Dammit Bael! The DayZ Experiences of a Terrible Gamer. An Ongoing Series

[DayZPvP.com 143]

Cross-posted from here: DayZPvP.com

Introductions

Greetings and Salutations fellow gamers, bloggers, forum-goers and miscellaneous riffraff, my name is Baelethal and I am terrible at video games. There, I said it. I’m hoping to be able to share my stories and experiences with you all, so if you want more of this, leave feedback, comments and general demands and I’ll negotiate with the lovely webmaster of this site.

Growing up, I played Super Mario and Duck Hunt. My household didn’t have a PC, and we didn’t get a new gaming console every Christmas. Computers are still a foreign concept to me on a lot of levels (my inability to operate a PC often just adds to the hilarity of situations). About 2 years ago, friends of mine introduced me to World of Warcraft—the boyfriend needed a healer. Through WoW, I met various amazing gamers, and have decided to take a new journey with some of them into uncharted territory—the Mod for ArmA2 called DayZ.

I’ve never played a First Person Shooter. I’ve never played a simulation. I’ve never played ArmA, and I’ve never played in a “sandbox”.

http://www.dayzpvp.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/fn15.jpg

Chernorus Can be a Lonely, Scary Place

Things that go bump in the night

I finally got the Mod working, and was chilling on TeamSpeak with Grimm. We decided on a server, and jumped into the game. First ever loading screen! We’d done some mild research—watched a few videos and the like while waiting on the downloads, so we were pumped. I get into the server and stared at the screen in amazement.

“Grimm, I can’t see…what is this?”

It was pitch black, with very few stars in the sky, so I stumbled around a little bit and heard my feet slosh in the water.

“Grimm, I found the ocean, but I can’t see anything really….wait, I see a crane?”

Of course, I had missed the largest piece of information the game gives you for free: my starting location. I logged out to the lobby and back into game again, and read the name. I was close to Grimm, thank goodness. He instructed me to put the coast on my left and travel using the shore. It was so dark. I stumbled around while Grimm asked me a million questions trying to figure out where I was. I didn’t know what information was useful to him, which made finding each other a challenge.

“I see a crane, and a dock, and darkness, and a hill, and more darkness…”

Eventually I made it to a dock with cargo containers, and Grimm instructed me to just sit and wait, he knew roughly where that was, as he had just passed it, and he eventually made it to my position. Great, we were together- now what?

For a zombie apocalypse, it seemed pretty quiet. Maybe zombies went to sleep at night?

Together, Grimm and I made our way off the dock with little difficulty, short of the fact that I couldn’t really see the ground in front of me, and knew simply that WASD and mouse was how to move. We came across a paved highway, and decided to follow it a short ways. On one side, there was a sign, but it was too dark to read, so we alt-tabbed and did some research. We knew we had flares in our inventory, but we had no idea how to use them.

After finding out we could cycle through things to throw by using “F”, I said that I would throw the flare, and Grimm could cover me. I pulled my arm back and launched that flare….right into a town of zombies. Bad day, bad day, bad day! The zombies turned and looked at us, sneering in the eerie red glow of the sputtering flare that landed at their feet. Grimm opened fire, and I screamed. Panic and muzzle flash, sprinting zombies and shifting shadows joined the party. I clicked my mouse to help take out the zombies, and threw another flare right into town. Good Job Bael, attract more zombies.

Grimm was over TeamSpeak trying to get me to switch to my Makarov, but it was too late. I was no longer in control of my character—lag made me repeat the flare throw over and over while I watched Grimm kill zombie after zombie, helpless. We were both bloodied, Grimm was dangerously low on ammunition, and I was down to my last flare.

I’d had enough for the night. We logged off, I took a few calming breaths and smiled. What was I getting myself into—I was in way over my head!

EDITORS NOTE

Readers: This is Bael's first and I think it's a good one.

Did you like this blog post? Do you want to read more?

Edited July 25, 2012 by DayZPvP.com

[Donmen 1]

Thats pretty Grimm.

[DayZPvP.com 143]

Made some slight tweaks.

Does anyone want to read more?

[iron_minotaur 0]

You'll never know until you write more of them, keep at it. Just try to make the entries a little longer. How did you get flares and a makarov after just sitting on a dock? More details.

[DayZPvP.com 143]

This is just her intro post, the whole story will be revealed. This post is going back a few months.

She is a stone-cold killer now. I've seen her take out whole clans by herself.

[Baelethal 102]

Oh Pale, you give me more credit than I'm due.

As for the flare and the Makarov--I started playing in the early 100k player range, or somewhere around there. The "good old days" when we started with pistol and flare and food. We didn't actually find anything. I'm not even sure at that point we were looking for anything, let alone knowing there was more stuff to find. I wasn't looking to get too long winded in the first fond memory, my apologies.

Cold blooded killer? Sometimes. Scared Shitless? Mostly.

Edited July 25, 2012 by Baelethal

[Naonak 10]

Interesting read... Would be interested in more :D Also agree with Iron_Minotaur's suggestions! :D

[Chandler (DayZ) 14]

Yep, I'd read more.

[Bottlerocket 205]

I gave some beans to encourage you to write more - although perhaps the stories forum would be a more apt stage for your musings?

[Baelethal 102]

Musings would be posted on DayZPVP.com. Hopefully under a heading in one spot. ^.^

[DayZPvP.com 143]

Musings would be posted on DayZPVP.com. Hopefully under a heading in one spot. ^.^

That's right, due to popular demand Bael will have a regular column on DayZPvP.com

Everyone can learn something, and she has a nice writing style. Look for the ongoing series soon.