A new player's review (WARNING: Rampant whining ahead)

[Tvayumat 0]

Well, a friend of mine pointed this mod out to me the other day and I didn't hesitate in downloading ARMA II and getting started. It seemed to be everything I have ever been looking for in a zombie survival game. Here are my impressions after 24 hours or so of play:

Maybe it's just been a series of poor circumstances, but every single player I come across, no matter how I signal that I am not hostile, immediately panics and shoots me.

I just watched a guy come charging across an airfield swarmed by zeds, I stepped in as he got them to a chokepoint and blew a few of them away, and he then turned and blasted me into oblivion.

I want to love this game so badly, but I can't keep playing if every single time I finally start to do well and try to link up with a player, I get hosed with bullets and called a noob who needs to learn how to shoot in sidechannel.

Maybe this mod has some updates coming that will fix the situation, but for now I can't stand the frustation of respawning every few hours with none of my progress simply because some CoD kiddie with a hardon for deathmatch decided to shoot first.

I post this mini review, more like a whining session, just so people can get a perspective from the experiences of new incoming players.

---

I realize this doesn't sound that bad to veteran players, but as a new player DayZ seems like one of the most hostile, unwelcoming multiplayer experiences in recent memory.

[Nekosan 20]

The problem is that since there are no real objectives or consequences it's just easier to kill people for maps etc, it also means that the longer you've been alive the more incentive you have to just kill people to protect yourself.

[BigMorgan (DayZ) 3]

Don't rush in to a dangerous situation like in your example and you'll live a lot longer.

The mod isn't about trust it's about survival. :)

[aragos 1]

Don't rush in to a dangerous situation like in your example and you'll live a lot longer.

The mod isn't about trust it's about survival. :)

I get the argument BM--the question is is this just another FPS NooBKillah opportunity, or something really different in a game?

Personally, I'd like a big enough and varied enough world for everyone--from the killers to the builders--to play. If it is just kill or be killed, the game will burn out quick; folks will get bored after killing Bean Boy the 3000th time and head off to COD XVIII, Revenge of COD XVII.

As it is now, there is no real motivation not to kill and loot; that's been a problem in MMOs since Ultima Online started back in the 90s (and it almost killed that game in the crib).

If it was all about that level of survival (kill em, take stuff, repeat) then the human race would have died out in the caves. :)

[doonbugie 13]

I personally shoot on sight. No mercy, its all for the loot.

[Drake Sigar 9]

Sorry your experiences haven't been very positive thus far, it really is that much sweeter when you finally locate someone who isn't trigger-happy. I recommend you never approach another player you intend to befriend without announcing yourself first.

[Ivanuvo (DayZ) 117]

If you see someone running from zeds, and you're a reasonable distance away:

Cap his knees, or head if you're merciful, and loot him after the zombies have had their fill.

Why risk getting mauled by a zombie when you can just have them kill people for you?

On a more serious note, always keep an eye on your surroundings, never approach flares without scouting around first and never let players see you before they've assured you to your satisfaction that they won't shoot you in the face. (Or don't approach players at all.)

[BigMorgan (DayZ) 3]

I stalked and killed a couple noobs yesterday who wandered a bit too far north for their skill level (constantly revealling position over chat, moving without regard for concealement, stopping without cover) and took them out for the fun of it - not for loot.

If you're not going to play the game with skill please don't complain. If you're new take the time to learn from your mistakes and become a skilled player. Whether or not you wish to play as deathmatch using some extremely basic infantry combat tactics will be of extreme benefit to you.

Everything in this guide is of benefit in Arma 2 whether you're playing ACE2 COOP or DayZ: http://ttp2.dslyecxi.com/

[AlexW00d 0]

I know exactly how you feel. It's not even like I have ever been shot down trying to help someone like that. Every time I have been murdered was always in some dumb situation; I have been sniped no less than three times, one of those literally just after spawning, and one whilst crossing a field in the middle of nowhere by three survivors even though I repeatedly called out friendly. What's even the point of killing survivors with little to no loot on them - evident by them carrying a fucking Makarov and having a Coyote Patrol pack - if not to just be the biggest cunt you can. It worries me that this game will never achieve the level of realism it strives to just because of immature people who think this is some sort of Battlefield game.

[Tvayumat 0]

I stalked and killed a couple noobs yesterday who wandered a bit too far north for their skill level (constantly revealling position over chat' date=' moving without regard for concealement, stopping without cover) and took them out for the fun of it - not for loot.

If you're not going to play the game with skill please don't complain. If you're new take the time to learn from your mistakes and become a skilled player. Whether or not you wish to play as deathmatch using some extremely basic infantry combat tactics will be of extreme benefit to you.

Everything in this guide is of benefit in Arma 2 whether you're playing ACE2 COOP or DayZ: http://ttp2.dslyecxi.com/

[/quote']

I actually do.

I play as if there is a sharpshooter looking for me at all times, because there likely is.

I like the fact that there are hostile players, even those looking to trick and ambush the unwary.

It would just be nice to, for once, have a player actually work with me rather than taking the first opportunity to kill me. It seems like the balance of survivor to bandit is very, very skewed.

---

In all fairness, I realize that the mod is in alpha and there are many changes to come.

For now I'll suck it up, and start heading north.

[zellie 0]

If you're looking for a friendly group to play with shoot me over a message. We typically play late morning/afternoon and after 8pm eastern. There's currently about 7 of us playing. -Warning- We are a kill on sight group, if you don't want this, then don't message me :P. No, we're not bandits, we don't go looking for fights or bait people into traps. But the 7 times we've run into other players, 7 of them we've been shot at first.

[walrus2517 27]

I've played for 30+ hours and have yet to have a single bandit issue so I think you just need to run from the coasts and avoid the two main cities. I'm having a great time living off the small towns and barns. In all my time I've had direct contact with maybe a half dozen other people, and so far it has all been friendly.

Except once. I will say that yesterday I had a character I'd played for about 90 minutes although I was very low on supplies. I was trying to sneak around some zeds to get into a barn and threw some flares to distract them. A moment later, as I lay prone, I heard the quick "thwack!" of a gunshot and was dead. I asked who killed me, and someone replied that I'd thrown a flare at him. I replied that I had never seen him and only thrown the flares to distract the zeds. This guy, who had just killed me and I never saw, not only apologized, but offered to guard my body until I returned. I told him I had no idea where I was or how to get back so to just have at the few supplies I had left. He said thank you, apologized again, and that was that.

The first hour after a new spawn is rough. You are by the coast, supplies are limited, and bandits are everywhere, not to mention people who don't really play as bandits but shoot on site anyway. If you can head north and find a few supplies, you can actually play this as an RPG instead of a PvP deathmatch.

Personally, I never shoot on sight until someone is aggressive with me first. This puts me in the minority, but I'd rather take the risk and hopefully gain a partnership for a little bit or at the very least trade some supplies. Worst case scenario, he shoots me, I lose a few hours of work, and have the great joy of starting the process all over again. :)

[~Ren~ 0]

Stick with it, not everyone is a gun toting lunatic that will shoot on sight.

I've just finished a game and I was raising my temperature inside a building when I heard a zombie scream just outside, as I opened the door a survivor went running past, seen me with my weapon drawn and headed towards me (I presume he was out of ammunition), I killed the 3 zombies chasing him and he said over chat 'Thanks for the help' :)

[Karko (DayZ) 2]

I know exactly how you feel. It's not even like I have ever been shot down trying to help someone like that. Every time I have been murdered was always in some dumb situation; I have been sniped no less than three times' date=' one of those literally just after spawning, and one whilst crossing a field in the middle of nowhere by three survivors even though I repeatedly called out friendly. What's even the point of killing survivors with little to no loot on them - evident by them carrying a fucking Makarov and having a Coyote Patrol pack - if not to just be the biggest cunt you can. It worries me that this game will never achieve the level of realism it strives to just because of immature people who think this is some sort of Battlefield game.

[/quote']

As bad as this might sound, while I kill beaners for fun, I'd say the majority of those kills saw me taking their food/water/bandages and giving them out to the people I'm with.

You spawned with three of the simplest, easiest to find and yet also the most used items in the game. They protect you from thirst, hunger and injuries of all sizes and despite their humble nature, their value is worth more than a dozen AK's.

[Atkins (DayZ) 4]

Ppl shoot on sight cos;

They gain pretty much nothing if they let you live,

but they will lose everything if they don't shoot you and get shot instead.

With those 2 options, it is not a wonder why ppl do what they do. There is no incentive to not shoot ppl atm.

[walrus2517 27]

Ppl shoot on sight cos;

They gain pretty much nothing if they let you live' date='

but they will lose everything if they don't shoot you and get shot instead.

With those 2 options, it is not a wonder why ppl do what they do. There is no incentive to not shoot ppl atm.

[/quote']

I respectfully disagree. The incentives to just shoot at everyone may currently be greater than the incentives to be humane, but there are certainly still some incentives to not killing everyone.

If you don't shoot first, you can trade supplies, team up to look for better gear, etc. It is a harder and riskier way to play, but there is still reason people like myself play that way.

EDIT: I'll also add that yesterday I cam across a player who was stationary and apparently away from keyboard. I asked if he was friendly and received no reply. I had basic spawn supplies and he looked fairly well equipped. Nevertheless, I let him go. I know it's a game, but it just didn't feel like a manly thing to do to kill a guy who wasn't even around. A few minutes later in global chat, someone else mentions seeing him. I told them I'd seen him, he was obviously AFK, and sure enough, that guy just left him alone too. Point being, yes there are CoD kiddies running around killing everyone, but there are plenty of good people out there too. Good luck finding them.

[amentes 0]

Funny thing is, whenever I've been shot or had to shoot other people in perceived self-defense, it's been either while I was looting the Stary tents, on the NW or SW Airfield, but most of all it's been in middle-of-nowhere barns and villages. Heck, I've even bumped heads with people in forests. I'm about 50 hours in at this point, probably died something like twelve times, usually after I helped people kill Zs chasing them, or after I left another person alone and tried to move out of their path, only to have them shoot me in the back.

I ended up getting negative humanity after being boxed inside buildings a few times. Notably the fire station tower. When people still stick their head up after I declare in Side that I will blow them away if they do, then I consider that self-defense.

Never been shot inside Elektro or Cherno. I usually go there right after a respawn, kill 200 Zs and gear up, then move up north.

Only time I ever managed to successfully group up with another person, was in Stary Sobor of all places, having looked at a bunch of people encountering each other without opening fire. Figured it was safe to join them then, and teamed up with a guy who was waiting for his friend to get there. He was in a bandit skin, by the way. Probably got it for the same reasons I got mine. The three of us ended up finding a Huey on a hospital rooftop and had a blast trying to defend it from the ton of other players who could see that thing on the roof from miles away.

But with the current way people react to others, I just don't take the chance. I still try to help people if they're being chased by Zs, but I also make a point of doing it either from a tall and escape-able building, or from at least fifty meters distance. It's especially fun at dawn or dusk, to just methodically one-shot four Zs chasing a guy through the streets. I like to imagine how scary it must be for the guy, and then how awesome he must think of it being :P

The most tense moments for me is when I encounter someone I hadn't seen, without him seeing me either. I looted a barn this morning, and while I was downstairs behind some of the crates, a player came in and started ruffling through stuff. He left again after checking two piles, and I don't think he ever saw me. But my heart was WAY up in my throat as I watched him through the tiny space between those stacked crates. It was just blind, dumb luck that I was out of sight when he came in. And it'd happened to me once before, with two guys coming in. I didn't wanna announce myself at that time, as I'd have no way of escaping without them seeing me, so I ended up shooting one of them as he came around and saw me behind the crates. His mate ran outside, and I exited through the opposite gate to the one he used. We had a chat in Side and there were no hard feelings, I never chased the other guy or looted his friend. Wasn't too far from the shore, so the dead guy just came back for his stuff.

But man, this game has to be the single most tense game I've played yet. I'm scared to log in right now, 'cus I don't wanna get shot dead and lose my stuff.

I should really try to find some Europeans to game with soon, so I can have some backup when I play.

[walrus2517 27]

...

But man' date=' this game has to be the single most tense game I've played yet. I'm scared to log in right now, 'cus I don't wanna get shot dead and lose my stuff.

...

[/quote']

I had that feeling last Sunday. My first few characters didn't last 30 minutes, but Saturday for the first time I had a character survive about 6 hours and had plenty of supplies. I spent most of my day Sunday scared to login because I had finally gotten some stuff and didn't want to lose it (and I was waiting for the 1.5.8 hotfixes to roll out). I finally did login and wandered around for a few more hours collecting goods only to find myself by the airport for the first time. For whatever reason I didn't care about dying anymore and decided to go check it out, but at that moment my game crashed and when I logged back in I was respawned on the coast with all my gear gone. That's alpha for you!

My favorite moments in this game have been when I was sure I was dead only to survive another hour or so. Last night I had pretty much given up on a character, had no supplies, my screen was shaking from pain, and I almost passed out in the ocean swimming away from zombies. Nevertheless, an hour later, screen still shaking, I had gathered a few supplies and was outside a barn looking for more. That's when that guy I never saw shot me thinking I was gunning for him. Still, it's amazing when you are sure you won't last 2 more minutes yet 2 hours later you are still surviving. This mod is fantastic.

[DiscoRobo (DayZ) 0]

The earlier gameplay videos I've seen of this had a lot of randomly running into people, joining up, and eventually meeting one bandit that kills a few. But actual groups of survivors could spontaneously form. Bunch of my friends jumped on this and were egging me into buying CO just for this.

Lately since the bandit thing was dropped and everyone went KOS crazy, I've been hearing nothing but bitching about this.

Then you have people that are "I kill noobs just for the sake of it" don't care about supplies and DONT EVEN CARE ABOUT THE RP. AUGH.

Paraphrased biggest complaint from steam friends playing DayZ:

'Fucking COD fest. You can't actually RP as you would IRL in this anymore.

Shooting people for the sake of shooting people does not mark you or have any repercussions in any way.'

I realize this doesn't sound that bad to veteran players, but as a new player DayZ seems like one of the most hostile, unwelcoming multiplayer experiences in recent memory.

Ha! Veteran players will defend everything about their beloved game to the death and vehemently oppose any changes that would chip at their elitism for being so skilled at the game. You get enough of these people and development will stagnate.

Applies to any game, IE the X-series finally getting around to fixing some pointless PITA shit and elitist players bitching that the pointless PITA stuff are "features" of an "experience" and whatnot. Then they'll claim they want an even pointlessly more PITA stuff.

[Suicide Mouse 50]

Blind fanboys aren't veteran players.

[DiscoRobo (DayZ) 0]

Yet there is correlation between how veteran a player is, and how blind they are.

[~Ren~ 0]

A new one for you OP, I was still in the same building I was in previously, my temperature takes a while to go up, I was playing on a different server and was in-game for around 10-15 minutes, I hear footsteps outside so ready my weapon, I'm in complete darkness.

I'm waiting and waiting, nothing, then a flare lights up right behind me, I see the door open and in walks a survivor, he sees me and salutes, we talk for a little while and I ask him if he has water, he has only 1 bottle so I give him a spare water bottle that I was carrying, he had plenty of opportunity to shoot me and I did to him but neither pulled the trigger, that's now my 10th encounter with a different survivor every time and we've both walked away.

You've just had some bad luck.

[irl-calibre 744]

hey, I just shared the warmth of a fire & some tasty goat with two other survivours -

exchanged salute's with a couple of others... head west, civilisation seems to still exist

out in the wilderness..

[Tubby McChubbles 0]

Seeing as if you kill random people, you become a bandit, and about 1/10 of players are bandits, the "Everyone kills eachother" thing seems to be pretty unfounded.

I say whenever the topic comes up ingame, I have never been killed by other survivors, only bandits.

You also need to be aware that some survivor skins run in bandit groups.

[Oreo (DayZ) 0]

Solution Join a group of common thinking individuals when you have 10 guys you can usually control the Rules Of Engagement

www.ovw-dayz.com