A little trust can go a long way...

[PixelDaddy 2]

Hi all, new to the forums and just wanted to share a few experiences and thoughts. Apologies if the post is a little long for some, I hope though that some find my story later in the post enjoyable to read.

Firstly, congratulations and thank you to the devs for creating such a wonderful game. Seriously the best gaming experiences I've had in a long time. The kind of game I've been waiting for. It's so fitting to have a zombie survival game in the ARMA engine. Genius.

The community as a whole have been pretty great too, very helpful with bugs, installation issues, reporting hackers and the creative contributions of wallpapers, screenshots, videos and stories is fantastic. I plan to contribute to this too very soon.

Anyway I digress, I wanted to share some experiences/thoughts regarding trust within the game. Let me preface this by saying I have nothing against bandits really, from my perspective if a player wants to murder you for your loot, be it just a can of beans or even just because they like killing then fair enough. I'll admit I have been annoyed when losing my character to some but they provide a lot of the tension and fear in the game. Without these bastard murderers Chernarus wouldn't be anywhere near as dangerous. However I came to the conclusion today that I'm going to be far more trusting in game, which goes against what a lot of people advise and also told me today in the side chat.

When I first started playing I think it would be fair to say I was a paranoid mess. The whole atmosphere, the music, the situation and the comments about not trusting anyone made me itchy with the trigger finger. I shot pretty much everyone I bumped into not without guilt or shame I must say. But as time went on I grew a little less nervous, I took to hiding from strangers and trying to work out if they were a threat by watching, listening or communication. Still though there was this general feeling not to trust anyone.

Today though I decided to be much more vocal and trusting. I was communicating with another player called 'bob' via side chat. I was out at Balota Airfield searching for loot and heard firing quite near. I found out that 'bob' was at the South end of the airfield and advised me that there was some useful loot in and around the medical tents. My instincts told me it wasn't a trap (I obviously could of been completely wrong) and I watched him briefly across the strip through my binoculars and then told Bob I was going to make my way over to him and to please not shoot me. Although it was only crossing the airfield it felt very dangerous, bandits could be watching and waiting and there were plenty of zombies nearby. Bob, confirmed he wouldn't shoot me and said that the area looked clear. As I ran across, keeping low and watching my sides I noticed Bob, keeping watch across the airfield for me.

As I reached the tree line he came and met me and begun to point out the nearby zombies. I backed off a little way to find a safe spot to drop some ammo for Bob (I noticed he had an AKM and I had 3 spare mags I wanted to give to him). Then without warning LOUD firing started, it sounded like all from Bobs AKM but I couldn't be sure, I hit the dirt and watched in horror as every zombie from what seemed like the whole area swarmed him, I tried to keep them off him, firing at the ones right on top of him with my winchester but there were too many and I saw Bob fall to the ground with a scream!

As this was happening I noticed two comments from other players along the lines of "You should never trust anyone at the airfield pixel", and "You shouldn't trust ANYONE at all". Did these people shoot Bob from afar and start this thing or were they just giving me their opinion? I wasn't sure but what I was sure of was that from now on I am going to trust people. I trusted Bob and he watched my back. It was a brief meeting, perhaps only 10 minutes but that brief chance meeting and mutual help was far more rewarding and memorable than all the other times I had shot or ran away in fear. I will remember Bob and hope to see him in Chernarus again some day. I also have his AKM now (thanks bob) so I'll mow down some zombies in his honour ;)

If you see me in game, I won't be the one shooting first and if I have spare ammo, food or medical supplies I'll help the best I can. This approach maybe naive of me and I'm likely to get myself killed by bandits more often but for me I think it's worth the risk.

Attached should be an image of Bob shortly after his final moments, RIP bob.

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