Calder

I think killing zombies gives you a bit of humanity. And also I think healing other people with various medical supplies. The latter might be tricky when you've got a bandit skin. And I just morphed like 30 min ago, so it's very much in the game.

I just shot 4 people in Elektro because they came into the buildings I was looting. The way I see it my options are: 1) Try and speak with them, alerting them to my presence and then they are much more likely get a shot off at me if they want. 2) I kill them and survive. 3) I log out like a massive coward. With option 1, there's a chance: 1) They will claim to be friendly and lie 2) Be friendly until they spot the fancy gear on you 3) Be friendly and not shoot 4) Be friendly and run away 5) Be hostile and try to shoot you. You have no control over which one he picks, so letting people survive is a bit like playing russian roulette.

Driving a bus around. That's like shouting "I'm over here, massive in size, slow moving and I can't fire back!". I had more players shooting at me during a 5 minute bus trip than in a whole day before that. Not a safe way to travel for sure.

I think the best thing to do is to just keep moving quickly and not shooting anything. Don't worry about zombies, always know where the nearest house is you can enter and try to limit the directions people can see you from. (Sticking close to a wall means no one can see/shoot you from that direction, so you only have to keep a look out on half the area) Running and aggroing zombies is better than crawling everywhere and making yourself an easy target to players.

I think it would be cool if you could see some stats of your life when you die. I've always liked looking at those in games like GTA and even L4D. Stuff like how much you have walked, how long you were alive, shots fired, cans of beans eaten, etc. It'd also give something to show for your efforts, so when you die you do still lose everything, but at least you can take a screenshot or something of the stats to show off. Might be slightly less frustrating getting killed as well.

What, so you shoot at people and then stay in the exact same spot for another 15 minutes? Plus they need to know where the shot came from, not get fatally wounded, not get mauled by zombies, wait to regain consciousness after logging out with shock, hop on a different server and back to my one (which can take a while for a lot of people who get stuck on loading screens), move to a better spot on that other server (which could be dangerous if it's in someplace like Cherno) and it's not like I'm going to be unarmed and making an easy target of myself. So no, I don't have a problem with that.

You try looking at windows from afar, to see if you can see through them and enter the building.

Not had many of them before, but on my trip to the NW airfield today it was ridiculous, artifacts everywhere for both me and a buddy. Couldn't actually see any zombies well enough to shoot outside so had to run into a house to shoot them in the doorway.

I'm not saying it's a good thing, but I don't really see a massive problem with people alt+f4'ing. The way I see it, is that everyone whining about it is just a filthy good-for-nothing bandit who kills other people almost exclusively for loot or another number in his "murder" box. Whenever I shoot someone, it's because they're either a potential or an immediate threat to me. My objective is to neutralize the threat and if they alt+f4, they're gone and no longer a threat. If they die and leave behind a good weapon, of course I'll take it, but I don't rely on killing other people for my loot/weapons. If I've got half-decent gear, most of the time I take no loot off corpses anyway (maybe a coke or some beans).

2 quick questions: How fixed is the spawn location of vehicles? Is it always the exact same spot/orientation or can it spawn randomly somewhere near the area it usually spawns? And do they make noise when they spawn? Like engine noise that shuts off quite quickly?

"Waah waah waah, if you can see anything it's not realistic. I've lived in complete darkness for 50 years, it's so dark here I get lost while sitting on the can." I don't know if it's people who have a stockpile of NVGs that are whining about realism here and afraid that people could even theoretically see them on night servers, but completely black nights are almost entirely unplayable. You can't use the flashlight while running, so you have to stop every 5-10m to look around, plus you have to unequip your sidearm (unless you've got one with it attached). You could throw road flares, but outside of towns you're going to need a lot of them if you want to get anywhere. Chemlights don't really illuminate enough to make them worthwhile... you're not going to see more than 3 steps in front of you and you're lit up like a christmas-tree for everyone to shoot at. So what does everyone do? They don't play on night servers. I think things should be difficult to see, rather than downright impossible.

I play almost exclusively in 3rd person mode, other than aiming down sights for shooting and sometimes looting stuff. Also if a zombie is hitting you in the back while you're doing something, you might not instantly notice it in 1st person. And being prone in tall grass in 1st person takes away all situational awareness, you can't see anything other than a bit of sky, while all enemies can still see you because grass doesn't show up at range (which is one of the things that bothers me most about the game.)

I got that as well right about now, must be something wrong with it for a moment. Try again later.

If you're out in the open going prone is the worst thing you can do (no bushes at longer ranges). Only if you're inside a building or there are sandbags or other low walls nearby is going prone a half-decent option. And even then if the sniper is on an elevated position, he will most likely manage to hit you.

I think of it more as a Battle Royale type situation that just happens to have zombies as just an added environmental threat. Or a training simulator for such an event, due to the respawns and no victory conditions. PS. A full on BR type thing would be pretty awesome though.

Seen loads of them, no idea in what situation they would be useful in though. In a city they're super easy to detect (and disable) and outside in the grass the chances of anyone stepping on one are almost non-existent.

Whenever I spot a player, I'll shadow him and get as close as possible without being detected. Then when they enter a building with only 1 entrance, I set up an ambush for them when coming out. When I have nothing more than a hatchet I will go all brutal axe murderer on them. Often I get shot but not killed, because no one seems to double tap (nubs). I get back up and kill them while they're panicking about almost dying and bleeding everywhere. When I've got a gun, I tend to start taunting them, saying how easy targets they're making themselves, which of course scares them half to death, but I make clear that they could be dead, but I chose not to kill them. In a way I'm trying to teach them a lesson, that they don't have to kill everyone they see. Either that or I just like toying with people's lives. Another thing I've done is when I was sprinting through town (loads of zombies chasing me), I spotted someone crouched over collecting some loot. I ran up to him, said "Boo" on voice chat and kept on running past him. He turned around and saw like 20 zombies running towards him, wish I could have seen the look on his face, never seen anyone start sprinting that quickly. :D

If you don't have any weapons and try to bring up the weapon sights (right click usually) you will start walking really slowly. Another right click should fix it.

First gun I got was the M1911 (which happens to be my favourite handgun ever made, yay :D) in the convenience store in Berezino, proceeded to very carefully move through town and head north, where I found someone's truck full of stuff near a lake. I stole the truck drove it around and eventually decided to grab a M107 and a M14AIM and wander off. Lost the M107 when my backpack decided to eat it, never got around to shooting it. The M14 I used to clear a number of smaller towns of zombies and even managed to take out 3 somewhat threatening people. Eventually I went back to Berezino, killed a zombie, but the entire town aggroed on me, spent the next 5 minutes running out of town and fighting them off and the very moment I shot the last zombie, *boom* someone shot me and I died instantly. Entire life lasted about 3 days and it was quite annoying to die and lose everything. Now I just sprint everywhere, ignore the zombies and get my hands on a Lee Enfield or a Winchester in the first 15-20 minutes and I'm effectively as well off as I was then. The Lee is such a beast if you can shoot it well.

I've been noticing more and more as I play that most of all guns are rather impractical for trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. I've had plenty of opportunities to gather up a full arsenal of weapons, but I don't really have the need to ever use any of them, either out of fear of revealing my position to bandits or I just didn't want to aggro more zombies than I had to. If I'm going to infiltrate a town full of zombies, I'll just grab my axe, which you don't have to ever reload, it's quiet and won't aggro any zombies and you can get one from pretty much anywhere. The only problem with it is that if you're not careful and time your attacks right, a zombie can get a hit on you, but as long as you've got a few bandages and maybe some other medical supplies, it's not really an issue. I've played on the current character for a good 2 days now and the only time I fired a shot was an accidental discharge in Cherno that hit an unarmed dude. Of course he tried running off instantly, but I told him to stop and I bandaged him up, even gave him a blood transfusion and he lived to tell the tale. Even if you want to have guns for defense against others... There's always murderers and bandits, but most likely someone who's just paranoid and trigger happy (which is pretty much everyone) wouldn't feel the absolute need to take out someone running a fair distance away unarmed or equipped with a melee weapon. So even having a gun on you and visible, can be a bad thing. So I think that guns cause more problems than they solve if you're just looking to survive. So what do other people think... Are guns just spawns of evil and bringers of pestilence and suffering? Or are they powerful tools that bring a feeling of relative safety and peace of mind to their users, knowing that they can kill anything they see?

Cons: You can only carry a few bolts. Probably the most difficult to aim out of all weapons. Quite often the bolts cannot be retrieved from bodies. If you miss you will never find the bolt. If you do want to retrieve your bolts, you have the fumble about the corpse for quite a while leaving yourself open to attack. Fires so slow that if you aggro a zombie and miss your first shot, you're going to have to run or get hit. Pros: It's quiet. Sometimes you get some ammo back.

I'm struggling a bit with using these things. I can only manage to use them when I drop all my primary and secondary weapons and then it's just 1 item in my inventory that pops up. Is there a better way to use these items?

Even with everything turned up to max it's still virtually impossible to see anything sometimes, I think there may be some difference between servers. The one I'm on now, I can only really see dark grey spots and completely black stuff and 95% of the screen is black. I was on another server though where I could see most stuff on open fields and such.

Cheers, that'll help both me to find some stuff during night time and bandits wanting to kill me.

Yes, that's the correct server. It's a completely fenced off area (with sandbags and barbed wire) and the only entrance is a ladder up a walkway.