Why Playing With Friends is Fun

[DatToast 31]

So, let me give you a background of what happened. Be prepared to read a wall of text because of the amount of action that had happened. If you don't want that, then just read from the text indicating below where the good bit is.

Yesterday morning I played alone and was getting sick of it. So I posted on the forums for anyone willing to play to add me on Skype. Moments later, a man by the name Shea added me, along with 5 others. Shea seemed pretty cool and we got on really well even before we started playing. You always have to have some kind of mutual friendship with your teammates if you want to cooperate effectively, so I knew this would turn out great.

So enough talk, we decide to start playing. Eventually we meet at the SW Airfield and attempt to grab him a weapon. (I tried to give him an AKM from my backpack before we went there, but when I dropped it, it kind of evaporated so he never got it :huh: ). Unfortunately I had 8800 blood, and the first hit from a zombie knocked me out cold as he ate me alive while Shea had to watch. Nasty...

But this wasn't the exciting bit of our mishaps, and I hope by the end of you reading this you can learn two things (like the morals of a story). So fast forward hours later. It's around 10pm GMT, and we've joined a server at night with no night vision gear. Already it was extremely risky all the time while holding a chemlight the entire journey. This time however we had another buddy found off the forums the same day called Matt, however Matt had to go shortly after.

This is the first time we had played with Matt, so him already being moderately close to where I logged off at was pretty convenient. So naturally, Shea killed himself to hope he could spawn closer (he wasn't losing any gear, dont worry). Unfortunately after meeting Matt in Electro, we were killed by a bandit. Seeing as going back to Electro would be the worst idea since we now have NO means to defend ourselves, we decide to meet Shea in Cherno (just before he killed himself).

So I've just ran all the way from Electro to Cherno to meet Chea with Matt. At this point, Matt informs us he must leave and hands his double barrel shotty to me so we have a means of defend ourselves (thanks, mate B)). Now, I dont know why, but me AND Shea were getting these crazy artifacts WHILE at night, so visibility was almost nothing. We finally made our way towards the medical huts, grabbed some supplies, healed up, and got moving back to Electro to hopefully get our revenge, if not then just stock up.

Already me and Shea were having a great time. The entire night so far had been crazy fun and we we're on edge the entire night. But oh, it gets better.

THIS IS THE FUN BIT SO READ FROM HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT A BACKGROUND TO THE STORY

(Keep in mind this server didn't have thirdperson enabled)

On our way to electro, Shea suggests we should hit up a couple barns on the way there just to hopefully find some self defense (boy, thank god we did that). Thankfully, we came across a couple barns and managed to salvage some shells for the shotgun we already had, a Lee Enfield and a crossbow. Firstly we found the Enfield. This personally is my favorate weapon but the sound it emits is crazy... (We came to a small house and I got the great idea to shoot the zombies following us with the enfield. This only resulted in 25 more which we almost barely finished with almost no ammo). Not wanting to experience that again, I switched for the crossbow when I had the chance (first time I'd ever used it).

So to sum up, after hitting a couple farm drops, me and Shea were equip with a Shotgun (with barely any ammo left), a M1911 and a crossbow. While traveling through the thick of the North Tree line, I notice we're passing under the pylons that carry the electrical current to Electro. For the entire time we had been traveling, I had a chemlight on me so that we wouldn't lose each other in the treeline or anywhere else for that matter. But since we were approaching Electro fast, I knew we had to ditch the light.

After extinguishing the chemlight, we start heading for electro, flashing our torches at eachother just to know where eachother are every 2-3 minutes (we were also on Skype). So we're about a 2 minute crouch-run from Electro's shopping center now while we're still on the down slope from the hill. And then Shea notices something in the distance; a road flare in the city as well as tons of zombies. At this point I'm shouting at Shea to crouch and not move just so we can scout out to see any players nearby. Seeing as they only last 5 minutes, we knew we weren't too far from danger.

After scouting for about 2 minutes, I hear an agro'd zed. It sounded too far away for it to be us that had caused it. I was right. Seconds later, I can hear someone sprinting to the right of us, getting closer, but we can't see them. I kept telling Shea that as soon as they passed, I will point them out, and he would shoot them (since he had a M1911 he couldnt use the torch). After it sounded like they were past, I got up and shone my torch and sure enough, theres a survivor running towards to firestation. Shea, being confused and shocked about the situation, forgets to shoot the survivor so now we have to move in and hunt them down.

I throw another chemlight to make sure there's no confusion about which person Shea shoots, as well as to provide a bit of light. Him still wielding the bute power of a double barreled shotgun, and me as his spotter, we rush our way in through the wall. At this point, zombies are going crazy so we had to lose them first with some quick turning round the walls. It wasn't long until I spot one of the survivors creep into one of the huge doors on the fire station. Shea opens fire and so does the survivor, BUT ON ME WITH THE TORCH. This was a smart move since without a light source pointing towards the survivor, we couldn't shoot him, but he could see the silhouette of Shea and me from the chemlight. I go back to shining my torch on the survivor to see there's now two of them! At this point, I have to try and defend myself... with a crossbow. I felt like giving up hope seeing as I had a "miss and you're f**ked" weapon), but it was so intense at this point I had to keep going. The second survivor shows up at the small doorway on the opposite side of the building and breaks my legs and brings me to 4400 blood. I take a shot towards the doorway hoping to hit him, and then start crawling to the stairs to bandage myself, hoping he wouldn't see me.

And then I heard the sound that every man want's to hear during a firefight; flies. One of them had died. I had shot and killed one of the survivors at the doorway. Me and Shea both with broken legs had managed to kill one of them. Now with only one remaining, and our legs fixed we try to look for the second survivor. As soon as I was done healing and such, he appears at the doorway, firing blindly at me, missing every shot. I take a shot with the crossbow and unfortunately miss. Panicking, I find a Winchester on the floor and try to pick it thinking it'll give me a better chance. Unfortunately theres no ammo, and I have to change weapons AGAIN. However we soon realized he had either fled or disconnected after that last encounter. After the smoke of gunshots had settled, Shea throws a road flare (just remembering that he had some) to give eachother blood transfusions and recover.

This, so far, has been the most exciting and enthralling part of my DayZ experience and it has Shea's too. This is what DayZ is about; fighting for your life in a simulator with zombies all around you knowing that only one of the two fighting will survive. It was awesome.

From that little encounter we managed to get an AKM off the guy we killed (who had no ammo for it), a side arm, binoculars, an ALICE pack, as well as other goodies. Then checking the upstairs tower I found an AK74 with a few rounds which would of come in handy a few minutes ago...

Morals of the story? Playing with friends makes this game come alive. If you think you're having fun playing alone, then seriously try it with someone else. Even if it's not a friend. Just make a forum post for people in your area (maybe even not), call them on Skype and go to town. Its fucking awesome. The second moral. night and fixed first person is the real way to play this game.

This bit isn't as important as the entire story, but it's still something extra I thought I'd throw in

So Shea, still without a functioning primary weapon, wasn't fully satisfied. He wanted to get a primary just before we came off for good. He decides we should sever jump to another (preferably in daylight), loot the station for a primary, and head out. That was the plan.

After about 5 attempts to join an empty server, we settled for this one server with only one person on it. JUST. ONE. PERSON. I was first to spawn and as soon as I did, I heard zeds. I saw zeds. In Electro. Out of my spawn range. No, theres no way he could be here. In the ENTIRE map, he's HERE?! I told Shea to hurry. I'd scout the building with my Binocs and he would go in, just in case that one guy happened to be there. Thankfully he wasn't, we looted it, and got the hell out of there. We ran NE up the hill and into the tree line.

Before we came off I just wanted to use the Binocs as if I was really spotting. I still saw a shit load of zombies. But it didnt make sense. We werent there. The ones in Electro were gone, so the one guy had moved... unless...

I checked the player list to see two more people had joined. I scanned over the fire station to see two bandits in the tower I had just seen Shea in looting in. We were literally 2 minutes apart from being shot to pieces by two bandits, losing everything we had. But as soon as they'd joined, they left. Their plan was exactly like ours, but I imagine on a larger scale; join a low pop server, loot building, log off, repeat. Twice within 1 hour we had barely escaped death.

Man, I love this game.

Edited August 27, 2012 by DatToast

[Drey 5]

Yea, people are what makes this game playable. So the best part of it is related to human interaction. Instead of discussing yor experience, I'd like to share mine.

So I played for like a week. Learning some zeds tricks, the places good to check and places to stay off. And so on. I always tried to avoid any players encounters. But once I've bored, I risked to message someone to play with and got answered immediately. After an hour of attempts to meet up, thanx to Skype, I found this chubaka guy with nothing but a hatchet. Once my backpack was stuffed with vehicle parts, we set up to find a vehicle to gear him up. So we were moving by the trees, searched villages, messed with zeds a little.

Hunted down a goat for some juicy steaks when a chopper flown by. We were scared a bit, putted fires off and moved on.

Stumbled on some ruins and decided to loot it for my lumberjackish buddy (name sponge-bob btw, played along with his wife;). So I went for the tower to check while he was looting the bottom. When I've reached the top, I got sprayed from AK by some guy laying in the corner. Sponge found a Winchester and sighted the stairs where my body was to prevent it from being looted. This server had side channel enabled so I could converse with the guy while finding my way back. I knew Winchester was no comparison to the AK so I tried to intimidate the guy by telling him that there's 3 other dudes who won't let him alive out that tower until I reach it and get my stuff back. It turned out he was scared too of the helicopter flyby and confused me with a bad guy when I was climbing to the top. After some skyping he appeared to be a nice guy, and by this strange way, our gang got a new memberXD

Edited August 27, 2012 by Drey

[bankst3r 45]

Verrry naaaiiiice. I am playing as a lone wolf for 30 min here or 1 hour there. Don't want to devote too much time to the game. For some reason I always think if I am going to play with other people it's going to take a lot of my time. Even in COD, people would send me friend invites, I would add them after a while but keep ignoring them when they wanted to play with me because I don't want to spend too much time in the game.

I am WoW damaged, played it with friends and soon it was the only thing we would do in our freetime. Cost me a gf. I don't want to play that way again that's why I am avoiding MMORPGs. But it sounds fun to play DayZ with others. We'll see once the stand alone is out.