First tries at DayZ (not a rant ;)

[Alkador 1]

A friend of mine told me about DayZ, I watched him play it a few times and being no small fan of Zombie Post Apocalpyse stuff I found the whole concept quite interesting. (On top of that I used to play Operation Flashpoint back in the day, so it felt familiar as well.) I'll describe my first try, hoping for some feedback and tips from the more veteran players out there! (perhaps you?)

So after reading up on all the new player tutorials and guides I started my first try. Spawned near Elektrosomesuch, sneaked into a random house and nearly got murdered by a Zed after grabbing a pepsi. Decided to follow the hints and went to the barn a bit north to find a weapon. After some clumsy sneaking I found myself a Winchester shotgun, a hatchet and a scoped rifle (Cz something). Not being able (or wanting) to choose I tried to stuff the Cz into my backpack but it ended up dissapearing on me. Anyway, my buddy told me I was lucky finding two rifles in one barn so I decided to suck it up and head further north, to the next barn near Topolka dam.

On the way there I aggro'd a bunch of zeds and ended up killing nine of them, cursing at the waste of ammo. The second barn held some bandages and ammo, but not much else. Having read and heard warnings about 'The North' being pvp frenzy I decided to avoid the north-west. But I had to go somewhere, so I checked the map and headed to the deer stand north-east, near Msta.

Halfway sprinting through the woods I was baffled to run into another player, I reckon he was as well as we stood there for a good few seconds just staring at each other, rifles up. Then he shot and hit me, I shot back and hit him but alas, after a brief firefight my first attempt at DayZ ended in a bloody mess. I was actually quite shocked, a good two and a half hours ended in an inglorious death.

So after a bit of sulking I decided to give it another try, spawned pretty much on the same spot, went to the same barn north of Elektro finding a hatchet.. then went to the barn north of there, finding another.. four hachets. And now I'm somewhat lost.. checking the map shows me there's mostly towns around me, which I'm not equipped nor skilled enough to handle. So, should I head to the east and hope for a crashed helicopter, or retry my failed plan and head North-east to the deer stand? Or.. What would be a good course of action here?

[RainbowCo 3]

A lot of people say that going north is best for new players, I'm fairly new, and have only played for 3 days, but staying by cherno and elektro has been pretty fruitful for me. I've died 3 times now, and I can say that on every death I had to look at what happened, and learn. Every time you spawn on that coast line you need to think of it as a new adventure, and how you'll survive this adventure longer than your last. Anyway, I would stay in the cities, after looking at this map for a reference http://dayzdb.com/map and pin pointing my location, I can now navigate both cherno and elektro with out any maps, the back yards, alleys, dead ends, I know them like the back of my hand now.

By learning these cities streets, I now know where loot spawns, in elektro, check the fire station, The best gun I've picked up there was an AK, but it had no ammo. However my friend has found the remington there (shotgun w/ tactical flashlight) and I've found the m1014 (semi auto shot gun) and the M1911 (Powerful pistol) as well. After hitting up the fire station I generally head to the hospital, and end off by raiding the super market.

Anyway, that's my two cents, I know most people say go North, but I find the lack of cities hard to deal with, I've been up in the wilderness, and strolling around for literally hours with no sight of a city or other players and that just gets boring. Learn to scavenge the cities, you will die, but it will be fun, eventually you'll learn where you can't sprint and where you can book it with out being sniped. Now I find I can usually find a gun (not the hatchet) in 1--15 minutes if I spawn in Elektro or Cherno. It can be annoying, but once you learn how to navigate the cities and get stocked with some guns, you'll be much more prepared to trek north!

[WisdomSnork 42]

I'll give the opposite advice. Stay near the coast and try to get your basics together asap. A decent supply of food and drink, a primary weapon and some medical supplies. Once you have that, feel free to head north.

But it's best to have a quick, near coastal run you can do to gear up quickly after death. And if some asshole like me kills you while you're unarmed running into cherno, you lost nothing but a few minutes lol

[FreshmeatDK 22]

I think the towns of the north are worth it. You will eventually get military grade guns from deer stands, and staying away from the cities makes it easier to avoid other players. I only visit large settlements for hospital raids, otherwise I am a country boy.

[chunkeymonkey79 86]

If you're newly spawned, you have hardly anything to lose, so Rambo the nearest town or city, sprint through it all to find the goodies, and then get out of there. Then once you have adequate supplies (supermarkets) you can head north to upgrade your gear.

[trooper911 78]

Don't be afraid of dying, and going into high pvp areas. It's how you learn best about the game.

[markevens 15]

Going north has it's pros and cons. There isn't the concentration of loot you find in cherno and electro, but that also means there are fewer bandits.

You can find good gear, it just take a little longer. However, if you are dying to bandits on the coast every 10 minutes then it can be worth the wait.

[Alkador 1]

Thanks for the replies, some useful insights there! Here's hoping the next encounter wil be less violent ;)

[Femme Fatale 49]

Just something else you may or may not find useful these (http://dayzhq.com/map/) (http://www.dayzwiki.com/wiki/GPS) (http://dayzdb.com/map#3.077.122) are fantastic sources of info and invaluable to just plain getting around.

Something else I noticed as of the most recent patch, the highly sought after items ghillie (sp) / camo suits, compass and even tents are now spawning in the major cities inside just regular buildings so keep a eye out.

If you have to travel at night but don't want to risk using your flashlight as it makes you a target, turn up the gamma and brightness make sure your HDR in advanced graphics is set to max also when you do this.

Good Luck!

Edited July 29, 2012 by Femme Fatale

[GERuss 5]

My route is find the nearest shed, easy to find, typically axes in them. Then depending on where I am, Cherno I'll go straight to the hospital, nothing to lose right? I never want to go inland without morphine, between glitchy doorwars and zombie hitting you and breaking your bones, morphine is a must :).

Elektro I'll go to the church and I believe it's like a school, 3-4 level building, always a mix of supplies there.

[A.J. 2]

A friend of mine told me about DayZ, I watched him play it a few times and being no small fan of Zombie Post Apocalpyse stuff I found the whole concept quite interesting. (On top of that I used to play Operation Flashpoint back in the day, so it felt familiar as well.) I'll describe my first try, hoping for some feedback and tips from the more veteran players out there! (perhaps you?)

So after reading up on all the new player tutorials and guides I started my first try. Spawned near Elektrosomesuch, sneaked into a random house and nearly got murdered by a Zed after grabbing a pepsi. Decided to follow the hints and went to the barn a bit north to find a weapon. After some clumsy sneaking I found myself a Winchester shotgun, a hatchet and a scoped rifle (Cz something). Not being able (or wanting) to choose I tried to stuff the Cz into my backpack but it ended up dissapearing on me. Anyway, my buddy told me I was lucky finding two rifles in one barn so I decided to suck it up and head further north, to the next barn near Topolka dam.

On the way there I aggro'd a bunch of zeds and ended up killing nine of them, cursing at the waste of ammo. The second barn held some bandages and ammo, but not much else. Having read and heard warnings about 'The North' being pvp frenzy I decided to avoid the north-west. But I had to go somewhere, so I checked the map and headed to the deer stand north-east, near Msta.

Halfway sprinting through the woods I was baffled to run into another player, I reckon he was as well as we stood there for a good few seconds just staring at each other, rifles up. Then he shot and hit me, I shot back and hit him but alas, after a brief firefight my first attempt at DayZ ended in a bloody mess. I was actually quite shocked, a good two and a half hours ended in an inglorious death.

So after a bit of sulking I decided to give it another try, spawned pretty much on the same spot, went to the same barn north of Elektro finding a hatchet.. then went to the barn north of there, finding another.. four hachets. And now I'm somewhat lost.. checking the map shows me there's mostly towns around me, which I'm not equipped nor skilled enough to handle. So, should I head to the east and hope for a crashed helicopter, or retry my failed plan and head North-east to the deer stand? Or.. What would be a good course of action here?

I am a new player too but I am getting good at raiding towns, especially Cherno at this point. My suggestion is to play at night with your brightness, gamma, and HDR set like the poster said earlier. That way you can see and at least the zombies can't see you.. Watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xztpc9Ui_ek& It

That how I learned to run through cherno. I usually get the basics in Cherno first then get the hell out and cool it awhile then go back to the hospital if things are still quiet. But I guess the hospital first is a better plan. Anyways, that video taught me a ton and would be pretty beneficial to anyone just starting out to watch.

Edited July 29, 2012 by A.J.

[Alkador 1]

**Update**

Okay, so instead of starting a new post, I decided I'd just update my original:

After using the posted tips and tactics I got myself an AK 74 from a deer stand and later some food and two canteens! I wandered for a while until running into another player. He didn't see me, was like 10 meters distance max, I shouted 'friendly' twice, the second time he noticed me and opened fire. I managed to kill him and looted his gear (Vowing I would never shout friendly twice ;)

He had an alice pack, an akm, ammo, meds and a knife and matches. I struggled on (being severely wounded, no blood pack cause I had no buddies) and hunted in the woods for meat. Alas, the bunnies eluded me and the big game was nowhere to be found! Desperate for food (I was starving now) I snuck into a town and found a small parcel, turned out to be a ghillie suit. Still, no food.

After several hours (two seperate sessions) getting myself together I joined up with two friends, chatting for a bit. Suddenly we were approached by two guys with some sort of military uniforms, military weapons sitting on a motorcycle of sorts. They didn't kill us, invited us in a bloody helicopter and dropped us near a fenced of camp of five tents, told us that we were free to take what we wanted. I swapped my Akm for an ak-cobra something, nifty scope. I had loaned my .45 pistol to a friend, so I decided to take a colt 1911. I stacked up on ammo, meds and food, thanked the German military men and headed off with my buddies.

Now, quite some time later, I feel a bit lost! I have a ghillie suit, a scoped ak and eight magazines, a colt with 4 magazines, meds, food, canteens and all the tools. Now I have kinda lost my goal.. its actually gotten so bad I'm halfway hoping to meet someone. I found a Quad yesterday in full working order, raced pretty much from east to west over the road, dodging Zeds and shouting wildly. No players though. I felt kinda lucky to have survived that, but a part of me wishes I had been shot, so I'd be forced to gather gear again ;)

I thought about perhaps helping out stragglers, but I have no way of locating them (Is there perhaps some sort of Radio function I missed?) Or perhaps go to military loot spots, try for the even bigger guns? Or go bandit, relieve my survivor trauma on hapless travelers. >=)

So, after my little tale, perhaps someone has some good suggestions?

Edited August 27, 2012 by Alkador