StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Well, surprise and shock, here is an early Xmas gift for DayZ fans. Rocket has finally gotten around to releasing the alpha for the long-awaited DayZ standalone. Seems to still have numerous bugs and problems, but is both selling well and being enjoyed. Anyone here jumping on it, I got it but will likely not have much time to play with it til after the new year.

Anyone else playing this?

I gotta say...I am not happy about human nature after playing this game for a bit. I kinda understand how Rick Grimes feels in TWD, if I see someone I'm staying clear of him and/or shooting him. There are no friendlies, only enemies.

I would be playing this if my graphics card hadn't taken a shit; I'm waiting for EVGA to ship out the replacement so I can play modern games again.

As the game stands (or stood around Xmas when I last played), human nature plays only to get you killed. Ease of gearing up with weapons + lack of endgame (it is only an alpha though, a real "this is testing phase" alpha even) that requires multiple people such as repairing a heli or fort building means many servers are just player deathmatch with the odd melee mob. As with the DayZ mod, the best way to play is with 3rd party comms like Teamspeak or Vent with a handful of folks you didn't randomly meet in game.

Ease of gearing up with weapons? Dunno, I've had trouble getting weapons. The only time I ever had both the right gun and the right ammo was a FNX I picked up in Elektro. I've only played for 5 hours though.

Lonestar wrote:Anyone else playing this?

I gotta say...I am not happy about human nature after playing this game for a bit. I kinda understand how Rick Grimes feels in TWD, if I see someone I'm staying clear of him and/or shooting him. There are no friendlies, only enemies.

I played it way back after picking up Arma for cheap. Like a lot of games, it's only as much fun as the server you pick to play on. I was unable to find one where there were any sort of people who wanted to play out surviving a zombie apocalypse, instead just wanting to murder lone survivors with a group of their friends. It's decidedly not fun by yourself and trust in a public server is hard to come by, both ways, because at any point you can just shoot someone and take all their stuff.

I can kind of understand it though. There's loads of stories where established groups let in some random pug, only for him to start shooting them in the back after hours of playing at being their ally. It's a call-back to older server setups and many people aren't ready for that shit. These same people wouldn't last 5 minutes in Diablo or Vampire (even without everyone running trainer programs).

Unfortunately, what makes it a great game (the ability to not be able to fully trust pugs) is likely what's going to keep it from being fully-realized. However, it's current popularity is refreshing.

Been playing the SA with a core of players from two summers ago. Its fun. But the new player interaction encourages even more griefing behavior.

Capture a girl and force feed her bananas. Oh, that's mature and not sexist. Force feed people drain cleaner. Hold them ransom and then kill them anyway.

But its still a fun game. The new mechanics are interesting. Gearing up is absurdly easy right now. Anyone beyond the coast is almost certainly maxed out right now. I had fully kitted out M4 within half a day of playing.

Man I've been operating in the NE corner of the map, basically making a giant loop with Berezino--->Krasnostav--->NEAF--->Olsha--->Guba---> NE shipwreck--->Berezino. At this point I'm pretty well kitted out, but whenever someone sees me they duck behind a building/tree/rock and log out, even if I shout "Friendly! Friendly!". I've escorted a spawn up to NEAF once, and that time we were both in the air traffic control tower when someone sniped at us(hitting the fresh spawn but missing me). I hate to think that the dude I escorted thinks I set him up.

Why do people play this game, it sounds like a horribly frustrating experience from what I've read. It seems like the perfect sadistic sociopathic playground.

aieeegrunt wrote:Why do people play this game, it sounds like a horribly frustrating experience from what I've read. It seems like the perfect sadistic sociopathic playground.

I think you answered your own question.

aieeegrunt wrote:Why do people play this game, it sounds like a horribly frustrating experience from what I've read. It seems like the perfect sadistic sociopathic playground.

Man, so

I've kept my guy alive for the past week mostly by having him be in a relatively empty part of the map, as mentioned. Anyway, I get the drop on this kid who was skulking around, who of course shouts "FRIENDLY FRIENDLY" . He had just came from the NEAF, which had been picked clean by a bunch of shady fuckers hanging out in one of the Hangers.

I tell him if he wants, I'll escort him to the NWAF, although I had never been there and I had read on the Internets lots of assholes camped out there. But we were on a No-KOS server(ha), and it had much more gear there than anywhere else. We spent like an hour walking though, along the way got the kid a Mosin, then the server restarted right outside of the town immediately outside of the NWAF. When we log back in this dude in a early-game kit(motorcycle helmet, raincoat) claims to us that his bud was at the NWAF and he glitched out and then got turned around. I said that we were heading that way, and if he wanted we could escort him up.

"Cool, uh, don't shoot my friend, okay?"

"Only if he doesn't shoot at us."

"Okay, okay"

We get up there, dude starts to sprint ahead, I see two dudes at the end of the runway(where he's running) and anther across the way. The guy across the way starts shooting, me and the kid start shooting back, then the guys at the end of the runway start shooting.

I tell kid to sling his rifle and make for the treeline. the guy we had escorted up turns around and starts chasing us and then shot us both in the backs with a Python.

So yeah perfect sadistic sociopathic playground is about right

How difficult is it to get a decent sniper rifle and enough bullets to last you in that game? Because the way things sound a fun thing might be to join and just play the lone sniper, dispensing justice and vanishing into the forest from time to time. And by dispensing justice I of course mean shoot random people.

aieeegrunt wrote:Why do people play this game, it sounds like a horribly frustrating experience from what I've read. It seems like the perfect sadistic sociopathic playground.

Because it's all about Real Zombie Survival mangs, and if there's one thing nerds love it's thinking that they'd totally win at zombies.

But really if you make an online game where people can shoot each other why be surprised when it happens? If it basically being a really crap and slow PvP FPS with the occasional intrusion of zombies isn't part of the "creative vision" then turn PvP off.

But they didn't, possibly relying on emergent social systems to provide entertainment. (ps they don't it's just a PvP game with an oversized map and zombies)

Urbandead is a game in this vein. Survivors can kill other survivors, who then turn into zombies and can be revived. PKing is almost universally frowned upon and entire "clans" existed to call them out, hunt them down, and murder them over and over. However, a single server and persistent characters make this much easier. Mr. PKer can reroll a new character, but he loses all his XP and shinies.

Once our house is built and I can cobble together a new server (the backplane blew out on mine), I want to give this another shot with a few buds. Right now, the idea of pugging is just not in the cards.

Purple wrote:How difficult is it to get a decent sniper rifle and enough bullets to last you in that game? Because the way things sound a fun thing might be to join and just play the lone sniper, dispensing justice and vanishing into the forest from time to time. And by dispensing justice I of course mean shoot random people.

Right now there are only two long guns, a M4 and Mosin Nagant 91/30. You can throw a PU scope on the Mosin(or a longer range variable scope if you can find it), and it'll be a better sniper rifle than the M4.

The problem is you have to find the scopes in a pristine condition(otherwise the lens is fogged or cracked). Reloading isn't as quick as with a M4, obviously. People claim it(the Mosin) is easier to find than a M4, but that has not been my experience.

Lonestar wrote:

Purple wrote:How difficult is it to get a decent sniper rifle and enough bullets to last you in that game? Because the way things sound a fun thing might be to join and just play the lone sniper, dispensing justice and vanishing into the forest from time to time. And by dispensing justice I of course mean shoot random people.

Right now there are only two long guns, a M4 and Mosin Nagant 91/30. You can throw a PU scope on the Mosin(or a longer range variable scope if you can find it), and it'll be a better sniper rifle than the M4.

The problem is you have to find the scopes in a pristine condition(otherwise the lens is fogged or cracked). Reloading isn't as quick as with a M4, obviously. People claim it(the Mosin) is easier to find than a M4, but that has not been my experience.

Same here, I've found plenty of M4s but not one Mosin.

Right, you can usually find a M4 at a airfield(especially if you server hop to undermanned server). Mosins are found at random places. It's currently claimed that they are found at farms, but both times I've found one that wasn't the case(one in the pilothouse of a shipwreck, one in a hotel in a city)

aieeegrunt wrote:Why do people play this game, it sounds like a horribly frustrating experience from what I've read. It seems like the perfect sadistic sociopathic playground.

It's the perfect simulation of a post-apocalyptic playground - you arrive, might be able to survive a couple of days, and then someone shoots you in the back for a can of beans...

How is the situation with hackers in Standalone? By now, I'd suppose the first ones should have found their way in.

Believe it or not, Hackers don't really seem to be a problem. Griefers are another story.

Lonestar wrote:Believe it or not, Hackers don't really seem to be a problem. Griefers are another story.

How do you tell a griefer from a normal desperate DayZ player?

Mr Bean wrote:

Lonestar wrote:Believe it or not, Hackers don't really seem to be a problem. Griefers are another story.

How do you tell a griefer from a normal desperate DayZ player?

well there is that

Mr Bean wrote:

Lonestar wrote:Believe it or not, Hackers don't really seem to be a problem. Griefers are another story.

How do you tell a griefer from a normal desperate DayZ player?

This. So many times over this.

I stopped playing because I lost track of the number of times some guy with a crappy mic has been in the same place I am, starts rapid-fire saying "Are you friendly?!?!?!" for ten minutes while I just go "Yeah just don't bother me" after the first time and go about my own business, then they shoot me dead.

Full loot PVP is fundamentally appealing to a very large segment of the gaming populace.

It's not quite full loot. Shooting someone in the chest ruins their shirt/vest and randomly damages some items in their backpack. But still, enough survives to make it a valid tactic. At this point its a balance issue. Ease of gearing vs advantages of a group is currently weighted heavily in the shoot them just in case range.

There's probably a really good metaphor for the human condition in there somewhere.

Anyway, I might have a crack at this when I've got a few quid.