang around the loot area will disappear once the camper is on their radar so the occasional lucky looter will find they've been given a clear run courtesy of the guy who was planning to shoot them. Gives a bit of karmic balance to the situation.

Try using the step over (default V) key to get over barbed wire. I've managed this a few times - may need more than one step over before you're through. It seems to help if you approach the wire square on and if there's plenty of space on the other side, at an angle or where there's not much room behind the wire never seems to work.

In game communication has, in this build, been restricted to people you're more or less on top of. Although more realistic the range is so short as to be more or less useless - I stood on the edge of one of the little inland ponds watching some dude swim around in it. I asked him what the water was like but even at that distance he didn't see the message. There's nothing to stop you setting up some external form of communication, however, just a bit inelegant.

You might like to try 6launcher, there's a link to it from the download page. Simplifies installation/updating and gives you an easy server browser to join games from. I've rarely had to spend more than a few minutes looking for a low ping server to join.