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

[thesoup]

Cherno was kinda deserted today. Just passed through a part of it. No zombies, no loot, no anything.

 

[Joghurt]

So I finally got to playing this. Awesome stuff. Just derpin around to get the general feeling.

One question. Is there a way to see players names? Kinda hard to communicate with random people when I don't know who's the guy in front of me is.

 

[thesoup]

Depends on the difficulty I think.

 

[poetic codex]

Have not had a good experience so far. Maybe I'm just not accustomed to the online FPS crowd since I'm an RPG/adventure guy, but people dont seem particularly helpful to newbies. My experience so far has been:

1. Spawning in the starting area by the water
2. Running around aimlessly
3. Getting shot at by what i assume to be bandits (but most likely just griefers)

Do you guys have any servers that you would recommend? or are they all the same deal ?

 

[thesoup]

Play in groups, like with other codexers.

 

[MetalCraze]

Of course you will get killed. There are people who specifically travel along the coast killing new guys for their beans. If you want to live and avoid the bean wars on the coast you gotta move inland.

When I started I was surviving solo far in the north. Most players ignore the NE part of the map - which is kinda strange since it's pretty rich in loot. NE airfield almost always deserted. Save for other loners trying to grab stuff there. Same goes for Berezino.

 

[villain of the story]

Cherno was kinda deserted today. Just passed through a part of it. No zombies, no loot, no anything.

The method I mentioned seems to be picking up steam.

 

[poetic codex]

Of course you will get killed. There are people who specifically travel along the coast killing new guys for their beans. If you want to live and avoid the bean wars on the coast you gotta move inland.

So I have learned. The hard way.

As an update to my previous post I must say that I just had a fun experience and my first real taste of the game. I moved inland as quickly as possible. Killed my first zombies and encountered some "frog guys". Genuinely creepy as hell. A very atmospheric game with a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.ish vibe. Had fun surviving until I got shot by someone who was supposed to be on my side. The game definitely seems like it would be best experienced with a group of friends you can trust.

 

[thesoup]

Chef Hathaway cannot into ladders.

Had a great night run with kreamy and khef_hathaway. We headed north towards Stary Sobor. Mostly traveled through the woods. Chef had a chemlight on him and we followed him. Stopped by the radio tower and had a huge skirmish with zombies. Too bad there was no worthwhile loot. Next stop was Pogorevka where we snuck into the church. We found some great loot, but I was a dumbfuck. I alt tabbed and when coming back to the game I fired a shot by accident. What ensued was a huge zombie skirmish after which I had 35 zombie kills and 18 headshots. Chef didn't make it. He eventually rendezvoused with us outside of Pogorevka and we had some pretty awesome loot on our hands. Had a hunting knife, a gps, a compass and a watch. Also, a bunch of food and drinks. We were set to rock and roll. A few hours passed during this long journey so we switched to a European server as this Kwan server was kinda bugged and the Euro server was on daytime anyway. We finally made our way to Stary Sobor, popping some zombies on the way there. We came across a bunch of military tents where we got ambushed by zombies; Creamy didn't make it, unfortunately. I was close to dying myself. Fainted a few times and lost a lot of blood, but I made it. Chef and I looted the place dry, but we took our sweet time so some bandits ambushed us. I hid in a tent, but before I managed to do that I got hit by a stray bullet so I started bleeding again. I had barely recovered from the previous zombie skirmish so I was running low on blood. I fainted so a bandit took the opportunity to come close and finish me off when I recovered. Luckily, Chef managed to escape.

More reports and screenshots coming up next time when we head to Takeshi's Devil's Castle.

 

[MetalCraze]

Had fun surviving until I got shot by someone who was supposed to be on my side

No one is on your side. Trust no one.

In the grim darkness of far Chernarus there is only WAAGHH

 

[villain of the story]

It would be nice if your dead body actually became a zombie (unless shot in the head) and rose up and you would occasionally see dead players among the zombies and have an incentive to kill zombies for potential loot. Also an incentive to shoot players in the head.

 

[Luzur]

It would be nice if your dead body actually became a zombie (unless shot in the head) and rose up and you would occasionally see dead players among the zombies and have an incentive to kill zombies for potential loot. Also an incentive to shoot players in the head.

isnt that one of the ideas?

 

[CreamyBlood]

Damn it! Couldn't resist and bought the OA (I had ArmA2) and downloading now. So where can I find a friendly group of people to play this mod together? Or is it better to enjoy this mod alone for now and find some people to play with later when I know what this shit is all about?

Join the Codex Diversity Squad on Steam. That's how I hooked up. It fine to play alone though, try getting your bearings and looting something without getting killed. Try it at night too. Then go inland and have more fun.

As someone new to both Arma2 and DayZ I'll try and give a crash course on what worked for me and some useful links.

INSTALL

You need both ARMA2 and the standalone addon Arrowhead to play it. You can buy them both in a package called Combined Operations, it's $30 on steam and $15 on Amazon.

I used villans earlier link and it got the game running with the DayZ mod:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ombie-mod-for-arma2.72039/page-2#post-2092885


Skyway has some instructions too. He helped me install the beta patch and if it isn't 5am and you're not full of beer it's pretty easy to figure out.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ombie-mod-for-arma2.72039/page-4#post-2096680

Another guide and also some auto patchers that I haven't used but you can find out about them here:

http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=2085

There is in-game VOICE IN GAME but it's bugged out right now. Most people use third party software so it's good to have them installed and ready to go when you want to play. The two I've used when playing DAYZ are Ventrilo and Teamspeak.

Codex has a Ventrilo server, you can find more info on it here:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/rpgcodex-ventrilo-server.71676/

Teamspeak (TS3) can be found here:

http://teamspeak.com/?page=downloads


SETUP - GRAPHICS

Normally I'm a heavy tweaker and get right into the ini files and all of that but haven't done that yet. I've found the in-game settings are good enough for now so I don't have much to say.

Basically, as I understand it, you should have at least 3000 on visibility, I have mine at 5000, I think the default is 1600. I believe this is the distance for the fog of war in metres, so I can see 5km.

Make sure your Interface and 3D resolution are the same otherwise you'll get blurring.

I also turn off Post processing, I don't think it does much for this game, seems to make it uglier to me.

I turn off Vsync as well, I don't mind the occasional screen tear if it isn't going to kill my frame rate.

Adjust the rest to your taste and what your system can handle. I'm happy with 40-60fps but it affects people differently. As far as I can tell there is no in-game FPS command so use something like FRAPS or Bandicam to figure it out.

SETUP - AUDIO

Not much to say here either. I left it on default of 32 as I'm using onboard sound, haven't noticed any issues. Crank it up if you have a dedicated card or strong processor.

I really like the background ambient music as it's kind of creepy but eventually turned it off. I find the audio cues in this game important, from gunshots, to growling zombies to hearing someone walking behind you.

In fact, for people on TS it sometimes annoys me when they have open speakers and are talking I panic thinking someone is running up behind me when it's just them running and transmitting it.

All work for the atmosphere, use your preference.


SETUP - CONTROLS

This was a doozy for me. It's a standard WASD layout that seems logical. Not my kind of layout so if you want to reconfigure it expect to spend some time. Most keys are assigned to something so you'll always have conflicts, also some keys have double-taps or are used in different contexts. I'll try to explain the important ones that you'll need to learn for Dayz (Arma is a different story).

I'll just use the default keys for reference. There are some good layouts in the Arrowhead PDF manual you can print out:

http://cdn.steampowered.com/Manuals/33930/ARMA2OA_manual.pdf

I'm going to use the graphic that MetalKraze posted:



I'm not a big fan of this setup and don't use it but I'm going over the keys that you should be aware of and be able to use at a moments notice without thinking. I could be wrong on some of this so figure it out on your own.

WASD - Forward/Strafe Left/Back/Strafe Right

W* - Double tap to sprint. Sprinting is the fastest way to move but burns more food. I think.

Shift - Force Walk, default is Running. Double tap to toggle between running and walking.

Z/X/C - Prone/Crouch/Stand-up

These are important. The faster you move the more noise you make. Walking on metal walkways or roads is louder than in short grass. The Ear icon on the right of the HUD will show how many bars or noise you're making. You can prone slowly quite close to zombies without alerting them if they don't see you. The Eye icon is your visibility. Obviously being prone in in grass gives you less visibility.

Crouch is a good default, you can run or walk in that stance. When approaching villages from a distance do the crouch-run and when getting close switch to walk or go prone if very close to zombies. Toggle these for long distance traveling.

When you or your team stop for more than a few seconds it's good to go into a crouch just to minimize your visibility and scan the area if you're not doing anything important like reading a map.

Standing up makes you more visible but when walking gives you good stability. If you toggle to running in this mode you'll move as fast as possible except for sprinting, which is slightly faster.

F - Change Weapon. This doesn't really swap your weapon, use your mouse scroll wheel to do that. This will select between your currently selected weapon and a Flare. Possibly other items, like grenades. You'll see what is selected in the upper right corner of the HUD in green. If it says Flare, press fire (left mouse button) to throw it. Holding down fire longer and looking up at a different angle then releasing fire will throw it farther. Press F to cycle back to your currently selected weapon.

R - Reload. Don't forget this when in a panic situation and you just spent a pistol clip on a zombie that really only needed one bullet to the head.

G - Gear. Known to most people as your inventory. It's rather dreadful but I found an okay tutorial on this. Read it and get used to it. It's also bugged, especially concerning Bags. It's confusing and you can sometimes lose some important items permanently. I've also noticed that some servers sometimes get bugged right out and the best thing to do is log off after looking at the last save timer in your debug window.

http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=785

Read it and be careful. Practice using it on useless items in a remote area. There's nothing worse than clearing an area and getting shot by bandits or respawning zombies because you took too much time dicking around with this clunky abomination.

The whole point of this game is survival and the gear you collect is precious. Learn how to use it but don't be surprised if you lose something accidentally.

Q/E - Lean Left and Right. This can save your life. Peek around when in doubt. Mix it up a bit too, lean, standing, then crouching the next time you peak your head out so they can't get a bead on you.

LEFT MOUSE BTN - Fire you're weapon, throw a flare (maybe a grenade) or select an option. Usually used for shooting your gun. But a good habit to form, and difficult if you're a regular run-and-gun FPSer is to keep your finger hovered over the middle button as a 'safety'. In this game you'll be steathing around alot or running through forests for long periods of time. You don't want to twitch and fire off a round. You could kill a teamate in one shot or alert ten zombies and who knows how many bandits to your presence and location. At night it's dificult in the thick of things to tell who's a zombie and who's your friend. Be carefull with this button, it can save your life or make it miserable for you and you're buddies.

MIDDLE MOUSE BTN - I actually don't know what this does when pressed. But scrolling it is how you change you weapon from a long gun to a pistol and back again or interact with the environment. It's an odd interface but is efficient once you get used to it. Point at a ladder, see an icon and scroll then left click to climb. Point at loot or a body and scroll and left click on picking up or opening gear. Point to a door, scroll then left click to open or close it. Look to using the Inventory for more information.

RIGHT MOUSE BTN - Ironsights/ZOOM. Quick click to go into ironsights mode. I use this all the time as many servers that I play on don't have a crosshair. You seem to move slower and lose FOV but can aim dead-on for the head. Heads, are important.

Holding it down will ZOOM. You should use it briefly and frequently while looking around with the ALT key and especially when approaching habitations/town/cities or anything suspicious.

LEFT-ALT While holding it down you can look around you without changing where you're gun is pointing and still walking in your current direction. You should be using this all the time like driving a big truck, watch the where you're going but constantly glance into your mirrors to see what's going on around you.

CAPS - Push to Talk. Well, apparently it's broken in the current build so don't use the same key as you do for a 3rd party voice app like Teamspeak. What can happen is if you have your lets say left cntrl key as press to talk and the same thing (it's caps lock by default) as in-game voice then you might double talk to everyone in world if you're on global, or just double-echo if on direct mode to your friends. Anyways, I deleted the bind for now, if you don't ever hit caps then don't worry about it.


<>/ These are for CHAT CHANNEL. It's kind of important and I think they affect the in-game voice as well. The left and right angle keys select the channel and right slash brings up a bar to type in your typical chat stuff. The channels are: Global: Everyone, Side: Everyone because we're technically all humans on the same team, Directional: someone close to you. The others don't really apply to DayZ. I tend to put it on Global but Directional is good if you just want to monitor if a potential friend is talking to you. Anyways, you should be using a mic if you're into team games.

I think that covers the important keys in Day Z. The team commands and aren't used to my knowledge and vehicle commands aren't too important at first. I'd configure and learn them in the Arma 2 tutorials if you plan on fixing a car or flying a helicopter. That could change in the future but for starting out this should have the basics covered.

TIPS/BUGS/OBSERVATIONS

I would suggest playing alone for awhile, configuring your keys, figuring out stances and run speeds, distances to activate zombies and just learning the ropes. Do it at night too. Even though it's pitch black there are ways be successfull on your own. Flares will give away your position to bandits so don't carry one for long, throw it when you need to.

Finding a server that supports the 1st/3rd person point of view key (ENTER NUMPAD) can help when configuring keys and learning the different stances and run speeds, it's crucial to learn this early. There is no icon on the HUD for it, you just have to get used to it.

Servers are supposed to run on a day/night cycle according to the time zone they are in. This is sometimes bugged. I've seen servers where it's day time to one of us and night to the others. Sometimes logging out helps but I think it's a server issue. Try another one if this happens.

If you find a watch it will tell you the time of what the server is on. Or thinks it's on.

Playing in the dark can be fun, especially with a small group. One tactic is to have your lead guy (that hopefully has a GPS or a map or compass or knows where he's going) carry a chem light. Then you can follow his glow without lighting up the wilderness. Use flares when in firefights. Flares are also good if you get scattered by zombies or just losing track. Light one up and group up again. Just be cautious of unwanted visitors that might be joining you.

If you don't want to play at night for whatever reason pick a server with a high ping, somewhere several time zones over. It's kind of cheesey but you get penalized with lag for picking your time of day.

Everyone spawns on the coast but it seems like 90% of the time its the south coast and rarely the east. There are always PKers so be careful. Explore and get used to it then decide if the loot there is worth it compared to the vast and less habitated inland. Chernogorsk and Electrozavodsk are considered PK hot zones. You have been warned but it can be both profitable and fun.

You don't have an in-game map until you find one. I haven't found one yet but printed out the one that MetalKraze posted. If you want a full experience then don't but I figure most Arma people know most of these cities by heart. It's not that detailed and doesn't give you a huge advantage. It's hard enough coordinating with others without it. This game Alt-Tabs nicely too but don't accidently twitch your finger on the fire button when you switch back in and kill a friend. If solo, go for it. It won't matter at first. There are also GPS's in-game that are detailed and have secondary roads and power-lines and other stuff.

The Water Jug Icon is your need for water, green is good, orange is okay, blinking red is bad. Drink something. Same with food.

Blood level starts at 12000, you'll start passing out around 3000. If you see a flashing white cross on it you're bleeding out, put on a bandage. You can apply bandages to others.

Food will replenish small amounts of blood, transfusions are best and can be found in hospitals. Others have to give you the transfusion.

Wild game that is cooked will give you more blood than canned food. You'll need a hunters knife and matches to both gut and cook it.

Painkillers help if you're shaking after being injured.

If you see a broken bone icon, use morphine. You probably won't need to see the icon because you'll be crawling on the ground and can't stand up, everything will be white and a bunch of zombies are gnawing on your legs while you spurt blood all over the place.

To get you're bearings, towns have signs outside of them telling what they are. It's in the Russian Cyrillic, not Latin, but it should give you an idea of where you are. The trick is to get close enough to that sign without getting killed by wandering zombies.

Also, when you first spawn, the lower right will beep quickly and briefly show you the town you have spawned in.

You can lower a long weapon by double clicking on CTRL but it won't work on pistols. I suppose this could be useful when encountering a potential friend/foe and you're a nice guy and don't mind respawning. Some ladders will drop you to the bottom if you climb with a pistol because you can't lower them. It's a bug. Drop the pistol or swap it with a flare if you don't have a big gun. It only happens on some types of ladders.

Some zombies have loot, usually junk but cops and soldiers sometimes have better stuff.

The game is semi-persitant. It will save your current location, inventory and stats such as blood loss on a central database. The debug window shows the time of the last save so if you just scored something good, don't logout until you've seen it's been saved. You can also loot your own body if you can find it within a certain time. If you log onto a different server it won't be there, but you're stats should be the same.

This is an alpha game and has only been out for a few weeks. It's not for everyone. Expect lots of bugs and the usual hackers/griefers/whatever. This isn't for the run-and-gun crowd, try and tone it down. You'll spend most of your time walking, running and dying with a bit of brief, frantic action in between. You can last for days on one life or die repeatedly within an hour, it's up to you.

Here's an Arma2 guide that I love. Much of it applies to this game:

http://ttp2.dslyecxi.com/



There's a lot more to it but I hope this helps some of the more adventurous codexers get into it. It's not easy but is rewarding.

 

[villain of the story]

My fellow brovivors and bandittos, I'll share with you two life saver hints:

(1) Never EVER go swimming in ponds and lakes inland. You might ask, why would I go swimming in ponds and lakes inland? To refill a bottle from ponds and lakes, you need to actually swim, unlike the sea where being knee deep in water is enough. So what is the problem? There is a bug with ponds and lakes where you can get stuck swimming. PERMANENTLY. Reconnecting the server might help though more likely not. And even if you manage to get unstuck, there is another problem: you need to drop most of your items before swimming or you will drop them in the water and will be unable to take them back. Now, if you drop your items, go swimming, get stuck and reconnect to get unstuck, those items you dropped on the ground will be GONE. Forever.

(2) If find yourself chased by more zombies than you can take at once, try to find one of these structures where zombies will be unable to reach you so you can pick those motherfuckers one by one:

Small dams:

Scaffoldings:

Especially the dam is golden, as zombies will pile up on either side below your feet and if the water is deep enough on one side, they will be sitting ducks. Note that zombies occasionally disappear "into" the dam itself so you may need to move around a bit to get them off. You will be safe as long as you are on the dam.

If you know more safe-zone structures, share them here!

 

[villain of the story]

And watch this before you decide to go around playing the sniper:

 

[thesoup]

Where can I find these rifles? I found only cz 550 so far.

 

[MetalCraze]

We found DMR (M21) today

 

[CorpseZeb]

Guys, on what servers are you hanging, usually? Because, not everyone have a Steam version of Arma...

 

[villain of the story]

What does Steam have to do with it? I usually join Scandinavian servers. Most frequently FI1 (requires beta patch -yes, it's working properly for me too now). Failing all that, Russian or German servers, in that order. So far, Russian servers had the most friendliest people. Less cutthroat PvP going on. German servers are the polar opposite.

 

[villain of the story]

We found DMR (M21) today

Not on FI1, right?

 

[CorpseZeb]

Ah, thanks for the tip. I usually "explore" an EUx servers, 'cause they have the best pings at the time.

 

[thesoup]

You don't need a steam version. You can join the Codex Diversity Squad™ steam group and arrange playdates with us.

 

[thesoup]

Sorry bros, completely forgot about screenshots this time so a purely written report will have to do.

Btw, don't play on Virginia servers (at least Virginia 7) if you don't want to exploit the game or see it exploited by other people. Basically, when it's night time and you join a server your ingame time will be 7pm meaning that everyone will be in pitch black except for you. Also, whenever you join, you won't be thirsty or hungry anymore.

So anyway, logged in to Virginia 7 today. Freshly respawned near Kamenka. Shoot a few zombies, but there was no worthwhile loot. Or any, IIRC. I made my way to Cherno were I heard gunshots left and right. I crouch ran, looted a church (churches always have great loot, especially guns and ammo; is the dev trying to tell us something?) and a supermarket. Some guys were in a barn and some others joined them there. I was trying to, but due to my own retardation, I couldn't find said barn. I headed to Prigorodky as night was falling and I knew of a good loot-tastic barn over there with two CZ 550's, two Winchesters and a bunch of food and drinks. As I made my way, it was still day for me, so I could go through the city and loot quite a bit of corpses. You should have seen some guy in chat saying how he's in a church (forgot where) waiting for the rapture. He was LARP-ing the shit out of it; was lulzy. I left the city of Cherno with more food, drinks, healing resources, a watch, binoculars and a map. Score. On my way to Prigorodky someone in chat asked whether someone was headed there. He had a bandit skin, but I decided to trust him anyway. When I made it to the barn, there was another player there who wasn't responding to my questions in chat, possibly because he was a noob. He didn't fire, but merely left. My bandit companion joined me shortly thereafter. I bandaged him, we looted the place and decided to head north for the mountains as it was pitch black. Using chemlights we could easily spot each other and evade zombies in nearby settlements.

We made our way to Mogilevka and camped west of it, in the mountains, to wait for my companion's DayZ buddy. He's some guy from C5 or something, kraze should know about them. About that time Chef came online. He was in Krasnostav so we decided to rendezvous at Gorka after my companion's buddy reached us. Some derp ensued while waiting for him and he went off to play with his C5 buddies or something which wasn't such a loss since none of us really trusted him as he loved PK-ng so we thought he might lead us into a trap. By that time Creamy joined the server and Chef found us in Mogilevka. Creamy spawned at Cherno so we decided to rendezvous with him at Nadezhdino, slightly to our west and his north. This is when Virginia 7 decided to crap out so we said fuck it and went to Chicago 2 instead. Fuck Virginia servers, seriously. Next to DE servers, they're the most bugged POS servers out there. So I was saying... Us three made it there before him; we threw a billion flares, looted what we could and waited for Creamy who caught the attention of a few zombies while running to us. We managed to pop them, but our bandit-who-returned-to-his-survivor-skin-by-now bro and Chef lost a lot of blood; Creamy also wouldn't mind getting healed. We decided we need to get to Cherno and get blood packs from a hospital.

We ran though forests and whatnot eventually coming to the main road down south. Cherno was but a mile to the west. On our way a few more zombies appeared, wounding our non codex bro whose blood was at 1500 now, maybe even lower. He was close to dying when I bandaged him. Chef was at 2200 or so. Creamy, Chef and I made our way into the northwest side of Cherno; we left our bro behind since he was fainting very often, like twice per minute, and we couldn't afford him fainting in the midst of a city infested with zombies and bandits. He was waiting by the city sign and could have gotten shot, but those passers let him live. He was begging for life in ALL CAPS. After that he climbed up a mountain so avoid situations like that. Meanwhile, us three got somehow separated since we were in the dark and our only source of light was Chef's flashlight. The stakes were very high, with other people's flares, bandits and zombies all over the place in pitch black, but we needed those blood packs more than ever. Creamy got a few zombies on his tail and died. Gave his life to the good fight.

Chef was the only one who actually knew where to go so he got to the hospital and flashed the light so I could find him. I believe he was saying "over here you inner earless disoriented idiot" in Morse code. He looted the hospital dry while I was pissing myself in fear of zombies I heard nearby while I proned my way around. I gave him a blood transfusion which felt to him like smoking crack to a pregnant black woman being reborn. We made it back to our bro, healed him up with some blood and hit the nearby mountain where we exchanged goodies like food, drinks and healing stuff. Creamy didn't manage to connect for some weird reason so we couldn't rendezvous with him. There we hid and logged out.

Next time, our goal will be rendezvousing with Creamy, who should spawn nearby and find us, then going to Nadezdinho again where we will loot and refill our water bottles. After that, we should go through the forest and get to Pogorevka, a place no one really touches, but has some great loot in its church (like I said, churches are loot-tastic; god really cares about his people). Up north we should have two more towns to stop by, avoid Stary Sobor by all means, and then we'll be at Devil's Castle, looting the place dry. When we're done, it should be night time, which we will use to rob the military tents in Stary Sobor blind, using the night as our advantage. Hope to get some sweet NV goggles.

Wish us luck bros, for we will need it.
thesoup out

 

[Chef_Hathaway]

Best was climbing to the roof of the hospital, getting off the ladder, walking one step and then fainting. My heart stopped for a second.

Oh, and then watching people fight in Cherno, which was pretty amusing at night, and watching some guy run past trailing 20 or so zombies.

 

[MetalCraze]

Not on FI1, right?

US4