Good or Bad?

[Coliin 1]

I am fairly new at this but I was catching on quite well or so I thought. I have had my first experience with a Bandit or I assume it was. Having played for less than a week I had a 4 day character and was building up a nice little collection of items and weapons. I was at an airfield and admittedly i stupidly ran across a runway to get to a building but I was there for quite sometime and I could not see anyone so I thought I was safe. Anyway he shot me down( allow it did take him a good 6 shots to get me) What bothers me is there was no word, no chat at all just bang your dead not even the courtesy to say sorry buddy but its all in the game.

To my main point, When I started playing this I always aimed to be decent, only shoot when attacked but after that I am thinking is there really any benefit to this. It seems quite clear that all the pros are in favour of being a bandit. At my core I am very good person even to the extent were I always aim to be the good guy even when playing games but for this game I may have to bite the bullet and just change my ways.

Or maybe my pride is hurting because my ass was handed to me on a plate.

Any advise from more experienced people would be greatly appreciated.

[Steak and Potatoes 13480]

Its in your hands, I would say dont take the easy route as it will be less rewarding down the road especially if you have this moral dilemma.

[Synix 33]

The first thing I noticed was that you said you ran across a runway. This means you were at an airfield. From my experience playing solo or in a clan, these are kill on sight zones. As in people are either there to get loot and kill players or just simply kill players. So if you're up there, just know that you will probably never have someone run up to you offering you a weapon or asking if you want a friend.

[dallas 5195]

I attempt to play as a hero.

Which means I constantly have to struggle with maintaining my humanity. Whether you're good or bad, you also have to make decision affecting your's and other's well being. When you've been killed, when you've been forced to run for your life or kill in self defense, you natural tolerance towards other players and violence is affected. After killing someone in Elektro in self defense, I saw a player with a broken leg crawling towards the hospital 2-300 meters away and without thinking I shot twice at him and he stopped crawling.

I love this game, because some players kill without hesitation, while others kill with regret or some refuse to pull the trigger first.

I don't want to tell you what to do, there's will no right and wrongs in DayZ, only what you, yourself can justify. The only thing you should do is think more about concealing your movement and always keep cover close. If you're always moving, attempting to be unpredictable, always close to cover, bandits will often miss the first shot and give you time to place a building between you and the shooter. At this point, you can chose to improve your position and return fire or simply keep adding more objects between you and the bandit, trying to escape.

[lipemr 160]

kill everything that moves. That's what this game became, thanks to all the COD kids that are playing.

[HERBERT-THETREE 44]

As a proud bandit, i can tell you if you choose to go down the road of good. you will die a lot. Its all about choice, i choose to kill people for better equipment and fun times others choose to help each other. I can say that bandits like that guy are...boring. i prefer a fight, unfortunatly most bandits prefer you to die quickly. If you want advice on what choice to make, id suggest playing the game so that you have fun, if you enjoy helping people go for it, if you like PvP then do that. Dont do something thats not fun just because its easier. Like lipemr said this game is mostly kos but there are a few good people still out there.

<<<<<also read this, this is truth

Edited February 16, 2013 by HERBERT-THETREE

[dblxross@yahoo.com 103]

Nobody here can tell you which path to choose. It is all about your moral character as a person and how you feel in the long run. Also, it is safe to say there is no "Good vs. Bad" argument, its more grey than that. Some people choose to alert an enemy to themselves and tell them to drop their guns and back, then make them walk. This way, you can rob people without being so cruel as to kill them, reset all their playtime and stats, and efforts to get to a good location. Some consider this more cruel, but it is a method I employ often as it generally keeps me alive and feeling good. The only places I kill on sight, as mentioned above, is at airfields and high yield loot areas. If I randomly meet a passerby by chance, I generally share goods and stories, then im on my way. Only you can choose which path to take, so choose wisely, because there is no going back once it becomes habit.

[Coliin 1]

Thanks everyone for the words. I think I have learnt a few things but still need to learn quite a bit more, but that's all part of the fun I guess. So far what I have found fun is the stealth side and killing some z but that was my first real experience meeting someone, somehow I have only came across one other person before and he was friendly but got me killed by bringing a horde of zombie with him. So I think I will stick with my initial gut instinct and that's to only kill when shot at first except when at somewhere with a high yield of loot which is what you guys have taught me.

But who knows someday I may change, as Herbert said, the dark side have beans!

[EliteSkittle 59]

I have 48K Humanity, and have never had a bandit skin. There is an easy solution to your problem my friend. Play smart.

This means no more sprints across the runways :P, crouch run if you have to run at all. I could sit here and give you all the survival tips but I think its better to learn them on your own or come up with your own ways to do things.

Just know that you DO NOT have to Kill on sight (KoS), if your learn how to avoid people. Or even how to handle a situation correctly

[MissSweeney 105]

Chances are, people will kill you. If you become a kill on site kinda guy, you will become like the guy who your post is about, It just depends on whether or not you want to be that person. As I saw in an above comment though, Airfields are kill on site zones, even for friendly players most of the time. It's just how it is. If you snuck in and came across him, you may have had a chance to kill in self defense, but you probably would have scared the shit out of each other and the outcome would have been the same. The way I decide what do do is trust my gut. If I see someone and they don't respond to me on group chat quick enough, I will either run and hide or kill them. Other times, I will help them, give them med gear and beans and send them on their way. Depends on where I meet them, what weapon they have, and whether they have a name with numbers in it (heh).

[Nicolaitic 26]

kill everything that moves. That's what this game became, thanks to all the COD kids that are playing.

No beans for you!

I've met alot of nice players that gave me a lift, blood transfusion, or food!

Shoot the COD kiddies but not the innocent guys.

I have almost never met a COD kiddie..

Get in a privat hive and that will never happen. You will mostly meet some nice players and get some friends.

Edited February 18, 2013 by Nicolaitic

[Nicolaitic 26]

I have 48K Humanity, and have never had a bandit skin. There is an easy solution to your problem my friend. Play smart.

This means no more sprints across the runways :P, crouch run if you have to run at all. I could sit here and give you all the survival tips but I think its better to learn them on your own or come up with your own ways to do things.

Just know that you DO NOT have to Kill on sight (KoS), if your learn how to avoid people. Or even how to handle a situation correctly

Have some beans.

Smart words!

[GOD™ 2795]

i tried being a nice guy once...complete dayz pacifist, i helped people, i was friendly to them....and all they did was go hurr durr bang bang *dead*

eventually people do the most common thing in dayz...

become like every other idiot, turn into a jerk and start shooting every player you see.

I do what mr.skittle says, play it smart.

Edited February 18, 2013 by GOD™

[mrpickles 4]

This is fascinating discussion. Thank you all for the interesting reading.

I'm really interested in the conditional response a lot of players have:

We kill on sight in the airfields because other players kill on sight in the airfield.

We only kill players who have good items.

If a player looks like a new spawn, we generally let him live.

The first statement is the most illuminating because the community dictates our behavior. It's acceptable to kill at the airfields because we've all agreed that it is (either explicitly or implicitly through our actions). This is moral constructivism at its heart.

If you look through all the community rules, you'll see various iterations of the these. They all generally revolve around survival. Survival is the highest good, helping out another player is secondary. If helping out another player a big enough risk to survival, then the community generally ignores the player.

But at some point, a survivor meets a bandit. The bandit operating under a different set of standards, let's call them bandit standards, kills the survivor. The survivor is now confronted with this new set of standards and has to deal with it. What you've experienced, Coliin, is similar (but much less formative) to when you hear about another religion or another set of cultural values for the first time. We have to sit down and think, are my beliefs and assumptions right? Or, is this new way of thinking better?

I think some players are uncomfortable with a lot of uncertainty. Killing everyone I see eliminates a lot of uncertainty about who to trust. So too does having a set of rules in place helps dictate how I behave ahead of time so I know what to do. Or maybe, we make all these rules because we can't ever seem to truly escape from our conceptions of morality.

From my experience, DayZ stands alone in this respect. I've never felt bad shooting another player in any other game. I think the survival aspects and permadeath of DayZ remind us of the hours we've lost when we died. We all have something on the line here. It's not much, but it's enough to make some of us pause.

But behind all of this is fun. We play because it's fun. Having our in game perspective stretched and challenged is interesting. Should I continue to give players a verbal warning or should I kill on sight?

Part of what I find enjoyable about DayZ is that I can interact with it on this kind of level. The survivors who play DayZ challenge me to play the game differently, to see if from their perspective.

Good luck out there Coliin. You're bound to die out there, we all are, but don't let other players dictate how you play the game. Above all, have fun!