DayZ, a zombie mod for ArmA2 - Now standalone on Steam Early Access

[thesoup]

I might join as well.

 

[Sranchammer]

Where will you be meeting?

 

[thesoup]

On Ventrilo. We'll go from there.

 

[villain of the story]

You guys go ahead. I'm being fucked out of my brain by a horrible toothache. I can't think straight, much less play. If anyone needs anything, let me know and I'll try to stash goods in a central spot in a server. That's the most I can do in this state.

 

[thesoup]

Just drug yourself and take it like a man.

 

[CreamyBlood]

Had to work anyways. Reschedule.

 

[Darklife]

Curse you people and your false promises of wanton destruction!

 

[Scruffy]

Right, so…
My name is idonthavetimeforthisdex and I’m starting out to understand how stuff works.
I can’t seem to be able to find a weapon anyway. I found car wheels and scrap metal and tin cans and windshields (who cares for windshields anyway?), but not a single crappy gun nor anything. I have a hunting knife, but it would be too obvious to use it to, you know, stab stuff, being in a survival situation and all. Also, apparently I am a huge fag who can’t drink directly with his hands or something, I need a can to drink some water.
Aside from that, the game is fun, although I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong since I crouch around (walking, not running) but fucking zombies run towards me from the edge of the screen for apparently no reason.
So, here’s a couple questions.
Is there a “way” to recognize if I can get into a building or not from afar? I do realize that most of the buildings you can get into have already their door open, but that’s not always the case. And I hate sneaking around for 20 minutes just to realize that I can’t get into that specific building.
I found this dead guy, and the animation clearly showed an axe on his side, but when I “open” his inventory, he’s empty. Clicking around the axe does nothing either. Is it just the animation or am I doing something wrong? I seem to understand that when I click on something to pick it up, the number on the left side is the number of things on the ground and the number on the right side is the number of the stuff in my inventory. But there’s no “axe” voice when I click on this dead guy.
Should I pick up the scrap metal and wheels and shit? How do I recognize vehicles that can be repaired? Is there any sort of “trade” market where I can barter my rotor blades or whatever the fuck that thing is with a can of food? Or is the trade system “I shoot you and get your stuff”?
Also, is there any way to get hold of a map? Cause when I open the map, I just get a black screen.
And lastly, Russians don’t have running water in their houses? Really?

 

[Pika-Cthulhu]

Right, so…
My name is idonthavetimeforthisdex and I’m starting out to understand how stuff works.
I can’t seem to be able to find a weapon anyway. I found car wheels and scrap metal and tin cans and windshields (who cares for windshields anyway?), but not a single crappy gun nor anything. I have a hunting knife, but it would be too obvious to use it to, you know, stab stuff, being in a survival situation and all. Also, apparently I am a huge fag who can’t drink directly with his hands or something, I need a can to drink some water.
Aside from that, the game is fun, although I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong since I crouch around (walking, not running) but fucking zombies run towards me from the edge of the screen for apparently no reason.
So, here’s a couple questions.
Is there a “way” to recognize if I can get into a building or not from afar? I do realize that most of the buildings you can get into have already their door open, but that’s not always the case. And I hate sneaking around for 20 minutes just to realize that I can’t get into that specific building.
I found this dead guy, and the animation clearly showed an axe on his side, but when I “open” his inventory, he’s empty. Clicking around the axe does nothing either. Is it just the animation or am I doing something wrong? I seem to understand that when I click on something to pick it up, the number on the left side is the number of things on the ground and the number on the right side is the number of the stuff in my inventory. But there’s no “axe” voice when I click on this dead guy.
Should I pick up the scrap metal and wheels and shit? How do I recognize vehicles that can be repaired? Is there any sort of “trade” market where I can barter my rotor blades or whatever the fuck that thing is with a can of food? Or is the trade system “I shoot you and get your stuff”?
Also, is there any way to get hold of a map? Cause when I open the map, I just get a black screen.
And lastly, Russians don’t have running water in their houses? Really?

K, first thing you want is to dropt he Scrap metal, car tyres, windshield and fuel parts. They are used to repair vehicles, but you need a Toolbox (Tool item) to do so, oh, and a vehicle. You want to get a Hatchet, a crowbar will do temporarily, but a Hatchet is a silent one hit KO on zombies, if you find a gun, decide if you want to use that or not (can draw more zombies from hearing the shot, players also)

Eventually you will get an idea of which buildings you can enter in which town, but that comes with time, for the meanwhile http://dayzdb.com/ is a handy resource, Blue dots are Residential (small/med/large) Green are Agriculture, Yellow Industrial Red Military (higher chance of weapons, and possibly death) You will have to get used to knowing where to look for item spawns, and the spawns themselves might not even spawn a thing. Some buildings you will have to look in the door entryway, some you can enter inside, dog houses seemt o bug out on me and spawn up and to the left in midair where I cant access the items, and toilets will kill you by breaking your legs, however you can loot from outside if you waddle around looking for the gear option, or go prone and aim down and wiggle the mouse, just dont shut the door on yourself.

Trade is mostly kill and take stuff in my experience, as for a map you will have a better chance in a supermarket once you have a weapon, but players can be found there also. Industrial spawns will mostly give stuff for repairing vehicles, but a good chance of getting a hatchet, to equip it you need to 'remove from toolbelt' and then 'reload' it once its in your hands. To replace it in the toolbelt 'put in toolbelt' should to, it takes a primary weapon role. For backpacks, try to get a hold of an Alice pack, its fair decent and the second best backpack in game and it can spawn in them killer outhouses/random houses. Farms are a good place for hatchets too, firearms as well, and food, military is a great source for firearms or ammo, deer stands are handy, however mind the military zombies, they appear to hit me harder than normal ones, but are still as dumb as a rock. To drink water from a pond/water pump you need an empty canteen/flask, its handy in that it can be refilled, but it will take up an inventory slot, a soft drink will disappear and free a slot.

If you can find a server with a night timezone, you can crouchwalk around towns freely looting so long as you are careful enough not to attract a zombie, I think I spent half an hour in one starter town skirting from building to building waiting for shit to spawn/bored and hatcheting zombies to death. Last few nights have been quite bright.

Oh, do mind your bodyheat at night, you can get sick if you let yourself get too cold, a box of matches and a hatchet (and forest)/pile of wood can be used to create a fireplace, however its very bright and telegraphs your location easily, I lit a fire inside a house one time to cook meat and didnt wake a up a zombie, but I put it out right away. That hunting knife can be used to 'gut animals' of their meat once you kill them. Kill animal, approach corpse select 'gut animal' then either 'take raw meat' to take meat one at a time (depending on animal, Bunny rabbit is 1 meat, Sheep is 5, cow is 8, forgot pig and goat) or 'gear' and it opens up an inventory menu where you can loot them faster. All meat will cook in a fireplace (have matches and pile of wood in your inventory, right click matches 'create fireplace', step back target it and 'light fire') at once, so if you have 5 in your inventory and 4 in your backpack, only the 5 will cook with the one action. Im probably confusing you because im not making much sense anymore.

Any further questions im sure others will gladly help out. Happy hunting.

Edit. Be sure to check dispatched zombies inventories for food/bandages/drink, you dont need to full inspect, just scroll the mouse over them to check if something lights up 'take pepsi/baked beans/bandage' or something like that, then you can either use the take command, or gear and transfer it if inventory tetris is an issue. Be mindful of backpacks eating guns, if you have a gun in your backpack (Primary takes 10 slots, handgun 5?) take the weapon out of the backpack to replace the one in your hands is the safe way to get it out, if you try to cram it in, it may destroy one of the weapons. The numbers that display at the top of the inventory menu 3/8, the 3 is how many free slots are left in the backpack, so you can put 3 more non weapon items inside (Hatchet is a tool and takes 1 slot, havent packed a crowbar, not sure how many it takes)

 

[Darklife]

You can almost always find guns in houses and barns, don't bother with the industrial areas at first, as they hold mostly vehicle parts and you won't see one for a long time, if ever.

There are two approaches to avoiding zombies. You can either be a sneaky little fuck and crawl around everywhere or you can just run in like crazy and loose them by breaking their line of sight. The key to both strategies is utilizing buildings that have two entrances, as zombies slow down to a crawl inside them. This is also useful for killing them if you want to.

You'll quickly learn which building models are enterable. Generally there's the two story red brick houses, longish wooden cabins with yellow windows, barns and those old town homes. There's a couple more, but those are the ones you'll find the most.

You repair vehicles by putting the crap into their inventory, but like I said, vehicles are usually hoarded up in the woods and I've only run into a few so far.
There are no official trade areas, but one group has been trying to organize meetings for that sort of crap. From what I heard it's been going quite well, apart from the hacker invasions. Here's their site: http://freesidetrading.co/index.php?forum/

You can find maps like any other loot, along with a watch and a compass, but most of the time it's easier and quicker to just alt tab to the internet one.

This map shows you all of the enterable buildings, by type: http://sticed.com/dayz/

Here is a general tutorial for newcomers: http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/50-guide-newbie-survivor-version-120/

This one covers the atrocious inventory system: http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/691-guide-gearinventory/

In general, once you get your bearings you should get away from the coast ASAP, while Chernogorsk and Elektro are great places to kit up fast, everybody else knows this as well, so you're likely to get killed. Head north, try to go from deerstand to deerstand - they spawn military loot for some reason, and initially avoid areas like Stary Sobor and the airfields, as they're usually crawling with bandits.

You should also check out the DayZ wiki, they've got info on pretty much everything on there. http://www.dayzwiki.com/wiki/Main_Page

Edit: Damn, too slow.

 

[Scruffy]

thanks guys
yeah i obviously thought of an out of game maps but it sort of felt like breaking the spirit of the game...

 

[Darklife]

I felt that way too, but sooner or later you'll memorize most of the map anyway

 

[Scruffy]

I’m rationalizing this in this way: if I’m in this area, it’s probably because it’s where I used to live before the apocalypse. So using a map is ok as a substitute of the knowledge my character has of the area. I’m already LARPING, that mean I’m really liking this game. Also, I’m a huge neckbeard clearly.

 

[Darklife]

Well if you go that route, you could also say that your guy washed up on the beach drunk from some cruiseship and ended up on some terrible, terrible island.

 

[Scruffy]

NO U

 

[thesoup]

So I think I got infected. I was in the middle of nowhere, my temperature started blinking and now my blood drops by 3 every other second. I think I need antibiotics.

 

[CreamyBlood]

Time to do a a hospital smash and grab. Haven't played in a few days, wonder if we have any vehicles left?

 

[villain of the story]

Don't you worry, thesoup. Infection won't kill you. Hemorrhage will stop at 4000 blood. I'll see about doing a hospital run. It may take more effort than smash and grab because antibiotics don't always spawn the first time. Then we'd have to move all the loot for new ones to spawn.

And let this be a lesson to all: always keep at least one heatpack on you.

 

[Darklife]

Don't antibiotics have a drop rate of like 2% ? If so, you'll be spending a lot of time in a very exposed area.

I'll be on vent if you're going to need someone to run around and distract the zeds.

 

[villain of the story]

Uncle VOTS got some presents for you:

(I was killed by a tree)

 

[Outlander]

Just dropping this here:

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/dayz-officially-goes-standalone/

 

[villain of the story]

I guess they realised that the zombie apoc MMO market might be flooded soon so better to act soon. Otherwise, I remember him talking about taking it slow and only going standalone once he nailed down every design aspect.

It will be interesting to see how they will handle the networks. Right now, they are icing on the cake with players providing their own servers.

RGO Frag Grenade? Hacked in items?

 

[Monk]

Thanks! Also,

http://dayzdev.tumblr.com/post/28904791570/the-end-of-the-beginning

 

[villain of the story]

Anyway, thesoup, if you want antibiotics fast, I can give you within the hour. I found a bike in the server I found the antibiotics and it's dark atm, few other players, so it should be easy. But the sun will be up soon.

 

[MetalCraze]

Dean Hall said it will be Minecraft model

Which means:

Servers will not be official and standalone will never get finished hurrrrr