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

[MichaeLK 16]

well currently the only way to play with someone is if it's a close friend of yours...OR

Join a group,clan and rely only on them.I've had the luck meeting some very nice random guys in there to say the truth and group up with them without getting my head blown off when I start to trust em BUT that's actually pretty rare.

P.S there are some really psycho kids out there so never let your guard down.

[walrus2517 27]

DiscoRobo - For a guy who has yet to even play Day Z, you sure do have a lot of opinions about what is wrong with it. Instead of starting every complaint with "My friends said..." or "I was watching a youtube video..." why don't you fork over the measly $15 this game costs on Amazon and actually try it out for yourself?

[frankhertz 2]

Have you tried talking to them before rushing up to them?

[DiscoRobo (DayZ) 0]

Because it's still in alpha, my friends flip between "you must buy this now" to "avoid this POS", and it's 15$. I might pay 5$ for what it is right now. I don't need to try it if I've got more livestream footage from friends than I can watch.

The longer I wait, the more refined it will become. The longer I wait, the more likely Steam will have a sale lower than Amazon's, and maybe a sale on Arma X anniversary edition like I've been planning to for months.

[Mastariata 0]

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

[/quote']

It's not supposed to be.

Lesson 1: Don't trust anyone.

Unless you're talking to them on teamspeak or have them on steam, don't trust them. If you really must meet up with another player on the server and play with him, then make him add you on steam first and call eachother with voice chat. Once you talk to someone with voice chat it becomes harder for them to kill you.

This isn't a game where people are friendly or nice, or even grateful. It's a survival game, and guess what, if they're low on blood or supplies they'll fucking kill you just like that.

[bobbyweenus 17]

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

[/quote']

The biggest factor about the hostility and shoot first question later mentality is that there are no benefits to social play in the game. Strength in numbers is a big bonus to social play, but people tend to stay within their groups.

The most important aspect of DayZ is risk vs. reward. If it ever seems like it's not worth it, it's probably not. This goes for social interaction too. The risk of trusting someone is pretty high, vs. the reward of killing someone and taking their shit. That's also a lot easier than belly crawling for 30 minutes through fields of zombies.

Not to toot my own horn (beep beep!) but I put together a suggestion for a system in my signature which would affect the bandit/murderer aspect of the game, adding a bit of realism and pushing the benefits of social interaction.

Basically right now, if you murder someone your character magically changes into a military skin with a balaclava. This is being removed this week, and many people hate the system as it currently works. I suggested a system that would require murderers/bandits to have to tie up loose ends. If you witness a player murdering another player, you now know that player is a murderer and they would have some sort of distinct factor that alerts you of that, maybe their name turns red when you highlight them or for the hardcore servers, they could have some look to their skin visually. The social interaction comes from trading witness data (or from an in character stand point, trading stories about murderers) with other players.

The concept is that you would want to network and be social with other players to amass as much info on various murderers as possible, for self preservation. Just something that says, "maybe I do need to occasionally chat with another player rather than just gunning them down for no reason!".

It also might deter players from just trying to pick someone off in front of other players. The would have to juggle the decision of not picking a fight due to witnesses, or being forced to kill all the witnesses to make sure others don't know they are a murderer, or maybe they just don't care and they like the idea of people being on the hunt for them.

If anything, the game causes you to be anti-social at the moment. It's easier to sneak through towns with less people than it is with more, other players can infect you with colds now, and the trust issues.

You would still have the trust issues with some kind of social system such as witnessing or some kind of trading post, but at least it would give you some kind of reason to ever talk to a player you don't personally know IRL.

[SteamTrout 18]

So my friend got sniped today while we were trying to meet up. Lost some good gear but it's normal. I mean dying is part of the game. So while me and the other friend were rushing towards the corpse to get some stuff off it and maybe kill the guy who did it the original dead guy respawns on the coast. And gets shot. And respawns. And gets shot. And respawns. Dead (game bugged out). At this point on he decided to quit the game for some time.

I mean I am totally for PvP, don't want it removed or PvPers penalized in any way. But this is just ridiculous. If you are on a populated server (it was 60 out of 60 slots) and are unlucky aka don't spawn as far away from Cherno/Elektro as possible you sometimes can't even get off the coast. People will just continuously suicide-rush you with a Makarov.

[walrus2517 27]

Because it's still in alpha' date=' my friends flip between "you must buy this now" to "avoid this POS", and it's 15$. I might pay 5$ for what it is right now. I don't need to try it if I've got more livestream footage from friends than I can watch.

The longer I wait, the more refined it will become. The longer I wait, the more likely Steam will have a sale lower than Amazon's, and maybe a sale on Arma X anniversary edition like I've been planning to for months.

[/quote']

I don't mean to single you out and continue to harp on this point, but really, you shouldn't complain since you haven't even played. If your friends who have want to come in here and complain, so be it. And while I know the economy in most places is rough, how about supporting a small game studio and going ahead and forking over the $10 extra to buy it now? Remember, you aren't paying $15 for Day Z, you are paying for Arma 2. You are paying $15 for a game from a studio so open to its fan community they even allowed one of their own to develop one of the more incredible mods to come out for any game recently.

So pay your $15, actually play the game for yourself, and then it will be perfectly reasonable to come in here and complain about what you don't like. Until then, you should preface every comment with "This isn't my opinion but the opinion of either a Steam friend or some random guy from youtube..."

---

So my friend got sniped today while we were trying to meet up. Lost some good gear but it's normal. I mean dying is part of the game. So while me and the other friend were rushing towards the corpse to get some stuff off it and maybe kill the guy who did it the original dead guy respawns on the coast. And gets shot. And respawns. And gets shot. And respawns. Dead (game bugged out). At this point on he decided to quit the game for some time.

I mean I am totally for PvP' date=' don't want it removed or PvPers penalized in any way. But this is just ridiculous. If you are on a populated server (it was 60 out of 60 slots) and are unlucky aka don't spawn as far away from Cherno/Elektro as possible you sometimes can't even get off the coast. People will just continuously suicide-rush you with a Makarov.

[/quote']

That sounds like the worst bit of luck I have yet to hear from this mod. Perhaps it was a server glitch but that is the first time I've heard anyone complaining of spawn points being that loaded with bandits. I'm guessing either a glitch or you were just on a bandit loaded server.

[gepardenk 0]

Well, this is not a pure coop game, but its not pure PvP either. It's about survival and my first advice would be: don't trust anyone.

That being said I don't share the same experience as OP. I have meet many friendlies, even in cherno and elektro, probably more than I have meet bandits and PKers. Some I have teamed up with, but mostly I have just shared a few momenents with them before moving on.

There are those out there who kill for fun (bandits), some for supplies and some to be safe themselves. Once I meet a survivor in cherno general store, he immediately opened fire with his marakov. I panicked, shot him a few times, and ran around a corner. From there I told him that I would leave him alone if he left me alone. He said he was sorry, he had bad experience with other players and wanted to defend himself. We healed up, had a chat, and went on in different directions.

I never kill another survivor, even if he is out to kill me. The reason is that I never want that bandit skin. My mission in-game is to hunt bandits, I can't be one of them myself. There is actually a very interesting art to survive other bloodthirsty survivors when you are not allowed to kill them yourself.

All i can say is always make sure your are not spottet first. Hail the other survivor by name and ask if he is friendly. If you are social about it you lessen the chance of him wanting to kill you, everyone enjoys a good conversation. People in survivor skin have never killed another survivor before, why would they start now? If you see a bandit; run or shoot!

Also, don't just run into a building and begin looting it. Be smart about your movement and remember its okay to skip a good loot if you think it's too dangerous.

[defrager 0]

Yes this is a survival game. I camp with a clan at the NW airfield, to get good gear, and kill anyone on sight.

As much as I would like to share, I have been shot with a Makarov in the head while in a small villiage, while I was holding my awesome M4A3 CCO SD. I saw that dude first (Survivor not Bandit), and decided not to shoot. He shot me (I was also not a bandit). Hence why I now shot first, to protect my self, and my clan members.

There has been several times when I have been in a sniper position on over-watch for my clan, and have seen people, announced on side chat that I see them, and not to come any closer or they will get shot (Usually they have winchesters or ak's so are not much of a threat at the time, but if they come closer they will be). 1/2 the time they listen, and the other 1/2 they back off and try to flank, and usually end up dead.

People make stupid decisions = ending up dead.

[walrus2517 27]

Yes this is a survival game. I camp with a clan at the NW airfield' date=' to get good gear, and kill anyone on sight.

As much as I would like to share, I have been shot with a Makarov in the head while in a small villiage, while I was holding my awesome M4A3 CCO SD. I saw that dude first (Survivor not Bandit), and decided not to shoot. He shot me (I was also not a bandit). Hence why I now shot first, to protect my self, and my clan members.

There has been several times when I have been in a sniper position on over-watch for my clan, and have seen people, announced on side chat that I see them, and not to come any closer or they will get shot (Usually they have winchesters or ak's so are not much of a threat at the time, but if they come closer they will be). 1/2 the time they listen, and the other 1/2 they back off and try to flank, and usually end up dead.

People make stupid decisions = ending up dead.

[/quote']

While I certainly understand your decision, this to me seems to be the largest problem for this mod. Not that there are too many bandits, but that too many people have one bad experience then say "that's it, I'm just killing everyone I see now". I think I've heard that story more times than any other. "I had good equipment, some noob shot me, so now I kill everyone."

[Charu 0]

Hey everyone, just registered to the forums, been playing for four days and loving it.

Anyways...

With my experience with the game so far, it's been mostly positive and not negative. Your experience is very-very unlucky, that I'm sure of. There are those bandits and trigger happy survivors, but there's also people who know that killing someone isn't the logical answer.

I've only died once in this game actually. Been surviving 2 days according to the game. The first time I died was not by anyone, it was my own stupidity being new to the game and being overrun by zombies. But that's not the point here.

The reason why I've been surviving for 2 days now is simply because I haul my butt north, I don't care where north, just anywhere that's not by a beach in the south or city. I then proceed from thereon when I'm out in of the shores to scout everywhere. Before I even make a move, I scan, I observe if there's anything going on. I stay in the trees majority of the time unless I go out in the open, and even when, I do I scan my surroundings before I proceed to the open.

If I hear shots, I most of the the time go in trees and observe, or I simply run off to another location. If I see one survivor, I usually leave him alone and don't say anything. If I see a pair or pack, I call out to them to see what they do. If they hail, I again ignore them without ever telling them where I am or giving them the chance to see me. If they're hostile and go in super defensive mode without hailing, I still ignore them and be on my way.

From the four days I've played, I've already got survivor stories to share too. I was by the northern shorelines when it was night (Before the 1.5.8 update) and hailed them. They responded and were quite friendly. I've actually approached them after a conversation, since a convo does ease up the tension, and they simply saluted and we went our ways.

Another one was I was somewhere by I think Nub, that castle in the middle of the map. I was going to go in a deer stand when I heard shots. I immediately went in the trees and saw a survivor running in the clear open. I didn't let this survivor know I was there and didn't bother to say anything.

What's the point with this story? Simply put, to not be killed by trigger happy survivors, you have to be aware of your surroundings and don't just go up to them without first saying anything from a great distance.

[Kuro1n 1]

After getting insane zombie aggro by zombies walking through the walls then having a billion zombies rushing in to me as we had to kill the first one attacking us and then getting killed by a player who thought it was so fun to kill people for no apparent reason I started killing people myself. Life is easier and I will shoot anyone in my own aggro range who might have something I need.

It's not fun saving up shit just to have a player fuck you over after almost getting raped by a glitch. Better play with your own group of buddies whom you can trust, only way to be "safe".

EDIT: Another reason I went bandit is because I had bandit skin when I spawned even without killing or even hitting one at all...

[Charu 0]

See, that's the thing. Don't let one person who wants to kill everything make you turn into the same person that wants to kill everything.

That's the thing that everyone seems to be arguing about. It's ironic when they argue when they're adding on to the problem for OTHER players who DON'T want to kill on sight.

[walrus2517 27]

Heh, two posts after my "the main problem is people having one bad experience then turning bandit" post, someone else posts a "one bad experience so now I kill all" story. :)

[Kuro1n 1]

See' date=' that's the thing. Don't let one person who wants to kill everything make you turn into the same person that wants to kill everything.

That's the thing that everyone seems to be arguing about. It's ironic when they argue when they're adding on to the problem for OTHER players who DON'T want to kill on sight.

[/quote']

Well I'm not going to take anymore chances, I rather kill an innocent player instead of dying myself. I won't kill people who keep at range since I'm not hunting players but anyone who spring towards me or aim their gun at me while I'm aiming at them clearly don't get the hint of "stay the fuck away from me". :x

[walrus2517 27]

I still don't get why one bad experience turns so many people into bandits. There are 1 million people playing this mod, one guy pisses you off, and now you are going to hold it against the other 999,999 players?

[Kuro1n 1]

I still don't get why one bad experience turns so many people into bandits. There are 1 million people playing this mod' date=' one guy pisses you off, and now you are going to hold it against the other 999,999 players?

[/quote']

There are not 1 million people playing this mod. 90k unique users.

1 Bad person doesn't turn me but teaches me the lesson of "me over you", if someone acts rashly and don't get the hint when I aim a gun at him then that means I'll kill him. I wish to be left alone, most people don't seem to get that. Playing with others is currently more of a burden than useful unless they sit in voice com with you.

[walrus2517 27]

Ah, I've been misreading that stat the entire time. :)

So you aim your gun at someone then don't expect them to aim back at you? How would you react in their shoes?

If you have the jump on someone, you can make your presence known and be prepared to aim and fire without aiming your weapon at them. Unless you are dealing with an expert, their first shot, assuming they even spot you, will likely be quick and inaccurate, giving you a chance, as the prepared party, to calmly return fire.

I don't blame you for feeling the way you do. Quite a number of survivors, if not the majority, seem to have taken the same attitude. I just think things would be a little friendlier for everyone if people didn't assume the worst about every player based on one bad experience.

[Kuro1n 1]

Ah' date=' I've been misreading that stat the entire time. :)

So you aim your gun at someone then don't expect them to aim back at you? How would you react in their shoes?

If you have the jump on someone, you can make your presence known and be prepared to aim and fire without aiming your weapon at them. Unless you are dealing with an expert, their first shot, assuming they even spot you, will likely be quick and inaccurate, giving you a chance, as the prepared party, to calmly return fire.

I don't blame you for feeling the way you do. Quite a number of survivors, if not the majority, seem to have taken the same attitude. I just think things would be a little friendlier for everyone if people didn't assume the worst about every player based on one bad experience.

[/quote']

I should have been more clear, I never play alone. If they have 2 people aiming at them and they still run in like rambo they deserve to get shot imo.

Also most people will kill you extremely fast if you give them the chance and they are the killer type of player.

Anyway it is as it is, I trust my friends and friends of my friends but noone else.

And now my good Sir, I'm heading of to bed!

[Atkins (DayZ) 4]

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.

Perhaps I should have rephrased my last sentence a bit. There are indeed some incentive not to shoot everything that moves but like I said earlier and some others expressed it as well;

The risk vs reward ratio with human (outside of ur group) interaction is skewed.

There is so little to gain going all the hassle to establishing an interaction with other human players and in the other side of the scale is the chance of losing it all. (which btw brings excitement to the mod)

If you already have the basic/good weaponry + beans and someone to play with then there is not much the random stranger can offer that you could not find in the next village but u have everything to lose if the stranger is more trigger happy than you.

You can ofc try to help other ppl, try to exchange stuff and generally chat with new ppl that you encounter. I would like to do this more often but there has been so deep downward spiral of PKing and ppl are really on their toes (I am as well) that it is easier to just avoid human contact if possible or kill them first if there is no time to negotiate. It did not help that the DC was broken 90% of the time.

Imo the mod needs some more instinctive incentive to leave other player alive. This does not have to be punishing the PKer but rather rewarding more for not shooting. But I still do not know how this could be accomplished. The other players need to offer u something that u cant get from their dead bodies and this "something" has to compete with the risk of losing it all.

[mattressi 3]

I think your experiences are abnormal compared to most people's. I play on Australian servers (the Australian gaming community are, quite often, complete douches, especially compared to the communities in other countries when I play on foreign servers). Even so, I still rarely get shot at without someone first talking. I've had many nights where I haven't seen a single bandit and have seen lots of survivors grouping together to help each other. Perhaps it's more of a free-for-all in the day? I rarely get the chance to play during the day, so I don't really know.

Keep playing, try different servers and don't get attached to your equipment until you've found a server that mostly has a good community.

[SteamTrout 18]

The biggest question would be: why should I leave you alive? I have a group, I don't know you, you have a gun and you are a potential threat. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for me not to shoot on sight, prior bad experience or not.

Openly helping other survivors is also a risk. You expose yourself, you may alert zombies/other players to your location and at best it's just a waste of precious resources. At worst you will get shot.

I am not asking for some ingame benefits for being a good guy or ingame penalties for being a bad guy. However a harsher death penalty (no idea in what way) would go a long way towards fixing the "bumrush the 1st living soul with a Makarov" and maybe will stop my group from seeing everybody as a threat. Because everybody IS a threat right now.

I've had many nights where I haven't seen a single bandit and have seen lots of survivors grouping together to help each other. Perhaps it's more of a free-for-all in the day? I rarely get the chance to play during the day, so I don't really know.

Nights are different that way. People generally try to stick together.

[levikus 0]

One simple rule:

If you are sure, the other Player didnt saw you, let him go. If not, shoot first.

If Bandit Skin, always shoot.

i died to often typing "friendly" in the chat. So

[Oddball_E8 1]

Well' date=' 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.

[hr']

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.

theres no way to "fix" other players shooting you (at least not without making this game pretty dull).

What you need to do is find people on the forums that you can play with or people that are obviously not going to kill you (like someone youve seen helping others).

One tip is to use in-game chat after youve discovered another player in the game and followed him out of sight for a while. Talk to him and tell him that you are somewhere near him (but not the place youre actually at) and see how he acts on that... if he trys to sneak up on the place you said you were, hes probably not friendly.

just running up to someone usually doesnt work well... even if you shoot the zeds chasing them...