15 min of playing...over 2 hours of black misery

[sleepless 22]

Basically youre playing when theres no moon = pitch black no matter what you do. You have 2 options. Play during the day or get better internet. Im on virgin crappy 10mb line and i play on us servers at night (100ms) and uk servers during the day. Also *apparently* if you wait a few hours after dark the moon comes out, but as i dont play night much, cant say for sure.

[B0SSMANN (DayZ) 1]

I have camped many nights out in the wood in real life and it was never as pitch black as this game.

At least have some areas with modest lighting for christ's sake.

And you server guys...do any of you have jobs. Do you only run the servers during the day so the unemployed college kids get to enjoy the daylight?

I agree with the OP, in reality its never really pitch black.

Also with all the servers being night when I play. I work from 8am - 9pm Mon. - Sat. and I only get to play from 12am (after my kids are asleep and the wife) - 3am (or till I pass out) and every server is dark. It sucks because I can't see anything, but for some strange reason I do find it enjoyable. I just wish some server would let me know that the time is reverse.

If I foud more people like me I would go out and rent a server just to play in.

[walrus2517 27]

I live on the West Coast and never get to play until 8pm or later local time, meaning every US server is already dark. However, I have bounced around through enough US servers and written down the ones that have their system times inverted to have a nice list of servers with a low ping that I know will still be daylight. It would be nice if all servers followed the appropriate naming convention and listed their UTC code but until that happens you just have to spend some time trying various servers until you find a few daylight ones. Then just make a note of their name for future reference.

[cultiv8ed 0]

Since the new beta patch....my screen is PITCH BLACK when I play at night. I can't find ANY inverse servers with acceptable ping. I don't mean' date=' "oh, it's just a little too dark"...

I MEAN ALL I SEE IS THE COLOR BLACK.

[/quote']

assuming your controls aren't remapped, press F until you see the word "Flare" in the top right, then left click the mouse. Let there be light!

[Lukio (DayZ) 24]

A bit OT but just a quick question regarding chemlights. Two days ago I heard something about chemlights having different variances on lighting range, something about the green chemlight having the lowest visiblity and red being able to be seen from a greater distance, with blue in the middle. Is this true? Does the lighting work like real light waves?

[John (DayZ) 62]

Like other users have said: crank your gamma and brightness up or try to find a daytime server. Keep in mind that these servers follow the moon cycle - no joke. The moon is currently a waning crescent, and - combined with a lot of cloud coverage in some servers - it is virtually impossible to see. The gamma/brightness trick only works if there's light to play off of. I would also warn against flares unless you're very, very far north in a low population server. They are incredibly dangerous.

Don't think you're alone. The other day I had a DMR and an ALICE pack, among other lovely goodies, and whilst navigating through that pitch blackness (and doing a fair job of it - I managed to get from Berezino to about a klick east of Elektro in the absolute, unseeing darkness), I managed to fall into what was apparently the deepest pond known to man. I started treading water with absolutely no warning, and try as I might, could not orient myself to swim out of the pond before my gear (all of it) vanished. DMR, DMR mags, Colt mags, ALICE pack with all my supplies. Without a flare or chemlight, I couldn't see to try and pick up my gear. If I tried to find a server with better lighting, obviously my gear would not be there. If I went to go find chemlights/flares, I would never find this spot again. Basically, I got screwed out of my DMR and ALICE pack because the game engine is mildly retarded. You get over that shit, though, and after a week of playing you get obsessed with the game - I've currently logged enough hours in the past two weeks on ArmA II that it could be considered a full-time job for me.

[walrus2517 27]

...

Basically' date=' I got screwed out of my DMR and ALICE pack because the game engine is mildly retarded.

...

[/quote']

I could be wrong but I believe the loss of equipment while swimming is part of the game engine and not a bug. If you really did fall into a pond in the dark you would find it very difficult to stay afloat with 80lbs of equipment on you so the engine simulates the idea that the first thing people would do to survive is ditch their equipment so they don't drown.

I agree it sucks when it happens though. :)

[dagon (DayZ) 17]

there are plenty of day time servers. US side. get your self a pad and pen and write them down when you find them. I usually play till its dark. then i log out like as if i was going to sleep.

[DrRageQuit 17]

Also' date=' before you say it... I live in Canada,

[/quote']

Explains the attitude.

-awaits flaming-

[John (DayZ) 62]

...

Basically' date=' I got screwed out of my DMR and ALICE pack because the game engine is mildly retarded.

...

[/quote']

I could be wrong but I believe the loss of equipment while swimming is part of the game engine and not a bug. If you really did fall into a pond in the dark you would find it very difficult to stay afloat with 80lbs of equipment on you so the engine simulates the idea that the first thing people would do to survive is ditch their equipment so they don't drown.

I agree it sucks when it happens though. :)

I know, but I suppose it depends on your perspective. Rangers are trained by diving into twelve to fifteen feet ponds in absolute darkness with at least sixty pounds of gear in their ruck, plus their M4A1s and other assorted gear on their vestments. I imagine it makes sense if we're assuming that my character has absolutely zero military training - but, then, how would he be able to use a high caliber rifle in the first place? Or set up an intravenous blood transfusion? Or any of the other multitude of things that he can do. It just doesn't make a lot of sense, from any perspective - in the singleplayer campaign you play trained soldiers. They would have no trouble navigating out of even water that they can tread in with near a hundred pounds of kit on them.

[Hinaru 96]

You poor' date=' poor baby. You tried to play a hardcore game with a bit of a learning curve and weren't spoon-fed enjoyment on a platter in the first 10 minutes.

[/quote']

I had to laugh at this. Sweet (:

And yea, just try another server until it's daylight. YOU CAN always play at day. You just have to find the right server for that. (:

[walrus2517 27]

...

Basically' date=' I got screwed out of my DMR and ALICE pack because the game engine is mildly retarded.

...

[/quote']

I could be wrong but I believe the loss of equipment while swimming is part of the game engine and not a bug. If you really did fall into a pond in the dark you would find it very difficult to stay afloat with 80lbs of equipment on you so the engine simulates the idea that the first thing people would do to survive is ditch their equipment so they don't drown.

I agree it sucks when it happens though. :)

I know, but I suppose it depends on your perspective. Rangers are trained by diving into twelve to fifteen feet ponds in absolute darkness with at least sixty pounds of gear in their ruck, plus their M4A1s and other assorted gear on their vestments. I imagine it makes sense if we're assuming that my character has absolutely zero military training - but, then, how would he be able to use a high caliber rifle in the first place? Or set up an intravenous blood transfusion? Or any of the other multitude of things that he can do. It just doesn't make a lot of sense, from any perspective - in the singleplayer campaign you play trained soldiers. They would have no trouble navigating out of even water that they can tread in with near a hundred pounds of kit on them.

Good points. As I said, I'm not really sure how the mechanics of the engine work for this, but maybe they can patch it so you don't lose everything immediately, only after treading for a minute or two. That way if you do stumble into a pond at night at least you'd know you had few moments to get back to shore without ditching your gear.

At least with this map there aren't many places to really "fall" into a pond. Even in the dark in most cases you'll hear yourself splashing into it before you get deep enough to lose your gear. Your case seems like a bad bit of luck.

[moleculor 0]

A bit OT but just a quick question regarding chemlights. Two days ago I heard something about chemlights having different variances on lighting range' date=' something about the green chemlight having the lowest visiblity and red being able to be seen from a greater distance, with blue in the middle. Is this true? Does the lighting work like real light waves?

[/quote']

If it were based on the actual military chemlights, they would burn for different durations, and the shorter the duration the brighter the glow.

As it is, they all burn for the same time and I'm guessing that the in-game values are all the same brightness. Based on that, you simply have to go off of what the human eye sees. Green is the most noticeable and bright, followed by red and blue (not sure which is brighter).