ALiborio

I've been playing sporadically over the last couple of weeks and I've pretty much got the hang of the game. I've read a bunch of forum posts here and checked out dayzdb to learn where loot spawns and stuff. So right now I'm pretty well equipped. I've got all the equipment except the GPS. An AKS-74 Kobra, M9 SD, plenty of ammo, water canteens and cooked steaks. I've had a couple close calls but I've been able to keep my blood up around 12000 with the cooked steaks. Now my main problem is that I keep finding the same guns at every place I loot. I've been hitting up a bunch of deer stands, went to Starry to check the military tents, went to the NW airfield, NE airstrip, and the tents near Berezino. I've even come across 2 heli crashes (got me NVG and camo suit, which is pretty nice). But as for guns I've not been able to find anything other than more AKS-74 Kobras, or M4s or M16s without any scope. I've kept the Kobra since it's got some sort of scope and I've got tons of ammo for it. I've watched a bunch of youtube vids of people playing DayZ and it seems like so many of them come across really awesome guns. Do they really just play for so many hours that they eventually find good stuff? I'll admit the first time I came across an M4 I was pretty excited (I believe it was in Cherno) but since then I've seen them so many times they are complete trash loot. Does anyone know the best course to take to find a better gun without traversing the entire map like I have so far?

Came across another Heli crash found a FN FAL and a Bizon SD. FAL had no ammo but BIzon had 2 clips. Figured I try out the Bizon since it's silenced. Headed back to the airfield. Didn't find too much and ran into a group of 2 near the firestation/control tower. Almost shot each other but they declared friendly so we went about our ways. Headed towards the other barracks and I run into another survivor who put me down in a couple of seconds. I think the server only had like 4 people in it too so I guess we were all at the airfield. Guess "better" guns are the least of my worries now that I'm starting over. Oh well it was a good run.

Yea I was planning on doing something like that. How far away do you have to be for loot to respawn? Is it also effected by other players in the area? Also I would take it from a player but I've only encountered a couple of players since I started playing. First was a few people in Cherno who were just running around like idiots like me looking for some loot so we just ignored each other. I've also killed someone with trash loot. Last night while working my way towards the barracks I saw a guy, shot at him but he got away. While I was in the NW airfield I heard other shots but never saw anyone. I did have a tent set up but all my loot was missing when I came back to it. Either someone found it and stole it all (just some ammo and smoke grenades) or it was bugged.

It can't be real time days. I've had this character alive for about a week or so. I haven't played a lot since I was away for 4 days but yesterday when I got on it said day 2. A more precise time of how long you've been alive would be great. Like number of days/hours/maybe even minutes.

I had a run in with my first hackers today. I was next to the NW airfield and I got suddenly teleported to a rooftop with at least 10+ guys on it. Heard someone in the comms saying what the hell and then I just quit immediately, hopefully before I got killed.

Just pick a direction and run. You'll find zombies eventually

If you use Six Launcher you can start favorite servers. I try to do it for ones that I've had good luck with.

If you're in a low population server going into Cherno or Elektro is really beneficial. I went into Cherno on a <5 player server and there was soo much loot. I got a couple great guns, bunch of medical supplies, knife, compass, matches, soda cans, canteens, cans of food. On another server that I went through the city it was picked clean. If you are near it when you start it can be worth just running through and running into any open buildings until you find some stuff then head to the woods and start raiding barns along the way.

I watched several videos and read these forums for a bit before actually jumping into the game. When I jumped in I died when I reached my first town despite gaining a little bit of knowledge before hand. My second life I did much better and I've been getting better and better each life. My current life I'm in the best shape I've ever been. 12000 blood, M1A1, M1911, ALICE pack, matches, hunting knife, hatchet, compass, watch, 8 cans of coke, 2 canteens, 3 cans of beans/pasta, 2 blood bags, 2 morphine, 4 or 5 bandages, and a few clips for each gun I own. Granted this life I spent mostly playing with a friend which makes getting out of crappy situations better and I was able to get full health again when we hit a hospital and found the blood bags.

I definitely agree on the atmosphere comment. The seemingly random intense music really freaks me out, especially when I'm playing alone. Also hearing zombie noises nearby and not immediately seeing the zombie freaks me the hell out.

First kill was an accident. He ran in and I was hurt and only had a hatchet. I hacked him up cause I was scared and thought it was another zombie. Second kill was a bit more intentional. Saw a guy looting a house. Instead of turning the other way I went to check out the same area and I saw he was armed so I shot him preemptively. Feel kind of bad about it but I didn't trust him. And upon looting his corpse he had very little of value so he would have made out better to kill me. I should have just went the other way and avoided him completely.

Yea the going into a building and exiting by a different door usually works for me. Also sometimes just breaking the line of sight by turning corners in a city is enough although you run the risk of running into more zombies in the city. Losing them in the forest takes the longest since if you don't have very good tree coverage they just keep seeing you. They are all the same idea. Break the line of sight and then don't let them see/hear you again.

I bought "Combined Operations" and it's worked fine. It's only $23.99 on steam right now so it might be cheaper than anywhere else. Steam is pretty simple and I haven't had any issues with it. They've got a huge sale going on right now as well so you can probably pick up something else really cheap there too.

I've tried looking for a downed heli. Looked at the maps and checked out at least a half dozen locations where they said they could be and I didn't see anything. Would be nice to get some military grade gear.

I went there for the first time today. I didn't see any other players. I ended up just raiding the Barracks in the SE corner of the airfield. There was just some ammo and a water bottle and some food. There was a dead survivor outside with most of his loot still there. Wasn't much I was interested in on him. I didn't bother going into the actual airfield towards the hangers and tower although I tried scoping the area out with my binoculars to see if there were any other players around but I saw nothing.

I was headed towards the airfield but I might change my route after reading this thread. It doesn't exactly sound like it's worth the risk, I've got an AKM, CZ and M1911 but I've never fired the CZ before so I'm not sure I'll be any good with it.

First longer than 30 minute life I found a Makarov fairly early on. Then I found an AKM in the control tower of an airstrip. My most recent life (still alive at this point) I found an AKM at a deer stand and then later on I found an M1911. I've also found a CZ which I put in my bag for now, not sure if I should keep it but I figured a sniper could be helpful. I've also seen numerous shotguns that I haven't bothered with since I have the AKM.

I haven't found any matches or hunting knife since the update. My first character that didn't die within 30 minutes I found both of them pretty early on. I've hit about 4 towns, several deer stands, 1 supermarket. When I logged off I was just approaching a new town so we'll see if I get lucky there. It also seems that canned food is a lot more scarce, I've almost starved twice because I couldn't find food and I don't have the knife and matches to cook some meat.

Ha mine was pretty much the same thing. I took some pretty bad damage from some zombies and I ran out of ammo and switched to my hatchet. Went down some stairs and a guy was running up them and I just started hacking at him. I wasn't 100% sure whether it was a human or zombie in the moment but I felt bad cause when I looted him he didn't have much on him. He may have been trying to finish me off or he could have just been searching the building, I'll never know.