crockett (DayZ)

Yes, this works in most cases as does playing on private hives but it doesn't mean you wont still get hit by them. This is just more of a story on how we don't let the hackers ruin our game play but instead just roll with the punches and keep going.

Perhaps you might miss the point as to why many of us play DayZ.. I enjoy FPS games, but I don't want to play just another run & gun or enter random tactical shooter [HERE]. Now this is the tricky part.. I do enjoy run & gunning & I enjoy playing tactical shooters "tactically".. Yet I've played them so long that the whole Red Team vs Blue Team aspect has grown old. I like playing with the element of the unknown in a sandbox world.. This is why I played EVE Online for a long time even though I prefer FPS games. (I used to love the original Ghost Recon just because it had option to have 4 teams. I always felt Red Storm the original RB6/GR developer really missed the boat on pushing that gameplay style) I also always longed for the ability to be me vs world in FPS games that I played. I don't always want a team to play with or guys on my side. I used to always want be the lone players or tag team vs the 15 or 20.. I like having the element that allows me to sort of do what I want with no clear goal I need to achieve. I like being both good & bad but not having to follow some sort of structure game-play roles.. Games like EVE & now DayZ allow you to play in that manor where it's more of the social interaction that determines your gameplay. Are there any other ARMA II mods that allow me to do this?

I shoot people in the face.. I can't do it in real life or I'd get in trouble and then would have to roleplay a prison inmate.

Then I can go all OG up in this joint & say I played the leaked beta of Operation Flashpoint back in the day.. (of course later bought the full game) Take that you so call; ARMA wannabe leetsters. I didn't play any of the other games but Arma II always did look interesting, I was playing stuff like Red Orchestra I & II, Aces High II, various FPS & EVE Online.. DayZ brought me back as a customer.

Am I the only one that noticed that they said they were using the same engine as "Take on Helicopters"? That means they are using the Real Virtuality 3 engine which is the same base engine that ARMA II uses & not the upcoming ARMA III game engine which is Real Virtuality 4. While this might make for a faster development timeline it will be a let down for all those that were expecting all the new bells & whistles from the ARMA III engine.

I played a few rounds on it and outside of the basic bugs with loot floating, & zombies not always going where they are supposed to I'd say the map likely isn't too bad with DayZ in mind. Seems like it will be a interesting map as the loot spawns (from what I can see) all seem to funnel everyone close to the main roads and with hills on both sides just about everywhere and rocks to hide behind, it's gonna make for some nice ambushing. So far the servers I see with it, don't have the best pings for my location & I've had a bit of lag, but I've still managed to kill a few guys as well as get killed 2 or 3 times in just a short time on the map. It might be big but there is a lot of barren wasteland that is useless I think it will funnel players close to each other. JMHO though I think it would be great if it were limited to just Lee Enfields, shot guns & pistols.. The high end sniper rifles might make it rough, once guys start getting geared up..

Try to find at least 1 other player to team up with that plays the same times as you. working as a tag team or even a trio greatly increases your survival ability and also increases your random chances of PVP opportunity. Solo sniping around big cities is also a bad idea as you will have no back up/spotter and will likely find yourself dead rather quickly.

Just the same as many of you, myself and two friends have turned to private Hives to get away from the cheaters and low life's that can't play the game with out glitching and so on. I'm not sure about the rest of you but I somewhat expect private hives to step up and admin their servers banning cheaters, people that alt+f4 & so forth. We have been bouncing around various private Hives and gearing up and playing for a bit and tend to stay there until we decide to move on. Our focus is PVP and we tend to do a lot of banditry. I just wanted to give some basic reviews of servers we or myself have played on, so others might get a better idea on where the good servers that are worth playing on. This is by no means a full list of all private Hives just basic reviews of where we have played. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) Rinaun.com server(s) 209.222.93.26:2302 (have to register at their forums to get server password) I've played at their servers mostly as a solo player but I played there for easily 2 weeks exclusively when I was almost ready to quit DayZ thanks to hackers. Probably of any non Hive server(s) I've ever played on their admin's were on the ball most. In the time I played here, I've only ran into one hacker whom was quickly banned. They also ban people that Alt+F4 and the admins will search through logs to get names & deal with people duping weapons/Alt+F4ing. These guys tend to be on the ball as far as setting up the servers well and we had tents that saved on this server long before they were fixed with any offical patch. The server is edited to make things much more interesting when it comes to vehicles as they have reduced car/truck spawns in exchange to adding more motorcycle/ATV & bicycle spawns. This means it's much easier for non clan guys to get access to transportation as it cuts down on vehicle hoarding to just use them as glorified tents. The only thing I'm not 100% on but it seem interesting is the community is working on adding more building around the map. I like the idea on one hand but I'm uncertain how it will effect the game play but it will still be interesting to see how this progresses. (It's also nice to discover a new building location for the first time again) Game play wise most players are friendly if you are on the server's TS and you announce yourself but if not you will likely get shot. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Born to Lose Private Hive 208.167.240.191:2302 I played on this server for a few days with 2 friends and as a group were becoming very active PVPing here. Overall it was an enjoyable experience but they need either more admins or to become much more strict on banning people that routinely alt+F4. I will say I probably had one of the most intense firefights on this server that I've had in any FPS, At the time it was just two of us playing and my partner was killed just as I made it to his location. I ended up getting pinned down in the Elektro Cafe with only a AK holding 2 clips of ammo a 1911 and 1 frag grenade. I was pinned down by a guy on the school roof shooting in the windows any time I moved, 1 guy behind the building & one guy inside. I managed getting hits on the guy inside two times and chased him out with my frag grenade just as my partner made it back to town, found a gun & managed to get a few hit on the guy whom was on the school roof. This fight went on over 20 mins and in the en d we manged to over turn a serious disadvantage, forcing the attackers off. I had 6 rounds left in my AK and nothing else. We went through several lives on this server and it ended with us finding a Bus & then dying to a hacker as we drove north. We lost our bus and all the gear we had accumulated to a single hacker that was left roaming free on the server for well over an hour. I personally joined their TS3 and reported the hacker but was told something was not working right with their server and they couldn't ban him. After dying two times to the hacker we logged out and later upgraded to the latest ARMA beta patch and can't rejoin the server at this point. Overall the server was enjoyable and I'm sure I will play there again, but IMO they need more admins &/or the admins needs to be more on the ball. We also had a few player Alt+F4 during combat on this server and it would be nice to see the admins taking a hard-line on this and start banning them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Asylum - US#01 (216.144.246.139:2302) We joined this server yesterday after upgrading to the latest beta patch, hoping to fix a few bugs we were getting with the game. This was the only private HIVE that was running all the latest patches and that had a decent ping/player count at the time. I first joined & spawned in Kamenka & ran north to check the near by tree stands. Right off the bat I find a DMR & a Kobra in the 1st tree stand I checked and knew I was going to be on a good run. I could only take one gun due to still having my starter back pack so I took the DMR and headed toward Zeleno in hopes to find a pack pack & supporting gear. Along the way I find a bike that appeared to be a new spawn, but everything was red on it and it's wouldn't move. About the time I managed to gear up with the basics, one of my friends logged in so I ran back down to meet him & to help him gear up. We both geared up with a pretty decent amount of players on the server but we didn't run across any actual contacts expect 1 noob spawn at the start. We heard a few gun shots here & there but overall our gearing up process was pretty quiet. We ended up back in Cherno having several firefights with other players, my favorite being 3 guys on a roof top, two of which I managed single shot kills to the heads with my DMR, then we killed 2 more insider the apartments that we were in. We had a few different random fire fights and random encounters as well as a battle of patience with 2 other players near the Cherno Church which resulted in no kills. The PVP was pretty good on this server once we were geared up "BUT" and this is a very big but.. we tallied out with something like 11 murders & 2 or 3 bandit kills but out of those kills easily 50-60% of the players on this server used alt+F4 to chicken out/escape. (4 of the guys we killed alt+f4'd after they died so we couldn't get their loot the rest were actual combat log outs) The Admins seriously need to get on the ball and give players a way to report people whom alt+F4 & start banning them. I've played most of my time in DayZ on private Hive servers and so far this server was the worst for having players whom alt+F4. Getting back to our time on the server we racked up quite a few kills by this time & had not died once. we were running out of Cherno when I randomly find a working bicycle as we ran through an open field. This was like the 3rd bike we had found since we joined the server that day but the 1st that worked. My friend was low on ammo and we had some gear stashed up north, so I took the bike and headed for the gear while he headed to Balota airfield to look for a new gun or ammo. Along my ride up north I was checking bike spawns in hope of getting us a second.. (I assume there must have been a recent server wipe for us to find so many bikes or the admins have added extras) I had zero luck finding a 2nd bike and by the time I got back he had zero luck finding any ammo for his AKM, but found a M16 with a single clip in Balota and knew where a 2nd clip was back in Cherno. We both meet back in Cherno (dark out) and with pure dumb luck I run right past another bike that was stashed next to a building.. (yes, after running around half the map looking for a 2nd bike we find the 2nd right back where we started) Having two bikes we head to Elecktro and see some poor sucker in the firehouse with a glow stick as we ride by.. We killed the poor guy hoping he would have some sort of gun or more ammo for my friend M16. Sadly the poor guy just had basic gear & a crossbow. We headed north to raid the N/W airfield on our bikes & after a quick run through Stary we headed through the open fields where our fun was quickly ended by running both our bikes straight into a grass filled lake that wasn't more than waist deep water.. As much as we tried we couldn't free our bikes from the depths of this mud pit. We continued on and were geared up pretty well but entering the south barrack I was shot in the back by a coward whom alt +F4'd right as my partner landed a grenade on him. This was the first death either of us had on this server and sadly it came by the hands of yet another chicken whom was scared to lose his stuff. Ironically enough my partner still got the kill on him but his body disappeared due to him Alt+F4'n leaving no loot. We managed to secure my gear and logged out. We will continue on for a bit more on this server as it was a pretty active server but as I mentioned prior the admins seriously need to get on the ball here. Outside of the plague of Alt+F4 retards the server ran very well and finding bikes so easily (much like on Rinaun's server) might of been a fluke due to server wipe, (I dunno) but it made our travels a bit more enjoyable while we had them. I'm hoping we just had a lot of bad luck with the alt+f4 cowards but only time will tell. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This turned into a blog mid way through the post.. but I'll try to update with game-play/admin reviews on the private Hive servers we join over the next few weeks.

Seems they did a good job finally fixing the artifact tearing associated with the dead soldiers, however seems the patches have introduced new bugs.. 1) Now it seems the "barb" wire is tearing like crazy and has become the new soldier bug. I used to get it from time to time in the past, but now it appears to happen just as often as the old soldier bug, 2) Every server I've joined since I installed the patches seem more laggy. Could be just the servers I'm playing on but seems odd that it's more than just one. (I'm talking I get desynic where bandages won't work right away and I've died because of it..) 3) The debug monitor constantly closes added to this the health icons are no longer working. This means the only way I know if I'm bleeding is to constantly keep resetting the debug monitor & or watch for blood coming off my char's body. (if on a no 3rd person server it's impossible to know)

Yes.. Barb wire.. I made a goof..

It's no longer Alpha when it's being mass tested by the public.. I don't care what the developer chooses to call it but Alpha is always closed or very limited open testing.. Not over 1 million players as we have now. This has been beta by software terms for a very long time. Calling it Alpha is just a easy way to not have to fix stuff and have an easy out excuse.

I don't care how many zombies are spawned but knowing my blood is pretty important specially when the other icons don't work. It's the only way to have a clue if you are bleeding with out actually seeing the blood. Also something I noticed as well is humanity is still buggy as hell and it's pretty much impossible for me to keep a backpack. I kill a player & I turn into a bandit.. Backpack gets changed from Alice to starter backpack.. I find a Czech back back as replacement.. 5 mins later my humanity goes up for doing absolutely nothing & I lose the Czech Backpack because my skin changes back to civilian. I find another Czech then kill another player & I'm back to bandit skin & lose my upgraded backpack yet again. At this point I say screw it and just keep the starter backpack as I can see it's pretty much useless to upgrade. I play with 2 others & last night we killed easily 5 to 8 players and 2 of us lost our back packs at least once with myself having it happen 3 times.

Arma is like most FPS where you already know who is on your side and who isn't. With DayZ you never know who is a good guy & who is a bad guy which is what gives it more depth. DayZ is like a tactical shooter with a social side and your job is to survive with lot of other people trying to do the same and compete for the same stuff.

This is a tactical PVP game. Zombies are just part of the backdrop or scenery. If you want safe zones then go play WoW or some other glorified MMO. This is a PVP game that makes you choose how you intend to survive. You can either kill other players or try to be friendly.. It's up to you but because this is a sandbox so to speak, the others have the option to try & kill you even if you try to be friendly. ( there needs to be a reason to want to be friendly to try and balance this out) IMO far too many play this game like they are trying to farm WoW gold all day. They play the game with out actually playing the game, it's like they are squirrels constantly collecting nuts to burry under a tree. The only semi safe zones should be the ability to create a home base that gives you a little bit of safety out side of the crappy tent system. In real life it would be much easier to hide/protect your stuff than it is in this game. You should be granted a small amount of safety in that kind of manor but not invulnerability as you should always be in certain amount of danger.

I've had 1 tent location that was never found, but every vehicle I placed close by were always taken. Tents are hard enough to hide properly but might as well forget hiding a vehicle out side of maybe a heli that can just be placed somewhere that it require a heli to get to. That of course is only 1 server hop away from being taken.

It's simple make your server a private hive and you can then ban & admin how you feel fit. There are more than enough people whom want to play on private servers to keep away from the hackers. The biggest thing is if you do it, you have to have the admin to kick the cheaters when they do show up.

You can't stop duping and it still happens sometimes when you don' t even mean to do it. It all comes down to server admins and how active they are as well as the community behind the private Hive. I've been playing on http://www.rinaun.com/ (http://www.rinaun.com/forums/) private Hive for about 2 weeks now and it's been pretty good overall. They will ban people for combat disco & will check logs for duping if it's suspected. As a result, it's a hell of a lot harder to find those nice items but draw back is guys that can hold on to a Heli will obviously end up with better load outs much faster.

2 days ago I was re gearing in Cherno and as luck would have it the 1st gun I found was a M4 A3 CCO. I continued on and noticed the doors were shut to the church and I decided to investigate. I opened the door see some guy picking stuff up on the ground and he had a few things I needed as well as a gun so I gunned him down. He ended up having a Mp5 SD & the Alice BP that I needed but also a Mountain Dew. I took what I needed as well as the dew and carried on with my business. Met up with a few friends and we decided to go to a more active server while we were up in Stary with my Mountain Dew coming along for the ride. We logged into the other server and I hear sniper fire soon as I appeared on the map over to my left then see 2 or 3 guys running across a field. Next I hear a .50 right behind me and I'm dead. Right at that point 1 of my friends logged in and just in time and killed the guy that killed me, whom was looting my body then he was killed pretty much instantly after that. Luckily we caught our 3rd guy on coms b4 he finished logging in. That was 4 people that died because of 1 Mountain Dew.. How many died prior to me finding it or after I lost it, I have no idea.. Don't do the dew.

The ADD generation..

Don't go too overboard on finding just exactly what you think you might need. Just go with your basics, matches, axe, hunting knife a Alice BP then food & med supplies.. I'm not a fan of the shotgun/1866 but AKM's are like a dime a dozen once you know where to look that or some M16 variant. If you plan to live up there in a specific area a tent might be good to find. You just don't want to put too much effort into gearing up as it becomes frustrating when you die on the way or soon as you get there. You want to learn how to gear up fast & move out if you don't intend to hang around the big cities. Also might be just as good to head to Berezino & the airfield by Kasnostav.. You can find pretty much all the same guns at those two locations as you will at NWAF & it's less populated. Added bonus is between Kas & Brez there are 3 stores & a Hospital. The biggest advantage to NWAF is that area just had more military location & it has a higher percentage of crashed heli sites, but I'd say Kas & Berez is much better area for noobie to start off.. http://dayzdb.com/map (just in case you haven't seen it)

Most of these people do it because it's "easy". There is nothing wrong with killing other players but the game isn't what it should be TBH. If all the duping of weapons were fixed & the hackers removed, I think you would see a lot less retards with their high end sniper rifles sitting around the hills of Elecktro or on tall buildings in Cherno. When I play on private servers that ban for duping/hacking the player mentality of the locals if you will is very different than what you see in public servers where you can find high end gear at the drop of a hat. You still have banditry & pvp but players tend to be much more careful with their higher end gear and it's rare to see guys sitting on hills sniping because they know they will get killed fast. At this point IMO real DayZ as it was meant to be is only played out on private hives away from all the dupers & script kiddies.

I don't care what they "claim" it is I'm going by typical software standards. The point you release something to be tested publicly in mass it's no longer alpha it's a beta test. While I'm of course irritated with the cheaters & hacks as well as the many bugs I at least have an understanding that this is a mod and he didn't have some massive team working on it.. Not to mention the game engine isn't exactly secure.. However this mod certainly is long past alpha stage regardless if that's what they still choose to call it.

Try playing on a non hive server, your character will be interdependent from the one that is stuck on the official hive servers..

Beta... Alpha is a closed limited testing prior to putting it in the hands of the positional consumers for mass testing.. With over 1 million people having "tested" this it's for damn sure not Alpha..

best tool you can have for this game.. http://dayzdb.com/map Also they are linked in the pined topic at top of this forum section but check out this guys videos.. he has some nice quick starts and various guides. http://www.youtube.com/user/dayzguidez/videos?view=1