I'm fairly surprised I haven't seen a thread on here for DayZ, which is a zombie based hyper-realistic mod for a game called ARMA 2 for those of you who haven't heard of it. It is in Alpha right now, but over the past few weeks it's exploded in popularity. it's gained so much popularity that Steam made ARMA 2: Combined Operations (the game required for the mod) a featured game even though it has been out for 2 years and has never been that popular in its own right.
So, brief explanation over, anyone playing it? I've been plying it for about a month and my current character has been alive for about 20hrs of played time. To put that in perspective for non-players, when you die, you lose that character and respawn in a random spot on the coast, and the average life is only 31 minutes. I'm in a group of five RL friends right now, and we have a campsite, and are having a blast! We'll spend hours crawling around, hunting, and hitting deer stands, barns, and farms. We are avoiding towns and airfields until they fix the Uber-Zombie's that currently are in game. The slow pace, coupled with the moments of extreme terror (i.e. having a guy ride his motorcycle within feet of your firend AFK in a tree) , is a nice break from the fast paced, and artificially created anxiety that games like CoD or BF3 rely on.
For those of you who haven't picked it up, keep in mind that it is an Alpha, and it is buggy. The hardest thing about the game, is in fact the game itself so far, but regardless, its the most fun I've had in a long while on my computer.
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I picked it up Monday and I've been having a blast. The fact that you start with no way to defend yourself and finding a weapon isn't exactly trivial, makes the whole "survival" aspect all the more enjoyable. Then, once you do find a weapon, you're overly cautious so you don't get killed and have to start over.
I've heard a lot of people talk about the super zombies, but I have no idea what they are talking about since they haven't changed since I started. They are very easy to agro, but I like that. The stealth aspect of most games is so unrealistic it's boring. Even crawling there's no way I should be able to sneak past someone 5 feet from me.
Night is too dark. If zombie agro range was considerably reduced at night, the pitch black wouldn't be so bad. But as is, it's impossible to accomplish anything other than wandering through the woods. I do like that it's so dark, but the player shouldn't be the only one completely blind.
Just FYI for anyone interested; ArmA II is made by a small company so it doesn't have any of the polish a top end title would have. Also DayZ is a mod, not an expansion, and a mod that is currently in Alpha. The controls are annoying and a bit clunky, graphics are mediocre, optimization sucks, zombies agro through walls and warp through barriers, and agro ranges seem to fluctuate a bit. Despite that, the game is awesome. The last time I felt like this while playing a game was back in EQ while exploring new zones I had no business being in.
I've heard a lot of people talk about the super zombies, but I have no idea what they are talking about since they haven't changed since I started. They are very easy to agro, but I like that. The stealth aspect of most games is so unrealistic it's boring. Even crawling there's no way I should be able to sneak past someone 5 feet from me.
Night is too dark. If zombie agro range was considerably reduced at night, the pitch black wouldn't be so bad. But as is, it's impossible to accomplish anything other than wandering through the woods. I do like that it's so dark, but the player shouldn't be the only one completely blind.
Just FYI for anyone interested; ArmA II is made by a small company so it doesn't have any of the polish a top end title would have. Also DayZ is a mod, not an expansion, and a mod that is currently in Alpha. The controls are annoying and a bit clunky, graphics are mediocre, optimization sucks, zombies agro through walls and warp through barriers, and agro ranges seem to fluctuate a bit. Despite that, the game is awesome. The last time I felt like this while playing a game was back in EQ while exploring new zones I had no business being in.
The super zombies are basically just zombies that have messed up aggro characteristics. If you go into buildings. no matter what, they will zero in on you, even if you are prone and not moving. He's stated that that isn't intentional and buildings should reduce sight entirely for zombies outside and reduce hearing by 50%. They can also hit through walls, although that is easy to live with. The worst part is that they will not stop spawning. The timer is messed up, and there isn't a delay between death and spawn for zombies. I got holed up in a barn with a friend, and we had to shoot our way out. In a remote barn, on a server with 7 people on it, we had to kill 108 zombies. Can't even imagine cities.
Oh! And weather is going to affect them. As for the unrealistic part of being able to sneak by zombies, according to what little "lore" there is, the virus diminishes sight and hearing. Or maybe just sight. EIther way, it makes sense.
Edit: I know it's not entirely fair, but to solve night time, turn gamma, brightness, and HDR quality to max, and it is roughly the same as NVG. I don't like doing it, but I'd rather do that then stare at a black screen for hours
Edited, Jun 29th 2012 7:38pm by Internuncio
Edited, Jun 29th 2012 7:39pm by Internuncio
Oh! And weather is going to affect them. As for the unrealistic part of being able to sneak by zombies, according to what little "lore" there is, the virus diminishes sight and hearing. Or maybe just sight. EIther way, it makes sense.
Edit: I know it's not entirely fair, but to solve night time, turn gamma, brightness, and HDR quality to max, and it is roughly the same as NVG. I don't like doing it, but I'd rather do that then stare at a black screen for hours
Edited, Jun 29th 2012 7:38pm by Internuncio
Edited, Jun 29th 2012 7:39pm by Internuncio
I'm waiting for the Steam sale before I pick up ARMA II, you know it going to be one of the deals during the Summer Sale. I can't link them since I'm on my phone, but you should check out Robbaz's videos on YouTube. Lots of swearing but they are funny.
Shaowstrike (Retired - FFXI)
91PUP/BLM 86SMN/BST 76DRK
Cooking/Fishing 100
"We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
— James D. Nicoll
91PUP/BLM 86SMN/BST 76DRK
Cooking/Fishing 100
"We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary."
— James D. Nicoll
Internuncio wrote:
The super zombies are basically just zombies that have messed up aggro characteristics. If you go into buildings. no matter what, they will zero in on you, even if you are prone and not moving. He's stated that that isn't intentional and buildings should reduce sight entirely for zombies outside and reduce hearing by 50%. They can also hit through walls, although that is easy to live with. The worst part is that they will not stop spawning. The timer is messed up, and there isn't a delay between death and spawn for zombies. I got holed up in a barn with a friend, and we had to shoot our way out. In a remote barn, on a server with 7 people on it, we had to kill 108 zombies. Can't even imagine cities.
Oh! And weather is going to affect them. As for the unrealistic part of being able to sneak by zombies, according to what little "lore" there is, the virus diminishes sight and hearing. Or maybe just sight. EIther way, it makes sense.
Edit: I know it's not entirely fair, but to solve night time, turn gamma, brightness, and HDR quality to max, and it is roughly the same as NVG. I don't like doing it, but I'd rather do that then stare at a black screen for hours
Oh! And weather is going to affect them. As for the unrealistic part of being able to sneak by zombies, according to what little "lore" there is, the virus diminishes sight and hearing. Or maybe just sight. EIther way, it makes sense.
Edit: I know it's not entirely fair, but to solve night time, turn gamma, brightness, and HDR quality to max, and it is roughly the same as NVG. I don't like doing it, but I'd rather do that then stare at a black screen for hours
I've never seen the chain spawning, but I've experienced it. went through over a dozen zombies to get out of a remote farmhouse the other day. I'd kill the two there, then two more would run up, kill them then two more show up, and so on.
If that's the issue with the super zombies, it explains a few things. There's been more than once where I'll agro a zombie outside the far end as soon as I enter a building. I'll hear the growling so I just turn towards the door and wait for it to show up.
I understand the zombies have diminished senses, but I still shouldn't be able to sneak right past them within a few feet. I'm glad they have a large agro range, they just need to fix the inconsistencies. Line of sight really should be a determining factor.
As far as the gamma cheat, it was fixed before I started playing this week. With everything turned up to max, all you can see is the trees against the sky. You'll never pick out a zombie crawling through a field.
With the way everything is, I'm wondering if this is actually intended for ArmA III, but using ArmA II multiplayer as a test platform.
Word on the street is the ARMA III team actually picked up the developer of this mod for their team. And I used the gamma trick last night. It seems that it works best with HDR quality all the way up, which I just learned last night. And I have to say, I prefer these super zombies to the hordes that existed when I first started playing. Logging onto a server and seeing "1078/1099" zombies was intimidating.....
I don't see how they couldn't extend this guy a job offer. From what I understand this mod took DayZ from a niche community to a very popular, mainstream game. Aside from the bootcamp mission, I haven't played ArmA or ArmA II, I just bought them for this mod.
Well, in my first post I mentioned (bragged about) my 17hrs+ played on my character. That's over. Myself and two more in my group were raiding the airfield when we all had to DC cause one of us had a tree fall on their house, thanks to the storms in New York. He got back on and his house was relativly fine, but we had to switch servers. Go to the new server, and get owned by another group. We took one of them with us, but we all died. We lost some good stuff, but it was more than outweighed by the sheer fun and terror of it all! Luckily we have tents with tons of supplys so all we had to do was get back up north. On our way up we actually replaced all our guns we lost with equivalent ones or better ones.
TL:DR DayZ is fun, even when you get owned.
TL:DR DayZ is fun, even when you get owned.
I hit the airfield last night as well, but the server was dead so I went alone. I found 1 of the 4 people on the server AFK in Stary, inside a medical tent. He was wearing a Ghillie suit and I should have emptied his pack and put a round in the back of his head for the stupidity, but I was more concerned about the noise attracting the nearby zombies.
The airfield went well for the most part. The SW barracks where I picked up a nice AK was uneventful, but I agro'd something in the fourth hanger, then had some target practice with the AK as they were running in. Then I got cornered in the firehouse tower and put down about 20 on the stairs. The bodies were piled so high they started glitching up through the floor. Then it was on to the NE barracks where I picked up a FN FAL with no trouble. Unfortunately I dropped down to just over 5000 blood with all the zombie encounters, so today's adventures will be taking me all over in hopes of finding a friendly to give me a blood transfusion (no side chat on last nights server) or off to find some wood and matches, then some food.
The game is really a very simple survival game, but it's a ton of fun.
Edited, Jun 30th 2012 11:28am by Raolan
The airfield went well for the most part. The SW barracks where I picked up a nice AK was uneventful, but I agro'd something in the fourth hanger, then had some target practice with the AK as they were running in. Then I got cornered in the firehouse tower and put down about 20 on the stairs. The bodies were piled so high they started glitching up through the floor. Then it was on to the NE barracks where I picked up a FN FAL with no trouble. Unfortunately I dropped down to just over 5000 blood with all the zombie encounters, so today's adventures will be taking me all over in hopes of finding a friendly to give me a blood transfusion (no side chat on last nights server) or off to find some wood and matches, then some food.
The game is really a very simple survival game, but it's a ton of fun.
Edited, Jun 30th 2012 11:28am by Raolan
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