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

[WhiteGuts]

DayZ actually feels like survival, whereas Rust is more of multiplayer deathmatch.

 

[Indranys]

Angry much?

Damn, I had a strong shit yesterday.
Sorry man.
No wonder a lot of people died after drinking that shit.
Lesson learned I guess.

DayZ has a lot of potential, so let's hope the bugs won't be too bad this time.

 

[Zewp]

Let's hope they hurry the fuck up and fix the most important things. The new patch is apparently adding shotguns and spraypaint, but no word yet on when the broken zombie, loot spawn and zombie collision will be fixed.

 

[Darklife]

Fuck that shit! Spraypaint man! SPRAYPAINT!

 

[Surf Solar]

Spraypaint? Inbefore swastikas and penises all over the place

 

[MapMan]

I got ARMA 2 and Arrowhead in weekly bundle. Is the mod worth playing? I shall I just fuck it and wait for the standalone?

 

[Darklife]

Aw hell I might give this a whirl, if only because handcuffing people seems to be fairly amusing.

 

[CSM]

 

[Peter]

Started playing standalone today. Core mechanics already more polished than the mod, though that's not saying much. Having great fun.

Jesus Christ, the zombies kick my ass, though. Tips on dealing with these fuckers? Their sense are so insane that I can barely ever sneak past one, which was not a problem in the mod, and the melee system is so borked that there's a high chance I won't survive a 1v1 fight unless I have an axe or something. I'll readily admit I'm not the best player but FFS Looting runs in the mod were tense, but doable. Here it feels fucking impossible.

Am I just a baby or have any of you found viable ways of dealing with these guys?

 

[WhiteGuts]

Stay away from them. I think they are overpowered to make up for the short numbers of zombies in the world.

Also, Rocket said that military loot will be incredibly rare once they've introduced more "common" weapons like spears, bows...etc. This I'm hyped for.

 

[SoupNazi]

Zombies take a lot of time before they notice you. If you have an axe or a knife, run up to them, quickly axe/stab them in the head and they'll be dead in one shot. Make sure to do it in first person as 3rd person aiming is not reliable for melee.

I'm not sure if you can kill them with blunt weapons. You can knock them down if you punch them in the head though

 

[MapMan]

I tried to play the mod but... Well, I played only for a bit but I still havn't grasped the gameplay. I mean, okay, I spawn (starting gear depends on a server), there are some zombies that never loose aggro and unless I find a weapon first Im fucked (???). Then there are other players, which all open fire on sight, which turns this into a (heavyli lagged) deathmatch with a scavenge for weapons. Is that all there is to this game?

 

[WhiteGuts]

Zombies lose aggro when you break their line of sight.

But it's not supposed to be deathmatch, no.

 

[theSavant]

Oh man, I was dying for this standalone game, but all these delays eventually resulted in losing my interest completely. You still following this? Even "7 days to die" looks more interesting meanwhile.

 

[SoupNazi]

Oh man, I was dying for this standalone game, but all these delays eventually resulted in losing my interest completely. You still following this? Even "7 days to die" looks more interesting meanwhile.

I was completely disinterested. Hell, I didn't even care about the mod and found it a stupid devaluation of all the things ArmA itself was. Then I stumbled into a "roleplay" server that was, in its essence, a server with a rule against killing on sight, so you would first have to interact with other players and have an actual reason to shoot them (it could have been a stupid reason, like them having food and being unwilling to share it with you).

This changed my biggest complaint with the game that, as you mentioned, was basically a huge and slow deathmatch.

With the standalone, gameplay mechanics are now implemented to try and alleviate the deathmatch nature of the game. If you just plain outright shoot someone, chances are that most of the items will be destroyed, so if you want to get their gear, food or whatever, you are better off robbing them at gunpoint (you can cuff players). Of course you can shoot them afterwards but not a lot of people will do that, surprisingly. Then you have the people who are already geared up and will just shoot you for the fun of it...

What I find fun about the standalone now is actively looking for these bandit groups at the places they would usually camp and eradicating them, which is surprisingly easy as most of these groups are not organized enough to post up a sentry behind them to cover their backs (probably because it's an extremely boring thing to do). So that's basically what I do now.

 

[Menckenstein]

HYUK HYUK WE POACHED EVERYONE FROM ARMA 3 AND USED THE EARLY ACCESS MONIES TO FUND THIS MOD AND WE WILL USE THE EARLY ACCESS MONIES FROM THIS MODALONE TO TRY TO FIX ARMA 3 BURRRP

 

[Steve]

Started playing standalone today. Core mechanics already more polished than the mod, though that's not saying much. Having great fun.

Jesus Christ, the zombies kick my ass, though. Tips on dealing with these fuckers? Their sense are so insane that I can barely ever sneak past one, which was not a problem in the mod, and the melee system is so borked that there's a high chance I won't survive a 1v1 fight unless I have an axe or something. I'll readily admit I'm not the best player but FFS Looting runs in the mod were tense, but doable. Here it feels fucking impossible.

Am I just a baby or have any of you found viable ways of dealing with these guys?

Don't bother with them unless you have the firefighter axe, it's the only melee weapon that has guaranteed one hit kill. They're pretty easy to deal with even if you don't have a decent melee weapon as they have to stop for their attack animation.

 

[Peter]

Yeah, got the hang of it quickly enough. Now I just go straight for them with the fire axe whenever I see one.

Played this so much over the weekend. Got a Magnum with 90 bullets for it, and haven't fired a single shot yet. I stopped playing the mod right around the time melee weapons were introduced, so that's been an interesting shift in the gameplay for me. Still no very nice gear despite a visit to the NW airfield. Looking forward to exploring the N part of the map and paying a visit to Svetlojarsk.

They really need to get zombie/item spawning figured out before anything else. Sadly, by going Early Access, they've sort of forced themselves into a situation where they need to roll out fairly considerable content updates on a regular basis. I really, really hope they keep their priorities straight, but I guess with such a stupid fanbase giving feedback, they may very easily go off-track. Fingers crossed that doesn't happen.

Even "7 days to die" looks more interesting meanwhile.

All the other zombie survival shit like Rust and 7 Days to Die seem, like, way, way too gamey and Minecraft-inspired, with the run n' gun gameplay, kooky resource-gathering, crafting and building, and general survival mechanics. Admittedly, I've never played them, but that's simply the impression I get. DayZ, meanwhile, kinda nails the survivalist stuff, or at least seems to be on the path to nailing it. Even at the crappy state it's in now, it's endlessly more appealing to me than those other games, both tonally and mechanically.

 

[Karm Veland Morelake]

Is that all there is to this game?

Yes, it's one of those new anti-gameplay games, you basically just hike around doing nothing while once every few hours you meet someone and instantly die or kill him.

 

[WhiteGuts]

^Loads of bullshit.

 

[Darklife]

^Loads of bullshit.

How is he mistaken? That is exactly what the game amounts to.

 

[Surf Solar]

I have met plenty of people and had fun playing with them. Occassionally forming small caravans on the fly, helping out or escorting new players, helping others to fend off bandits etc.
I've died more times to glitches than to enemy gunfire. So this last statement is simply not true.

 

[WhiteGuts]

DayZ tends to be a deathmatch shooter if you play it as a deathmatch shooter, wow strange.

Otherwise, as Surf Solar stated it can be pretty fun even in its current state. Still, I can understand that having some unfortunate encounters when you're new can bias you against the game.

 

[SoupNazi]

My experiences with the Standalone so far (playing hardcore servers mostly):

1) Wake up west of Elektro. Run straight to Balota AF to get some sweet loot, since I'm a freshspawn I'm running in the middle of the road. By the gas station just past Cherno, see a fully equipped guy in the distance. I stop and put my hands up to signify I'm unarmed, a freshspawn and mean no harm.

He shoots me without an afterthought.

2) Respawn. Solnichniy town. Bunch of dudes and girls in the middle of the road beating the crap out of each other. The last one standing asks me "dude can you hit me in the face?" I do it, he gets knocked out and thanks me. I'm stuck far away from any decent loot spawns and all my potential friends just killed each other.

3) Run to Elektro. See a guy on the firestation tower roof with a Mosin shooting freshspawns. Find a revolver and very little ammo for it and decide to sneak up and take him out, only to find out he had a friend in the other fire station covering him. You are dead.

4) Respawn just west of Elektro. Run there, sneak up on the second guy, hit him with a baseball bat - one hit KO. Just as I'm taking his Mosin to try and shoot the first guy, he shoots me first (obviously they were communicating via TS or something).

5) Respawn. Solnichniy factory. Might as well jump off the roof.

6) Respawn. Berezhino. FUCK. Jumping off the constructions site.

7) Respawn. Novy Sobor. What the hell? Eh, great spawn when you think about it. Run to Stary, looks like nobody looted it yet. Enter a house, look to my left, there's a guy. Felt like I had a heart attack in real life. I yell into the mic in shock, he apologizes and tells me he checked the south side of town already so I shouldn't waste my time. I thank him and head to the military base near Vybor.
I get inside the HQ building, go upstairs and see the upstairs door closed. Everything else is open. It's night, I only have a flashlight and good clothes including a vest. I open the door from the side and shots immediately come through.
"I'm friendly! I have nothing but a flashlight. I won't do anything."
A guy peaks through the door at me. I raise my arms - even if I did want to attack him, I literally had nothing.
"Please don't kill me. I won't do anything."
The guy empties his M4 into me without saying a word.

8) Respawn. Novy Sobor again. I figure I'll head to NWAF and maybe catch up to the guy who killed me near Vybor. Nobody's there and it hasn't been looted, so I get some very good gear including an M4. I need to pee so I log off under the stairs in the ATC tower. I log back in and when I peak out, I immediately get shot at from the fire station tower. I have no idea how he could already know I was there.
I manage to get out of the tower eventually, flank, and climb up on the roof of the firetower. He must still be there as I would have seen him climb down, but I can't get a shot. I climb up on the ladder and he's gone... I get on the roof to look around, when I suddenly realize he was ghosting. I quickly go prone, but it's too late and he shoots me from behind.

9) After some uneventful looting, log in geared up with pretty much nothing but a mosin nagant and some ammo for it in the Camo building at Balota airfield. Walk out, look up the stairs and see a dude with an M4 aiming down at me... instinctively let out a shot, miss. Second shot is just a click. Strangely, he doesn't shoot me - I run away saying "I'M SORRY MAN I GOT SCARED I WON'T SHOOT YOU" over voice chat. I reload my mosin, come back, the guy has now lowered his gun... I line up a perfect headshot and kill him.

I feel terrible. I apologize instantly, hoping he hasn't respawned yet and can hear. I haven't felt so bad about a game, probably ever. In my defense, I was on the verge of dying from starvation and I probably wouldn't survive if I would have to run to the town and look for food... I run to the barracks and just so see a guy running behind the barracks. I immediately open fire and hit him, but don't kill. I flank around to try and finish him off, hear his character cursing, and just as I approach the corner, he strafes out and sprays me. Dead. Karma is a bitch

10) Respawn. Just west of Electro (best spawn), friend spawned in Kamyshovo. We meet up in the school and head out to Balota. Pretty soon we find a revolver and an M4, though with very little ammo. Full server so I'm surprised we even find the M4, and there's not much chance of finding more ammo just as loot... we will have to do a little banditry. I spot a player getting inside the barracks and hold off my friend. He says he saw more people inside, he's playing on much lower settings so it's perfectly possible he has better line of sight. I drop the revolver so that he can cover the exit but it disappears... I told him to keep watch anyway and just warn me if they start leaving, and flank the barracks. The moment I get to the window where I have a shot, they all almost simultaneously disappear... god damn combat loggers.

Either way, we find another M4 although with even less ammo and head out to look for more - Zelenogorks, Vybor, to NW. At least that's the plan ..

 

[Surf Solar]

Sounds like an awesome time!

It's quite strange that you meet so many people who shoot on sight. On german servers it's more the norm to atleast try to talk to each other. If I see someone with a ready weapon in hands already I shoot though. I btw. like the Mosin Nagant more than the M4. Then again I am not the kind of spray and pray guy. Always have the Magnum as my sidearm.
Oh, and you do can hear when people log in. If you have a weapon in your inventory, upon spawning others will hear the reloading animation.

Some random screenshots from today.