Why I hate dying... Why I like dying...

[corbon_hydrashock 14]

Why I hate dying -

I've finally found a box of matches, or a hatchet, that I've been looking for for two days to complete my kit. No, it's not the most uber-kit, but I have a very nice sniper rifle, a very acceptable assault rifle, a ghillie suit, an ALICE pack, and the gear I need to stay alive in the woods indefinitely... and that's when I get stupid an head back towards the population centers to 'have some fun' (meaning: snipe someone, or shoot someone).

And it's after all those long hours of collecting all that gear, and after all that running to an honest twenty different tree stands, that I find myself just disheartened when I get caught by someone who I have no clue how they saw or found me, kill me and I lose all my stuff.

For the first minutes after re-spawning at the shore (though sometimes it's honestly the first hours afterward) I'm just kicking myself for losing all that great gear, and for the work and time I've committed myself to, again, to build up a kit.

But, really, this is the time the game is the most fun. It's always difficult to realize that before dying, or right after, but it's when I have such minimal gear to worry about losing that the game really has its moments.

Once I realized this I was able to kill about seven survivors in short order when all I had was nothing but an AKS, AKM, revolver, or the like.

Now just yesterday was when I lost that ghillie, SVD, AKS-Kobra, ALICE, and all the extra gear from what had to be about 12 hours of solid playing to acquire. So I spawned between Elektro and Cherno, and had to decide which way to go. I chose Elektro.

On my way there I stopped by the barn on the western outskirts of Elektro, with nothing but my spawn-gear... and found nothing. :( Further into Elektro I'm hearing gun shots, but ... hey... I need gear and have nothing to lose. I get to the factory area with guns going off seemingly all over, but can only find a hatchet and ammo.

I still had to at least try to head into the main area of Elektro to gear-up, and I chose to go out near the ocean to try to avoid whatever guns I've heard. Upon peeking out of a shack and onto the water-edge dockage to make sure no-one is there, I see a new-spawn survivor facing me ... and the chase is on.

Neither one of us had much to lose, obviously (he had nothing in his hands) - except he had his life to lose - so we both spend the next few minutes running around the western side of Elektro, in full-upright runs, in a cat & mouse game. He was yelling back to me some comical things... like

"I wouldn't kill you if I saw you as a new spawn"

then

"well, yeah, honestly I would"

"Wow, you're closer than I thought you were!"

Then, after a crazy amount of chasing and running, and with my microphone not working, he yelled back

"This is Spooky!" (I guess it would be - being chased around by a crazed axe-murderer who refused to utter one word)

and he said some other stuff I wish I had recorded.

He runs into the heart of Elektro with me hot on his tail, and I just knew this was going to be bad for the both of us with all of that gunfire we had been hearing. But then what gunner expects two guys running at full-tilt to come past them? It's not like my prey was making it easy, either - he was taking surprise corners and trying to trick me off of his trail the entire time.

Eventually he runs into Elektro's church, and I follow him in...

Now I'm not sure if he was the first target, if he knew the guy that was in there, or what happened, but once I reached the center of the church there is just a shit-load of seemingly automatic gunfire, and in short order I'm being hit. Through my blurry being-shot-and-hit vision I make out two survivors... Now with my monitor it's tough to tell which had the gun, but the one closest to me seemed like he was aimed at me more than the other - so that's where I started swinging my hatchet. It was getting desperate as more and more bullets hit me, but I tried my best to stay focused, aim well and swing as much as possible.

I came out of it alive, with the gunner below me, me at just over 3000 blood. My vision was going in and out, I was bleeding out, but I heard my original target - that unarmed survivor, say "whoah....." over his mic. I guess he was as stunned as I was that we both lived through that, and that the hatchet guy (me) got the gunner. I decided to ignore him and bandage myself (as he was still unarmed that I knew of) fast because that volley of gunfire attracted a zombie into the church, and he was both very near me, and coming right at me. If I had delayed bandaging for even a moment to move out of the way or fight I would have bled out too far to even fight. So I bandaged up as the zombie made his first hit, then took care of him with my hatchet.

It was only then, upon checking the dead guy for his gear, that I saw a "1" next to my Bandit-kills score... so that was cool.

By this time that original unarmed survivor was gone (he deserved to live), and I had a new set of gear... an MP5 with loads and loads of ammo, another ALICE pack, and other goodies to re-gear my new spawn back up with. Not quite enough gear to go out and hunt for steaks with to gain my health back, but at least I was armed and had enough to make my way with.

None of that excitement, nor the interaction with the survivor (my mic wasn't working or I would have been answering him) would have ever happened had I continued to play it safe and stay alive.

And quite honestly, it's been that way far, far more often than when I have been fully geared up and running either alone or sticking with friends. I have far more fun in this game in a status that I liken to being a deranged gunman here in America - typically they're not fully-geared-up assassins, but instead they're lightly armed and just willing to put themselves into the action. And I hate the game for that... because it makes me think that it just isn't right... Not many go into games with the desire to feel like a really crazed gunman (I know I never have), but that seems to be the only role that really works with this game.

Actually taking the time to get the gear and placement to snipe far too often ends with a quick death, anyway, before one even gets a shot off. And we all know the fully-geared-up snipers are 99% all loggers, anyway - like the one I caught on top of a mountain today. Sure, he was happy as hell raining down bullets to everyone beneath him... but I take a few fair shots at him from just above him and he logged.

So the only honest, fun and do-able role for a player who fights fair is the 'crazed gunman with nothing much to lose' role, and just about the only time I'm in that position is when I'm a new spawn fresh from the shore. :D

Edited September 10, 2012 by Mambo

[broguenz 333]

Good story. Glad the other guy escaped though but it would be an interesting moment for him in retrospect I'm sure.

[corbon_hydrashock 14]

To add to it... I died again :)

This time I fell off of a ladder when zombies were coming up it ... leaving the biggest backpack and a GPS >:( just sitting there with my corpse, but the rest of the gear was crap.

So, anyway, the server I was playing on seems to have a bias towards spawning in Kamenka or the far south-west end... Six intentional respawns later I'm back in Elektro, and that awesomeness of trying to live while re-gearing and "Escaping Elektro" (should be the title of a movie) begins. I would have preferred something far more North, as when I died I left a stocked and awesome-camo-colored UAZ about 300 meters from where I died... I needed to get back to it before someone else stole it.

Surprisingly minimal-value gear was to be found... and by this time I've played enough to know when I'm probably following someone who is collecting the same areas I collect. Even the grocery store pretty much had just cans in it - the only thing I could find of use was a crossbow and two bolts to arm myself with. So I check out a low-value house or two there in Elektro just to see if he missed anything. I scored a Ghillie suit, so that's kinda cool, but the most he's left me - or that the server was spawning - was an honest hundred or more Markarov mags and the occasional Markarov pistol. Wow, I hate those things... but at some point I realize that it's all I'm going to get, so I pick up the next one I find with the one magazine beside it.

I ran back into the Grocery store in the hopes that something else spawned - it didn't look like it, so I kept running to the west-end of the Grocery (so the back of the main front area) where I find a survivor ... who has an Enfield. :o

And the chase begins... round and round we go around that rear-most shelve at the back of the store. He is in the lead, with me chasing, but every now and then he turns and tries to fire, or fires, so then I have to back up or risk that awesome one-shot death the Enfield can deliver. By now he may have seen that all I have is a crossbow (and I'm wondering to myself what the effect of a single crossbow bolt is on a Survivor since they can one-shot zombies?). On one of his pauses I got to take a shot - and missed.

Holy crap, now I'm stuck reloading this crossbow with my only remaining bolt, and if he didn't know I had a crossbow to begin with, he knows now after the sound of that shot and me having to stop to reload... He acts on this just a second too late, though, popping around and shooting just as I was finished. We both got off shots - his hit me, but luckily it must have been a grazing shot - I was losing blood, but wasn't knocked out and my joint only showed it was shocked / sprained, not a broken bone (Whew! Enfields normally break a bone on their first shot), and my bolt hit him... breaking his bone. Now that was awesome...

I ran to get behind the counter to bandage myself up, then ran out with my Makarov. I hurriedly emptied that entire clip into him ... or his way ... but that only seemed to make him madder, and now I was out of all ammo for both weapon systems I had. :|

Well, I guess it's time to run since he most assuredly has more bullets in that Enfield. I ran to the bar across the street and found... what else? four Markaorv mags right at the entrance. Geared up as much as that server is allowing me that morning, I ran back over to the store to die or steal his stuff (yet, in the back of my head realizing that if all he had was an Enfield... he was in the same position I was, except I had a frightening-looking Ghillie suit and he didn't ... but at this point it was worth it because, if he won, there was still the chance that I'd respawn closer to my now unguarded and alone UAZ).

By this time he realized he could kneel instead of lying prone with a broken leg. This, IMHO, is a more advantageous position to shoot his Enfield from. To add to that, he had moved himself to the rear-coner of the storefront that was against the glass, so he could see me coming in. I was lucky in that I learned to use speed and flanking to my advantage, so he didn't immediately get a bead on me. But... to make a Makarov effective I knew I'd have to run in on him from one side of that rear-most shelving unit or the other, and based on the position he was in he knew it too.

I ran a fake-attack toward my left side, but then turned and came around from my right (his left) and fired that entire clip. He fired, too, but I got really lucky that he missed. It took seemingly forever, but eventually I heard the flies which, to me, is the only way I know a firefight is over in this game... close-combat firefights are so adrenalin-pumped and focused that, one, seeing a name at the bottom left corner of the screen is impossible. I have never seen "xxx" is killed for any of the survivors or bandits I have killed ... ever... (but then I'm not a poser sniper who has that kind of time since gunshots, when in the city, attract both zombies and other bandits). And, two, most servers don't have name tags on, so I never know the names of those I have killed. I wish I did.

For all of my efforts I was now down to 8000 blood (not bad considering I was shot by an Enfield), and all he had that I would actually take was cans of food (Even with having no bolts, I still chose to keep the crossbow over that Enfield... only to realize that, by the power station's firehouse on that server that day, all that was being offered were Makarovs and Enfields ... kinda neat if the server was set up to do that).

Thousands of kilometers later I found my body had been looted (lost that biggest backpack, my GPS and, worse yet, that box of matches I was counting on to re-heal myself with meat I took along the way...), but the guy probably ran right past my UAZ and never saw it.

Again, had I not died and continued with the typical and inconsequential gear-finding 'mission,' the awesomeness of a firefight that put an Enfield wielder against a Crossbow/Makarov wielder would have never had happened.

-------------------

Even more this seems to stress to me that regular total server-wipes (say, once every month or, at most, two months) would be a huge boon to the actual excitement in the game, and it would make all that gear-searching so many of us do actually worth it for rebuilding. :beans:

This, IMHO, is the core of the game - the clashing of survivors at the city-level... not, as some seem to think, in just carrying around some of the best gear and occasionally setting up to snipe someone for usually no gain (sniping to gain a vehicle or gear, or to protect teammates - sure ... sniping from a hilltop because, in truth, the player is afraid to encounter, or bad at encountering, other players up close is for people who most likely aren't the intended types of player when DayZ goes prime-time).

Edited September 11, 2012 by Mambo