Beginner's Information

[damnfreshspawn 0]

A Google or whatever search for beginners' information on DayZ will return a lot of stuff.  Every noob/bambi that shows up here with questions about how to play DayZ gets referred to the stickied Beginner's Guide here, or the DayZ SA Wiki.  Trouble is that most of this stuff was written for version .63 and the discussions about it date back to about 2013 or so.  A LOT of this stuff has changed in the newer versions, and now the information in these places is often just plain wrong.

I try to keep notes on correct information I've learned by trial and error (and getting killed a lot) but it is getting kinda old. Anybody here think that some of these reference sites need to be updated?.

[Christoffer.s 13]

Most of the threads on this forum is from prelaunch, a split of pre/post launch would be a good idea.
A lot of work though so i reckon this won't happen, but we need new stickies with accurate information.

Anything in particular you were thinking about?

[damnfreshspawn 0]

Thanks for the response.

The first thing I encountered when I started playing DayZ were control keys that, according to the documentation, were supposed to work, but didn't.  I finally created my own cheat sheet based on my user preset file and some trial and error. There are still a few mysteries about that. I'll be glad to contribute what I have if anyone wants it or is interested on expanding on it.

Specifically, the most recent frustration I have has been trying to figure out how to fully load a BK133 shotgun (or perhaps a Mosin). Discussion in previous threads talked about placing weapon and ammo in hotkeys, and with weapon in hand, hit (or hold) the ammo hotkey.  Doesn't work for me.  I get the idea that this apparently only worked in the older versions. So I'm stuck having to open inventory and drag and drop single rounds to the weapon.  Not good in the middle of a firefight.

These are just examples. There are lots of other unanswered questions.

[Christoffer.s 13]

On 9/3/2019 at 4:20 PM, damnfreshspawn said:

the most recent frustration I have has been trying to figure out how to fully load a BK133 shotgun (or perhaps a Mosin). Discussion in previous threads talked about placing weapon and ammo in hotkeys, and with weapon in hand, hit (or hold) the ammo hotkey.  Doesn't work for me.  I get the idea that this apparently only worked in the older versions. So I'm stuck having to open inventory and drag and drop single rounds to the weapon.  Not good in the middle of a firefight.

These are just examples. There are lots of other unanswered questions.

Up until yesterday it was true that the way to do it was to have the bullets on the hotbar and to hold that hotbar number while you had the gun in hand (not raised). 
After the last patch however they made it easier and freed up some hotbar slots by making it so that you only need to hold R to load the gun, if you click R you will unchamber/empty the gun one shell/cartridge. 

I know that another faulty info floating around is the changing of sights of scopes that have this feature, f.ex ATog and PSO-1, in the guide it says that you need to push / while the correct way is to scroll the mouse wheel while you have the gun raised.

Dropping an item is holding G, throwing is clicking G.
Empty a container (bottle, jerrycan) you just need to look at the ground while having it in the hand and then hold LMB.

Also, remember that with the patch, cholera was introduced, you need to purify the water you drink.