Friendly or Bandit?

[irl-calibre 744]

there is a psychology to playing dayz you can only learn this through playing the game - here's a pro tip on meeting a player, always ask them straight away "Hey Buddy are the 2 guys I just saw in clown masks your friends? are you guys friendly?"  - now the person is faced with the problem of possibly a bigger threat than you, they're not thinking about you, they're deciding if you are now more of an asset in dealing with the phantom menace you have placed in their minds.  they now have a choice of  teaming up with you. or, use you as a meat shield when the clowns turn up.  & sometimes they just shoot you, you will never know unless you try.

Edited August 3, 2014 by Calibre

[docjonel 0]

I play ocassionally and am not part of a group. I rarely ever meet or even see anyone because I tend to play less popular servers. Was on a populated server the other day all loaded up with food, ammo, and supplies, making my way cautiously thru Novo. Had just exited a building onto a sidestreet when two guys showed up behind me. I was startled because it had been ages since I'd seen anyone else and so I decided to see how it would go. One of them yelled "Put your hands up!" I complied, said hi, and they walked up and hit me over the head with an axe. As the screen faded to black I heard some kid who could only have been 10-12 years old laugh and say, "Thanks for all your stuff dude!"  Shoulda shot the bastards when I had a chance. Next two respawns I died quickly, but now I'm kitted up and better armed than I was before my unfortunate encounter. I'm more likely to shoot first now if startled but would still like to make friendly contact if possible.

[doctajones 123]

I play experimental servers pretty much exclusively these days.  People are definitely more friendly on average, and with loot resets common nobody is really attached to their gear.  Experimental is about exploring and discovering what is newly new in DayZ, and I feel people respect that and are willing to be friendly and roll together more often than not.  Just in this past week I have met 5 new friends on steam, and that's not counting all those random encounters in game where we exchanged hellos, items, and goodbyes before never seeing anyone again.  No joke, I have even found a missed connection by describing our fate on a reddit post.

 

On the other hand, both my characters (core and hardcore) on stable are decked out in gear.  I only play them with some friends looking to do some PvP.  We probably kill on sight half the time, and the other half we are holding up people at gunpoint anyway.

 

The point I'm trying to make here is, there is no single way to play DayZ.  And I take advantage of the multiple server types and characters at my disposal to play the ways I want to play when I want to play them.  You don't have to choose to be solely a hero, solely a bandit, or solely Bear Grylls alone in the wilderness.  This is the beauty of this game, you can literally do whatever you want, and this is why I love it.