Approaching Strangers, or: Friendship in a Cruel World

[Bakst 98]

A lot of people have complained about player behavior in DayZ and not being able to trust anyone. But I think this human element is one of the greatest features DayZ has to offer. I have the most fun when I engage other players in a direct-chat conversation from behind cover, trying to size them up and gain their trust while keeping my sights firmly locked on their heads just in case they turn out to be hostile. You'd be surprised how many people are willing to work with you if you engage them personally via direct chat. It's risky, but worth it to me. Here's a story to illustrate what I mean:

So there I am, spawned at the beach and running to the nearest town, Elektro, to score some loot. After successfully evading zeds and steering clear of nearby gunshot action, I enter the church in the hopes of finding more loot. There I encounter a guy armed with an Enfield crouching between the pews. I'm completely unarmed, and we both freeze to size each other up for about 10 seconds. Then he fires a round at me & blows my friggin kneecap right off, leg broken, but I'm still alive and I turn on direct chat and plead for my life, explaining that I'm friendly, unarmed, and have no useful loot on me (all true). I offer him some ammo from my pack as a peace offering, and he's cool with that.

As it turns out, he's wounded too (at 8k blood or so), and now we hear a motorized vehicle approaching outside and lots of zeds. We're both stuck in the church with only one exit and a bunch of baddies right outside, and our conversation has undoubtedly been attracting unwanted attention. I eventually move out alone, leaving Mr. Enfield behind and expecting a bullet in the back at any moment, but the guy is cool.

After crawling around aimlessly for a while expecting to die at any moment, I start to make my way towards the hospital with nothing but 182 blood (as good as dead! btw, what ever happened to becoming unconscious?) and a few bandages to hold it in, and there on the rooftop I find my old friend, Mr. Shoot-You-in-the-Knee Enfield Guy! We decide to trust one another, and give each other blood transfusions (which, by the way, is very buggy and takes for-effing-ever). So basically, I make friends with the guy who shot me just minutes ago! :)

During the blood transfusion, I spot another dude running around on a nearby rooftop. I call out via DC to see if he is friend or foe -- no response. He doesn't see me despite looking around frantically, and I keep watching and talking to him. He probably thinks I have a scope on him or sthg, which is hilarious cos he's got a loaded rifle and I've got pimples :) Then I notice he has a friend, and they're both armed (with Enfields, I think). I say I see them both, and are they friendly? Then comes the response on DC: "Friendly." Yeah, right. My new friend and I decide to get the heck outta Elektro, head into the inland forest and go our separate ways.

Maybe one day we will meet again, "(TheRiche)"!

That's the end of my little story. It's nothing special, but I had such a good time during that experience I can't even begin to explain. I think it illustrates that you CAN make friends with strangers in DayZ, and that shoot-on-sight is not the only strategy for survival in this game, especially in the beginning. Just don't be dumb about it: You can't just walk up to a guy with your weapon raised and say, "hey man I'm friendly trust me." But talking to someone from behind cover somewhere at a safe distance can be a great way to approach strangers.

I'd love to hear stories from other people about their PvP encounters in DayZ, and how they made new friends or -- more likely -- enemies.

[witek26 9]

There I encounter a guy armed with an Enfield crouching between the pews. I'm completely unarmed, and we both freeze to size each other up for about 10 seconds. Then he fires a round at me & blows my friggin kneecap right off, leg broken, but I'm still alive and I turn on direct

From what I know, Enfield one shots no matter where you hit.

[Boomstick (DayZ) 41]

From what I know, Enfield one shots no matter where you hit.

Nope, shot a guy in the spine yesterday, he lived...for awhile :)

[witek26 9]

Must have changed it then, my bad.

[Proceed (DayZ) 11]

Liked your story !

[Bakst 98]

It was a fun experience :)

[JarethJams 87]

Must have changed it then, my bad.

Yeah DMG on the lee enfield, 1911, and revovler have been dumbed down

[SneakyPete 3]

So yesterday im up in Kamyshovo when i catch a guy run past me so being a little peranoid like i am i turn and shot. He starts to zigzag and sprint away so i run after him and fire another shot. I can see that he is bleeding so i watch him for a minute and realise he doesnt really act like he knows what he is doing. So i run after him and he runs around the building and stops so i come around the corner and meet him face to face. He is bleeding and isnt doing anything so i quickly bandage him and ask over voip he long he had been playing. He said it was his first real time getting on to play. So i told him he could join me if he wanted and i tried to show him a few of the in and outs of the game. In all was one of the funner times i have had in my short time playing trying to help someone out.

[xxKumorinekoxx 33]

A couple weeks ago I was on maybe my third or fourth time through. After spawning near Belota and getting a Czech bag and some food I ran into the forest away from some gunfire. After getting all sorts of turned around in the trees I ended up on the northern tip of Cherno. (Where the hospital is.) When I was looting the apartment buildings for a weapon to make my way into the hospital I heard a voice warning me that zombies had caught wind of me and were making their way up the stairs. I was promptly eaten by them because I was scrambling to try and hook up my mic to communicate with the guy. After a respawn to the east of Cherno I made my way back into town and ended up in the same area again not too long after my death and decided to get my stuff back. Again I heard the voice of the helpful player who recognized me. He came down from his perch in the factory to say hello and I noticed he had a DRM on his back and was holding a revolver in his hand. He'd had 2 chances to easily kill me and didn't, so I trusted him. As we talked we heard a third voice come in from the hospital roof, who was also a fresh spawn like me and looking for friends. We all decided to stick together and travel up north, and from then on, we became great friends, even outside the game =P Day Z is fantastic for forging friendships. I've even been accidentally killed by one friend (His first murder even) but we managed to meet up again later and all was well.

Of course not all attempts have gone so smoothly, regarding the time our entire group was slaughtered by a betrayer with a shotgun, but thats another story. >.> Needless to say, I prefer to make friends, but its not as easy as it used to be.

[Bakst 98]

So yesterday im up in Kamyshovo when i catch a guy run past me so being a little peranoid like i am i turn and shot. He starts to zigzag and sprint away so i run after him and fire another shot. I can see that he is bleeding so i watch him for a minute and realise he doesnt really act like he knows what he is doing. So i run after him and he runs around the building and stops so i come around the corner and meet him face to face. He is bleeding and isnt doing anything so i quickly bandage him and ask over voip he long he had been playing. He said it was his first real time getting on to play. So i told him he could join me if he wanted and i tried to show him a few of the in and outs of the game. In all was one of the funner times i have had in my short time playing trying to help someone out.

Yeah it turns out noobs are the most fun to play with by and large. I suppose the game really does need more incentives for coop to avoid becoming a PvP deathmatch game.

[Bakst 98]

A couple weeks ago I was on maybe my third or fourth time through. After spawning near Belota [...]

Of course not all attempts have gone so smoothly, regarding the time our entire group was slaughtered by a betrayer with a shotgun, but thats another story. >.> Needless to say, I prefer to make friends, but its not as easy as it used to be.

That's a great story. I'm intrigued by the shotgun betrayal! Sounds like a bloody mess oO

[lun4tic 8]

The stories of cooperation are only as awesome as they are because there's so little of it. Incentives to cooperate will degrade their value. It wouldn't be a terrible thing, but the trade-off is there.

[xxKumorinekoxx 33]

That's a great story. I'm intrigued by the shotgun betrayal! Sounds like a bloody mess oO

Pretty much my "Loss of Innocence" Story, not long after I'd met my two friends we picked up one of their own friends and a straggler who stumbled on our group as we were meeting up at the rally point. Then we met Owner. He was another survivor who stumbled on the group as we made our way through Cherno. He had an enfield and a height advantage on us and he didn't open fire so we decided to let him tag along when he asked. We all decided we'd use our strength of numbers to hit the NW airfield for some better gear. After a few scrapes with a group of 3-4 bandits and quite a few zombie chases we'd made it to the Airfield, he was the last one to find himself a decent gun, a Remington shotgun. We'd already looped around and were about to hit the last barracks before booking it out of there when we aggro'd some zombies. Everyone opened fire at once, but Owner wasn't aiming for the Zombies. I was the first to go down with a fresh "What the hell!" On my lips and my friends and I regrouped on steam and found out everybody but Owner had died and he was the one in back with the semi-automatic shotgun.

To this day it still confuses me why he waited so long to kill us. He was already geared and he seemed friendly enough as we travelled. My friend's theory is that he accidentally took me out with friendly fire and panicked, thinking my friends would turn on him for it and decided to end it all then. I've seen Owner once or twice on the same server we played on that day, and if I do see him again, he better watch his back.

Not that it'll help when my CZ round tears through his skull ;P

[VaultDweller (DayZ) 58]

Making friends in DayZ is close to impossible.

An example:

It all started with another random encounter.

Me with a gun and other guy without weapons (but full on supplies/food) ,shorten version i cought him getting supplies in one of the buildings.

I acted as a ,,bandit,, type of player pointing my weapon at his head saying via direct chat ,,friendly,,?

Guy panicked with a respond of ,,Don's shoot,friendly,friendly,,

Finding myself in a ,,better spot,, i was feeling more powerful and i started quite douchy with ,,have any supplies on your my friend?,,

He said ,,no i swear,just respawned,kill me if you want to check i have nothing to lose,,

I said i woudn't do that cuz it woud attract lot of walker's on us (and unecessery bandits),so he might live as my future companion.

After 10-15 min of walking we run into bandit with a rifle.

Offcourse mister Rambo started shooting on sight.

We took cover behind next corner.

Guy asked me why dont i shoot back and take him down.

I said ,,Dude,i ain't no bandit,,

Him:,,What diffrence does it make,that guy is onto us,this is self deffence,beside you wanted to kill and loot me about 20 min ago,how the heck does that NOT make you a bandit,,

Me: Dude...the gun is emmty -.-

Him: 0.0 !!!

After a while we evaided that bandit by splitting up and getting into the forrest.

That was my little interesting experiance i wanted to share with you guys,seem's good for this thread.

Edited July 31, 2012 by VaultDweller

[Bakst 98]

The stories of cooperation are only as awesome as they are because there's so little of it. Incentives to cooperate will degrade their value. It wouldn't be a terrible thing, but the trade-off is there.

You make a good point there. It's a delicate balance to be sure, and I think the devs have been done a great so far of keeping it wide open so that everything is possible as it would be irl too. I do think the game could do with a few more rewards/objectives that can be accomplished only by working together. Not like Steam "rewards" or anything gamey like that, I'm thinking more along the lines of being able to build fortified camps and such. But who am I to talk, Rocket has already said that he's looking at underground construction so I guess we just have to be patient =)

[Bakst 98]

Nice story VaultDweller, you have my beans for that sweet punchline =) You totally had the guy fooled. Good thing he didn't shoot you once he learned your dirty little secret :)

[:VADER: 88]

Last night was playing on a really fun server, I managed to make a few friends and we were held up in cherno church, the server had a gang of bandits RGB clan, they were nice to me though lol, there was also the CALL OF DAYZ player who rigged all of elektro with c4 and he turned it into a waste land. anyways after be friendly with the two in church we geared eachother up and made a run for the supermarket . I took the lead being the most ballsy and a big risk taker , I stormed into the back of the store as i ran into the counter 3 guys were looting they turned and we all broke out into a fire fight, I RAN MY ASS to the back and out the side, my 2 buddies then engaged the 2 of the 3 . so i ran around to the front of the store and b-lined right to the back shelf , with makarov in hand put every bullet into his face but sadly his ak was set to rock and roll and blew my chest wide open. The whole time i was in church there was SO much chatter on the side channel , pretty much calling out each other and calling each other bandits ect. Shaker ,alex and jonno seemed to be a big treat but they were no where near cherno at the time. so after pretty much having a flame war over side channel and getting into a firefight with a completely different group . I respawn way out east and low and behold Shaker spawns in the same area ( he got trapped between cherno/elektro by the RGB gang. we said fuck it and teamed up lol , we managed to find a crossbow some small loot AND A BIKE!!!! lol but he crashed it into the pond by elektro , As i went to scout elektro i soon realized something was up, the whole town was blown to pieces , all the important building were leveled (except the firestation) as i ran through the town BOOM BOOM BOOM explosions galore and the shockwave blew out my knees so i crawled till i found a grenade in the firestation. so i had to suicide due to low health and no medical supplies what so ever. I warned Shaker not to come close to elektro.

[witek26 9]

^ wow. I find that hard to understand.