Every time I don't shoot, I regret it.

[sandorski 17]

I have managed to evade 2 groups of 2 and a solo player in this current Life so far. The trick is to avoid open areas as much as possible, large Cities, Crouch running always, and just keep looking around.

If you see someone, go in a direction away from them that's not in the general direction they are heading, use objects to break the line of sight, be sure to check behind you at times to make sure they are not following, do not communicate with them unless you think they have seen you.

When you Spawn anew Electro/Cherno should be avoided at all costs, head North hitting Smalltowns/Barns as you go, only go to Cherno/Electro when you are equipped and wanting to hunt Bandits.

[spartan1608 0]

This is what happens when you dont shoot first.

[sandorski 17]

This is what happens when you dont shoot first.

You run up a hill with a bunch of guys oggling your Female butt?

[t3sla 0]

You gotta control the game, or the game gonna control you.

[Wang (DayZ) 0]

I didnt have a single friend playing DayZ, when i started i meet people in electro and cherno for the first few days. Some experienced some not, we didnt shoot on sight we called out friendly and grouped up on TS. The group expanded day by day, by the third day we had probably around 4-6 people.

At this stage we started heading north a lot and quickly realized, up north its SOS. So we adapted and learned to survive. The group did expand to about 10 people in a week.

Now we are dirty dirty bandits.

We have what we want, introducing new people to the group is just a risk to our camp.

Have we taken pot shots at fresh spawns at the cities...yes. For shits and giggle. But very rarely. Mostly just trying to take people out who are threats to any of us.

We still PK but in more fun ways, eg. Setting up Satchel charges all over Electro. Lighting it up in the dead of night... Yes people were in the buildings...but just collateral damage to our fun.

[istari766 0]

I only shoot if I am spotted and feel threatened. Even if I see someone with good gear, I keep them under observation, and see if there is a way to avoid them. If i can't avoid them, or if they spot me, then the fighting begins.

The most i'm willing to help strangers is to shoot zeds off of them from a distance, or throw a smoke grenade to get the zeds off of them. If they want me to get close, forget it.

I usually play with my buddies, and those are the only people is trust 100%.

[Champloo (DayZ) 5]

Good job OP. No bad feelings if we end up fighting each other in game, but that's just how it is. Glad to see some intelligent souls in this forum.

[Gltn 0]

I was playing with two of my friends, looted the pustoschka store and then sneaked up to the church, suddenly we hear "don't shoot I'm friendly!" on the direct voip.

There was a dude with an m16 in the church. Then we all looted the church and went our own separate ways without firing a shot. It was nice and restored my faith in humanity a bit!

Not everyone's a bandit.

[Kashus 22]

I think I was raging a little bit when I posted this thread and I probably will still hesitate to shoot most of the time. I'll try to be diplomatic, but there are parts of me that want retribution, righteous retribution and it never happens. I just want to find the bastard and return the favor.

[moleculor 0]

I think a lot of it has to do with no way of communicating that you are friendly to others. When I am with my group now' date=' post no side channel chat, we pretty much are already thinking shoot first ask questions later. [/quote']

There's a perfectly easy way of communicating that you're friendly, and the bonus is you can tell exactly who's saying it even if you're on one of those stupid Veteran servers where you can't even recognize the face of your best friend that you've been running with for three weeks straight.

It's called "in game voice chat over the direct communications channel".

[Big Boss (DayZ) 23]

I think I was raging a little bit when I posted this thread and I probably will still hesitate to shoot most of the time. I'll try to be diplomatic' date=' but there are parts of me that want retribution, righteous retribution and it never happens. I just want to find the bastard and return the favor.

[/quote']

I think this game has a knack for separating those who truly do their own thing and those who give into whatever is being fed to them.

Keep it up, don't be what it seems to want you to be.

To contradict this slightly... there is adaption, but where its the line? When is it not adaption?

Oh and if you want some retribution, hit me up, its what I do in DayZ haha.

---

those stupid Veteran servers where you can't even recognize the face of your best friend that you've been running with for three weeks straight.

Yeah, lack of features have caused plenty of blue on blue in my group... it gets old.

[Mjolnir (DayZ) 1]

Shooting people on sight because you fear they may kill you for your stuff is one thing, but killing a player that has just helped you is ridiculous and not something an honorable man would do.

[twotoes 11]

You gotta control the game' date=' or the game gonna control you.

[/quote']

luck favours the prepared...

[tristanyockell 11]

Last night I actually felt really good about myself. We were around the starting area - Zombies EVERYWHERE..

I had a hatchet and this poor bugger with nothing kept getting himself chased. I would run over and hack up the zombies and save him, did this 4 times.

We formed a partnership and he followed me for awhile, we went to a barn and found two enfields and some ammo. While we are in th barn, a group of 3 other surviors comes in. Noone shoots anyone! and I join up with the new group.

Me and the new group head out to another town and yet again meet up with two more guys in a building.

So we're all standing there and some guy is complaining that he needs soda. I don't have any food or drinks and my guy is half dead from saving the other poor soul before.

The asshole shoots me in the head with a Bolt randomly for nothing....

Now I'm undecided....

[WalkerDown (DayZ) 296]

Ended to the same conclusion.. i forced and forced to be friendly with survivors, and it worked before the bandit skin removal.. then i continued but i reached the biggest frustration after two days of being killed by any single person i encountered... so i turned.

[`pixel 0]

You have to learn how to stay out of sight. I was close to the point too, where i would have said i kill everyone i see before he gets me.

But remember, the better you get, the faster you get a good equipment after you have been killed.

So give friendly a try. Every respawn is a new challenge.^^

[Niblik 1]

This seems to be the general consensus now' date=' our group has gone from a helpful band of survivors always willing to chip in and lay down arms to a bunch of cold blooded shoot on sight killers, something i and the gang regret immeasurably.

Earlier in the game strangers were more inclined to help each other but lately something has definitely changed with 99.9% of people we encounter just opening up even if we state friendly intentions through voice comms.

Maybe it's the larger population of deathmatch sprogs now getting involved due to the mods popularity or maybe it really is a chilling depiction of humanity at it's lowest!

[/quote']

Yeah, I'm in the same boat you guys are in. All my original friends that I made back when the mod was still social don't play anymore after the changes.

And without global chat I can't even do one of the few things I was still enjoying: helping out new players.

Now its just running from one tree to the next, avoiding everyone, gutting boars, and hiding each night before logging off.

I had to shoot someone yesterday who was rushing up some stairs to get away from zeds. I couldn't take the chance that he might suddenly whip out a pistol and kill me for my loot.

I felt like shit for killing another player without even giving him a chance to chat or defend himself. Went off into the woods and logged a few minutes later.

[Elias (DayZ) 57]

Time and time again I read the stories of people who have been killed and then declare, from now on, they will kill everybody on sight.

And I understand, i really do. It's almost like in real life. Your trust has been 'betrayed' and the whole 'world' is to blame. You have been hurt. The pain is real. People are not to be trusted... it seems. So now they all have to die.

But when you really think about it, maybe that's not the person you really want to be. Maybe you want to meet people, trust them, and enjoy the game with them. Unless of course you are a 'bandit' and your ingame goal is to PK. But perhaps even then you'll want to join up with people who have the same goal.

The fact of the matter is, the game is presenting you with a choice. It's 'asking' you what you want to become. What 'world' you want to live in. The choice is yours, and to be honest: there is no 'good' or 'bad' choice; no right or wrong. But your choice does matter, and will help shape the world.

Stay true to yourself, play the game how *you* want and it will give you the most satisfying experience. Be who you don't want to be and you'll be frustrated and have a bad ingame experience. This is true for 'survivors' and 'bandits' alike.

Every ingame encounter presents you with this choice. Only you can decide. Choose wisely.

[theelfishgene 3]

As an experiment of sorts, i broke from my usual group and went solo for a few days, boy oh boy do you need the patience of a saint now!

Out of twelve encounters with other "humans" nine ended in bloodshed and death (mine)...that's not a healthy statistic.

On all occasions i have refused to fire and attempted communications through type and voice, of the three encounters that didn't end in a premature death two had the other survivors running like hell away and the third one the guy stopped and talked.

We got on like a house on fire and successfully foraged some great gear (nice one Toxic77 if your reading this)

I'm gonna stick out the "carebear" role from now on unless it's completely obvious the douche needs capping, making friends on DayZ is a helluva lot more fun than playing deathmatch or acting like a klutz!

[heathy87 1]

funnily enough everytime i do shoot i regret it, i hate killing ppl that aren't a direct threat.

i shot at a guy yesterday in stary opposite the sniper hill on smaller hill behind the church, i was looking at the sniper hill (headed toward berezino), saw a guy walking and running up the hill looking over toward the military tents, well i thought 'shall i kill him' then i did, lay down, opened fire, small bursts with the m249, poor bastard dove to the ground and started to crawl around frantically.

took me a few minutes to get to his corpse but he had quite a few tools that i already had and he had a m10 shotty, so even if he saw me first i doubt the slugs would of been that great over 1000m.

it was a good kill, but at the same time i felt like a dick considering he was in no way a threat to me in my ghillie. still can't help yourself sometimes.

[valiant 1-4 0]

If you get lucky and are able to set up a tent somewhere. Put all your good gear in it and take off with an Enfield and a Makarov to find some pals.

You'll have a fierce but cheap mode of defense that isn't too rare.

[Powell (DayZ) 734]

It takes more skills to not shoot first...and be able to live to tell about it.

.

QFT

[Kageru 18]

It only takes a relatively small number of committed bandits to break trust, as people will naturally guard against the worst outcome. And there's probably more than a small numer (1 in 5 I think I saw someone say?) Especially because with a shifting population there's no equivalent to reputation and the game doesn't really have a co-operative goal of any sort. Nor can you easily be an anti-PK when there's little indication of who they are and lots of advantages to the defender (including game mechanism exploits).

Removing the bandit skin inevitably meant trust would disintegrate. Even if it was an artificial game mechanic it was a useful one that gave a more varied game experience.

I sometimes wonder if Rocket, used to the possibly polite, balanced and honorable battles of the small ARMA-II community didn't see this coming.

[mrducky (DayZ) 33]

As an experiment of sorts' date=' i broke from my usual group and went solo for a few days, boy oh boy do you need the patience of a saint now!

Out of twelve encounters with other "humans" nine ended in bloodshed and death (mine)...that's not a healthy statistic.

[/quote']

Yeah, that's just the way it seems to go, at least nowadays. Which was also the reason why I got to the "shoot on sight" bandwagon some time ago. It just seemed futile to even consider attempting to be friendly since it always ended in death - which obviously wasn't of much fun.

Then... After a while of playing the "shoot on sight"-game, I concluded that it was not much more fun either. It was basically the same as playing a single player game against the zeds, but occasionally shooting the encountered random player (or alternatively, he shot you).

So, now I've gone past even that. Now, I'm just playing in the no-f***s-given mode. Essentially just going around doing stupid stuff that seems kinda fun at any given time... I somewhat try to limit the fun to the non-deathmatch activity. Like cleaning up the cities of the zeds by sniping them from rooftops (with them usually spawning back in less than a minute). :P Shooting the zeds is not really the most fun part in that, but the scenarios when you spot some random person and start shooting the zeds from around him, etc.

It's pretty stupid, if you take it from the point of the survival time. But, its still more fun than actually surviving by hiding in the bushes.

And if I hear shots, I often head there (really stupid survival-wise, but always interesting). Sometimes when I'm a bit too bored I even might take a shot near some person who has not yet spotted me - I (probably) won't really try to kill him, but just try to give him a big scare for the giggles and then quickly run off. After all, it's a win-win for everyone. I'll have my little fun to relieve the boredom, and the guy gets the authentic DayZ experience where he'll be running for his life (yet, still won't lose all of his hours of looting, if he's still stuck at that mentality). :D

The survival time and all the loot needs to be thought of as something expendable... That way you can start having some creative fun in the game. Otherwise you'll be stuck at the shoot on sight to protect you life and loot (or alternatively end up hiding in the wilderness all day long).

I think its gonna take a while until the game has been tweaked enough to allow sensible co-operation between random people once again (without having to de-value your own survival, by having to first essentially commit suicide 9 times to have that 1 time of brief co-operation).

[Vitzo 0]

making friends on DayZ is a helluva lot more fun than playing deathmatch or acting like a klutz!

Yup. What's the point of staying alive if you are bored?

I've had some of the most fun in the game meeting other people with barely any equipment anyway -- it's not like dying removes your chances for future fun.

Since I stopped seeing the game as some kind of level grind to get the best gear I've been having a lot more fun with the people I do find who don't just shoot on sight. It's even fun to be betrayed as long as it comes after a long period of actual communication and interaction. But the whole silent deathmatch thing is just bland.