z4ndman

http://www.bistudio.com/support

Don't know how experienced you are so I'll start with the basics. First of all, go dload DayZcommander and filter out servers with bad ping and all that jazz. Update your version of Arma and Dayz through the app and find a server in the EU (like NO, DK, DE, LU, SE etc.).. Ingame, config your main communications shortcut (default caps lock I think?) to only send direct communication from the settings menu, if you haven't done it already. Saves you having to do it every time logging on. From here, it's a matter of patience. Players tend to be very paranoid yes, but there are friendlies out there. Generally you shouldn't approach a player unless you have the advantage (like you see him but he hasn't seen you). The most successful attempts I have had was when I clearly had the opportunity to blow a player away but didn't. Make this obvious to the other player and they will in most cases be grateful. As I said finding players ingame takes a lot of patience and a few deaths, but it is still preferable (as in pretty friggin' awesome) instead of coming to the forum and making one more "Too lazy/too butthurt about losing equipment to randoms so I wonder if someone wants to team up???" -thread... Although this is just my perspective, not necessarily yours.. Good luck!

It is not your home. If you are a stranger to Arma 2 (ie. haven't even played the campaign), then you are a stranger to Chernarus.. You are not a native. Go play the original game if you want to learn about the place. As for your problem with directions: scavenge food/supplies, slay zombies+bandits, survive. It's right there on the front page of the mod... ^_^

Not really. I understand you want to shoot people. I do. And by all means go ahead. But don't kid yourself thinking that it is some kind of "great feat" that you can be proud of. It really isn't. :) Killing a bunch of dudes isn't awesome. This is awesome: Appreciate that you're trying to soothe me, I do, but save it for the QQ threads ;) I'm not justifying player killing or banditry in general as a bad thing. Not at all. I'm saying that glorifying excessive gratuitous player slaying for the lulz and a higher number in the debug monitor is fail. Disagree with me here if you must. I really don't care. Simply no. I will not shut up :P If a guy posts a thread in a public forum, bragging about his leet amount of kills in a game where kills are redundant, (and pretty easy to get btw) I will tell him that he's being silly. So there it is. -And pokemon is a great effin' game btw! All that oppose can suck it! (the original 151, not that new crap ^_^) Aside from the first part of your post, this last paragraph is actually a good, sensible argument. ;) You are absolutely right that we are both arguing for the status quo, and I understand that no one (incuding myself) wants this to turn in to a brony party. HOWEVER, as being one of those players that actually got lucky enough to play this before it got "popular" and everyone started shooting everything, I must say that I had the best experiences with the game back then, before I got my friends involved and being forced to interact with strangers. This also meant that meeting a stranger did not end with "YOU ARE DEAD" all the time as people where on their own and (some of them) appreciated the company. I may sound bitter. So be it. I'm just trying to argue that the gaming experience or difficulty for people not nessecarily looking for shootyshoot could be improved (its like hardcore expert mode with a little bit of "screw you" on the top). That is why the metagaming (looking for medics, clans and trading on the forums instead of in the actual game) is so prevalent right now, which in my opinion is hurting the mod.

You trollin'? Not shure so here goes. l4d (versus mode) is a competitive multiplayer deathmatch, where teams compete to for the highscore, and that has nothing do do with DayZ, experience or gameplay-wise.. Here, there is no highscore, there is no winning team and there is little to no point in playing it as an ordinary fps. Unless you get your kicks off being a griefer.. The statement I was trying to make was that if you and OP (and all the other boneheads) want to shoot people so badly, go do it in a game where it is actually the purpose, instead of hoping that the creators of DayZ will turn this game/mod/socialexperiment-thingy in to another dumbed-down shooter. We got enough of those.

Go play l4d then?

How is improving the player-player interaction a removal of "the real challenge"? Depends on how you play doesn't it? :rolleyes: You said that yourself. I may be biased, but the thing that really makes this mod shine is the psychological aspect of it. "can he be trusted?", "is he friendly?" Remove that and you really have nothing left to work with (eg. generic shooter w. permadeath), and people that are opting for the easy way out (shooting everything) are simply not grasping the concept, or too lazy/attached to their gear to risk a bullet from a nervous noob. I think the mod/standalone won't reach its full potential unless they find some way to make shure that people don't use services like Skype, TS etc. People should be forced to interact with each other ingame instead of the shallow point-and-click-and-see-the-digiman-go-down-while-laughing-with-your-mates -mentality that exist now.. If only.. People should feel the ramifications of their actions. Kill a guy and you get his stuff, but you have also KILLED A GUY. His life is over. He has to start from scratch. Can you live with it? If you can fine, but you may not see another person in the next five-six gaming hours, so perhaps teaming up with him for some extra punch and human interaction is a good idea. Even though its risky and you have to try to TRUST another person :P And if you wanna go singleplayer again wait untill he turns his back to you... ;)

You are absolutely right, in the sense that your chances of survival are improved by kiling other players in the current build of the mod. This, however will be changed, I hope.. Or else (as others have pointed out) they might as well rename the mod/standalone to Hunger Games: Zombie edition...

Lulz have you ever visited the front page of DayZ mod? If not then let me help you. It clearly states: "Go Solo, team up with friends or take on the world as you choose your path in this brutal and chilling landscape using whatever means you stumble upon to survive." -Keyword being survive "wink wink, nudge nudge". See also the three steps on that same page.. Lastly, people ingame are called survivors because that is what they do. That is their objective, wether they do any of the crazy crap you just mentioned. You say I am limiting myself by stating that this is my objective. In which way exactly? There are of course things I can do that would make it harder to do stay alive, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't do it if I felt like a good challenge. Even the OP brags about being "still alive" because he knows that killing 100+ people isn't that impressive if you did it over a large amount of survival attempts. At least we agree on the point of player-killing, as it severely dumbs-down the experience to the point where you could wonder why OP and that 500+ guy even play this game. I think it is not directly the player-killing they are proud of, but the fact that they did it and got away with it (eg. still alive ;P).

Not correct. You are given an objective and that is survival. This is what alot of people don't get. That essentially every minute you are alive you "win" the game. Everything else is just icing on the cake. By being hostile to everyone except his mates, OP is severely risking to "loose" the game by antagonizing himself towards other players. He is essentially making sure that everyone ingame will be hostile towards him, thereby reducing his chances of survival. If you do not share this opinion fine. Then you shouldn't mind meeting up on a server on a regular basis so I can blow your head off ;) Furthermore, who's not to say that OP and some of his friends have just been going around killing each other to buff their stats? Just sayin'...

Lulz! Did the exact same thing at NW airfield. It was the middle of the night and I had been sneaking around finding some good stuff and all of a sudden I spot this guy running torwards me with a makarov. I just freeze and the guy stares at me for a few seconds and then promptly blows my head off. Execution style... I had been alive for 17 days... Another time (this was my very first survival attempt) I had just looted the military camp outside Balota but my shenanigans caught the attention of a few of the zombies. They scared me so much that I just started to spam the shift key! (I play with running toggled off) And all of a sudden I was on my desktop with a box that prompted me to turn on Stickykeys!! Needless to say I was very much dead when I finally got back in to the game :P

So here we go. Having played Dayz since may, I have followed the ®evolution of this mod quite closely, as it was the first time I had ever experienced a game that pushed the boundaries of player interaction and ingame immersion so profoundly. There seems to be a general consensus that this game is about survival in its most basic form, and that as long as you have enough to eat and drink, and maybe even have a big gun, this makes you a "winner". The debug stats seems to be agreeing with this, as they vigorously keep you updated on how cold you are, how much "life" you got, how much grub you got in the stomach and when you need a soda pop. furthermore they keep tabs on your amount of kills. Player and zombie alike, and there is even a topscore chart available for the server you are currently on! If these where the only information you were given about the game, it draws a picture of a glorified FPS with a tad more depth than the average shooty-shoot. Really nothing more. But in my opinion, none of these factors are what makes this mod worth playing. It is not the desperate hunt for consumables and equipment, nor the horror of the "infected" that make this mod so unique. It has all been seen before. It is the player interaction. By taking the concept of a default manshoot and stripping it of its primary objective (shooting people in the face), a whole new dynamic relationship within the game-space is created. You do not necessarily have to shoot people, you are given a choice. Think about that. This mechanic is what gives the mod (in my opinion of course) its strongest aspect, but like human trust, also the most vulnerable. The people that choose to play with friends (myself included), or/and adapt the attitude of "killing everything" is missing out on some of the most interesting ideas the mod has. Also, there are a ton of people arguing that once you have had the "ultimate" gun, found a vehicle etc, there are nothing left to do than pvp, ultimately arguing that survive to live is the goal. This is not only a silly circular argument, but also wrong. The social aspect of the game; being able to talk and interact with everyone on the server gives a player powerful tools to experience a large range of emotions (mistrust, desperation, companionship, loyalty etc) with people half a world away, that the player will probably never see, or (when someone inevitably dies) meet again. These fleeting moments of true human interaction within a fantastical setting is what potentially makes every gaming session for the player an unique experience. For instance: one time you could be a small group of randoms, that are having fun for hours untill a zed sneaks up on you and takes one of you down. Another time, the guy you thought was cool has put two in your back. you never know. This is the bauty of Dayz. A problem arises, when butthurt players say "fuck it, ima be a bandit 'cause y'all keep shootin' my @zz!". Compare the comment (which can be seen in numerous variations across the forum) "silly carebears, never going near crowded areas 'cause they're afraid to get shot" with the argument "I shoot everyone because I have been shot so many times by noobs and griefers OMGWTFBBQ" The double standards regarding this attitude should be apparent. Both player groups (carebear-loners & homicidal bandits) believe so intensively that the goal of this mod is to "survive" by all means, that they are willing to give up on the primary thing that makes this mod great, the human interaction. The shift of the ingame priorities are so profound, that the game is not as much played ingame, as it is played "outside" as a metagame. The Dr. Wasteland thread is a good example of how bad things are, and how paranoid people have become ingame. You actually need to go to a forum to find a "certified" medic instead of yelling to that dude walking past you ingame, because you are afraid that he will blow you away. This, together with the huge explosion in "clan seeking people/people seeking clan" threads indicate that what made Dayz an interesting game with social features never before seen in a game to that extent, has taken a major blow. It is interesting to trawl the forum and see that so many players are so obsessed with "surviving". It is also interesting to see how many players that have "survived" come to the conclusion that the only other thing to do ingame is to shoot people. Social phobia anyone? Or maybe missing a mic? I dunno, but it is curious. To finish off: A lot of threads debating wether or not you should shoot people always include the "its just a game" argument in a ways that it is beneficial for the guys that clearly enjoy shooting people in the face. I would like to twist it a bit by saying to the people using the argument "I kill on sight because u might be an a-hole" that they should stop being so butthurt about it (just a game remember?), and start realising that twenty minutes of playtime with a total stranger might actually be worth the 10-20 shots to the face it will take to find that individual. This is my personal experince anyway. cheers B)

Yes, please, be a part of the problem. - Inu (Personal Insults are not OK!)

And one more thing; the game should be hard as fucking nails. I want my respect for the poor infected back. First time I played I was scared shitless, now I just run in circle about the poor guys :rolleyes:

This would be awesome. It is true about the illiterate idiots running around KOS'ing, and more ingame tools to promote coop would definately help. My personal attitude is also that a simple tweak of removing the debug monitor could do alot to change gameplay. Removing the debug info about how many you have killed (z's and players) would be a small but significant tweak as it would render a murder "meaningless" for a stat-addict. Also, it would just make sense that you wouldn't have a floaty-board telling you that you have killed 44 zombies, 2 bandits and 6 survivors... Actually, it should only have your blood-level as all the other stats are more or less trivial. Generally I feel that Rocket & co. should be very careful about the whole statistic-thingy as it could promote unintentional player behaviour (I'm the most murdering psycopath in all of Chernarus! Yay me! :P)

-And then we could call it "generic team-deathmatch FPS with looting". Really guys you can not solve the problem by forcing people in to groups. The Freedom to do what you want in the gamespace is what makes Dayz interesting. -This. There has to be a certain attitude towards playing the game. True it sucks to die 2k times, but always consider if you are doing everything you can to appear as a non-combatant.

Its funny how the same answers to the question keeps popping up... "I have been shot X times by Y people, so I'm now just gonna be an even bigger asshole to everyone!" :rolleyes: Believe me, I understand the frustration a player must feel if they have just been shot by a fresh spawn after helping them with getting weapons and watnot but really.. Does that justify turning in to an asshole? In my view, people killing on sight are no better than the so-called "carebears" that stay away from crowded areas. You are simply denying yourself a part of the gaming experience because you are afraid that it might turn out in a way you could not predict. As it is with all human interaction! Choosing to eliminate the human aspect of the game by simply killing everything is not what I think Rocket had in mind (my view, not necessarily yours). The whole "he did it to me, so now I'm going to do it to everyone" mentality is so counterproductive that if it wasn't for the meta-gaming apect of using the forums to recieve help from semi organised medics (Dr. Wasteland's thread is pretty brilliant though) and hooking up with like-minded players, thereby bypassing the ingame VON by using mumble, Skype etc, this mod would not be as ground-breaking as it could be. So in short: Man the fuck up, stop being such a bitch about being shot, and appreciate the fact that the person that just killed you now has all he needs to survive and (if they are just a tad decent people) is probably feeling just a little bit sorry for what they did tou you. cheers B) ps. 'xcuse me english. Not a native :P