TIGSource Forums

for anyone who doesn't know, DayZ  (http://dayzmod.com/)is a mod in alpha stage for ArmA2 and it's expansion Operation Arrowhead.

from Wikipedia:


it has a steep curve, and after a few days I'm only starting to get the hang of things. it is in alpha, but there are a few minor to major annoyances. zombie pathfinding is atrocious and is sometimes difficult to escape them. the netcode isn't the best, clunky inventory management, and visual glitches are everywhere. it relies on Arma2 files, so any Arma2 patch has an effect on DayZ (recently nerfed pistols in Arma2 carrying over to Dayz is a particularly painful occurrence to come to mind).

aside from the major bugs and glitches you are spawned without any way to defend yourself. if you don't find an early hatchet you're going to have a tough time as you have no choice but to run away from zombies (which will attract more zombies). it's easy to get lost, finding an in-game map isn't always easy so often you have to resort to an external map. and even still the in-game map is a bit lacking.

at times, the zombies are only a relatively minor inconvenience. the real enemies are players. never have I felt such terror from encountering another human in a game before. it's hard to describe, but every time I'm faced with a decision to kill or I'm being shot I get this terrible rush of adrenaline. my heart starts pumping and I start sweating. I've never felt dying or killing in a game like that before. I try my best not to kill, I feel far too guilty murdering people. most players will shoot on site, mostly for fun other than survival. so it's basically a survival deathmatch at times. cooperation between strangers is highly rare, but it's very memorable when it does happen.

and speaking of memorable here are a collection of some great DayZ experiences I've found on reddit or elsewhere:

http://i.imgur.com/KTuai.jpg crying in video games
http://i.imgur.com/UyyWd.jpg newbie meets a commando from north
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQQ4N1kMv9o guy gets picked up in a bus and a group forces him to fight for his life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2hojPlvVPI someone infiltrates a large group in a major town. mass paranoia ensues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR02qCEVUAM unarmed survivor makes friends with strangers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnOmXSUVAB8 firing squad saves survivor in distress

This is what everybody is playing on another board I frequent. They are making a standalone version soon too apparently. I'm planning to wait it out until it's a little more refined.

http://www.shacknews.com/game/arma-2/videos/13403/dayz-gets-stand-alone-ffxiii-still-alive-a-more-relatable

I don't know why I'm hearing about this game everywhere, the description doesn't sound like anything new. It must be some sort of PR plan.
Since I don't have arma2, I'll never know.

Is it /v/ ISM? I'm pretty sure we all frequent there

nope the boards for a Source engine game I work on. There's a games section
 
[spoiler] http://forums.firearms-source.com/forums/62-OTF-Games [/spoiler]

really? I've never seen a game quite like DayZ. considering the size of the map and the focus on survival with a touch of realism. it doesn't sound like you spent much time reading about it if you think it sounds like just anything new. I seriously don't think there's any other game quite like this. I know there are a few games that dabble in the survival element and there are plenty of zombie games, but none have such a good combination of survival, character persistence, pvp, and sandbox open world gameplay.

I was as dismissive about it at first as well. until I read some experiences and watched a few videos on youtube, gave it a try myself and was quite surprised. I've never played a game that makes me care so much about not wanting to die.

here's a article on DayZ that does a better job than most of the other articles at explaining it: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/24/surviving-some-more-thoughts-on-day-z/

yeah, same here.

i've kinda stopped playing though because it's fucking impossible to find a non-full server with a decent ping at the times i usually have time to play. also arma 2 freezes for me when i try to leave a lobby for whatever reason.

yeah, only playing recently I don't have much of an idea how it was before. but I see what you're saying. hopefully people who play it like a deathmatch get bored of it. I wouldn't mind a pve type mode that had a focus on coop survival. though for that to work zombies would have to be more of a threat than they are now, as well as items should be more rare. wouldn't really be much work either.

though one of the servers I frequent has global side chat on. so it's quite a bit easier in making friends and having different experiences than just being killed by strangers. though announcing where you are in global chat can lead to some interesting results.

I usually play by myself, trying to get familiar with initial gearing up as well as learning the map. I tried playing with podunk/dustin but three noobies running around blindly is not very conducive to learning, so I started going alone. slowly getting better.

saw this while rewatching one of those dayz videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPxMweGmo-I

My younger brother got me interested in this game, but I don't have the money to check it out right now... It sounds a LOT like an online version of this game I wrote a design doc for in highschool, with the open world, zombie theme, day & night based on GMT, vehicles, FPS, etc. I really want to play this, but I might hold out for them to move it out of alpha and it will be a stand-alone game and not a mod? Also, there's a game called The War Z which is a commercial release that's said to be similar that I might wait for instead.

I only heard about this game when it started getting hacked like crazy due to the Arma 2 engine being full of more holes than swiss cheeze.

Nope. It's an MMO developed by a different company.

yeah, The War Z is made by a new developer. it's going to be pretty different though, more game-like. they claim they've been stewing this idea for a couple years but only recently started development. may or may not be true, but I personally believe that they probably only got funding for this because of the popularity of DayZ.

I'll definitely buy DayZ when it goes standalone, but I'll hold off on The War Z unless it's good. there's a chance it will be, but probably in a different way.

DayZ is aiming more for a semi-authentic zombie apocalypse scenario. and Rocket (DayZ dev) isn't backed by a wealthy investor like The War Z guys are, so he probably feels less pressured to make things accessible.

Same here.

Is there any info about dates for the standalone (DayZ)?

2012 sayz™ Wikipedia.

Wouldn't buying stand-alone dayz mean that you would essentially just wait to get the same thing but much later?

From what I've understood it's going to be exactly the same mod, just packaged neatly in a dayz title.

But right now it's still on alpha, right? I hope if they pack it as a standalone it's going to be something more developed than an alpha...

but maybe I'm wrong

^^ that's what I was thinking as well

Heard a lot about this from Rebel FM. Interested.

I'm not sure if I'm interpreting his post correctly but he says he has access to source now, so I think in terms of bugs and things he had to "hack" into the engine will be smoothed out for standalone. I expect it to be the same game just with less bugs and hopefully more frequent patching. though what it becomes from there is anyone's guess. he hinted at possible new features but didn't elaborate.

so expect same game, (hopefully) less bugs, & easier install/update process.

I think the whole "Z" thing isn't really a rip-off, it's because of the popularity of World War Z.

Absolutely, but so will the mod.

It's a bit akin to when valve was selling counterstrike in the stores.

I really want to play this mod, but every time I join a server it takes about 15 minutes before my character spawns and I'm able to play, after that all I can do is walk around a completely barren landscape, and I'm not talking about the intentional zombie apocalypse kind of barren, I mean that nothing other than the terrain ever actually loads. 

Hopefully the stand alone will be released soon, and also actually work

It's embarrasing that Valve would even put a product that buggy up on Steam and give it top billing.

I don't understand what you're saying. It's embarrassing that Valve would put up a product that has a mod that is buggy up on Steam? It doesn't even have top billing. It's just selling well. There is no "featured" panel with ARMA 2 on it right now.

It was on sale during the Summer sale and if I recall, it was on the front store page.

DayZ wasn't on sale, Arma II was.

Mods are not indicative of the bugginess of the game they are based in

Most are huge kludges kept together with paper clips and hope

ArmA2 requires a sort of beefy system, this is not something you can play on a laptop. what are your specs of your computer? something is wrong here, and while I admit DayZ is a bit buggy and can take awhile to load, sounds like something on your end.

loading times in DayZ (once you get past the lobby) are up to the server you're connecting to. if the server is near full or otherwise stressed then it can take a long time to get in, though usually no longer than a couple of minutes. if you log in to a server that's half full you should get in almost instantly.

and yeah it sounds like you spawned in the Debug Plains, which is a bug. they took respawning out (as it's abuse to get a better position on the coast was stressing servers) but you can log out then log back in again and the game will automatically fix your position. same thing if you happen to spawn inside a building.


no it's embarrassing that you think the bugs in DayZ have any relevance to ArmA2. DayZ isn't up for sale on Steam, it's a free mod.

though because DayZ is literally the only reason people are buying ArmA2 these days Steam did put up a notice on the store page listing the required games necessary to play DayZ.

ARMA II and its predecessors have a painful history of being buggy, but it's hard to find a game that delivers such an entertaining "realistic" war feeling. A nice tactical guide for ARMA II, maybe applicable for DayZ (havent played it yet):
http://ttp2.dslyecxi.com/

Blah blah, you know what I meant.  It was a shrewd move on their part to capitalize on the attention and publicity a basically unfinished game/mod/alpha was getting.  Also see:

Capitalizing? People are throwing themselves on arma2 just to play the mod, many are wondering HOW to even play this mythical mod.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggWc0mc1z5c

how is it a shrewd move? they aren't advertising DayZ, they're advertising ArmA2. they don't give a fuck why you are buying it.

you would be pretty stupid as a business to not capitalize on that, and you are lying if you say you wouldn't do the same if you were in Valve's shoes. you are making it sound like they're ripping people off, which is probably one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.

and ArmA2 is buggy but no more buggy than any Bethesda or STALKER game was and is. why aren't you going around bitching about Steam selling them? in other words, fuck off you fucking idiot.

I don't see any "*WARNING* this game and it's mods are buggy as all hell" on Steam's page.  How is it stupid?  I know if I bought a game on Steam and it was a total pile of crap with bugs and hacks out the ass, I'd demand a refund.  I'm not paying to beta test.


Yeah, people buy those bugfests in droves too, doesn't mean people who buy it always know just how buggy it is.  And it doesn't make it right to sell to unsuspecting customers.


You're really quite angry.  Maybe you should take a chill pill.

there are a thousand mods for Source and most of them are buggy as fuck, do you want Steam to warn people buying Half Life 2 that those mods are buggy?

you aren't buying DayZ off Steam you fucking imbecile, how clear do I have to make that? it is not developed by anyone at Bohemia, it is a single developer making a free mod in his own time.

I'm done speaking with you, you're too fucking stupid. I'll stop being angry when you stop being so dumb.

ARMA II engine is the source of the bugs/hack issues, your analogy is full of holes.


Don't kid yourself, people aren't suddenly buying ARMA II for the hell of it.  It's because of DayZ.


You must be really fun at parties.  I didn't realize "Selling buggy software to unsuspecting customers" was such a controversial thing.

The game is buggy but the mod is a series of hacked together, only moderately functional things. It's exponentially more buggy than the game. If this wasn't the case, they wouldn't be working on a standalone.


If people have watched or seen any DayZ at all, they will know that it's buggy as hell. They're not 'unsuspecting'. And people still clearly enjoy it anyway, so it's not a damnable offense that the game be buggy.

Your argument isn't exactly stable either here. You're assuming malice on the retailer's part and idiocy on the customer's. Give people more credit.

I may just get Arma 2 for this when I get some more money, zombie games may have already been done to death (no pun intended), but I like that this is more focused around survival than just mowing down zombies.

I just hope my computer can take it.

if you don't have at least 4gb of ram, a 2.4ghz dual core or better, and a video card in the last couple years with at least 512mb of ram I would skip it. that's about what I have and I get about 30fps in the city to 50fps elsewhere on the 'normal' setting, which is playable but not exceedingly so.

though you could wait for the standalone version, which would be the wisest choice. it'll probably be cheaper than arma2:co and hopefully more optimized and less buggy.

in spite off all the bugs, shoddy performance, and abundance of hackers it's still way worth the 30 dollars in my opinion. never had so much fun in a game that literally has no goal.

I should be fine then, I don't need the graphics to be on max anyway.

there must have been a new hack released or something, I have yet to be able to play the last few days without encountering a hacker.

last night I managed to escape a hacker's wrath by alt+f4ing before I died, but today I logged in and was only able to play for about 20 minutes before a hacker insta-killed everyone in the server.

I can almost understand why someone would want to be able to press a single button and get any gun or vehicle they wanted, as guns and vehicles are hard to come by and easy to lose. I just don't understand why insta-killing everyone on the server would be entertaining for them. there is no global chat so they don't get any feedback.

not sure how much longer I can deal with these hackers, the standalone is doomed unless they find a reliable way to patch up the Arma engine.

Insta-kill hackers are stupid, but ones that do funny things like turning my hat into a chicken are hilarious (for a short bit, at least)

I must have done that, because I tried playing again, after walking for about 15 minutes I saw a sharp line in the dirt, after which reality began, the other side was populated with trees and grass and animals. Once I got to the other side however, I appeared instantly in the ocean, along with about 30 other drowning men and a helicopter, we all died.

One day I will try playing a game of DayZ and it will not be a disastrous waste of time, I'm sure of it

this seems cool, a DayZ clone in Minecraft.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/08/04/no-end-of-the-world-minez-is-zombie-survival-minecraft/
and their 'site': http://www.reddit.com/r/minez

sadly they seem to be plagued by hackers as well.

hell is other people

http://www.twitch.tv/justxrippedn1ck/b/327671117
http://www.twitch.tv/justxrippedn1ck/b/327671583
http://www.twitch.tv/justxrippedn1ck/b/327674064
http://www.twitch.tv/justxrippedn1ck/b/327674705

I almost died watching these videos. a streamer gets stalked by someone role-playing as some sort of axe-wielding psychotic murderer, playing creepy sounds with kids singing and laughing.

1 sets it up and 2 is the best. 3 and 4 are skippable though.