DayZ (standalone)

[Art Blade]

All of the above, particularly the 1.05h lifetime, makes me wonder how people who post vids on YT manage to stay alive for 18+ days after starting the vid series which they start to upload when their characters are kitted out as if they'd just come from a military outfitter where they spent a couple thousand bucks on gear.

[Binnatics]

I also found death yesterday. After my Tea break I found no friends online and decided to try my luck and raid the airfield on my own. By then I had learnt some about loot and backpack space and also about which type of ammo belongs to which type of guns.
I was very successful looting and rapidly found good stuff for both the Sporter .22 and the M4A1 that I found. I did some interesting discoveries which I will share with you guys below:

First of all, I read somewhere online that it is pointless carrying shitloads of food and water with you, unless you lack a screwdriver or such to open your tin cans of course. This is why: Your body can consume loads and loads of food and beverages until you are really full and satisfied. The game will prompt you quickly that you're stuffed or that your belly is really full now, but that's only temporary. It doesn't mean you are well-fed or totally hydrated. There are certain values (up to 5000) to become fully fed and it is hard enough to obtain that consuming everything you find, so there's no need to carry stuff around in your backpack. Eating it means you carry it around in your stomach, which is much more economically imho.

Second, I found out you can combine amounts of bullets in your backpack. You can for example combine 20 rounds of 556 with another 20 rounds of 556 and they will occupy half the space. Although the prefab boxes of 556 ammo only hold 20 (or 30) rounds, it's thus better to empty the boxes and combine them to bigger sums of rounds in a single backpack slot. I did that discovery because I found a so-called ammo-box, that could hold 300 556 rounds in it. But there were only 10 slots inside, so I wondered how it could be possible to load so many rounds in it when a cardboard box only held 20? I found out that when you empty a magazine of 40 rounds, your inventory will place the 40 rounds all together in one slot. From that moment on I started combining ammo in piles instead of boxes and that saved me a lot of space.  :)

I practised with the sporter .22 and I found out it is really silent. And if you headshot a zombie, it will always drop dead instantly. The fire rate is very high, so itá a perfect weapon to fight zombies with, with a magazine of 30 rounds :-X :)

I also found a pristina S handgun which is auto-silenced, but I failed to find a 10/10 clip for it, although I had found one before. That would make it a perfect silenced weapon, with also the .22 rounds.

I also found excellent stuff for the M4; good scope, suppressor, light weight hand grip etc.
Finally, after looting all the military tents, I became overconfident, and left the airfield running. Stupid me, I grabbed a tin can of bacon and started eating, and then came 4 zombies :o that started rubbing their hands in my face. I got killed before I could even grab my sporter .22 :(

But the experience was really worth it, and I am longing for my next try to get a descent loadout :-D

[Art Blade]

That's sad, basically eating got you killed, but it is a funny story  :-D

The silent pistol Amphibia S is common but the ammo clip for it is very rare. I kept finding .22 mags for the sporter but never for the Amphibia.

I got killed several times over today but finally Abletile and TheAceness made it to my location where I had run to and sat there waiting for them to bring food -- I had outrun zombies but was about to starve. Acey was really thoughtful and opened cans of food on his way to me so I could just pick them up and stuff myself without even having to wait for a can opener :-() :-X

Then the three of us went off to loot a nearby settlement when we had an unexpected accident: Abletile experienced a severe lag which caused him to fall off the roof of the police station which killed him. He suggested I came to grab his gear so it wouldn't go to waste which I was very grateful and eager to do as I had not yet found anything useful.  :-X :) Unfortunately that was several kilometers away from his new spawning point.. I'm currently on my way to meet up with him again while on his way to the airport, he keeps ransacking everything that's got a door in it  :-D

[Art Blade]

I'm pleased to say that I've survived since Abletile "dropped" some gear for me (from the roof of the police station, with his dead body still clinging to it) and that I met up with Binnatics for the first time. This time I could help, giving him a saline infusion after his rather exhausting and blood-draining trip that involved pummeling a few zombies along the way to a town I happened to hang out in. The saline infusion put the colour right back onto his screen :) (excessive blood loss causes the colours to faint and the vision to get blurry and eventually you'll pass out and away)

We then trudged happily along tree lines in a crouched manner (not so fast but not so noisy, either) in order to meet up with Abletile who, unfortunately, happened to encounter yet another lag that chucked him off stairs killing him exactly when he had just geared himself up like a Christmas tree. RIP, and, here we go, Bambi. That made it unnecessary for Binnatics and me to continue to walk in the direction we were headed because Abletile was now somewhere else entirely. So we decided to pay the Devil's Castle a visit, a place which I hadn't yet seen. That's where Binnatics and I ended our today's journey and disconnected while Abletile, as I'm writing this, is still gearing up his new character and I am still in a voice chat with him.

[smg id=6786 type=preview align=center caption="DayZ 014"]
saline infusion
[smg id=6787 type=preview align=center caption="DayZ 015"]
off we go
[smg id=6788 type=preview align=center caption="DayZ 016"]
we can see the castle already
[smg id=6789 type=preview align=center caption="DayZ 017"]
that's a look to the left, couldn't leave that without taking a screenie
[smg id=6790 type=preview align=center caption="DayZ 018"]
there it is, finally
[smg id=6791 type=preview align=center caption="DayZ 019"]
night falls quickly
[smg id=6792 type=preview align=center caption="DayZ 020"]
my current character, for the first time I see the status "healthy" :)

[Dweller_Benthos]

That large "golf ball on a tee" or "lollipop" is a water storage tower. Pump the water up there when you have the power and it will gravity feed when you don't. Can you get water near there?

The thing is, it looks like an interesting game, and if I had the connection speed, I'd try it, but with the PvP being so full of jerks just trying to ruin your day, the appeal fades.

[Binnatics]

A water tower, that could indeed be a good explanation. Although I find the bas (stick) a bit small to carry that bowl full of water.
The water we can carry towards it should be such small amounts, bottles and tin cans, that it wouldn't make any difference. But cleaver thinking there, this environment does appeal to be worn out in every possible way >:D

[Art Blade]

water tower was my very first idea when I saw those but they look ridiculous. A tiny ball up there, on a thin pipe, and to prevent it from falling over, there are loads of wires attached to the ball that run from there at an angle into the ground to keep it from falling over in a storm, I suppose. A waste of space. If you think about Wild West films with their water towers at a rail station, one huge tank, or in the game JustCause2 where they have a tank on the roof of a building.. all that makes more sense to me than those lollipops :)

D_B, I wish I had the game as such for me alone, preferably without zombies right now, and just check out 230km² and find food and stuff. Once the zombies are reset to something less lethal, particularly around spawning points (whether a Bambi gets killed by or survives a zombie is probably 70/30 and I got killed by zombies several times over within say 15 minutes after spawning) I might enjoy it even with zombies.

Right now, the biggest fear are zombies followed by server-hopping loot bandits that might materialise in the same building you are in and those trolls that whack Bambies right after spawning. And of course idiots that kill just like that. So far I have been lucky, I only ran into one Russian and survived unharmed. However small that chance was, 3 people on the server, including myself, and I run into one. :D I'm just happy that it didn't end up in a slaughter :)

I try to stay away from places close to spawning points but getting away is already horrible. Basically, if you survive the first 30 Minutes, you're more or less out of the woods. Oh, no pun intended..well, I'd much rather stay in the woods, though.. visibility and such.. ;)

[Art Blade]

Today has been very successful so far. I was in the very North of the map checking out a few unnamed spots and then headed towards the NWAF (Northwest Airfield. There are two more, NEAS and SWAS which are airstrips for some reason rather than airfields) which was the first time I found a place that hadn't been looted so I found all the nice gear and TheAceness met up with me there. I was so loaded with gear I was happy to sort him out with some nice gear such as a pistol plus various magazines, loads of ammo, clips for his rifle and matching ammo. I got two ammo boxes that only use up four (2x2) slots yet contain 5x2 slots each but may only contain ammo, expanding the backpack enormously. Both are loaded with ammo of all kinds, ready to sort out Abletile and Binnatics, too ;) I got a fully kitted-out Assault rifle including suppressor with lots of magazines and a 9mm pistol, also with suppressor, and the rifle Binnatics found out was silent and great against zombies, a sporter .22 plus two magazines. A full medkit (uses 2x2 and contains 3x2 only fits medical supplies) and a yellow protection case (I think it's called) that again uses 2x2 and expands the backpack 3x2 that may be used for anything. Everything fine, so far, healthy, energised, hydrated, kitted out.. nice  :)

Here a few pics.

going cross-country
[smg id=6796 type=preview align=center caption="DayZ 021"]
which is a vast country.. very far up North here, and yet another lollipop almost on the horizon (below, centre)  ^-^
[smg id=6797 type=preview align=center caption="DayZ 022"]
approaching the airfield
[smg id=6798 type=preview align=center caption="DayZ 023"]
see the content of ONE ammo box.. there's one more in my backpack  :-()
[smg id=6799 type=preview align=center caption="DayZ 024"]
time to find a safe spot away from the airfield
[smg id=6800 type=preview align=center caption="DayZ 025"]
while still in reach.
[smg id=6801 type=preview align=center caption="DayZ 026"]
Here's some more of my current outfit. :)
[smg id=6802 type=preview align=center caption="DayZ 027"]

[TheAceness]

I must say, this is an excellent game. It is so satisfying building yourself up from starting up and staying alive, all the way to upgrading all your items to pristine. It is a shame that it is still so buggy, but updates will be coming soon I guess so I cannot really complain.

Really my only complaint is the bandits! First few minutes in the game and I was slaughtered twice *sigh*. But since then I have managed to stay alive by erring on the side of caution.

So anyway, this is me. Glad to see other posts about the game and reading your stories!

[smg id=6795 type=preview align=center caption="2014 05 06 00001 (1024x640)"]

Edit:

-snip- The thing is, it looks like an interesting game, and if I had the connection speed -snip-

Dweller, I really do not have the worlds best connection. In fact, quite the opposite. My internet is appalling. I actually use 3G on my iPad instead of WiFi because it is faster lol. Anyway, I am running the game fine.

[Art Blade]

Welcome to OWG, old friend :) good to finally have you here  ^-^ And +1 :-X for your support and all that  :-D

Keep posting, that first one made me grin quite a bit  :)

[Dweller_Benthos]

Those water towers are pretty much what they look like, there is one in a town near me that I drive by quite often, do a google image search for "golf ball water tower" and you'll see some places actually paint them like golf balls, but here's a plain one

Spoiler

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I put that in a spoiler because it's a huge picture and it doesn't seem to scale to the window size.

As for the game, it seems that my strategy of joining an empty server to get all the gear works out, then join a more populated one, though even then the PvP doesn't seem to be very attractive.

[Binnatics]

Welcome Ace!!!!  :-X Good to have you around, and good to see more and more people start to explore this game. I bet others will follow.... :-D

Art, that ammo box is brilliant. I found one myself, which was exclusively for 556 rounds, so very useful when using an assault rifle but worthless if you focus on pistols and sniper- or hunting-rifles. Yours has more potential, great! Gotta find one of those. I have a med-kit myself, and hope to find more of those space-saving tools. I actually took the same path you did, but yesterday. Able and I met close to the North-Eastern Airstrip, and later at night I was there alone. First I went to the airstrip, and there happened what was my first meeting with another, unknown player. I found out one of the buildings were opened (doors) and became cautious. When I was sneeking around, I suddenly stumbled upon a player hiding in the shadows of the building. I saw him, he moved his head, and I shot him. Later I regretted that action, but I thought; it's him or me. Better be him. Anyway, maybe this guy was friendly. Anyway, I looted his corpse, which gave me some nice ammo, and then someone else opened fire on me. I turned around, had one bullet left in my magnum so fired back, didn't look what was the result of my shot and ran off in a hurry to get myself to safety.
The guy had fired at least 5 bullets at me, and not a single one hit me, and later on I thought that maybe he was a friend of the first one, being pissed at me for killing his friend. Who knows, I didn't stay around to ask

Anyway, after that I followed the same path as you describe: From East to West all North, and came across that same location with the water tower. Found 2 can openers there ^-^ I have two pristine ones now, so if you need one give me a shout ;)

It was late at night already, so I decided to leave the airfield for what it was and go to the hill a bit to the North of it, where the map indicates a spawning point of heavy weaponry. After I fought my way through 7 zombies (that is a lot for a single building) I found an SKS there, including a 10 round loading clip. Now I have to decide whether to keep the SKS or the Blaze 95 Double Rifle, for which I have 2 quick loaders now (found them on the corpse of the player I killed :-[)

Decisions decisions This game is so totally, completely, fantastically, utterly, great, I just forgot of all the other great games I've been playing until recently, lol :)

[Art Blade]

D_B, that pic, wow  ??? :-X

Can you get water near there?

Actually, I don't know but my guess is that you can't. There are ponds and wells and water bottles (which can be filled there) instead. By the way, you can even fill a water bottle when it's raining if you've got the bottle in your hands.

And about the game, yes, I had the same idea and feel the same. Looting is actually fun if the gear is still there but the zombies are a bloody pain in the neck. And I want to avoid players at all costs if I can by playing on servers that ideally are empty.


Binnatics, heh heh heh  :-D
Yep, it really is a totally different game. There are games that make me sweat at times because of non-stop shooting action or the likes while this game doesn't, to my surprise. It is all in the head, a proper mind game. Don't worry about the guys you killed or shot. To me it sounds as if he and the other guy were already preparing to ambush you.

Funny that you took the same route and found the lollipop, even  ^-^ I had to kill roughly 10 zombies at the airfield at a certain random time and I am just glad that I had my M4. Mostly there were only a few zombies, but that time they kept popping up and running hollering at me. Bloody freak show.

The ammo box you've got is exactly of the same type that I've got and I only know of that one type. Check out my screenshot again and you'll see there's a description popping up on the right of my inventory which states, "the box has 'Contains 300 x 5.56 mm cartridges' written on it's <sic> side in yellow paint." You'll notice that you cannot put boxed ammo in it so you need to empty the boxes first and then any unboxed ammo can be placed inside. Bear in mind though that you need to open that big box ("view contents") if you want to take some out of it and then drag rounds for example onto a magazine. :)

[PZ]

D_B: I edited your post to set the width parameter in your image tag so it is now set to 600 pixels wide (that was a monster image!)

TheAceness: welcome to the forum!

I'm seriously enjoying reading the adventures of you chaps in the game, but like D_B, the antics of the internet fools prevent me from even attempting it.

[Art Blade]

monster pic, so true 

Yes, the "PvP" (player versus player) aspect is what prevents me from playing if I can't find empty or nearly empty servers. Which means, the best gaming time when everybody goes online is basically a no-go. The risks of losing everything are already insanely high even without bandits. :(

[Art Blade]

I've been browsing YT looking for some nice vids of players who play with decency and honour, like really nice people, but wherever I look, they're all bandits. They may play "nice" for some time but eventually you'll see them kill for greed, they're lying, whatever. Right now I quit watching a vid by a guy who uploaded useful vids and all that but right now he killed someone because he wanted that other guy's chest holster for his own pistol. They were three random guys who had met as poorly equipped Bambies near the beach and after walking some time and looting houses together, the YT guy noticed an empty holster on one of the guy's chest and said, "I want that holster." And, paraphrasing, "my pistol takes up space that I could use for something else." It took some time for that guy to react, he didn't have a mic, and that YT guy grew impatient and just shot him with a shotgun. The usual argument ensued, excuses and all that, and he killed the guy, took the holster, saying something like, "I didn't want to do that, why didn't he just drop that holster. It wasn't lag, I didn't have lag." And all that. What the hell.. I guess most of the people we see on YT who are really kitted out to the max got their stuff by killing other geared-up players and taking from them what they could use until they got everything they wanted.

By comparison, our merry group here IS decent. We've taken care of one another, we collect stuff for ourselves and for our friends and share what we've got so everyone is and stays happy. It is just so nice when someone drops gear for you that he had looted somewhere just for you. You know what the guys went through getting it. And it is a pleasure to repay them with stuff you find that you know they want or need. Helping and sharing good gear is just so much more rewarding. Or, those saline infusions. It was just so great when Abletile put me back on my feet with one and it was equally great when I was able to put Binnatics back on his feet with one.

I guess that's what makes the difference.. we're OWG  :)

[PZ]

Your story reminds me of any of a number of post apocalyptic movies, one in particular, [imdb]The Postman[/imdb] with Kevin Costner

There always seems to be a group of moral ethical individuals, and a group of dirt bags.

[Binnatics]

Indeed, well said! :-X

I have some nice stuff to give away now. Along the way I found 2 quickloaders for .00 shotgun ammo, 2 quickloaders for 7,62x51mm rounds for the blaze 95 double barrel. Also have 60 7,62x51mm rounds, safely kept away in my, yes indeed, 2 ammo boxes I found ^-^

I have an Amphibia S gun, without any clip or attachment, hoping for finding some of these along the way or, find the right gun for my pistol suppressor and 15 45ACP clip. Both pristine 8)
I hope that I can turn one of those into a silent gun with at least 10 rounds before reloading is required. That would be handy fighting zombies in crowded areas, like I used to do with the Sporter .22.
I don't want to carry that rifle around anymore since I'm hoping to make either my SKS or a soon to be found Mosin into a proper sniper with good zoom. But scopes for those rifles are pretty hard to find.

I have currently equipped an SKS with pristine bayonet and I found 3 10 round clips for that. I could use some ammo though, only have 8 extra rounds.
Besides I have the Magnum and I have one quickloader for that. Hope to find a second one. The magnum with a quickloader is guaranteed to keep zombies at safe distance, although the sound of the gun will attracts all nearby zombies to come looking for you. Today I raided the airfield again, went for the massive row of hangars this time. I was lucky no other players were around, but I guess I've killed at least 25 zombies along the way.

I am going to change my name into [OWG]BinnZ. I see many have their "private" game server and play together there. No idea how to get that arranged, but it seems impossible to get it really private. Since they warn others not to join like "join=kick". Other servers are always 'sunny' and with 'good loot'. It would be nice if we could set up our own server ;)

[Art Blade]

PZ:
I don't know that film. Dirtbags emerge everywhere if and when there is no one strong enough to prevent them from getting started. Unfortunately, it is far easier to destroy than to build, which is why most people tend to violence and unlawful behaviour. Games are a good mirror of the real world's society and human behaviour in a game is distilled to pure and simple forms. The good and the bad, the stupid and the smart, the cautious and the reckless.. and most of the time, what we consider "generally positive" is a minority. I reckon "gently smart" is perhaps 1/10 while the rest is basically "violently stupid." It has never been easy to be good.  :-D

Binnatics:
I've got all you need for a Mosin, except the biped. I've even got a pristine long range scope.. and a few more for it, plus loads of ammo. I think I can sort you out with the rest somehow, too :) Given that all of us survive until we meet again, that is  :-()

If I were you, I wouldn't use a name tag in that game as you'll stand out as a "clan" member which I'd always consider a bandit clan so it makes you even more of a target if anyone notices. I much rather want you to stay alive without it ;)

Servers at this stage can only be hired. No private servers allowed, so far. I've noticed some server hosting companies demand around $US 50.- or some €40.- and as far as I can tell there are only three companies allowed to host them.

[Art Blade]

I was just thinking about two things:

1) Running around with really proper gear, everyone can see that we're geared-up which basically renders us walking supply units: Shop all you want, to be paid with a bullet through our heads. Or, we pose a threat to everyone just because we're all geared-up. They've got to think that we're professional bandits. It's a shame, one way or another, we've basically got no choice but to keep a low profile, literally. Walk crouched, stay out of sight, don't make noise.. and stay alive.

Which leads to

2) I'd absolutely love to play on a password-protected server to keep out scum.

[Abletile]

Great read guys. I left Binnatics at the NE Airfield and am fully equipped. I was expecting to play a bit more but have been hectic at w@&k and personal stuff  :-(. Should be online tonight htough  :-D

I would love to play on our own private, passworded server!

[Dweller_Benthos]

The one youtuber I've been watching is BdoubleO100, who plays with his real life brother. They are very funny and don't play too seriously. But they so far haven't killed anyone for no reason and generally just muck around and have a good time, or try to until someone else ruins it. Bu generally they don't try to get in fights with other players unless the other ones start it first.

[Binnatics]

That is a proper way of playing. But I must say the fact that other players are out there also adds up the amount of danger / excite / fun and I would get bored rapidly if there were only zombies to protect yourself against. If you're fully equipped it's so easy to stay alive that the game would loose its potential. There's got to be more threat than just some simple running enemies that always give you a warning sign before they attack you....

But later on there will be missions and who knows what more developed, so then it would at least be good to have a proper separation between violent players and friendly, teaming players. That also demands some sort of punishment for those who misbehave on the wrong servers, but until now I'm glad I have human presence around. Even if it means danger ;)

[Art Blade]

What annoys me is that most players turn the game into a free for all deathmatch game while it is supposed to be a survival horror game, emphasis on survival as in find food, hunt, cook, find medicine because there will be diseases such as cholera from unclean water and such. I'd also appreciate a place where to store some of the loot so not everything will be lost every time you die.

[PZ]

Tell them to play COD online