DayZ Diary: Part 2

After more than two weeks alone in the wilderness I decided to return to civilisation. I’m sure you can guess the result. The first person I encountered, without so much as a ‘hello’ or even a wave, buried an axe in my face. Oh well.

Following this, I decided to mess about a bit on the coast, burning through several different characters quite rapidly along the way. The first died from starvation, which I think hits a little too quickly right now, at least until they get vehicles into the game. The next died to zombies. I was experimenting with different melee weapons. I discovered that shovels, bats, crowbars and wrenches are all effectively useless.

Even landing 20-30 hits directly to the head didn’t seem to do a thing. Maybe it was just the poor hit detection, but I can take down a zombie in one hit with an axe, so I doubt it’s just that. Right now, axes are the only way to go, so this is something that really needs fixing, especially if they intend to increase the zombie count. Plus, zombies are still running through walls and floors, and their senses are all over the place. Some don’t react to standing right next to them, others spot and charge at you from a mile away.

I was hoping to encounter a few friendly players on my travels but other fresh spawns just seemed to run off at the sight of me. Either that or immediately attack. I think I spoke before about the ‘unpredictable’ nature of player interaction in DayZ. But honestly, there’s nothing that unpredictable about it after all. In fact, it’s sadly all too predictable. In 90% of my encounters with other players, one of us ended up dead.

Even as a fresh spawn with nothing in my pockets, one guy came at me with a shovel, but I somehow beat him down with my fists. And so, with a new found shovel and taste for bloody murder, I began stalking people along the coast. I spotted one guy who looked pretty well geared with a gun and a backpack. I snuck up on him and bludgeoned him to death. I felt a little bad about it. Honest. What had previously taken me hours to acquire, took mere moments. I was now fully armed and equipped. Well, at least for about five minutes, when someone else got the drop on me.

But I quickly grew rather tired of this endless deathmatch. Oh, it has its moments, I’ll give it that. But it mostly felt like a rather empty and futile experience. I just didn’t really get anything out of it. I guess I’m just more interested in the survival/exploration aspect. Of course, right now, that doesn’t amount to much. It really does feel like there’s only two things you can do in DayZ right now. Stay on the coast, which increase your chances of encountering other players by 90%, but also your chances of getting shot in the face by 90%. Or head inland to other towns, where you’re unlikely to see anyone at all.

And so, I decided to head inland once again. It can get lonely out there, but at least people aren’t trying to murder me every five minutes. I’m also now trying out playing on Hardcore servers. I prefer playing in first person anyway, and playing Regular just meant I felt forced into playing in third person or I’d be at a disadvantage. We’ll see how it goes.