http://www.dayzmod.com/

ARMA II: Combined operations (the version you need for the mod if you don't already have ARMA II): http://store.steampowered.com/sub/4639/, http://www.gamersgate.com/DDB-A2COEU/arma-2-combined-operations-bundle, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003JZNDN4 (bit pricey), and https://store.bistudio.com/arma2-combined-operations.

This is a zombie apocalypse mod that has gained a lot of attention and praise lately. It's developed by one guy, the production values are quite trashy, the mechanics are janky, yet the concept and execution is so compelling it makes people easily look past these shortcomings.
You start off in a fairly large sandbox map with no goal other than to survive by scavenging for food and water while defending yourself from the undead, or other players who act hostile towards you. Much like Minecraft, the game becomes pretty much what you decide to make of it. There are several servers usually supporting up to 50 players each, and you can switch between them as you please, but once you die your character and all your stuff is gone forever and you have to start over from scratch.
The mod has become so popular that the servers are constantly filled to the breaking point, and there's already talk about making it a fully fledged standalone game. The mod has caused Steam sales of ArmA 2 to skyrocket into the top 10.

I recommend checking out the youtube Let's Play series Days Ahead to get a good feel of what the game is all about. It's really long, but so interesting to just sit and watch it almost becomes like a movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRpPIyJDSEQ

Previous thread: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1383136-dayz-arma-2-thread-03/

Normally I wouldn't have created a new one of these threads on my own, but I literally just got DayZ and wanted to talk about it.

So, any advice for a greenhorn? I've only been in a couple of servers for about 10 minutes, but I already think I'm in over my head. I had to quit the first server because it wouldn't let me run (weird), and in the second server it was nighttime and I could see a darn thing.

Additionally, how do you open your inventory (the control list didn't help)? I'm trying to figure out if I start with ANYTHING, but I have no way of knowing.

Damn, this is really getting irritating. I've tried connecting to at least a dozen different servers, but the majority of them either will just get stuck loading or retrieving data for me or simply crash the game. In the 2 or 3 instances that I've actually managed to connect to a game, it's been nighttime and I haven't been able to see anything.

I dunno if this is just the nature of the game or if there's some more widespread problem. I guess I'll just try again later.

Just bought Arma 2 to play it. Waiting on the download. Is any surival tips? Are zombies fast (Left 4 Dead style) or slow (Walking Dead)?

From what I've seen in videos, they're fast. Like, you won't be able to outrun them (they catch up eventually).

Server time of day is based on where the server is based. So a New York based server for instance will be the exact same time in game as it is in New York timezone. So if you live in NY and play on that server, and its midnight in real life there, it'll be midnight on the server.

I know that explanation was terrible

If you run through evergreen trees and building with two entrances you can shake any amount of zombies.

So I have managed to get 70% of coworkers addicted to this game and we have all been playing. I just wish we had a consistent good server as I have a tent that needs to be set up. I also think they need to implement a warning on the respawn button. I had everything I wanted/needed aside from NVG's and accidently hit respawn going for the options button.



The server admins set the timezone doesn't matter where the server is. I just hopped on a North Carolina server that's dark on.

G opens your inventory. Double clicking the backpack opens it and you move things back and forth using the list on the left. if your bag says 24/24 if means 24 empty slots. So 0/24 is full. If you are moving things into a pack without room they disappear, so pay attention to that.

You should start with a flashlight, which you right click on the tool belt to equip, you can put it back as well.

You are going to die a lot untill you get the hang of it. Untill you get at least a compass and get familiar with the map you can get lost in the woods pretty easily. There are 3 big cities, Cherno, Electro and Berezino. Cherno and Electro are deathtraps. There is a hospital in each of them though, where you can get painkillers, morphine, bandages and bloodbags. Morphine fixes broken legs, so without it you can be screwed. You also need another person to administer you a bloodbag.

General stores (looks like a store with a bunch of shelves in it) tend to have lots of food and drink, sometimes compasses, matches, maps, binocs, watches and hunting knives. With a knife you can gut an animal you kill, and if you make a fire with wood and matches you can cook the meat. It takes care of hunger and also gives a bunch of blood back per piece.

Barns can be found on the roads out of towns and tend to have shotguns/winchesters/lee enfields. So they are a good place to look for a weapon in the beginning.

The big problem is that I'm on the east coast and was only trying to play on US servers (for connection quality), and since I was trying to connect at around 6PM it shouldn't have been night on any server.

I dunno if it adjusts for daylight savings time, but yeah, something was out of whack.

Ah, thanks for the help Guardian. I'll probably try playing on a foreign server later so that there can be some daylight.

How do I actually use items and weapons that I have on me? I finally managed to connect to a server (it was nighttime, of course...) and opened my backpack, and saw how to place and remove the flashlight from my belt, but had no idea how to use it on my person.

EDIT: Nevermind, I guess I'll just sift through some video tutorials to teach myself. I'll probably learn some other useful tidbits, too.

There's many other mods I've been playing. Very good also! Some have much stronger parts in them then DayZ only reason they are not so big is because they where later abandoned at some point for the project. But I've been enjoying them more then I have with DayZ definitely.

ArmA 2's singleplayer and mission editor is also pretty damn sweet. Not that I have anything against CoD or Battlefield (newer Battlefields at least) or whatever, but sometimes it's refreshing to play a nice, slow paced, thinking shooter. Hopefully this huge injection of sales money should mean ArmA 3 is even better

hopefully the attention its drawing means better games all around. considering DayZ and ARMA 2 are proving the concept that giving gamers more gameplay options and freedom = more money.

Playing ARMA itself should help you get a better idea of how things work, too.

Even ignoring that, it's demonstrating the sort of payoff you can get from supporting your modding community. Even if all we see out of this is a surge in modding tools, the effect will be a very good one.