Perhaps DayZ is not the game for you, but since you have ArmA2 and the OA expansion, have you thought about joining us for Military Monday and Tactical Thursday? The log in is generally quick and we work as a team, though there is the occasional friendly fire.

Everyone who just starts tries to be nice to everyone. Then they get ganked. Then they get mad because they lost everything they spent so much time collecting.



Try being evil.... and if you have friends, make a gang.



Oh and then start repairing a bus with your gang and start running people over. MWHAHAHAHA



Ok I don't know what I'm talking about.

Yep, this mod is definitely something special, more of an experiment than a game. I started by joining other people a lot. It was fun, but there was a tendency for at least one group member to behave recklessly and draw every zombie horde to us. Still, this created some fun moments of dealing with everything going down to hell and the aftermath if you survived.

Lately, I find it simply impossible to do that, because in the majority of cases, other players just give it a limited time before they just put a bullet in your neck when you're not looking at them. So I've switched to playing the solo, hermit survivor. I watch other players from far, avoid them - it's sometime just entertaining to see what they're up to. But Chernarus is not as big as it seems once you start to do that. You start to go round and round the map pretty quick (I never thought Chernarus would ever feel "small" when travelling on foot, but DayZ made it happen), so maybe I'll get bored after all - in which case I'd say it's probably best to take a break now before being entirely done with the concept and come back in a couple of months or more when (1) some braindead players (or 12 years old) brought in by the hype are gone and (2) more features are in. In this regard, I hope we'll see some more mechanisms favouring cooperation.

I've found that I've done quite a bit of reading while waiting to get into a game. This isn't necessary a bad thing.

I started out by being friendly to everyone but after God knows how many deaths I've become much more wary in approach.

If I do team up I like to do it for a little while and then part ways after getting some new gear. And that's the issue; as you get better equipment the paranoia increases exponentially

Agree with a lot of the comments here. Once you get past the getting killed early on and losing the first bits of gear you collect you change the way you play. I trust no-one but i am not keen on going bandit and just popping guys ...yet I am just trying to stay alive atm, see how long i can last. I would like to set a supply stash but can not find a cool place to pitch my tent where it wont get either ripped off or some guy will stalk it and kill me as i go back for gear.Paranoid , yes. I would really have to think long and hard about going to help someone out now and if i do decide to i will not be doing it unless they drop their weapon. I find Cherno and Elektro are just hot spots for getting sniped and that whole coastline is pretty much a bad zone.

Treat them like Walmart shoppers, how many Walmartites would you trust to walk behind you when you have a loaded pack with goodies ?

Stay in the treeline, walk quiet, head down to bigger villages/cities only to quickly grab some gear and get back up to cover. Binoc or scope everything out every minute or so. Trust nobody.... NOBOOOOODY!!!

Wow I think me and Dave are the only two people on the internet who DON'T like DayZ. (or at least on SimHQ) That's definitely nothing new for me, because it seems like I'm ALWAYS the odd man out when it comes to stuff...

I forgive the server issues, but I figure those are more due to the massive popularity than the Alpha status.

I learned to forgive the bandits because I figured that's actually a more fun way to play if you don't have a group.

Personally I find the game incredibly dull. I love the zombie survival genre, but after 20 minutes of DayZ I'm bored out of my mind.

There was one night I was playing, and I managed to fill up an ALICE pack with food and water, and I had the Winchester and a decent supply of ammo. I was "safely" tucked away in a barn at night. I sat there and I wondered, "now what?" Sit in this barn until I run out of food? This was during the time where if you fired your gun, you'd get 20 zombies on your butt within seconds, so it wasn't any fun to go out zombie killing. As far as I could see there weren't any human players nearby to go kill either. I couldn't really see the point in trying to stay alive as long as possible if I was going to be bored to death doing so. It seems to be missing something. There needs to be something more to this. I'm just not sure WHAT.

Maybe it would be more fun in a group, but at the same time if the basic game mechanics bore you, what help would a group be?

It seems to me that players pretty much have to make their own fun in this mod. You practically have to make a game within the game.

It kind of irritates me a bit how so many people are raving about the game being like the greatest thing ever, because I just don't see it... I don't begrudge anyone for liking it though, it's just one of those difference in opinion things.

There's a lot of other little things about it I don't like, for example "fast zombies" and the awkwardness of the zombies and their attacks in the mod. I watched a zombie earlier today swinging away at me from 2-3 meters away, and I just sat there watching him for several seconds. He never hit me, and I was standing still. (and yet other times they smack you through walls) I think the limitations of the ARMA 2 engine are going to prevent the mod from living up to the perceived potential that people say it has.

Having said all that, I'm still curious about the mod's development and I generally try out the latest updates to see how they are. Problem for me is it all comes back to the basics which I don't find to be very fun.

i suppose i should give back partial credit since it is Alpha.

I still can't see people robbing you after you die improving upon final release though. Kinda reminds me of Evo in Arma1. Spend all that time getting out there only to get fragged by some idiot on your team who wasn't paying attention.

Whether they rob you or not you die, you lose your stuff.

Yup, i think that's one of the things people don't understand. You don't have one character with multiple lives, you have a single survivor, and once that survivor is dead, they're dead. There isn't anything to carry over because your new character is a different, new, survivor.

I agree with HogDriver. I think DayZ would be approved by the addition of a 'goal.' Even the most open-world games still have defined goals in them. It's important to have something to work towards.

For anyone who remembers (or maybe still plays) the game 'nethack,' the ultimate goal was to get to the bottom of the dungeon, get the Amulet of Yendor, then work your way all the way back to the exit. This was not a simple proposition, as dying in nethack was easy, easy, easy. But you kept trying to go down, because there WAS a final goal, and maybe you could eventually ascend your character and become part of a very select few players who've ever done it. And the experience was fun in the mean time.

Something like that would work in DayZ, maybe. Just like Nethack, every time you die you get a new survivor. So you should be able to potentially 'ascend' each survivor, too: in this case, they need to be able to escape Chernarus! Survivors who have built helicopters shouldn't be strafing people in Chernogorsk -- they should be high-tailing it out of the country. Once you've succeeded, you get a new survivor and try it again. Human players mean it's a unique experience every time.

Seems like that would make it more interesting.