What game am I playing?

[JoeM (DayZ) 41]

I really want to know, someone please help me. Me and my friends sat down today to find a good 1.7.7 veteran server but there is apparently no such thing. All the servers we find are listed as [600+ vehicles/25+ Choppers/Starting Gear/Custom Spawns/Recruit] etc etc etc....

I want to play DayZ, the zombie apocalypse mod not some kind of CoD/BF3 remake where you are spoon fed weapons on spawn and go around death-matching people. I don't disagree with PvP in DayZ but PvP in DayZ should be exhilarating and actually quite stressful. I tried a server with 800+(eight hundred+)(Yes EIGHT HUNDRED+) vehicles and starting gear. I spawned in Elektro with an MP5 with 3 mags and all I heard was shooting and just saw a kill feed of death after death by MP5 from distances of maybe 50 metres at most. I ran around a bit, got to the firestation and was shot at. I returned fire and killed him. There were at least 5 others around. I turned a bandit and finally got killed. And guess what! I didn't give two hoots about it, why? Because of course I would just respawn with near full gear again! I spawned in Kamenka, made my way to Zelenogorsk and found myself an ATV. It was fully repaired, just like all the newly spawned vehicles in this specific server. I drove it further north and saw a Bus, Ural, Jeep, Off road and another ATV that's when I knew it was getting a little ridiculous. After I got past Vybor I couldn't go 20 metres without seeing another 4 vehicles. Then I drove straight through the NWAF only to find that it was impossible to drive straight through it. Not because of the bandits around, but because it was filled with more vehicles! Hundreds of them!

I then found an M24/NVGs/Coyote Backpack, all the toolbelt items and some other stuff. I then died. But I couldn't care less, I know that if I wanted to find that gear again it would take at most one hour. This is not what DayZ should be...

We actually managed to find a good vanilla server yesterday, it had 35/35 people - a good amount. It took time and was very very very difficult, but at the same time it was awesome. There were 3 of us, we found zombies a threat for once thanks to 1.7.7, we found bandits and got into some exciting gun fights where our hearts were beating hard. We were screaming down TS 'Player! Player!' After multiple deaths (mainly from my not so skilled teammates) I managed to kill a bandit who had full gear! He said his character was some hundreds of days old. I had a DMR/NVGs/Rangefinder/Ghillie/Basically, the whole thing. After that point I played so carefully, everything was a risk if I had died I would have been mad.

This server was so much fun, there was no loot in most buildings, bloodbags didn't work thanks to the server host and zombies were extremely difficult. It felt like a real zombie apocalypse and it was a real struggle to survive. There was swearing, blood, sweat and tears. BUT IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!

However there was a problem. The server is now empty, it has been all day. I think people found it too hard, people were raging down side channel and there were constant calls for help. I can find no servers that have a constant good population of players that are actually fun to play. Either vanilla or near vanilla. This makes me very sad. I'm worried for Standalone because it will be hard, I am concerned that people will give up on it because it's a challenge so there will be a small player base.

So I just want to ask the question, what the duck happened to DayZ?????????????????????? Is it now just an FPS?

Also if anyone could show me a near vanilla server with at least more than 20 players at all times that would be fantastic!!!

[jsnow 19]

If you have dayz commander search "vanilla" and it should give you a bunch of results. In SA these severs won't exist as far as I know at least during the alpha. Heres two ips I see you may like 173.234.233.178:2352 and 208.115.109.122:2302. Hope that helps

[JoeM (DayZ) 41]

If you have dayz commander search "vanilla" and it should give you a bunch of results. In SA these severs won't exist as far as I know at least during the alpha. Heres two ips I see you may like 173.234.233.178:2352 and 208.115.109.122:2302. Hope that helps

Well I searched 'vanilla'. Have just done it now to double check. And the busiest server has 8 people on it. IMO it is not much fun when you never bump into anyone, I like it being busy. This is also what I am concerned about, why does most of the playerbase enjoy playing with hundreds of vehicles and no incentive to loot? Are they going to find SA boring frustrating?

Edited June 14, 2013 by JoeM

[Steak and Potatoes 13480]

The woes of what is believed to others perception as how dayz should be. Clearly when the world is coming to an end an abundance and mass production of military materials will be the first thing we are concerned about after the fall of natural order.

[OrLoK 16185]

Hello there

Many folk will hate the SA and it's "hardness".

If it's weapons and mainly PvP one needs just play the wasteland mission in arma, its very similar to DAYZ but has no Infected.

There should be a decent range of server types in the mod scene, but it seems there is a glut of "easy" servers.

Rgds

LoK

[JoeM (DayZ) 41]

The woes of what is believed to others perception as how dayz should be. Clearly when the world is coming to an end an abundance and mass production of military materials will be the first thing we are concerned about after the fall of natural order.

But on these servers it really doesn't feel like the world is coming to an end! You can just ignore the zombies and then nothing feels different to CoD/BF. It feels like the world is coming to an end when you have to upturn a whole village just to get a can of beans. Not when you stampede through Cherno like a bull killing everything on sight with a nice new MP5 you just spawned with.

[Zombie Jesus 723]

Open DayZ commander and hide all unofficial servers. Or Noobclearwarfare Seattle server is vanilla with a decent player population (meaning usually over 20).

Or do a search for good Vanilla private servers running the patch. If you filter by player count you will find the casual servers. Using the term vanilla usually does not result in much so it can be a pain, make sure to add any server that meets your requirements to favorites so it is easy to find in the future. Apply to a private hive server with a decent population, although I understand they are hard to find. Balota Buddies used to have a decent sized community and still have close to 20 on most nights but they add some buildings and extras but nothing too extreme.

I want to mock you since you started with the most played out insult on this forum, Call of Battlefield. I love (or loved) vanilla DayZ but at this point I often join easy mode PvP servers with a buddy to have fun (plus my IRL buddies refuse to play vanilla servers or go through Whitelisting). Just because it is not your cup o tea does not mean you should add a layer of pretentiousness to the conversation by acting like everyone who enjoys these servers is some CoD noob.

Edited June 14, 2013 by Zombie Jesus

[JoeM (DayZ) 41]

I want to mock you since you started with the most played out insult on this forum, Call of Battlefield. I love (or loved) vanilla DayZ but at this point I often join easy mode PvP servers with a buddy to have fun (plus my IRL buddies refuse to play vanilla servers or go through Whitelisting). Just because it is not your cup o tea does not mean you should add a layer of pretentiousness to the conversation by acting like everyone who enjoys these servers is some CoD noob.

Well I never insulted CoD/BF, I just stated that's what it feels like. Which it does. You get weapons on spawn and you run around shooting. There is nothing wrong with that, I never said there was. I just want to know why people bother playing this if that is all they want to do? Why does nobody seem to enjoy proper DayZ?

[Zombie Jesus 723]

You say you are not "insulting" them and then go on to use loaded terms like "proper DayZ" (the implication is that they are not playing it the right way) and ask why they even bother playing it in the first place.

You focused on the wrong part though, Noobclearwarfare is a high pop server with everything you are asking for, was trying to be helpful before letting you know that you were using played out language to try to demean other players.

I did enjoy "proper DayZ" aka vanilla for over nine months and I still do on occasion. My reasons for playing these servers is tied mostly to limited time to game with IRL buddies who no longer find vanilla DayZ fun after playing for so long. We know it is casual and we know it is easy mode, but it can be fun to drive up to the NWAF grab a plane and slam into a Mi-17 flying over Cherno just for the laugh. You would rarely pull something like that on a vanilla server because all of the loot was hard fought. I am not even trying to say you should enjoy it, I am just saying stop making it sound like everyone who does is somehow doing it wrong.

Variety is the spice of life, nothing to hate on there.

[JoeM (DayZ) 41]

I mean 'proper DayZ' in the terms of how DayZ was meant to be. I am not saying they are doing it wrong, they can play how they want it doesn't bother me. And I do wonder why they play it, if I wanted to run around like in an FPS I would go and play BF3. I don't want to come across saying they are doing it wrong.

But I just want to know why nobody really seems to play vanilla. And it does concern me for when SA comes out because people may still have this attitude that they should get everything on spawn. I noticed someone complaining that it was too hard to find a vehicle (with 800+ vehicles on map) and that made my heart sink a little.

[Steak and Potatoes 13480]

But on these servers it really doesn't feel like the world is coming to an end! You can just ignore the zombies and then nothing feels different to CoD/BF. It feels like the world is coming to an end when you have to upturn a whole village just to get a can of beans. Not when you stampede through Cherno like a bull killing everything on sight with a nice new MP5 you just spawned with.

I was being facetious

[Zombie Jesus 723]

Some people will undoubtedly have that attitude toward the standalone but the world has always been filled with plenty of idiots so it should not surprise you that it would happen. For those that started DayZ later I feel bad that they never got the DayZ experience from last summer (well not completely we had to deal with artifacts and a shit ton of hackers) when it was difficult and a grind but fun at the same time. I can not speak for everyone but I know I have just played way too much DayZ and it started getting stale. I suspect some of the others in the servers have the same sentiment while others might never like the original concept.

The one thing I will defend though is that the vanilla Chernarus map is not perfect. There was never a really good reason to head to the NE because there was no points of interest. It was good for industrial loot in Berezino but other than that the NEAF was boring and no one was ever around. One of the reasons I liked the addition of new maps was the additional points of interest most of them included instead of the stale Stary and NWAF.

[boatie 34]

Well, it sounds like those wanting the "good old days of dayz" are getting your wish. But for those of us who don't have the time to be playing 5hr sessions, vanilla dayz is mainly a waste of time.