herrjon

Zombies can just simply open doors and get into buildings if they like. Some will spawn in the buildings as well. This is different for the base building/house building stuff in other mods, but from a vanilla DayZ standpoint, no place is safe.

You mean unrealistically? One of the more solid things in the Arma engine are the ballistics. It's unlike any twitch shooter like CS, CoD, or even BF for that matter, so I can understand how it can be a jarring experience jumping from those (or similar) to Arma. As others have said, do Armory, editor, or Shooting Range 2. If you need more help in firefights more than just pure aiming, play Wasteland and ACE and the like. There is plenty out there for you to play with, it just takes practice.

Yes and no. They could be shooting at something/someone else, or they could just be a lousy shot (a large number of "bandits" are). Depending on the gun, distance, and location you can rule some cases out, but in general it's good practice to get into cover whenever you hear gunshots. Generally though, if they're firing a big loud gun they're either a bambie that got lucky or they're not looking to make any friends, either way their dangerous and you don't want them to spot you.

Better graphics will help with combat in general, but the key to figuring out position based on sound is a good set of headphones. Don't have any firm recommendations as of right now, but you should be fine so long as they're decent quality and allow radial sounds. Also make sure you have a mic, for other reasons. The "popping" and "whizzing" means bullets are hitting things near you and flying by you. If you're hearing that your main concern should be less of spotting the player and more of getting a general area of where they are and putting cover in between you and them. You'll also want to look out for puffs of dirt on the ground and structures around you, as these are where the bullets are hitting. There's really an art to it that I can't explain in so many words; just make sure you stay calm, monitor everything, and think logically, but quickly. If all else fails, go with your gut. If your gut feeling fails you, well you've learned your mistake and move on to the next scenario. In general though, unless you have a gun and the skill to return fire, there's no need to get the exact position of a sniper after they've fired on you. They have the clear advantage, they know exactly where you are, they are hidden from you for the most part(usually in a gillie), and they already have the right gun for the job. You just simply need to know about where he is, predict where he may reposition to, and get to safety as fast as possible. From there you can fight or flight, but that's heavily dependent on your play style, current gear, and combat skill. One final tip if you're still struggling, try playing Arma II and its various other mods. They are much more PvP focused than DayZ, and typically aren't so harsh on you when you screw up and die. You can play the single-player missions, download custom missions, play armory, find a wasteland server if you want player enemies, or find another mod that fits your needs. Regardless of what you chose, there's plenty of content and practice to be had, that doesn't have your beanz on the line. :)

I've seen both. I prefer the M249 SAW if it came down to it, but they're both fine weapons. Great for cover fire and zombie clearing. Rocking the MK 48 Mod 0 at the moment actually.

If you simply open your gear without looking at another storage (loot pile, tent, vehicle, etc.) the first option will happen since your backpack is the only external storage you're accessing. When you look at loot piles and whatnot, when you open your bag, it takes place of your main inventory and the section option happens. Hope that helps.

It was definitely worth it, but really considering the current price, there wasn't much money to "lose" in the first place.

Side chat is something Rocket (the dev) didn't want enabled for DayZ. But as admins get more control and are at the mercy of their players, more servers enabled side-chat. There are servers out there that don't have it enabled, but unfortunately, it doesn't say it in the browser, so you just have to go in to find out. I know I use it in our server to find patients that need help, but I never use it to "team up" or anything. For me, giving away your position on side-chat is sentencing you to death. I'll usually just ignore any chatter over text, and people that use voice over side chat on our server get kicked asap.

Do not do this again. I can be seen as battle logging, and some servers will ban you for it. It's really not that much clicking when it comes down to it, just deal with it like the rest of us. @OP, if you ever get in a spot of medical trouble, just go to TMW for help. We'll come fix you up for no charge, and we won't kill you. Either post in this thread or head directly to the teamspeak server ts.dayzmedics.com and find a medic there. Also, yes there are no silenced sniper rifles in DayZ (at leave vanilla). The only ones available in vanilla DayZ are CZ-550, M24, DMR, SVD Camo, and M240A3. Some would argue the M16A4 ACOG and Sa-58V ACOG count as "semi-auto snipers" but they do pitiful damage at long range and you HAVE to get the head shot. None are silenced, closest you can get is the M16 ACOG variant with STANAG SD, that will be silenced to zombies, but not players.

What are the pings of the servers when you get in-game?

You should play Namalsk 2017, it's even worse. Anyways, yeah, you just download what you want and you can connect to those servers, No need to uninstall ones you aren't using.

Because making a quick post online saying they will have radio stations takes just as long as developing a game. *piling more sarcasm on*

Well, if it's training you're looking for, look no further than the Trusted Mentors of the Wasteland. We're a subgroup of the Trusted Medics of the Wasteland, a long standing medic clan, who offer training to the general public. You don't have the join the clan to get training, just simply register on our forums and place a request here. If you also just want to play with us, our teamspeak server is ts.dayzmedics.com, and our DayZ server is US2419. We also have a private server that will soon be switching to Namalsk. Just search TMW.

Just being devil's advocate here, not saying that I kill anyone, but fresh spawns do have up to 2 bandages. And that seems to be the thing you have trouble finding.

You still avoided the question, how would you change it so thirst/hunger is an actual threat? If it was "real time" as in you'd have to not drink anything for 336 hours (2 weeks) of in-game time in order to die of thirst, then you may as well not have a thirst system in the first place. For me, having a rapid thirst system like there is now is more realistic and immersive than none at all.

I'm curious as to how you would suggest changing the thirst system then so this isn't the case, but you are still at risk of dying of thirst. The only things I can think of would be making soda cans and water bottles extremely rare, which would be silly imo; guns being more common than a can of coke, and/or make it so that your character gets thirsty while you're offline, which would be a bad move considering people like to hop around private servers and take breaks from the game so they don't get burnt out; I wouldn't want to come back to my private server character 2 weeks later only to find him dead. Criticizing something without giving constructive feedback isn't very useful.

I don't have a desire to completely learn the language, but I do know enough now to get around Chenarus. However though, you can still find your way around with an in-game map without knowing Russian. Beyond waypoint triangulation, just look for landmarks and shapes in the landscape and roads. You'll get the hang of it, everyone does.

Oh, also OP, if you do happen to come back and read this, there are "newbie friendly" servers, but those that actively advertise it are typically riddled with heavily gear bandits, because they know you're easy prey. There are PvE servers out there, but they'll be on a private hive, so don't check "hide unofficial" on DZC. Those are up to interpretation though, as there is no way to turn off PvP damage, so they just ban anyone who shoots and/or kills another player. It's not perfect, but it's there.

As Orlok and others have said, it is a mod of milsim, it comes with limitations. In fact, it amazes me that there are even melee weapons to begin with. Even when standalone comes around, even with the thousands of items they're promising, I can bet you there will be things people will claim they can do IRL that they won't be able to do in DayZ. At the end of the day, it's a game, or in the case a mod of a game, that's in development, and it's sure as hell the most realistic zombie survival sim I've seen. As for dying hunger/thirst quickly and whatnot, certain things of dayz must be sped up in order for them to be an actual threat to your life, and also to keep things interesting. If we could get by without eating a can of beans for a weeks worth of actual gameplay, they would have to make food and animals ridiculously rare in order for there to be any real threat of hunger. On the medical side, bloodbags take 12 seconds to fully heal someone currently. In real life it would be a multiple hour operation for a full blood transfusion. Would you want to literally sit there, in-game and wait for hours for the transfusion just because "it's more realistic"? Or worse, in standalone, you break your leg and have to hobble around with crutches and a cast for a few weeks of in-game time? I'm all for realism and immersion, but I certainly wouldn't want to wait, especially considering my job in DayZ. The rest comes down to simply getting used to the harsh world of DayZ and learning how to survive. Granted you did come in on a fairly rough patch, but you can still do it if you put the determination into it and not blame your failure on the lack of trivial features. It may seem impossible now, but it can be done, I've seen it for myself. We've had a few new players come through TMW, didn't even have Arma experience, and they managed to survive and thrive on their own within the first couple of weeks. You might want to look into some of the recent dev blogs and E3 footage, as well as general news. Standalone is going to feature multiple types of infections and diseases, different, specific ways of curing said ailments, as well as basically needing to disinfect everything before using it. They're also going to do hive-server spawning, meaning they will only spawn a finite number of non-combustibles into ever server, basically meaning there could only be like 100 NVG's total or something similar. You may want to hold off on the SA insta-buy.

When you start trying to use your watch as a compass. (it turns out it actually works)

If you want more frames, turn your settings down. It's not rocket science. Just don't go all the way down to the worst, as this can be harder on your system than medium settings. And you want to shoot for at least 60 for any FPS, that's a given. Other games it can be excusable, but no so much for a shooter. If you want anything more than that, we'll need your specs.

Well zombies did change fairly drastically in the latest patch, and I assume most of your videos predate that. However, zombies still can't run indoors or attack through pine trees, so try to be stealthy when looting (not crawling through town though) and when you do get aggro, run through 2 door buildings and break line of sight as much as possible. Hopping fences is your friend as well.

Well the count doesn't double with another player, but yes, the cap does increase. And zombies will respawn as you clear them out. Better to stay stealthy and only kill when you need to than attempt clear them out, making a bunch of noise and wasting ammo.

We'll need specific error messages. But to cover some bases, just make sure you have Arma II and Arma II: OA installed and ran to the menu, and use DayZ Commander to download DayZ and the latest Arma II beta patch, as well as a server browser.

true, but it can and does happen. With how rare antibiotics are now, I wouldn't personally risk it.