Gamewiz

I apologize but apparently I'm a little detached from this recent-ish news. Is War Z related to Day Z? Or is it separate from what Rocket is doing here entirely? From what little I've heard about this, it's an actual standalone MMO game that was in development before DayZ was a mod yet somehow they have virtually the same name? I'm a little confused and if someone to clarify what this is all about I would be very grateful. :) PS: Oh, and please no fanboy remarks or DayZ-hater remarks. I would just like some facts, not about how War Z is going to destroy DayZ or how WarZ is a fraud and will never happen.

Thanks of the informative post. Apparently most others in this thread can't read the OP. ;) IGN says release Q3 of this year? Really?

I'm sure many of the suggestions I'm about to offer have been talked about already, but I wanted to get my thoughts, opinions, hopes, and expectations out on the table regarding this game. This is probably going to get a little lengthy, but I want to make sure I cover everything. To be clear, I'm looking at the big picture... that means moving away from being a mod and how I would personally like for this game to function as a standalone game. Before I begin, let me state I love this game. Not for what it is now, but for what it can become. It's a blast to play right now, don't get me wrong, but since we all know ii is a mod in Alpha stage of development, that means it has a ways to go before it can be considered a completed game. The potential for this game is quite large, so hopefully my one little post can help to contribute to the overall direction and purpose of the game WITHOUT compromising the core purpose of what this game is and how it functions now. ***Everything below is just my personal opinion of how I would love DayZ to be done as a standalone game. If you disagree, that's fine, but let's keep it civil!*** The Core Infrastructure Let me just start off with saying that this game screams to me as being a sandbox-style MMO. In fact, when I first heard about this game that is what I thought it was until I realized it was just a mod for another FPS game. The only components missing from what we have now in order to turn it into an MMO is the infrastructure. Ideally I think this game would shine in a format similar to something like Eve, or any of the MMOs built by Cryptic Studios. Now, I have no love for any of the MMOs Cryptic Studios has created, but the server infrastructure is what I'm referring to that should be mimicked. That means one server with multiple "shards" or "instances" of the same world. You would create a population cap on each shard so that you never have to worry about survivor overpopulation and break the immersion that you are just one of a few survivors left on a world full of zombies. I believe this to be a better solution than the more standard method of creating multiple servers like how WoW, SWTOR, WAR, etc., handle it. Doing it the traditional way makes it harder to manage the population and for a game like this, controlling the population is paramount to maintaining immersion and the overall core setting of the game. I will give an example to further break this down. Keep in mind these numbers are just examples, not the exact numbers I think they should be. Let's just use Chenarus (the setting we currently play in) as the example. Let's say there is a soft cap of 100 players and a hard cap of 150. When you log in, let's say you are placed into Chenarus 1, with a current population 99. You make the 100th. That immediately has the server auto-create Chenarus 2, so that anyone else that logs in right now will go to Chenarus 2 instead, maintaining a health population in Chenarus 1. You can manually switch to Chenarus 1 only if the hard cap of 150 players isn't reached yet. That way if your friend was playing in 1 and you auto-joined to 2, you can still join up with your friend as long as the hard cap isn't reached. If it has, then he can switch shards and join up with you instead. Switching between shards can only be done when not in combat and would have a semi-long cooldown to do so (like 30 minutes to an hour) so as to avoid abusing. This allows friends and clans to still play with each other, but maintains immersion and proper player population. The Environment/Setting First and foremost, this would be rated a mature game. The setting needs to be essentially the same feeling that we get now (except we really need to make night a little lighter so we don't all turn up the gamma just to see a tiny bit at night). What has been currently achieved is a great starting place. Vast forests and meadows, rolling hills, cliffs, mountains, the coast, towns, cities, and small farms... what is already presented is a perfect setting, it just needs to be polished. My only suggestion is to make the cities larger. Realistically, what I'm suggesting can only be accomplished with one city just due to time and cost to develop it properly, but one large city should be enough. Entering the city should be one of the most dangerous, but most rewarding, activities in the game. Dangerous not only in the amount of zombies that would be present, but also because it would be easy to get lost, stuck with no way out, complex, etc. Every building should be able to be entered, no "fake" buildings like we currently see (I understand that what we see is due to ArmA II limitations). There needs to be larger buildings and skyscrapers, like the one large apartment building we see in Cherno (but can only enter the lobby...). The more complex the city, the better it becomes. I know what I'm suggesting regarding the city is going to be the most difficult and probably the only part of my suggestions that might not be possible, but achieving as close to it as possible is all I'm striving for. Everything else in terms of settings is perfect. Keep the small towns, the farms, the woodlands, the meadows, etc. The setting once you venture out of the cities is absolutely perfect and I wouldn't change a thing. Sandbox vs Themepark I've typically been a fan of more themepark-oriented MMOs. But a zombie apocalypse is a sandbox MMO in every single way. The way DayZ currently operates is completely sandbox. The developer created the setting and the players create the content. This should be no different in the standalone version. The developers' sole purpose should be to create a realistic and immersive setting and give the players the tools to create their own content according to how they want to play without the ability to destroy the setting/environment to the detriment to other players (aka, the failed experiment with the sandbags and wire fencing that Rocket admitted needs to be changed). Basically keep the sandbox setting that already exists. It is a core part of what makes DayZ such a great game and that needs to not change. Also a Sandbox game allows for a smaller budget and development time because the developers just have to worry about the setting, not what players do in that setting. One of the reasons SWTOR has such a massive budget is because it lead you through each and every piece of content in the game. It provided a nice story-telling experience, but it lacked the open-ended feeling of a sandbox game and created a massive development time to polish each aspect. Character Progression Currently the only form of progression in the game is gear acquisition. That is good, but there needs to be more incentive. What I propose is a skill-based progression, NOT level-based progression. In a nutshell, the more you use something, the better you get at it (with diminishing returns and caps to point allocation so you don't max every skill in the game). There also needs to be a ton of different skills in the game. You use bandages, morphine, blood packs, etc., a lot? Then you start to reduce the time it takes to apply those bandages, or an increase to how much blood is renewed in using blood packs. Using an AK-47? Increase to your accuracy, damage, etc. using assault rifles. Those are basic examples, but the point is the more you do something, the better you become at it. I would also recommend what I like to call starting characteristics. These give small incentives and/or changes in a player's gameplay to provide some variation. As an example, when you are creating your character you get to choose one characteristic that gives your player some backstory. If you choose "park ranger" then you are given a hunting knife and compass to start. Or you roll a "butcher" and receive a small passive buff to the amount of blood you recover when eating meat that you've cooked. Or you can choose "paramedic" and you start with a few extra medical supplies. Or "soldier" and receive a small passive boost to your accuracy and damage with assault rifles. These are all hypothetical examples and easily up for balance and adjustment as required. I stress this final point... starting roles are meant to provide purpose to each player's backstory, NOT define how they play going forward. They provide starting variation, not to pigeon-hole players into certain "classes". Lastly in this section, let's talk about death in the game. I love how you lose all your gear in the game. It's a harsh penalty, but without it, players would behave radically different than they do now. It needs to stay this way. I'm going to add to this system however, but we lack a few things. Right now a penalty is given upon death. That's the penalty to dieing. What we need is an incentive to keep living (not just a punishment for dying), and a reason to keep playing AFTER you die. The incentive to keep living could be in the form of a passive "Survivor Buff" that slowly gets stronger (to a capped limit so it's not endless) the longer you are alive. I'm not sure exactly what it would do, but a suggestion could be to have it passively level all your skills by small increments. Basically the longer you stay alive you gain a passive buff to every skill in the game. But upon death, this buff is lost and it starts building all over again. The incentive to keep playing after you die is your actual skill progression. That is not lost. If you've made your character awesome with assault rifles then you'll still be awesome with them after you die... you just have to find another assault rifle. This makes it so that you don't feel like you've lost EVERYTHING in the game, which after awhile can be very disheartening. Not losing skill progression provides the incentive to keep playing. Gameplay Combat One of, but not the core aspect of gameplay in the game. The way it handles currently is fine, it just needs some polish and tweaking. That's mostly due to it being in Alpha and being a mod. So ultimately I have no complaints in the area of combat as long as it continues to be polished yet maintain the overall feel it currently possesses. I will suggest a few additions to it below One major change is to please allow us to jump. I know the horrid "bunny hopper" experience wants to be avoided, but the current alternative (press "v" to do a little animation that only sometimes works on objects and you never know which object it will work on) just doesn't work. Just make it to where, if you jump, it slows your run speed down and reduces accuracy on your weapon for 1-2 seconds. That will stop bunny hopping very quickly when people realize it only makes them die faster. The second option is to expand on the current system of getting injured. The broken leg feature is a good start, but there needs to be more types of injuries while in combat (these are in addition to the features like loss of blood and various effects it has on you, losing temperature, etc that come from not only combat but from survival blunders). Take an example from a game like Fallout. If I should someone in their arm, they should have greatly reduced accuracy with their weapon. I shout them in the leg, they can't run or walk anymore. Make more parts of the body have different outcomes on how it effects your ability to control your character. Survival I believe this to be an even larger aspect in gameplay for this game than combat. This entire game is about surviving... and so the gameplay needs to reflect that. HOWEVER, it does not need to become so realistic that it is a detriment to gameplay, but more on that in a section below. What we have now is excellent, it just needs to be expanded upon. Make hunting more like hunting. If I spot a deer or a boar, I shouldn't be able to walk up to it and hack it with my hatchet. I should be able to easily spot me and I need to be able to properly track it and sneak up on it to get within range to bring it down with whatever weapon I have at the time. The current method of using bandages, morphine, blood packs, heat packs, etc... is fine the way it is. I would not want to make it anymore complicated otherwise you end up on the verge of reducing fun for the sake of realism. It strikes a healthy balance right now. It can be adjusted and tweaked slightly, but do not make it more complicated. Truthfully, because this is one of the core parts of the game, it handles it very well right now. I'm weary of making suggestions to change anything because surviving in this game functions great (minus any bugs). If it ain't broke, don't fix it. User Interface The one aspect of this game that I truly dread. I know how to use it, but that doesn't mean it works. This may be mostly the fault of ArmA II and not DayZ, so I pray that this goes through a major overhaul when DayZ goes standalone. I'm mostly referring to bag and interface management. I should be able to easily switch between my hatchet (melee), main weapon, and sidearm effortlessly. I should be able to open up my character inventory and bag inventory separately and navigate items between the ground, the object I'm looting, my character inventory, and my backpack with nothing more than a simple drag and drop mechanism. When approaching a tree, I should be able to right click on a tree to open a small interface wheel that determines what actions I can do on that tree, NOT having to go to my hatchet in my inventory and right clicking it to get wood from the tree. And never should I disintegrate an item just because my bag couldn't hold it. Give me a warning that there is no room in the bag for that item, don't obliterate it. The less time I have to spend with my inventory open, the better. I want it to be intuitive and this UI is by far and large the most unintuitive interface I have ever come across in my over 2 decades of gaming. Zombies Clearly they are still being worked on right now, but I wanted to give my opinion in how they should move, react, be killed, etc. I want them to be the more "true" zombies, aka your standard zombie you see in most movies and games that still to the traditional model. I don't want ultra-fast arcade style zombies like in Left 4 Dead, or super mutated "breed x" zombies that have unique traits and are harder to kill. We don't need boss zombies. Let's keep this traditional. What is traditional, you say? First and foremost, the thing that makes them so terrifying is that they seem unstoppable. They don't tire, they don't give up the chase, and most importantly, they only die by trauma to the brain (aka, shoot them in the head). Some may think that having to do only headshots makes it too hard, but that is only one aspect of a traditional zombie. The other aspect is that they are typically slow moving (until they become essentially frenzied in large groups and can achieve a medium speed run towards you). Keep in mind these things are virtually brain dead. All they possess is basic motor skills (they can walk and sometimes run), and they want to eat. That's it. They can't swim, they stumble up stairs, they can't climb ladders, and they won't try to use tactics against you. That means they won't try and flank you... each zombie is going to take the shortest visible path straight to you. Their awareness isn't great, but it's not horrible. If they see you, they'll know you are living by your looks and your scent. If they hear strange noises (pretty much any sound that you can cause), they'll be attracting to it but until they see you, they won't be running at you. If they hear something they'll start to move that way to see what the sound was due to basic curiosity. What this means is that, in small numbers, zombies are not a large threat. It's when you fire off that gunshot (which then attracts all surrounding zombies in the area) or stumble into a mob of zombies that spot you, that they become a real threat. It's then when having to shoot them in the head becomes difficult because there are so many and they are moving quickly towards you, and they do NOT tire and give up the chase unless you are able to out maneuver them. Another defense against these zombies is they still react to getting hacked and shot with bullets. They may not be killed when you shoot them in the chest, but enough bullets in the chest can slow their movement or knock them down, and shooting off their legs will definitely slow them down. We need to be able to "disable" zombies in case we miss them in the head or if there are too many and we just need to quickly remove their ability to give chase to us. Lastly, obviously we'll need zombies to spawn up in order to keep the population of zombies at a high level should some be killed. They need to appear to be endless, so keep a set amount on the map at all times. When one is killed, another spawns elsewhere randomly on the map. The only thing is that they need to spawn outside of the view of other players. Nothing breaks immersion like seeing a zombie appear right in front of you out of thin air. HOWEVER, zombies do like to come out of nowhere it seems, so just make them spawn out of the line of sight of players. This creates the illusion that "no where is safe" but doesn't break the immersion. Just because I cleared house behind me doesn't mean I shouldn't watch my back... Realism vs Gameplay A great saying from another lead designer was this: "Realism is the servant of the game, not the master.". This game definitely needs to have aspects of realism to it because you want it to feel like you are truly trying to survive in the modern world right after a zombie apocalypse. But don't get so in depth with the realism that it detracts from the gameplay or the "fun factor". Breaking a leg and having to use morphine to fix it is great. It's a health balance between not ever being able to break a leg, or the alternative of that you can't walk on it for 3-5 weeks and have to locate morphine, a splint, and someone that has basic medical knowledge of how to fix a broken bone. If I get shot, using a bandage to stop the bleeding and either eating some cooked meat to get more blood or using a blood pack is great. What's not great is running over a health pack to instantly heal you, or the alternative of going through the complex medical procedure of removing the bullet, fighting infection, and being laying on a virtual bed for weeks trying to recover. Just make sure they you don't get so caught up in adding realism to the game that you turn the game into a simulator. Let's play a game that hints at real life situations, not participate in a real life simulator. That about covers everything for now. If I think of any other ideas or suggestions I'll edit it, but congratulations to those of you who made it all the way through. ;) I'm eager to hear your suggestions! I enjoy DayZ and have great hopes for what it can become.

I don't think there needs to be classes either, but character progression does yield unique roles. Classes are just a set way to define your playstyle from the start while character progression defines your playstyle while you are playing.

Great post! I look forward to dissecting it. :P If/When it goes standalone, you can be fairly certain they'll do away with the current Hive server structure they have going now. Due to limitations of being a mod for ArmA II, DayZ is limited in what it can achieve "behind the scenes". Implementing a system similar to what I described in my OP would completely resolve the Alt-F4/server hop exploit, because it's a single server cluster. And you wouldn't be able to hop through different phases ingame while in combat and the cooldown to change phases/instances would be rather large to help stem any sort of abuse. Agreed on this point. :) I usually don't play sandbox style games, but in order to remain a true zombie survival apocalypse MMO, it would have to be sandbox. That's just the best way to handle it. Trust me, I'm not completely sold on the idea of character progression as well. The point was just to keep players playing, and give some unique traits beneficial to the player to reward them for their particular playstyle. Whatever form that may be, I believe it should absolutely make it into the final product. Agreed again. Let's hope if/when DayZ goes standalone that rocket creates a more traditional UI. That is why a standalone version needs to be properly researched in terms of what game engine is used to make sure it can support more traditional zombies in greater numbers. It is absolutely possible to achieve with today's technology, rocket and his team just need to make sure they choose the right engine should they decide to go that route. :) The splint idea I'm a little hesitant about because it starts down the slope where it can get very complicated, very quickly. As long as broken bones aren't something that take an long amount of time to heal, and the requirements to fix it are easily achieved (like getting morphine is fairly easy as long as you raid a hospital), then that's fine. I just don't want to be out for even 30 minutes due to a broken bone. I want to get back to playing, not staring at a screen waiting for my broken bone timer to expire. ;)

I'd love some more feedback on the features I suggested above. :)

I am in full agreement with everything you said. The ideas I'm throwing out are there for the players (and hopefully rocket) to read, to bounce ideas off each other, and hopefully provide a little incentive to rocket to let him know there are those of us out here who look forward to seeing what he has in store. :) No decision, especially one such as large as server infrastructure, should be made hastily.

That is the ideal scenario, but that is still assuming the average size of the playerbase, something MMO games aren't very good at determining. That's why you need backup plans to manage the population to provide the proper feeling you want to achieve. In most MMOs, that's making sure places feel full, busy, robust. In DayZ, you have the hardest scenario to achieve... enough survivors in your area so you don't think you are the only survivor on the planet, but not too many or the zombie apocalypse doesn't seem so serious anymore. Yes, you can prevent overcrowding by just making the world bigger. But that's increased cost and time for the developers. AND that is assuming you have the player population to fill that world. If not enough people play, then you spent additional time and resources creating a larger world that now feels completely empty. That's why the developers need to create a decent-sized world just the way they want it, customizing it to the lowest number of expected players based upon market research data, then use control methods (aka phasing) to monitor overpopulation. You can't just shrink the world down due to under population, but you can fix overpopulation by "enlarging" the world by masking the true player population through phasing.

I support the right to voice your opinion, but I'll disagree with your assessment. ;) (Agree to disagree!) That's why I made it very clear I hate Cryptic games (maybe it wasn't clear enough, but I'm saying it now! :) ). But the way they handle their servers was (I thought) similar to Eve in that they utilize one larger server for the entire population (in comparison to games like WoW or SWTOR that use separate servers, each with separate populations). I might have gotten some things mixed up then in that case. Basically what I am referring to is the more detailed example I provided in my OP. If Eve doesn't provide multiple phases of the same area, then DayZ couldn't be like Eve. The primary reason it wouldn't work is because no matter how large you make it, you'd have "hotspot" areas (like cities) that will become too populated with players and destroy the entire immersion factor of that city being overrun by zombies. You have to use phases (if not of the entire world, then at LEAST for the major hotspots) to keep the human population in check to the AI zombie population. It's a must. That was the entire point when referencing the infrastructure. You have to create the illusion of only a few survivors against hordes of unlimited zombies even though there will be thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people all playing the same game. :)

I don't disagree with that at all, I just want to add more personal value to my character. I'm not saying that once you max your skill in pistols you can shoot someone in the right toe and insta-kill them, I'm just saying it's minor increases to give your character a personal customization to better fit your playstyle, not game-defining roles that pigeon-hole you into playing one specific way.

Then just store your gun in that tent and go for it. You have nothing to lose.

Looks like someone found your hideout.

If you read my suggestion it was that skill progression is NOT lost upon death. In fact it's the only thing you don't lose when dying. For me, it's there to promote player retention so that they don't feel like they keep starting over every time they die. Right now in the game, your only source of progression is the gear you have. So when you die, you essentially start over like it's a brand new game. By introducing skill progression which is NOT lost, you give the players something to continuously work for without fear of losing it. And this doesn't reduce the death penalty at all.

Shooting that one player will yield minimal rewards to skill progression with whatever weapon you decided to use. You want to level up a weapon? Best to use it again a bunch of zombies as they are far more plentiful than other players. I highly doubt leveling up your skills would change any behavior in how players react to each other. /shrug This is one of those things that is just personal opinion. Character progression is just a suggestion to further promote player retention. As with anything I've posted, it's merely personal preference in what I'd like to see.

It's an example, not a set law. It's also one of those situations where gameplay supersedes realism. If you wanted true realism, then if I shoot you once it the chest it should kill you or completely incapacitate you, regardless of the weapon I used, every single time. And if I shoot off your hand, you don't get to use it for the rest of the game. Or heck, if I kill you, you die permanently and you have to buy another copy of the game. See how the more realism you interject the worse it can get? What I provided was one small example showing that skills upgrade your character in some way. In that one small example, I made gameplay more important than realism. Step away from that one minor feature and look at the broader picture.

I would highly recommend you continue to read past that part as I knew that section would probably be the most disagreed with. :) The reason I put in that suggestion is for player retention. Should this turn into a standalone game, especially if it becomes a sandbox-style MMO, it needs a way to hold players in despite the many many harsh deaths they will experience. You need to give SOMETHING to the player that they can hold onto, otherwise as they continue to die over and over and continue to start over like they just first installed the game, the less motivated they will become. Give the players something they don't lose (but still keep death the harsh penalty it is now) and you keep the players in the same mindset they are now, WITHOUT taking away their will to keep playing.

I had this happen to me the other day, and now it makes so much sense. I couldn't understand why this guy wasn't dying and now it's clearly a hacker. Got the jump on on guy in Cherno and snuck up behind him. I dropped two clips of my Makarov into his back before he even decided to turn around, and I couldn't understand why that hadn't killed him. So I pulled out my crossbow and stuck an arrow in his head... still not dead. He was showing that he was bleeding, so I dodged his fire and literally ran circles around him for 5 minutes waiting for him to bleed out while he kept on trying to kill me (I had run out of ammo and didn't have a melee weapon). After 5 minutes he still hadn't died and then got one shot to connect from his lee enfield which insta-killed me. The entire fight made no sense.

This makes me very happy. Last night after I lost progress twice on my character (due to it not saving on the server) I was tempted to wait for awhile until the hotfix rolled around. Nice to see that it came so quickly! I'll give it another try and hopefully I don't lose progress again. I don't mind losing gear due to dying, it's just a little bummer to lose it due to server glitches. And yes, I know it's Alpha. ;)

There is also a bad bug going around where your progress is NOT saved. This happened to me twice yesterday. All my progress from the previous night wasn't saved when I logged in last night, and after played for a few hours last night and got all the good starting gear, I lost it when I logged out and re-logged that same night. So don't get attached to any of your gear right now...

Same thing happened twice to me today. Too tired to post details.

For me, personally, my first time playing yesterday I found it much easier to move around in towns unseen while it's night on the server. But that's only because I turned up the gamma all the way so it wasn't completely pitch black and I could still see somewhat, like a full moon was out.

To find north just look at the way the clouds are moving... they always move east.

Pretty much what the title says. :) Does anyone know or can recommend a good, stable PST (GMT -8) server?

Well, it's official. This game turned me into a zombie in real life. Loaded this game around 7pm PST, didn't get off until 2:30am this morning and got a whopping 3 hours of sleep before I had to head to work. Damn you DayZ, damn you. Figured I'd post some feedback here regarding this mod and perhaps my little feedback, both regarding gameplay and just my overall experiences within the game my first night, will give some helpful insight to other new players about what they should and should not expect. And perhaps my lack of experience in this game might give a few laughs for those veteran players out there reading this. So, let's start from the beginning! Stumbled across this mod in another game forum and it immediately peaked my interest. I've always wondered why someone hadn't made a true sandbox-style MMO survival zombie apocalypse game. I mean, who wouldn't want to live in post-apocalyptic world filled with zombies and little hope for survival? So after reading up a little on this mod, understanding that it was still in Alpha and that I would have to drop $30 for the core game I'll probably never play, I started the download process as I continued my research about how to play the game. I posted a thread here: http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/29706-the-game-of-my-dreams/ just to get whatever tips I could while I continued my own research. Besides, it was going to take a couple hours for me to download this game on Steam, so I had time to kill. Once I had gotten ArmA II installed, I installed Six Launcher and started looking over all of the servers. Choosing one that was fairly full with minimal ping, I jumped right into the thick of it thinking I knew plenty enough about the game (due to my research during the download process) to be just fine. Boy, was I wrong. First off, I think the game decided to toy with me. Only later did I realize this but it had spawned me right on the Electro docks surrounded by about a dozen zombies. At first I didn't realize this because as soon as it loaded I opened up my preferences to adjust video settings, look over the controls, etc. When I suddenly heard a groaning noise I closed out the preferences windows and saw a zombie stumbling right in front of me. I freaked out and immediately stood up (bad move) and took off, only to realize that in doing so I attracted every single zombie on that dock. Naturally, after running around the area having no idea where I was, where I should go, or how I could shake the walkers, I eventually succumbed to the inevitable. Round 1: Gamewiz = 0, Zombies = 1. Second spawn was much kinder to me. I still have no idea where I was (at the time I decided to refuse to look at any outside map like http://dayzdb.com/map#4.101.134) and I had thought I remembered reading somewhere that the clouds always traveled east, so I THINK I was somewhere on the eastern side of the map. Checking my bag to see what I started with (and gasping with unbelief that I didn't start with any sort of weapon... could I at least punch a zombie in the face??) I took off in a sprint to get to the cover of the woods. Once there, I began a slow and steady trek, looking for any signs of a town, road, deer stand, outhouse, anything. After around 15 minutes of wandering I crested a hill and spotted what looked to be an open barn down in a valley, with a couple smaller buildings nearby. Being overly cautious a crouched my way down the hill until I got close enough to the barn to see a couple walkers and hoppers (my names for the types of zombies based upon how they move). I moved to a crawl and got inside of the barn to discover a plethora of goodies. A couple bandages, a Pepsi, Macaroni, hatchet, and... shotgun!! I first picked up the axe and, after struggling with the painful interface, got it to equip so that I was holding it. When I went to pick up the shotgun it dropped my axe... wtf? I couldn't figure out how in the world to keep both items on me and swap between them interchangeably. Finally I figured maybe I could place the gun into my backpack since I could put it into my inventory... bad move. Apparently (learning this on the forums after the fact) guns take up 10 slots, with the starting bag only 8 slots. So instead of the game telling me I couldn't fit the shotgun into my bag, instead I somehow disintegrated it and it no longer existed. After that heartbreaking experienced, I crawled my way out of the barn and began my hunt for the next stash. Somehow, after awhile of aimless wandering I came across another barn. Inside was the same stuff, plus a couple canteens of water and another shotgun. This time, I made sure to equip the shotgun and just figured I wouldn't use the axe and leave it on my belt. After loading two shots into the double barrel, with a final shot in reserve, I began to make my way out of the barn when a walker turned the corner right in front of me. He immediately spotted me so I stood up to take aim with my new weapon. Fired the first shot and somehow this zombie moved like a ninja on crack. You know that blinking effect ghosts use in horror movies to cover short distances? Ya, that's how this guy advanced towards me. First shot... missed. Second shot... missed. Suddenly he was right up on me beating me down as I reloaded my last shot. I pulled the trigger and blew his chest out. Bleeding from every orifice I tried to bandage myself up with one of the bandages I had on my pack. Unfortunately, in spending the time to do so I had already attracted all the other zombies in the area. Let's just cut this short and say they made short work of me. Round 2: Gamewiz = 0, Zombies = 2. Let me just give this input here... I don't know if the zombies moving like lightning and blinking like a mage in WoW is a glitch or intended. If a glitch, then I know it'll hopefully be fixed in the future. If intended, please for the love of all that is good and decent change it immediately. That is not how a zombie should move. They are brain dead creatures, they don't have quick reflexes. They shouldn't be able to swim, or quickly climb ladders, or dodge a shotgun round at close range. They are mindless machines that just want to feed on your flesh. They have zero intelligence and only have basic instincts. Dodging bullets, swimming, climbing ladders... they are not instinctual behaviors. Ok, moving on! My third and final round for the night (which it was now also night time on the server, so I decided to "cheat" and turned up the gamma so I could at least see the ground I was walking on), which proved to be the longest one. I spawned up at the lighthouse at Cap Golova between Electro and Cherno. By this time, I said screw not reading the map and decided to plan out how I was going to get my supplies so I was better prepared this time. Since you start with next to nothing, I knew heading to the major towns was a horrible idea. I instead decided to make my way North to Pusta. A medium yield farm, residential, plus water. Sounded like a good place to start. I arrived into Pusta from the south east, my first target the medium yield farm building. By now I had gotten pretty good at understanding how to more properly navigate around zombies, and was able to make my way inside without any of them spotting me. And at night it seemed much easier to stay hidden. Inside I found a hatchet, flares, a couple empty cans, a bandage and a shotgun with about 6 rounds. Leaving the back of the building again I was going to sneak around and by some miracle cross the street despite a dozen or so zombies patrolling the area to get inside the residential house across the street that I knew probably held something useful for me. Crawling up to a bush that was next to the street and directly across from the house, I looked and saw nothing but zombies in every direction. No way could I get across without them all spotting me. That's when I noticed another player across the street and north of me, essentially north of the house in another bush. I don't think he had spotted me because I was laying in the bush for quite some time trying to find an opening. Suddenly, this player decides to go into a crouch position and literally walks right out towards the street. I laughed with disbelief and a zombie charged at him and he fired off a round from his rifle. Sure enough, every zombie came running and he took off up the hill behind him trying to escape. Now was my chance! I darted across the street, barely avoiding the attention of a few straggler zombies and made my way into the house. I immediately found a 20 slot backpack, an enfield with 3 clips, matches, and a hunting knife. Happy that I seem to have the bare essentials for survival, I start to wrap up my dealings in the house when a big red flash happens right outside the house and lights up the entire area. Apparently the other player didn't die... but why the heck did he just throw a flare right towards the house? To my dismay, it attracted the attention of a few zombies, two of which entered the house. I pulled out my hatchet to remain as quiet as possible, and jumped the two zombies, slaying one and losing about 1k blood to the other before I was able to turn and bring him down as well. I quickly bandaged myself to stop the bleeding and exited the rear of the house on the north side, where I faced a wall and a semi-open field with a few scattered trees. Not wanting to hang around too long, I crawled around the fence and saw the other player right in front of me, crawling right towards me! However, I quickly realized either he or I was lagging out as he was crawling in place. I went behind him to a nearby tree and waited there to see what happened, when suddenly he disappeared and reappeared on the other side of the tree right next to him. I must've startled him because he immediately turned and fired off a round right at me, somehow missing with his rifle. I crouched and ducked behind the tree, and he continued to fire off three more rounds before I could say or type anything to call out friendly to him. That's when I saw a horde of zombies running up behind him, so as soon as they were close enough I stood and darted away, only hearing shots fired repeatedly as I ran up the hill into the nearby woods. One of the zombies gave chase to me, so I turned and was able to down him with a couple shots. I stopped a couple hundred paces up the hill away from the town when I figured I was safe enough. Turning, I zoomed in to survey the damage. A few zombie bodies lay on the ground near the tree and wall where the scuffle with the other player had taken place, and by some miracle I saw the player (who I now knew was named Jorge) crawling up next to the wall amidst the dead bodies. I didn't consider myself a murderer, but I wasn't done exploring the town yet and I knew this guy wasn't going to play nice. Getting into a nice prone position, I brought up my sites and zoomed in. Pop! One shot in the head and he went down. I felt both excited and depressed, because the system registered it as murder even though I knew it had to be done. After hacking up one zombie that became interested in my position due to the gun fire, I made my way back to the dead Jorge to loot him. Picking up another 3 clips for my enfield, more bandages, and some canned food, I retreated from the town realizing I had no way to get water from the water source in the town as I had no canteen. I retreated up the hill and made my way to the outskirts of Staroye, where I plan to hopefully recover a cantina somewhere and get myself some much needed water. That ended my play session for the evening, and I walked away feeling very satisfied despite the bugs in the game and the lightning quick zombies. So any hints or tips for me? What locations will be good for me to investigate to get other items I may need?

Pureevuls, that is fantastic news! You made me very happy and I'm going to watch that link right now. :) I fully understand this game is in alpha and expected to encounter many many bugs during my play sessions! I was just really hoping these were glitches and not intended, so it's good to know my hopes were correct. Glad you enjoyed the read!