Nesstrodamus

The clash of brightly colored ponies and a zombie-ravaged wasteland makes me chuckle. Like that one MLP mod I saw for Left 4 Dead. You just know someone's gonna play the Smile song while unloading a clip into a zombie's head...Or a bandit/survivor's head; anything goes here, after all. I love culture clash. As curious as this is, I'll have to exclude myself on the grounds of not being a brony. Still, hopefully the meeting goes well enough. It shouldn't be too hard to take any necessary precautions.

I dunno. I've been playing this game for a while now and I still enjoy exploring and scavenging. I dunno what it is, but even since Fallout 3 I've had this intense liking of searching for stuff. I know, I know, you're not supposed to get attached to the stuff you get in this game, but I still enjoy looking for it all. At this point I haven't even fired at another player yet, though I have been killed by others a few times. Already racked up a good zombie kill count, which I consider my "score" in this game at this point. So my current goal is to kill zombies. Simple? Yeah. Path of least resistance in this game? Eh, possibly. I tend to avoid player contact altogether, to be honest, and I've stayed inland ever since I left the coast for the first time. Still, I've been doing this for a while now and I still find it fun. Players becoming bandits and such is natural for a setting like that. My problem only comes with people trying to tell you that you "need" to play a game a certain way. If other people come to the realization that killing on sight is the way that works for them, that's fine. Just as long as they don't try to push that on everyone.

Started and immediately wondered why I didn't have a gun since the few videos I saw of it on YouTube showed people with guns at the very beginning. Didn't think to check the dates... Anyway, I mucked around the controls for a bit before setting off. I stayed near the coast as I walked, and came across 2 villages which I looked around in, quickly getting frustrating and wondering why some of the doors to all those houses wouldn't open. I knew enough to stay low as I moved, so I didn't have too much trouble with zombies. I got food, soda and ammo, but never managed to find a gun on my first life. I did managed to find a crowbar, but either it was still bugged at the time or I was just not doing the right thing, which is also a distinct possibility. Anyway, upon leaving the village I got too close to a zombie, so I started running. This zombie chased me for what seemed like forever. The first hit he got off on me caused me to bleed, so that was the beginning of the end right there. No buildings around since I was in the wilderness and I hadn't even seen another player. Tried to keep running to find a building, but eventually bled out and died.

Absolute honesty? Lee Enfield. I recall hearing that it's called the "Dinner Bell", and that firing it is akin to ringing a dinner bell when zombies are around(I think I read that somewhere; I could be mistaken). That's perfectly fine by me. My zombie kills have skyrocketed thanks to that weapon. They think they're gonna get a mouthful of flesh. Instead, they get a bullet.

If someone wants to play a female character, let them play a female character. People are all "play however the hell you want to" in every other aspect of the game. Why is the character selection treated differently? EDIT: Not treated differently by all, I realize. Still, I've seen people on the forums advocate playing the game however they want to, then bashing someone for choosing a character not of their own gender. Even though character selection is an valid choice of how to play a game.

If it has a little bell on it as well, then you are so freakin' lucky.

Killing Floor does, I believe. You have a certain amount you can carry, which is represented by the number 15(or more if you're a support specialist, I think). The closer you get to 15, the slower you get bit by bit. You can also move faster when you have your knife or a melee weapon out as opposed to a firearm. That could work in the this game I suppose, though maybe not in that exact way. It does effect gameplay in Killing Floor, though that game is class-based and strictly co-op. Certain classes have a faster general running speed, and so on. Could work in this, though. Might make an ALICE backpack less desirable to those that want to move quickly. I'm neutral about the whole idea, though.

Killing other players hasn't really crossed my mind yet. So far the point of DayZ for me has been to kill as many zombies as I can since that is my personal "score". And to find a bike. ...I really want a bike.

Aw, only 4 Lessons Learned? Damn, just one short...

My saddest moment was probably when I was forced to run right past a bike while being chased by zombies fairly early in my current life, which has been pretty eventful. I think someone might have been shooting at me as well. Or the zombies, I'm not sure. Anyway, it was too dangerous so I had to run past the bike and ended up running too far to be able to find my way back/remember where it was. I have a bad sense of direction. It really hurt to pass up that bike; I have no clue when I'll find one again. But I will someday, and then it will be glorious.

Really makes the few friendly interactions that one can have in this game stand out all the more. Good luck out there.

You feel slightly less bad about the amount of soda you keep around the house at any given time. Also if Dr. Pepper was released as a new rare soda, I would have a new objective in this game.

I've never killed a player yet, and I don't really intend to unless I'm left with no choice. Then again I'm a loner and haven't run into a single other player in my past 6+ hours of travelling, so I guess that helps. My goal since the beginning has been to get my zombie kill count as high as I can. And with the increased spawn rate lately, it's been surprisingly hectic. Mass of zombies pouring into a barn that I just ducked into, crowding the stairs upward and actually getting close enough to hit me. Zombie kills are my score, and I want it to go up.

Unfortunately I don't have a solution; I have a question of my own. I figured maybe I should ask this here, since the topic is on server hopping anyway and I shouldn't make a new thread. Here goes. Back when I first started playing the game, I found that I could loot a large building or area of a village, then log out and go to another server and all the spawns would be there again. I was quickly informed that's frowned upon, so I don't do that anymore, and I've never logged off while being shot at to begin with. I didn't know any better at first. Anyway, my question is...What is the point where you actually reach server hopping? Because I often find myself using a different server each day either because I forgot the one I was using before, the ping of the one I was using before is way too bad, or the one I was using last time is full. I get that many want people to stop logging out during firefights and using server hops to get loot, but if you switch a server at all, ever, is that server hopping? Are you -supposed- to keep your character on one server? I mean, I'm glad that your character is the same over all servers, because there really are times when I cannot get back onto a server I was on a few hours ago. I also gave an example in one of my first posts here; one time I was with another player and in a panic, she used wire fencing to keep another player from getting into a building so he couldn't shoot us. Unfortunately after that we had no way of getting out. Neither of us had anything to get rid of the fencing, we couldn't get past it in any way, and there weren't even any zombies or other players around by the time we looted the church we were in, so we couldn't even get killed to move on and do anything else. What would be our recourse then? I mean, I figured characters are persistant across servers for a reason, right? Yeah, it can be abused like many systems, but still, for now persistant characters seems to make sense, at least to me. I guess I just want to get a feel for what people think overall about all this.

I had recently found a decent stockpile of Lee Enfield ammo around this area with a barn and warehouse. I could see and hear two people rushing into a house in the distance with a bunch of zombies after them. I had a decent view into the main door of the house they ducked into, so I picked off zombies for them. This is when I noticed that the zombie spawn rate must have been jacked up significantly, because they just kept coming. So I decided to rush out and aggro a good deal of the zombies before I headed back to the barn(without giving the two into the house clear view of me, just in case), using up a good deal of ammo to kill them and add more zombie kills to my personal "score". The zombies finally stopped after that; they weren't showing up near my barn or the house where the two people were, and I never saw a "was killed" message, so they got out of it, at least. Might not have been the best solution or way to help, but the horde stopped and the two lived, so that's something. Never got into contact with them because I had to leave shortly after the standoff with the zombies. Hopefully it helped them out a bit in their travels.

That still doesn't really answer the question...Less than a week ago you were saying you liked this despite the flaws. A few patches later and the game is irredeemable? You're not going to give the game a fair shake until it's closer to being the finished product? Even finished products are constantly being patched and tweaked.

Nicely done.

The most important thing is not to let it get to you. Yeah, it's upsetting, but it's the nature of the game; people don't want to die and are extremely hesitant to trust. Though they are not always like that. Take the TMW, for example: http://dayzmod.com/f...ce-we-can-help/ Just like in life, you'll run into all kinds. Just don't let the bad experiences sour the good. Most people are simply paranoid and scared, though some are just jerks. I hope you'll keep at it.

I took a look at some of your past posts and this current one...Kinda flies right in the face of some of the stuff you've said only a few days ago. I gotta ask...What changed?

Hello all. I'm Jason in-game. Despite being burned by other players in past lives, I'm still open to the possibility of sticking to co-op, though I'm currently in the middle of nowhere. It is a great mod so far; I'm liking the exploring and looting aspects of it. Surviving on my own has worked, and has been pretty fun, though the game is becoming easier rather quickly and has a few abusable aspects that I'm trying not to use. So many seem to have been conditioned to "shoot first, ask questions later", but I'm trying to fight that. Last few encounters with friendlies have been promising. I do my best to call friendly and not make other people nervous, and with the cache of medical supplies I've come across, I'm considering becoming a wandering medic if such a thing is feasible. Take care all. Don't let deaths get you down.

Hello all. Not sure if this'll be of any interest to anyone, but I felt like I should share. I've had almost a dozen lives in DayZ so far. Before my current life, I think more than half of my deaths were at the hands of other players. At this point I suppose that's to be expected though. Anyway, my first few lives I quickly learned how to get myself oriented, and despite the advice from so many, I decided to not turn my gun on another player unless it's in self-defense. My current life started me near Cherno, and despite me getting killed in cities many time before, I needed supplies. Upone arriving, I found a mess of medical supplies in an alley near the church, so I stocked up. When I got to the church, I turned a corner and another player and I literally had out guns(I found a Makarov earlier) aimed at each other. He very promptly told me he would open fire if I didn't say something or call friendly. I frantically called friendly, and he started chatting back, informing me of a few things before bolting. I then went into the church, when I heard a woman's voice over the VOIP. She said she only had an axe and nothing of value before running into the church with me. I had grabbed a revolver in the church and dropped my makarov with 2 rounds, so I pointed them out to her so that she could have a decent weapon. She thanked me and then we started to hear gunfire. I rushed to close the church door, managing to get myself shot a few times before doing so, though another bunch of gunshots started up as well, so I guess the guy shooting at me was being distracted. Me and the lady kinda panicked, and so she promptly set up some wire fencing in front of the door, so that no one could get in. Unfortunately she put down two at once, so we also couldn't get out. Everything quieted down outside, so we ransacked the church and I gave her a blood transfusion before we both logged to find another server where the entrance of the church wasn't blocked. This bring me to one thing I learned: it can be lucrative to loot an area on one server, then hop to another when the item spawns haven't been claimed yet. I made a killing doing this twice within that church alone. Still, this was a good start; two friendlies already, whereas I hadn't met any in previous lives. However, after that I decided to head inland, since it seems there are way fewer bandits there. Turns out that's true, but there also aren't many other people around period. I followed the main roads and killed any wildlife along the way since cooked meat tends to be really great for blood, and I can't use blood bags on myself. 6+ hours later and I think I'm in Gorka? I'm not sure of the name. But I did stop in little settlements here and there along the road from Cherno to Gorka. Travelling the roads honestly seemed to be pretty safe. No players and very, very few zombies. At least on my run; maybe I just got lucky. I am liking this game so far; I enjoy exploring the map and scavenging. And luckily since there's no fatigue and no running for zombies indoors, they are much easier to avoid and kill in larger numbers. That's not to say I didn't have a few close calls, but still. Plus for the past few hours playing I didn't run into a single player, and I was on some pretty heavy servers throughout the course of it all. Really does seem like few people go inland, which I guess is good for me since other players aren't as much of a concern. I mean, I would like to team up with others since it sounds like it would be really cool, but paranoia is rampant. Still, the last few hours have shown me that surviving on your own is quite doable. But they've also shown me a few other things. In one of the settlements I was in, I got careless and was knocked unconscious by a zombie. I managed to wake up with ~2k blood and race to a house. I was forced to kill four zombie with a shaky view, then try to patch myself up before I bled out. Just barely managed to do that. I had drinks, but no food, and I couldn't use the blood packs on myself. So I farmed zombies. And it worked...Almost too well. I'd make a run around the town, then retreat to the safety of my trusty house, kill them all, and loot their bodies. I'd repeat this until I actually managed to get a decent blood level back. Between that and loot respawning if I needed to/wanted to switch servers, I found I could sustain myself quite well. I do think you should have a chance to find things on zombies, but...I dunno. If I see an abusable system in a game, I can't help myself sometimes. I do still find the game fun, and I want to keep exploring the map, but the zombie almost seem like more and more of a non-issue as times goes on. Once you learn to deal with them, the true challenge lies with dealing with other players. I suppose that could be one of the reasons why there are so many bandits. I don't think it's all for gear, honestly, because each time I was killed by other players, it was with sniper rifles or automatic weapons while they were wearing ALICE backpacks, and I still had a Lee Enfield and a Coyote pack. I doubt they wanted my stuff. But I'm not complaining; I know that's the nature of the game. Avoid other players and heading inland seems to have worked out really well for me so far. With as many medical supplies as I still have, I wish being a wandering medic was more feasible, but what can you do? And while I have been successful in not shooting other players, I've also barely even seen any other players in my travels, so there's that. Anyway, just wanted to share a story and a few thoughts on the game. I know it's still in Alpha and that they're expanding on it all the time. I really hope they keep at it. The main thing right now I wish they'd do is make zombies a bit more of a threat, but I guess we'll see.

Honestly, I had a feeling that might be the case. Looking back at my post, I figured some of the stuff I said I did might be considered not proper. I haven't been on the forums long, though, so I wasn't aware. Plus, in many cases I just chose whatever server I could find that had a decent ping. Still, this is one of the reasons I posted this: might be able to find out if something I'm doing isn't proper. Like I said before, I do enjoy finding and using abusable systems in games sometimes, but if that's not the way to go, then I'll do my best to keep things legit.