Why do you shoot unarmed players?

[Captain Speirs 9]

As a rule I do not shoot unarmed players, nothing to gain, plenty to lose.

If I see a guy with a hatchet however I will shoot holes in him.

F*****g hatchets......

Why? Just stand a decent length from him and ask him to place it in his toolbelt.

[GiesBeans 7]

Why? Just stand a decent length from him and ask him to place it in his toolbelt.

I have been killed way too many times after trusting somebody with a hatchet. The other day I met a fresh spawn in Balota, we exchanged hellos and I went on my way. He hacked me to death in the comms tower.

[applejaxc 2500]

I'm a DayZ vigilante; I shoot anyone with a bandit skin at the first opportunity, even it puts me at risk of a zombie attack/death by another player, especially after I witness them commit murder or other nefarious acts...

...which makes me a big hypocrite.

One of the reason I love playing DayZ so much is that when I have a sniper rifle, I play God. I scope a player and in that moment control his/her life and death. Do I let them walk into that building, or shoot them in the leg and throw a flare at them? It's... exhilarating. And extremely egocentric.

But if I may quote a post I read earlier today:

Why do you shoot an unarmed player?

Because they aren't armed yet.

I don't trust anyone that has a backpack large enough to carry a gun, or past the arbitrary "Middle" of the map, going north or west. I don't trust anyone that is in or near a car. I don't wait to find out if the car is their's, or they're just (un?)lucky enough to have found one, but trusting people in DayZ is foolish. Letting them live is worse, in most instances. If they don't have a mic or refuse to talk, you can't trust them. If they're coughing (sick), you can't risk being near them. If they're an idiot and keep attracting zombies, you have to make him bait. If he's armed and doesn't lower his gun, you kill him. DayZ is a dog eat dog world, not prancy flowers and sunshine happiness, frolicking in great fields of sunshine rainbows with all your gumdrop-smile zombie pals.

And isn't shooting an unarmed player *technically* better than killing an armed one?

Situation 1:

Bob just spawned. He runs to the nearest building BLAM shot in the head. Restarts, loses about 5-30 minutes of gameplay.

Situation 2:

Bob spawned 2 days ago. He's sitting in the Cherno fire station with his brand new Kalashnikov. Someone comes around the corner and BLAM he's shot in the head. He lost 4+ hours of gameplay, a gun, ammo, his backpack, and all his supplies.

[applejaxc 2500]

Well for me personally i'd rather become friends with randoms than shoot them and stay friendless and alone. Sure, you could find a clan. But there's nothing like teaming up with someone you just rescued/got rescued by.

Not teaming up with them is like teaming up with them. The only difference is the negative modifier.

[applejaxc 2500]

Why? Just stand a decent length from him and ask him to place it in his toolbelt.

So he puts it away, you look away, and when you turn around, the axe is back out and you're dinner.

[Maloney (DayZ) 26]

Out here in Chernaurus, I work alone. You'll probably never see me, but I'll see you, and when I do, I hope for your sake you haven't abandoned your humanity. If you have, my gun will be the last thing you hear, and a puddle of your own blood will be the last thing you see.

[Spikér 136]

i only shoot unarmed if they try to follow me or otherwise be a pest in general. Otherwise i will leave them alone.

[Sleeping Tobi 11]

Most of the time they are thief's trying to loot through your bag for guns and ammo fortunately I keep all my ammo on my person so if someone does steal a gun they will have no ammo for it.

I've had this happen to me before, bambis have nothing to lose so more often they will try this.

[Captain Speirs 9]

Most of the time they are thief's trying to loot through your bag for guns and ammo fortunately I keep all my ammo on my person so if someone does steal a gun they will have no ammo for it.

I've had this happen to me before, bambis have nothing to lose so more often they will try this.

Maybe it's just me but i've literally never ever tried that.

[Malvarik 30]

I shoot them if i KNOW there is a weapon nearby with ammo they could kill me with or they seem hostile.

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

If they try to get into my pack, I shoot them.

[Kra 151]

Depends on the situation, I try to avoid shooting anyone, but if I'm in town chasing a certain item and there's a chance they might loot it ahead of me (I play slow and stealthy) I will take them out.

[liquidmind 320]

My few cents:

It depends on where you shoot someone.

Shooting someone unarmed, running around NWAF is entirely different to shooting freshspawns.

I am usually not interested in the costal area, so I never meet unarmed players when I'm armed myself.

But if you call it bandit-behavior, to go to the beginners-area and waste your endgame-ammo.. because they might find something later to kill you with is just paranoid.. log out if you are afraid. But killing bambis is just lame.

[bogroll 35]

Sorry but that unarmed player will become an armed player pretty quickly. If he's in your hood then drop him dead.

Edited April 1, 2013 by SAL_iOGC

[syndicatefaction 118]

If I don't kill them and let that new spawn live, he may kill me later. Just ask Carl (Walking Dead) how letting people live plays out. NOT TOO GOOD!!

[AshleyP 121]

Shooting players that cannot protect themselves is pathetic and weak and that is my opinion.

This raises a philosophical point. We live in a world without objective moral standards, and so a moral argument is unsound. Doubly so in the abstract, consequence-free world of a computer game. It doesn't make rational sense and it won't convince anybody. It's the wrong avenue of attack.

For example, I was reading a story in the news earlier about a 26-year-old pimp in Miami who had forced one of his tricks - she was 13 - to tattoo his handle onto her eyelids. This was the second girl he had forced to have a tattoo, although the first was branded on the chest rather than the face. The fact of this being reported on the news tends to distance and fictionalise the reality of the story, but at the core of it was a man who had the force of will to compel a girl to mutilate her face, and who presumably felt nothing bad about doing so. A tattoo artist helped him, presumably without caring why he was branding "suave - house" onto the eyelids of a drugged 13-year-old girl. Numerous customers handed over thirty dollars to spend time with her, and presumably didn't care that the drugged girl was barely conscious.

They didn't grass him up. They felt no pressing need to give him or themselves up to the police. They actively wanted this arrangement to continue indefinitely. The Mercedes dealership that sold the pimp his car wasn't interested in where he got the money. A huge great big circle of people - a whole infrastructure - turned the other cheek, and slept easy at night. Now, eventually the chap was caught and imprisoned, although the story didn't explain how this happened; but it took years, and it's just a pinprick.

Good and bad do not exist. Instead there is strength and weakness, and the man with the gun and the will to use it is strong and will tend to prevail, barring random chance. Society is essentially an arrangement whereby lots of men with guns enter into an agreement to use them in accordance with the will of a committee, but the theory scales. My point is that morality does not have an objective basis; a society's moral code is subject to the same limitations and flaws as any monolithic code; individual morality would not survive a couple of days without food, and so therefore morality itself is a flawed, unworkable concept. Act rationally according to your goals based on the prevailing winds, do what though wilt to achieve them. DayZ is a masterclass in this. In the long run, the only surefire way to survive is to kill everybody that approaches within firing range. If there were limited resources, or essential needs that required the use of another person - for example, if you needed a mechanic in order to fix a car - then it would make sense to let them live as long as you need their services, but in DayZ each player is a kind of ubermensch who can do everything he requires by himself in order to live indefinitely. Therefore it makes rational sense to kill the other players, because they will betray you sooner or later.

That said, there are numerous practical, tactical reasons why a player should not shoot unarmed targets. Firstly, the shot gives away your position. Secondly, there's a good chance that the sniper taking a bead on you might instead decide to shoot the unarmed person instead - in other words, unarmed players increase "clutter" at very little detriment to yourself. Thirdly, other players will be trying to kill new spawns as well, and would love to shoot down a geared-up survivor who has become target fixated. On a prosaic level shooting new spawns wastes a bullet for basically nothing in return. There's no point looting them, and they're basically dead anyway. And think of the shame you would feel if you missed.

On an emotional level, killing a (presumably) new spawn is unsatisfactory. You're not ruining ten hours of carefully-amassed equipment hoarding, you're ruining nothing. It's useless as target practice, and it barely affects the other player because he'll just spawn anew. This is why so many bandits like to force their victims to roll on the ground or do something degrading - it gets the blood up - just as in real life people like to tie up and slowly torture other people to death rather than simply kill them straightaway. The problem is that in DayZ there's a risk that your torture will attract other players who want to kill you.

Close range changes things. A hatchet can mess up your day, and the other player might have a gun in his backpack. Kill anybody who approaches to close range, unless they're moving away from you. I've never actually met an unarmed player (I keep to the north), but if one came running through the woods towards me I would give him a chance to make a swift ninety-degree turn, and open up if he doesn't.

[badluckburt 974]

I dont, I'm too busy being scared and running away

Edited April 1, 2013 by BadLuckBurt

[nox81 28]

This raises a philosophical point. We live in a world without objective moral standards, and so a moral argument is unsound. Doubly so in the abstract, consequence-free world of a computer game. It doesn't make rational sense and it won't convince anybody. It's the wrong avenue of attack.

For example, I was reading a story in the news earlier about a 26-year-old pimp in Miami who had forced one of his tricks - she was 13 - to tattoo his handle onto her eyelids. This was the second girl he had forced to have a tattoo, although the first was branded on the chest rather than the face. The fact of this being reported on the news tends to distance and fictionalise the reality of the story, but at the core of it was a man who had the force of will to compel a girl to mutilate her face, and who presumably felt nothing bad about doing so. A tattoo artist helped him, presumably without caring why he was branding "suave - house" onto the eyelids of a drugged 13-year-old girl. Numerous customers handed over thirty dollars to spend time with her, and presumably didn't care that the drugged girl was barely conscious.

They didn't grass him up. They felt no pressing need to give him or themselves up to the police. They actively wanted this arrangement to continue indefinitely. The Mercedes dealership that sold the pimp his car wasn't interested in where he got the money. A huge great big circle of people - a whole infrastructure - turned the other cheek, and slept easy at night. Now, eventually the chap was caught and imprisoned, although the story didn't explain how this happened; but it took years, and it's just a pinprick.

Good and bad do not exist. Instead there is strength and weakness, and the man with the gun and the will to use it is strong and will tend to prevail, barring random chance. Society is essentially an arrangement whereby lots of men with guns enter into an agreement to use them in accordance with the will of a committee, but the theory scales. My point is that morality does not have an objective basis; a society's moral code is subject to the same limitations and flaws as any monolithic code; individual morality would not survive a couple of days without food, and so therefore morality itself is a flawed, unworkable concept. Act rationally according to your goals based on the prevailing winds, do what though wilt to achieve them. DayZ is a masterclass in this. In the long run, the only surefire way to survive is to kill everybody that approaches within firing range. If there were limited resources, or essential needs that required the use of another person - for example, if you needed a mechanic in order to fix a car - then it would make sense to let them live as long as you need their services, but in DayZ each player is a kind of ubermensch who can do everything he requires by himself in order to live indefinitely. Therefore it makes rational sense to kill the other players, because they will betray you sooner or later.

That said, there are numerous practical, tactical reasons why a player should not shoot unarmed targets. Firstly, the shot gives away your position. Secondly, there's a good chance that the sniper taking a bead on you might instead decide to shoot the unarmed person instead - in other words, unarmed players increase "clutter" at very little detriment to yourself. Thirdly, other players will be trying to kill new spawns as well, and would love to shoot down a geared-up survivor who has become target fixated. On a prosaic level shooting new spawns wastes a bullet for basically nothing in return. There's no point looting them, and they're basically dead anyway. And think of the shame you would feel if you missed.

On an emotional level, killing a (presumably) new spawn is unsatisfactory. You're not ruining ten hours of carefully-amassed equipment hoarding, you're ruining nothing. It's useless as target practice, and it barely affects the other player because he'll just spawn anew. This is why so many bandits like to force their victims to roll on the ground or do something degrading - it gets the blood up - just as in real life people like to tie up and slowly torture other people to death rather than simply kill them straightaway. The problem is that in DayZ there's a risk that your torture will attract other players who want to kill you.

Close range changes things. A hatchet can mess up your day, and the other player might have a gun in his backpack. Kill anybody who approaches to close range, unless they're moving away from you. I've never actually met an unarmed player (I keep to the north), but if one came running through the woods towards me I would give him a chance to make a swift ninety-degree turn, and open up if he doesn't.

You know what, i had a pretty big response to this theory of yours, but i cant be arsed with an internet debate over philosophy, i came here to talk light hearted and enjoy dayz stuff. Your apparent lack of a moral code, the fact you dont see the place for one in society and the fact your would laud a man with a gun and the will to use it as a man who is strong (like Adam Lanza yeh?) is deeply flawed and actually worrying. In fact i'd say your trolling really, either that or your a first year philosophy student just dying to unload all his new found knowledge in a gaming forum at the first opportunity he gets.

Edited April 2, 2013 by BenjamK

[thederper121 95]

I do not kill unarmed players, but I do kill ones who are armed.

I stay away from unarmed players and large groups.

The only exception is when people say the word "Bambi" in game.

Then I kill them no matter what.

[thederper121 95]

My few cents:

It depends on where you shoot someone.

Shooting someone unarmed, running around NWAF is entirely different to shooting freshspawns.

I am usually not interested in the costal area, so I never meet unarmed players when I'm armed myself.

But if you call it bandit-behavior, to go to the beginners-area and waste your endgame-ammo.. because they might find something later to kill you with is just paranoid.. log out if you are afraid. But killing bambis is just lame.

I'd give you my beans, but... "But killing bambis is just lame."

[N0 R3M0RS3 63]

I'd give you my beans, but... "But killing bambis is just lame."

Not to use a brony quote, but that's just nambi pambi! Sorry had to say it XD

[N0 R3M0RS3 63]

What if they find a weapon? What if they don't care you let them live? What if they see that nice gun you have that they want, and they stalk you till they get a weapon, come up behind you, and kill you? Life's full of "what if's" so just shoot them and get it over with.

[thederper121 95]

What if they find a weapon? What if they don't care you let them live? What if they see that nice gun you have that they want, and they stalk you till they get a weapon, come up behind you, and kill you? Life's full of "what if's" so just shoot them and get it over with.

If you are talking to me, I said I avoid/hide from them. But if they get too close/see me, then they go boom boom.

If you are talking to someone else, that's their problem, not mine.

I guess you can just call me a bandit, anyway.

[NightReaper 0]

i kill unarmed players sometimes because once a kid a was teaming up with had a hatchet(i know this isnt really unarmed). I had a gun and pistol and he tried killing me for it. I asked him why is he doing this and got no reply. So i killed him. End of story :|

[Josh225 129]

Un-armed bandits can't be trusted. Un-armed survivors if I have a spare gun I'll give them one, then I'm justified to shoot them if they prove to be a jackass.