tyhboom

Orchards and other easy to grab food sources would probably go by the wayside after a while. But I do like the idea of finding more naturally occuring food. Especially the kind you don't need a knife, match, and firewood to process.

Alice packs are quite common (I have found at least 6 over the course of a day and a half). You might as well pack up and head north now. I am sure you will find one laying around as you move northward.

To a random guy with an ax that I met at the medical tents near the edge of Cherno. Thank you for sticking around and healing me. I really needed that. You gave me a startle at first when you came up from behind me but I am glad it didn't end in violence.

Your GPU seems a bit weak for any modern game. You might want to invest in something slightly newer just because it will vastly improve your overall gaming performance. But yeah like FrankFisher said, it should run, just choppy.

Well out of those 900,000 some players probably only a small percentage (my guess here) 5-15% would do it. The rest would say screw you Rocket. Granted that is still a decent amount of money. But paid anything will probably turn off a lot of people (which might not be a bad thing). If they really want money, they should setup a Paypal donation account. Then those who are willing can contribute. The rest can go on their merry way.

I had been chipping away at the ARMA 2 single player campaigns and trying to parlay my way into one of the more serious online co-op communities when I saw a lot of coverage of Day Z start popping up. So I started following the mod a bit, reading through forum posts, the wiki, gaming columns online, but I never bothered installing it until yesterday. Switched my Six Launcher from ACE to Day Z and gave it a whirl. Now going into the game, I had pretty low expectations. Let's face it, once Day Z started showing up on the landing page of lots of notable websites, the game was bound to attract the attention of all types, good and bad. From reading around the forums it seems that there has been a lot of bad. *Skip to the bottom for the short version* So on my first attempt I figured, hey I'll spawn look around walk in a eastward direction until I get capped in the back from 500M by a ghille'd sniper. Well what do you know, I didn't get shot at once! Infact, I didn't even run into another player the first playthrough. This was probably because I was avoiding the very crowded servers, for fear that I would enjoy an insta-death upon spawning after 5 minutes of loading.Emboldened by the fact I survived the first 30 seconds, I figured I better start looking for loot since I might even make it a whole 10 minutes alive. My first stop, a gas station with some abandoned cars. Still no Zed which I suppose is a good thing. Sneak around the back door inside and lookie here, an Axe. Well that'll be useful. Kept walking along the woods at the edge of the road when I see my first zeds show up at the end of what I suppose is Cherno. Hmm...I guess I could run straight at them or I could turn left and head up north. Well since I have made it my 10 minutes I will try for another 10 so northward it is armed with an axe some sodas (screw pepsi I will remain loyal). The woods are nice and quiet and I can only hear the rustling the grass at my feet. Suddenly in the distance I see a figure. He's pointing a gun towards the sky but strangely inanimate. I go into a crawl and approach. Still no movement. I crouch and proceed forward axe in hand. Constantly suspicious of some ridiculous bandit plot to lure unsuspecting players I get within striking distance. Still no movement. Now in real life I'd probably just kick the guy or something to see if he is alive but I don't have that luxury right now so one hack to the head and....nothing. No movement, he didn't fall down, he's just stuck. Yay my first experience with a glitched dead player. No point in letting him go to waste so I take a look at what he has on him. Oh a little makarov with a loaded clip still. I politely bow my head and pay my respects to the dead traveler before I hide his body in the grass and continue onward. Eventually I reached my first village. Armed with a pistol and an blunt object I felt extra brave so I approached at a quick crouching pace. Slowly searching arond the buildings to see for possible loot and of course zed heads. When low and behold I am made, I hear the groaning moaning coming from my speakers and realize I've been tracked. A few quick strikes with my axe and the zombie goes down, but he seems to have scratched me a bit. Patched up and continuing on I come across another dead body, only this one is armed with a AKM. Very excited I search his body to find that he probably died because he ran out of ammo. He had clips of every sort except the one's he needed. No point in hijacking his weapon I am better off with my axe. But now I realize I have made a mistake, in the time I spent trying loot this poor guy, a small zombie crowd hobbled my direction. I don't even notice it realy until I get hit and by then I am frantically trying to axe away the zeds (who move quite quickly). Unlucky me catches a swipe from behind that breaks a leg or something. Now I'm on the ground and there are still 2 zombies up. Well I figure this is the end and contemplate suicide with my makarov but again, not an option again. Since I can't aim so high I nick their feet a few times but am subdued. I think I made it to the average life expectancy, found some weapons and faced a zed. That was fun lets do it again. So I tried again probably 4 or 5 times in my first session. Some of which ended in very odd deaths. My favorite of which is my climbing a ladder escape zeds to find that somehow I get stuck on the ladder and they tear me to shreds. And amazingly only once did I get shot by a bandit. Luckily it was early and I just reached the edge of Cherno when a shot rings out and catches my guy in the leg. This guy clearly isn't a great marksmen as when I was hit I was moving crouched slowly through a grassy field. I hear at least a half a dozen shots fire after I'm hit as I try to crawl. I try hiding out in the tall grass but eventually bleeding and another stray round gets me. But still, no real reason to get angry I just take it as a lesson learned. Don't go the predictable routes into large cities. So on day 2 I have survived a night in the world and actually found it preferable. Darkness is a double edged sword and I managed off with a decent loot. An upgraded backpack a few rations and now a m4a3 cco. It gave me a sense of security when I spotted two survivors crossing the field I was in. I quietly observed them from a distance as I watched them get zeds on their tail and make a run for the woods. The last I heard was an AK spray and a death notice on the bottom of my screen. Eventually I would ditch my m4 for a crossbow which I ditched later because I couldnt seem to recover my bolts defeating the purpose of a crossbow to begin with. I left my guy up hiding out in the factory area of Chero. I managed to raid plenty of medical supplies from nearby but need a friend to apply them for me :( *Short version. I am having lots of fun, despite all the negativity floating around the game. Yeah I still have the artifact glitches like everyone else, loading takes forever, six updater is kind of clunky, zombies run in the most ridiculous fashion, I am more afraid of ladders than snipers, etc. But it is really easy to see the brilliance of Day Z. I spent 20 minutes frantically searching for food. To my relief I grabbed some beans and franks. Me - 1 Starvation - 0 for now. This is the essence of survival. I am alive, weakened but I will survive. Looking for someone to render medical assitance and maybe even a friend to play with. But I am perfectly happy pretending to be a LaMOE :thumbsup:

Hmm...then if it isn't the deathblow then it isn't murder in DayZ land? I am curious to know as well.

I support this. I often run into an odd situation when I am going through towns. Do I keep my AR out and risk the noise if I run into a zombie or should I switch up to my ax and keep it quiet. I think it is decently realistic that you could wield a rifle and then quickly switch to an ax if necessary.

Cheers! Good information, especially for those who skip over ARMA II. I'll add some non-official tips a la Murphy "You are not Superman; Marines and fighter pilots take note." "The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions: when they're ready, when you're not." "Anything you do can get you killed, including nothing" And one of my favorites... "Try to look unimportant; the enemy may be low on ammo and not want to waste a bullet on you."

I have run into players here and there, really depends on how big the server is I feel. You'll run into more as you move towards the bigger cities and towns. The most scary player interaction I had actually didn't even end in death. It was night time in some small village when all of the sudden two survivors show up behind me. I freak a bit and then zombies start chasing us. I didn't see those guys again after that.

Again you are not paying for Day Z you are paying for Arma II. Arma II is a respectable mil-sim in its own right. It used to be, you would buy ARMA II play it and enjoy. Then one day discover the mod community and stumble upon day-z.

I think sticking with COD is a great choice for you sir.

That deserves some beans

You need to own ARMA II and ARMA II Operation Arrowhead. Go on bohemia interactive, steam, amazon, or whatever online distributer of games you prefer, buy ARMA II combined operations (it includes both arma II and OA). Download and install it then follow the instructions here

I was running low on blood so I made a run at some Medical Tents near Cherno. I managed to make off with some blood transfusion kits and other medical supplies but I have no way of applying them. For the time being I hid out near the factories waiting for someone I can trust. I would be more than willing to hand over the supplies in exchange for treatment.