Be Excellent To Each Other

Been watching some of this chap's DayZ videos lately:

https://www.youtube.com/user/FRANKIEonPCin1080p/videos

Quite amusing at times. Also there's some videos on there of another weird Arma Mod called Island Life which just looks bizarre.

Sorted how? I'll try it with a 360 controller and headset and see if that works. Mind you, that'll mean I need to actually find someone to talk to.

Typically with PCs you'd run a separate chat client rather than running the inbuilt game system (if there is one. the inbuilt steam one is nigh on unusable in my experience)

The xbox controller +headset should work, but its not usually plug and play like it is on consoles.

muhWAAAH?



mahWUUUUGH?

hence my comment.

It shouldn't actually be that hard, and I could make instructions, but first time I tried to get it working with Dimrill and Perkies was... an interesting experience.

Although probably bettet than the time we tried to play Dawn of War 2 with The Gaywood, and it somehow made him whisper quiet.

Windows isn't a dedicated gaming OS like whatever runs on the Xbox and PS3 so the fact it hasn't got an in-built chat client like you get on consoles shouldn't come as that much of a surprise. The Steam one should really work and that's pretty disappointing if it doesn't as Steam's trying to be a full-service gaming client, but even at that you'd still need to find an alternative if you were running a non-Steam game. The alternative would be for every single game to code an entire internal chat client which is a terrible idea and completely unnecessary when such things already exist outwith the context of a single game.



I've never tried it myself but I did think MS had got all the drivers and such like sorted these days so all aspects of the 360 controller were pretty much plug and play. Obviously the controller itself is so I'm surprised the headset aspect isn't.

the largest problem with the steam client is its use of the windows default devices, meaning you cant (or couldn't, at least) have comms on a separate set of speakers. making speech really indistinct.

could be its better given the last time I checked was a while ago.

The non plug and playness is simply a factor of windows/teamspeak/whatever not knowing which devices to use and what squelch/volume levels to use.

I just watched the one where he makes friends with a group but it goes bad and the group gets disarmed by bandits and then taken away to be tortured! It was quite brilliant.

Jesus. Some people should be banned from games for being weird.

http://youtu.be/PLveMFmNTmw

Saturnalian, post more about your adventures in this game pls.

You probably know this already but just plugging the headset into the 360 controller doesn't work. BUT i'm now the proud owner of a cheapo PC headset! Yay!

Now I can say "Don't shoot" just before I'm instantly shot dead.

It's a bit overcast. Rain is probably on the horizon but for now I'm alone in the forest and should find somewhere to start my daily scavenge. I've learned something about survival when you're on your own: going up hill takes forever. Ok, so that's not the best advice anyone has ever given another gamer but it's probably the reason why exploration at the tops of the hills and peaks is a lonely quest and the possibility of running into anyone become increasingly remote the higher above sea level you get. Oh, and you run slower uphill. So if you've got a couple of miles between places with no form of transport (I've not seen a single vehicle on any of the roads, nor have I come across any vehicles that weren't burnt out and useless) then oop top is boring. This place is huge. How huge? Fucking huge. So I scrat about for a bit in the woods on the hills and find a rifle, some hats, some cans of pop and bags of rice and stuff. I'm actually quite good at finding stuff now. The items are so tiny that you need a keen eye to spot them. Magazine's filled with bullet or shotgun shells are so tiny (as in real life and stuff) that you really have to concentrate when you enter anywhere. I imagine that some places are more likely to have military hardware but for now a dusty rifle from some shack in the woods will keep me going even if I only find a couple of bullets. Funnily enough, this is exactly what I do: I find two bullets.

This goes on for, like, three quarters of an hour. I pop in one house, scavage, I pop next door and scavage, I pop across the road and scavage. I find a kids bag which I fill with cans of pop, and even find a nice pristine orange which I save for dinner. In between small shanty towns I run for ages until I find the next shanty town or a farm. I barely see any zombies. They've calmed down since I was last here. They are slower and even easier to outpace. You can even give them the slip. Stupid zombies.

Off shore I spy a ship that is half submerged. I've no idea if I can swim so I wade out until my body remembers that it can! So I swim. Oh, I've forgot to ditch my clothes so I'm soaking. Fuck. But I've read The Road and I know some guy will no doubt nick my stuff if I leave it on the beach. Or maybe I forgot to take my clothes off. No, it's a smart move that I deliberately came up with the moment that I saw the ship - I would swim out with all my clothes on, pillage and leave like an underwater pirate ninja. Turns out that the ship can't be accessed so I bob around the side of it like a floating idiot. I swim all the way back to the beach, strip and dump my clothes on the floor and wear a spare t-shirt.

I start a run down the road like a madman looking for the next something. To be fair, I'm craving some company so I ditch my plan of lonely solitude and head along the road looking for travellers to share the journey with.

I pass a water irrigation plant. I take a look around inside and climb onto the roof to survey where the hell I am. It turns out that I'm not far from a large town and get a bit giddy with excitement at the prospect of meeting people and perhaps doing a trade for the stuff I've found.

I run off towards the town but find it seemingly deserted. I wonder what goodies the flats and apartment buildings might hide so I start my endless scavage through the buildings. There are shops and supermarkets too but the goods are stripped from the shelves; yet you can find one or two bits knocking about. I chance upon a cross bow! It's looking up again. I find a med kit. A snazzy hat. Some pristine gloves. A MAGAZINE FILLED WITH BULLETS! ...for a gun I do not possess. Ah well. I might chance upon some armoury or something on my travels.

I come to the centre of the town after a good 20-30 minutes. It's been under 2 hours since I woke up in the zombie apocalypse and I'm still alive, well nourished, and my pack is bulging with supplies. I don't think that this is too bad going; everyone else in the world is probably dead. There's a church in the centre of the town so I take a wander in.

There's nowt here that I don't already have.

"Don't fucking move."

I turn around and three guys who look like they've found a cache of military equipment have come in behind me.

"Hey guy's. Y'alright?"

"Put the fucking rifle on the floor"

"Whoooa, Frankie says Relax"

At this point I decide it'd be a good idea to show my cheeky side by giving them the finger. I press the button on the keyboard and someone says "Oh right" and all I can hear is a short burst of firearms before the screen goes black. I was dead before I could look up from the keyboard.

Lessons learned? No one has a sense of humour in a zombie apocalypse.

Awesome. So you can kill each other as well? Not in the spirit of survivorship is it?

Have you not seen any zombie survival story ever?

Yep, and very few humans kill other humans on purpose.

One of the main points of humanity facing some kind of apocalypse is that it's human nature to turn on one another. How have you missed that, Russ, you soft twat?

Where's your list?

The burden of proof is on the person who is wrongdisagrees with the majority.

28 Days Later
28 Weeks Later
The Walking Dead
Dead Set

Your turn.

Day Z

World War Z

Etc etc

It seems that those that have managed to accumulate an arsenal often turn into right dickheads with the sole intention of griefing everyone else. I've never found more than two bullets for any weapon I've ever held...

I'm at some docks (I should seriously get a map or something. I've no clue where I am even though I've visited some places more than once). There's a long concrete map that leads maybe, what, 2-3 hundred yards along. Bushes either side. Cover from the main town to the left of me. Sea to the right. I've heard gunshots so I know some twats are griefing others. Not just one or two gunshots but loads. Machine gun fire, perhaps. I inch down the wall to a crossroads where the wall stops for a few yards to let the train tracks through. There's two bodies on the floor. A guy from out of nowhere, with no gear on, streaks past me to a sound of whistling gunshots. He zips past the wall out of sight. He zips back running full steam.

Everyone is ignoring me by the looks of it and this body has a nice shiny rifle on his body. I crawl on the floor low and close to the wall reaching out with my mouse. I stretch out until I get the symbol which means I can look in the backpack. Goodies! This body had a shit load of stuff. I pinch the lot and dump all my stuff which I'd been farming for 30-odd minutes. About 5 feet in front there's the second body but this needs me to stretch out from behind the wall. But look at this muthafucking shiny assault rifle. It might be a freakin' M4 or some shit. I get all excited; resolve to be very very still and pretend to be dead too. I crawl out from behind the wall and fortunately there's a small bush that I can get a little bit of cover from and inch forward. I stretch out with my virtual hand. I inch forward a bit more and stretch out. I can see the block of flats from where the gunshots had been coming from. I stretch out a little bit more and don't move. Still ok I reach forward and I'm in his bag. It was like Christmas and Easter and my birthday all at once. Until the screen went black and the sound of gunshots could be heard. Knickers.

Just wondering, what's stopping people from just logging out when they encounter some people being complete dicks to them? Aside from being sporting to complete dicks?

Nothing as far as I can tell. If you want to be left alone you can just switch servers. There's always plenty with just a couple of people on them that you might never bump into on a 200 mile map (or whatever it is)

WHERE HAS RUSSELL GONE

I now am the proud owner of this, damn it is good.

1st life got very over confident when I managed to punch a Z to death (needed a bandage after), then made the mistake of eating a rotten orange, after finding a screwdriver and a shovel I made for the town up the cost and had 4 Z's jump on me and eat me.....they be quick.

respawn

Ran to nearby town determined to get some gear and food the go hide in the trees, hear loud bang followed by black screen.....fuck

respawn

around 2 mins after spawning turn around after hearing a noise and see a guy with a axe charging at me, he then starts laughing like a loon over the open voice chat thing.

Go to respawn again and my better half clips me around the ear and tells me to go to bed


Think I am going to have to re-install fraps for this game it is hilarious. When I have gotten to grips with it a little more would be more than happy to team up with a few Beexers and see how long we can survive.

Trusting fool

Yes, I need to get back on this.

Not for much longer, don't think trusting anyone in this game is a good idea.

I reckon this is about as close to a Walking Dead simulator as you can get and my loading it up yesterday revealed as much.

Most people believe that the problem with DayZ are the players: they will shoot you. And when you are dead, you're dead and that's it.

This advanced knowledge lends the game a whole new twist for me. I don't want to die, I do want to survive and now I want to avoid people as much as possible. To me, this creates a perfect apocalypse scenario as you want to avoid the towns and cities as much as possible since you know that's where all the gun toting nutcases will congregate. This can lead to a solitary existence even on the most populated servers and I have no problem with that at all. The graphics, while not mind blowing, do a fantastic job of conveying an empty expanse of land with towns, cities, hamlets, factories, helicopter crash sites and so on. There is no music at all and the main noise throughout the game are the breathing noises created by the player character. Noises, which I must say, do a fantastic job of conveying breathlessness and exhaustion even when your character has been sprinting uphill for over 10 minutes. There is the sound of wind, sea and the odd bird noises but aside from that there is nothing to interrupt the lonely wandering. This is a good thing. It's even more jarring when your wandering is pockmarked by the sounds of distant gunfire or the noises of wandering zombies.

The zombies are a rather strange edition to the game. They are few and far between and tend generally to congregate in areas where you might expect them such as around the towns or the villages where the occupants have load since died. They aren't exactly aggressive and it will take a fair few hits to kill or incapacitate a player. The biggest threat poses by zombies are injuries inflicted on the player which will require the player to seek medical attention. Medical equipment is spare but thankfully not too sparse that you won't eventually find a medical kit or some bandages to wrap your wounds. You can even find T-shirts which you can wear or, in an emergency, tear into make-shift bandages. Zombies can be dispatched with weapons but should you be lucky enough to find a handgun or rifle and then also be lucky enough to find some ammo that fits your weapon that you won't want to waste it on the undead. The zombies also have a tendency to chase you for ages which can lead to a funny game of cat and mouse as you dart over to a neighboring house to hide only to find the zombie waiting outside for you even when you try and slip out the back exit. Or perhaps you manage to slip out the back and escape. Who knows, all sorts could happen. I thought I had managed to escape only to find some woman chewing on my leg about 10 minutes later while rifling around some shack. And it was bloody terrifying, as it should be.

There are plenty of bugs and problems, too many to list here, but a lengthy session yesterday just reveals how fantastic this game can be at creating your own narratives. Oh, and how it can be a back to basics gaming experience when it wants to me.

First things first, I had armed myself with a map that I found online. One of the main problems I had with starting with a new character was that it can seem pretty aimless and I wanted to find guns. Another problem was that the signs are all in Russian and any of the maps I found in game doesn't have the Russian character set and made locating myself on the map a fucking nightmare. The online solution helped since I could now locate myself and find my way to interesting places whilst avoiding the crowds.

I started at the beach, like everyone game, and made my way inland. I actually spotted some guy rummaging through the nearby buildings so I made a long trek into the woods with little provisions. Eventually I found a small village on the outskirts and after scoping it out for a minute I decided I'd have to start searching for provisions.

The prospect of finding people is scary and anyone that has played this will know that the tell tale signs of life are open doors. Open doors mean that looters have been this way before. I thought I'd chance it but after a decent search of a small number of houses it seems that the looter(s) had cleared the place out and all I could find was a dress to wear which had some extra pockets to put small items in.

A lengthy trek took me into the highlands and took absolutely forever since the map is massive. I resolved to find a small village in the highlands but the lack of provisions are seriously hampered my ability to go very far. I had been playing for what seemed like an hour already and my character was hungry and thirsty. I did make it to the village in the hills and was disappointed to find there were zombies about. This made rummaging around the 5 or 6 shacks somewhat difficult as I had to keep leading them on a merry dance before shutting the only door to each shack knowing that they would be waiting to chase me as soon as I emerged. There was also very little in the way of provisions. I found a medical pack, a rifle and an empty bottle. I took the tape out of the medical pack and fastened the empty water bottle to the end of the rifle to create a make-shift silencer but without any ammunition in sight this would be little more than a threat deterrent should I run into anyone.

The next place on the map was a factory that was a few miles away but downhill. The lengthy trek was killing my player however and the lack of food and water a constant noise at the edge of the screen in a prompt to remind me that I needed to take better care of myself. A look on the inventory showed that I was at an amber alert for both food and water and the amber was getting darker and would eventually turn red.

By the time I had reached the factory I was at a red alert. I was dying from starvation. The factory was little more than an empty car park with a small number of surrounding buildings. The buildings had bits of crap but crap that I sorely needed. A backpack for starters which was disappointingly empty. I milled around the factory structure which took far longer than it should as it was on 5 levels and items are normally concealed as tiny objects on the floor and can be placed absolutely anywhere. I found no food, no water but I found a bag of lime. Handy. I took it anyway...

The next place on the map was either a detour through the woods to a helicopter crash site that was miles away or a large town nearby. The town was near certain death if it was occupied when suddenly the colour from the screen started to bleed away as I started to succumb to starvation and thirst. If I didn't find something fast I was going to cark it so I decided to run as fast as I could to the town and get rummaging before making an escape with a bounty of food and water.

Starvation got the better of me however as the colour bleed got worse and the screen started to go blurry. By the time I arrived at the outskirts of the town, which was no where near as large as I thought it was going to be, I could barely discern objects. Finding objects on the ground would be an immense challenge suddenly as they are so small.

10 minutes later of ducking in and out of buildings and I had found nothing useful and it got worse when a zombie started following me around. A couple of hits and a Benny Hill style run around with a black and white blurry screen was challenging. It got the better of me though and made me bleed. I could bandage it up but imminent death from starvation was the highest priority.

Fortunately a can of beans presented itself. My savour! But with little way of opening the can the relief was short lived. Fortunately I am not an ape and had the tools for the job. A spade. I smashed open the can and spilled but 17% of the contents... but I wolfed it down nonetheless. That was not enough so I needed to get looking for more and quick sharp. The screen blur hadn't abated at all. I was ducking in and out of buildings, quick scan, got out, avoid zombie, go next door, shut door, quick scan, open door, avoid zombie, run next door, shut door. This continued along a row of terraced housing for a little while and whilst I found a can of tuna, which I greedily consumed, I hadn't found any water and both Hunger and Water were at Red Alert levels on the inventory screen.

I was running out of buildings but found an abandoned supermarket. Each and every shelf was empty. Except a cooking pot and a can of gas to run it. This would be immensely helpful if I had any food. I had ran out of buildings, scanned the map and made my way to the nearest locale with buildings but it was a distance away. I got to the edge of town and promptly collapsed unconscious. I didn't have to wait long to die however as the zombie soon caught up with me and started munching on my body while I started at the black screen: You are unconscious.

You are unconscious.

*rarrr*

You are unconscious.

*rarrr*

You are unconscious.

*rarrr*

You are unconscious.

*rarrr*

You are dead.

Well that was a frustrating experience.

I spawned near a ship that had crashed on the rocks. I was able to go inside and explore, run along the top, look out into the sea, check all the rooms, climb the ladders and so on. I was fully kitted out, by the end of a 30 minute exploreathon, with bags, decent tops, army vest, a bag to put loads of stuff in and a great big wrench. I was exploring so long and forgot about my hunger and water levels despite just turning up and there wasn't much in the way of food on the ship. I thought I better make a dash for the exit and find a town when I dashed off the top of the ship and to my death. Clumsy dickhead.

Man, this sounds awesome. Is there any way of playing with a friend - ie. spawning together?

I'd imagine Craster would like to spawn with you.

I think Myp said there's no way to spawn right next to one another but since you spawn along the coast you can find each other easily enough with a bit of trekking and communicating.

So he said.

I haven't given it a shot though. Anyone on tonight? BeeX brigade hooooo!

See this sounds like the worst game in the world to me. Almost all the stories about are along the lines of, "I spawned; spent ages achieving very little then died due to stupidity or something random I had no control over." Isn't that the opposite of fun?

I suppose it depends on what you want from a game. If it is a narrative story with a moral lesson then it sounds like this is not it. I have been thinking a bit about this of late and come to the conclusion I want a story as a reward for collecting eggs or whatnot.

As this is open ended and is many short stories then it could be fun. I would be I interested to see how long it takes people to go and nobble others after starving to death umpteen times

It's true. My game yesterday can be abridged as "Went looking for food; didn't find any; starved to death." But there's something compelling about it: The atmosphere, the unknown, the fear of death. It's not fun - like Pacman is fun - it's engaging like, um, I dunno, it's an entirely different game to anything else I've played. It relies on your imagination a bit. If you've never hoped for a zombie apocalypse then this ain't for you, but if you've wondered how you might survive then this is as close as you'll get. Have you ever read The Road? It's kinda like playing that.

I can a hundred flaws in it but that doesn't make me want to stop playin it. I've found a military base highlighted on a map. It'll take some going but I desperately want to get there. It'll be a massive trek relying on some luck and probably multiple attempts, but I must find out what it is. It'll probably be a desolate structure with poor textures and not much incidental detail but that ain't stopping me.

Fascinating game in small doses here.

The exploration aspect I can understand as it's exactly that which allowed Fallout 3 to grab me so hard but with F3 et al you know (a) there's very likely to actually be something at the location you're heading to because it's specifically been designed to reward you for wandering around and (b) you won't have all your progress wiped from either a sudden random event or just the slow death of a map empty of resources. It's like deciding progress by someone rolling a dice for you but it takes three hours for the thing to finally stop moving and when it does there's a 70% chance they'll have somehow rolled it right up your arse.

Is there any respawn mechanic at all or do you start back where you always start every time, with no stuff?

That is the respawn mechanic in a nut shell.

Insofar as (a) is concerned if you find some place you'll find some loot. As to what that loot may be I think it's randomised plus there's the chance someone could have looted the loot before you. The loot resets differently in different servers but it's usually every 4 hours, I think. The further into the map you go the less likely you are to find folk so densely but you may find them more well armed and but less aggressive. These folk have normally been surviving in the wilderness for a while but, then again, they might just be dicks. Just people, init.

(b) will always be a problem when you've got a human element to a persistent world. There's an element of luck but I'm sure if you removed the people I wouldn't have much trouble going to each town and snagging a load of provisions easily enough to help me survive for a couple of hours during which time I could find the next town and do the same. It's the people who make this game so dangerous.

Really it could do with an overarching campaign. Something to give you more purpose on your journey would be great but it doesn't seem as though this game is being developed in this fashion and will probably never get a full release from what I've heard.

It's coming out for the PS4 so they won't get away with any 'early access' eternal beta shenanigans at that point.

I don't reckon it'll ever be released on PS4. You heard it here first, folks.

Super!

BOO!