kander

Ah right, I read it was 40 mins, but it's clearly variable

I find this hilarious.. and this isn't meant as offence to you PWNtrooper: Being considered a 'hero' just for not killing people... Only in DayZ IRL I'd be a demi god. I've racked up nearly 30 years play time; Hardly killed anyone.

You should definitely invoice for your time, I'd say time and a half... Hell getting by in DayZ has got to be worth double time. Scratch that, last night I broke my leg opening a door... 2 hour crawl to hospital.....triple time for sure.

Beans for the effort, sir. (I'm assuming you're a sir, though forms of transport are traditionally female)

I crawl everywhere in town just to be on the safe side. It is one of the great frustrations of the game though that you have to crawl for ever to explore the average sized settlement and you can still get grief from a zed from miles away, or just have one pop up right in your grill. And junk. There should be a crawl mode where if you're willing to put up with the slow speed you're practically invisible. Hunger and thirst counters continue to tick, so it's not like you'd be invincible in this mode.

Beans incoming

I do. First, I get fully geared up with all the sweetest loot: coyote patrol pack stuffed full of chemlights and heatpacks and crossbow bolts. Crowbar in hand, with road flares just ready for the chucking I roll right into Cherno and terrorise the noobs. I like to lie in wait in the sneakiest sniping spots and throw empty cans at their heads. Right at them. They normally DC in terror.

Nicely written. You can haz my beanz

TBH though, I don't mind dying when I've got next to nothing. As has been said many times in the past - If you're running around in Elektro unarmed, expect to die, and I do. In fact NOT getting capped or Z-mauled is a massive win. If noob camping is going to happen as a sick hobby then it's only worth doing in high traffic areas. The more PKers with good gear in places which I already know to be dangerous, the fewer in the places where I'm likely to be, such as in farmland, small villages or wilderness. This basically improves my survival chances no end.

Completely agree. The murders stat just encourages people to murder for the sake of it. Not to mention it's un-immersive to have access to this type of information. Who'd keep count IRL? Time alive should be the only stat, maybe zeds killed (they're the common enemy). PERHAPS bandits killed - that way folk know that if they become bandits then they themselves become legitimate targets for those losers who get off on collecting stats.

oooof. 57 varieties of ache..

BTW, no need to turn round while running (allows zeds to catch up)- just press and hold numpad 3 for a view of your six

Heads up OP! Beans being slung your way... I said heads up. That was entirely your fault. Fine, have my bandage.

Best way to get past zeds - crawl prone until you find a hatchet. Then you can isolate individual ones (which aren't in line of sight of others) by quickly standing up behind them and hitting them on the head with the hatchet. They go down in one hit before they know what's hit em. Then, you can loot their corpse corpses and they may even have useful stuff on them, even if it's just a can of beans. Another piece of advice. This is my personal opinion btw: Until you get a bigger pack don't bother with a primary weapon other than the hatchet. If you use a Lee Enfield in town for example, chances are you're as good as dead, and it take too long to drop a rifle/shotgun and equip the hatchet if you surprise a zed. You're also going to have to drop your primary every single time you want to use the hatchet, Concentrate on tooling up and finding a pack which will accept a primary weapon before you sling a primary ranged weapon. You'll probably lose a fight with a bandit in any case, Do grab a pistol for emergencies though as it's not going to get in the way.

Whilst I do agree with this, even the most tooled up players are vulnerable, the most experienced can be felled by an unlucky bullet, then it is a start from scratch scenario. Sure the veteran knows how to build up from this position pretty quickly, but at least your prorities change again, and you get the chance to 'level up' again, little victories for the win :)

I found 2 guns within 10 minutes of my first game. I had to sneak into a barn past a few zeds. I managed this despite having zero 'sneaking past zeds' experience. I think that starting weaponless is a crucial part of the story arc, where a little patience is soon rewarded by the discovery of your first viable weapon and the game is so much richer for that. As gamers we have become too accustomed to devs trying to flatter us with the mentality of 'you, the gamer are important. You're the saviour of the world. Be the Master Chief, be 007, have a billion hit points and an enchanted battleaxe +2 (+999999 vs undead) WE LOVE YOU now buy our game. And its identical sequel ' How often in games do we start washed up, hungry scared and alone and no stronger than the average environmental enemy? There's countless 'tough guy' emulators out there. There's only 1 Day Z.

Thanks for the reply! I'm coming around to that way of thinking myself. Like I say it had 2 rounds in it, so maybe a desperate player swapped it for a shotgun he found in the barn, because he couldn't carry 2 large guns? Very exciting find for a first spawn though, even though it was useless to me!

I'm convinced I found an MK 48 in my first play last night. In a barn. I'm 90% sure it was an MK 48, it had a bipod and was camoed, looked rusty/dirty looking. And when I wiki'd it today it was the only one with the right sounding name and the right appearance. Is this at all possible? To find one in a barn in the middle of nowhere? Another thing, it had one round in the chamber and one in the mag. That was it. There was no more ammo. I fired it accidentally and aggroed some zeds, so I don't have it any more... :( EDIT: I have looked on the interactive map and it's telling me that this above is impossible... But I'm so sure!

Got on last night, what a mod! I immediately came across a double barrelled shotgun in the very first building I entered, a barn in the middle of nowhere, 5 mins after spawn. Also found an MK48! Which I believe is pretty rare for a non military building. However, I accidentally fired the bullet in the chamber of said MK48, and then unluckily only had one bullet in the mag to deal with the onslaught of, er, curious zeds. Tried to switch to the shotgun but it wouldn't fire despite me having picked up several (I'm assuming) compatible shells, so I don't know if I needed to equip them or whatever, but hey, it's a learning experience.. Anyways I'm dead again.

I think the problem is the reverse - it's not so much the killing for little it's the killing for nothing. If there are going to be penalties, you should incur a penalty for not at least trying to loot the corpse of someone you have just shot in a certain timescale (negated if someone gets there first or hides it). If you have to check out the corpse of a victim, the snipers from a km away would rack up more penalties wheres the more face-to-face killers (who the victim could have at least tried to communicate with) do not fare so badly.

It'll be far more of a sim once all stats are removed other than 'time alive'. Seems there's too much of an obsession with stats and rankings in games these days. Of all games, this HAS to become the exception.

You seem very keen to tell us all you started with your dick. I was wondering if this is some sort of novelty?

See, this.. this is the problem. You really think you need balls to play a computer game? There's no bravery involved. Half the crazy shoot-on-sight PKers running around would shit themselves and revert to a foetal state before even starting to engage with a real-life equivalent of this game. What you need balls for is to curb the sadistic killer instinct in all of us and only start killing when it counts. Going out on a limb and starting a meaningful social interaction? That's bravery.

I just posted this in another thread - great guide I found

I get just playable on i5 processor (though not sure what spec) 5400 rpm HD 4 GB 1066MHz DDR3-SDRAM ATI MobilityRadeon HD5650 1GB If you don't take the time to customise a good number of the settings, you're going to drop FPS all over the place. Things like changing anti-aliasing settings, even making changes to the config file(s). There is an excellent GFX tweak guide here: