Deftallica

I've been watching a lot of videos on Youtube by some of my favorite players of other games (Battlefield, CoD, etc) and DayZ looks like a lot of fun. The only thing is most of the time, at the very least, there's two guys working together. In some cases, groups of four or more. I just bought Arma 2: Combined Operations on Steam's summer sale so I'm committed to trying it out but I don't have any buddies who play PC games. Lots of friends on Xbox, none on PC, unfortunately. So I'll be going it solo. The way everyone makes it sound other players are far more likely to shoot on sight than help each other. I'd just hate for, even after putting in several hours and learning the game, to be shot in the face while going about my business. I realize that's just kinda part of the game and all and I'll just have to man up. If solo'ing isn't too bad, great. Has anyone had success meeting folks on the forums for grouping together?

Gambles, you're the kind of player I'd like to play with.

So I think I'm just about ready to move further inland but a crucial thing I'm missing is a backpack. All I can find is the stupid Czech vest pouch. I have everything to make fire, skin and cook food, I have a water bottle, I've found just about every navigational tool (compass, map, watch, etc). 4 mags for my AKM, 3 mags for a 1911, and plenty of bandages. This has all be scavenged from Cherno and Balota. My only concern is that before I leave the city I need to have a some morphine with me, and I need extra space to find and cook meat to replenish my blood loss (around 7000, had a few scuffles with zombies). I've established a good route that takes me from a house, to a supermarket, to the church and into the fire station in Cherno, but after two runs I haven't found one yet. I'm finding plenty of great things but have no where to put them! I also, in relation to where I've been looting, do not know where the nearest hospital is. So... thoughts? I'd hate to leave without morphine but I think I'm otherwise ready to head for the woods. Any decent odds on finding a backpack later or places I should look to acquire one?

Awesome. Thanks for the the directions guys. I just did another quick run through the firehouse -> church -> red house -> supermarket after dinner and still no bag. lol

Should I worry about getting morphine before I pack up and leave? I'm on my own and I've read horror stories about breaking one's legs in the middle of nowhere and being stuck crawling around. I think I can sacrifice a coke or two for some before I go if I can't find a backpack. Where abouts is the Cherno hospital in relation to, say, the church by the coast?

I have the game installed through Steam as well. You make a special non-Steam modified shortcut to run DayZ in Steam if you'd like to use the overlay. Otherwise, the default shortcuts that Steam makes for Arma 2 and OA should run those base games just fine. I've never had to delete DayZ or anything like that.

I haven't sifted through all the pages of this thread but I did want to say I find the lack of defense upon spawning a bit disconcerting. You spawn in with a few basic supplies, bandages, painkillers etc which is great, but would it be too much to ask to have like a pocket knife or something?

This, exactly.

The zombies are a bit ridiculous for starting players, so don't worry it's not just you. And sometimes, yes, it can take a good while to find any sort of decent weapon. Like someone else said, check industrial areas and barns and there's a good chance you'll find an axe, which is arguably a better weapon to have than a sidearm in a lot of situations where zombies are the issue. Hole up in a building and you can one-hit hack them down as they come in, and from a far enough range that they shouldn't be able to hit you. They aggro from a long range, they run stupid fast so they're always right on your ass. It is ridiculous. But some more experience in movement within the game and the zombies' mannerisms is all you need to get better. Most of the time, if you're crawling prone and the zombie isn't directly facing you, you can crawl by without being spotted. Some players, like if you watch SeaNanners, for example, that dude is always running. Pretty much everywhere he goes, which I wouldn't recommend and most players here don't either. But he knows the layouts of the popular spots pretty well, circles buildings, goes in one end and comes out the other to break the zombies' line-of-sight and gets away, usually without even having to kill any. As of right now, zombies can only shuffle around in buildings and run blazing fast outdoors. If you can find a building with a front and back door, lure them in one entrance, go out the other and book it. You can usually get away. If you do have stragglers, try and run to a wooded area and finish him off, and you should be out of earshot for any zombies in a town to hear. I'm still pretty new, but that's what I've observed from both my own experience and watching others play. Finding a weapon can be a bit tough depending on where you spawn. I'm most familiar, right now, with spawning around Balota, which is close to Cherno. You can usually find a weapon or two in the nearby airstrip, and there's an industrial garage down on the coast that sometimes has goodies in it. The perk of that garage is that zombies can't get in there. The only catch is you have to be on the lookout for other players. EDIT: To add to the above, another tip is that as of right now, zombies can't traverse docks. They can't walk on a surface that is directly above water. I'm sure this will change down the road, but if you're just starting out, aggro a bunch of zombies and are near the coast, if you can find a dock you can get on it and they can't follow. They WILL still be aggroed, so as soon as you hit grass they'll come running. But it gives you a moment to catch your breath and figure out a plan as long as someone else doesn't come along and shoot you in the face. Worse comes to worst, you can always log out and log back in to avoid the zombies. Don't do that if you come under fire, it's considered unsportsmanlike, I guess, lol. But if you're concerned there's no way you're going to lose the zombies and you don't mind some downtime I don't see the harm in signing out and back in.

I would have thumbs downed the video, but rating is conveniently disabled.

Unrelated -- I love your avatar.

Not to slight S_poon, but be wary, because the name of the game in DayZ is for someone to say, "I'll help you!" or "come with me!" and then they shoot you in the face. lol

What has your latency looked like on the servers you picked? Make sure you're choosing one with a low, low green number. Other than that I'm not sure what the problem would be if your PC is able to use the high graphic settings. Try to run as few other programs in the background as you can. Close web browsers, anything non-essential. Make sure you don't have any downloads going or anything else that may be stifling your connection. Perhaps check to see if your hard drive needs to be defragmented. Those are all the things I would try. If none of it works, I'm sorry, you'll have to find someone more tech savvy than me. :-/ lol

Try here: http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/3910-need-medical-assistance-we-can-help/

Are you exaggerating or is it seriously taking 20 minutes? Because I would say, yes, long loading times are normal. But my definition of "long" is about a minute, maybe minute and a half.

The unfortunate part to this mod is that you just can't trust anyone. I would prefer to team up and travel with strangers I meet as well, trade gear, etc, but the fact of the matter is 90% of the people you're going to meet just want your stuff. Most of them shoot first, but some prefer to lure players in to a situation where they have the upper hand like this guy did to you. This behavior pretty much forces you to shift to their mentality as well, unfortunately, if you want to stay alive longer. The sad part to this is you may meet someone who would've happily helped you, or one of the traveling medic players and you shoot them on sight. Monster's signature is spot on. "In a world full of monsters, one must become a monster to survive." There's plenty of clans recruiting, you can try one of those. I thought about it, but some of them treat it as though you're interviewing for a job when all you want to do is play a game with like-minded people.

My first life went well at first. It lasted a couple of days as I only play in little 20 minute increments most of the time. I looted the airstrip near Balota and found a M1014 shotgun. I was pretty psyched to find it as my first weapon. Then I went to the warehouse building on the docks and found a hatchet. While I was trying to figure out how to switch from my shotgun to the hatchet I managed to "de-spawn" my shotgun. That saddened me. Found a safe place, and logged out. Logged back in the next day and BattlEye was giving me trouble. I decided I'd have another look through the airstrip since I found so much there the day before and gear would've respawned. I'm not sure what the issue was, but BattlEye freaked out and kicked me off the server twice randomly. I chose a different server for my next log in, which turned out to be in a different timezone so it was nighttime and BattlEye had dumped me right at the entrance to the hangar closest to the control tower. As I'm spawning, I see a flashlight on in front of me but not looking in my direction. Then, before my screen is even finished loading and I'm able to move, a guy not 4 feet beside me unloads on my full-auto with something. I presume they had a pretty good laugh. It was a little irritating because BattlEye / server issues caused my death. It would be different if I died from my own mistakes or from someone else getting the jump on me. Oh well. I was still learning the controls and such so I figure I probably wouldn't have lasted much longer anyway.

If you went in to Best Buy most laptops in the $500-700 range will run it just fine. Just make sure that it has an actual Radeon or nVidia graphics card, and not just Integrated Graphics. My sorry little HP Pavilion I got a year or so ago runs it no problem. Most graphic options are set to low or normal. FRAPS has me around 25-32FPS.

I've spawned near Balota by the shore a few times. If you head up to the small airfield beside it there's usually a weapon or two in one of the hangars, and the control tower. This is also a popular destination for plenty of other fresh-spawners, so be careful.

So I just got everything installed and I'm trying to work the kinks out. I have the game installed through Steam, launched both once per instructions, and then used the Six Launcher to download and update the mod. I'm only able to successfully log in to a server when I use the Six Launcher. I'd like to get it to run through Steam so I can make and add friends and whatnot, but baby steps. When I do get in to a server, though, the graphics are blocky. Almost like Minecraft. Grass, trees, etc. I found one thread about it and it was suggested to delete and re-install the mod. I did this, and reinstalled through Six Launcher to the same results. I'd post a screenshot but Print Screen only takes a shot of my desktop. And I don't have Fraps or anything else to do it with. Any suggestions / fixes would be great. I'm anxious to play.

Ok, I got it working! My Radeon settings were already as they needed to be. I had to change the anti-aliasing from Low to Normal. Now it's running, everything just looks kind of crappy. lol So: I got aggroed while prone from fairly far away. And do zombies ever stop chasing you?

Thank you, Dingus!

Thanks for the replies everyone. I think I'll play on my own at least long enough to learn the controls, aggro radius', etc and then maybe look to the forums to group with folks. So tents... they keep your things even if you die, you just have to remember where you put them? If another player finds your tent I assume they can take all your stuff?