Duba

You aren't some kind of special snowflake for playing DayZ before any influx of new players. Frankly, anybody who actually cares for the vitality and longevity of this mod should be giddy at the thought of new players, and the DayZ community at large should be embarrassed at the amount of elitism on these forums.

My wife and I have placed three well-hidden tents since the update, and all have been empty upon returning the next day in >30 player servers. Though they could have been found, no single person could have carried everything that was in the tent themselves, so I'm inclined to believe newly-placed tents have a fair chance to delete gear in them. Though, in all fairness, that opinion is based off of purely anecdotal evidence.

Rather than trying to punish people for being anti-social and murdering anyone they see, give them a better reason than blood transfusions to work together and the 'deathmatch' mentality will die fairly quickly. Though, in all fairness, plenty of competent players (myself not included) have managed to keep daily-played characters alive for upwards of a month, so the word 'deathmatch' isn't very fitting in the first place.

ITT: McCarthyism

As much as I like the mod in its current state (including the shoot-on-sight mentality), it is anything but realistic. The fact of the matter is that when confronted with death, people will do whatever gives them the highest probability of staying alive. In a situation similar to DayZ, that would mean banding together; not in small groups of 3-5, but in larger groups of 10+. Most people don't have the knowledge or wherewithal to survive by themselves in the wild, never mind with the threat of zombies looming about. Furthermore, people would be far less likely to stab you in the back for 'your' supplies if they knew they would likely be lynched by the rest of the shit-scared community for doing so. Overall, I wish people would stop talking about 'realism'. It's a nice idea, and striving towards it has made DayZ a very nice mod, but it's largely unobtainable without somehow creating an in real life risk for the players.

The other players in DayZ aren't your babysitters. If you pulled a train of zeds and can't ditch them, try breaking line of sight with them either using trees or (more effectively) buildings. Zeds also have a nasty habit of being poorly coordinated and tend to stumble over themselves running down steep inclines. The last thing you would ever want to do is run them into another unsuspecting player, endangering their life as well as your own, let alone make a whole forum topic about it. That would just be embarrassing.

If you run around with under 9k blood (especially with that kind of gear), you kind of deserved it. Take the time to cook some meat and get to -at least- 10k. Do you really think you could take a punch to the face with 1/3 of your blood gone and not drop? Let alone stand up? Maybe rather than just shooting anybody you see, you should try and form a group of players amongst your fellow survivors. Your likelihood of staying alive would go up loads with a buddy to watch your back.

If you play perfectly (I know that's a lot to ask), you should be able to wait out/skip any possible Zed encounter in the game. That being the case, I keep my primary weapon out all the time regardless, because another skilled player won't be anywhere near as forgiving as the Zeds currently are, and that few seconds to switch your primary out of your bag could mean dying.

I'm currently skulking around the outskirts of Stary Sobor on my first character that I would consider 'successful'. I'm sure it's been said before, but the big thing that I think a lot of new players don't realize (keep in mind I've only been playing ~week) is that a gun really doesn't help all that much. I hardly ever fire mine at all, since anywhere where there are Zeds it'll likely attract more and I'll either have to run or become overwhelmed and die anyway. Guns are really only used to protect yourself from other players, and honestly, half the time it's better just to let them pass. Also, the zeds aren't quite as aware as a lot of people on these forums seem to imply. When I first started, I thought I had to prone or slow-prone around everywhere, but really, slow-crouching is your best option (from what I've played) about 75% of the time. The zeds have extremely poor eyesight and slow-crouching makes very little noise. Furthermore, people are right about staying away from the coast and the big cities. You -can- find good guns in the small outlining cities, but guns aren't really overly important to the main aspect of the game [survival]; food and water bottles are far more important. If you fire one off anywhere near loot (where players/zeds are likely to be) you're going to get swarmed and with how difficult zeds can be to hit, will likely die anyway. Finally, use this map: http://dayzdb.com/map When coming up to one of the smaller towns (away from the coast), try and search primarily in the buildings that have a better chance of loot. Also, if you click on any of the loot spawns on the map, it shows you what the building looks like, which helps a lot in the learning of which buildings are enter-able. I know the game is hard now, but it's a gem once you get the hang of it, just stay out of the high pop servers (try a <30) and enjoy your first few days of gameplay purely as a learning experience. Oh, and don't forget the golden rule: DON'T GET ATTACHED TO YOUR GEAR

I don't know why so many people insist upon the game being overly difficult. Once you've found your first weapon (even a hatchet), it isn't, it can just be extremely unforgiving if you give the game/players an opportunity.

Oh well, game isn't supposed to be easy.