For $30 I had to pick this up, not like it'll go down any time soon and may as well get in early even if I don't play much at first. My initial impressions from ~3 hours last night: Good: -The new inventory system is mad swag. Associating item slots with specific clothing is really neat and actually works quite well. Items also have different shapes and sizes, giving inventory management a Resident Evil feel. -Item interaction is surprisingly detailed. Put batteries in flashlights, draw blood into a blood bag, put an IV starter on your blood bag, tear clothes into rags, disinfect items, et cetera. -Zombie AI much improved. When they aren't bugged out, they'll run in pretty reasonable and expected paths. They can also be outrun in a straight line. -Quick access bar using number keys. Makes swapping between items much smoother. -All (95%) of buildings enterable, and many previously enterable expanded upon. -Punching is possible, and effective. Almost frighteningly so. One punch to the head will knock a zombie to the ground, and you can repeat this until it dies. If you time it right, you can fight two at once, maybe even three. Against players 6-8 hits seem to be required to knock them out. Once on the ground, you can punch an unconscious player to death. -Water can be had directly from wells and ponds. Bad/Bugs to fix: -Food/water is extremely difficult to keep up on. I appreciate a good challenge, but the current balance could use some work, or some more transparency as to what's really happening behind the scenes. If you can't find food and drink (and enough of it!) within an hour you'll likely pass out and die. -Zombies run through walls with quite some frequency. They also seem to spawn underground with quite some frequency. -Character status messages often don't make sense. "Your hunger is satisfied" is often immediately followed by "I'm feeling hungry", or other similar situations. -Item quality mechanic is... odd. Confusing as to what values mean for different items. What's the difference between a "Worn" or "Pristine" fresh apple? Is it closer to being rotten? Is it safe to eat? Is a "Badly damaged" battery low on charge, or physically damaged? All in all it's a fairly new adventure. Seems like a tip of the iceberg thing, it'll be fun to see what's uncovered with time and what gets added. The pace of updates in these early weeks will set the tone for the future so I hope they get it right. Bonus tip: drinking four swigs of disinfectant and eating a rotten kiwi will kill you.
With the new patch they addressed the food and water issue, it's still somewhat uncommon BUT you're character doesn't get hungry / thirsty as quickly. They also fixed the "your hunger is satisfied" followed by "I'm hungry" right after. If you check out your inventory, to the right of your character portrait it will show bars for hunger and thirst ONLY when you require either of the two. Other things to note: I like how you get "stronger" as you survive for longer. I played for roughly 7 hours and for the very last hour my character only got thirsty, no "I'm getting hungry's" showed up. Again, relates to the food and drink being too strong though. Ammo also seems a bit on the sparse side, so something that may or may not need to be adjusted. Had a great time playing with 2 friends, we don't kill people without weapons, we helped out quite a few solo players and we had a lot of fun exploring and doing some killing ourselves. For an alpha, I'm pretty happy, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Biggest issue for me right now is the mouse acceleration, the X is stupidly sensitive even on the lowest setting, and its very jittery for me. It's a known issue that they are working on though, thankfully.
Yeah the markers for when you're low are a huge help. Turns out characters spawn well below maximum food/water, the thirst indicator is present immediately. Fixing wells to be usable without a bottle was a huge help. The change to the loot respawn model seems to really promote getting away from busy areas. Places like Cherno seem to get stripped quickly and without respawning items become wastelands. On the flip side, I got a spawn in Novy Sobor and it was flooded with loot. The weapon attachment system works surprisingly well. Found a red dot sight, swapped it out for the stock M4 carry handle. Also stuck a bipod on the front. Taking a common Mosin Nagant and kitting it out with bayonet and scope is pleasing as well.
Had a great go last night. Really enjoyed it. Classic DayZ situations and met a guy working in a US army post in Belgium who i teamed up with for about 2 hours before going to bed. Be careful of using ladders with zombies at the bottom, they can attack you no matter how high or low you are on them when there stud at the bottom. Anyone that wants to team up, give me an add: Reaper1337
purchased and installed, possibly against my better judgement. whether i get on tonight or not is still random chance. how smooth is it, out of curiosity, on a scale of arma 2 to arma 3?
http://dayz.gamepedia.com/Tips_for_Getting_Started Useful read. Did not know you could rip up your cloths to make rags to help with bleeding, amazing. cherno+ map for DayZ SA http://dayzdb.com/map/chernarusplus#2.086.077
Runs very smooth for me maxed out on my system, but as soon as you get into a city its shoots from 50-60 fps to about 10-20 fps. This is because there are render problems with buildings, and will be fixed soon.
The game has some crazy view distance when you crank it up to max. I opted for turning the filtering off and more view distance to make finding people easier. One of the helpful but buggy issues I've noticed is flash lights; when people are inside a house with their flashlight on, the exterior wall they are looking at with the light is lit up, making it very easy to find people at night.
If you cant connect right now its because the game has reached peak cap for authentication. A problem on steams end. Think its ok to start a new thread? as this isnt ARMA2 DayZ mod anymore? Ill make one, can also be taken down if its not cool to do so. #### DayZ SA general thread http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=265939 ####
