hoorah (DayZ)

My advice is to find yourself to a town like zenelogorsk or berezino. They have all of the types of structures that are in towns like cherno and elektro - industrial buildings, supermarkets, fire stations, apartment buildings, etc, but there are much fewer players. This will help you understand the inventory system, looting, loot spawns, health, guns, zombies, etc without getting yourself shot in 30 seconds.

For me, realism went out the window when I started finding winchester 1866 rounds all over the place. Seriously - dafuq is a .44 Henry?

Exactly. You're geared up and some new spawn survivor runs into a room with you. Theres an extra 1911 on the ground. If you let him live, he picks up the 1911, kills you, takes all your gear. Or ....you can kill and unarmed person and make people bitch about the game. Both sucky options if you don't want to ruin the other guys day, but with one of them at least you don't lose all of your stuff.

Well in that case, wouldn't you just use the regular coyote 8 slot you spawn with?

I've heard snipers use it as it blends a bit better with the ghillie suit.

What towns are you looking in? I don't even bother with small towns anymore. A cluster of low value residential mostly spawns trash loot, maybe some road flares. I only hit high value spawns now. Just not worth the time looking in the other ones.

I was looting the supermarket today and saw a trail of zombies headed my way. Figured a player was on his way in. I had a ghillie (not like that matters in the store) and an AKM. So I get myself in the front corner so he runs past me when he enters. He runs in, runs to the back of the store and before I can get a shot off he hides behind one of the shelves. I flush him out, hit him twice as he runs out the front door. He tried circling around back and I shot him through the glass. Checked his body - painkillers and bandages. I felt bad, because I would have let the dude off if I knew he really was a new spawn and had no weapon. IProbably ruined that guys day. There are just too many stories of "gave the guy a gun and he shot me in the face". I wouldn't have given him a weapon, but I would have let him go on his way.

Came into a house with my 1866 out. Saw a guy prone on the stairs, immediately started spamming the trigger, he did the same. Lots of cracking and booming, my screen flashing as I get hit. I assume I lost and expecting to get the hour glass (I always do). All of the sudden, the reload indicator comes up. No way had I forgotten to reload! I guess I could pull out my pistol but it will be too late by then.... Then I realize he's keeled over. I guess it wasn't a reload icon I thought I saw in all the confusion, but perhaps it was the rearm icon? Either that or I was just seeing things. Anyway, I'd won, and I was bleeding. Ran up the stairs, bandaged myself. 4000 blood (down from 6500). Must have been shooting me with a makarov. So I go back out to his body at the top of the stairs - I need beans before I start passing out. All of the sudden, another player comes up the stairs. I have the jump on him, but I still have my makarov out from before, not the 1866. I lost to him. Never had a chance to switch back to my 1866 to see if I was really out of ammo or not. Probably not.

True. The other day I was trying to ditch some zombies chasing me by circling a building. All of the sudden I hear "Don't mind me, just passing through". By the time I noticed him, he already passed me and was running away. He had an AK variant. I suppose to be safe I could have shot him, as he was headed in the same direction I was, but the guy could have easily taken me out. He spotted me before I spotted him, it was my error. Definitely would not have been okay to shoot him in the back, so I let him go.

Thats not a bad way to play to learn the game. Hit the woods - find a gun in a barn. Learn how to deal with zombies. Learn how to loot and loot quickly. Learn how to kill sheep for meat and cook it. Learn how to snipe by hitting zombies from a long distance. THEN start duking it out with other players.

The problem with this is that the number of murders required to be a bandit is zero. Just because someone is a fresh spawn doesn't make them friendly. If I am all geared up, get my ass handed to me by someone faster than me on the trigger and have to respawn, I'm going to be looking to get back into the game and go get revenge. So here I go into the first house I see and find a makarov. Now John Q. Survivor comes along and has an enfield or an m4, a bunch of gear, some food, and some makarov mags. All it takes is a bullet to the head, I take all his gear, and now I'm back in the game going toe-to-toe with other bandits. All of this is done before I would ever be switched to a bandit skin.

I think you'll eventually learn that you don't have to kill those that aren't dead yet. The only time I ever kill zombies is when its more convenient than running around them (and it almost always is). I rarely, if ever, fire a shot at a zombie in the city because it alerts other players that I am in the area. Also, I usually don't shoot the zombies with anything more than a makarov or a 1911 because I don't want them all to converge on my location. Out in the open, if I've got a zombie trailing me across a field forever, I might turn around a shoot him, but just because I'm tired of hearing him moan behind me, not because I need to.

Not sure what you're referring to. Yes, supposedly pine trees will break the zombie's LOS and cause them to lose you, but I don't recall giving that advice to anyone. Anyway, if I do have a zombie chasing me in the hills, yeah, I pretty much just run for it and try to zigzag through the trees. It takes awhile, but eventually the zombies leave me alone. It doesn't matter much because so long as you are sprinting the zombies can't hit you. If it takes you 30 seconds or 8 minutes to lose the zombie its no different (so long as you aren't trying to stay quiet from other players).

True, true. I guess what I meant to say is that most people THINK the good stuff is at NW, and thats where the experienced players converge. If everyone dying at NW was geared up, and everyone dying at cherno/elektro was starting out or had low tier weapons, and in the middle like stary sobor you had people that learned to get out of the noob zone but weren't experienced/coordinated enough for NW yet, I would say great - a natural progression of both skill and aggression. When I see people hitting up stary and NW, then going back to cherno to fight with people that aren't at their level, thats not banditry. Thats just looking for someone to pick on.

Thats not actually a bad spawn depending on your play style. You can head straight north, hit a bunch of deer stands, and end up in zelenogorsk by the time your hunger meter starts flashing. Town is usually empty and has a bunch of good loot. Now you can decide if you want to head to NW, Stary, or diagonal back to cherno hitting more deer stands on the way.

I think the problem with spawning with a makarov was that people were using it to kill the first person they saw to take the better gun they had, not to kill zombies. Why spend all that time looking for loot when you can just pop the first survivor you see thats been in the game for 30 minutes longer, has a double barrel and a watch? If everyone used a makarov to pop the slow moving zombies in the head when they were chased into a building, then I would say sure, start with a gun. Unfortunately, from what I heard, it was "Deathmatch: Coastal Spawn", and thats why it was taken out. Not sure I can say it helped though. I came into the game at 1.7.2.3, after starting guns were taken out. Its still a massive shoot on sight party, the only players abstaining are those who have no choice. I still don't see a lot of teaming up at the spawn points. At this point, with the pistol nerfs, it doesn't much matter. You're never going to kill a geared player with a makarov unless they're looting and you pop them in the head from 3 feet away.

I think if people were simply shooting each other to survive, and newbies off the coast had to intention of killing each other, you wouldn't see so much PVP action in cherno or elektro aside from low-geared players shooting it out with double barrels and makarovs. Fact is, most of the best loot is at the NW airfield, and newbs spawn on the coast. So, when I see people with M107s sniping unarmed people running around cherno, I don't buy that they're doing it just to survive, or even that they're bored and looking for PVP action. They're looking for victims that don't know how to fight back, or that do know how but can't yet. On the other hand, being geared with an assault weapon and going into town with a mission and killing other players that pose a threat to you - hey, now that is banditry, and that makes the game exciting.

its spam

If you like watching people, head up to one of the tall rooftop sniper spots in cherno on a fresh spawn. Even better if you hit the supermarket first and find some soda/food/binocs. You don't need a gun. Anyway, get up there, get the binocs out, and just watch people. You'll be safe from zombies up there. Watch what people do - how they run, what you notice first when you spot them, how far away they are when you spot them, and how hard it would be to hit them with an open sight rifle. Take all of this into consideration the next time you're strolling around town looting, especially trailing zombies behind you. Yes, if you hang out on a rooftop, you will eventually get sniped by someone in the hills or another rooftop. I still think its a good exercise to do for a new player that will give them a lot of experience in a short amount of time. Anyway, I think its better than heading north, spending 4 days of 'gearing up' heading into town, and getting popped by the first person you see.

I agree with that. No, you didn't describe yourself as being awesome or hardcore or some 'silent sniper', so I have no qualms about that. I was more upset about the whole vibe in this 'new player' forum and probably extrapolated your words a bit more than I should have. I was just a bit irritated about all of the posts I see on here about how the players on here that do well acting like they are some hardcore soldier because they play a more difficult game than call of duty, and the players that don't do well just suck at life, and I jumped on your wording calling a player weak. As long as we can agree that weak describes a players performance in the game and not so much their general attitude towards life, I'm cool with that.

Russian soldiers are getting real weapons now? I thought like 8 soldiers had to share 1 gun? :)

I don't know, I've always found good primaries in barns. Cities I usually only find secondaries in. The exception to this is the military tents in Cherno or the firestations (and I guess a few other places I've seen lee enfields like the churches). I'm rarely disappointed with a high value barn. I've been disappointed plenty of times in the city. To the OP: You probably are looking in the wrong places. I hate to just parrot what everyone else is saying, but yes, look at the loot map online. You're not going to find an M14 or an AKM looting the low value residential (blue dots). Look for the big green dots (high value farm or barn). Supermarkets and pubs often spawn secondaries like 1911s or makarovs. Both are useless against players but they're better than nothing if you've got a slow moving zombie stumbling toward you. Really though, you NEED to learn how to get rid of zombies that are chasing you WITHOUT a gun before you learn how to kill them WITH a gun. If you think rushing into a building with zombies chasing you, picking up an enfield, and killing that zombie takes care of your problem, you've got another thing (or things) coming. Lots of things.

I wouldn't call it a 'typical' fps. Maybe typical in the fact that in other FPSs, it is 'typical' to shoot other players you see when in a FFA game. In the sense that I've never seen a FPS game with an absolutely enormous map, vehicles, snipers, buildings, and zombies quite like day Z, no, its not typical. Like any other games, will you find people harassing players from a fortified position simply for amusement? Oh, definitely.

You guys seem to have a lot of player interactions and decision making time. Every time I come across a survivor, I have less than half a second before he shoots me. I'm not even trying to communicate - I've been trying to shoot first immediately and sometimes I don't even have time to get a shot off. I've only once had time to talk to a player before shooting them, and thats when they didn't see me.

I'd be happy just to be able to load 2 slugs into my remington 870 instead of being forced to find 8, then convert to 8rnds of slugs. I can have an 870 and 6 shells of 12 gauge slug and be completely useless.