Day Z - Zombies + ARMA2? Yes please.

[fuggles]

Ladies and Jellyspoons, may I have your attention please.

I am currently hearing lots of good things about Day Z, a mod for Arma2: Combined Ops which turns an already fantastic military sim game into a zombie survival adventure. It's a multiplayer deal where you spawn with a pistol, some bandages and not much else and totter off into the world, the world that is full of players and zombies.

You start deliberately with very little and it's up to you how you find new stuff, which essentially boils down to looting the world or looting players. There is no map unless discovered and only chat to communicate, but the problem being some players aren't too nice and will gut you, take your stuff and leave you for dead - be suspicious of everyone, especially if better armed than you - this is ARMA2 so one bullet will do you.

Currently in Alpha there is objectively not a whole lot to it, just an enormous and beautiful map full of zombies and possibly friendly players and could easily be marketed as The Road: The Game. You will probably die on your own so hopefully you can find a friend...or a forum full of friends!

RPS article here:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012...ayz-part-zero/

Stack of videos from a competent player here:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...7&feature=plcp

plus you know, it's an excuse to own ARMA2 and who doesn't need that?

Mod site:
http://www.dayzmod.com/

RN Steam group:
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/DoltsZ



All the info needed to join our dedicated RN IRC channel, which might come handy for any newfish joining in DayZ and checking this thread:

http://forums.relicnews.com/showthre...post1045376190

[DeafMute]

Seen this afew weeks ago, looks alright. I hear one of the guys behind ARMA2 is the one putting time into this. id buy it but D3 will be taking up my time tuesday onwards.

[Ramrod]

Just started playing it last night. Spent about two hours wandering the wilderness at night, going from town to town, expressly avoiding human contact so as to not get insta-ganked.

Eventually I happened upon two guys stuck in a catch 22, and got dragged into it. Managed to smoothtalk our way out of a Mexican standoff, and the three of us formed a not-very-cohesive group for a while. Until we got separated, that is. I ducked into a building to scavenge some supplies, and the other two went on without me.

They threw a couple of flares to find me again, but were spotted by a bandit and killed. Luckily for me, the bandit had no idea I existed, so when he popped down to loot their corpses, I had the drop on him and avenged my late comrades. That was one heck of a haul.

Then I got careless. I was headed north to try and make it on my own, stayed too close to the roads, was easily spotted I guess. I got sniped. Fuckin' bandits.

The immersion in this game is awesome.

[DeafMute]

For future reference, how does the save system work in this game? You have to find somewhere to sleep to log off to ensure your character and gear are still alive for when you log on again?

[Ramrod]

No, sleep is not required, and when you log off your character disappears with you.

[Akranadas]

Wow, now that's a zombie game I would pay for.

[Trizzdog]

Is it me, or is this currently just a glorified LARP? With a bit more meat to bare on the game, it'd be pretty great. But right now to me it's just "shoot people and steal shit so I can shoot and steal more shit". And for some reason I don't find that all too exciting.

[Ramrod]

It is definitely directionless. I believe the intended point of the mod is emergent gameplay: let the players create their own narrative. It works for me, sorry it doesn't work for you.

On the other hand, there is definitely too much shooting other people. The game needs to be rebalanced slightly to make the zombies more dangerous, and encourage cooperating with other players more often, at least on temporary basis.

[DeafMute]

Trizz you think it would be better if you could band together, fortify a small town and help one another survive?
Hopefully something like that happens, seeing as its still in alpha plenty of time to add stuff.

[Ramrod]

Well, had a great session with Julian last night/today.

Had managed to effect a really really paranoid trade with a guy last night, traded my weapon and some ammo for food, went on our way. Logged out last night with me still totally unarmed, and slightly injured.

Log in today to continue our journey north, manage to find not one, but two amazing hauls. Julian and I both end up geared up and well-armed. We are walking through a town when I'm immediately headshotted from somewhere. Julian avenges me, but his player model turns into a bandit one, for having committed murder. I manage to respawn somewhere safe, with really good loot drops nearby, so I'm modestly armed with a lot of gear.

Julian and I spend about two hours linking up again, but now it will be hard to get people to trust us due to his player skin.

[Kryopsis]

Is it me, or is this currently just a glorified LARP? With a bit more meat to bare on the game, it'd be pretty great. But right now to me it's just "shoot people and steal shit so I can shoot and steal more shit". And for some reason I don't find that all too exciting.

I don't know, if more of RN posters play the game, I might even buy ARMA 2 if it means I get to shoot and rob the people I have on my ignore list.

[Julian]

I think i'm a masochist who gets a kick out of navigating around a huge world with only a very basic map to find my way with.

[DeafMute]

See on one hand I really would like to play this but on ther other its still an alpha. my headset doesnt work 100% and I think £25 is asking too much, plus im sure if afew of us from RN were to team up id be the first inline to get shot in the back. Im just "that guy".

Is there a developer blog with this mod? Wouldnt mind keeping an eye on it, check from time to time to see when it enters beta and all that good stuff. Until then ill pray for a sale on ARMA2 through steam.

[Elerium]

You start deliberately with very little and it's up to you how you find new stuff, which essentially boils down to looting the world or looting players. There is no map unless discovered and only chat to communicate, but the problem being some players aren't too nice and will gut you, take your stuff and leave you for dead - be suspicious of everyone, especially if better armed than you - this is ARMA2 so one bullet will do you.

Ugh, no offense but this reminds me of when I tried FOnline, that was horrible- getting ganked trying to mine, getting ganked just exploring, getting thieved and that had a lot of insta kill gorefest if someone critted you or was vastly more levelled than you. In my experience such games inevitably get very, very tiresome and bothersome quickly unless you have some sort of clan that can recooperate the losses easily.

[kais58]

I plan on playing this a bit next week when my new machine is up and running, currently can't run ARMA 2 on my laptop.

[Ramrod]

Elerium, player-killing is a 100% legitimate gameplay element in this, it isn't "getting ganked."

There is ganking, mainly in the form of roving well-equipped bandits killing noobs at the starting area*, but then the trick is to get out of there ASAP and to never broadcast your position by asking stupid shit like "is there anyone friendly in <city name>?" The long answer to that question is "no, there is nobody friendly in <city name>" and the short answer is a bullet in your skull.

Basically, you have to work under the assumption that at any time, you could run into a survivor who will not be friendly. The best way to ensure you get the drop on him, instead of the other way round, is to play this like a stealth game. I've had bandits run right past me at a distance of 10 metres or so and not even see me. Also, by "get the drop on him," I do not mean kill him first. I have spotted first and hid from many survivors, and never killed a one.

Copy-pasting a few of the relevant tips from the SomethingAwful thread on the mod:

- As soon as you spawn, go prone.
- Practice good awareness.
- Flares give away your position at night. Other survivors can see you from miles away.
- Don't stand on flares. You will get picked off by some bandit with a CZ550.
- Always crouch walk around corners.
- Stick to the walls, trees and shrubbery.
- The quicker you move, the sooner you'll need food and water.
- You'll need food and water roughly every 2 hours. Make sure you always have at least one food and water item on you.
- Water canteens can be filled at any water source including the ocean and pumps. It's glitchy as shit and swimming sometimes leads to losing your pack. Take caution.
- Zombies can be avoided by moving quietly and keeping low. Going prone in particular makes you hard to detect.
- Never use the Lee Enfield in a city unless you need too. It is extremely loud and will attract zombies/players from miles away.
- Zombies can't run inside buildings and are easily confused by bridges. Use these are safety zones.
- If you're chased by zombies, run backwards, stop for a second, take a shot, rinse and repeat.
- Never trust pubbies.
- Always respond if someone asks if you are friendly. Always say you are friendly even if you are not.
- If you need to go on the roof of a building, make sure everyone is friendly or no one is around. Also be damn quick about it.


EDIT
A few of my own tips:

- Do not linger in areas where you've been shooting. The gunshots were almost certainly heard by someone, and that someone is probably on their way.
- If you're in a group, don't all start looting corpses at the same time. Take turns standing watch.
- Make sure useful gear is evenly distributed (food, first aid, ammo) so if you're separated it isn't a death sentence to the guy with no equipment.
- When you're in a gunfight, don't shoot at zombies close to your friends, warn them and let them handle it themselves. Friendly fire fucking hurts.


*The starting area is the entire south-eastern coast of the map, probably a good 40km stretch, they can hardly cover all of it

[SpitfireMK461]

Does this only work with combined ops or while the base Arma2 be compatible?

[Cable]

It's only with Arma: CO, Spitfire.

I've watched a few gameplay videos for this mod and it seems like an excellent and realistic (or as realistic you can get considering zombies aren't real) mod but I just can't bring myself to part with £25 just to play a mod. I have zero interest in playing the core Arma: CO because well, BF3 fulfils my FPS cravings.

Unless the developers can make it work with vanilla Arma then I'm afraid I'll not be playing, which is a shame as it looks pretty good.

[Shaitan]

Do zombies ever have loot on them?

[Kryopsis]

I forgot to ask in my previous post but can somebody explain how anyone can sell a modification for a commercial game? Did the developers buy a license from BIS?

[Rotlung]

This harsh environment reminds me a lot of what I've read of Fallout: Online (the one that requires Fallout 2 to play). It's easy to get killed by other players, and there's not much protection for new players. You just need to play according to the environment.

Such a concept in a survival horror game interests me, though I'm not interested to the extent that I would fork out a nice sum for the base game that I probably don't really care about.

[Ramrod]

Kryopsis, the mod is free. Where'd you get the idea that you have to pay?

Shaitan, they do, but only basics like food or flares.

[Kryopsis]

Eh, I am an idiot. I guess I just got confused when people in the RPS comments were discussing spending 25 pounds on it. They were probably talking about the base game.

[Nurizeko]

25 buck for combined arms is pretty good deal considering what you're getting, when much shallower titles go for the guts of £40.

I spend ages not really having much to play and now I gotta get through Fall of the Samurai, Skyrim, Firefall beta, that Mechwarrior thing coming up, but bless my little heart I do love me some zombiez.

[Ramrod]

Yeah, Kryopsis, that'd be why. You have to buy both the vanilla game and the standalone expansion, cause they both have independent content that the mod relies on.

If anyone isn't sure whether they'd like ArmA 2, try out the Operation Arrowhead demo. You'll be able to get a taste of the gameplay, and see if the full game will run on your PC. There's also ArmA 2 Free, but it's bullshit. The graphics options are nerfed, so it isn't a realistic representation of how the final game will run on your computer.

[Nurizeko]

Hmm, looked at their forums, apparently groups have vehicles, even some helicopters, Walking Dead vibe right there.

But the ganking each other and fighting over resources smacks of Hunger Games (also good).


Really wanna see how this mod pans out once it's out of alpha. Showing a lot of promise!

[Rotlung]

Interesting, will try the demo. Arma 2 free seems okay to me, since I don't have hardware for their kind of HD graphics. It doesn't support mods though, which is a shame.

[Misiok]

Arma 2 free also doesn't support high graphics, so it's only playing on Low. Probably to make you buy the game to get all the sexy graphics and to lower the file size.

[Ramrod]

So Julian and I found out the hard way that bullets can go through several tents, even low velocity pistol rounds. Now I have one of his Glock 17 slugs in my braincase.

[Julian]

It was one shot in a million. Then I wandered around Novy Sobor, got stuck in one building whilst a practically endless horde of zombies battered their way in, escaped the horde when another unwitting fool drew them off, and then played a half hour game of cat and mouse with two bandits intent on murdering me and stealing all my hard earnt gear. Bastards got me, but I took one of them to hell with me!

[Ewokz]

Damn this really does sound and look awesome, having watched all the vids you posted I think I may have to get this tonight. Anyone up for making some sort of Dolt team for everyone interested to join?

[Lleman]

Slowly and painfully getting ArmaII to install... Then i'll be a happy soon-to-be-dead-and-looted newfish on the shorelines of Chernarus.

As to a Dolt team, what about this? I expect this steamgroup to grow up rapidly. Also, if anyone didn't have it already, Mumbles.

[Thorno]

Got this today and had a go with a few mates.

First "adventure" started out well, just going around small villages killing zeds and scavenging, until my friend died, spawned in a costal town and had a bleed-out bug, to stop the infinite bleed-out I traveled many miles into heavily occupied Elektro and was instantly swarmed.

Take two lasted a few hours, few more friends this time. Killed some poor guy after he killed one of ours, headed north. I got stuck in a pond, had to relog only to find that this in particular server didn't seem to be saving our progress and now we're all stripped of our belongings and back in starting zones.

Hope RN gets a team going. It's incredibly fun.

Just try to avoid Russian servers...

[Ramrod]

So last night kais58, his friend Nick, nyyti, Julian and myself had a go at a more organised playthrough. Julian and I managed to find each other pretty quick, with nyyti joining us slightly later, and kais and Nick eventually linking up with us last.

We walked around a bit, scavenging some stuff, before deciding to head to the city of Stary Sobor, a town next to a military airbase, with a military camp just north of it full of good loot. With nyyti and myself providing sniper cover, the other three guys cross this wide field leading into the town. Nick spots someone exactly 19 metres ahead of him (his name was visible on-screen for Nick), and suddenly kais is dead. A few seconds later, Nick is dead, and then Julian. nyyti spots two of the shooters and downs them, but a third runs down behind a hill which nyyti has a poor angle on. Luckily, I have a good angle on it, and pop him in short order.

After some fiddling around with the respawn lobby, kais ends up resuscitating (it seems he was just crippled, not killed), and Nick somehow (with improbable good fortune) reverts to a nearby previous save. Julian, however, ends up having to start again at the coast.

The three of us still on site head down to loot the bodies, and find a very good haul on the dead bandits, including an assault rifle each for myself and kais. We see some text in the server chat saying "great gunfight in Stary Sobor, thanks guys" from a guy that we didn't kill, and I realise that the player I had shot wasn't wearing a bandit skin. The poor bastard must have been an innocent bystander, and I must have overlooked one of the bandits, killing this survivor in his stead. That being said, I feel no regrets. My humanity did not drop low enough to change into a bandit skin, and in this kind of situation, as nyyti rightly pointed out, it is open season on anyone not us.

After meeting up with Julian, we headed south to a facility that is known to spawn more military gear, but found nothing useful. Undaunted, we had just started heading around to the westernmost village in the map when the server died and we all decided to go to bed.

I love this fucking mod.

[OpelFalcon]

It's awesome, it's a shame I couldn't join you guys, I seemed to be plauged with problems and when I finally joined I crashed...while it said joining server... So frustrated and hearing all the fun you guys were having I grumbled in disgust and headed to bed.

Sorted out the problems this morning and finally got to play...my god this mod...seriously...if you like survival with incredibly tense moments this game will give you that certain fix.

I spawned by the coast and followed some train tracks, I came across a small way station, what I thought was one zed turned out to be three...a fairly heated moment was had and two clips later and not a scratch on myself I searched the place further, only to find some empty tins and a looted dead body...things weren't going so well, running low on food and with no water I made my way to the shore, finding a lighthouse in the distance...then gunfire, in the distance, I hung back and surveyed the area, I saw two people running in the direction I just came so I decided I'll continue towards the light house, on reaching it I found a few dead zeds and two bodies, It was a better haul than last time, and I didn't need to pull my trigger

It's great fun.

Edit: double post

[Akranadas]

Just got linked to this video:



Someone getting robbed at gun point in the mod. The crazy stuff that can happen

[Nurizeko]

Goddamnit guys stop trying to make me want to play, I got revision AND a book and two other games to play (ignoring the firefall beta).

You guys using mumble or Teamspeak for communication?

*sigh* Guess I'm getting the mod files lol.

[Ramrod]

We use the Relicnews Mumble, yeah.

Also, Akranadas, lol emergent gameplay. Zombie Apocalypse Highwayman is henceforth to be considered a legitimate career path.

[Shoota Fodder]

Don't use mumble, surely that's cheating? Keep the distance voice communications in. That's all part of the immersion.

[Thorno]

Judging by the forums zombie spawns appear to have increased... a lot. Can't wait to play again tonight.

[Ramrod]

Proximity comms is actually broken in the current version of Day Z unless you use the beta patch for ArmA2, and the server you're on runs it as well, which is about 10% of them. Without Mumble, there simply is no speaking.

[Lleman]

Finally! ArmaII CO just finished installing (yay crappy internets). I can't wait to experience permadeath.

[fuggles]

@Cable and anyone else not familiar with ARMA games - ARMA are not just fps. Sure, they can be if you turn on ALL the wussy help options, but played propery with no HUD or magic waypoints then you lead a squad of soldiers who can die from one or two shots (as do the enemy) and your best friends are a compass, binoculars and the ability to read a map. The battlefield is ridiculously large and you can go anywhere, especially if you have air support as you can command your helicopter to fly you around, unless it gets shot down, in which case you might want to loot a car. Non-linear campaign and the most realistic army simulator outside of joining the forces, but with time compression! Awesome game, nothing like Battlefield3 at all really...

[Shaitan]

BF3 is fun for what it is but I can't see it being modded to do what this game is doing. I'm sorely tempted to start playing it.

[Rivy]

Tried the demo. Movement is wonky and the inventory is a pain, but I could see it working with zombies

[Rotlung]

It didn't run very well on my computer (tried both the demo and the free version), but yeah it plays very differently from an FPS. I couldn't quite figure out why I couldn't get past Trial By Fire scenario after beating it, tried Armoury and found it boring.

That, and I just couldn't see my enemies. Maybe because I disabled antialiasing and had to reduce the rendered resolution to get a decent framerate. Ah well...

The sandbox gameplay sounds interesting, but I couldn't figure if people were referring to the campaign, the scenarios, or multiplayer modes. I did see some videos of the mod and it seemed interesting. I quite like the fact that it can be unforgiving, in the sense that people aren't barred from simply robbing/killing you and all that. I'd prefer that to happen in a singleplayer environment, since I generally prefer singleplayer games.

[Niftyeye]

My Arma 2 squad plays this and keeps saying how awesome it is, and the posts on this thread have convinced me to give it a download. The 50 player servers always seem to be full though :S


That poor guy on the youtube video, Im half tempted to simply shoot anything that comes near me, living or not.


So the goal is basically to collect food and drink, and survive? Is it a good idea to hold up somewhere or just keep on the move/in the mountains?

[Cable]

@Cable and anyone else not familiar with ARMA games - ARMA are not just fps. Sure, they can be if you turn on ALL the wussy help options, but played propery with no HUD or magic waypoints then you lead a squad of soldiers who can die from one or two shots (as do the enemy) and your best friends are a compass, binoculars and the ability to read a map. The battlefield is ridiculously large and you can go anywhere, especially if you have air support as you can command your helicopter to fly you around, unless it gets shot down, in which case you might want to loot a car. Non-linear campaign and the most realistic army simulator outside of joining the forces, but with time compression! Awesome game, nothing like Battlefield3 at all really...

My highlight.

I already have the luxury of being in the forces and coming in from work to play a game that almost sums up what I do for a living, minus the actual physical exertion doesn't really sound like fun.

I'll stick to the more arcade-y Battlefield 3, I think.

[Croaxleigh]

Im half tempted to simply shoot anything that comes near me, living or not.

That's actually the only major problem that I've read about when reading up on this mod. Someone summed it up as saying that about half of the random people you run into are assholes who are just in it for the PK lulz (as opposed to the immersion/zombie hijinks/party bus experience), and half of those who aren't are so afraid that everyone else is that they just start taking shots at you as soon as they see you.

[Ramrod]

So last night we found out the most recent mod version partially resets your character. You keep all your gear, but you start back at the noobie spawn location. This leads to lots and lots of fast deaths. By some miracle, the gang from Sunday night all made it back inland alive. I had a couple of tense zombie chases on my journey, but having an AKS-74 really helps end them fast. Having barely any food or drink took its toll on me, though.

In the end we met up just outside some shithole of a town, absolutely packed with zombies (side effect of the new patch, zombie population is tripled/quadrupled) and decided to head into it. With nyyti and I providing overwatch again, the rest of the guys (this time joined by OpelFalcon) proceeded to inspect (and loot) everything in the town until they confirmed it was clear, then nyyti and I join them in a house. While there, the zombies were somehow aggroed, and we ended up having to fight off a swarm that very nearly overran us. It must have been over two dozen, possibly as much as three dozen. Having recovered our wits, we decided to head towards a major city, Berezino, on the eastern coast, due to there being a hospital there, and all of us being low on much-needed medical supplies.

Cue leapfrogging northeast through two more towns, a factory, and the suburbs of Berezino. Each one was an ordeal of nyyti and myself watching from a vantage point while the rest of the squad moved in. At one point OpelFalcon had to leave, but as soon as he did another Dolt, PacPomarnacki, joined us in our endeavour.

The new patch really changes the game. Zombies, zombies everywhere. We actually started to risk ammo shortages for the lever-action Winchester, possibly the most common long-rifle ammo spawns in the game.

One moment that haunts me a little in hindsight is when, in the suburbs of the city, the looting team decided to take a slight risk and head to a large barn way out of sight range of nyyti and myself. They called it off when they heard some noises coming from within and saw dead zombies in the doorway. A survivor hiding inside? We never found out, the team decided not to risk a closer look. Who had been in the barn? Was he hostile or just scared? What had he been through on his own in this highly dangerous environment created by the new patch? I didn't give it any thought at the time, but looking back on it, since we were close to the spawn areas, if he were a noob on his own with this new zombie overpopulation, it must have been nothing short of a flat-out absolutely terrifying experience for him to make it as far as he did, then hear a huge gunfight going on outside as Nick's looting squad had cleared out the zombies in the suburbs.

In any case, we all met up on a hill above Berezino and formed new teams. Pac had picked up a bolt-action, loud-as-Hell weapon, so he stayed with nyyti that time to provide sniper support, while I with my (still loud, but full-auto at least) AK joined the team in going into Berezino. Somehow, by a stroke of incredible luck, on our way in the city was nearly devoid of zombies. We got plenty of medical gear looted, and but had to leave plenty behind so as not to linger too long in a place which has loot that is always in high demand. On our way out, we noticed that the zombie population in the city had started to increase dramatically, and our clear route of escape was rapidly getting blocked. Finally, Nick decided we should go loud, and we opened fire on the zombies. Due to a cruel trick of lag, kais took a Winchester slug from Nick and was killed. No buggy respawn for him that time, he went straight to the coastline with noob gear.

Having secured the loot and lost a comrade, we headed back up into the hills to find a safe place to log off for the night.

My only disappointment of the night was that nyyti didn't get to snipe too many of the zeds, but when he did (as with the bandits from the previous night), it was pretty damn awesome. It was like zombie brain splatter pizza delivery. "nyyt, zombie ten metres to my 11 o'clock, if you please." BLAM (his M24 SWS is loud as fuck, by the way).


PS. if my zomblog posts are getting tiresome, tell me and I'll stop posting them.