sktrooper@hotmail.com

War Z will be APB in a slightly different setting (replace citizens with Zeds). Go play APB, then come back and tell us that War Z is going to kill anything other than itself.

The thrill of avoiding PvP is something that keeps me playing, oddly enough. I love going to a town or a city with the constant fear of meeting other players, my heart skipping a beat whenever I hear a sound. The other day in Zelenogorsk I was happily looting stuff when I heard shots nearby that were answered with shots further away, the adrenaline rush I had to make it out alive and unseen was simply refreshing. I'm not a PvPer or a bandit, but I do know that I wouldn't be playing this game so much if there was no PvP at all. I strife to find better gear just so I could stand a chance when I do have to fire at other players (let's be fair, even with a Makarov this game would be easy enough to play when it's just you and some AI Zeds).

At first I was annoyed by the spidey-sense Zeds, but I've learned to deal with it to a point where I barely get aggro (or even at all). Simply crawl all the time when entering an area with Zeds and avoid open areas (like roads, grass-less ground, parking lots, etc) when a Zed is looking in your direction (yes, even from 100+ meter away). You can crouch run just fine, but Zeds looking in your direction will definitely spot you from miles away (that's why you should crawl,it has the least chance of being spotted, lest you lay flat on your belly in an open area). After figuring this out, I have a very hard time believing anyone that claims they got aggro from a Zed that was behind a corner 150 meter away, despite laying down and not moving at all. I haven't had that happen at all the past few days (and all I do is scavenge small towns).

I spent an hour crawling through a forest to the nearest hospital (Berezino) with a broken leg and 1k blood yesterday. The joy of finally seeing the distant outskirts of the city pop up through the trees is a joy I haven't felt in any game in such a long time (I think the last time may have been when I finally got past the tentacle thing in Half-Life's Blast Pit back in 1999). This game. It does things to you.

Go and try to find bandit camps at the edges of the map where bandits hoard vehicles. Or, just run around while keeping an eye out for them. That's how a friend and I found a tractor yesterday (and then I crashed it into a tree, losing 11k blood, broke a leg and then spent an hour crawling to the Berezino hospital, but that's a completely different story).

And then get banned for server hopping.

If I see people running about in the same area as me, I'll either sit tight and hide, or move away whenever possible. If I do get near players, I will generally try to observe how they act and maybe try to talk to them from behind a building or something. Just yesterday a friend and I were at Zub Castle, checking out Vyshnoye. I saw 3 players running towards it and I just went the other direction. Or earlier when I spawned at Balota I decided to check the military tents first for I had nothing to lose. I saw some players there and I just waited in a bush for 10 minutes until they left again (worth it, they had left an AKM with 6 mags). I do have my finger ready on the mouse button to shoot, which sometimes results in a mini bloodbath in a supermarket (let's be fair here, if 3 people with rifles ready loot a supermarket, odds are they will kill you when they see you walking around on your own.

Game purchase only Studio developed in close collaboration with the community Studio servers Kickstarter, yes

The zombies are a lot more enjoyable now. The only times we had some sprinting at us was when one of us was still crouching instead of crawling. Performance seems to be slightly better as well, but the pathfinding needs to be fixed asap. Currently you're almost forced to let a runner come up to you and hit you once to make sure that he won't suddenly sprint 10 meters to the left just to appear behind you again. This even happens on low-ping servers.

Actually yesterday, heh. And it was 3 murders in one. I was in Zelenogorsk trying to get to my friends who were checking the area around Green Mountain, but had no food so I decided to take a small detour to the supermarket. Got to the back of the supermarket and saw a guy sneaking around inside in the right-hand rooms. I grabbed my Winchester and entered the supermarket through the left-hand room. I move a little closer to the door that leads to the front of of the store (behind the counter) and I see the guy sitting in the doorway. I shoot and get the kill, and as he goes down I see a second guy behind him. I pop him as well. I check the area a bit to make sure nobody's there, and a few minutes later I head back to the corpses and start looting them. While I'm sorting my inventory and backpack out a third guy logs back in right in front of me (he must have alt-F4 or something) I waiting until he moved a bit and popped him as well. They had all the essentials (I only had a winchester and a hatchet and some food), a 20 slot backpack. I could even provide both my friends with a compass, map, matchbox and binocs. Too bad they didn't have military-grade weapons, else this would've been an amazing land. Not bad for a first murder, I'd say.

I like that Zeds appear to be having a chance to spot you from quite a distance, adds to the thrill and adrenaline rush when sneaking around. But that’s not to say that it doesn’t feel bugged. Just yesterday a friend and I were heading to Stary and decided to check some deer stands prior to heading to the town, at one point we were both prone in the woods behind a deer stand while checking the map to see where to go next. Between us and the deer stand/field there were a couple of bushes, trees and a rock that were providing cover. All of the sudden we see two Zeds in the middle of the field (well over 50 meter away) spazzing out and sprinting towards us. No idea why they decided to do that, as we’ve been sitting there for over 5 minutes and no Zed ever engaged, even when they were pretty close. This doesn’t feel right. I don’t want Zeds to be 100% predictable and there should be some luck involved occasionaly, but their behavior should still be consistent. Not just go into spidey-sense-mode one minute, and then back to derp-mode the next.

I only started playing a few days ago and had never played ArmA2 before, so I was completely new to the game, the mechanics and the general feel of moving and interacting. Anyway, after a few attempts at staying alive, I finally managed to get a friend to play DayZ as well, so we're on Mumble trying to find eachother near the outskirts of Cherno. I'm on one side of the town near the treeline on the hillside, he's near the shore. I have absolutely no weapons and I'm fairly low on blood, my friend found a Makarov and has been untouched so far. So I'm up on the hill telling my friend where to find me, when I hear someone talking on the ingame voicecom: "you there near the powerline, friendly?". At first I had no idea he was talking to me, so I was ignoring him. After a few minutes he asks again "you there, looking at the barn, answer or I shoot". I still had no idea he was talking to me (I even had no idea I was looking a a barn). Minutes went by as I'm still trying to spot my friend. All of the sudden I hear a campfire behind me, I turn around and nearly see a guy just sitting right behind me cooking some meat. He looks at me and says "oh, you're awake, what are you doing here?", so I replied that I'm waiting for a friend to cross the town to get to me. He says "hang on", a minute or so later he returns riding a bike and casually says "I'll draw the zombies away, you head to the barn for supplies and wait for your friend there". So he rides down the hill, aggros the zombies in front of the barn and rides off. I head down the barn, found a crossbow and a minute or so later my friend runs in as well. Me and my friend haven't died since and are now well equipped enough to deal with most of the dangers in DayZ. So thank you, unknown crazy bicycle guy. Thank you.