Stop saying "friendly" and immediately trusting me

[Obsolescence 129]

For the fourth time since I've been playing, a player said "friendly" to me. Sensing sincerity in their voice and actions, I said "friendly" back... and then proceeded to shoot them in the head when they weren't looking because they had things I needed (this situation only seems to occur when I'm a new spawn with nothing).

I'm writing this as a warning to new players. Just because someone (like me) has the survivor skin and not the bandit skin does not make them less dangerous. In game, I don't need your help and I don't care for your company. If you can't survive and equip yourself on your own then you could only drag me down. Even if you are self-sufficient, I have no need or use for you because I have no trouble equipping myself solo.

Until Rocket finds some way to make keeping you alive worth my while, expect to be shot on sight, unless you declare yourself friendly -- in which case I will take my time shooting you in the head so I don't have to listen to you whine and complain about it.

Welcome to DayZ. Never trust anyone you don't know in real life. Oh, and bring on the flames :)

P.S. This isnt a guilt thread. I was just hoping to warn new players that people like me are out there and your current strategies are not accounting for my bullets that are ending up in your brains.

TLDR: i'm a liar with no honor, avoid me in game and in real life.

Did those "friendlies" I shot in the head have honor? I swear I swiped almost every item off their dead corpse but I never saw any honor.

And I'm not a coward, I'm an opportunist. When you say, "friendly," I hear, "if you say friendly back to me, I'll turn around and let you shoot me in the head and take all my stuff."

I never had any intention other than killing you and taking your shit. When you say, "friendly," it just presents me with a less risky method to the same end. A coward would run away. A coward would say, "friendly," because they're scared of losing their shit. I was perfectly content to have a firefight and risk death. You just provided me with a better opportunity.

There is a trail of 'honorable' corpses in my wake, therefor, from my perspective 'honor' is not a selected trait in a post-apocalyptic zombie hellscape.

You know notSLICK, it would be easy to dismiss OP as a basement dwelling, discount sociopath with a neckbeard and questionable hygiene, but it misses an essential truth: namely that in reality there are people who are monsters. True game theory has provided an evolutionary forcing mechanism that encourages mutualism, but some people are monsters irrespective. The problem is, in DayZ they respawn.

Again, I'm not a monster, I'm a pragmatic opportunist. I have no philisophical or moral qualms with cooperation or mutualism. I've played 900+ hours of L4D/2 in my lifetime (a game where cooperation and teamwork is essential). The problem is that in DayZ there is no benefit to cooperation with strangers, unless you are a newbie and can't handle your own shit. If my goal is to live as long as possible or kill those who try to kill me, I literally have nothing to gain from grouping with strangers except an early death.

I partially think this is because survival is too easy and communication is too difficult. Nobody who has played more than a couple days dies from starvation or dehydration, and randomly bumping into strangers is not a good way to find like-minded individuals. Also, being able to change your player name at any time negates the ability to build a reputation as an asshole who should be shot on sight.

If in my experience, playing nice with others benefitted me more, believe me, I would be doing it.

Edited September 4, 2012 by Obsolescence

[Sgt.Asshat 607]

I love it when a kid does this. and then starts to cry when he turns his back and im hacking away at his head with my axe. lovely way to get your first gun from spawn :)

There was this french kid with an akm. he was going to shoot me but he needed blood so he said friendly and lead me to hospital to get him a blood bag, he placed a blood bag on the floor and went prone and looked away to guard, this was my time to pull out my axe from my tool belt and reload it. i love some people ;)

[Xucphra 453]

Just because you like to take part in that sort of thing doesn't mean everyone else will. I've deliberately run out to find "friendly" players and made some good friends doing so. Don't condemn all of DayZ to a shoot on sight mentality just because you yourself believe that is the only way to do things.

Of course it's dangerous, but that makes it interesting.

[FrankTheDuck 99]

I went to the effort today to give a freshly spawned player a gun (Was only a remington but I trying to get rid of it) I placed it on ground saluted him and walked away...

BANG BANG BANG

Dead, Coyote backpack and m24 gone.

Time and time again I tell my self never trust any one. Yet I continually trust people. For some reason I find it hard to gun down an unarmed or not well equipped player, Despite how many times it has lead to my death

[kebman 213]

Simple, don't be stupid. Put your good gear in a tent before interacting with potentially dangerous and ravenously hungry survivors.

[Leezeebub 7]

Damn i can tell im going to die alot in this game lol

Would rather work with People than kill them... Obviously i want shootouts with bandits but i was hoping the community would be abut 50/50 Surviror to murderer ratio. Oh well at least now i have a better idea of how cautious to be, and to be fair, even I was planning to kill a trusting randomer just for fun at some point :P

[Obsolescence 129]

I went to the effort today to give a freshly spawned player a gun (Was only a remington but I trying to get rid of it) I placed it on ground saluted him and walked away...

BANG BANG BANG

Dead, Coyote backpack and m24 gone.

Time and time again I tell my self never trust any one. Yet I continually trust people. For some reason I find it hard to gun down an unarmed or not well equipped player, Despite how many times it has lead to my death

You're crazy to turn your back on someone you dont know when you have the best backpack and an m24. I couldnt have picked up and loaded that remmington fast enough. Just back away slowly while aiming at the newbie so you can defend yourself.

[TheDesigner 1197]

I went to the effort today to give a freshly spawned player a gun (Was only a remington but I trying to get rid of it) I placed it on ground saluted him and walked away...

BANG BANG BANG

Dead, Coyote backpack and m24 gone.

Time and time again I tell my self never trust any one. Yet I continually trust people. For some reason I find it hard to gun down an unarmed or not well equipped player, Despite how many times it has lead to my death

Well, that's your fault. It takes skill to be a hero, not stupidity. Turning your back on a new spawn is a sure way to get killed.

[Badpanzer 4]

I have been shot by someone claiming to be friendly but I have also recieved a rifle ammo and medical treatment from several players Ive met.

Not everyone camps the shoreline shooting noobs lol

Mind you everyone was pretty careful and the gent who gifted me the gun had 4xfriends all armed to the teeth so treachery would have been suicide,in the end though I dislike shooting first,

Have no problem returning fire though :)

[bazbake 456]

In the zombie apocalypse, you would never trust someone you don't know. Now excuse me while I skype with my buddy and config Mumble to work with DayZ and figure out where on this online map we're going to meet up.

Simple, don't be stupid. Put your good gear in a tent before interacting with potentially dangerous and ravenously hungry survivors.

Exactly. Never go through unnecessary risk in this hardcore permadeath game by actually carrying your equipment on you where you can lose it. Hide it in a tent somewhere so that when you die you don't lose anything. Preferably in several tents, just in case you die multiple times. It would really suck to have to die and start over from the beginning or something.

Shit, these people are crazy. I bet if they don't find a good loot spawn, they stay on the same server and go look somewhere else instead of logging into a different server at the same location.

Edited September 3, 2012 by BazBake

[dallas 5195]

I don't trust people.

I trust solid cover.

[herrjon 478]

I try to be friendly to others. This doesn't mean I'm stupid and completely trusting. I know they're eying my gear. If I heal some, I ask them to drop their weapons and axe away from them and come to me in a secluded location. If I give out gun, I tell them they cannot pick it up for 30 sec to a minute or I will not hesitate to shoot them, and either back away facing them or run away using alt+look, watching then gun and them.

I also don't bring my best gear out when I'm helping people in Cherno. Take a Winchester or something, just a big gun to give me a little presence, but nothing that I couldn't find again within 10 minutes.

[Regor (DayZ) 4]

Yeah, I have to totally agree with Shoot On Site (SOS) tactic. I play as a one man band and adding someone else to the mix can always draw more attention then needed. Yes, it is nice to have a spotter and someone to watch your back but, two people can only double the problems such as, food or drink running out.

If I see survivors or bandits from a distance I do just that. I keep my distance, hide in the shadows, and shut the f&@* up. I never run out shooting and never ever ever run out yelling "friendly". The only "friend" is my G17 and M4A3 CC0 :-)........................

The only time I ever teamed up was when I met a Fella on the coast and we decided to travel together. He was a spry young lad, full of energy and he reminded me a little of myself. He was always asking questions seeking wisdom I guess but, little did he know what laid ahead......... I told him the we should head for the Three Valleys / Tulga area. Along the way we searched towns and farms and both had amassed a decent amount of supplies. On the outskirts of Msta we had found a random tent and my new friend had picked up a tent and AKS-74 Kobra.... So we reached an area that I sought fit for his grave, asked him "do you believe in God", and pulled the trigger..... He fell immediately and began to twitch and spew blood...... Bam! thanks for being my mule dude.... Awwww and we had such good conversations we had a good back and forth..... : (

Edited September 4, 2012 by Regor

[Steve.C 23]

Hey Obsolescence and Regor, what're your in-game names?

I'll gladly overlook my "never initiate force" rule for you two.

[gardiner83@hotmail.co.uk 14]

Been friendly to people is absolutely pointless. if they see me, I'll shot on sight, otherwise I'll leave them alone unless they're a bandit then it's cooking time.

As FrankTheDuck pointed out, You can ONLY trust your clan mates to not shoot you in the back

if you need more examples of this, look no further than youtube .... People actually post themselves been jerks...

[Regor (DayZ) 4]

Sorry my man but, IGN is not just hastily handed out.....

[bazbake 456]

It's not so much that there's no incentive to group up. It's that there's no way to stop people from entering the game with a group already created. It'd be like the Zombie Apocalypse breaking out while you and your football team were training in the mountains listening to it on the radio and working out a strategy on how to deal with things before heading back to civilization fully prepared. It's not particularly realistic, but there are a lot of elements of the game that people have found ways to completely ignore and then they're going to make fun of you for bothering to actually play the game.

From the humanity meter to the limited range of direct talk to everyone starting on the coast without their supplies, it's clear that Rocket intended for groups to be formed in-game with strangers and for a lot of risk to be involved, but not so much risk that you would give up on it. Occasionally getting shot is definitely one of those risks that was anticipated, but you were supposed to be able to identify the people who always backstabbed others.

But Vent and TS have completely circumvented his attempts to limit direct talk, players build camps with persistent storage, and people have basically cheated their way into a sense of security so resolute that they consider anyone who isn't cheating to be an idiot.

Edited September 3, 2012 by BazBake

[amaROenuZ 144]

I don't trust people on the spot when they call friendly, but your insistence that killing on sight is the only valid choice seems ill founded. I'm a hero, and I don't shoot on sight unless you're a bandit. The smart play isn't always to kill indiscriminately, but keep your wits about you when you meet a non-hostile.

[rogue246 28]

Reading the OP's story sounds like my own. I couldn't have said it better myself :)

[Steve.C 23]

Sorry my man but, IGN is not just hastily handed out.....

Weak. Is that because you're a backstabber?

Mine's Steve.C.

I'd love to put a round in you. Play a round with you, that is.

Edit: No internet tough guy. If I get killed in game, I deserve it or you're a coward. One of the two.

Edited September 4, 2012 by Steve.C

[Welch (DayZ) 756]

Being an paranoid isolationist is fun, isn't it?

I just happen to be one myself...

[sp86 508]

Here and I drive up and down the coast picking up flashlight noobs, drive them back to their bodies, other cities, wherever; giving them free gear, and medical aide. I guess without the spectrum things get boring.

[dallas 5195]

Whether you kill on sight or never shoot first, everyone dies in DayZ.

There's lots of friendlies in the cities, maybe it's even on the rise because of the sexy hero skins.

I never shoot first, but I also keep my distance to anyone with an axe or place shelves between me and the guy with the enfield in the supermarket. Lots of people are looking for the thrill of the insanely dangerous of trusting a stranger in Chernarus. The most dangerous about meeting strangers, is you have to venture into populated areas to actually meet somebody and since Cherno and Elektro is surounded by hacked AS50 TWS, the approach is way more dangerous, than the guy saying "Firendly, friendly!" in the supermarket.

Don't enter Cherno/Elektro with gear you can't aford to lose.

Don't enter Cherno/Elektro with gear that tempts weaker souls.

Trust noone blindly.

Keep distance to axes, avoid line of sight to firearms.

Start conversations from cover/safety.

Trust your instincts, but don't be too naive, trusting or paranoid.

At some point you either have to trust the stranger or escape.

None of the times I've actually established a group with a stranger, have I been killed by this person. I have been killed by snipers and other bandits, but never backstabbed.

Don't deny yourself the thrill of playing as a friendly.

[seife 3]

Haha, yesterday I had my first encounter to another player in weeks (who isnt irl friend of mine) who approached slowly to me on the open fields. I told him I was friendly and got shot some seconds later. Shame on me I wasnt even aiming at him. However I he got shot by a friend who was in the woods. Got all my stuff back and some other nice stuff. :)

Edited September 4, 2012 by Sei.Fe

[Sparks (DayZ) 14]

I understand the backstabbing, and I understand the garbage put down to justify it. If you shoot someone who tried to help you in the head, then congrats to you. Your amazing at this game. Take your loots and move north secure in the knowledge that you sure showed him. Villains are part of what makes this game interesting too.

What Dallas said is right on the money though. If you want to help someone then help them but don't be stupid about it. To many would be heroes practically kill themselves by giving out guns and things of that nature then turning their back. Cover is a wonderful thing. The trick is to ALWAYS make sure you are the one in control of the situation, if that means making them drop there guns first, bloody make them drop their gun. If they don't, blast them.

If you want to be a loner, if your convinced that you need to kill everyone to survive. Then that is how you should act. To me, this game is all about interactions between players. I have found myself actually seeking others out more and more because running around the woods has gotten so damn boring. I look forward to the next time someone tries to backstab me just as much as the next time I make a new friend. The stories that come out of it are just to damn good to pass up.

I think the main lesson to be learned from the OP is this. DO NOT TURN YOUR BACK ON SOMEONE YOU JUST MET, ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE ARMED. If they are armed and they point that gun at you, shoot them.

Edited September 4, 2012 by Sparks