Initial reactions to the first 20+ hours or so playing Day-Z.

[Deathbydogtreat 0]

First I would like to say there is something strangely addicting about this game, and in the time I've played although I died MANY times, something about expecting it causes a complete calm when it does happen.

I wanted to address a few things that have been bothering me as a newer person, and while these may have gone better in suggestions, I think if people read and respond to this adding something different to the game wouldn't be necessary as I think it's a shortcoming or lack of information on my part.

The first 3 times I played, I lasted maybe all of 30 minutes and died to zombies every time. I have always played alone, and out of all the people I've encountered in game (a rough estimate of about 10-14 across different servers), only ONE has shot me on sight while the rest didn't shoot at all!

While I am getting better about finding weapons, better backpacks, water stations, and various car parts (oddly enough), I've had a real issue with drinkable water. While it is usually not the most immediate threat, it is the slow killer that makes me nervous everytime I play. Only two times out of 20 hours of play have I found a refillable water bottle, or a soda. By the time I'm dying now when I'm doing better, the water symbol is red EVERY time. I know big cities are good for looting basics before moving on and exploring into the wilds for extra shit/to not die, but does anyone have specific advice about getting or keeping water?

I am loving the game, even with the constant dying. I think if I can get a little better at finding guns (only found 3 at this point, and 2 was in one period of play) and locking down a consistent source of water the game will be that much more enjoyable.

Thanks!

[dvious 9]

water is fairly easy to get. If you have a waterbottel you can refill it at lakes or water pumps. You can also find Pepsi and coke about everywhere.

[Orich 0]

This game sacrifices playability and fun for realism ... which I suppose may be a niche market.

Solo play isn't really enjoyable ... for the 15% of the time you get a decent spawn location near a city, the moment you "gear up" you get sniped by some camper and start over again. If you are lucky enough to gear up without dying, you find yourself deciding whether or not you want to become the camper or risk losing everything you have by venturing out.

Too much frustration, too little reward.

[phronk 9]

All the videos I've seen of the game looked great, so I bought Arma2 during the Steam special just for this mod. But so far, even though I can tell it probably is more fun later, it's absolutely boring and frustrating.

Why I don't like it at the moment:

- Every player (literally every player) is apparently related to Rambo and will kill every single moving thing in sight. There is no teamwork, because everyone is a sniping soloist.

- You start with pretty much nothing but 1 bandaid and painkillers.

- You have no weapons or any means of defending yourself except for running for 5 minutes from zombies, then going prone in a bush and having a 50% chance the mob will somehow not find you.

- Found an axe, a hunting knife, and I also have a flashlight. The axe and knife can't be used to fight anything and the flashlight can't be used unless you have a certain type of gun. What???

- When you do finally find equipment of use, such as a gun or even something even more simple like water and food, you'll either get murdered 5 minutes later by a zombie or a player.

- Zombies see/hear you in a lot of places they shouldn't (if I'm on the other side of a tall brick wall crouching, the zombies on the other side shouldnt be able to see or hear me so well)

- Found a backpack on the ground, but can't pick it up or use it. Ended up somehow dropping my own backpack and couldn't pick it back up.

- If you want to play with friends from the start of a game, think again. You'll have to spend at least 2 hours walking to each other, and by the time you DO meet each other, you'll both be hungry or dying of dehydration.

- Your character gets tired way too quickly. Sprint for 10 seconds and you're already seeing distorted visuals and your character is out of breath...

- I have to crawl literally everywhere. Crouch moving isn't nearly as effective and walking or running pretty much is about the same as ringing a dinner bell. Sounds like there's no problem there, but it's not fun at all to have to crawl through city streets because it has the lowest detection values and the other movement modes are just seemingly more buggier (crouch moving is barely an improvement from walking)

- Can't even ask questions in-game because you have to HOLD your chat key down while typing...

- Controls are poorly worded and poorly organized (but I'll just assume that's shitty Arma2 dev's fault)

Before the elitist fanboys say "IT'S ALPHA JEEZ!!!!" how about the earlier alpha versions seemed to be more fun or make more sense than the current version? Starting with no weapons or any means to defend yourself whatsoever, but force you to walk into a zombie infested town or something to find shit, is just retarded. In my opinion and the friends that I've tried to play with, there's just nothing in the game to get players started off on the right foot. Don't need my hand held in the game to play, but give me something to do other than walk 30 miles, find a house, nothing is in it and then get murdered.

[Brusann 67]

All the videos I've seen of the game looked great, so I bought Arma2 during the Steam special just for this mod. But so far, even though I can tell it probably is more fun later, it's absolutely boring and frustrating.

Why I don't like it at the moment:

- Every player (literally every player) is apparently related to Rambo and will kill every single moving thing in sight. There is no teamwork, because everyone is a sniping soloist.

- You start with pretty much nothing but 1 bandaid and painkillers.

- You have no weapons or any means of defending yourself except for running for 5 minutes from zombies, then going prone in a bush and having a 50% chance the mob will somehow not find you.

- Found an axe, a hunting knife, and I also have a flashlight. The axe and knife can't be used to fight anything and the flashlight can't be used unless you have a certain type of gun. What???

- When you do finally find equipment of use, such as a gun or even something even more simple like water and food, you'll either get murdered 5 minutes later by a zombie or a player.

- Zombies see/hear you in a lot of places they shouldn't (if I'm on the other side of a tall brick wall crouching, the zombies on the other side shouldnt be able to see or hear me so well)

- Found a backpack on the ground, but can't pick it up or use it. Ended up somehow dropping my own backpack and couldn't pick it back up.

- If you want to play with friends from the start of a game, think again. You'll have to spend at least 2 hours walking to each other, and by the time you DO meet each other, you'll both be hungry or dying of dehydration.

- Your character gets tired way too quickly. Sprint for 10 seconds and you're already seeing distorted visuals and your character is out of breath...

- I have to crawl literally everywhere. Crouch moving isn't nearly as effective and walking or running pretty much is about the same as ringing a dinner bell. Sounds like there's no problem there, but it's not fun at all to have to crawl through city streets because it has the lowest detection values and the other movement modes are just seemingly more buggier (crouch moving is barely an improvement from walking)

- Can't even ask questions in-game because you have to HOLD your chat key down while typing...

- Controls are poorly worded and poorly organized (but I'll just assume that's shitty Arma2 dev's fault)

Before the elitist fanboys say "IT'S ALPHA JEEZ!!!!" how about the earlier alpha versions seemed to be more fun or make more sense than the current version? Starting with no weapons or any means to defend yourself whatsoever, but force you to walk into a zombie infested town or something to find shit, is just retarded. In my opinion and the friends that I've tried to play with, there's just nothing in the game to get players started off on the right foot. Don't need my hand held in the game to play, but give me something to do other than walk 30 miles, find a house, nothing is in it and then get murdered.

To use an axe, right click it, remove from toolbelt, reload, and there's your axe. To lose zombies, run thru buildings and crouch walk out the other side, or crouch walk through low hanging trees or bushes until theyre gone. You DO have to hold down caps lock to use voip however I'm not sure what problem youre having with the typing functionality as I've never heard that you need to hold down the button to type before. Food and water are abundant in residential buildings and grocery stores, and once you get a hunting knife, you can kill and gut animals, and with a hatchet you can chop wood and use matches to light a fire to cook the meat. Every player WILL probably try to kill you. That's why you have to kill them first! If you choose to abstain from that, just make sure when you see a player to STAY AWAY. I'm not sure whether I helped you much or not, but I tried. Oh, and to pickup a backpack, scrollwheel over and click Take Backpack. You should open it first, and transfer your goodies into it, because when you drop yours, chances are it will be destroyed. Sometimes, if there are already items in the backpack, they may need to be removed before you can take it.

[Deathbydogtreat 0]

Yeah you definitely mentioned things that bother me a bit, I do wish it was easier to find a weapon for one. If I were to actually suggest something, I would think that the big piles of trash/axes stuck in a piece of tree trunk/ people come across should have metal pipes/hammers/junk that you can wield as SOMETHING to defend yourself with. While I assume this:

water is fairly easy to get. If you have a waterbottel you can refill it at lakes or water pumps. You can also find Pepsi and coke about everywhere.

...was meant to be helpful, it doesn't really tell me anything I didn't already know and it still illuminates the problem of drinking water shortages. In 20+ hours of play, I've found one soda. One. I don't think about everywhere is very accurate, although I appreciate the attempted advice.

[stue 0]

first 20-60 minutes was spent trying to join even one out of 60 servers,

then when i entered the game i was fine until i found a working ATV after 5 mins walking, i got in it and it drove upwards and then sunk into the ground killing me..

next life i got killed by a door

next life i was killed crawling next to a wall

next life i was one shot killed by a zombie while at 12k blood

i've seen 3 people and killed 3 people, but now i dont even want to play, it takes 2 hours to meet up with friends sometimes, and so far bugs and glitches are destroying any fun for me

[Ramirez77 6]

If you can get a hatchet you can prone around and take out zombies 1 by 1, and pray that they have food or drink (which is fairly rare that they do). Maybe it's just me but zombies rarely ever hit me while I'm prone.

No other advice, my friend and I are having the same issue finding water.

Also, I wonder why the game doesn't give you at least SOMETHING to defend yourself, even a 4-hit kill melee weapon is better than nothing.

Edited July 24, 2012 by Ramirez77

[Deathbydogtreat 0]

Hah, I have also died to the dreaded sharp corners of a building/doors/walls. I forgot to mention other things, when I found a knife the VERY first time I played, I was really shocked that I couldn't use it to defend myself, even if it would have been woefully inadequate.

[herrjon 478]

All the videos I've seen of the game looked great, so I bought Arma2 during the Steam special just for this mod. But so far, even though I can tell it probably is more fun later, it's absolutely boring and frustrating.

Why I don't like it at the moment:

- Every player (literally every player) is apparently related to Rambo and will kill every single moving thing in sight. There is no teamwork, because everyone is a sniping soloist.

- You start with pretty much nothing but 1 bandaid and painkillers.

- You have no weapons or any means of defending yourself except for running for 5 minutes from zombies, then going prone in a bush and having a 50% chance the mob will somehow not find you.

- Found an axe, a hunting knife, and I also have a flashlight. The axe and knife can't be used to fight anything and the flashlight can't be used unless you have a certain type of gun. What???

- When you do finally find equipment of use, such as a gun or even something even more simple like water and food, you'll either get murdered 5 minutes later by a zombie or a player.

- Zombies see/hear you in a lot of places they shouldn't (if I'm on the other side of a tall brick wall crouching, the zombies on the other side shouldnt be able to see or hear me so well)

- Found a backpack on the ground, but can't pick it up or use it. Ended up somehow dropping my own backpack and couldn't pick it back up.

- If you want to play with friends from the start of a game, think again. You'll have to spend at least 2 hours walking to each other, and by the time you DO meet each other, you'll both be hungry or dying of dehydration.

- Your character gets tired way too quickly. Sprint for 10 seconds and you're already seeing distorted visuals and your character is out of breath...

- I have to crawl literally everywhere. Crouch moving isn't nearly as effective and walking or running pretty much is about the same as ringing a dinner bell. Sounds like there's no problem there, but it's not fun at all to have to crawl through city streets because it has the lowest detection values and the other movement modes are just seemingly more buggier (crouch moving is barely an improvement from walking)

- Can't even ask questions in-game because you have to HOLD your chat key down while typing...

- Controls are poorly worded and poorly organized (but I'll just assume that's shitty Arma2 dev's fault)

Before the elitist fanboys say "IT'S ALPHA JEEZ!!!!" how about the earlier alpha versions seemed to be more fun or make more sense than the current version? Starting with no weapons or any means to defend yourself whatsoever, but force you to walk into a zombie infested town or something to find shit, is just retarded. In my opinion and the friends that I've tried to play with, there's just nothing in the game to get players started off on the right foot. Don't need my hand held in the game to play, but give me something to do other than walk 30 miles, find a house, nothing is in it and then get murdered.

Sounds like someone needs to watch a tutorial video.

I'll just address a few concerns of yours that isn't QQing.

-Lose zeds easily by running through a building in town, or going uphill in a forest, worst case zig-zag in-between trees. You'll lose them in 10 sec once you get the hang of it.

-Axe and flashlight are equipable buy selecting "remove from toolbelt". Then just hit R to be able swing the axe, and L to toggle flashlight.

-Crouch run between areas to not get exausted, and crouch walk to avoid zeds that are 50m~ away.

-Use an online map to find friends, and be sure to logout in the same spot. Not more than 15 min once you get a bearing.

As far as no gun, that makes it more realistic and challenging, and also doesn't put a large bounty on your head when you spawn. Would you rather people just camp Cherno and Elektro, or camp your spawn point?

[Comanglia 9]

I am currently on my 2nd life and I've got maybe 15 hours of gameplay, wtf is wrong with you guys though like my shortest life was 9 hours and I'm still going on this 2nd one easy.

I got an Alice Pack, Ak-47 5 Clips, Hunting Knife, Hatchet, Box of Matches, Compass, Map, Watch, Revolver 4 Clips, 4 Blood Bags, 3 Morphine, 3 Epi-Pens, 4 Cans of Soda, 1 Cooked Meat, 4 Bandages, and lots of other crap. I think the only difference between most noobs and I atm is that I actually have friends who bought the game at the same time I did.

[herrjon 478]

...was meant to be helpful, it doesn't really tell me anything I didn't already know and it still illuminates the problem of drinking water shortages. In 20+ hours of play, I've found one soda. One. I don't think about everywhere is very accurate, although I appreciate the attempted advice.

Go to supermarkets if you're going to die of thirst soon. There's ones up north too, you don't have to be in just Cherno. I think you've just had bad luck so far tbh. It can be found everywhere, but residential spawns a have higher chance.

[BlksnshN 127]

There is soda in the residential houses and in the market.

[Shaun of the Dead 36]

There is soda in the residential houses and in the market.

It spawns everywhere except Hospitals and Helicopter crashes I think.

[phronk 9]

To use an axe, right click it, remove from toolbelt, reload, and there's your axe. To lose zombies, run thru buildings and crouch walk out the other side, or crouch walk through low hanging trees or bushes until theyre gone. You DO have to hold down caps lock to use voip however I'm not sure what problem youre having with the typing functionality as I've never heard that you need to hold down the button to type before. Food and water are abundant in residential buildings and grocery stores, and once you get a hunting knife, you can kill and gut animals, and with a hatchet you can chop wood and use matches to light a fire to cook the meat. Every player WILL probably try to kill you. That's why you have to kill them first! If you choose to abstain from that, just make sure when you see a player to STAY AWAY. I'm not sure whether I helped you much or not, but I tried. Oh, and to pickup a backpack, scrollwheel over and click Take Backpack. You should open it first, and transfer your goodies into it, because when you drop yours, chances are it will be destroyed. Sometimes, if there are already items in the backpack, they may need to be removed before you can take it.

Helped a lot. I feel the rage with this game... slowly going away. :}

[DayZPvP.com 143]

Standard kit should ALWAYS include two (2) canteens. Find them however you have to, but always have 2 of them filled. I have never taken damage from hunger or thirst going back to when I had no idea how to play.

Use soda until you have 2 canteens, but don't ever be without 2 drinks.

[undefine 4]

This game sacrifices playability and fun for realism ... which I suppose may be a niche market.

Solo play isn't really enjoyable ... for the 15% of the time you get a decent spawn location near a city, the moment you "gear up" you get sniped by some camper and start over again. If you are lucky enough to gear up without dying, you find yourself deciding whether or not you want to become the camper or risk losing everything you have by venturing out.

Too much frustration, too little reward.

If you hate realism, you still have to play by it. In real life, if you know that big cities will have bandits, your instinct is to NOT GO NEAR BIG CITIES. Go to small villages and find food and water there, and maybe the barn ahead will get you an enfield or a shotgun. Then make your way to other areas in the woods, pick off people who come your way and get their stuff.

[undefine 4]

Standard kit should ALWAYS include two (2) canteens. Find them however you have to, but always have 2 of them filled. I have never taken damage from hunger or thirst going back to when I had no idea how to play.

Use soda until you have 2 canteens, but don't ever be without 2 drinks.

Same thing with food, don't ever be without at least 2 cans of food. When one runs out, you have a backup until you get more. After canned foods move on to cooked meat and do the same. I like to have 3 cans of food and 3 sodas just to be safe though.

[GrandAdmiralThrawn 1]

I have to say this mod is ridiculously hard. But that's what seems to get me hooked. I have played for 3 days now and already many lives have passed. In the beginning I basically died all the time because I was still struggling with controls and I had no idea of Zombie behaviour etc.

I think my most successful character so far was equipped with a few soda cans, 2 cans of food (sardines and beans), a Makarov PM I found in some village plus a Colt M1911 I got together with food from some church. I think i lived for 2-3 hours and only died because I overestimated myself while trying to approach some warehouse. Shouldn't have packed so many magazines in my Alice backpack, So before I could reload properly (after shooting 3-4 Zombies), I got my bones broken and got myself eaten afterwards.

There was another life with a TON of luck where I found a map and watch in some store plus an AK-74 (!!) with three magazines in some tower. Stupid me, I climbed on some warehouse roof, and fell off, LOL! Died, dropped to death with all my cool new equipment. ;)

But I have also been running around for an entire hour without finding anything but water. And I found water only just before dehydration was about to start, and I had to risk my life to get it, was quite desparate already. So you'll need some luck and sometimes need to risk your life to get food / drink I guess.

So far, handling of the mod is VERY unintuitive (I also had no idea how to use a hatchet or flashlight, or even open doors), the game engine is quirky and slowish and everything basically screams "Alpha version", tons of bugs and many servers that don't seem to work.

But the survival thing combined with realism and the wide open game world is still really addictive, so I'll keep playing! My aim is to be able to at least hunt, grill my own meat and maybe navigate through the world using a map+watch+landmarks or even map+compass+landmarks. We'll see. I like it so far, even though I have no REAL success atm. ;)

Edited July 24, 2012 by GrandAdmiralThrawn

[jjake121 11]

First I would like to say there is something strangely addicting about this game, and in the time I've played although I died MANY times, something about expecting it causes a complete calm when it does happen.

I wanted to address a few things that have been bothering me as a newer person, and while these may have gone better in suggestions, I think if people read and respond to this adding something different to the game wouldn't be necessary as I think it's a shortcoming or lack of information on my part.

The first 3 times I played, I lasted maybe all of 30 minutes and died to zombies every time. I have always played alone, and out of all the people I've encountered in game (a rough estimate of about 10-14 across different servers), only ONE has shot me on sight while the rest didn't shoot at all!

While I am getting better about finding weapons, better backpacks, water stations, and various car parts (oddly enough), I've had a real issue with drinkable water. While it is usually not the most immediate threat, it is the slow killer that makes me nervous everytime I play. Only two times out of 20 hours of play have I found a refillable water bottle, or a soda. By the time I'm dying now when I'm doing better, the water symbol is red EVERY time. I know big cities are good for looting basics before moving on and exploring into the wilds for extra shit/to not die, but does anyone have specific advice about getting or keeping water?

I am loving the game, even with the constant dying. I think if I can get a little better at finding guns (only found 3 at this point, and 2 was in one period of play) and locking down a consistent source of water the game will be that much more enjoyable.

Thanks!

Someone awnsered some of the other questions but with the food, water, guns and stuff use this map http://dayzdb.com/map it tells you the locations of all loot spawns and stuff. I find it particularly useful at learning which buildings have loot in it. For example large barns usually always contain good loot ranging from general loot (cola, beans), and then to the gun loots usually having a high chance of a winchester and lee enfield spawning. Hope I helped

[JESUSARIUS REX (DayZ) 163]

I've been alive approx 30 days :).

[itscjftw@hotmail.co.uk 3]

All the videos I've seen of the game looked great, so I bought Arma2 during the Steam special just for this mod. But so far, even though I can tell it probably is more fun later, it's absolutely boring and frustrating.

Why I don't like it at the moment:

- Every player (literally every player) is apparently related to Rambo and will kill every single moving thing in sight. There is no teamwork, because everyone is a sniping soloist.

- You start with pretty much nothing but 1 bandaid and painkillers.

- You have no weapons or any means of defending yourself except for running for 5 minutes from zombies, then going prone in a bush and having a 50% chance the mob will somehow not find you.

- Found an axe, a hunting knife, and I also have a flashlight. The axe and knife can't be used to fight anything and the flashlight can't be used unless you have a certain type of gun. What???

- When you do finally find equipment of use, such as a gun or even something even more simple like water and food, you'll either get murdered 5 minutes later by a zombie or a player.

- Zombies see/hear you in a lot of places they shouldn't (if I'm on the other side of a tall brick wall crouching, the zombies on the other side shouldnt be able to see or hear me so well)

- Found a backpack on the ground, but can't pick it up or use it. Ended up somehow dropping my own backpack and couldn't pick it back up.

- If you want to play with friends from the start of a game, think again. You'll have to spend at least 2 hours walking to each other, and by the time you DO meet each other, you'll both be hungry or dying of dehydration.

- Your character gets tired way too quickly. Sprint for 10 seconds and you're already seeing distorted visuals and your character is out of breath...

- I have to crawl literally everywhere. Crouch moving isn't nearly as effective and walking or running pretty much is about the same as ringing a dinner bell. Sounds like there's no problem there, but it's not fun at all to have to crawl through city streets because it has the lowest detection values and the other movement modes are just seemingly more buggier (crouch moving is barely an improvement from walking)

- Can't even ask questions in-game because you have to HOLD your chat key down while typing...

- Controls are poorly worded and poorly organized (but I'll just assume that's shitty Arma2 dev's fault)

Before the elitist fanboys say "IT'S ALPHA JEEZ!!!!" how about the earlier alpha versions seemed to be more fun or make more sense than the current version? Starting with no weapons or any means to defend yourself whatsoever, but force you to walk into a zombie infested town or something to find shit, is just retarded. In my opinion and the friends that I've tried to play with, there's just nothing in the game to get players started off on the right foot. Don't need my hand held in the game to play, but give me something to do other than walk 30 miles, find a house, nothing is in it and then get murdered.

You seem like an idiot. Go play Arma II boot camp then be prepared to play the ANTI-GAME. This alpha is made to frustrate you. When you actually succeed, progress a little and get your shit together, then, and only then, will you feel rewarded with this mod.

[AllByMyself 6]

This game sacrifices playability and fun for realism ... which I suppose may be a niche market.

Solo play isn't really enjoyable ... for the 15% of the time you get a decent spawn location near a city, the moment you "gear up" you get sniped by some camper and start over again. If you are lucky enough to gear up without dying, you find yourself deciding whether or not you want to become the camper or risk losing everything you have by venturing out.

Too much frustration, too little reward.

Go Back to COD, you pussy

[Original_Jack 8]

All the videos I've seen of the game looked great, so I bought Arma2 during the Steam special just for this mod. But so far, even though I can tell it probably is more fun later, it's absolutely boring and frustrating.

Why I don't like it at the moment:

- Every player (literally every player) is apparently related to Rambo and will kill every single moving thing in sight. There is no teamwork, because everyone is a sniping soloist.

- You start with pretty much nothing but 1 bandaid and painkillers.

- You have no weapons or any means of defending yourself except for running for 5 minutes from zombies, then going prone in a bush and having a 50% chance the mob will somehow not find you.

- Found an axe, a hunting knife, and I also have a flashlight. The axe and knife can't be used to fight anything and the flashlight can't be used unless you have a certain type of gun. What???

- When you do finally find equipment of use, such as a gun or even something even more simple like water and food, you'll either get murdered 5 minutes later by a zombie or a player.

- Zombies see/hear you in a lot of places they shouldn't (if I'm on the other side of a tall brick wall crouching, the zombies on the other side shouldnt be able to see or hear me so well)

- Found a backpack on the ground, but can't pick it up or use it. Ended up somehow dropping my own backpack and couldn't pick it back up.

- If you want to play with friends from the start of a game, think again. You'll have to spend at least 2 hours walking to each other, and by the time you DO meet each other, you'll both be hungry or dying of dehydration.

- Your character gets tired way too quickly. Sprint for 10 seconds and you're already seeing distorted visuals and your character is out of breath...

- I have to crawl literally everywhere. Crouch moving isn't nearly as effective and walking or running pretty much is about the same as ringing a dinner bell. Sounds like there's no problem there, but it's not fun at all to have to crawl through city streets because it has the lowest detection values and the other movement modes are just seemingly more buggier (crouch moving is barely an improvement from walking)

- Can't even ask questions in-game because you have to HOLD your chat key down while typing...

- Controls are poorly worded and poorly organized (but I'll just assume that's shitty Arma2 dev's fault)

Before the elitist fanboys say "IT'S ALPHA JEEZ!!!!" how about the earlier alpha versions seemed to be more fun or make more sense than the current version? Starting with no weapons or any means to defend yourself whatsoever, but force you to walk into a zombie infested town or something to find shit, is just retarded. In my opinion and the friends that I've tried to play with, there's just nothing in the game to get players started off on the right foot. Don't need my hand held in the game to play, but give me something to do other than walk 30 miles, find a house, nothing is in it and then get murdered.

Granted I've only been playing a little over a week and I'm currently on my longest lived char at day 5 but zombies really aren't that hard to avoid. You can juke them really easily by running up a hill or running inside a building. Shooting them is also an option, getting guns doesn't take that long if you look in the right places. Barns, deer stands, supermarkets or any meduim and up items spawn area is very likely to yield some sort of gun. I use the www.dayzdb.com/map and I've found it to be very accurate.

About getting spotted by zombies from far away... You really need to keep a close eye on the eye and ear icons on the right side of the HUD. I'm not an expert by any means but the more bars you have the further away you will get noticed from. Yes, standing up and running anywhere near any zombies is pretty much ringing the dinner bell, you should only do it when you are sure there are no zombies anywhere around you. If you are in an area where you might see zombies you should switch to crouch move even if you don't actually see any around. Yes, this means you will be crouch moving through any city or town you enter. When you do see them switch to prone before they see you. In prone you can get stupidly close to them and not agro them. Prone is your friend.

About other players... I've been into the main cities a bunch and I've only been PK'ed once. I've been shot at several times but I try to avoid areas where I can be easily sniped. If i'm going into the hospital or supermarkret I look around a bit before moving in. If you do see another player (and you aren't trying to kill them) say something over direct chat like "hey friendly" or "sup bro" or just hide from them. Saying nothing and waving your weapon around can often send the wrong message. The one time I did get PK'ed was a situation where we both came around a corner at the same time and we both just shot at each other from like 5 ft away. He was just quicker on the trigger.