Musings of a friendly player

[Mortus 17]

I can't help but sit here and ponder as my blood slowly seeps from the various bullet wounds just inflicted upon me by yet another anonymous player, why do I do it? Why do I continue to give players the benefit of the doubt? I mean the obvious thing to do in this harsh wasteland is to shoot first and never worry about asking questions. They have gear that could potentially further my existence, and they are obviously a threat. Right? Why is it I have to convince myself that other people are a threat? They constantly fire upon me for no other reason than I'm there. They don't speak, they don't warn, they don't care. I should know better, and yet here I am. Dead again. Why do I do it? Well, we'll have to go back to the beginning.

So here we are. I am a blossoming survivor, fresh off the coastline. I've never played an Arma game before, and know little to nothing about what to expect. After checking out the keybindings (and good lord there are a lot of them!), I finally start making my way towards a building that I see next to a dock on the coastline. Of course, almost immediately I aggro a couple of zombies who chase me relentlessly. I figure eventually they'll get tired. They don't. So plan B. I go for a swim. Oh crap, they can swim too! So I try to swim back only to be swiped at by one of them as I pass and get knocked unconscious. Underwater. So yeah, that ends well. The second life doesn't fair any better, where I climb up a ladder to the top of a building to escape them, only to find that they too can climb ladders.

So around my fifth or sixth attempt at life, I finally figure out that if I can see through the windows, I can enter the buildings. I finally get through and find myself a nice little pistol. Of course I didn't know at the time how ineffective a Makarov is, I was just happy to have a gun! I suppose I should mention that I started with this mod about 3 weeks ago, after they changed it to where you only spawned in with the flashlight, painkillers, and bandage. So anyways, here I am with a pistol, giddy as can be. I go out and start shooting zombies left and right. They shall pay for my previous incarnations! Of course I quickly realize that the zombies outnumber my bullets, so I start to run. Though I know nothing of the area, I shortly find myself running through downtown Cherno. Suddenly I hear the distinct plinking of rounds being fired off and hitting in my general direction. Of course my first instinct is to panic. But as I start running around in circles, I notice that it's not me being fired upon, but the zombies chasing me. One by one they go down. As the last one hits the ground, I stop and look for my savior. I see him through a window, and head up to thank him. Moments before I enter, he queues up his mic and tells me to stop where I am and to not come in his room. I'm a bit put off by this. I mean, he just saved my life. Why do that and then be suspicious of me? After a few seconds of fumbling around, I find my voice comms key and explain that I'm new and have no clue what I'm doing. He comes out holding a Big Honking Rifle™, to which I was most impressed to see. Of course later I learned it was an Enfield, so it's not as impressive as I thought it was, but hey, I was new.

So for the next hour or so this random player takes me under his wing. He teaches me how to use the inventory/bag system, places to look for gear, and even shares his gear with me. I am saddened to this day that I didn't take note of his name, because I have come to find now that he was a rare breed. By the time we part, I am miles ahead of where I would have been had I kept on my own. Since that day I've done my best to do the same for others, sharing things that they need and teaching them if they ask. But sadly, it seems that the days of players helping players has come to an end. Now regardless of where I am, I find that players will no longer speak with me. They will not warn, not question, not even allow me to pass through a particular area. If a player sees me, they shoot me. I find this to be a sad state of affairs, though it is understandable. With the game community's explosion after coverage from various game sites as well as the Steam sales, the population of Chernarus has doubled in size. Of course, the bandits have had free reign to harass these players that are coming in fresh, causing the new players to adopt the ever-popular "Kill or be killed" mentality.

So here I sit upon the sandy beaches, once again wondering if I should have shot that person instead of attempting to reason with them. The smart thing to do is to adopt the "Kill First" mentality, but it's just not something I can do. I can't find it in myself to ruin someone else's day. I know the pain of spending days gathering all the gear you need to survive only to have it taken away from you instantly from some anonymous person. Now don't get me wrong, if a person is a threat, I will have no issue taking them out. If they fire first, all bets are off. But I have pledged to myself to never initiate the confrontation.

Now you can laugh at this ideal all you wish. I know that it's most likely a pipe dream. But I refuse to believe that every person playing this game is without a conscience. So my new mission in this game is to get other people to relax a bit. I will do what I can to get them to communicate, to barter, and even to work together towards a particular goal. I'll assist with gear if they need it, give blood transfusions if I have the ability to, and tag along to get them geared up if they so desire. No doubt this will end in countless deaths (as it's already been this way), but I will continue this quest. In a game that has no end game or real path to the finish, you have to make your own goals. And this is mine. So if you ever see Mortus within your server, feel free to come up and chat, for I will never fire on you first.

[Bulletproof Sandwich 57]

If you have this much time to invest in a massive wall of text you could probably turn said time into the investment of finding one or some of the following.

• A "friendlier" server
  
• People to play with
  
• Make your own server
  
• Shoot people
  

I would like to ask. How does it take DAYS to find gear for surviving?

All you need to survive

• Hatchet
  
• Box of Matches
  
• Hunting Knife
  
• 1 Water Bottle
  

Once you achieve these 4 items that you can EASILY find in a supermarket you can just go away from people and just sit in the forest eating your wild pig meat and drinking pond water.

If you are STILL in a town/city/military installation and you clearly have the 4 items I mentioned up above then you are clearly not trying to SURVIVE anymore.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Bulletproof Sandwich

[Dickhat 99]

Beautifully written.

[boxman80 964]

Hi there, you sound like exactly the sort of player we look for to join our community. We're the BSB Network, an established stable gaming community for fair and mature gamers. We've been around since 2002 and have an in-house clan for the more dedicated gamers, but we're open to everyone. We have no age/skill/time requirements, all we as if for players to play fair and have a bit of common sense.

Our members come from across the globe and are on at all hours but all speak English and are mostly adults over the age of 20 (most well over that!). We facilitate smaller groups of players teaming up and are presently in the process of organising a large scale more organised group with better objectives and community aims. We use TS3 and have loads of contacts playing through the day and night.

If you are interested you should check out our website and hop on our TS3 server for more details!

Website is www.bsbnetwork.com

[BrokenFang 0]

Welp, I kind of felt your situation before. When I started a week in to the game, I was blessed to have someone teach me the ropes fairly quickly on what to do and what not to do. Where people like to post up and camp etc. I've always had that bit of a helpful person attitude and four times in a row had it back fire on me in less than an hour. The most depressing one was when I moved to a story and saw a guy through the super market window. We kind of glanced at each other before I rushed in because there were about a dozen zombies on me. I told him on the mic "I'm chill" and we proceeded to kill them all. There was more than a dozen due to the loud shots that rang out from the supermarket. Eventually I glance around the place and notice the guy had started a fire pit in the corner and realized he was fairly new. He even said over the mic how he had no clue what to do. So I kind of start to talk him through on what to do, gear etc. Only to have another wave of zombies show up. He then asks, how does he aim down the sight since it simply zooms in all the time for him. I tell him just to tap right mouse. No sooner did I tell him that, his revolver went off and shot me square in the head. I was instantly dead. I sat there for a moment at the death screen just thinking. Really? I mean I had nothing great on me to begin with and I'm sure he had no idea how to swap his patrol bag for the nicer czech one on the ground because I was trying to explain that to him. I was pretty in disbelief that it happened. Here he was all like "Let's kill all these zombies" and "Oh my god there's another group behind us coming through the back". It's part of the game, but I didn't think he'd kill me over a silly wincester I had after trying to help him understand the game.

Anyways....on to a better highlight for the post. My friend and I were roaming with some great gear. M16 and my friend had a sniper. We found a nice ATV, despite crashing it a few times and breaking the paint. We headed up to balota's airfield and noticed a player in the AT Tower. We stop on the outskirts and get off. My friend takes out the rifle and scans the top while I use Binoculars and watch. I yell at him when I see him scamper outside the door and bolt towards the first hanger. My friend obviously missed the fact the guy got out and wanted to proceed. I told him that he only had a hatchet.My friend was in the killing mood though so we proceeded to rush down. Before we even round the corner in to the hanger, the guy opens up on his mic and says friendly. My friend aims at him directly in front while I circle to his back. Either way he was going to die if my friend wanted it, but I'm like hey. He just has a hatchet and we needed food. Got any supplies? We come to a deal. He drops some water/food, and I drop him an M1911 with 3 mags on the condition that he stays on the ground prone and doesn't move toward the gun until we leave. He obliges, and we pick up our supplies. We keep an eye on him while backing away and then bolt from the airfield and back to the ATV. We drive off towards Cherno to pick up some medical supplies and honk the horn as we see and hear the guy blasting his way out of the airfield.

Edited July 31, 2012 by BrokenFang

[Trout (DayZ) 67]

Well written Mortus. Don't listen to that other guy, if more people had a better command of the written language such as you a "wall of text" is a beautiful thing. As demonstrated by your opening post.

You, my friend, sound like an aspiring Medic. Check this thread if helping others and giving to the community appeals to you as stated. Clearly you have grasped that griefing/sniping for fun/kill on sight is typical of children and adults sorely missing something of meaning in their lives.

http://dayzmod.com/f...ce-we-can-help/

EDIT: Oh ya, I game a few times a week and will be on tonite. Eastern Standard Time. If you are interested add me on Steam and maybe we can hook up.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Trout