@ Beginners..no gun start is not impossible

[tolya 1]

If anything, the changes made the zombies easier. You can now lose them pretty easily, LOS makes it easier to plot a course around them and the fact that they can only walk through buildings...

My advice for a newbie who is aggravated by no weapon spawns? Check a good loot map (like dayzdb.com), run to that town, crawl through the town's perimeter - after that city centres are mostly zombie free, single ones are easy to evade. If any zed starts chasing you, run through a building and you will lose him.

With that, checking a few buildings for a weapon is laughably easy.

If anything, the changes have made the game easier - once you learn how zeds work (and that is not some secret knowledge), they become more of a nuisance.

What to do with it? Make all the guns as loud as a Lee Enfield. Right now I can shoot a zed with a 1911, and another zed 30 meters away will not notice. When I fired up the good old Enfield, entire town piled up on me and I had to scoot - that's how it should be.

Guns against zeds should be defence only - right now, if you know what you are doing, you can carve a body ridden road of zeds into a town and out.

Making towns more dangerous for gunfire would also ease up on the PvP in towns - right now it's a duck hunt. If someone would have to weight pros and cons of shooting someone (good loot vs. own security), maybe people would be more careful.

[Fulgrim 0]

i am new and i dont mind not having a weapon but im considering one thing a guy who wanders arround with painkillers and bandages and a backpack couldnt pick up a hatchet at least?

a hatchet would be nice so you can take down 1 or 2 that you attract but that might be me

otherwise im having fun just crawl into a barn and there you find something most of the time

[LockeDown 144]

I'm a fan of spawning without a weapon. I think starting off unarmed sort of nudges you in the direction of friendliness from the get go; as opposed to starting with a makarov or whatever which gives you the immediate choice of straight up engagement with anyone who happens to spawn nearby you on the coast.

[ZomboWTF 527]

wow guys, learn to play, seriously, the zombies arent a big problemat the start, you just outrun them and lose them in a building, you can get a weapon in a few minutes...

really, its not that hard at all

[yahhzoo 10]

If you started with a weapon I feel like more players would be killing each all over the coast. I like the feel of being a survivor with just a few supplies and having to scavenge towns to survive. It just feels right starting without a gun.

[stingoes 0]

Well im finding it pretty damn impossible' date=' zombies from nowhere running at me when im crawling, not being able to find a weapon, when i did eventually pick up a hatchet, within minutes im shot dead by the first person iv seen in-game, if any other noobs want to team up or anyone just wants to help me out, send me a message.

[/quote']

yea im newb if you wanna play together though im aussie might be tough if you are american

[Alexey Zemanov 6]

As always:

Get a map like dayzmap.info or dayzdb

Go for the cool places like deer stands, fire stations supermarket and that stuff. crouch walk, don't sprint, sneak over roads and concrete, lie down if Z has you in his vision. Grab the stuff, get out.

---

When I fired up the good old Enfield' date=' entire town piled up on me and I had to scoot - that's how it should be.

[/quote']

Indeed, that should be the case more often ... well at least when Zs are stopped by bullets and closed doors.

[stingoes 0]

I started with an Ak47 the first time I played but it wouldnt shoot, I died whilst a nice guy who didnt start with anything next to me was yelling at me on voice chat to shoot the damn thing. I didnt know how to reply so i was just nodding my character up and down. The whole while i was adjusting my graphics which were slow as hell (mouse delay) and everything was so blurry (post-processing) - felt like i didnt have my glasses on. Anyway, second spawn I picked up a hatchet after like 1 hour of running away from zombies in the bush. I couldnt figure out how to use the damn thing other than to chop wood. Then i noticed some shotgun shells in a shed, went to pick them up but since the button used the pick things up is the same as to open doors I closed the door which broke my leg in half. Ended up crawling around till I decided to respawn. I realised I couldnt be bothered doing it all again. Great game, I can tell it would really shine when playing with friends but I would never be able to pursuade any of my friends to play this, not the way it is at the moment and I think I really just dont have the time to buggerise around with those damn zombies anymore :).

[Alexey Zemanov 6]

and I think I really just dont have the time to buggerise around with those damn zombies anymore :).

The points you are making can only be answered with: yes, it's an alpha, dude.

everything else ... *shrug* ... we have quite the big group playing ... so maybe your freinds aren't just into that kind of game

[z-layrex 175]

Jesus christ it's so easy.

1. Spawn.

2. Look at this map: http://dayzdb.com/map#4.109.055

3. Avoid all towns and head for nearest deer stands.

4. Get a weapon!

How is this hard to do? This game really isn't that hard, you just have to get used to it.

[esuoh 35]

Yesterday I left all my gear in our camp and died on purpose to test this out. So I spawn around Electro, went to the Hospital and got medical supplies, then got an Enfield from a nearby building and got lots of food, water, tents, ammo, map, etc. from the Supermarket. Before leaving town I went to the East firehouse and got some more ammo. Ah, I also found an Alice Pack while at that.

If you think no weapons at the spawn makes the game harder... it's because you don't know how to play this.

That's how it goes.

[stingoes 0]

Next time i gotta couple of hours to kill ill head to a deer stand thats if I know where i am on the map hehe.

[tritium 0]

I find the the no weapon start easier, except for the lack of morphine. If you know what you are looking for you can sprint around town picking up the good loot before the zombies have a chance to catch you inside the building and most of the time they will just get lost.

[Atlas (DayZ) 0]

Two days ago I purchased ArmA 2 and the expansion for the sole purpose of playing DayZ, inspired by a good friend and plenty of YouTubers (Totalhalibut, Seananners, Sacriel42).

The only thing I played that comes even close to this type of game is Fallout NV with a max load of difficulty increasing mods and maybe Rain Bow Six Vegas: 2 on realistic difficulty.

And I love the concept, I'm totally in love with the setting, the zombies, survivor dynamics etc.

But I can't get into it - I'm pretty much foreign to Arma and while I did do some of the bootcamp missions it's not a real preparation for the mod itself.

I died so many freaking times, I gave it my best shot to stick with it but I can't.

Now of course I tried my best to stay out of the aggro range of a zombie but I don't know how far or how close I can get before they see me, some times I'd be prone and they would see me somehow from 40-60 meters away and sometimes I'd be crouching and not get spotted from 10 meters, I'd love to learn, but right now the penalty for failure, the lag and the pretty lengthy setup time is just to steep and I have absolutely no feedback from the game itself to notify me where I went wrong. (not saying there should be I like the current air of uncertainty and the penalty is fine, it's in conjunction with all of the above)

Now I learned quite a bit from watching hours of youtube and getting a beginners guide over voip from my friend but the theory and practice are two different things.

Out of the say 15 lives (underestimating) I spent in the game I have found one 'gun' a crossbow, with a single bolt, inside a barn. I crossed over to the other side of the barn and somehow a zombie spotted me crouch-walking with shift held down through the opened door and aggroed, ofcourse I missed my shot and died because such is my luck.

While I can't say starting with a gun would be better, because I wasn't there when it was still the standard, I can say feeling so utterly defenseless this early in the game is very disheartening and for that I won't be playing for a while.

That said I will be keeping my eye on this mod because as I said the concept has captured my heart.

One thing I wonder though, how hard would it be to create a few 'bootcamp' missions? Or, alternatively have us start with a gun for the first, say, 5 lives, so when 'newbie' folks like me want to start playing the game, and inevitably f'k up, we have some form of defense, or at least some power and control over the situation.

Even if gunshots attract a load of zombies and I'd be overwhelmed in moments, going down in an epic guns' a blazin last stand feels better than sprinting away from a horde of zombies down the field while slowly bleeding to death.

Sidenote: Black and white vision? Really? I've been shot, it hurts like a mother after the initial shock of being shot, but I distinctly remember seeing red. Seeing as how well removing color did for the experience for Saboteur (Pandemic, bless them, kicked the bucket right after releasing) it wouldn't be a bad idea to make that an easily accessible option somewhere.. preferably turned off by default.

[Fry (DayZ) 4]

I just started playing the other day so I have no concept of starting the game with a gun. Would I have liked a gun? Sure, but not having one put the fear of god in me about the zombies and other players. I had to learn their behavior on my own (before I started reading forums or watching videos) and spent a lot of time carefully raiding small buildings for equipment before I found one. When I did find one, I didn't fire it until absolutely necessary. I don't think I would have had the same attitude if I would have started with a gun. It really added an element of fear/helplessness to the game that I quite enjoyed. It also made me appreciate the hell out of that enfield when I found it.

edit: Played for a total of about 6 hours and my first death was after the 5th hour of play. Not having a gun for so long made me so cautious I was able to stay alive much longer than I think I would have. The death came when I got desperate and made some risky/bad/newbie decisions to stay alive. I don't see how people start the game and die so frequently just because they don't have a gun. Do you think you would readily run into a town you saw infested with zombies in real life (gun or no gun) or would you watch it from a safe distance until the coast was clear?

[Mortal Wombat 6]

Its really really easy to stealth into a barn and theres a winchester/shotgun +ammo, food & sth to drink almost every time you go in there.

Check Deer stands / barns for good starting equip. Don't waste time trying to get gear in the crowded coastal areas

[Guardian angel 7]

I agree but theirs no need for this. ;o

[DAS1337 20]

Not spawning with a weapon doesn't make you a better player in my opinion. It makes the game more tedious. I also don't think that spawning without a weapon makes people more willing to join groups. We all know that there is a very strong chance that whoever finds the first weapon will use it to kill the others in their group. I think it's finally time to do what we all know Rocket should do, give us melee weapons at spawn. It's the happy medium and it makes sense. How does it make any sense to be a survivor in a zombie apocalypse and not have any weapon at all? You can't answer that question because it doesn't have an answer, it's just ridiculous. It makes the game significantly more difficult for new players, even if they have read the forums and watched youtube videos before playing. IBy the way, you shouldn't have to go outside of a game to figure out how to play. That's a sign of poor development. It does nothing but add frustration, not good frustration, frustration that makes you want to quit playing the game. And no, you don't want those players to 'GTFO', you want those players to play. A melee weapon is generally a survivors last choice, at least give us that.

It's not impossible. It's just stupid. I think the social experiment is over. I said it when it was implemented, and so did many others. It isn't going to work. And we were right. At least they aren't super zeds anymore.

[Hetstaine 10852]

Buit how long does it take for an unarmed noob to end up being a standard pvp'r on the coast or a lootcamper at NW airfield ? My guess is not long at all. The no gun at start stops everyone automatically killing each other at the beach, instead they have to spend 5 minutes making it to the closest city befoe they can begin blasting holes in walls, signs , windows, people and very occasionally zeds.

The best thing is it initiates total newbies to the game , it shows them how to be stealthy and can even be intimidating and scary. Introducing even a melee weapon means most will just run like mental cases and axe as they go..a weapon takes away that initial feeling of any sort of paranoia/chance of defense.

When i started playing dayz we had the mak..then later it was taken away. Of course by then i could get around a lot better than a new guy to the game , but it still brought in a whole new way to tackle the game at the start, and for mine..it was a big improvement.

Just scrolled up and read Frys post..got it in a nutshell...have my beans man :)

[pieflavor 38]

fucking zombie thread...

[FrankFisher 46]

It's easy peeeeessy to get guns in this game, noob or experienced player

[itscjftw@hotmail.co.uk 3]

tl;dr. Response to the thread title; no it isn;t. Move on.

[kander 80]

I found 2 guns within 10 minutes of my first game. I had to sneak into a barn past a few zeds. I managed this despite having zero 'sneaking past zeds' experience. I think that starting weaponless is a crucial part of the story arc, where a little patience is soon rewarded by the discovery of your first viable weapon and the game is so much richer for that.

As gamers we have become too accustomed to devs trying to flatter us with the mentality of 'you, the gamer are important. You're the saviour of the world. Be the Master Chief, be 007, have a billion hit points and an enchanted battleaxe +2 (+999999 vs undead) WE LOVE YOU now buy our game. And its identical sequel '

How often in games do we start washed up, hungry scared and alone and no stronger than the average environmental enemy? There's countless 'tough guy' emulators out there. There's only 1 Day Z.

Edited July 27, 2012 by kander

[Convoy 5]

No it's not impossible. It's completely pointless and serves no function other than to make most spawns completely pointless and make most people just keep respawning and server hopping until they can find a gun in balota deer stands. All having no gun does is make the game tedious and add pointless slowing to the game. It's not impossible, it just serves absolutely no function to the game. Why do new players have to search for their first gun? Does it have to be a pointless rite of passage that older players think everyone needs to be forced to go through? Does it help lower PvP even though the makarov is one of the worst guns in the game?

As per collaboration:

It doesn't add to people collaborating because if everyone collaborates but no one has a gun everything is pointless. Once someone has a gun they're a complete liability to the group; personally I don't trust anyone but my friends in mumble, so I don't really see how you can trust someone you just met to raid a town once you both have a gun.

Summation: All having no starting gun does is make the game more tedious. All I ever do when I die is just raid the deer stands of balota then server hop if there's no guns there. I don't care about the ethics of it, it's stupid that some players think that starting everyone with a makarov is so game breaking even though if you can get lucky you can find automatic guns within minutes of spawning.

Having no gun adds tension to any relationship with players. If they travel together and find one gun, who gets the gun? Is that person trust worthy?

In my experience if you take enough time to meet someone, have a conversation, and decide to travel together WITHOUT a weapon it would be easier to trust each other. The entire point of the human element is it's chaotic nature. If he gets a gun and shoots you in the face, lesson learned, some people can't be trusted.

The entire point of the game is that it's tedious. If you die, you lose everything and have to start again. I don't know what could be more tedious. Giving players a weapon instantly gives them comfort. Being a new player myself it was TERRIFYING not having something to protect myself with; I loved it.

[Boomstick (DayZ) 41]

Actually i think doing a Usain Bolt impression is fine when you first spawn,

In fact i think its the best thing you can do, run, find a weapon and survival gear, out maneuver the zed train you got.

Run to the woods and become solid snake...without the hours and hours of cinematics of course :).