Why I love this game.

[sokaku 50]

Playing a nomad on a busy server can be fun, especially when running around without a gun. The challenge is to be sure and try out everything the game has to offer. Hunting, fishing, crops, tanning, etc. The other day I was fishing and decided to try baking the meat in a pot over the fire. I think I burned the first batch, though the game always reports the fish meat as "raw".  Turns out it was burnt and pretty soon I had food poisoning. I searched the nearby town for charcoal but found none. At first I wasn't too concerned because I thought you could "survive" food poisoning by staying bright-green energized/hydrated, but the status messages kept appearing. Then I noticed that I was losing colour so I made my way to Pustoshka, South of Vybor in search of charcoal... Nothing. Getting pretty damned gray and the occasional confrontation with zombies didn't help, I was now at deep orange "Sick". So I had to risk Vybor in my search for tablets.  Within a few houses I had found a single tablet which I quickly consumed. The status message didn't disappear so I figured I'd keep searching a few more houses for extras. Then just as I'm moving house to house I come up to a shed and a player comes out around from behind the shed. We both stop. I have a hatchet out, and I see him pull out his rifle. I'm gray on my screen still, neither of us say a word, so I turn around and book it around the house, and circle wide zig-zagging cutting through some fence gaps in a wide arc out and back South out of town. Not a shot thankfully, we must have just startled one another as it was a 1PP server. Made my way back South and thought to try the "shelf house" on the way to Myshkino through the woods. Turned out a good call as I found a packet of 8 there, but by then I noticed that my colour was clearly returning, even with the status message.  Spent a bit of time searching the area for deer or cows, but enjoyed the colour of another sunset alive on the server. :)

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

Epic stories like riding out a disease are much fonder memories to me than a light-hearted PVP in Elektro. I remember vividly (it was a year ago) when I had the most severe case of cholera, contracted by a complete accident when after some fun exchange of punches with my friend I literally misclicked on my cooking pot (and drank water before purification). The disease was long and debilitating, while blood bags were nowhere in sight and antibiotics were virtually non-existent back then. But I made it and when I knew that, my life in DayZ was changed somehow, and I looked around like a man brought back to life. It felt like it'd been a shitload of EXP, and an epic and tense experience, too. Giving up on your toon is simply not worth the story.

May your character live long and prosper!

[[Gen]Adzic 241]

I feel ya sokaku, it's always an epic adventure until the You Are Dead screen appears, oftentimes outta nowhere. I don't wish to jinx your dude, but I'd like to share a past experience if I may. Hopefully you'll take something from it that'll keep your character alive even longer.

I myself had a great character once, I called him Wilson (in reference to the infamous volley ball from the Cast Away movie). Wilson was to become a traveler and a person people could trust. His interests were never for danger but that of survival and aid.. he'd spend his days (and nights) searching for food, clothing and medical supplies primarily to give to other people who also found themselves in this same hell, appealing to peoples needs rather than thier wants, figuring it was probably his best chance of survival when it came to confrontation. He knew that if he had nice things, rare expensive things and weaponry that people would tend to want them and will often just take them whatever the cost.. Wilson was a psychologist before the breakout, he found use for his skills and applied them in his interaction with others, they helped him differentiate good from evil. 

Wilson made many friends on his travels and even managed to escape some very nasty people, particularly two armed men who thought it was fun to tie him up and try to feed him to the infected.. of course they failed in their attempts and luckily ran off when by some miracle a passer by fired off a few rounds of a rifle. He never had the chance to thank that person for saving his life before he disappeared deeper into the city, could he even be trusted? Wilson learned something that morning, he stopped trusting big cities, they were just too dangerous. The risks were too high. He decided to set up a home in an abandoned house a little west of Khelm, it wasn't a pretty place, but it was safe and it seemed to have the things he needed to survive. 

After many, many weeks of survival, running up and down the coast with supplies, helping where he could.. all the time experincing a vast amount of happy, emotional and tragic events.. one fateful day Wilson decided to climb a deerstand near to his home.. he'd use a hunting scope to lookout for survivors travelling through the town of Khelm, but it was this decision that cost him his life, he somehow fell from the ladder and died.

RIP Wilson. Gone but never forgotten.

Moral of the story.. sometimes it's not the players that are untrustworthy, it can be the game and it's quirks :(

[sokaku 50]

I've lost a character to the double-stair barn where I got glitched off the side of the steps. These days I get bouts of some kind of weird disconnect where my character will start sliding sideways for no reason. I believe it happens when I bump into the side of terrain like a fence or doorway at a critical point. Usually it is fixed by strafing into the slide and letting go but I dread the day that bug rears its head and I'm on a rooftop or something. So far it managed to cost me a sprained ankle scooting around.

I've never really put my thumb on it with DayZ and Miscreated. I've played many FPS and PvP games but with DayZ I'm very hesitant to engage other players. I have more fun stalking them and running away. I think part of it is that you spend so much time traveling, equipping, and generally taking care of your avatar, but also how unforgiving and buggy combat can be in this game. I marvel at people's ability to manage their inventory in a fire-fight to reload weapons and the like, it's just not natural to me and the hot bar is little to no help. I'd love to be able to switch weapons and such without worrying about dropping my items arbitrarily. Combat is disconnected, laggy, and you cannot trust your, or your opponent's position at any given time being accurate. That said, you're generally all in the same boat. It plays more like a First/Third-person RTS than anything. :)

[Pyongo Bongo 238]

You can do aaaaaaanything maaaaaaan