Print Page - Chern-R-Us, or As I walk through the valley of the shadow of zeds.

Tonight, some poor schmuck fell and broke his leg somewhere near Cherno. His friend went to find him some morphine so he could walk with the bad leg. His friend died. The guy then crawled from Cherno to Stary, somehow managing to avoid zeds and bandits the whole way. He runs into another guy there and asks if he has morphine. "No, the guy says, but my friends do and I'm going to meet them at the outskirts of town" Crawling guy follows new guy to his friends and one of them promptly shoots the crawler.

Bananas.

Day two, still getting used to the controls and finding the lay of the land, I make my way in to Cherno. I hear shots and drop to prone behind a building. I say in side channel, "Shots fired in Cherno, do you need assistance?" The reply comes back, "I'm hurt pretty bad and I can't steady my aim, but I think I got them all, I'm holed up in some sort of pub." I tell the guy to bandage himself if he needs to and take some painkillers. "Thanks, that helped". Having already scoped most of the pubs, I let him know that there's a M1911 and three mags of ammo in the back of the pub he's probably in. A couple of minutes later, he thanks me for the tip.

Looking for a few more things before I get the hell out of dodge, I run by the pub near the international hotel where I hear a couple of .45 shots. I ask the guy I helped earlier if he's shooting zombies near the hotel. "No", he replies, "I'm near some kind of warehouse", Maybe I should've pissed off sooner. In for a fucking penny, I run into one more pub, grab a couple of things and come back to the front where I see a guy in aviator sunglasses. What is it about douchebags and aviators? Doushebag lets fly with is .45 and I do the same. He wins and I start over near Elektro. I see in side channel another guy typed, "I just spawned in Elektro? Oh HELL no." His death is reported about five seconds later.

I make a run toward the fire station and find myself an AK74su and a frag grenade on a corpse. Useful shit. I make my way back to Cherno and pick up some of the stuff I'd lost. Another M1911 and some food. I'm about to get out of town when I hear bullets whiz by. I lean out of a doorway, see the guy coming and put two rounds in his head before he can get off another solid shot. One fucktard down. I head for the hills. At least, I think I do. I stop at the supermarket on the way out of town and find a body. Freshly killed, the guy that killed him is now moving to loot the body. He looks up and raises his weapon as I put two rounds in his head. "No more vics for you this life", I say in side channel. "Fuck you", is his reply.

As I finally make my way toward the edge of town, I take a bullet in the back. Bleeding, I duck into a shed. I bandage myself, lean out and return fire. The shooter hits me again and I duck back in, bleeding some more. I bandage myself once again. I managed to get the name of the guy shooting at me on my last lean out the door. Just as I finish bandaging, someone disconnects. "Fuckin' pussy disconnected before I could kill him," the guy shooting at me says, thinking the guy that dropped was me. "Does that disappoint you, perhaps make your game less fun, that you couldn't kill him?" I ask. "A little", he replies, "It's not fair that people can drop like that." As he walks in to the shed, I throw the grenade I found, killing us both and say, in the channel of the dead and the not-yet-to-be-connected, "Well, now you know how some of the people you kill for no reason feel, asshole." He wasn't exactly receptive to the feedback.

M4s are fucking loud. Effective as fuck, but loud.

Hot off the heels of my douche killing a few nights back, I log in to: Chern-R-Us: Guglovo, day 2. I'm hungry and thirsty as hell. Camping out for a day-and-a-half can apparently do that to you. I un-shoulder the M24 and scope out the nearby town, half a dozen zeds milling about and no sign of any survivors. Throw back my last canteen and at least the thirst goes away. I need to get some food, town looks relatively safe, so I crab walk my way around the perimeter and ransack a house, looking for some food. Nothing, a bunch of empty cans, a heat pack and some Mak ammo. all pretty inedible. The hunger is starting to get to me now, my health is dropping steadily and my vision is starting to go to shit. Poke my head back out and see a nearby shed and edge my way to that, my hunger impaired vision means I missed the zed edging around the corner of the house I just ran out of. I sure as fuck hear him, and the shades of grey my vision has taken on flash into brilliant color every time the sumbitch hits me. I duck into the shed, turn around and let fly. Zed's dead, baby, zed's dead. But, My M4 brings all the zeds to the yard and his buddies follow and I empty a mag finishing off the added attention. Didn't kill enough of them, because as I'm trying to bandage myself, more walk in and finish me off before I can reload. Final score on this run, 124 dead zeds, seven dead bandits and one dead me.

Day 0, bean coast. Fucking Balota, of all places. I'm pissed but determined. I've managed to memorize a decent amount of the map at this point, so I scoot my ass over to the med camp and look for anything that'll at least give me a small edge as I try to head back up to Guglovo and try to reclaim my shit before anyone else finds it. The first thing I find is another player's corpse with, of all things, a PDW, three glock mags, a STANAG mag and an M24 mag. Really? Are the server gods taunting me? I grab what I can, pop a few zeds and head northeast, sticking to the treeline the whole way, avoiding the remnants of the major population centers. The server informs me that five people die during my journey. The server is lightly populated though, because I never see or hear signs of anyone else, the whole way. No chat, no flares, no gunshots. Eery. I find a deer stand along the way with three more STANAG mags and an M107 mag. What? There's a fucking .50 cal in this game? Holy shit. I grab the mag just in case. about a half hour and some wrong turns taken later, I find the shed where I died and make a beeline for it from the trees. I hit the shed and hear the familiar sound of flies over a corpse, duck in and there's my corpse with all my shit. I grab the pack and drop the Winchester I'd found along the way to pick up the M4 and then go into the ALICE pack to re-arrange some shit when I notice the FOUR FUCKING CANS OF FOOD I'd left in it.

Moral of the story, if you're going to log out for a couple of days, do a quick inventory when you log back in so you don't waste the better part of two hours on an unnecessarily dangerous and potentially fruitless corpse run.

Taking NIX's advice, I head toward Berezino, looking for a supressed weapon of some sort.

I travel by night, of course, because it's safer and not may people can see as well in the dark as I can. I stop to loot something and notice that my M24 is now missing from my ALICE pack. Fucking alphas. Now, instead of a sniper rifle and an M4, I've got two M4s and a lot of now, useless M24 ammo. Bleh. At the outskirts of BZ, I notice zeds already milling about, somebody beat me to it. I hit the soccer field first and find fuck all, but a couple of cans of beans. Since I was running out of food anyway, this isn't a bad thing. I then crouch walk and crawl my way to the nearby apartments, still not much. I do, however find a set of civilian clothing. Whoever else is in town has been here and found either camos or a ghillie suit. I also find a box of matches, ensuring that as long as I find animals to kill, I no longer have to head into towns to forage for food. Good shit. I look out the window and see ghillie suit now rifling through the supermarket across the street. I sneak out and around the long way and into the back of the supermarket. He knows I'm somewhere nearby, because he's taken up camp and is looking out the front of the supermarket for me, crouched in front of the freezers, enfield at the ready. Apparently, he didn't find any decent weapons either.

I think a bit about dropping him, even going so far as lining his head up in the ACOG of the M4. I then turn around and head out, leaving the spare M4 at the doorway between the front and back of the supermarket. Once I'm back at the tree line, I say in side channel, "Hey ghillie in the supermarket in BZ, watch your six. I could've dropped you while you were facing the wrong way. Also, that firing that Enfield in the middle of town like that will get your ass killed. Thanks for the civvie clothes, I left you a gift too, in the back of the market. it's up to you to find ammo for it." "Holy shit!", the guy replies a few minutes later, thanks for that. And thanks for not killing me."

It amazes me that only a week ago, I was that guy. Now I retreat back to my hideout somewhere between Ostry and Black Mountain.

Day three: Black Mountain. Logged in today to find almost all my M4 ammo and three of my canteens gone. Hell of a welcome back, Chernarus. Not as annoying as putting on a ghillie suit and then logging back in in the middle of the ocean with all my shit gone, but still inconvenient nonetheless. This situation pretty much forces my hand to head back in toward some civilization center and replenish my supply of STANAG mags and grab another couple of canteens. A situation I'm not completely happy about, considering the fact that should I die, it'll be a bitch getting back to my corpse in the pitch black the night is becoming now that we're getting closer to a new moon. I weigh the pros and cons of heading to either Kraznostav or back to BZ. Krazno is fairly close to the Northeast airfield, and probably a haven for bandits, and low on ammo as I am, a firefight of any sort probably won't go in my favor. BZ on the other hand is still probably less populated by the human element, but will be stocked with zeds. All things considered, I'll take the zeds.

Someone laments the darkness in side channel, I find I can't reply as the option to talk in side channel is suddenly missing for me. Oh well, one less distraction, I guess.

I make my way South and then East, first into Khelm to hit the well there and replenish water supplies and then back to the treeline and south by southwest in a circuitous route that follows the receding treeline near BZ. The military camp, as always, is full of zeds. After sitting with eyes glued to the binoculars for 15 minutes, making sure the coast is clear of bandits; I crouch run and crawl my way through to there, only to aggro a random straggler. With the jig now officially up, I make a break for one of the tents and crouch there, waiting for the zed to make his way to the entrance where I can put him down. The shot that takes him out, of course, riles up other nearby zeds and I shoot two more before a third warps through the tent and starts hitting me from behind. I wheel around and put him down as well, but not before he knocks a healthy chunk out of me. I consider myself lucky he didn't knock me out as I start to bandage. There's still more agitated zeds out there, so I toss a smoke grenade and watch the bastards run at it, then use the opportunity to search the rest of the tents. An M240 and some ammo are there and useless to me for all the noise they'd make. Too much bang for the buck. Still no suppressed weapons, dammit. I do manage to snag a couple of mags for the M4 though, so not a completely useless trip.

After cleaning out the tents, I head for the nearby apartments. Not a whole lot of anything, but I do find another couple of canteens and cans food. Time to beat a retreat back to the honeycomb hideout. Someone else asks in side channel who's shooting in Cherno. He dies roughly two minutes later. The next thing I see from him is, "shit, no gun or food. At night. This sucks." He's right.

Tomorrow, maybe I'll head toward Devil's Castle. Sooner or later, I'm gonna die. Might as well see as much as I can before that happens.

Day 0, Solnichniy I find a crossbow and three bolts in a barn on the outskirts of town. First weapon in this new, weaponless starter world. I attempt to head further into town, inching in to the quarry and getting a lay of the land. Three or four zeds prowl the most promising looking buildings. I edge in a bit more and alert one of them, high-tailing it back to the shed in the quarry, a put a bolt in his head and then start in again. A crawler then notices me and I back up a bit and put a bolt in his face as well. There're ups and downs to the crossbow, the silence is golden, but the retrieval of bolts can get dicy. So far, I've been able to pull them all back.

I see a break in the pattern of zombie rambling and roll in to the first building where I find a pile of absolutely nothing. I sneak over to the empty work shed and more of the same, zilch but empty cans. I'm starting to get hungry...

As I'm walking across the catwalk in the top of the work shed, I see another survivor, prone and rolling past the entrance. I take aim, but don't fire, as I hear him say, "Just passin' through bro, don't shoot me, I've got nothing." I wish him good hunting and give him a status report on the big pile of nothing I've found here. As I'm making my exit for the cover of the nearby trees, I attract the attention of another shambler. He shrieks and starts running in my direction, so I make a break back for the quarry shed, where I see another guy trying to sneak in the side door. The zed makes and end-around and hits this new guy instead of me. I tell him to duck and put a bolt in zed's dome. "FRIENDLY! FRIENDLY! U FRIENDLY?" the guy types frantically in local. "Yeah", I reply. "If I wasn't, I would've let that zombie finish you." I help him bandage up, then I tell him to watch his ass and head north, looking to get lucky in BZ.

I look back a few minutes later, and new guy is following me. I tell him if he's gonna follow me that he should stay really close and don't do anything that I don't do. "OK", he says and we crouch run as quickly and quietly as we can from treeline to treeline. We come up on some barns outside of Nizhnoye and search them for supplies, still coming up empty save for some Winchester ammo and a couple of hunting knives. Well, that's a start. We score some matches and we can at least hunt for something and cook it. We get into a routine after a bit of traveling, where I'll take cover in a structure and he'll draw in any wandering zeds to me so I can put them down in a controlled environment. It works pretty well, and we manage to put away about 25 of them in this manner.

We find an Enfield in a stable, but no ammo. Not necessarily a bad thing, considering how loud the damn things are.

It's as we're making a break into Nizhnoye proper that shit starts to go pear-shaped. New guy manages to attract a zed, and then two and we're nowhere near a building to herd them into. One of them manages to hit him and start him bleeding. We're out of bandages, so if we don't find something to stop the bleeding quickly, he's a goner. "Farewell, my friend", he says.
"You're not fucking dying on me man," I shoot back, as I waste a bolt missing the one of the zeds chasing us. I manage to headshoot them with the two remaining bolts, but am only able to recover one of them. By this time, new guy's down to about half blood. We run for the nearest building and frantically search it, finding nothing at all, I'm up on a higher floor, when I see the now all-too-common message in the corner that new guy has died. Fuck.

I then notice that that frantic run attracted a couple more zeds and they're now roaming in the building. I line up a shot on one and put it down. That was my last bolt, so I can't reload until I retrieve it. This means running around the room until the other zed is far enough away that I can pull it out of his buddy's body. I get him far enough away and then make a beeline for the bolt, hoping it's still there and hasn't glitched and disappeared. It hasn't. I pull it, reload and put down number two.

I go back to newbie's corpse, say a prayer and rifle through his pockets. I grab the winny ammo and move on.

I weigh my options and head southwest, figuring that if these latest survivor encounters are the norm, eternal optimist that I am,I might actually have a shot a scoring at least some supplies in Elektro. I wasn't exactly right, as I sneak around to the northeastern portion of the city and into the stationhouse, I notice that while weapons may not be exactly plentiful, apparently razor wire is. Someone has lined a bunch of it along the entrance to the tower. I think I hear that person sneaking around upstairs. Actually, I know I hear him. I hear him falling, actually. He's managed to somehow fall off the roof and die. I circle out and around to his body and loot it. Makarov, four mags, some cans of food, more razor wire, a ghillie suit and a double-barreled shotgun. Not a bad all.

I recon the area a little more and then run afoul of what may be the fall guy's buddy, sneaking around the gate. He's armed with an MP5SD6 and he opens fire as he rounds the corner. I get a shot off with the shotgun but fail to kill him before I go down. It's alright though, the shotgun has attracted the nearby zombies and I'm pretty sure his death was the one reported a few seconds after mine.

Balota. Too far from Elektro to try to make a run for my gear or the other guy's, I figure I'll try my luck at the airfield. I sneak around to the tower and manage to attract the attention of more than a couple of zombies, simply by the sound. Someone else has set up razor wire here too, but not as well and I can sort of edge around it. Not before getting tagged a couple of times and bleeding a lot. I manage to distance myself a bit by getting up the stairs and find an AK-74su up in the top of the tower. I get back down and take out the zeds. By the time I bandage myself, blood's down to about 4k and the world is drifting in and out of focus. I creep back out and walk warily around to the first hangar, managing not to attract any more attention, undead or alive. In the back of the hangar, I find a can of food and a canteen. Near the entrance, I find an MP5 and three mags. It's quieter than the AK, so I swap out for it and swing out of the hangar into the other. It's here that I find the DMR. I weigh my options and grab it anyway, leaving the MP5. Hope spring eternal that I'll find enough food or blood bags and an obliging survivor to help me out and steady my aim enough to use the damn thing.

I sneak back out of the airfield and head Northeast. Once I'm up the nearby hill and safely in the treeline, I turn and look back down toward the little farm outside the airfield. I catch sight of movement out the corner of my eye and see another survivor running in my direction. I scope the rifle and get his name and distance, about 360 meters out. The view's fuzzy, but I see he's not alone, the shambling shapes around him aren't other survivors and he's not shooting at them, so I figure he's got no guns. I take a chance and start shooting at the less frantic-looking shapes. One shot, a zed goes down. I take a quick look around, making sure I didn't raise any more attention and then get back to work. Eight shots, six zeds total, no murders. I make my way down to the survivor but he bleeds out before I can get to him. Shit, that's two guys I couldn't save. I weigh the possibilities of our positions being reversed, figure the poor bastard may have just shot me rather than the zeds, so I loot the body and head back up the hill. I decide to make my way toward Zelenogorsk. Maybe I'll find some more gear on the way.

I'm always looking for backup.

Day 1: Bor. My vision is still blurry as hell. I have to hold my aim for three to five seconds before I can get a bead on a target. And forget anything outside of the scope. I painstakingly pop the wanderers I see from the treeline and then head in. I recon the area and find a corpse. A lot of my problems are suddenly solved. It's fairly easy to see how he died. The Enfield he's got a death grip on pretty much says it all. He popped off and brought every zeke in town down on him. Shoulda gone with the revolver he was also packing. He's got an ALICE pack, eight cans of food, some soda and a decent assortment of other stuff. The only thing i'm missing now is a compass and hunting knife.

I eat until I can see a little more clearly and then make my move toward Zelno, making sure to angle my way out of the paths of wandering undead. I make it to the outskirts of Zelno and scout the town through my scope. I catch sight of a guy rummaging around in the supermarket. His only weapon looks to be a hatchet. I like the odds in a gun vs hatchet fight and figure he'll see discretion as the better part of valor and not do anything stupid if he sees me.

Never underestimate the stupidity of survivors. I come in straight through his line of sight. He sees me and heads directly toward me, hatchet at the ready and he actually swings. I air out his skull with a little vitamin .45 and then roll into the supermarket and prepare for the horde. Who the fuck swings an axe at a heavily armed opponent who could've dropped him before he even knew there was someone there? Seven zeds in and I notice my gun isn't the only one making noise. I look around and see another guy with a double-barrel doing his part to clear the zombies. Together, we finish the rest of the group and then take stock. I salute him and he returns the gesture. I tell him the dead guy with the axe came at me and I had to put him down and we both wonder at the thought process that made him go Ashe on me.

I claim a hunting knife, give shotgun guy all the shotgun ammo that was in the ALICE pack. He says he wants to head toward the airfield and asks if I want to join. I politely decline and wish him good hunting and tell him to watch not just his six, but pretty much every other number on the dial. We salute again and head for opposite parts of the town. Trust is still not exactly a given in Chernarus.

While all this was going on, I count five separate deaths accorded to three different people, marking 15 in total. Either these guys formed some sort of fucked up suicide pact or they're just really unlucky. I make my exit from Zelenogorsk and plot my next move. The radio tower's close, maybe I'll head there tomorrow...

Thanks for the compliments guys, being able to relate this to you all makes the suckful parts less...suckful.

I log in to a pitch black server. It's right about the new moon and it's dark as fuck. I really miss those NVGs now. I root around for a bit to see if it's just the place I logged out, which was thick with cover, but after walking for minutes, I notice it doesn't get much lighter. I check my watch and see that it's about 11PM, which means it's gonna be this dark for a looong time. I realize I might be eaten by a Grue and log out to find another server.

Daylight. A little after 8AM, according to the watch. Better, brighter. I continue my journey toward the radio tower with no idea what I'll find there. Back in the days before they disabled side channel, I'd heard some people talking about rumors that it was the source of the zombie outbreak. Superstitious bullshit of course, but hey, color me intrigued. Thinking of intriguing shit, I'm remember that I wanted to go check out Devil's Castle at some point too. With my luck, I'll probably find it populated by Christopher Ecclestone and a bunch of horny, laddish soldiers.

Shaking that vision out of my head, I continue on to the tower. It's really hard to miss, sitting on top of Green Mountain. It juts above the trees and stands out against the sky like some zombie infested Isengard. I creep in and make my way through the outside buildings. There's a lot of military build up here and a mass grave. Looks like some sort of last stand was made here. As I duck into the tower proper, my connection drops and I'm kicked back the the lobby. Fucking alphas.

I try logging back onto that server and fail, so I try a different one and get in, hoping it's daylight there. I get stuck at the loading screen and have to force quit. I try another couple and get booted due to some Battleye glitch. Fucking alphas. I finally find a server that lets me on and I seem to be loading. I get a scary temporary view of dead players in the debug plains and then back to the loading screen. Before the blackness goes away, I hear shotgun fire. As I complete the login, I'm face-to-face with a fucktard with an M870 and he's shooting me as I log in. I manage to get a shot off and see him start to bleed before I die. As I die, I get a message that I've been killed by friendly fire.

I'm welcomed by the "You Are Dead" screen and go through the motions of logging back in. Elektrozavodsk. Fuck, I hate this town. About 15 seconds later, there's a message that the guy that shot me has been killed. Karma's a bitch, motherfucker. I weigh my options and figure my chances of surviving out in the wilderness without weapons or gear are as shitty as my chances of surviving a gear run through Elektro, so I try to make my way along the outskirts and run afoul of a bunch of zeds. I make a break for it, zig-zagging between buildings and trying not to aggro more. I notice that my pathing has significantly slowed them down and have time to bandage myself in a shed. I also find a crowbar. At least I've got something to defend myself with now. The guy that killed me on login dies again. I laugh a little at his misfortune.

I sneak out of the shed and head for the nearby power station. It's been looted of almost everything, of course. I do find some useless glow sticks and flares. I hear flies, so I make a circuit around the place looking for the corpse. This leads me up to the roof, where I see a lone zed practically sprinting toward the power station. He starts to climb the ladder and I climb higher and wait. He then climbs back down the ladder and tries to come the other way. The AI of these things is truly baffling. I climb back down to the outside and the zed rounds the corner. I swing my trusty crowbar and... it's absolute shit. The damage is so bad, it makes the baby Gordon Freeman cry. I swing away for about 30 seconds before z-boy takes his final dirt nap and I'm once again bleeding. Also, I've got a broken leg now. And no morphine. Awe. Some. I bandage up and start crawling toward the church. Looted. I make my way toward the supermarket. Looted. Office building? You get the fucking pattern. I harken back to the days when you started off with a morphine auto-injectorand shake a virtual fist. Fuck you and your hardcore merit badge, Rocket. Fuck you. The guy that shot me dies two more times while I'm conducting my fruitless search. How the fuck did that dick axe make it all the way up to Green Mountain before?

I figure it's time to have some dinner so I log off in the office and try to figure out my next move. I'll probably have to raid the hospital across the street. Yeah, I'm running the risk of logging back in to another shotgun to the face, but fuck it. I can't walk and my best weapon sucks. It's a wash.

Well, to be fair, I'm generally drunk when I'm playing and writing these. :awesome_for_real:

Day 1, Elektrozavodsk I log in and it's still dark as hell and raining. Some noob has run around tossing flares. Fun. At least it helps me see a little bit. At least at street level. I crawl my ass out and over to the hospital and drag myself to the ladder. I'm not sure if the crowbar will break the glass and on top of that, I'm not sure if breaking the glass will alert the zeds. So, I do something equally stupid. I climb up the ladder. I get to the first floor roof and it's now pitch black as the light from the flares doesn't reach up here. I hear the flies around a body, but I can't see it and the janky way the game shows you there's lootable stuff is made even jankier by the fact that I CAN'T FUCKING WALK. Fuck it. I find the ladder higher up and I climb that too. I crawl over to the little tower on the roof and find myself face-to-box with some medical supplies. Finally. I open it up and... four boxes of tylenol. The fates are fucking with me.

I climb up the last ladder, in hopes of finding another box of supplies at the tip top and find nothing. While rooting around in the dark on the little precipice, I find out the hard way that there's no lip to the ledge and fall to the waiting arms of the deadly ground below. At least I'll be able to walk now. I log out and find another server.

Day 0, Solnichniy. I decide for shits and giggles to choose a female skin to see if it changes my luck. Karma's been a bitch to me too lately, maybe if I change the way I look, I can fool the fates for a while. Though, with all the good shit I've done for other players, I should be spawning with a full set of military gear, complete with coyote pack. Of course, that doesn't happen. Anyway, I'm out the southwestern outskirts, so I figure I'll head toward BZ, as I've had decent luck there. It's early morning and the sun is just coming up, so it's not super dark, but not super light and the zed population is relatively low. Of course, that doesn't stop me from aggroing a zed once I get to BZ and then making a frantic run to the hills. I test some of the geometry as I go and climb over small walls which works to slow 'ol Zeke down for a couple of seconds, but probably pisses him off. I finally manage to shake him at the top of a hill. Walking up hills seems to be their greatest weakness.

I make a winding return to the general area and find a deer stand. I crawl around to it and find an AK-74su and three mags. A shitton better than a crowbar. I move a little closer to town and make my way to the machine shed just north of the apartments. There's a zed in there. I light him up. The sound of the AK of course, brings more of the undead. I dispatch them as well and then check out the little building outside. In there, I find a hatchet. The hatchet, unlike its crowbar cousin is not a complete shit show when being used in melee. I drop the AK in the machine shed and head south toward the apartments. I alert a couple of zeds and dispatch them quickly and quietly with the hatchet. I then sneak my way down into the apartments and supermarket. I find that you can move crouched and not attract a lot of attention if you're simply walking.

In the apartments, I find a revolver and a bunch of food, so much that I have to start getting choosy with what I take because I haven't found a bigger pack. That changes once I get down to the supermarket, wherein I find not one, but three ALICE packs, along with an equal number of matchboxes and canteens. I don't want to be too greedy, so I take one of the boxes of matches and all of the water bottles, the ALICE and get out. Figuring my luck has held so far, why not try to scout the camp at the soccer field? I make a wide way around, alternating between walking and hiding, realizing I'm a huge sniper target, even if the zekes can't detect me. Queasy feeling, actually. I make it down to the soccer field and find four tents full of fuck all. Well, there was one with zombies in it, but they didn't drop a goddamn thing either.

Thinking about my last morphine-less outing and seeing how quiet BZ has been so far, I make one more break into the city and head to the hospital to grab some supplies. I use the axe to break the windows and lo, and behold, nothing gets alerted. I run in, grab some blood bags, morphine and epipens and then swing around to the second supermarket just behind the hospital. Some asshole has placed a tank trap in the main entrance and razor wire across all the back doors, preventing anyone from getting in. Fucksticks.

I get out while the getting's good, circle back to the machine shed, aggro a few zeds on the way in and dispatch them quietly with the hatchet, one of them breaks a leg. Lucky for me, I got those morphine injectors. I heal up, grab the AK and head north. My blood's at about 9k at this point. I think about going back to my old hideout near black mountain or maybe Devil's castle like I've been saying for about a week now. Then I decide to keep pushing my luck and head for the northeast airfield outside of Krasnostav and see what I can find. I never get there.

I head what I thing is east-northeast and end up in a town that I think may be Krasnostav, until I notice it's too small and there's no airfield directly north of it. I circle around and find out I've gotten to Dubrovka. I need to pay more attention to the compass. Considering Dubrovka is a straight shot down along the road from Krasno, I start heading north using the road loosely as a guide. The entire time i've been doing this, I've been seeing too many of the same names being reported as killed. It kinda makes me want to hop on some channel and implore them to stop dying so much.

I veer away from the road a bot to keep from becoming a target and then get totally fucking lost. I try to get my bearing using landmarks and think I may be due east of the airfield. I turn and head in that direction for a bit when I notice something odd. I turn off my course again and investigate. What I find is a large collection of tents surrounded by tank traps and razor wire, along with an assortment of vehicles, all in working order. I sneak around to the entrance of the camp and start rifling through the tents.

Oh. Holy. Shit. In this little, highly defensible encampment, I find pretty much every weapon that can be found in Chernarus. I wondered if there was an actual M107 in the game? Yeah, these guys have stockpiled three of them. This must be some clan or survivor group's login/logout point. It's full of so much gear. Shit I've never seen before in game. Not just weapons, everything. I'd never seen antibiotics in the game before now, they've got a pile of 40 in one tent. It must have taken weeks if not months to amass this much stuff. I quickly and nervously take stock of all the stuff that's stockpiled here,expecting one of the residents to log in and blow me away any second now. I then grab a bunch of food and the remaining gear I'm missing. Hunting knife, binoculars, NVGs (they had five sets) an M9SD, an M4A1SD, and a DMR. I eat until I'm back at full health. The first time I've ever been this well equipped and this healthy in this game. I quickly make my escape and head back to black mountain to hide out for a bit and plan my next move. Right now, I've got all the time in the world. And all that stuff I said about karma shitting on me? I take it back.

Day 2, Gvozdno With my newfound gear and attitude, I'm ready for anything. I've also decided that while I've got this significant leg up on a lot of people, just surviving isn't enough. No more just hiding out. I'm going to head to some noob hotbeds and see if I can even the odds a bit for them.

But first, a side trip to the Northeast airfield. I'm in the area, might as well hit it. I scout the area and see no signs of activity other than a ram, two goats and a cow and head in. Zeds pop as I get close and I headshhot a few as I sneak in. All I manage to find is an M1014 and some ammo for it in one of the hangars. I head over to the tower and find someone's been there with razor wire. There are also two zeds in the tower and they're pissed. I put them down and head in. Bupkis. 20 minutes and a mag of M9SD ammo I'll never get back.

I kill a cow and cook it up and then head south. Five steaks, a still decent amount of ammo and an attitude un-dampened by the sudden thunderstorm and fruitless trip to the airfield are going with me.

Somewhere between Guglovo and Mogilevka, I find a helicopter wreck. The song "luck be a lady" starts playing in my head. I dispatch the wandering zombies and move in. I get a message that someone named "Iamalive" was killed. I chuckle. In the wreckage, I find another DMR, an M4A3CCO and ammo for both. Any other time I'd be jumping for joy, now I'm just considering how much SD ammo I used getting to stuff I already have. Yeah, I'm an ungrateful fucker now.

"Iamalive" dies again. Not as funny this time or the next three times it happens as I make my way down to the treeline outside of Elektro. I see someone running from zeds toward the power station when shots ring out. Someone in the tower's got a CZ550 and he's helping the running guy. The zeds fall around him and he stops running, trying to bandage himself. One more shot rings out from the CZ and he goes down as well. Sonuvabitch.

I break the DMR out of the ALICE pack and sight the tower. CZ is moving down the stairs, presumably to loot the corpse of the guy he just shot. I end him before he can get to the body. I scope the area looking for any backup CZ might have had and then make my way to both corpses. On CZ's, I take all his ammo and the can of beans he had. I then deposit the beans and some meat on the corpse of the runner. I then retreat back to the treeline and wait. I kill a few zeds that mill around the power station, preventing another survivor from getting in. He runs for cover, waiting for the shot that might kill him. When it doesn't come, he moves into the power station and looks for stuff. CZ guy never does come back, neither does his victim. I see reports of both of their deaths a couple of times, so I retreat back deeper into the woods and log out.

Tomorrow, Cherno and Balota, I think.

Day 2, Elektrozavodsk. I head west toward Cherno and Balota. I find a wild boar at the top of Pik Kozlovo and turn it into bacon. Sweet, sweet bacon. I head further west and bypass Cherno and head straight to the airfield, figuring I'll scout the area for assholes and maybe grab some more ammo before heading back to the hill outside of Cherno. Coast clear, I head down toward the tower and check it out. Empty. My connection starts to go to shit, but not before I proceed over to the first hangar and find an M1014 and ammo for it. Pass. My connection gets worse and then I think I see why, a bus goes careening down the runway, crashes into some debris and explodes. A lone survivor bolts away from it. Red link and server drop.

I connect to another server, on this one, it's daylight. I move further into the back of the hangar and find a can of food and some bandages, as I turn around, I see someone come running around the corner with two zekes in tow. I swing to sight mode and pop the trailing one. The runner who has no visible weapons, then turns 180 and heads back toward the exit and hangs a left. I drop the other zed and then say in local, "You ok man? Need assistance?". No answer. I walk out slowly, so as not to attract the attention of any other zeds that he may have agitated. No other zeds, but I'm still walking slowly because I don't know if there are any out of range. Then, I get shot. Mother. Fucker. I make a run for the tower, get hit again, luckily, whoever this is is a shitty shot. I aggro a zed on the way in, turn around and put three rounds center mass and then consider dropping the M4. Instead, I head up to the second floor and bandage and then wait. I hear movement down below. Not wanting to get sandwiched like I had in the past, I drop a frag grenade below and bolt upstairs. One down. I get to the top of the tower expecting a bullet breakfast. I'm not disappointed, but then, neither is the other guy.

Day 0, Cherno. I'm close enough to Balota to make a run for it. Of course, I'm on the eastern side of Cherno, so I need to make an end-around to get there. On the way, I find an Enfield. As I'm passing through the apartments trying to get out of town without aggroing any zeds, I spot a guy on the roof of one of the apartments. I then see his buddy running around on the second floor, presumably, looking for weapons. I know they've seen me and they know I've seen them. I don't want to discharge the Enfield unnecessarily in an area thick with zekes, so I do a crabwalk dance, doing my best to keep both the zombies and these two added elements in view.

Suddenly, one of them has a zombie on his tail and he's running toward me, brandishing an axe. I shoot the zombie chasing him and he hits me with the axe. So much for being the better person. The Enfield is hard to maneuver with him right on top of me, so I fruitlessly take a shot and then back up, trying to get distance. Both of us are bleeding heavily now and the zombies are starting to swarm. I'm still a bit agog that anyone would do something that stupid. I'm hit with the axe again and something breaks, I'm now stuck in crawl mode and I know it's a done deal. I fire off a few more rounds trying to attract as many zeds as I can before I die.

Cherno again. Almost the same place I spawned last time. I've got nothing now but a burning desire to get these guys swarmed with as many zeds as possible. The thoughts of my gear in the airfield a distant memory. I sprint straight on through the middle of town, making as much noise as possible. I pick up a train of zeds that's reminiscent of Karnor's Castle back in the old EQ days. And I run in straight into these two who are still lurking around the apartments. I don't manage to kill either of them before I go down, but that wasn't the point.

Elektro: Apparently, side channel still works on this server and one of the jackasses chooses this particular moment to thank me for the Enfield. I wish him well with it, even though there's almost no ammo left for it as they used most of it to fend off the zed train. He then tells me he hopes I learned my lesson to shoot first. And I tell him that's a stupid way to play. While this back and forth is going on, I make my way around to the power station and loot an AK74 and some ammo. More effective than the Enfield and not quite as loud. After being called stupid, his friend chimes in with, "Well, you'd better not mess with us again, I've got a grenade", I reply, "I didn't mess with you in the first place, you're the jackasses that made a dead run at me with an axe. The only reason I ran at you the second time was to make you use up the ammo and supplies you just looted." They then go into some very typical 12-year-old internet tough guy posturing and I then tell them they'll grow up to be lonely, bitter old men that miss the point of life. By this time, the whisky has worn off and I'm tired of arguing with idiots, so I wish the rest of the server a happy survival and I log out. The last thing I see is one of the tough guys going, "Good night, I guess." I think I may have broken his brain.

I need another sniper rifle.

Day 0, Elektrozavodsk

My quest for a sniper rifle begins anew. I need to figure out where I should head to look for it. Flipping a coin, I head toward Balota first. I get to the airfield and find a PDW and a couple of mags of ammo, a military flashlight and an ALICE. helpful, but not what I'm looking for. The server's fairly light, so I figure a trip northwest may be in order. Also, I kinda want to wait 'til dark to see what the difference is with the military flashlight. Is it red? We'll see. I begin my journey northwest, checking Bor and then hitting Zelenogorsk for some missing supplies.

By the time I leave Zelenogorsk, I'm out of PDW ammo, but my zombie kill count has increased by 17. I've also lost about 2k of blood, but I'm still not in bad shape. Nothing killing a pig or a goat and cooking the meat won't fix. I head from Zeleno toward the airfield. I figure Ill stop at at least two of the three deer stands surrounding Green Mountain before heading all the way up there.

It still amazes how quickly things can go from perfectly ok to utter shit in this game. I'm quietly moseying toward the first deer stand when I alert a zed, I make a break for the ladder and get hit a few times going up and then start bleeding. I accidentally switch from the PDW to the AK-74 to dispatch the offending pursuer and of course, all hell breaks loose as the sound notifies every zeke in the neighborhood that there's a guy with fresh brains trapped up a tree like a goddam cat. Four zeds later, I'm backing as far into the stand as I can and reloading. Luckily, there's an AKsu-74 and three more mags up here.

Yet another zed clambers up the ladder and manages to tag me multiple times from the edge of the platform while my Warsaw Pact 7.62 seems to bounce harmlessly off the flimsy wood that separates us. Realistic shooter, my ass. What happened to penetration values and all that shit? Anyway, I bleed out and die.

I respawn near Elektro AGAIN. Fuck. Now I've got to hightail it all the way back to Green Mountain, and it's suddenly getting really dark, really fast. Last time I checked my watch, it was two in the afternoon. Where the hell did the time go? I figure the only way to get back to the deer stand before it's too dark to see is to full-on sprint. No crouching, no crawling. Upright, white-man run, snipers be damned. And so I begin that run. I make it as far as Mogilevka before I accidentally aggro my first zombie. I then continue running and the fucker stays hot on my heels for the better part of 20 minutes before I get to a sufficient enough grade to slow his undead ass down. Of course this meant making a detour I didn't want to and going way out of my way. My thirst meter is now blinking angrily at me. The hunger meter isn't all that far from "feed me Seymour" either. And so now, I'm faced with a choice, keep running toward the deer stand, where I know I've got food or try to make another detour into the next small town and see if I can loot some tender vittles from some empty house.

Stupidly, I choose the latter. I round my way into Pulkovo. The coast looks clear. Too clear. I walk in quietly and warily looking for something, anything to eat. In the gas station I find Razor wire, two spools of it. Not edible or drinkable, but hey, I might come up with something to do with them. Like, say, find the fuckknuckle that started the trend of wrapping that shit around the entrances to regularly trafficked loot areas and then shoving a whole spool up his ass. Sideways. I move from the gas station, further into town, down what looks like the high street as the limeys tend to call it. Looking at the debug monitor, the zombie meter says there's about 45 zeds alive an active on the server. As I turn into an alleyway, that number suddenly jumps to 95. At that very same moment, a shitload of zekes comes completely out of nowhere and starts chasing me. Wonderful.

So now, I'm yakety saxxing my way to green mountain. The baleful red blinking of my thirst meter paling in comparison to the fact that of the nintey-some-odd zombies on the server, probably 75 of them are crammed up my ass. In the background, TV on the Radio's "Halfway Home" starts playing. Bizarrely appropriate. I actually make it all the way back to the deer stand, manage to climb up and grab the AK and make all my undead followers say, "hello" to my little friend. Bananas. I breathe a sigh of relief, re-organize my shit and get back to my original task of finding myself a rifle with a proper scope.

I climb back down from the stand and head North, checking the other stands along the way a little more carefully than I did the last one. I've switched to another server and it's now mid day. I find more ammo for the AK, but none more for the PDW. No worries, I think, something will show up. I make quick stops and rummage through Sosnova and Myshkino. I swear the whole time I think I hear someone following me, but every time I check my six, there's no one. Maybe I'm paranoid. Maybe the solitude is starting to make my crazy. Who the fuck knows? I make it into Pushtoshka and ransack the supermarket. I find the binoculars I'd been looking for and a couple more water bottles for filling later. I then sneak out the back and start the slow, painful walk out of town, trying not to attract any undead attention.

They say you never hear the sound of the bullet that kills you. I did. As I rounded the last corner and was about to make a break for the treeline, what sounded like an M24 put me down. Apparently, the millionth murder was just committed. Hell, that may have been mine.

Chernogorsk

I wake up on the southeastern shore. I think I had a dream. A dream where someone told me I was cursed with free will. A dream where I was a wide-eyed, bonafide twin pistol packing badass in a suit and sunglasses, wading through zeds by the truckload on some quarantined island in Maine. I now look around and see I'm still in a zombie and asshole infested former soviet shithole and the odds are not in my favor. I check my pack and roll out.

As I've said before, I hate the south coast towns. Mostly because they're populated by a combination of helpless noobs, the ruthless shitheels that get off on killing them and the wanna-be "hardcore" keyboard commandos that think they're badasses because they gun down some poor schmuck that had no chance anyway. That said, I stalk through town and actually manage to get lost. I had no idea I could still do that in Cherno. While lost, I manage to find a military medical camp that's chock full of medical supplies and an AKS 74U. Fuckin' A. I then get my bearings proper and head over to the power station and scare up a Makarov and three mags for it. Double score.

Now that I'm properly armed for most of what the 'Churn can throw at me, I head west and then north. Ever forward in my search for a scoped rifle of some sort. Balota? Zilch. Though I do see a woman sneaking around the corner and into the control tower. She manages to snag herself on the now ever-present razor wire and start to bleed out. After observing her for a while, I see that she's still bleeding, so I hop over and drop her a bandage before getting the hell out of dodge. I head North from there and make my way through my usual local stops on the way to the airfield. I find food and an ALICE pack in Pushtoshka and manage to make it out without being sniped.

I push on to the airfield and get there without much hassle. I scope it for the better part of a half hour before making my move. I get to the western barracks and find it empty. Well, empty of gear, anyway. Zeds? Yeah, a shitload. I pop a few with the Mak and of course, that brings the rest of them. I hope I didn't garner any more attention. As I sneak out and head east, I don't run into any real problems, so I figure I'm probably good for a while. I hit the tower and it's empty as well. Fuck. Next stop, the power station. Here, I find an AKS with a red dot sight. I grab it and then head upstairs where I find an M4A1 CCO. Fuck the AK. I've got four STANAG mags anyway. At the top of the tower, I find what I think is the holy grail, an ACU patrol pack. I've heard tell of the mythical coyote pack and think this is it, so of course, I grab it. It's not. It's basically the starter pack only in ACU. and of course, the game bugs and my ALICE disappears. Double fuck. My last bandages were in there.

"Fuck it", I'll find more bandages, they're all over the goddamn place right? Nope. I get downstairs and try to sneak over to the hangars. I attract a zed's attention and for the first time in days, he manages to get that shot in that makes me bleed. Triple fuck. Seriously? I run like hell for the hangars. Not. A. Goddamn. Bandage. In. Any. Of. Them. As I sit in the corner of the last hanger, blood below 4000, my vision blurring and two screaming zombies in my face, knowing I'm gonna die, I go loud. Full fucking auto on these undead fucks. The sound, of course, brings every other zed on the airfield to me and I go out in a blaze of glory. My ammo and my blood run out right about the same time.

As I breathe my last, my mind drifts once more to that fog-shrouded island off the coast of Maine. "You are cursed with free will."

I think I hear bees...

Day 1: Balota...

Oh, Chernarus... how I missed you. Wait, I may have missed you, but the gateway to your Eastern Bloc wonderland has been weighed, measured and found wanting.

Well, it's been a while since I rolled through these parts, so I run around a bit to get my Z-legs, as it were. As I'm checking my kit, I notice I've got a crossbow and a few bolts. Hmm, haven't started with shit like that in a while. I also notice the once-familiar blue of side channel which starts out, "Who's shooting in Cherno?" I know how this story's gonna end already. I then see, "Who's dicking around on that bus?", which is followed almost immediately by, "IT'S THE BANG BUS, BITCH!", which elicits laughs from a lot of people on the server, myself included. Apparently, porn, like cockroaches, will survive the apocalypse. It's dark as shit, so I switch servers.

Early morning. I take one last check of my shit and move out. I find that the crossbow I had and all the other shit is now gone. I'm near the airfield and it's still relatively dark, I figure, "What the fuck?" And head for the tower. I find an AK. Like Cube said, "It's a good day." Figuring it's best not to push my luck, I run like hell for Cherno to try to make a quick supply run. A run through the apartments nets me a Czech backpack, a watch, a Makarov, five mags for it, six canteens and another mag for the AK74. My luck holds out as I run over to the hospital and find some morphine and blood packs. Kitted enough, it's time to head North and try to scare up my always preferred scoped rifle. Probably a little more food than the one can of beans I managed to find.

Like Cary Grant, I head North by Northwest. Only I'm not being chased by spies, but by screaming zombies. I pop a half dozen of the shamblers in the process and the pitiful waste of ammo in the proceedings further emphasizes to me why a scope would make such a fucking difference. The mag and a half I blew on those six fuckers doesn't seem justified.

My ADD gets the better of me and I get wind of a survivor group trying to build a fort near Cherno. Well, fuck. That sounds like a sniper's wet dream. Maybe if I head down that way, I'll get lucky and gank a bandit or two with a sniper rifle. I'm not disappointed.

Down in the absolute shitshow that this clump of paranoid survivors has become, is a target-rich environment for any asshole with even a passable aim and a desire to fuck up a survivor's day. On the hill above the chaos and the bodies, I spy a guy in a ghillie suit and a huge rifle taking pot shots at the huddled masses below. Bang bang, maxwell's silver hatchet came down upon his head. Shouldn't have been so intent on his scope. His loss. Looting through his shit, I find an ALICE an AS50 and a few mags for it. Now that's what I'm talking about. I start to move when I hear a shot and the sound of the bullet whizzing by. Hatchetface has a buddy and they're apparently voice chatting each other. I dive behind a rock and roll out, just in time to catch his movement to a better vantage point. Shoulda stayed where you were, pal. I feed him a bullet breakfast and it's over.

As I make my way over to the body, one of the panicked survivors down the hill gets off a lucky shot and drops me. Just my luck to get offed by one of the people I rode in to save.

Maybe I was wrong about that good day thing.

Day 0: Elektro

I gotta stop waking up on this goddamn beach.

I check my lack of gear and make my usual run toward the city, in hopes of finding a weapon that's not locked behind razor wire and/or tank traps. I luck out and find an M16A2 and only a small wall of sandbags to keep me from it. I vault the wall, grab the gat and skedaddle. I've got the routine down at this point and make my usual stops on my way Northwest. Watch at Prigorodky, Compass, map and knife at Nadezhdino, hatchet at Pogorevka, a couple of extra STANAG mags at a deer stand or two and then I make my run for the milspec promised land.

Right around the time I get to the first set of barracks, I hear from Slayerik, Slack and Silenus. They're apparently jerking around in Castle Zub, that they've renamed "Castle Awesome" for all the cool shit they seem to have found there. We all decide we should perhaps join forces and raid some of the other high-end military installations. I grab a DMR and try to make my way out of the airfield and head their way. Of course, we're on different servers, so I try to hop onto theirs, only to piss off the server gods and find myself in the depths of the debug plains. I overhear the others' adventures as I run in what I hope is an easterly direction.

I shoot a sheep and make mutton steaks that I can't cook because there are no trees for me to chop down and keep running. My hunger meter turns red and begins to blink. Slack is apparently experiencing similar issues over by Castle Awesome as he waits for the other guys to get to him with some food. I make it out of the plains and into a forest where I chop some wood and start a fire just as my blood level starts to drop. I eat every steak and get myself back up to a reasonable blood level. I head east and try to get my bearings. Skalka. For fuck's sake. I've got a hike ahead of me.

As I begin the journey, I hear Slack getting chased by zekes on his end of the radio. He apparently rounded a corner too soon only to get shot in the face by either Slay or Silenus. Comedy ensues. We all decide to call it for the night and reconvene the following night.

Day 1: Rogovo

I log in and do something incredibly stupid. I see a downed chopper in the fields outside of town. I open up on some of the zeds nearby. I drop six of them and eight more come out of the woodwork and feast. Dead.

Day 0: Elektro

Again.

I'm gettin' too old for this shit...

So, apparently, there are "hive" servers and "sanctuary" servers. Finding out what the difference between the two is only serves to further my notion that 99% of the people in Chernarus are fucking assholes.

I make a move for my usual quick hits in Elektro, and again am surprised to find a decent weapon and no razor wire, tank traps or bear traps impeding my progress. What is this world coming to? Properly armed, I head up to Castle Awesome and hook up with Silenus, who suggests a run to Stary Sobor to see if we can score him some more ammo and perhaps a cooler weapon. Before we can start our trip, however, we run into someone else who has taken refuge in the castle. He's hurt pretty bad and says he's friendly. He asks Silenus to transfuse him, which Silenus obliges. The guy's fairly well geared, but despite some thoughts of rolling him for his shit, we all bid each other fair well and get the hell out of the area. Silenus says that the guy told him he was one of a group of four guys roaming around and he got separated from them and took refuge in the castle. I think it may have been a bullshit story to keep us from ganking him, but we make discretion the better part of valor and clear the area too, just in case he isn't lying and he hooks up with his friends and tries to roll us.

Together we sneak up to the military camp and meet Slay, who's already ransacked the place. He tosses us some extra ammo and then takes his leave. We methodically clear the zombies around the military camp in Stary and then search for anything good. We don't find much. With not a lot to lose, we figure we'll head for the airfield.

After a fairly uneventful trip, we get to the now-familiar wall of the airfield. It's exceedingly quiet, and we take that as a good sign. We sneak up to the treeline just outside the barracks, when the sky goes all black on me and then I can't see anything. Some sort of graphics glitch has rendered me blind whenever I look in the direction of the barracks. Knowing that an assault on the barracks with the game glitching like that is basically suicide, and with it getting late, we call it for the night and plan on re-convening the next day.

Day 1: Airfield

The next day has come and Silenus isn't on. No worries, I'll sneak in to the barracks and score us some extra ammo for the big assault on the rest of the airfield when he does show up. I angle my way in and attract the attention of a zed from a lot farther away than I used to. Figuring the jig is up, I make a dead run for the door. I get in, but trip over the bench wedged in the entryway and the zed tags me enough to start bleeding. I back far enough in past the bench to have time to bandage myself and then line up a headshot. Down goes Frazier.

I pop a few other lookie-lous attracted to the sound and then search my surroundings. Four STANAG mags, three AK mags for Sil and a G17 as a backup. Not bad. I carefully pick my way out and of course, alert another zed. I swear, these fuckers should scream the Metal Gear alert sound at this point. I try to run for it, but Zeke's got the drop on me and one-shots me into unconsciousness. Just my fucking luck. Enjoy your lunch, Zeke. Enjoy your fucking lunch.

Day 0: Kamenka.

If there's someplace I hate more than Cherno or Elektro, it's the little shitholes like this one. Not a lot of places to loot and far the fuck away from anything. About the only thing it's got going for it in this particular instance is that it's almost a straight shot back up to the airfield from here. No need for orienteering or any shit like that, just avoid the bigger towns except for a food run or two and then get my gear back.

Of course, shit's never that simple.

Somewhere around Bor, or was it Pavlovo? Who knows? All these former soviet townships are all the same, especially when you've got zombies up your ass. Anyway, wherever the town was, I aggro a zed and with not gear, have no recourse but to run. I get tagged and start bleeding but manage to make it into a house where I again manage to find a hatchet. I do my best Lizzie Borden impression and fuck his shit up. I bandage myself and and get ready to move again. That last one hit me hard. I'm down to about a third of my blood and pretty much seeing in black and white. Awesome. Looks like I probably won't make it up to recover my shit after all. To add insult to injury, the server shits the bed and kicks me off.

I log in to another server and it's about 5AM and raining cats and dogs. So, basically, dark and shitty. Great weather for sneaking by zombies. I make a break for it and get out of town. I head north and make my way to Pushtoshka, the weather helping conceal my movements the whole way. My hunger and thirst both getting the better of me, I duck into the gas station and find myself a canteen and two cans of soda. My thirst slaked, I move further into the town. The rain holds up long enough to allow me to sneak into the supermarket there. The place is chock full of goodies. I find about a dozen cans of food, more soda, a Makarov and an ALICE pack. I might just make it to the airfield.

I hear shots as I run from the supermarket, so I make my move to get out of town in the most direct manner possible. I get out without issue and continue north. I've still got no compass and the combination of the rain and my shitty, though somewhat improved vision makes the trip a little less exact than I'd like. I get to the airfield with only minimal issues. The place where I make my entrance however, is far from where I usually like to and I find myself at the end of the runway. I hate this approach because it leaves you exposed for a really long time. It's still rainy and not very bright yet, so I go for it.

I make a run for the first barracks and find a ton of gear, two M4s, two AKMs, an AKS-74u and a couple of makarovs, plus a ton of ammo for all of them. I grab the two M4s and three mags for each of them, along with some morphine and extra bandages and painkillers. If I were to run out of the place now, I'd have a solid score. Of course, I don't. Still using the dark and rain as cover, I make my way to the control tower and the power plant. I find a Remington shotgun with a flashlight attachment in the tower, but the real prize is the coyote pack I find in the plant. I jettison the ALICE, grab the coyote, readjust and head out again. Knowing I should quit while I'm ahead, I ignore my better judgment and do a house-to-house of the hangars using the rain as cover and hoping it'll hold up long enough for me to finish my sweep. It almost does.

Almost. The rain stops just as I get to the cluster of buildings around the other barracks. I hear automatic fire, screams and heavy breathing. I alter my course and head for the trees and grab cover before looking back toward the barracks and sizing up the situation. Through the binoculars I found in the tower, I don't see any movement in the barracks. I creep back, M4 at the ready. I get to the door and hear the oh-to-familiar sound of flies. I sweep in to the barracks and find the body of the guy I must have heard. He's dead, still bleeding, but dead nonetheless. Poor sumbitch gave as good as he got though. There're about eight dead zeds in the hallway. He must have passed out from blood loss before he could bandage himself and then bled out.

I ransack the rooms and find an M4 with an ACOG, so I swap that out for the one I had with the iron sights. Still no sniper rifle or suppressed weapons though. I grab a couple more STANAG mags and take me leave, saluting dead guy as I go. (And taking his blood bags and food. He's not gonna need them.) I head south to the barn northeast of Vybor and find a CZ550. Not an M107 or M24, or even a DMR, but serviceable in a pinch. I grab it and leave an M4 for some lucky bastard to find and then make arrangements to meet up with Slay and Silenus, who are now on.

They've both made their way to Rogovo or somewhere near there in search of a bag for Sil. Apparently Slay saw one in a barn. Sil makes a run for the barn and as he gets near, he sees someone peek out back at him. He veers away and grabs cover behind a tree, right about the same time, Slay picks up a zombie train and makes a beeline for the same barn. Sil, thoughts of protecting helping his friend overriding his self-preservation mechanism takes aim at one of the zeds trailing Slay. The douche in the barn chooses to take advantage and shoot Sil in the back. Yup. Asshole.

Slay manages to detour and lose both his zombie trail and the shit heel in the barn and moves out toward the deer stand north of the town. On the way, he sees the downed chopped that I'd seen in a previous life. We hook up and take a run at the chopper. It's a complete shit show. My CZ550 and his M24 make short work of the zeds near the chopper, but just like my solo attempt, we attract a fuckton more. We manage to kill the spares, but not without getting tagged ourselves. The problem with two guys with sniper rifles is that when the close-in work starts, you've got nothing but your sidearm. And with these new, up-armored zebras, that presents a problem.

We try again, this time with me sniping and Slay using his M203 to clean up the ants that come out of the woodwork. We manage to clear all but two of the zeds around the chopper when about a dozen more suddenly pop out of nowhere around it. Fuck you, Rocket.

We decide we've wasted enough ammo trying to solve this problem and we're just gonna play a little bait and switch with Slay as the bait. He makes a balls-out run past the chopper, stirring up the majority of the zekes as he goes. I sneak in in his wake and ransack the chopper. Nothing there but an M14. All that work for that? Fuck your couch, Rocket.

We decide to head back toward Castle Awesome, as Sil is continuing to have a shitty day. We get there, recon the area and find some decent sidearms for him and Slay finds an Enfield in Vyshnoye.
Just before the server boots us, we manage to pass off some of the stuff.

I hear that after I called it for the night, Slay and Sil scored some more gear.

Tomorrow should be a better day.

There's three things I know about helicopters:

1) Downed ones tend to be surrounded by far more zeds than could have ever been killed in the crash

2) If you hear one coming and you don't know anybody that's flying one, grab cover. Quick.

3) I can't fly one for shit.

Day 8: Airfield

And so it was, that in the fullness of time, I found myself a working helicopter. I'd made my way up to the northwest airfield yet again. Always in hope of finding better gear. The gear I had wasn't bad, but I could always go for an upgrade, be it a sniper rifle or suppressed weapon.

I sneak my way through the zeds surrounding the southeastern barracks and make my way in. It's been cleaned out almost completely, Not much here but a couple of Makarov mags. I clear out and make my way toward the hangars. Again, empty.

As I make my way to the power plant, I see it. A chopper. Complete and whole. Near it is a pile of dead zeds, the bodies of two survivors and the familiar sound of flies. I do my best bit of CSI:Chernarus and conclude that both the zeds and the survivors... *puts on sunglasses* Bit off more than they could chew.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Meet the new zeds, same as the old zeds.

Figuring, "what the hell?" I get to zee choppa. Grab the stick and collective and get Baby Huey off the ground. I fly it southeast and make it as far as the southeastern barracks before I crash the fucker right into the barracks itself. I manage to destroy the chopper, the barracks and myself in the process.

Day 0: Novy Sobor.

The fuck? How did I spawn in Novy? Moreover, how did I spawn inside a building? Is Rocket fucking with me? Did the process of crashing a chopper tear a hole in the DayZ space/time continuum? Who the fuck knows? Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. I look around and find an ALICE pack and a Makarov with two spare mags. Fuck yeah.

I make my way back toward the airfield, my journey made much shorter by the fortuitous spawn. I get there in time to find the wreckage of the barracks, the chopper is nowhere to be seen. I range around the ruins of the barracks, looking for signs of my corpse or any dropped gear. Nothing. I'm about to head out when, as far as I can gather. The building respawns around me. Killing me in the process. You Are Dead. Just when I thought Chernarus had found every possible way to kill me, I'm proven wrong again.

Day 0: Komarovo.

As far as shitty places to spawn go, this isn't the shittiest. It's no Novy Sobor, but I'll take it. I head northeast, my sights set on Stary Sobor. I find a bit of food and water along the way to keep me from dying of hunger and thirst while I hike up. I get to Stary and sneak my way through the supermarket and find another ALICE and some more food to stuff in it. I then make my tent-to-tent search and find a dead woman in one of the tents. There are no zeds around the body and all of her gear is still on her. I figure she bled out here and couldn't bandage in time. On the body, I find an AKS-74U Kobra, an M9SD and mags for both.

I thank her corpse and continue my search. I find an M14 with an ACOG that I dismiss as too loud and then roll out of town. Fortunes change just that quick in Chernarus.

Day 1: Stary Sobor

I log back in at the outskirts of Stary, my eventual destination Castle Awesome, where I'll camp out and wait for the rest of my ragtag band of survivors. Of course, I'll make a run by the military camp first to see if I can find any extra ammo. I get down to the first big tent and notice almost immediately that something is awry. There's a fuckton of gear just outside the tent, including ammo and a pair of binoculars. I duck into the tent proper and find some more ammo for my Kobra.

I poke my head out and duck around to the space between the two tents to look down the aisle created between the two rows of tents. It's like a fucking yard sale. Every three meters or so is a pile of weapons and ammo. AK-74s, AKMs, MP5s, Remington shotguns and ammo for all of them. Knowing this has got to be a trap, I turn to start running when I hear the first shot. I'm hit and immediately knocked unconscious. I start to bleed out, my blood count suddenly at about 5000, when seconds ago it was 12000. I hear the shooter shooting again. He misses five times before he finally kills me. I don't know whether I'm madder about the fact that I fell for the trap or that it was set by such a lousy shot.

Day 0: Elektrozavodsk.

I'm on a beach, gearless and pissed. I have only one thing on my mind. Revenge.

I skedaddle north, trying not to attract the attention of zeds as I go. Of course, I fail and manage to start a small train. I drag the train behind me until I find a gas station to run into. I get in, but not before one of the three zekes tags me and starts me bleeding. Luckily, there's a hatchet in here, unluckily, the zeds are within reach of it too and manage to hit me a few more times and knock me out before I can equip it. I watch as the blood seeps and the hourglass of unconsciousness ticks down, hoping the latter will end before the former. It does. I stand up, equip the hatchet and go apeshit on the three zeds. My work done, I bandage myself. and stop my bleeding at about 3800.

I find a can of beans and eat them to at least help alleviate some of the throbbing in my vision. My revenge has not been denied yet and it will not. I run a little deeper into town, looking over my shoulder to check for a tail, nothing. I duck into a building and hear the shriek of a zed. I find a Makarov and an Enfield. I may have found the tools of my vengeance. I look out the door and see the zed I'd heard earlier shamble by. He must have lost sight of me. I drop the Enfield, heft the hatchet and plant it in the back of old Zeke's head.

I go back and get the Enfield and scoot my ass north, again looking over my shoulder most of the time for a tail. I'm good until I get to the very edge of town, when one zed barely at the edge of vision, apparently sees me and makes a beeline in my direction. He covers the 400 or so meters between us in no time. I guess Usain Bolt didn't survive the apocalypse, 'cause he's a fuckin' speedy zombie now. I make my way up the only thing that slows these fuckers down, a steep hill. I get high enough, turn around and pop him in the face. Sorry buddy, but today is not your day. Man on a goddamn mission.

My vision is for shit, but my thirst must be quenched. I head in a direction I think is northwest, all caution is in the wind at this point. I find a barn and duck into it, managing to headshoot three more zeds in the process. I find more food and steady my vision a little more. By my reckoning, I figure I'm somewhere near Pusta. I keep heading in what I think is a northwesterly direction.

About a half hour later, I find three zeds wandering in an open field. This is generally a clue to a deer stand. I range around and Bob's your fucking uncle, there it is. I sneak up and find an AKS-74u and four mags. More to drop this bitch with if he's still there. I shoot a cow and gut it. Now all I need is some matches to cook the steer. Revenge may be a dish best served cold, but raw steak is inedible in the Churn.

In a field somewhere what I figure is probably Guglovo and Novy Sobor, I find another downed chopper. I manage to crawl all the way to it and find all of one STANAG mag and an empty can. Fuck. I was hoping for something with a thermal sight so I could find this fucker easier when I get to Stary.

Turns out I didn't need one. The shots gave him away a lot quicker than a scope would've. He's just shot someone else who'd fallen into his trap. He's still trying to end the poor sod and so doesn't hear me as I stalk up behind him. I aim the carbine at his ass as I know the recoil is going to cause the muzzle to rise and I don't want any bullets to miss him. I let loose, unloading a full 30 rounds of 5.45x39 into his back. Fuck you, asshole.

And suddenly, my session is lost. Either our shitty sniper was a hacker or an admin. Either way, fuck him in his cheating earhole.

Down at the Dancerama, they seek to learn the secret of life, and the only way to learn, is from experience.

Post nuclear winter, China, 2023, an endless night. Carmen Relaxed, Maitress of the Sputnik Four Worlds Enterprises enters the Dancerama club.Once a downtown sleaze center for the amped-up no-workers, and now transformed into a penthouse encrusted multi-mediadrome for the Sputnik elite.

Onstage, Mondo Elvis, his triple-flame mohawk cutting through the drughaze, screams into the microphone as two ice drummers merge into one hypnotic beat.

A synthesized squeal, like the sound of distant planets colliding shakes the plexiglas bar, as the blonde guitarist, like some system-crash cyborg smashes a steel fist into a perfectly preserved 1953 Gibson.
Ladies and gentlemen I give you...

...Oh shit, wrong story.

Day 2: Stary Sobor.

I need to make my way southeast to Castle Awesome, to meet Our Gang. Of course, I stop at the tents on the way down. Fuck all. I make my way further south toward Zub and lo, and behold, another downed chopper. I drop my AK74 and equip my hatchet, drop to prone and crawl in. I hatchet a couple of zeds to death on the way and get up to the chopper. This one's fresh, my friends. I find a Bizon and two mags, a FN/FAL, three mags for it and a ghillie suit. I leave the FAL for someone else, good for them.

I make my way back down to Zub and wait for the lil' rascals to get online. When they do, they've been scattered to the four winds. We all decide that we'll make a run east for Berezino. We decide to meet Northeast of Polana, in an affort to muster ourselves and not roll into BZ separately and potentially shoot each other. After about a half hour of dicking around and a bunch of near misses which include me running up the wrong hill twice. I finally hook up with the others and after swapping out some gear and transfusing each other, we make our way to BZ. I notice a particularly big upswing in reported deaths, but think a bunch of assholes have probably offed each other on the bean coast.

We meticulously plan out our route through BZ, planning first to stop at a hospital and loot the necessary medical supplies, then we'll grab food and packs from a supermarket and last, hit the military camp for hardware. As we start the run for the hospital, our visions flash.

Suddenly, we're not in Berezino, but the northwest airfield. Those reported deaths? A group of hackers have been warping players to the airfield and executing them and then looting them for their shit. We get wise immediately and make a break for it. Slack gets whacked almost immediately. The rest of us manage to get far enough away to log out before we get shot.

Fucking assholes.

I log back in to a hopefully non hacker-infested server to find myself still in the airfield. Everyone else logs back in and they're still in BZ, even Slack has managed to be miraculously resurrected there. Good on him. I make a break for the air traffic control tower, where I find a corpse to loot and then say my good-byes and log out for the night, knowing I won't make it almost all the way across the 'churn in any time less than a few hours. I promise the gang I'll find them some gear.

My god, it's full of stars...

Day Z: Kamyshovo, I have it on good authority this is where all the bitches go.

It's been almost a year since my last trip to this god-forsaken former Soviet shithole. I'd almost forgotten what it looked like. Holy shit, it's gorgeous. I look down to my right and see a faintly visible mark...ARMA III beta... That explains it. The air is clear and you can see forever. There's a small collection of shambling Zekes off to my right and I've actually started with a Makarov. I make a run for the nearest house and manage to aggro a zed on the way in.

Or at least I think I do. He stops at the door and stares at me. Shakes occasionally and then stares some more. Weird. Maybe he's part vampire and needs to be invited in. Who the fuck knows? While Zed hangs out at the threshold, I rummage through the house. A bag, yar. What the hell, I go back to the door and pop deadboy in the face. This alerts the other zekes in the area and signals my turn to move my ass.

Not before searching the body however. I find a P07 on it. That's new. Of course, there's no ammo, but hey two guns is better than one at the moment. I pop it in the bag and beat feet out, heading West.

I notice side channel is working here and there are the old familiar,

"Somebody shooting in Elektro?"

"Yeah, me"

And then a surprising,

"I'm clearing out the supermarket, there's plenty of stuff left, come get it."

Oh, this guy's gonna walk into a trap. Poor fucker. But then, I see.

"Cool stuff, thanks!, want to team up?"

"Sure"

What what what? Oh wait, I think I know what's going on, most of the assholes haven't bought Arma 3 yet, so it's not a total shitshow yet. Ah, I missed this. Considering I'm close to Elektro myself, I ask them if they want a third as I'm on my way there and there's safety in numbers. They agree and I tell them I'll meet them at the office building near the supermarket. I'm still a little leery when I get close, so I stop at the fire station on the way in and search it for ammo for the P07 or something better than that and the Makarov. The server gods are smiling as I roll aces and come away with an AK74 and two mags. Yeah.

I get to the office building and the two guys are hanging out like it's no big deal. Not watching for snipers or anything. I could've popped them both before they even knew I was close. Brave new world or some shit. One's got an AKM and the other an Enfield. The guys are standing around a few cans of food and soda.

"In case you need it" one of them says.

Yeah, definitely surreal. I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

I gather up the food and drink and we all decide to head toward Stary. The tents there should yield better loot. We tag a few stray zeds and head North.

We get about halfway there before Enfield has to log because he seems to be bugged and can't eat any of the food he's got. I suggest we all pick a secluded spot in the woods and sit it out there until he logs and comes back. We all agree that's probably the best call and sit there. And sit. And Sit and then the server shits the bed entirely and I'm booted.

Fuck.

I try to log back in and the server's definitely a no-go.

I try another one and end up on the beach outside of Cherno. With dick.

Double fuck.

I decide to call it for the night. Maybe I'll give it another shot tomorrow.

You start with a compass and a watch now, so that actually helps a bit.

At least until they take it away.

Day 1: Elektrozavodsk

There's no subtitle to tell you where you are right now. Sadly, I've played this bitch enough that I can look around and almost instantly get my bearings. I look to my right and there's the fire station. I make my move for it. I do the Curly Shuffle around two Zulus and then drop prone to avoid a third. Hey Moe! I can sprint while prone! I move as fast as when I'm crouched and make less noise!

Yeah, that's gonna get nerfed.

Anyway, I make it into the fire station and find... two cans of beans! Hoo-fuckin' Ray! Oh, and a four shotgun shells. And two Makarov mags. And two .45 mags. And a bandage. Did I mention how much better the inventory system is now?

So.

Much.

Better.

Also, it turns out you don't need a bag nearly as much at the moment, as you start off with a plate carrier now so you can haul a lot more shit from go. So what I've got cans of corn in my mag pouches? I'm still a walking badass. I get me a bag and shit's gonna get real.

Like this real: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrAIFP2pfew

I've still got no gun though, so I need to find something. I drop prone and do the worm out toward the supermarket. In there, I find six more cans of corn, two cans of pepsi and a bag of fuckin' pistachios. All I need now is zombie Psy do Zombnam Style through the fucking window or something. I see someone else has logged on to the previously empty server. At about the same time, I aggro a zed. No sunglasses, it's not Psy. I run to the nearest house and out the other end and drop prone and crawl. I think I've lost him. I look around and it seems I have. I start moving for the office building when the machine locks up.

ARMA III has unexpectedly quit.

Feh.

It was fun while it lasted.

EDIT!

The wife passed out early, so I used the opportunity to try to hop back on.

Day 0: Elektrozavodsk. It's actually showing up now. Cool.

I'm prone. In the middle of the goddamn street. I must've kept crawling a bit after Arma shit the bed. At least I had lost my zombie tail before then.

I check my gear, it's all still there. Good to go. The animation for you cheking your inventory makes you look like you lost your wallet. I continue my crawl to the office building and once inside, proceed to ransack the place. Or at least, I would if there was anything at all in there. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Thrilling. I look around and the coast is clear so I crouch run back out and toward the church, dropping to the spider crawl when I get near because I spot a couple of zeds ahead. I duck into the church and find a pile of wood. Don't particularly need that yet, so I leave it and move deeper. It's pitch black in here, I might be eaten by a grue. Or, I might find a double-barreled shotgun, a .45 and a crowbar. I opt to take door number two and load up on weapons. I take the crowbar instead of the shotgun because it's quieter for the time being.

Having scoured the church, I roll out toward the fire station, crawling the whole way. I still manage to aggro a zed, but just as quickly dispatch him with the crowbar. Hey! It doesn't suck as much as it used to! Gordon Freeman would be proud. After I put ol' zeke down, I notice I have the option to gut him. What the fuck? Why not? The gutting animation while I'm prone looks like I'm having horrible stomach cramps. After the zombie's gutted, it tells me there's one meat steak on him. Pass. As poetic as eating one of these fuckers would be, I'm pretty sure that's part of the reason they got that way. Though it does make me wonder if I can gut a douchebag once they start flooding the servers. Maybe with some fava beans and a nice pinot noir. Fuck that chianti bullshit.

In the power station courtyard are a couple of tents. Far better looking than the old pup tents. They are, of course, empty. As is the power station. I off a few more zeds in frustration and then head West. Might as well check Balota before I make my pilgrimage to the Milspec Mecca of the NW airfield.

The guy that logged on before is back, as is a third person who's promptly booted for having too high a ping.

"Oh well, there goes THAT party", I say in side channel.

"eh?", comes the reply. "You don't have to worry about me, I'm not hostile."

"For a split second we had three whole people on the server. And I'm not hostile either, so no worries."

"Oh good, cool man."

"I left some smoke grenades and Makarov mags in the tents outside the power station in Elektro if you need 'em."

I never see his response.

ARMA III has unexpectedly quit.

For fuck's sake. Glutton for punishment that I am, I try logging back in one more time. Did I mention I need to go into the editor first and create a map and then drop myself into it for a couple of minutes before quitting out of the editor and choosing a multiplayer server to connect to, otherwise it won't connect at all and lock up the game? Yeah. I have to do that too.

Five minutes later, I'm back in. I continue my journey West. It's right about here that I notice that the little shit town between Skyrim Mountain and Cap Golova has changed. It's not just a a couple of shitty little houses anymore. Now it's a hotel, a couple of apartment buildings and a hospital. And some shitty little houses. I head in toward the apartments. Industrious undead bastards. Checking my gear as I go because my water and food meters are starting to go down.

Fuck. Everything but the .45, crowbar and one mag are gone. No bandages, no glowsticks, No. Fucking. Pistachios.

I'd better find something useful in the apartments. Building one is bare, except for a couple of crossbow bolts.

Building two has a zed that falls down the stairs at me and manages to start me bleeding. Fucker. I rifle through the apartment and find some painkillers, but no bandages. Luckily, there's the hospital next door, right?

Nope.

I climb to the roof, nothing. I climb down and frantically try to break in with the crowbar. Nothin' doin' Desperation takes hold and I go loud with the .45 and empty the entire mag, still no joy. What the fuck is this? Transparent aluminum? Fuck you Zombie Scotty. With nothing else to lose, I go swinging at various zombies with the crowbar hoping to kill one with bandages on it. I drop 12 and search them before I'm finally knocked out by yet another zombie in a suit from the apartment.

The all-too-familiar, "You have died." screen shows up. But now, instead of the usual mournful string music to herald my end, I get jaunty 30s big-band.

Now I'm done. At least for the night.

For the most part, it's leaps and bounds better than Arma 2's experience. For the inventory system alone it's a huge improvement. Animation is smoother, environments are that much better and there's less instances of you breaking your leg on random bits of poorly mapped terrain.

Is it still buggy? Fuck yeah. And now, when you get winded and tired from running forever, your vision starts to tunnel, sort of forcing you to stop moving for a while. The realism can be a bit too real.

And now, on with the show.

Day 0: Balota

The first thing I hear is not the sound of the ocean, or the sound of nature. Nay, it is the screechy voice of a young english kid who's using voice chat in side channel to communicate at the top of his lungs with someone who sounds Russian.

The rest of the server objects to this violently. One guy even blaming his death on screechy kid as he got mauled by zombies while trying to mute the offending Limey. Everyone else calls shenanigans on this, of course, but hey, at least he tried. The Limey and Ivan show goes on for about 10 minutes of the two of them trying to survive Cherno before some asshole guns them both down with a Winchester. Limey's last words being somewhere along the lines of,

"Hey you with the shotgun, are you friendly? Oh, why'd you have to go an be a dick?"

Ivan follows this a few minutes later with, "Did he shoot you too". Who was it?

I rat the shooter out because that's the kind of guy I am sometimes. As annoying as they may have been, they were actually trying to help each other out.

While all of the Cherno shit was going down, I was quickly and quietly making my way to the Balota airfield in search of something, anything to get me up and running on this fresh run. I found precisely fuckall. Well, not totally fuckall, I found an M16A2 that I couldn't seem to pick up for the life of me. So pretty much fuckall with a side order of fuck you thrown in.

Then the server shit the bed on me.

I'd deleted and reinstalled everything, so I no longer had to create a server, insert myself into it and then into another game anymore. That saved about five minutes off the re-logging process. Not bad.

I log back in to another server and this time, I'm outside of Balota again, this time with no compass or watch. Apparently those are items that are presets on certain servers and not on others. I do have a patrol pack and a mag carrier though, along with a glowstick and a bandage in case I cut myself raving.

The server gets a notification that someone has been killed by another player wielding a pretty nice assault rifle.

I once again make my way to the airfield in search of useful loot. I manage to make it most of the way to the air traffic control tower before I pick up a zombie tail. With no weapon, I'm left to my only resource, my feet and the terrain, I run up the nearest hill until my vision tunnels almost to a point where it seems like I'm looking through a cardboard tube. I then drop prone and hope I've got enough distance to lose the tail. A good three minute wait without getting jumped by Zeke shows I have. The assault rifle victim dies again. This time, no reason is given.

I make my way back down and around the hill, dropping to a belly crawl whenever I see even a hint of movement. So far, so good. I get to the tower and sneak in. On the first floor, just under the stairs I find a bunch of empty cans. Useless. As I make my way to the second floor, I find a trenching tool. Mostly useless. As I make my way to the top of the tower I find another trenching tool. Redundantly useless. Well, that was a bot of a bust, time to hit the hangars.

I drop to prone again and crawl my way to the first hangar. These early day servers are marvelous. I wouldn't be able to do something like this on a heavily populated server in broad daylight without getting shot by at least two snipers most of the time. In the back of the first hangar I find a tool kit and a load-bearing vest. The LBV nearly doubles the capacity of my current mag carrier, so I put on that molle goodness and begin to move out to the next hangar.

It's about then that I think I hear a rifle reload.

I freeze for a solid minute, hiding in the hollow space near the hangar entrance, waiting for something to happen. Nothing does. I drop to prone again and roll out for hangar two. As I get into it and start to make my sweep, I see a small mob start moving toward me. Three zombies and a single survivor with them on his tail, he's packing a CZ550.

Shit.

Instead of shooting me, he says, "Hi". It's assault rifle victim.

I'm a bit flustered by his greeting and fumble to hit the right keys, making it look like I'm hopping and dropping prone rather violently.

I finally manage to type out my own hello, followed by, "You've got some zombies on you"

"Yeah, I've got that"

he then breaks out a hatchet and hacks away at one of them.

"You look like you could use this," he says, as he drops a crossbow.

I grab the crossbow and two bolts and put down one of the other two zeds as he finishes off the third.

"Ok, later," he chirps and then he runs off out of the hangar.

Before I have time to digest that little interaction, three more zombies catch sight of me and make a beeline for the hangar. I manage to put one down and then try to search the corpse for my bolts. Apparently, they're not recoverable anymore. One of the others tags me and I start to bleed. AR victim comes whizzing back in on a bike of all things, hops off and hacks the remaining shamblers down with the hatchet.

"Here, let me do something for the bleeding"

Is this guy for real?

He bandages me up and then suggests I hop on the bike so we can get the fuck out of Dodge. I agree and we go bouncing out of there, through a few more zombies and then up the hill where we promptly run into a tree, breaking the bike's front wheel.

"Well, that sucks. i've got no spare wheel", he says.

"I think I remember seeing one in one of the tool sheds back down in the airstrip."

"Would you mind coming with me to get it?" he asks, "In return I'll give you a ride to Stary and we'll see if we can find any good loot. I'm gonna use it to head back down to the Bean Coast and help noobs fight off the bandits, you're probably not into that, but you can still get some good gear up there."

"Why the hell not? Protecting noobs is one of the more fun parts of this game for me"

And so, AR victim (I started calling him CW because he sounded Canadian and his name started with a W) and I made our way to the tool shed. I took his hatchet and went slashing in while he covered me with the CZ. We got the wheel we needed and then headed back to the bike.

"Shit, I think we need a tool kit to fix the bike"

"Lucky I've got one."

The bike gets fixed and the other wheel goes about a minute later, right about the same time both our thirst meters start to get angry.

"I think we need to go to Cherno", He says.

"I'm game if you are. we did pretty good up here, as long as we cover each other, it should be fine."

We crouch and run our way to Cherno, me hacking and him covering like we did at the airfield. Figuring we'd make a quick run into the apartments and the hospital to get drinks and medical supplies and then skedaddle. But there were no drinks to be found in the apartments. Found like eight rolls of toilet paper and a straight razor though. What the fuck kind of party were those guys having?

Forced to go deeper into Cherno, we made a few end-arounds the more obvious possible sniper nests and scooted into the church, the supermarket and the houses near the water. Still no drinks. Though the supermarket had almost a dozen carrier vests piled on top of each other along with about six tents pitched out back. Script kiddie activity if I ever saw it, raising little alarm bells in the back of my head and forcing me into a slightly more paranoid mode. I clued CW in and we slowed our ransacking pace just a bit.

Next, we went for the hotel, empty. But now, CW said he thought he saw someone duck into one of the pubs. We both drop to prone and lean our heads out, looking for non-shambly movement. He points in the direction of the pub and I tell him to cover me as I crab-sprint toward the pub, hatchet at the ready.

As I get into the doorway of the pub, I say in the proximity channel,

"I've got an hatchet but I'm coming up in friendship. My sniper's got me covered if you're thinking of being a dick though."

I hear some shuffling on the second floor and I make my way up. It's empty. Whoever was up there must've logged out.

I give CW the all clear and he joins me in the out where we finally find a couple of cans of pepsi, a water bottle and a .45. I grabbed the 1911 and the empty bottle and we split the soda.

With the possible threat of someone else in the vicinity lessened by the logout, we breathe a little easier and make our way to the military area, which seems to be missing the tents that usually hold the weapons, but we do get enough blood to transfuse each other and have spares for later. We also find another wheel and make our way back toward the bike.

As we get toward Balota again, we both hear the sound of an AKM.

We drop to prone and wait for the next shot. It's further off and not in our direction we get up once more and I fix the bike while he stands overwatch with the CZ. No more shots are heard.

The bike gets fixed and I realize we've been playing for almost two hours and I should log. I bid CW later and we say we'll keep an eye out for each other on server lists for more adventures later.

Not a bad run.

Day 3: Balota

It's quiet. Too goddamn quiet. I need to take advantage of this shit before the asshats hop on the server.

I'm about 300 meters north of the military base. Time to head south and ransack that bitch one more time. I make my way, through a combination of crabwalking and crawling to the control tower. I get in without aggroing any zeds. Good shit. On the second floor, I score the jackpot, an M8 Sharpshooter. Fuckin' A. Select fire AND a scope? Sign me the fuck up. I continue up to the top floor and find a Czech knockoff of an AK47. I'll take that too. Now I've got CQB and long distance covered, plus the hatchet for ol' Zeddy because fuck wasting ammo on them at this point. It's like the Walking Dead ads, "Fight the dead, fear the living." It's gotten to the point now where if I've got a melee weapon, I don't even bother to sneak anymore. I just lead them on a merry chase and then find a choke point to hack the shit out of them with.

People, on the other hand...

I head toward Cherno to pick up a few more bits of food, stopping of course, at the military camp south of Balota to check if anything's there. I find a bag of MREs. Holy shit, if the weapons weren't a proper indicator of how stuff's been upgraded, this is. I bag the MREs and finish the journey to Cherno. MREs are cool, but a bit more food would be cool. In side chat, someone bitches about not being able to find food on the server.

"The server's fucked", he says.

"All the servers are fucked, no one can find food anywhere", someone else replies.

I check into the apartments and pick up four cans of franks and beans and two cans of corn. Asshats.

I then swing out of Cherno, heading North with a destination of Stary. I figure I'll stop there before heading to the airfield, see if I can find some decent holdout before the big jackpots up in the left corner of the map.

As I'm heading up, someone asks if anyone's got a bloodbag. I've got two.

"Yeah, I've got one, where are you?"

"Elektro", bloodguy responds.

"TRAP", says someone else, as does a voice in my head.

I find a convenient barn outside of Cherno and drop one of the bloodbags in the rafters. I then inform blood guy that where it is and that he can go get it.

"I can barely see and I need someone to transfuse me, I can't transfuse myself."

"TRAAAAAAAAAAAAP", says the other guy again.

'Yeah, no shit", I reply. "No fucking way I'm going to head to Elektro to transfuse you."

"I swear, it's legit", blood guy says. "I'll even put my weapon in my backpack"

Against my better judgment, I agree that I'll transfuse him, "Ok asshole, but I approach your location and I see anything funny, I'm walking away." I suddenly feel like Val Kilmer in Heat, before he got fat, looking for the high sign from Ashley Judd. Trap guy is still going, "Yeah, I wouldn't do that if I were you."

I missed side chat.

I start making my way toward Elekto. Blood guy says he's in the gas station just outside of town. He's also speaking German to some of the other people on the server. I've got my multiple weapons for protection from "Ze Germans", so I figure I'll at least scope it out.

Meanwhile, some other guy is asking if anyone knows what to do if you spawn in the ocean. I suggest swimming to shore, but he doesn't think he'll make it before he freezes to death. I tell him the more time he spends bitching about the situation and looking for an out, the less time he has to swim, so shut the fuck up and do your best Dorrie and "Just keep swimming".

He gets within sight of the shore and dies of hypothermia. And so it goes.

Mark Spitz respawns in Elektro. I tell him to go help out blood guy, but he gets pinned near the fire station by some asshole with a Winchester. I guess I'm gonna try to bail both of these idiots out. It's what I set out to do in this game. Live by the machete, die by the machete. In the meantime, someone else in side chat calls, "Shots fired in Cherno, sounds like two shotguns and a pistol. Lots of shots fired."

"Seriously guys?" I say, "Can't we all just get along?"

"This is DayZ", someone shoots back.

"Yeah, but the zombie apocalypse is no reason to be an asshole." I say. No one has a snappy comeback for that. The gut who reported the shots fired says something about the guys shooting having bad aim for all the shots.

Halfway to Elektro, I hit that weird new town with the indestructible hospital and the apartments. Hospital is still indestructable, but I find three more blood bags on the roof and a supressed .45 in the apartments. Jackpot. I like this brave new world. I let blood guy know my ETA is about five minutes as I make my way further East.

As I get near the outskirts of Elektro, I see a dead survivor. Never a good sign. I sneak around the long way to the body and search it. Picked clean, of course. I dispatch another six zekes in the process and then head for the gas station, where blood guy said he would be.

Of course, he's not there.

"Where the fuck are you?" I ask, "I'm at the gas station and I don't see you."

"Somebody healed me a little bit and I moved further in to Elektro to the hospital, come meet me there."

Even without the chorus to yell it, every alarm bell in my head is shouting, "TRAP". And as I head a little further East, I see a survivor peeking out of the barn near the gas station. He's got a pistol and he's heading my way.

"Friendly or not?" I say. "Answer me or face the consequences." He doesn't answer, of course. And he's obviously not very good at this as, in his haste to come after me, he's managed to aggro about three zeds, one of which tags him long before he's in range to try to shoot me. It doesn't stop him from taking a couple of pot shots, of course. I run North a bit and plant my hatchet in the zed that was following me and then proceed to watch this toolbox try to shoot the zeds on his six. I hear the .45 caliber pistol shots, which only serve to aggro a couple more undead mooks on him and laugh a little to myself as I grab a spot and break out the M8. I cap four of the five zeds on him as he leads them on a Benny Hill-esque chase around the gas station. I let him try to pop the last and laugh a little more as it tags him again and breaks his leg, forcing him to prone. I watch as the last zed kills him and then put a little .556 in its' dome too.

"Fucking amateurs." I say as his death is reported. "This is why you should be nice to people rather than attacking them. I would've saved you if you hadn't shot at me." I doubt it will change his ways, but if it does, good for him. If not, fuck him. Let him die a bunch more times for being an asshat.

Blood guy swears he didn't know the would-be bandit and insists he still needs help at the hospital.

"Fuck that," I say, "Elektro is way too full of dickheads." The fact that you're still alive in there despite your health condition either tells me you're in on this all or you're very lucky. If you're that lucky, you can drag your ass out of town and meet me somewhere else or you can stay there and kung fu your way out. Either way, I'm not going anywhere near the hospital. You want my help, you come to me. And I swear to whatever gods you believe in, you come with anything other than you, I'll end you and every motherfucker in your general vicinity. This is a warning not just to you, but to everyone listening in on this channel, go by the meeting place, get a bullet or three."

I make camp to the North of Elektro and tell him to head to the fire station. Of course, two other assholes show up, looking for easy prey and I put warning shots by both of their heads. One heeds, the other doesn't. I put him down. He then bitches about just wanting to see what happened. "Should've waited for the book."

Blood guy never shows, of course. 20 minutes later, I again head Northwest toward Stary.

Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

"I have no time to justify to you
Fool you're blind, move aside for me
All I can say to you my new neighbor
Is you must move on or I will bury you
Don't drink the water, there's blood in the water."

First things first. MREs in Chernarus unlike their real life counterparts are FUCKING. AWESOME.

Sure they take up a fuckton of space in your pack, but they replenish a huge chunk of health AND fill both your food and water bars. You see one, grab it.

Day 4: Stary Sobor.

I snuck my way up here, avoiding human contact whenever and wherever possible. The occasional request for help down on the Bean Coast has been ignored temporarily until I get my shit settled. And by settled, I mean set up a decent spooker. A nice, hard to find place to squirrel away a big enough stash of shit for the eventuality of my death. I have no illusions that I'm going to live forever. Sooner or later, someone's gonna get lucky or I'm gonna fuck up and I'm gonna end up face down somewhere in a pool of my own blood. Hopefully I will have given as good as I've gotten in the moments leading up to that, but before that happens, I'd like to have a stash of shit that I can run to when I'm starting over from zero.

Anyway, enough musings about how I'm going to go out and on to the task at hand, finding a few more things before I start nesting. A tent for starters, and a bigger bag to carry it in. I think I've got a couple of spots picked out. One for the holdout stash and one for the big pile of phat lewtz. The little stash will be somewhere near Pavlovo. The big stash will be up by the Pobeda dam. After scoping out the area for a solid five minutes, I begin my sweep of the military tents. The layout here is changed from the way it was in Arma II. One of the barracks buildings from up in the airfield is here now in addition to the usual tents. Cool. More chances to score better gear.

My sweep of Stary yields a pair of NVGs, some ammo for the M8, four 6.5mm mags for some of the newer Arma 3 guns (none of which I've seen yet) and about 6 AK74 variants and 4 G17s. Jesus, it's like the Warsaw Pact and Germany had a drunken party and forgot all their shit. I trade out my Czech knockoff for a AKS-74 RU with a holographic sight. Sadly, unlike a lot of the newer shit in the game, the sight won't come off it if I find a weapon more to my liking. I guess since this isn't entirely the authorized version of DayZ, some shit isn't going to be perfect. I'm still jazzed about the 9mm suppressor I pulled off a suppressed Glock, Can't wait to see if I can pop it on to some other 9mm weapon. Still no decent bag though, Which limits some of my carrying options. As it is, I've got to do some serious juggling between the two assault rifles and the hatchet. While I'm sweeping through, I notice a lot of people getting kicked off due to Steam tickets not validating or something. Hinky, at best.

A little later, the server itself folds.

I log into another server and start to make my way Northwest toward the airfield. One more shot at grabbing settling gear before I start setting up camp. In the meantime, I see a couple of guys talking in side chat about loading up the car they found. Apparently, they've got so much shit, they can't fit it all in the trunk. Hmm, maybe I should find a car too...

Pep boys are still trying to figure out how to get their shit squared away when someone caps one of them from about 200 meters. Yeah, death messages are now broadcasted with the killer's name, weapon and distance. Pep boy number two dies shortly after. Both killed by a guy that was getting repeatedly kicked off the last server. Great, now there's an asshole and possible script kiddie out there with a decent weapon, a car and all of these toolboxes' gear. The thought of that still doesn't stop me from making a, "Manny Moe and Jack were killed by Colonel Mustard in Cherno with a candlestick" joke. I take it as a good sign that I don't suddenly find myself banished to the cornfield.

Might as well make a break for it before the carjacker gets up there. I roll through to the airfield and find it empty of people, but not empty of gear. Well, not the gear I want, but a ton of solid weapons and ammo I wish I had space for. First World Apocalypse Problems. I find a couple of full canteens and switch out my two empty ones for those.

I drink from one of the canteens and instantly regret it. My vision gets blurry for a few seconds and I start to cough. What the fuck? Did it go down the wrong pipe? Nope. That shit I said about certain things in the official version of DayZ not making it in? Well, apparently, I can't switch optics on my guns, but I sure as fuck can get sick.

I haven't said this in a while, but Fuck you, Rocket.

Great, now I need to find some of those antibiotics I've been ignoring all this time. One more thing to force me to make runs into population centers for.

The cough makes sneaking around a lot harder. The zombies hear it and aggro and hiding from assholes is kinda hard when you're hacking away every 30 seconds. I just hope this shit doesn't slowly kill me. I'd made peace with dying to some asshole, not with dying to a canteen of tainted water. I go out like this, I'm gonna be mad as fuck.

I guess I'm gonna have to make a run for Berezino as that's probably the least fucktard infested town with a hospital. Of course, it's all the way across the map.

I'll log out and make my decision tomorrow. *cough*

Day 5: Airfield.

I'm basically fucked.

Whatever the water was infested with is indeed slowly killing me. When I logged out, I had a cough that hit me every 30 seconds or so. Now it's constant. My health has dropped below half and everything is severely washed out. Something to do with the body pulling blood from extremities to feed the vital organs. Maybe it's keeping me alive, but if I can't see that far, I'm sniper bait.

I pull out of the barracks I'd logged out in and try to get my bearings. Lots of dead zekes. Someone's been here recently, like last 5-10 minutes recently. Gotta stay low and quiet. I make my way out toward one of the two hangars at the Western end of the field, following the trail of undead corpses.

*cough* Shit.

The cough gives me away as soon as the fit starts.

Proper fucked.

"Hey man," says the guy in the hangar, who's dispatching zeds with a suppressed MK16 CQC, "You sound like hell."

"Thanks, I think."

"Come with me, I think I've got some antibiotics in the trunk."

In the trunk? Yeah, he's got a bullet-riddled Lada in the next hangar and it is indeed full of goodies. Saved by the kindness of strangers. Fuck that guy that said "This is Day Z". Survivors can sometimes help each other.

Unfortunately, there's no antibiotics in the car. Hearing that, we pile into the car and head Northwest out of the airfield proper and into the woods, me hacking away the whole time and the cough getting worse. I check the player list, Car guy is apparently a Halo fan. He's also currently got the most zombie kills on the server. 75 more than me and I'm at number two. Combined though, we've got more kills than everyone else on the server in total. In other words, we're badasses. It's like Gilgamesh and Enkidu or maybe a Yoshitsune and Benkei of the 'Churn. Maybe that's why he didn't pop me on sight, "game recognize game."

The car stops about five minutes later in the middle of a copse of trees that are doing a damn fine job of concealing two tents and another car. This guy's done a lot of what I was setting out to do already. Nice. If I live long enough, I'll contribute. It turns out I will. In one of the tents, there're about five boxes of antibiotics. The cough goes away instantly. It's still gonna take time to get my health back, so my sight is still kinda shitty. I eat an MRE to help alleviate that somewhat and then continue to search the camp. I drop my the M8 and the AKS74u Kobra for an MXC with a holographic sight and a DMR and four mags for both.

"Thanks for actually taking the time to see if I was friendly rather than killing me without a word, man"

"No worries mate, (he's English) I could hear you halfway across the field anyway, figured if you hadn't killed me, you were safe."

I don't tell him how shitty my vision was and the fact that I didn't shoot him was partially because I didn't see him.

We both hop back in the Lada and head back down to the airfield, where we go on a bit of a vehicular zedslaughter spree. Those bitches can really fly if ya hit 'em right. We make a two-man cover run through the fire station and the air traffic control tower. Both of us armed with suppressed pistols and about 12 mags of .45 each. It's fucking awesome. Nothing can touch either one of us as we sweep from building to building. In the top floor of the fire station, I find a MK12 SPR. The SPR is for "Special Purpose Rifle". It's like an M4 for specops snipers. Huge-ass scope, decent range, solid stopping power and select-fire. 10 pounds of whupass. I throw the DMR in the trunk of the Lada and start using the MK12.

We continue our sweep. Now making our way to the hangars through a combination of driving the car up and getting out to sweep each hangar and moving up on foot once inside. It all goes mostly smooth, except for the time Halofan pops me instead of the zed between us.

Oops.

"Shit, sorry man, let me bandage that."

It's a good thing we weren't using rifles.

As we get to the last hangar, we both notice activity on the South side of the airfield, there's another survivor over there.

"You seeing him too?" He asks. "Over by the industrial buildings there?"

"Yeah, I see him."

We both ponder about whether we should take our chances heading over or just leave him be. He sees us and answers our question for us by shooting at us. His loss.

We figure out why he's brave enough to take the shots at us, especially from that range. He's got a buddy a lot closer. Halo fan drops him with his DMR.

"He's down, let's get out of here."

We hop back in the car and head north. As we get near the Northwest wall, I fumble with the controls trying to talk on the vehicle channel and I somehow manage to eject myself from the moving vehicle.

Fuck me, really?

I'm immediately knocked unconscious by this action and I also manage to break a leg and start bleeding. This is possibly the shittiest time for this to happen. Halofan hops out, and tries to do what he can. He manages to bandage me and shoot me up with morphine for the leg. He's got no epipen to pop me out of unconsciousness though, so he's gotta stand overwatch near me for the interminable three minutes it takes for me to return to full wakefulness. I can hear the concern in his voice,

"Shit, mate, you've got to get up"

I hear shots, most but not all from his DMR. This sucks. I've gotten him into a shitty situation and he's sticking around when he really doesn't have to.

I hear some bullets hit the car as that obnoxious hourglass finally goes away. I get up and assess. The car is hosed. All around us are the bodies of dead zombies and a little further out, a dead survivor. We look at each other and then make a run for the hills.

We make it to the edge of the airfield when the server shits the bed.

I'm way too drunk to wait for it to pop back up, so I call it for the night.

At Tanagra

Day 6: Wilderness.

I seemed to have made it further out of the airfield than I remember. Question is however, will I be able to find the camp? I've got no map, no GPS, just instinct and hazy memory of a washed-out car ride to and from the area. I start my search in a general northwesterly direction and then start fanning out in bigger and bigger circles until, holy shit. I found it.

It seems Halofan has been busy. The Lada's been repaired. The Gaz is gassed up and there's also a motorcycle here now. All filled with more gear and supplies, including some chopper parts. If this is gonna be my new honeycomb hideout, I'd better start pulling my weight. I grab the Lada and make a run. I figure I'll ransack the airfield again and then maybe head to one of the bigger cities for more medical supplies. I switch out the MK12 for an M24 and head out.

The airfield is completely looted when I get to it. Either that or nothing's spawning. Either way, if I'm going to get any more weapons or ammo, it's not going to be here. I make the command decision to head over to Stary. I've got the car, so it's not that far out of the way. Plus, if I recall correctly, Stary's got a gas station too and I can fill up the jerry cans in the trunk. On the way to Stary, I see several reports of people killed, including two that took each other out at the same time.

I didn't recall correctly. No gas to be found in Stary. There are guns though and I pull up to just outside the military tents to start my smash and grab. Some STANAG mags here, a couple more AKs and some pistol ammo, a British backpack. (That's new) and assorted other goodies. As I get to the fourth tent in and am about to grab a suppressed pistol, I hear the Enfield.

I peek out and see a guy coming right at me, Enfield at the ready, a few freshly alerted zombies in tow. At this point, I'm not sure whether he was shooting at me or the zeds, so I yell, "I'm not hostile, what are your intentions?" The bullet flying by my ear before I even finish saying that answers my question. Fucking amateurs. I run out into him, as I've been hefting the hatchet rather than the MXC, since it's not suppressed and I'd rather not waste the ammo. I don't even think about the suppressed .45 I was carrying as well. Straight moron mode at this point because this douchebag just shot at me with a goddamn Lee Enfield twice and missed.

I swing the hatchet and start him bleeding. This causes him to panic and start running away from me around the tent. It also causes some of his aggroed zeds to start following me so I peel off and head down into the nearby horse stable to funnel them. Once inside, I switch to the MX. The reason for doing this is two-fold. One: It may cause Enfield to realize he's outgunned, if he hasn't bled out yet, and Two: I haven't really tested it for its stopping power against zeds yet. Objective two pans out beautifully. Zeds are dropping like flies and the holographic sight is great for target acquisition. Yeah, going loud brings a few more zeds to the yard, but they go down just as quickly as they show up. Objective one? Not so successful.

As I'm finishing off the last zeds in the horse stable, I hear the suppressed pistol I left in the fourth tent. Enfield picked it up and is making his way toward me. I grab a strategic position and put two rounds over his shoulder. "I'll say this one more time, I'm not hostile, but you are outgunned. Take your shit and go and there's no hard feelings."

Never underestimate the stupidity of Day Z players.

He tags me with the .45 and I start bleeding. I air him out with half a mag of 6.5mm. He's dead before his body hits the ground. I bandage myself, loot Enfield's body, which amounts to fuckall, switch back to the hatchet and finish looting the tents. I find thee medkits in the medical tent. Convenient place for them. These things rock. If you can find a secluded place and set yourself up with one, it slowly heals you over about the course of ten minutes. You just need a couple of undisturbed minutes to use it on yourself.

I pack all the shit I've found into the car and then make a quick run to the supermarket for more food and a tent and then scoot out of town. I stop at the airfield one more time and grab some gas and scrap metal from the northwest end. I then manage to make it back to camp again and set up the new tent and start sorting shit between the three. I then get to work repairing what things I can on our vehicles and generally making sure the campsite can't be easily seen.

Not a bad day, all told. But if Enfield's an example, the assholes are starting to come back.

Day 7: Rogovo

They're baaack...

I'm making my way south back to the Bean Coast for a run through Cherno for more medical supplies. Why the fuck would I do that? It's relatively dark and the server's kinda light. That said, the douchebags that are on are pretty vocal in side channel though.

My favorite is someone complaining about having no friends and then telling someone else he's fuck buddies with his dead father. You stay classy, Chernarus. Turns out the same guy is hanging out in the Balota tower with an M24 taking pot shots at whoever goes by, be they zed or survivor. Like I said, Classy.

Meanwhile, somewhere near Berezino, someone's car has apparently broken down and they're asking for either a wheel or a ride. Someone else tells him they've left an ATV near Dubrovka because they were tired of waiting for his dumb ass to show up. He thanks them and starts his trek west. He gets to the ATV and is killed by someone who was waiting for him because they'd overheard the conversation and knew where he was going.

Another guy asks for help in Cherno, as he's broken his leg and is afraid to crawl anywhere for fear of zeds and dickish survivors. Despite my better judgment, I head toward his location. Someone else does the same thing and announces his intentions to come help.

"Thanks," says broken leg guy.

Since I'm in the area anyway, I watch the proceedings through my scope. The good samaritan gets to the appointed location, and broken-leg guy's leg isn't broken at all, it was a trap. He opens up on the samaritan with a Winchester and the samaritan ducks and covers into the shelter of a nearby machine shed and promptly logs out.

"Fucking pussy," rants trap douche. "He combat logged. What a shitty thing to do."

Someone else chimes in with, "yeah, that's bullshit."

A third person chirps, "You both need to shut the fuck up."

Of course, I've got to add my two cents. "Yeah, combat logging may be shitty, but no shittier than pretending to be hurt in Cherno to lure someone in and then shoot them. Especially when they had no weapons to shoot back with."

"That's not shitty, that smart playing," Trap douche retorts. "Besides, isn't it survival at any cost?"

"Not if that cost makes you king of the graveyard, you shitheel. And especially if you're resorting to shooting at unarmed opponents. I'd like to see how much of a badass you'd be against someone with a weapon."

"Oh really? Why don't you come down to Cherno and try me?" he bravely postures.

"Sure, why not?"

A couple of seconds later, the next server message read thusly: "Trap douche was killed by surlyboi (M24 - 520meters)"

I get a few comments about how cold that was, but karma's a bitch sometimes.

I packed my shit up and headed back north. Man, fuck the Bean Coast.

Speaking of corners:

Day 8: Vybor

I'm heading back up to the airfield for another loot run. It's been fairly quiet so far and from the looks of it, the field is quiet.

I slide in and hit the southwestern barracks. Clean. I run over to the two hangars. Clean. Power station? A couple of .45 mags and a shotgun. Fuck that noise. Air traffic control tower? Negatory. I get to the five hangars and the first one has an M16A2. Meh. I kill a couple dozen zeds through all of this with the hatchet and all is well.

I duck my head out of the second hangar when I see a survivor duck into the the third. I make a turn into the space between the two hangars and switch from the hatchet to the MXC, "just in case". The survivor I saw pelts me in the back with his AK. I duck around the back of the third hangar to run into his partner. He's been running, so his aim is shit. His loss. I drop to prone and fire three solid bursts center mass and up to his face. He's done. I'm bleeding like a motherfucker and my vision is quickly going black and white, but I've got the presence of mind to turn and catch the first guy before he rounds the corner, anticipating where his head will be, I let fly with the rest of the ammo in the mag. Two for two. It's their third buddy that's following him that gets me as I'm reloading. Shouldn't have had that last martini.

Like I said, someone will get lucky, or I'll fuck up. In this case, it was both.

Enjoy those NVGs, fuck-os.

Day 0: Elektrozavodsk

Fuck. Me.

I'm on the western border of the city and I'm fresh out of everything. I need at least a hatchet or something to tide me over to get back to the stash. I begrudgingly head into the center of town in hopes of finding something that'll up my survival percentage 'til I get back to the honeycomb hideout. I manage to aggro a decent number of zeds before I find my way to the church where I find a Makarov. In my circuitous route here, I picked up three mags, so that gives me a total of six with the three I find with the gun here. I decide to dispatch as many of the zeds on my tail as possible. In the process, I alert a few more zeds and some survivors. Three of them who just managed to crash their Yugo into the fire station.

Asshats.

"Hey, Makarov guy, stand away from the car", one of them says in a strong Swedish accent as I head to the fire station.

"Don't give a shit about your car, guys. I need to find something to get me by the zeds."

I hit on an AK74, but it hasn't fully spawned in yet, so I can't pick it up. I continue upstairs looking for a hatchet, no luck. I come back up and one of the Swedish bros has picked up the now, fully accessible AK. They're running around like chickens with their heads cut of while zombies mill about the fire station. I pop five of them in the head while the bros continue to look like morons. The one that picked up the AK decides then to open up on me with it. He's a shitty shot, but he still lights me up. Not before I put two in his Swedish grill though. I run up the stairs with a medpack and try to apply it to myself, when I hear in local, "No way, how am I dying?"

"Because you're a shitty shot and I put two in your face, you fucking asshole, why the fuck did you shoot me?"

"We told him not to." says one of the other Swedes. Fuck lot of good that does me now. At the very least, he dies before I do.

As I wait for the second stage of the medpack to kick in, a zed comes up and finishes me.

You Are Dead. That's twice in less than 20 minutes. At least I went out fighting the good fight both times. That said, this isn't a pattern I generally want to continue.

I think I'm gonna need backup.

Day 1 Airfield

I decided to count my blessings and GTFO of Cherno and head to an even sketchier area - the Balota Airfield. A quick sweep of the industrials and LV military spawn come up empty, and I head for the real deal - hangars and control tower.
Hangar 1 - crap
Hanger 2 - more crap
Hangar 3 - piles of crap

Is there a fourth hangar? IDK. I dispatched a couple zeds with my trusty Hatchet of Obliteration, and proceeded to the control tower...where the good stuff should be. Yup, first floor had a M8 with 2 mags. Not sure exactly what an M8 is, but it has a scope and has the title 'Sharpshooter' so I'll assume it's nice. I eagerly head up stairs to the top of the tower. I stand there and start fiddling with my inventory when it happens. I'm hit hard. Bullets begin wizzing by, and I panic and try to escape out the back - but had no real idea where the shots had come from (that area is exposed almost 360 degrees around.

My vision is pretty fucked, I'm leaking blood like a siv, but I know my way around here with my eyes closed. I try to book it between some hangars and bandage myself, but murphy's law...a fuckin' zeke is that way. I turn and run towards the forest, zig-zagging...hoping to just make it to some bushes. I dive into them, patch up, and try to scan for the assailant when the sound of gunfire and bullets hitting around me force my hand and I get up and start hauling more ass. I do my best drunken runner impression, trying not to make a predictable target but fail. Two more rounds finish me off.

Where I went wrong: I panicked. Having been too far gone from DayZ, I was unable to control the fear and adrenaline. When I started taking fire I should have went prone, bandaged...and set up an ambush. The murderer would eventually come to the tower and when he came up those stairs he'd be proper fucked. But no, I ran like a scared little girl to my death and murderer guy now has an M8 to go around proper fucking every noob searching Balota.

Day 0: Quarry

Man, fuck. I'm way out here. Best head to Berezino! Along the coast I stumble upon a brand new firehouse and apartment complex...which paid off with an Alice bag and a makarov. I find my hatchet, make my way to Berezino and find another M8. Sweet. I'm decently stocked with weapons, food, drink, and ammo. I pick a spot, and 'observe' Berezino before hitting the sack. I've already made it longer than the last M8. WOO HOO.

Back in the (former) U.S.S.R.

Day 0: I'm feeling thirsty...

Wait, what the fuck happened to my little location crawl in the lower left corner? I'm pretty sure there's no town in the 'Churn called "I'm feeling thirsty". Matter of fact, where the fuck are my hunger, thirst and blood meters? Where's my sound and vision? Apparently, those two have taken off with Major Tom.

Oh, this is DayZ standalone. More "emergent". "immersive" gameplay from our old pal Rocket. Yes, the bullshit is emerging and I've chosen once again to immerse myself in it. Meet the new 'Churn, same as the old 'Churn. On the plus side, before starting your adventures, you get to do a little futzing with the way you look. I went for a medium color with a dark green shirt and brown pants. Better to hide myself in foliage and the stains don't show when and if I shit my pants after a close encounter.

I try to get my bearings, from the looks of the gas station across the road from me, I think I'm somewhere near Cherno. I've been playing this goddamn thing too long.

I take inventory of my gear, I've got a flashlight and an extra battery in my pocket and that's it. I wonder if I can use the flashlight as a makeshift weapon...

Nope. Emergent, my ass.

I crouch and make a break for the gas station and hear my first zeke after I take about two steps. So much for easing myself back into this shit. I go from the slow crouch walk to a full-on crouch run as I try to avoid ol' Zeeky. I manage to take a look over my shoulder and he's a she. No more just being chased by former Soviet soldiers and dead assholes in earflap hats anymore, the walking dead have gone equal opportunity.

Regardless of sex, this one's a bitch. She hits me once on the way into the gas station kiosk and I get another little message down in the corner, "I can feel warm blood running down my clothes." One shot and I'm bleeding already, great.

At this point, I've got nothing to lose, so the crouch becomes a full upright sprint as I make a break for a nearby factory. Zeekette, of course, hot on my heels. I manage to swing over a bit of broken wall and around a corner, breaking line of sight and hopefully shedding aggro. I wait a full two minutes and nothing happens. Cool, lost her now to go find a bandage or something. I get up and start moving and she rounds the corner and shrieks and runs at me again. Fucking great. I run around another corner and find a ladder and climb up it, hopefully not making myself sniper bait in the process. Once I get to the top of the factory, I drop prone and crawl to the other side of the roof.

I can still hear her shrieking down below. Apparently, she can still follow me even though I'm not making any noise and she can't see me. Maybe she hears me bleeding.

I jump from the roof to a railing surrounding a nearby smokestack and climb down. She seems to get stuck on the stack, so I bolt for another building across some railroad tracks. "My clothes are sticky with blood", the crawl reminds me. It also tells me I could use a drink. Yeah, I really could. Why am I playing this sober again?

I duck into the train station on the other side of the tracks and find some motorcycle helmets. Cool, now when I die and come back as a zed, I won't be able to bite anyone. Why the fuck are there three motorcycle helmets in a train station anyway?

I don't have too much time to ponder this as I pass out from blood loss a few seconds later.

You Are Unconscious.

Thanks for the update. Just a black screen and those words. No clue as to when or if I'll wake up, just that. Yeah, let's sit and stare at a screen that says, "you are unconscious" for the next however long.

Emergent. Immersive.

I never wake up.

Day 0: I could use a drink

Shit, I shoulda made myself a martini while I was unconscious. Oh well, missed opportunities.

I once again try to get my bearings, looks like I'm somewhere between Otmel and Drakon, just east of Elektro. A couple of minutes after walking what I assume is west, my assessment is confirmed as one of the cranes just outside of Elektro slips into view.

I slip into a couple of buildings and find a few things, a rock hammer among them. Can I use that as a weapon? Can I get all Old Boy up on some asshat that feels like fucking with me?

Nope. Emergent.

In the next room, however, I find a crowbar. It's in passable condition, meaning sooner or later it's gonna break on me. I also find a burlap sack which I can't use a a bag and some beat up rope that may also break some time in the near future if I use it.

Added complexity. Immersive.

Fuck you in your left nostril, Rocket. Seriously, right in the snot box. Even Zork got the burlap sack piece right, you fuck knuckle.

I take the sack and the crowbar and leave the hammer and rope as I can't just put them in the burlap sack and take them with me. I then move deeper into town. The big difference now is that those buildings I'm used to passing by because I can't get into are now accessible. In one of them I find a cross-chest holster and a watch cap. I put both on and move on. In the next building, I find a hatchet. I drop the crowbar and grab it and take stock of my surroundings from the second floor of the building. No signs of either zeds or people.

I move to the next building. I'm near the school and that'll be my next stop, but first let's see what I find in here...

A pair of slightly worn Wellies which I replace my sneakers with and a bright orange backpack. So much for the whole earth tone, blend into the wilderness motif. I'll still take it because it'll allow me to carry more shit. I take a peek outside of the building and then make a run for the school. I get in and run through the rooms of the first floor, bypassing a couple more watch caps and nothing more. As I head toward the stairs to recon the upper floors, I see what looks like a guy in hazmat gear and a gas mask making a beeline for the same building.

I don't stop at the stairs, I continue out the side exit and make a break for the nearby hill. Either he didn't see me, or he didn't have a weapon. Either way, I'm not staying close enough to give him any ideas.

A few glance back where I came from show me I don't have a tail. I wait at the top of the hill in the cover of a copse of trees for about five minutes just to make sure and then I head back down toward the power station, warily looking in all directions as I go but wasting no time to get there. As I get in; I find a first aid kit, a pair of work gloves and a small pelican case, along with a can of soda and a can of beans.

Jackpot.

I chug the soda and two seconds later still get a "I'm thirsty" message. Apparently soda doesn't do much to quench your thirst anymore. Great.

I clear out of Elektro anyway, figuring I might as well get out while the getting's good.

I head north into the hills and then east and camp out near a tree. Tomorrow I'll head for Balota and see if I can at least score something for that holster.

Day 1: I feel like a drink.

No shit. A day's gone by and I'm still thirsty. Apparently shit's changed more than I thought in the 'Churn. Instead of waking up with a full stomach and totally hydrated, you now start half empty. And depending on what you do, that tank can drain pretty damn quick. Food for thought. Pun only slightly intended. Knowing this does me a fuck lot of good right now, as I've got no drink and a beat up can of beans with no opener.

Yeah, shit's that real now. I can't use a hammer as a weapon, but there's can openers in this thing. Bang, zoom, Rocket.

I trudge on however and I make the command decision to not head for Balota as this blaze orange and white backpack makes for a really solid bullseye. Better to find somewhere a little less well-traveled. Berezhino it is. Or at least it will be if I don't die of thirst first. I snake my way into the hills north of Electro, sneaking through farm houses, hen houses and out houses. For my trouble, I find a windbreaker and some shotgun shells. I stuff the shells in the pocket of the windbreaker and move on.

My stomach growls.

Hey look at that, I've got a chorus now. I look at the can of beans. The words, "Open can of beans with hatchet" appear before my eyes. Ok, I'll bite. I take the hatchet to the can and spill almost half of the beans in the process. Good plan. At least the can is open now and I can eat the beans.

Hmm, I wonder if I can use the now open can as a makeshift cup and scoop out some water from this nearby stream?

Hell, no. Why would something as stupid as that work? The 'Churn makes its own rules, bitch. Slightly disheartened, I move on.

20 minutes later I stumble onto a farm, no zed in sight, so I sneak in and look around. I find a well that I can drink from and quench my thirst. Rock on. I drink for a good five minutes. That should hold me for a while. I take stock of my surroundings and move out. It looks like I’m somewhere near Guglovo. I move northwest, looking to make my way to Stary Sobor. I cut across country, keeping a low profile and watching all directions for zeds or other survivors. The coast is clear almost all the way in.

I finally attract the attention of another zed as I’m crawling by a small house near the supermarket in Stary. Crawling. There’s no way I should have been seen. The aggro range on zeke is all outta whack. I know this is an alpha, but jesus, that’s shit that’s been working even in the knockoff mods. I make a break for the supermarket and find some good shit in there, including a pipe wrench and some more cans of soda.

Of course, I can’t pick up much of that because zeke is on my six.

In the fucking floor.

Fuck me.

I swing the pipe wrench and get nothing but floor, even though the zed is right in front of me. Well, his head is, anyway. I vault the freezer case and head for the exit. Zeke a few feet behind. I clear out of the supermarket and swing away, catching her clean in the face. The telltale sign that I can loot the body telling me I’m done.

Except I’m not.

She. gets. back. up.

And she tags me. And I start bleeding. I hit her over and over until she stops moving. And then I hit her again for a solid 30 seconds.

Just to be sure.

Now I need to roll into a safe place and bandage myself. I’m bleeding a lot. I get in and go into my pack and grab the first aid kit. As I start to bandage myself, I black out.

You Are Unconscious.

Fuck.

Apparently there’s a bug with the unconscious state that you sometimes can’t recover from.

I log out and back in a few times and no joy.

Looks like I’m starting over.

I don't particularly like that bit of uncertainty, and I've not played War Z because I heard it sucks more than DayZ. I think I may play this because I'm a masochist but also I won't let Rocket's bullshit beat me. At least not yet.

Day 0:

Who the fuck knows? Somewhere on the Bean Coast. I've died too much to just ridiculous shit. Bugs, over-aggressive states of unconsciousness, zombie versions of Nightcrawler (*Bamf*, you're dead) I need to get my shit together and put the hammer down. Well, not the hammer, because we've already established that that's not usable as a weapon. You get the gist though.

I take stock and look around. Oh shit, a road sign. Berezhino is only a mile away up the coast. I must be in Nizhnoye. I think this is the furthest north I've even spawned. As I start to move, I get the usual indications that I'm hungry and thirsty. Let's throw those in there right away again.

I also notice a body. Three bodies, actually. All recently dead. All still with their starter gear.

This can't be good.

I make a quick cut for the first shelter I can find, making myself as small a target as possible and waiting a good five minutes while watching the bodies to see if whoever or whatever killed them is still lurking around. Nothing. I sneak back out and give the corpses a second look, making sure I didn't miss anything. Nope. I loot one of the corpses' t-shirts and then look up to see someone running at me.

"There's no good loot around here", he yells as he runs by.

I notice that one of the corpses is his and he's running by heading in toward the mountains.

"Watch your back out there", I reply as I decide to head north toward BZ. No sense in following him into the hills at this point.

I make it to Berezhino without incident and find that this new 'Churn is decidedly different than the old one. No military camp for starters. The tenements are no longer merely abandoned, they're ransacked as shit. The end of the world came here in a weird way. I pick my way through the place and find a whole bunch of not much. After getting halfway through town, I've only got a pair of combat boots and a pipe wrench to show for my troubles.

As I'm moving on to the next building, I see a zed a few hundred meters away and up a hill. It apparently sees me to because it immediately starts shambling in my direction. That's another bug report that needs to be filed. I run into the building and find a pair of hunter pants. I could use them because they've got more pockets. I take off my pants and put those on. I then remember I had a couple of things in the pockets of the pants I just took off, so I grab them again and put them on, figuring the switch will just drop them back on the floor.

Nope. The hunter pants are now gone and the jeans have nothing in the pockets. I take those off again and then they disappear. It's right about now that hill zombie catches up to me, despite having been out of line of sight for at least a couple of minutes. He hits me once and I'm bleeding, of course. Maybe it's the lack of pants.

I swing away until he goes down and disappears and then rip up my t-shirt and use the rags as makeshift bandages. I stop the bleeding, but now I'm down to my skivvies and a pair of jungle boots. Great.

I swing through the rest of the building and find a plaid shirt. I put that on, giving me at least some cover and a couple more pockets. There's not a whole helluva lot of anything in Berezhino anymore, so I get the hell out of town, heading west. I stop at the deer stand on the way out and that's remarkably empty too. The struggle is real.

I'm about to give up for the night, when I notice an incomplete factory in the middle of the woods. I sneak in and find a dead guy with an axe laying on the floor of one of the outlying buildings. Looks like the poor bastard got tagged and bled out here. I take the axe and his pants. He won't need them anymore and I get to stop running around in tighty whities. (Really Rocket? At least give us some boxers.) I run to the main construction site and make a sweep through the four floors. On the second floor, I find a defibrilator and some bananas. Can't use the defib, so I leave it. the bananas go in my shirt pockets. In the stairwell I find a blue day pack. Nice, now I can start carrying more shit, including the can of propane and the camp stove I find on the next landing. Now I can cook my bananas or something. Maybe boil some water to keep from getting sick.

On the next floor, I find a bigger, green mountain pack. Having learned my lesson from the pants debacle, I make sure to empty the current pack before picking up the new one. I then painstakingly re-pack the stuff into the new pack. Making sure no one's got a clear line of sight on me from any weird angles. After I'm fully packed, I head up to the roof, where I find a fire axe, a shovel and a fire extinguisher.

The fire extinguisher is a weapon, by the way.

I also find a few cans of soda, a bottle of water and some beans and a can of spaghetti, enabling me to quench my thirst and tide over my hunger. Now, I've got a healthy set of gear to go exploring with. I'm almost ready for a trek northwest. All I'd really need to round out this stuff is a decent firearm of some sort, as melee right now is for shit. I hop out and head further west. Should I pass through a few more towns, I'll ransack them on the way.

The first town I hit has a bunch of zeds milling around a rusted out machine shed. The all seem to be fixated on the shed itself. Either someone ran in there and logged recently, or they ran in there and died. Either way, them not looking at me means I can at least sneak through part of the town. I scoot through to the town's police station and cross my fingers for something good. A couple of canteens and a box of cereal. As I'm leaving, I take a look up the little flight of stairs that go nowhere and I see it.

A Mosin 9130. Basically, the old Russian version of an Enfield. It'll be loud and unwieldy, but at this point, I'll take it. I check my gear one more time and head out. As I open the door, I see another zed standing across the street from me. She's got her back to me, so she doesn't aggro immediately. I line up the shot with the Mosin, take a deep breath and ring the dinner bell.

The shot kills zed instantly and instead of falling to the ground, she disappears like the last one did. "Alpha" I check my surroundings, looking for the oncoming horde, and none come. Thanking whatever server gods are watching, I get the fuck out of dodge and head what I think is west.

If the hordes are no shows, I must be a magnet. I've run into a shitton at times.

Day 1:

So... I didn't head west exactly. I more or less headed southeast. I got kicked from the server, the next one I logged into had a server message that read "Combat loggers are douchebags". Probably, but not as much as someone who feels the need to post that shit in their server message. Next. On the next server, it was the middle of the night. The moon was up and it seemed bright enough to travel so I stayed with it. About a half hour into my journey, I saw the ocean. I figured I had to be somewhere near Cherno at this point, so I dipped a little farther south to check the location. I was way off.

Instead of heading into Cherno, I found myself in Elektro again. Every time I think I'm out...

Well, if I'm gonna be here anyway, might as well make a run through some of the easy spots. Especially since it's dark and the chances of getting sniped are cut to about half. First stop, the fire station. Here, I find my second weapon and a zed screeching and swinging at thin air. I put my trusty axe through the back of her skull and she's done. This one takes a few seconds before it disappears though. I listen for more aggro, hear none and grab the gun. It's a .45 caliber combat pistol. With no mags. Sadly, it takes me the better part of five minutes to figure out that's why I can't load it with some .45 ammo I'd found earlier. I trek up the stairs to the upper floors and find some camo cargo pants and a chest holster. Cool shit, now I've got a place to hold the pistol and some more pocket space. On the third floor I find more .45 ammo, a black tac vest (which doesn't stack over the holster, but holds a lot more. The decision to drop the holster was obvious.) and a tactical shirt. Another storage upgrade. On the top floor, I find a PASGT helmet and a gas mask. It's like a tactical department store.

I walk out of the fire station looking like a badass. Well, all but the 100-year-old rifle bit, anyway.

I sweep through the supermarket and find a few cans of beans and a can of soda to quench my ever-present hunger and thirst. I ate and drank everything I had on the way down here and I'm still hungry and thirsty. I need to find a few more refillable water bottles of I'm ever going to make it up to the NW airfield.

I clear out of the supermarket and head over to the other fire station. On the way I attract a bit of zeke action. I yakkety sax it around and through the fire station at top speed and manage to comfuse them enough that I have time to run up behind them and whack them all before they can figure out what happened. I ransack the second fire station and come out with a compass and some more color-matched gear. Deciding to get out while I'm ahead, I make a run for the hills north of town and then hang a left for Cherno and Balota. Might as well see what if anything's changed about those two.

Cherno, Cherno never changes. Except, it has. A lot. Cherno now has three satellite suburbs, the biggest of which is a cinderblock nightmare called Dubky. As I came in from the from the northeast, I had to stop and make sure I had proper foliage cover as the Northern approach of Dubky is literally a wall of high-rises. A thousand sniper nests, all potentially hiding some asshole bent on fucking up someone's day. There's an up and a down side to this new bit of Cherno, the obvious down side is that the approach is a nightmare. The up side is that once you're in, it's practically impossible to find you from the outside or even another nearby building. All in all, I can see this being the stuff of bad dreams for many a Bean Coast refugee.

Under the cover of darkness, I move in close to the high-rises, ransacked the supermarket at the foot of one of them and then continued east. The other two suburbs of Cherno were smaller replicas of Dubky, complete with shitty roundabouts and a couple of potentially deadly cul de sacs. Stick to game design, boys. Your urban planning is shit. But maybe that's the point. I could see a dozen different choke points and kill zones for the properly inclined.

I make it past the last of the suburbs and get to Balota. Like Cherno, this ain't your daddy's southern airbase. It's just as open as the old one, but larger and more varied. Including a few barracks. I run through axeing zeds as I go and making sure to make as little noise as possible. I get the easy stuff out of the way first, the buildings clustered closest together, the control tower, the hangars and the brig/admin buidling. In them, I find a butt stock for an M4, more 7.62 ammo and a scope and bayonet for the Mosin. The scope looks out of 1944, the bayonet looks like it's a century older than that. Weird.

I climb to the roof of the tower, my skin crawling for the few seconds I'm on the ladder and an obvious target. I make it all the way up and go prone. I break out the newly scoped Mosin and take aim on a zeke near the barracks. Boom, headshot. I roll away from my last spot and then watch for any movement from either zeds or survivors. No sign of either. Satisfied with my test, I get up to go back down the ladder. The little arrow comes up in my field of view, indicating that I can climb down so I start to do that.

And then the server glitches and suddenly I'm falling from the roof instead of climbing down the ladder.

You Have Died.

For fuck's sake.

Handguns are relatively easy to score. Rifles are a bit like hen's teeth, but still gettable if you're persistent. There's a possibility there's a shotgun in game too.

Day 0:

After falling off the roof and trying to respawn multiple times and failing, I resigned myself to not getting my shit back and changed servers.

I duck into the first house I see and find a pen and paper, where I penned this missive...

Here I stand, brokenhearted.
Fell off a roof and then restarted.
Something
Something
Fuck your couch, Rocket.

Passive-aggressive? Fuck yes.

I then swim away from the little island I'd spawned on and make my way to Elektro and find an axe, another Mosin and a red hoodie in the first machine shed I check at the outskirts of town. Not a bad grab so fresh after washing up on shore. Maybe this won't suck as much.

Who am I kidding? It's DayZ, the suck is built in.

Anyway, I move deeper into town and find some more gear. Better pants, a tac vest and shirt, a magnum and another FNX45, this one with a red dot scope on it, tacti-cool. No bag though, so I've got to be really selective with what I keep. Instead of hoarding food and water, I eat and drink all I've got. I get a message saying my stomach is full after eating an entire bag of dry rice. Interesting. I run through a few other buildings, all in a fruitless search for a pack. I get tagged by a few zeds in the process, but none of them manage to bleed me for once. I decide to head a bit further north and hope I get lucky there.

I find nothing until I get all the way up to Nadezhdino. There, I find a blue taloon pack, some duct tape, a pair of handcuffs and a couple of canteens. It's a B&D party pack. Now I've got enough gear to complete my trip to the airfield. At least, I think I do.

I head out and notice I haven't had a hunger message in over an hour since I ate that bag of rice. I may have found the key. I refill my canteens before I leave Nadezhdino and kill a couple more zeds and then cut northwest. I get lost for a bit because the mechanic for using a compass now requires you to stop and check it, rather than having it persistently on display. I finally stumble my way to Pushtoshka and sneak into the back of the supermarket. There, I find a guy sneaking around with a Hoxton mask and a pipe wrench, probably on his way to the airfield too. The fact that he hasn't switched to the mosin slung on his back as soon as he sees me and starts moving in my direction, pipe raised tells me he's either out of ammo or worried about alerting zeds.

I have no such qualms about alerting the dead as I switch to the FNX45 and yell, "friendly. I won't shoot you if I don't have to."

He doesn't stop coming at me so I put four in him and he falls bleeding at my feet. Not before tagging me at least once with the wrench. Miraculously, I didn't kill him, just knocked him out. I mull ending him and then come up with a better idea.

I bandage him and then handcuff him I drop the keys in a nearby building. I take his bigger pack and some of his food and then I wake him up. I tell him the keys are somewhere in town or he'll eventually break out of them, whichever comes first. I also advise him to think before rushing someone in the future and then take my leave. He may survive if the zeds or another player don't get him. He probably won't take anything useful from the experience though. His loss.

I then spend the next two hours trying to find the airfield and missing it completely. I finally realize I'm way too far north and start a desperate run south and east as I've now run out of water and my body is telling me I REALLY need a drink. I set a goal for myself to find some water and a safe place to log out within the next 15 minutes.

With five minutes to spare, I see the familiar walls of the airfield. I run in and find a bunch of medical tents at the northwest corner, packed with M4 accessories and a couple of canteens. I manage to get my thirst mostly under control and proceed deeper into the field. I kill a few zeds along the way, managing to sneak behind them and stay out of most of their fields of vision, hatcheting them to keep my noise level to a minimum. Always looking over my shoulders and in every other direction for potential hostiles of the dead and alive varieties.

In the second of the two further hangars, I find an M4. I apply all the mods i've grabbed to it, including a Magpul hand guard and stock, an ACOG sight, a bipod and a bayonet. Still not sure how the bayonet works, but I'll figure it out. Now, if I can find a suppressor, I'm golden. I sweep through the rest of the field, swapping out gear as necessary, grabbing vitamins, antibiotics and alcohol tinctures. I take my leave of the airfield with a ton of food, three full canteens, two medkits, about 280 rounds of .556 for the M4 and another 60 for the .45. I'm loaded for bear.

Now to figure out what to do with all this shit.

Here I am, king of a pile of nothing.

(http://cloud-3.steampowered.com/ugc/666831483131798014/D33A638832BBD4548469C68F0A33D3968F14C447/)

"And you can have it all, my empire of dirt..."

I left Chernarus with the question lingering in my mind of what I should do with all of the supplies I'd acquired. On my next login, that question was answered very quickly.

Absofuckinglutely nothing because...

"I'm feeling thirsty"

I'm on the bean coast again in a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, nothing in my pants but my nads and a flashlight. And no, I'm not happy to see you.

It looks like I'm on the eastern outskirts of Elektro. Again. I really don't give much of a shit at this point, so I run deeper into town, upright, top speed. A target for anyone good enough to take me out. No one does of course mostly because there's probably no one good enough with a Mosin to hit me.

I hit the fire station in the center of town and laying outside is a dead guy in a blue "Press" vest and a med pack. I loot his corpse and move into the fire station. There are three other dead bodies in here too. One of them has a .357 magnum on him as well. There are four rounds still in it. I think two of these guys offed each other. I grab an old Russian camo jacket and pants. There's a tac vest here too, but fuck it. My Press vest will be my badge of honor. I'll wear it no matter what else I find.

On the top floor is a Mosin and a scope, effectively giving me the only sniper rifle currently scroungable in Chernarus. Apparently if zero fucks are given, you are rewarded. Maybe that's why assholes prosper so much here. I've figured out what I'm going to do with my next few hoards of gear. I'm gonna become Chernarus' Johnny Appleseed. A Johnny Chernoseed, if you will. I will run around leaving bits of gear in more barren places than the usual. Noobs will be able to find shit closer to their spawn points.

That is, of course, if the server doesn't wipe my shit again. And, provided I actually survive long enough to hoard that gear. My mission for the time being is clear. I loot the second fire station, where I find two canteens, a .45, two mags and about 40 rounds for it, a pack and a few cans of beans. I then run up the hill, drink my fill and fill the canteens to the top. Next stop, Cherno and then a run at Balota.

My trip to Chernogorsk is uneventful. My only companions my heavy breathing and the constant beating of my feet across the countryside. As I round my way toward the construction site on the eastern edge of town, I run afoul of a couple of zeds. I double tap them both and move into the construction site, grabbing as much cover as possible. After a check of my surroundings and making sure I haven't brought any more attention to myself than necessary, I loot what I can from the construction site. Some 7.62 for the mosin and some more food.

I climb to the top of the crane overlooking the construction site and use the mosin's scope to survey the area. No movement for a good three or four minutes gives me confidence to come down and move deeper into town. I also notice something I hadn't seen before, the International hotel at the center of town, pretty much the only high-rise in Cherno proper, has a huge chunk ripped out of its side. There's damage to the building across the street as well. It's pretty much burned to the ground. What the fuck happened there?

I move in closer, putting two rounds in each zeke I come by. The efficient "pop" "pops" echoing off the walls of the empty pubs and shops of this dead town. Hopefully also sounding out a warning to any survivor that's feeling squirrelly that whoever is moving through town is not one to be casually fucked with.

I loot the pubs at the center of town and then make my way over to the hotel. Holy shit, is it a mess. I put down five more zeds who've come to disrupt my gawking and then I circle around to get the full view of what happened. A plane crashed into the building. A relatively small passenger plane. It's tail on the ground at the foot of the hotel facing the central square, the ripped up fuselage still embedded in the side of the building some 15 storeys up. The wings and the nose are nowhere to be seen. I put the whole thing down to Motherfuckin' Zekes on a Motherfuckin' Plane. Where's Samuel L. when you need him?

With my curiosity sated, I surreptitiously move on from the town center. I snake my way through the streets to the fire station here and find more .45 ammo and another .45. I take it all and start thinking of other places to leave it. I sneak into the back of the supermarket across from the fire station and leave the .357 and the ammo for it in one of the lockers there. I then head further west out of Cherno altogether. As I'm heaing futher down the shore, I see a derailed train. Cherno was an accident magnet when the shit hit the fan, apparently.

I get to the westernmost suburb of Cherno and head for one of the tower blocks. These things are the same as the ones in BZ, burned out and a total fucking mess. Also a great place to snipe noobs off the beach from. I could be such an evil fucker in this game and it would be so easy. Maybe that's why I take the road less travelled. Being a douche requires almost no effort other than staying alive long enough to gather loot. Staying alive and then using that loot to help people, now that's a challenge. Meh, these are musings for later.

I drop the second .45, a mag and 30 rounds of ammo in a bathroom on the third floor of the tower block and then decide to head up to the roof and see what kind of vantage point I can get on Balota from there.

There's a chapter in Stephen King's The Stand that details the secondary die off of people after Captain Tripps takes out 99.4% of the population of the world. This secondary die off is a lot more mundane and mostly has people dying in their bath tubs or electrocuting themselves doing something stupid. Not all of them die doing something stupid. Some just die due to bad luck. Like falling off a ladder and breaking their neck or bleeding out because there's no one else there to help them.

As I get to the top of the ladder leading to the roof, I suddenly fall back in the hole and break my leg. So much for that vantage point. I check both of the medpacks I looted on the way here, no morphine, so I'm doomed to crawl until I find some. I crawl back to the ladder and climb up again, this time making it to the rooftop. If I'm crawling into Balota, I want to know what I'm crawling into first. I make it to the edge and break out the mosin one more time to get a look at things. No signs of movement. I crawl back to the ladder and try to climb back down. I fall again.

You Are Dead.

I'm gonna miss that Press vest...

Day 0:

Fuck if I know.

Actually, I think I'm somewhere far to the east of Elektro. Looks like Kamyshovo. Sadly, still no bitches to be seen, despite what I've heard.

I head a little bit east, as there's a small cluster of buildings in that direction. Among said buildings is a machine shed. In it, I find a purple day pack and a fire axe. I also find out that even though I'm Ten. Fucking. Feet. above a zeke, he can still apparently break my leg and cause me to bleed. Noted. I crawl my suddenly hobbled ass down the stairs and then struggle to stand up and plant the fire axe in Zeddy's skull. He's done, but I'm still left with only the ability to crawl. Great new start. I crawl out of the machine shed and into the warehouse nearby. I manage to attract another zed along the way and I'm done in no time.

Day 0:

The. Exact. Spot. I. Started. Last. Time. Greeeeaaat. At least I know where the zeds are and where there might be some passable starting gear. I head back to the warehouse and machine shed. My corpse and all the stuff that was with it is nowhere to be seen, but the zeds still are. Nice. I high-tail it into the warehouse again and find another axe, with which I make short work of the zed that last did me in. Maybe he was a tad slower because he was still feasting on my corpse. I run through the other buildings in the area and find a hoodie and a skull cap and some food and water. Not a bad haul for someone fresh off the beach. I figure I'll head west and hit Electro for the weapon essentials and then head north afterward.

As I'm running west, I hear a voice. I'm only slightly drunk, so I assume the voice isn't me. It's not. It's some guy that recently spawned nearby.

"Hey", he says, "please don't kill me, I've got nothing"

I stop and run back in his direction. True to his word, he's got fuck all. I throw him a can of beans and salute him while saying, "good luck"

"Wait!" He yells, "where ya headed?"

"Elektro," I say

He asks to join me. What the hell, why not?

We make our way west, stopping in the couple of small towns between Kamyshovo and Elektro, me covering his ass while he loots some gear and then expecting him to turn on me after he gets a weapon. This never actually happens. He tells me his tale of woe, illuminating me about how he got ambushed and ganked by some other people while he yelled, "friendly". I commiserate and say, "At least you didn't lose your shit to a server glitch or falling off a ladder." He agrees that sucks and then we move on.

As we get to the machine shed just to the east of Elektro, I move in an loot some more shit, inlcuding a better axe and a canteen. I come out of the shed and my companion is nowhere to be seen. I figure he must've just leapfrogged me deeper into town. No big. I slide along the outskirts myself, avoiding the center of town and the school and supermarket in particular, making my way for the fire station directly. There, I find two .45s and a magnum as well as the first can opener I've seen and a russian tactical jacket and vest.

I don all of this gear and grab the three pistols, thinking I'll be able to share one with my new buddy. I then double back to se three people running west from the supermarket toward the other fire station. I grab cover and slowly move in for the supermarket. There I see the new guy's corpse. Dead, but not looted. Those three guys killed him for shits and giggles and then moved on. I weigh going after them and trying to even the scales or just grabbing what I can from the supermarket and moving on.

Of course, I choose the former.

I break into a run westward and stop about a block away from the fire station. I've got 15 rounds with which I can make a difference, I need to make them count. I sneak closer in to the fire station and the three are nowhere to be seen. Did they log out? did the circle around? Who knows? I move closer in and find the fire station empty. I loot a couple more mags for the .45 and then clear out. Still no sign of the three.

With no clue where the three killers went, I decide to keep heading west. I might run into them, I might not, either way, I figure I can eventually get to Balota and maybe find better gear. That or die trying. As I make my way west, the server shits the bed and I'm booted.

The next one I log into is in the middle of the night. Luckliy, the moon is full and high in the sky. I continue my trek west and make it into Cherno without incident. I take my usual route, starting with the construction site and then working my way into the pubs, through the center of town and then out toward the fire station and supermarket.

As I'm getting close to the fire station, I aggro two zeds. I'm in stealth mode now, so make short work of them with the fire axe and then duck into a building near the fire station. "I'm thirsty", pops into my field of vision, so I grab a wall and start drinking.

Then I hear the shot.

It whizzes by me to the left and I drop to prone and roll to the right, switching from axe to gun and coming up to crouch behind what looks like a sales counter. If the person shooting at me wasn't somewhere in front of me, I'm fucked. But, considering where I am and how the distance I think the sound came from, I think I'll be ok. I peek out and don't see anything movement or light-wise. Where the fuck did the shit come from? And how many am I dealing with?

My question is soon answered as I hear someone coming up behind me, I turn and see an axe at the ready, I fire two rounds, center mass and head and axe guy goes down. I run from cover to another nearby counter as three more shots ring out from somewhere in front of me. I fire two back in the general direction the fire came from and then wait a few more seconds before making an end-around the counter and running for the door near where the shots came from.

The shooter's just coming through the doorway as I get to it from the side and only catches me too late to react as I put two in him as well. I've still got the cover of the doorway as I loot his corpse of extra ammo and a bottle of water. My back to the wall near the doorway, waiting for anyone else that may come through it.

No one does. My heart slows down to a normal rhythm a few minutes later and I move out of the doorway and toward the fire station. There I find a third person. He's dead and there's a zed standing over him doing the Curly shuffle. I drop the zeke and ransack the fire station for a bit more food and some more ammo. Time to get out of Cherno. I figure the guys I shot were probably on vent channel together and are planning on how to regroup. I shouldn't be anywhere around here when they get back.

I skedaddle out of Cherno and make my way peacfully to Balota. It's dead quiet and offers no resistance as I loot a bigger pack, a RIS handguard and red dot sight for an M4 and finally an M4. Once again, I'm ready for the big time. Now to just start stashing any more shit I might find at various noob spots. But that'll have to wait for another day.

Patch coming next week.

Shotguns, hacksaws, and berries. And a new village.

Fixed:
Niosh mask (respirator) inventory size fixed to 1/1 slot.
Missing strings for BE popup for alternate languages, set to English while translations are being done.
Reduced dispersion of FNX45 (from 0.05 to 0.03)
Balanced stomach capacity,
Added stuffed notifier (instead of sickness when full up)
Eating and drinking animations properly set for tablets/disinfectants
Version number in server browser and details
Saline transfusion doesn't refill full blood
Charcoal and Tetracycline tablets won't give sick badge if you aren't actually sick
Player aim run speed updated, weapon position changed and improved for first person view
Glitches on right hand while moving and while giving taunt fixed
Players can't pile backpacks inside of another backpacks, backpack-inception style. You can only put one backpack inside of another backpack if the backpack that is being put inside is empty.
Magnum speedloader should be spawning now
Number of backpacks spawning lowered
Number of .357 Pythons spawning lowered.
Number of M4A1s spawning lowered
Dead character cleanup performed at 10 minutes past death (Temporary until server issues are resolved)
Removed scripted server teleporting check as now managed by engine

New:
Editable character name in main menu
Hive, mode and time columns in server browser
Database support for sub hives. (Sub-private, Hardcore/Regular public)
DayZServer.exe support for sub hives.
Signature verification against PBOs
Added shotgun speedloader into loot spawns
Added box of 20 pieces .357 rounds into loot spawns
Added color variants of all shoes into loot spawns
Added Hiking pants (both long and short ones) and Canvas pants including their color variants into loot spawns
Added hacksaw into the loot spawns
Added shotgun into loot spawns
Berry picking
Added Hacksaw into loot spawns
Saw-off shotgun recipe
Opening cans with saw
Painting Mosin now supported w/ spraypaint
Added spraypaint can into loot spawns
Coastal harbor town of Svetloyarsk (and surrounding areas)

Day 1: Balota

I logged out yesterday pondering where I'd move to start spreading the love to the noobs. I come back in in a house just outside of the airbase. The magazines and M4 parts I've left in the house are gone, indicating they've either been looted by someone else or wiped by a server reset.

Either way, I move out. I figure my next stop will be somewhere on the bean coast to drop some shit off. Might as well make a sweep through the airbase one more time to see if I can find some more gear before moving to the coastal towns.

I stop at the barracks first as they're clustered close enough together to constitute a quick in and out. Lots of nothing in any of them except for the third, which yields another M4. I can't seem to throw it in my pack and only have the option to pick it up in my hands while shouldering my current M4 so I leave it. Oh well. I head out of the barracks and start moving toward the prison. I get as far as the little circle of sandbags at the end of the runway before I see the doors of the prison open. Someone comes out. He's wearing a lot of the same shit I am, camos and a gas mask. I stop at the sandbags and salute. He hunkers down and draws a bead on me.

He gets off two shots with his mosin before I can crouch and grab proper cover. I'm hit because the little crawl tells me I'm bleeding. I respond with 12 rounds of .556 downrange. I then drop to prone and start bandaging myself. I know I've hit the other guy because he isn't shooting back at me as I bandage myself. I make a large circle around the cluster of buildings at the end of the runway to close on the prison. I don't run into anyone on the way, so I continue. I make it into the prison and find gasmask dead on the floor just inside. He fired first, he lost.

I loot gas mask's corpse of any useful shit and roll out. I run back to the barracks and grab the M4. Then the server restarts and I'm kicked off.

The next server I log onto, it's once again, the middle of the night. It's light, so I'll make do. I run back up to the prison to see if this new space has anything interesting. Yeah, there's another M4. I certainly don't have room for that. I'd really love to find better optics for my current weapon though, as my current set is cracked and makes target acquisition difficult. I could also use replacements for the gear in my shirt, as the hits I took from gas mask have pretty much ruined all the stuff I was carrying up there. This includes my compass. Memo to myself, keep important shit in your backpack or pants in case you get shot at.

I head from the prison to the nearby hangars. The first one is empty. As I'm leaving, I see the flashlight splashing over the barracks. I freeze at the doorway of the hangar and watch as flashlight works his way through the barracks. In addition to flashlight, I also see at least three zekes in the general area. I'm hoping he doesn't aggro one of them.

He does, of course. He opens up with panic fire from his .45 and manages to take one down, then two. Both of them hit him before he can pop them and the third one is the straw that breaks the camel's back. He goes down under a hail of zeddy blows. I move in and drop the last one and then check to see if flashlight is still alive. He is. I bandage him and stop his bleeding, I then drop a bottle of pills in his inventory and wake him up with an epi pen with an M4 pointed at his face.

"Welcome back, chief", I say, "You almost made it."

"Uh, thanks?" he responds.

"I saved your ass, and I'm going to throw you some decent gear. I'd appreciate it if you didn't shoot at me as a thank you." I then give him the other M4 I looted and a couple of extra mags. "Watch yourself out there and try not to kill everyone you see without at least verifying whether or not they're friendly first."

"Uh, yeah", he says, still a bit incredulous.

I then do something stupid and turn around and head out of the area. Luckliy, he doesn't reward my trust with a shot in the back. He might have, if I had left ammo in those mags I'd given him. I didn't. I left that all lying in the the nearby barracks. Better safe than sorry.

I'm starting to dig this new thing I've decided to do. Let's see how long that lasts.

Day 2: Balota

Ran off the base and found a safe house to log out yesterday. Log back in and all my shit is still with me. Not a bad start.

I leave a pistol in the house for the any nooblar that happens to drop in and I head out. Might as well make another run through the airfield to see if I can find a better sight for the M4. The red dot I'm rocking is cracked to shit, making target acquisition less-than-stellar. I make a run to the prison first and immediately run into another pair of survivors. They must've logged in there because the server was empty less than five minutes ago.

I line up a shot and then don't take it, instead ducking back into a room just near the entrance and yelling, "Friendly! Friendly! Friendly". One of the pair comes walking toward the door and directly into my sights.

"Friendly," I say one more time. "I had you both dead to rights when I came in and didn't take the shot. Live and let live, boys."

"Ok bro, but you come near the prison, I swear to christ we'll mow you the fuck down."

"Roger that", I reply, "but I'm already in here, so don't open up on me as I leave, please."

And then I do something stupid and walk out with my back to them. Surprisingly, I'm not rewarded for this with a back full of hot shit. I hook an immediate Louie and head for the hangars.

"Yo bro," I hear from back in the prison. Oh shit, they changed their minds and figured they'd go for the showdown.

I lean out and yell back, "'Sup?"

"How 'bout we split the field, you take one half, we take the other, seems fair, right?"

Well, shit, I thought we were gonna have a bloodbath here, thanks for slightly renewing my faith in survivors, brosephs. "Works for me," I reply.

I head over toward the barracks and leave the other side of the runway to the bros. I immediately run afoul of about a half dozen zeds. Rather than opening up on them there and potentially breaking the fragile peace I've got with the dudebros, I decide to lead them out of the airfield entirely and drop them in the town. I get out and kill them all with a combo of the pistol and the fire axe and then head back into the airfield. Still no better sight. Looks like I'm headed northwest.

I down a water bottle, eat a can of beans and head out. I make it halfway to Bor before I break out my compass to make sure I'm still headed in the right direction. As I'm standing there getting my bearings, I hear a zed snort and shuffle nearby. I pack and run, looking over my shoulder the whole time. I never see 'ol zeeky and I wonder if my mind is just playing tricks on me. If it's not a glitch and it's some new mechanic, I'm not sure I'm all that jazzed about it.

I make it into Bor and refill my water bottle and loot a couple more cans of food. I should be good provision-wise for a while. I continue north and know I've hit the ouutskirts of Zelenogorsk because I can see the town to my left and the tower on top of Green Mountain directly ahead of me. I duck into a barn and find a can of spraypaint and a bunch of bandannas. Useless. Well, maybe not. Can I spraypaint, "The End Is Extremely Fucking Nigh" on one of the walls of the farmhouse? Sadly, no. I can spraypaint a couple of the plastic mags I have for the M4 so... whoopie shit. I head up to the little hay loft and drop some of my shit to rearrange it.

I accidentally drop my medkit in the haystack and then spend the next ten minutes trying to get it out and failing miserably. It's much bigger than a needle and I can fucking see it, I just can't target it. Wonderful. Looks like I'm gonna need to find some more bandages and disinfectant.

At least my painkillers and morphine injectors weren't in there.

Chernarus... Chernarus never changes...

Day 21 or 30... I've lost count. All I do know is that it's been raining pretty much non-stop for the last four or five days and it's been gray skies for at least a week. I walk around and I can see my breath. It's cold as shit out here too. At least it hasn't snowed.

I've come to in a deer stand to the north of Green Mountain. I camped out here after putting in some work nearby.

I'd made my way up to Green Mountain from Zelenogorsk to see what had changed. Not a lot, it turns out. Not many serachable spaces and nothing of any use in any of them except a small backpack. I put a M1911 and some ammo in it for the next poor bastard to find.

As I'm making my way toward the gates, I see something crawling toward me. I'm about to put a bullet in it when I hear it speak. It asks me to kill it.

"Uh, kill you?"

"Yes, finish what your friends started. My leg is broken and I can't run anyway."

"Somebody did this to you? Other survivors? I'm out here alone, so it wasn't me, man. Which way?"

He points down the north side of the mountain back toward Zeleno. About 15 minutes ago, he'd run afoul of a couple of assholes. They opened up on him and he kinda got away, managing to bandage himself but not much else. Now he's here at my feet, asking me to kill him.

"Better idea, how about I don't kill you and do this instead?" I pass him a morphine injector and some pistol ammo and tell him to either hunker down, get the hell out of dodge or get some revenge.

He chooses to bail. Frankly, I don't blame him.

I go back and grab the pack with the .45 in it and leave it just inside the entrance to the area. I then run back and find a good vantage point and wait.

I don't wait long.

They're walking upright and almost oblivious, like they haven't got a care in the world. I guess they figure their last target is dead and any noise they might've made would've brought someone else to them by now. One is carrying a Mosin and the other has what looks like a sport rifle or an SKS. They're both carrying them out front, but neither is scoping ahead. They're both wearing Payday masks.

Definitely assholes.

They both stop at the pack. One of them rummaging through it, while the other looks deeper into the area. Neither sees me.

I aim downrange through the ACOG and line up one head and then the other. I swing the rifle between both their heads a couple of times to get the timing down and then squeeze.

The first goes down instantly. I miss the second and he scrambles to the left. I stagger fire after him and clip him, he goes down but keeps moving. Karma and all that. I follow him in the crosshairs and put one more in his head.

I wait a few minutes in case they weren't alone and then I root through their shit, a lot of it on the second guy was ruined in the firefight but I do find an epi pen and some extra ammo for the FNX. The first guy had a fresh medpack, so I grab that. The rest of their stuff I stash away in the radio tower and then move on. The next guy that comes by Green Mountain will find some decent gear.

I then make my way north and camp out in the deer stand. I hear there's a shipwreck somewhere to the south now. Maybe I'll head there tomorrow.

Day Z:

That thing I said yesterday about karma? Apparently, the bitch doesn't like me either.

I'm making my way south from Green Mountain toward the shipwreck when I run afoul of a zed. Not normally a problem but my network connection, which was already sketchy to begin with, decides this is the perfect time to shit the bed. Not in a, "let's disconnect you entirely" fashion mind you but just enough to lag me to shit. I swing my axe at Zed's head and connect, or at least I think I do until she warps behind me, hits me and starts me bleeding. I circle strafe her and after multiple attempts finally put her down. I start to bandage myself when another zed warps in and starts whaling on me. I dispatch that one too, but not before he starts me bleeding again. Rinse and repeat this three fucking times and I'm out of bandages.

I run like a chicken with its head cut off looking for first aid kits or bandages or t-shirts or anything to stop the bleeding. And then my connection drops completely. I manage to log back in ten minutes later to unconsciousness followed eight seconds later by death.

Fuck you Time Warner.

Day 0: What looks like Nizhnoye.

We're getting spawned all over the goddamn place these days. I guess it could be worse. I make my way toward Berezhino because it's really close. And yeah, there's no military camp there anymore, but there are a couple of supermarkets and a school, so my chances of being at least marginally functional are fairly high. So high, in fact that I find an SKS in a farmhouse before I even get there. I have to punch a zed in the dome a few times before I can get it and she of course starts me bleeding, but that's what my t-shirt is for. A run through BZ proper yields me a mountaineering pack, a leather jacket, a couple of .45s and a suppressed .22. Solid fucking haul. If I could pull one of the sleeves off the jacket, find myself a dog and the last of the V8 interceptors, I could go all Mad Max in this bitch.

Still no 7.62 for the SKS but I've got a fuckton for the .22 (No mags for the .22 though, meaning I have to chamber each round before I use it. Fine and dandy for when you're sneaking up behind someone or something to put one in the back of their head, completely useless in any other situation except to blow your own brains out.) and the .45 (two mags for each pistol) and a trusty fire axe. All will be good. Shit, I even found 40 rounds of 5.56.

Figuring, "What the fuck?" I push my luck and head north for the Northeast airfield. Since people are spawning so far up the coast, the airfield is a lot more frequently travelled than it was before Chernarus plus. This is obvious because the place has been ransacked. Luckily though, it was ransacked long enough ago that shit is starting to respawn. I find a couple of bottles of vitamins, a UN helmet, a Russian pilot's helmet, some more 5.56 and in the second hangar, an M4. I drop the SKS as I've found no 7.62 for it and lock and load the M4.

Now, to find a replacement for the basic carry handle optics. Maybe some other decent attachments too. Where else to go since I'm this far north, than the Northwest airfield? It's a straight shot across the map pretty much and the server's empty. Why not?

I make it all the way across without incident and without a compass, checking the server population periodically just to see what I might be running into. All the way in, the population is precisely me.

That is, of course, until I start ransacking the airfield.

I manage to make it through the barracks and the prison and find not a lot of anything but a bag of rice and some more ammo for the M4. I'm hefting my axe the entire time to keep down on the noise just in case. As I round the corner to exit the prison, I notice the doors I had closed are open. And right between them is some jackass with another M4 and a gas mask. I stop and yell, "friendly" just as he empties an entire mag into me.

"You are unconscious", quickly followed by, "You are dead"

Just then, he kicks in his mic, "Come out" he says with a Welsh accent.

I don't know if he can hear me or not, but I pipe in with, "It was just me, you enormous, server-hopping fucking knob. Now pick the ammo off my body since you wasted so much of yours taking me out."

Now I remember why I usually play this thing drunk...

Day 0: Just south of Berezhino.

I know I'm near BZ, because I spawned right next to a road sign telling me it's nearby. Convenient.

I run in toward the construction site nearby, looking for gear. Anything useful. I don't find much, but I find enough to keep myself moving. A splitting axe and some rice. That'll keep me from getting hungry for a while and a few whacks will protect me from zeke. Maybe.

I head deeper into Berezhino and find the police station. Not a lot in there. I hear the shipwreck is near here, so I figure I'll head there. I don't make it that far from the police station before I'm jumped by a zed. I dispatch him, but not before he starts me bleeding. As I'm bandaging myself, another zed spawns and zeroes in on me. I finish bandaging and put him down too. Of course, he starts me bleeding as well. Rinse and repeat four more times until I'm out of bandages and I can't find any t-shirts to rip up to make into more bandages. I run as far and as fast as I can, looking for bandages, or a medpack, or a t-shirt, anything to stop the bleeding. And anything to keep zeke at bay. Nothing. I pass out at the edge of BZ and bleed out shortly thereafter.

Fuck.

Day 0: Pretty much the same place I started last time. Convenient. I make an all-out run for my corpse at the northern edge of Berezhino, attracting a few zeds in the process. I run around in ever wider circles and through buildings trying to break line of sight with these undead assholes. Eventually, I'm successful. I get to my corpse and I can't loot it. Lovely.

Have I expressed a, "fuck you, Rocket" recently? Because fuck you, Rocket.

Figuring I've got nothing to lose, I continue my trek toward the shipwreck. When I get to it, it's pouring. I'm soaked. I'll probably catch pneumonia or some shit, because yeah, upper respiratory infections scream fun and immersion to everyone, don't they?

I make it to the ship and find the thing split in half and mired in some thrashed wetlands. Wading through this in the rain in sneakers will probably give me athlete's foot or some shit too.

I start exploring the ship and find it's not quite the treasure trove of useful shit I'd been led to believe it was. Yeah, I find an SKS and a pair of cargo pants, but not much else. Then, while exploring the edge of one of the cargo holds, I miraculously manage to fall off the ledge and break both my legs and an arm. Pretty goddamn impressive, actually.

I manage to crawl my way up a broken piece of bulkead to the main deck of the ship and realize I'm essentially fucked. I crawl my way to the edge of the big breach in the ship and make my way off the top, killing myself for only the second time ever in Chernarus. This time, I'm not taking an asshole out with me in the process. I has a minor sad.

Day 0: Somewhere outside of Kamenka, by the looks of it.

Shit, this'll be the first time I've ever spawned this far west since the Chernarus became Chernarus Plus. I take a look around and spy a couple of warehouses and a wharf. Interesting. As I move toward the warehouses, I look what I think is North and see what looks like the radio tower at Green Mountain.

Maybe I'm not in Kamenka.

I ransack the warehouses for a hat, a piece of a map and some combat boots and then head deeper into town. I find a sign that tells me I was completely wrong. I'm nowhere near Kamenka. I'm in Svetlojarsk, a town on the Northeast coast. Never been here before, because this town didn't exist before. New shit abounds.

I make my way deeper in and find another police station. Unlike the one in Berezhino, this one's got useful shit, including an M4 and a 9mm pistol with a flashlight. Shit's looking up. Now I just need to find some ammo for them both and a melee weapon of some sort. A quick run across the street lands me a garden hoe. In the absence of a fireman's axe, I'll take it. As it turns out, the hoe is better than the fireman's axe as it gives me better reach and allows me to keep ol' zeke at bay.

I make my way from Svetlojarsk to the Northeast airfield and find some ammo for the M4 and a sight for the MX45 which I've never had trouble finding before now, of course. I'll hold on to it just in case I find one because it does make target acquisition with the MX that much easier and I'd gladly drop the 9 for the stopping power of a .45. I find a .45, but it's a 1911 and there are no mags for it, so just as useless as the sight. My run through the rest of the airfield nets me a couple of medkits, some vitamins, tetracylcene and charcoal. If I accidentally eat some rotten fruit, I'm covered.

I decide to try my luck and head for the Northwest airfield after this. What are the chances of me getting blown away by another server hopper?

I make my way to the airfield without incident and actually manage to sweep through it without getting killed. I do, however get jumped by a shitload of zeds and a bit of server lag. I survive it all and manage to find an ACOG, a supressor, some Magpul parts and a bipod for the M4, another M4 and a T3N red dot sight with a cracked lens. Still no MX45, but shit I get to be the gear fairy again. That is, if I can get out of the airfield without an ass full of hot shit.

I do indeed manage to get out and make my way all the way back down toward Elektro. It's here that I find two jackasses waylaying a fresh spawn with a baseball bat and what do you know? An MX45. I shout, "hey assholes!" They turn around and pistol guy points his gun at me so I light them the fuck up. New guy is still standing there with his hands in the air frozen like a deer in the headlights.

"Put your hands down." I tell him. "I'm not gonna shoot you. Well, not unless you do something stupid."

"Uh, shit man, I'm not going to do anything and you just fucked those guys up."

"Yeah, well, they were about to fuck you up, no?"

"Yeah, they were going to take my blood or something."

Yeah, assholes. I loot the bodies and take the MX, it was empty. Oops.

I give noobsauce the second M4, sans ammo, because fuck that shit. I tell him I'll leave him some 5.56 somewhere else in town but I'll be damned if I'm gonna let him have any while he's still within range, lest he starts feeling squirrely. Besides, down here, half the time just having a gun, loaded or not can be a significant deterrent and a guy with an M4 with sights other than the stock shit wold probably scare most of the bottom feeders right away. It didn't work for the shitheads I just blew away, but they only had a pistol. I drop the 1911 and the 9mm in some convenient houses and then head the fuck back out of town, my good deeds done for the day.

Day 0 - God knows where

Well, here I am. Back in the lovely fields of Chernarus. But these are fields I don't remember. I begin searching for weapon, first off. I immediately notice an improvement in searchable buildings. The standalone seems to have made strides in certain areas, this being one of them. The inventory is WAY improved, but that's not saying much. I check some familiar building types, am able to round up an ax, and a backpack. Looks like ammo is spawning, as well as actual guns that aren't M4s! I smile as I load my double barrel with my only 2 rounds of buckshot, and proceed to continue searching this small town. I hear the telltale zombie screeches, notifying me that I fucked up somehow and got one on me. The splitting ax I have might as well be a kitchen knife for all the good it's doing...but eventually after about 10 whacks he goes down. I received a pretty good asswhipping from this more agile, more wall-hacking deadfuck. I rip up my shirt into rags, and stop the bleeding. Note to self. Find more shotgun shells. I take some stairs up to a roof to try to get my bearings and figure out what fucking shithole town I'm in. I see a ladder heading down, so I decide to take the quick route and begin climbing down. That is until my guy decides that instead he's going to just go for the Nestea Plunge to the ground instead.

You are dead.

Fuck me. I should know better than to use ladders in this game.

Day 0 - Three Valleys

Ok, I know this spot from before. Surly had gotten on Mumble, as well as an old friend that was having video issues and couldn't quite get it working. He picked a halfway spot to meet up, and had a nice shiny decked out M4 in his backpack for me. The looting was scarse, and I only managed to round up a garden hoe as a weapon and a canteen to drink from. Found some .357 shells but nothing to load them in. I follow some landmarks, check some spots that didn't pan out - but avoided any zombie aggro at this point. The game has definitely chilled a bit on needing food/drink every 2 seconds, and that's a welcome change.

The next town I passed through I wasn't so lucky, I pissed off some she-Zed that wasn't falling for any of the old tricks so I decided it was GO time. I heard this garden hoe was pretty good, from Surly's previous adventures...I must have whacked that bitch 15 times before she dropped. I'm bleeding. And fairly beat up. But I'm alive. I use my shirt, and take care of it. I think that last head was a direct head shot with the hoe. Maybe the Zeds now are Walking Dead style, with ONLY headshots killing them. Shit just got a little more real.

I made it to the meeting place safe, and Surly informed me I should just hunker down and wait for him to get there (about 20 minutes out). Well, a few beers and a general sense of being able to handle myself in zombieland got me to decide to find a backpack before he got here. A quick search of the town produced a shotgun, with no ammo, and a lovely big ole backpack. But that wasn't good enough. I needed a few rounds for my shotty. I found one shell, loaded it and began to look for a safe spot when the wall-hacking zombie whore was on me like stink on shit. First hit caught me off guard, but at least I'm not bleeding. I try to run through some buildings, old Dayz style but this is one relentless dead bitch. I duck into the gorcery store, knowing I should be able to get her lined up and caught behind the counter. I run in and whip out my shotty, loaded with the one shell. I can't fuck this up or I'm done. I had a decent shot and hesitated. I must make this count, let her get closer. I guess zombies pounce now. Cause this bitch jumped at me, I reactively blasted her in the face right as she landed her fateful hit.

You feel warm blood on your pants.

FUCK FUCK FUCK, I already used my shirt and like a DayZ noob didn't make creating new ones my first damn priority. I start running frantically through the buildings, every piece of clothing you can imagine - except a shirt. And only shirts make suitable bandages in Chernarus. My vision is really getting blurry, black and white, and fucked now. I know it's over. As I run out of the empty nearby house I collapse in the road.

Goodbye cruel world.

Day 20.

This has been a decent stretch for me. I've survived both zeke and player alike for weeks. I've got decent gear and a magical can of kvass that never seems to go away no matter how many times I drink it. I reported the bug, but it's still there. Bonus for me as it quenches my thirst and cures my hunger too. I could theoretically dump all my cans of food and canteens for just this one can, but then with my luck, it'd go poof immediately after and I'd be SOL.

Slay says he's hopping back in as he's got the itch again, so I figure I'll scoot out of my undisclosed location and head east to meet him and his buddy somewhere near the new Bean Coast.

As I'm making my way east, I hear our third having issues with video tearing and not being able to see. A shitty situation to be in in the 'Churn. Especially on a server at midday with more than a few people on it. I'm doing my best to keep cover and sprinting like Usain Bolt across the open fields in an attempt to not catch some 7.62 in the grill. As I get across the last field, I hear Slay get wallhacked by a surprisingly persistent zeke. He puts her down with the double-barrel buckshot as she manages to break his arm and start him bleeding again.

Bitch.

He's out of bandages and runs around fruitlessly looking for a shirt to rip up or some bandages. I tell him to log out and wait 'til I get there and I'll bandage him up.

"No sense, man. I'll try to find something."

He dies shortly after.

Shit.

I make it to Stary and he decides to call it a night. Probably for the best. I however, continue southeast. I make it to Zub and duck into the central ruin just as I see two other people coming up the main path. They spot me around the same time and scramble for cover. I run up the stairs and hunker down, looking for a decent vantage point.

"Friendly!", I yell down at them.

No answer.

"Friendly, I yell again."

Still no answer. I see one of them moving into the ruin. He doesn't see me yet, so I edge a little bit back, aiming down the red dot sight through the small space between the floor and the stairs.

"For the last time, FRIENDLY!"

"Don't care, buddy!" I hear one of them reply, a hint of a laugh at the end of it. Number two comes in behind him, both of them looking up in my direction. One's got an SKS and the other an M4.

They see me and fire but it's wild and uncontrolled, putting out a lot of fire and not hitting much.

Well, almost. I'm hit at least once and start bleeding as I return fire. I've got the better angle and the better discipline. Two bursts and they're both down. I pull back into the corner and bandage and morphine myself as they managed to break my arm too. I wait and listen for more movement below. Nothing. I head down and recover as much M4 ammo as I can and then head back upstairs to camp out for the night. I drink a few more times from my can of magical kvass and then bid the 'Churn adieu for the night.

Now, I wait for backup.

Day 45:

I think I'm in Vybor. It's been a while and I lost track, but I tend to float these days as the world has changed drastically since my last visit.

You can hunt and fish for food now; alleviating the need to head into towns almost completely, the occasional ammo, water and medical supply run notwithstanding. M4s don't pop in military bases anymore, so .556 is like hen's teeth. I've gotten really careful about what I shoot at, a lot of times choosing to go with the .45 instead of the rifle. This doesn't always work to my advantage, as I do tend to get lit up a little more than I would if I'm drawing down with the heavier artillery.

It's one of these incidences that gets me killed. At least partially.

I'm in the mini police station in Vybor when I aggro a zed. Zed makes a beeline toward me right through a wall and up a flight of stairs. I empty a mag of the .45 and then switch to the M4 as he doesn't seem to want to go down. I put a roomful of space between us and open up on him with the long arm. He's. Still. Alive. And. Hitting. Me.

From way the fuck across the room.

I go unconscious, then dead.

Fuck you Rocket.

Day 0:

After fucking around for a bit to get my bearings, I figure out I'm near Polana. Probably the furthest inland I've spawned in a while.

The first thing I see is a zed going apeshit. I think she's coming for me, but she heads away instead. I look back and see what she's going after. I figure the poor fucker will probably need some help. Her victim, it turns out, isn't a person but a deer. I use the distraction and skedaddle.

I ransack Polana and come up with a couple of cans of food that I can't open and a cool poncho. I also find a shovel and a pair of cargo pants. At least I can carry a bunch of shit. I hit up the well at the center of town and drink until I'm pretty much ready to piss and then head south for Elektro.

Rocket, if you're reading this and you make us have to drop the occasional deuce, I'm coming to Australia and crossbreeding a box jellyfish with a koala with the express intent of finding you and killing you. I don't know how I'll do it, but it's gonna fucking happen.

Anyway, I make it all the way down to Elektro and only run afoul of one zeke on the way. The shovel sucks as weapon and I'm happy to trade it for a fireman's axe as soon as I get to the power station. I also find a UN ballistic helmet and an M1911 with a box of ammo. No mag of course. I swing through the rest of the town and find a kid's backpack, (pink with yellow flowers) an SKS and a magazine for an FNX45. Useless with the 1911, but hey, hope that I'll find another one springs eternal. I ruin a screwdriver I found opening all the cans of food because I was nearly starving when I got to Elektro.

My hunger and thirst now taken care of and my immediate security concerns also handled, I head for Cherno and Balota.

I make it all the way to Cherno without incident and sweep through there looking for more gear. In the large police station there, I find a broken PU scope for the SKS. I try it on for size and it's completely useless for target acquisition in the condition it's in. The lens is broken and I can barely see through it. Iron sights it is. I hop through the center of town and score some more cans of food as well as that much sought-after can opener. In the fire station, I find a suppressed .22. That may come in handy for double-tapping a zed or two from behind without making too much noise. I clear out the supermarket and still fail to find a bigger pack. I guess my Fisher Price bag's gonna have to do for now.

I move quickly and quietly into Balota. I still manage to aggro a zeke the second I get through the gate. He bumrushes me and I waste a magazine of .22 trying to put him down. I manage only one thing that's even close to a headshot. Still not enough. He tags me as I'm breaking out the fire axe, but then it's one shot and he's done. Didn't even bleed me. Lucky lucky. I scoot into the prison and find a mountain pack. Achievement unlocked. I can be less picky about the stuff I grab. I find a pair of combat boots that aren't about to fall apart and a sewing kit to fix my threadbare clothes and an FNX45. So long M1911.

I ransack the rest of the base and find a bunch of promising shit, including a 75-round drum mag for an AK and a PSO scope for one as well. Kinda puzzled as to how well a scope like that would work on an AKM, but I can't wait to find out. That is, if I can find one. I vamoose out of Balota and head northwest. There's a small outpost somewhere south of Zelenogorsk. I'll try my luck there.

As I'm making my way toward the outpost, it starts to rain. Fuck me. I make a break for the shelter of a nearby deer blind. Thankfully, I make it before my clothes get wet enough to be a problem. I then wait 36. FUCKING. MINUTES. for the rain to stop.

Realism, bitches. Get it while it's hot so it can give you a cold and you can die of something other than zombie or douchebag violence.

I then spend the next 20 minutes running into and out of convenient shelters in the intermittent rain that continues to fuck with me. I make it into the outpost when I hear someone walking behind me, I figure I'm probably fucked if it's a player, but then I think he probably would've shot me if he had the weapons to do it. Axe fight it is. I spin around ready to drop the axe into this buster's skull when I realize it's just a zeke. My heart slows down and I drop him like a pair of granny panties at a Tom Jones show, then I continue sneaking into the outpost.

I run through the three barracks and the hospital. Lots of bags, a helmet I can't seem to grab, a collapsible AK stock, some ammo and a high-capacity vest. I keep the vest, the stock and the ammo and get the fuck out. I do find that the hospital now has multiple levels. Cool, but useless.

I figure I'll make my way up to Zelenogorsk and call it a night. The trip is relatively uneventful and when I get to the town, it looks like they've done a little renovation there too. At the southern end of the town are some military buildings and a propaganda billboard that looks like a Chernarussian soldier offering me a nice hot cup of shut the fuck up.

I get lucky in the first building I hit and find an AKM. I kit it out with the stock, the bigass drum and the PSO scope. Yeah, the scope's kinda useless for close-in engagements so I'll be saving that for when I know I'll be able to snipe shit, which will probably be significantly less time than when I'll be spraying and praying with this goddamn thing. On the upside, the scope can double as a monocular.

I finish going through the military spots, then find a house and hole up.

Next time, I'm going chopper hunting.

f13.net

f13.net General Forums => The f13 Radicalthon => Topic started by: Surlyboi on June 15, 2012, 04:13:15 PM