New to DayZ and stumbling around but loving it

[blfonsworth 32]

EDIT: I typed this kind of fast.. there are some grammar errors.. kill me... :lol:

 

A wall of text is to follow documenting a Fresh new DayZ player's first few days with the game! Tips and pointers would be greatly appreciated!!!!!

 

I have followed DayZ for some time but never wanted to buy Arma 2 just to play a mod. When the standalone came out I was very excited and finally decided to pick it up over this past weekend and I'm glad I did. It's an awesome game, but there are a few things that have really hendered my play that I hope to be able to figure out (some are known game bugs, one of which I posted to the feedback section)

 

I logged on to DayZ for the first time and was almost dead. My guy spawned hungry and thristy. I was on the coast near a small village, only a couple buildings. All of them were empty and only contained rotten fruit.

 

I was dead within 30/45 minutes.. passed out from hunger and I just hit respawn.

 

 

I had a better run of "luck" the next time around. My second attempt was a bit more fruitful as I found a canteen, a can opener and a can of spaghetti.. I had to carry the canteen in my hand b/c I had no room in my pockets.. About 20/30 minutes in I got very very lucky and heard someone saying "Hey!, Hey, what's up?". I turned around to see another player who was much more well equiped than my, with a large backpack, axe and what looked like an ar15 or M4..

 

He was very helpful, he helped me find some loot and gave me some good pointers on how to find stuff and tips and trick about game controls and let me know some of the bugs he had experienced witht he game. We traveled together for about an hour or better.. We came across "military structures" that he had not seen before and did not know were there. (At this point I was much beter equiped.. Motorcycle helmet, backpack, food, water, my own axe (lol) and some other goodies) We decided to sneak into the base and see what we could find, and hope there were no bandits. We were sneaking up through the tree line when we came across what looked like a hunter's blind or a small watch tower. I told him I would climb up for a better look while he watched for bandits from the ground. I gave a look around 360*, we were clear it seemed so I tried to get down.. I thought it would be faster to just hop down than to climb a ladder for 5/6 feet.. I died from the fall.. I could hear him talking "Let's go.. oh, your unconcoious.. or are you dead" I was trying to answer him back "I'm dead" but he could not hear me. I tried to type it to him "/ I am dead" but I guess he could not see that either.. It was already late at night so I logged off.. It was friday night

 

Saturday I stumbled a bit more. My guy died again because I could not find enough food to keep him going. I have found this to be the biggest hurdle for a new player.. Collecting what you need quick enough to stay alive. It would be nice if we had like 3 indicator bars somewhere that indicated food/water/energy levels. Just like in real life.. you know when you're hungry and thirsty so you can take care of it before it becomes a problem.

 

Eventually I got a character going pretty well.. I spawned near the coast like usual near a small village. I lucked into some decent food loot and was able to head inland. The next closest town to me was "MCTA". Being I don't speak or read Russian, I naively assumed that MCTA was an abbreviation for something that sounded like a military base and I wanted to be awesome and have a gun like other people I had seen. I was only slightly dissapointed when I found out MCTA is a village perched at the top of a hill/mountain. The dissapointment quickly turned into excitement as I found great stuff there (great to me anyway) I was able to get a new helmet, a new jacket, backpack, 2 canteens, a weapon (I think it was a crowbar or something) and most importantly CANNED FOOD AND A KNIFE TO OPEN (can openers are very rare it seems). I had some IRL stuff to do so I was forced to log off here.

 

Sunday, I logged in to find my guy right where I left him in MCTA and decided I needed to move toa new location.

 

Determined not to be fooled by road signs again I set off to google to find a map, since the only maps you get in game a fragments and are likely not a map of anything even relatively close to where you actually are. I found a helpful map at dayzdb.com and found where I was.. Finally! I wasn't lost anymore!

 

I looked for the town I was in, found it and then made a decision of where to go next. I made my way to Staroye (Ctapoe). I found a few more canned food items but that was about it. It was clear someone else had been there recently since most doors inside and outside were standing open and there wasn't much loot around. I decided I needed to move before I started to run low on food and water. I checked the map on my laptop again (I play on my PC but use my laptop for the map) and before I could decide where to go I started to experience connection issues and was dropped from the server.

 

This deleted my character's progress and I was forced to start over.. again..

 

I spent the next couple hours starting a new character, I lucked out and spawned in Elecktro and it was a pretty empty server and within 20/30 minutes I was able to loot everything I needed to try and make a trip to a new town. I had a nice tactical shirt, helmet, baseball bat, 2 different wrenches, a portable gas stove, lots of food, a knife, boots, a good pair of cargo pants, medicine, duct tape, rope and some other odd items..

 

I decided I would check out the power plant, which was pretty much a waste of time as I could not climb all the way to the top of the tower there (ladder glitch) and I set off West-ish wanting to reach Dubky.. As I started to head out of the city.. I again experienced connection issues and was dropped from the server and my character was again "reset".

 

I was a bit frustrated, but I understand it's Alpha and these things will happen and the more I have to start over, although frustrating, has actually taught quite a bit about the game and how to go about getting loot without killing yourself (sprinting around with no food or water and dying because of it lol)

 

 

I hope the connection issues get resolved. It seems you character is only saved when you leave the server.. Maybe if it was saved at 10/15 minute intervals locally to you PC that would alleviate this issue.. I already put in a ticket for it in the feedback section. I'm really looking forward to what is to come with this game and I'm pumped it is a standalone now.. Now to find some people to play wiht.. it was much better for that hour or so I had a partener to run around with.

Edited December 23, 2013 by BLFonsworth

[Ynneead 20]

i've never had this problem. when i disconnect form a server I'm usually just ported back 5-20 seconds before the only time i logged out and come back with my character deleted is when rocket did a character wipe.

[koenigscat 10]

I loved your story! I really like reading player's experiences when they're in story form.

 

On your question:

Most likely character wipes occur when rolling out updates. I haven't done research in this part, but I think it's that, perhaps combined with other reasons.
It's alpha, and you'll probably have a better experience if you know that beforehand and just keep in mind you're playing the game for testing purposes :)

 

I don't really mind anymore when my character gets reset. Partly because I think the most fun part of the game is gearing up from scratch and really have a struggle to survive.

 

cya ingame (maybe)

[Bocui 13]

I just dont get too attached to my gear. It takes a while to get over the fact of losing gear, but once you're over it, you will consider dying something positive

[blfonsworth 32]

If I manually disconnect from a server, it saves.. It's when the connection drops.. I get a message on my screen that says "No message received for xx seconds" and eventually I get dropped from the server. That is when my character gets reset.

 

If I hit 'ESC --> Close' on my own then it saves. Unless the error message is already on my screen, then even if I close manually it still resets..

Edited December 23, 2013 by BLFonsworth

[koenigscat 10]

I get a message on my screen that says "No message received for xx seconds" and eventually I get dropped from the server. That is when my character gets reset.

I really think that would be a coinicidence. That it just happened the same time as the character wipe.

This morning I was playing and our modem got accidentally switched off. Because of that I lost connection (no message received...).

Later, in the evening, I started playing again, but my game just resumed at the point where I lost connection.

 

So either it was indeed a problem and has been fixed or the character wipe was when you were logged in (so you die after you disconnect) or maybe you lost connection just before the wipe.

This is what I can come up with. But most importantly, it probably won't happen again unless there's another wipe