Arma 2: Combined Ops (ARMA 2 Base game now free!) (Zombie Mod!)

[Kageru]

And Survivarium from the STALKER people looks to have similar, but not zombie focused, ambience.

I expect the stand-alone to be Arma-3 based with basically the Arma/mod content removed so it just plays Day-Z. I also think it's going to prove Rocket is too erratic, hard-core  and that day-z was mostly him getting lucky.

[CmdrSlack]

Pre-development alpha doomcasting?

DayZ Standalone: What Went Wrong

[UnSub]

DayZ Standalone: What Went Wrong

The shiny rubbed off the FFA PVP game when you had to pay for it, then all the sheep left.

[Thrawn]

MineZ, A DayZ inspired Minecraft server

Tried this tonight, seemed kind of lame.  You spawn with a wooden sword, I walked up to the first zombie I saw and killed it in a couple hits.  It dropped chain shirt, leggings, boots, iron sword, another wooden sword, two bows, arrows, food, water, potions, bandages, and more.  You can't do any mining or anything and the first thing I killed dropped stuff to keep me alive for a while, didn't see much point to playing more.

[Mrbloodworth]

I believe you killed a zombie, that was once a player.

[Thrawn]

I believe you killed a zombie, that was once a player.

Ah, that would explain it then.  I just got really, really lucky I guess.

[Sir Fodder]

DayZ designer "Rocket" talks about standalone: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/08/from-mod-to-game-how-dayz-will-evolve-as-a-standalone-release/

After watching some streams of this this mod I realized that, when played with voice chat, it's not really a PvP deathmatch, nor a military sim, and definitely not a zombie survival game; there is so much running around it's mainly a landscape simulator that provides a mostly low-intensity backdrop for friends that like to voice chat and text chat.

[Surlyboi]

You obviously haven't played it.

[Malakili]

You obviously haven't played it.

Yeah.  Low intensity really isn't how I'd describe the game.  I mean, sure, I suppose you could find a unused bit of the map and just sit there for 3 hours and the game would be as described above, but then I'm not sure why you'd bother firing up the gamein the first place.

[Sir Fodder]

You obviously haven't played it.

You obviously haven't watched people streaming the game.

I'd estimate 3% of play time is generally spent doing things other than running/driving and scanning the landscape. I'm not putting the game down or saying there are not tense moments, but in practice that's what it is for all the streamers I've watched, mainly a landscape simulator / chat backdrop. So that 3% makes it otherwise? If you say so OK, whatever.

[Surlyboi]

Oh, I see. Because watching some jackass stream the game is the same as playing it.

Noted.

Also of notes, your estimates still mean fuckall.

[CmdrSlack]

Last night, all I did was run around. There was loads of tension.

I log in at the top of the tower at the top of Green Mountain. This is apparently a place rife with bad juju.

I manage to get back down the mountain, and finally sort of orient myself (ask everyone who plays, I have ZERO direction sense). What do I see? A tent. In the middle of a field. Just past an empty tree stand. I investigate the tree stand, nab some ammo. Against my better judgment, I hit the tent. Normally, this would be a perfect sniper trap, but my best piece of gear is a watch, so I'm not fearing death.

I loot an M4, a makarov, and a better pack. Now, I have a minor investment in not being shot to death. I am also horrible at navigating, and am getting very lost. I am now logged out between Nadezhino and Zub, but am unsure where the fuck I am.

This whole experience is nerve-wracking because it's very easy to blunder into some of the prime ambush spots closer to the coast. Let's also not forget that crossing an open field is an exercise in sphincter fortitude. (It's a pants-shitting moment at times.)

[Surlyboi]

I rolled in to Stary today, which seems to be turning into the bean coast's older brother, where people with a little more sack than the noob shooters in the south come and try to start shit with more experienced players. Some fucktard emptied probably an entire mag shooting at me in the supermarket and missed entirely while I skedaddled out the back door. Partially my fault for not shooting him earlier when I saw him crawling by a bunch of zeds near the tents. The zeds up his ass after his shooting spree made him pay for his mistake though. I snuck back in later and looted his corpse with no remorse. Still, my live and let live attitude is gonna get me killed some day.

Emergent gameplay my ass though. All that's emerging is my sense that there's a bunch of shitheels out there with bad aim.

[Kageru]

Pre-development alpha doomcasting?

DayZ Standalone: What Went Wrong

Pretty much a judgement on Rocket being the lead developer. I haven't seen so much self-delusion and gibberish since Richard Garriot in Tabula Rasa or Ghostcrawler in Cataclysm. He's convinced he's bottled lightning when he's really discovered that shit with zombies in it sells.

That said it's still a good investment for Bohemia Interactive I'd imagine. Having a more game oriented fringe series to get people into ARMA is a great idea and shouldn't cost that much since they have the tech and the people.

[CmdrSlack]

Pre-development alpha doomcasting?

DayZ Standalone: What Went Wrong

Pretty much a judgement on Rocket being the lead developer. I haven't seen so much self-delusion and gibberish since Richard Garriot in Tabula Rasa or Ghostcrawler in Cataclysm. He's convinced he's bottled lightning when he's really discovered that shit with zombies in it sells.

That said it's still a good investment for Bohemia Interactive I'd imagine. Having a more game oriented fringe series to get people into ARMA is a great idea and shouldn't cost that much since they have the tech and the people.

Yeah, I don't get enough into the "dev as celeb" mentality. That said, I did seek out and purchase an "Anyone In Cherno?" T-shirt after I saw Rocket giving a talk wearing one. However, that would have been my response had Facebook pushed an ad at me for the same. The week or two before, I impulse-bought a Vault Boy t-shirt based on a FB ad that pushed it at me.

I have a bad habit of buying t-shirts.

Rocket is very much in the early UO dev mindset in some ways. He's talking about bringing back the bandit skin stuff, but this time in a way that seems to work with player vs. zed kills. I forget the specifics, but he's basically working on the blue/red system.

To be honest, I hope he keeps working along those lines. I don't mind being PKed because someone is making the choice to play as a murderer. What I do mind is being PKed because people assume that everyone else is a fucking hacker out to ruin their day or that everyone else is a murderer because of those kids that play that way.

I've been killed in many ways, and only once by a douche who ghosted into the spot where I was. For the most part, I fuck up and die to zombies.

Rocket will fuck up the stand-alone version if he keeps players from talking to each other easily. There's been talk of radios in-game. There needs to be something. If I could loot a radio and then have to move about to get reception with others, that'd be rad. It would certainly add to the "run about" mechanic.

Holy shit, am I a mod fanboi now?

[Slayerik]

On tap tonight, vehicle hunt from Berezino!

[Slayerik]

Day 3: HEY LOOK A JEEP

The night started like many before it, hopped on the Mumble server and tried to figure out where Silenus was. Turns out this time it wouldn't be Sil we were looking for, but his boy Ian. Ian was cricitally low on blood (under 2k) and was passing out when he attempted to walk. We knew he was close to a pond, and close to Nadezdhino, so we made our merry way down the hill from Castle Awesome (after I aggroed a couple five zeds with my loud ass rifle). I was feeling good about life. I was sporting a badass Ghillie suit, an M-14 rifle and a backup M-16 in my backpack with plenty of clips (coyote Backpack, biggest in game).

We neared the pond, and somehow (even with Sil able to view Ian's screen) it took us probably 5 minutes to find the near-dead Ian. I, being the man, had a blood bag in my pack, and finally was able to transfuse him back to full health. Success! Seemed we had me with some rifles, Sil with his tursty Winchester, and Ian with something or other that fired. We had a decent squad.

It was time to go find some better gear, so we decided to hit up a couple deer blinds on the way. We got to one after some solid compass navigating on my part (of course), so I decided to climb it and have a look. I had switched to my M-16 due to slightly less audible gunfire.

"VROOOOMMMMM" - As I am checking, a Jeep pulls up and stops in a nearby field. I just know they saw me. I tell Chris and Ian to get ready to open up on these fuckers, and my killer instinct kicks in and put the driver-side window in my iron sights and start popping off rounds, telling Sil and Ian to open up on these fuckers.  I only hear my gunfire, and rounds start rittling the jeep with holes. A lifeless body plops out of the passenger door, and the driver steps on the peddle. I frantically yell to them to open up on them, but it seems neither of them had a shot the whole time. The jeep disappears into the treeline, and I descend the ladder yelling to them to follow me to the powerlines to switch positions. Too late.

RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT

I hear a lot of gunfire, Chris says he's bleeding bad but knows if he gets up to bandage it will seal his fate. He had to try, and it did. POP

Ian's already a corpse.

I run. I take cover for a couple minutes and switch over to my M-14, hoping to catch someone recovering stuff from the corpse in the middle of the field. The plan works, I see the dude running across the field. I fuckup bringing my gun up for a just a sec, he turns and pops me square in the forehead from a few hundred yards. I'm still not sure how he saw me so well in the Ghillie, but I imagine I fucked up.

Day 0: Kamenka

I do the Kamenka Gangbang.


Day 0: Cherno

YES! I loot a ton of good shit, get greedy on my way out and check the firestation. I put two Winchester slugs into some guy, and as I am looting him is friend comes down and introduces me to his double barrel. Greed kills in this game so much.


Day 0: Kamenka

I do the Kamenka Shuffle.


Day 0: Elektro

I find a Lee Enfield. It's looking good. I also find a crazed axe murderer that chased me down for like 3 minutes. I missed my shot, he landed his ax across my domepiece. Good times!

[CmdrSlack]

I'm aiming to be on tonight. I gotta figure out where the hell I am, so I'll probably get on around 7pm EST to see what I can do to get myself remotely near Zub.

[Slayerik]

We are still east coast over by berezino. With your navigation skills, I expect to see ya Sunday :) Also, Silenus put in his request for an official hive server, and he has the connection and machine to do it proper.

[Yoru]

Found an AS50 today with a couple of mags. I was dicking around with it at the airfield, popping zombies for target practice.

A buddy of mine, who'd been inbound for 30 minutes after dying to a particularly unfortunate incapacitation at the hands of zombies, ran up. Right in front of the barrel as I was squeezing off a shot.

At least he took it in good humor, and learned a lesson about what not to do when someone is pointing a giant anti-tank rifle at something.

[CmdrSlack]

We are still east coast over by berezino. With your navigation skills, I expect to see ya Sunday :) Also, Silenus put in his request for an official hive server, and he has the connection and machine to do it proper.

Just so long as I have the option to use 3rd person.  I find that I'm a better navigator with 3rd person. I have no idea why.

[Surlyboi]

Easier to pick out your relation to landmarks.

[Slayerik]

Found an AS50 today with a couple of mags. I was dicking around with it at the airfield, popping zombies for target practice.

A buddy of mine, who'd been inbound for 30 minutes after dying to a particularly unfortunate incapacitation at the hands of zombies, ran up. Right in front of the barrel as I was squeezing off a shot.

At least he took it in good humor, and learned a lesson about what not to do when someone is pointing a giant anti-tank rifle at something.

Did you loot both halves of him???  

Still hoping one of these days we can roll out...my play time is stuck, though, at only after babies crash....

[CmdrSlack]

Dogs are in?

Or is this some hoax?

[Mrbloodworth]

That's been in the works for a bit ( not clicked your link though )

[Surlyboi]

The rage when some asshole shoots your dog will be epic.

And you know there will be douchebags out there who will specifically go for dogs just to be assholes.

[CmdrSlack]

I dunno, dogs sound like they might quadruple the need for morphine. 

[Sir Fodder]

After watching some streams of this this mod I realized that, when played with voice chat, it's not really a PvP deathmatch, nor a military sim, and definitely not a zombie survival game; there is so much running around it's mainly a landscape simulator that provides a mostly low-intensity backdrop for friends that like to voice chat and text chat.

You obviously haven't played it.

I never claimed to have played it. Also, my observation of how people were spending time in the game, that I clearly stated was based on streamers using voice chat, has noting to do with playing the game or not. Care to explain by what magic my observations of streamers are invalidated by not having played the game? - which is different from simply disagreeing with my assessment of time spent.

Oh, I see. Because watching some jackass stream the game is the same as playing it.

Noted.

Also of notes, your estimates still mean fuckall.

Haha, reread my post, explain the magic please.

Also, why the hostility?

OK look, maybe I should have phrased my post differently, like as a philisophical question or a speculation; At what point does an action game become a chat backdrop? If I'm spending the vast majority of time doing non-actiony things then at some point can't I consider that it really isn't an action game, regardless of what the box says?

When I wrote that initial post the top 10 streamers: 7 running through wilderness, 1 changing servers, 1 getting supplies in town, 1 riding atv down deserted road.

Right now: 6 running though wilderness, 1 helicopter traveling, 1 changing server, 1 running in town, 1 sniper. Pretty pretty much par for the course IMO, the DayZ streams are great for insomnia.

[koro]

What they're getting at is that watching someone play a full unedited session of DayZ is like watching someone play an MMO while they're leveling: it looks really really boring to the outside observer because the outside observer isn't experiencing the same internal thought processes that the actual player is that keeps the player interested and... well... playing. The constant tension and having to stay mentally aware and alert while running through a dark forest or a town where gunshots or deaths were reported only minutes before, or slowly weaving your way through a field of zombies, are all things that're extremely difficult to communicate to someone just watching; even just thinking to yourself about what your next steps are and how you need to go about preparing for them can easily fill "downtime" during safe runs.

I've never played DayZ and even I  get it.

[Slayerik]

Well put. And hey guys, we got an ATV!  It actually rides two as well...more to come. If you see engine parts, grab em for us :)

[Surlyboi]

After watching some streams of this this mod I realized that, when played with voice chat, it's not really a PvP deathmatch, nor a military sim, and definitely not a zombie survival game; there is so much running around it's mainly a landscape simulator that provides a mostly low-intensity backdrop for friends that like to voice chat and text chat.

You obviously haven't played it.

I never claimed to have played it. Also, my observation of how people were spending time in the game, that I clearly stated was based on streamers using voice chat, has noting to do with playing the game or not. Care to explain by what magic my observations of streamers are invalidated by not having played the game? - which is different from simply disagreeing with my assessment of time spent.

Oh, I see. Because watching some jackass stream the game is the same as playing it.

Noted.

Also of notes, your estimates still mean fuckall.

Haha, reread my post, explain the magic please.

Also, why the hostility?

OK look, maybe I should have phrased my post differently, like as a philisophical question or a speculation; At what point does an action game become a chat backdrop? If I'm spending the vast majority of time doing non-actiony things then at some point can't I consider that it really isn't an action game, regardless of what the box says?

When I wrote that initial post the top 10 streamers: 7 running through wilderness, 1 changing servers, 1 getting supplies in town, 1 riding atv down deserted road.

Right now: 6 running though wilderness, 1 helicopter traveling, 1 changing server, 1 running in town, 1 sniper. Pretty pretty much par for the course IMO, the DayZ streams are great for insomnia.

No hostility, none at all. Just telling you that before you decide a game is whatever it is, based solely on the streams of a bunch of jackasses playing it, you should actually play it.

Koro put it quite well, if you haven't played it, don't tell us what your opinion of it is.

[Kageru]

You need to buy the game to work out why you should not have bought the game.

That said, there's not much point looking getting into the game until the details on the stand-alone solidify. Buying Arma-II for a very early alpha mod likely to be a development dead end doesn't make too much sense.

[Slayerik]

Sometimes it's about being there. There is no guarantee that they will be able to replicate the feel this game has created. I'm enjoying the ride.

[Azazel]

Thats' fine, and so is telling other people what you think of it (it doesn't look like it's for me). OTOH< i'm not going to tell the people playing what they should think of it, and it would take a special level of autism to not be able to empathise a little with the people playing and understand that what koro wrote is underpinning the user experience.

[silenus]

Last nights adventures started with me logging in to see just me on the voice chat at 10 EST so I figured I was going to be solo. I had ventured a little north of Berezino, the local of the previous nights escapades, to refill water bottles at Willow Lake. After doing so I figured I would head south back to Berezino in case people started logging in. I had climbed down from this rocky area surrounding the lake but a tree at the bottom of it that was wedged between 2 large rocks prevented me from doing so. The only course left was to climb back up the steep hill, but at the very top it was too steep and i was stalled. I tried to scoot left and right a bit and ended up losing my footing and slipped all the way back down to the tree, which broken bones and killed me instantly.
 
Fortune smiled upon me after such a cruel death and I was respawned for the first and only time so far at Solnichniy, so it was a short run north up the eastern shoreline to reclaim my hard faught, and some times easily lent to me by Slayerik, gear. This went down without eventuality, then I continued my intended hike to the south. No sooner than 5 minutes goes by and Slayerik gets on the voice chat. We discuss a meeting point at the military spawn at Berezino. Soon after that Darken logs on. Slayerik and I move out to find him at a Deerblind near what he thought was Dubrovka. When we arrived and didnt see him, we moved back east to what we assumed was the correct Deerblind. We find Darken pulling a Zeke Train up the west side of Berezino and assist him with such matters. After a few relogs to cure the graphics issues near military spawns, we raid the military near Berezino. Once again the lackluster loot of this particular military is found to be annoying. So on a whim Slayerik elects a move back toward starry, so we all 3 move out toward the west. Slayerik loves him some Deerblinds so we made an awesome tour of them all the way thru. We hit Novy on its eastern side and circumvent to the north, arriving at the famed Stary military spawn in our favorite spot in the treeline just north of it. I had already voiced my "bad feeling about this" in the form of mentioning the 100 fold increase in chances to see another survivor / bandit in this area. Slayerik says "we just have to be ready then". HOOAH.
 
We proceed to the military camp and it is seriously putting out like fucking prom date. Slayerik scores a coyote bag, M16 w/6 clips, MP5. I find plenty of AK ammo, we find another AK for Darken I think. It was definitely a zombie apocolypse Christmas event. Slayerik takes a few shots at encroaching Zekes with the new weapon and we remark at how loud the report is. Darken mentions he is on the other end of the camp arranging things in his inventory. Im in the northern line of tents about mid way down, and Slayerik is in the southern line of tents on the eastern end.

Several VERY LOUD M14 shots ring out, from what I can hear as coming from the direction which we had just come, in the tree line immediately north. Slayerik shouts out "SOMEONE'S SHOOTING AT ME, IM HIT". I crouch and back up into my tent. One more volley is shot towards Slayeriks tent and I can definitely make out the direction mentioned previously, I report this condition. Slayerik says "SHIT" and comes running out of the tent hes in to go across to my line of tents, like 2 down from me. The assailant fires another bunch of rounds at this tent. Then he starts walking down towards us, I can hear his footfalls coming closer so I report in voice chat, "Hes walking up behind us!" At this point I decide to crouch walk out of my tent and break left in an attempt draw fire away from Slayerik. About 2 seconds later Slayerik reports his death. I take another left around the back side of the tent and behold our bandit opponent, and a train of 12-15 zekes, which at first I thought were other bandits. I immediately start shooting in this direction. The bandit, who was still looking perpendicular to the tent line towards Slayerik, didnt even see the 3 bullets that hit him upper body from the side. 3 of the zekes also drop. Darken opens fire from the other direction, splitting up the zeke train. I break for the bushes toward the east, with 2 zekes in tow. Once dispatched I proceeded back to the north scanning the treeline for this bandit's friends. Darken returns to loot the bandit corpse while I cover from up high after waiting a sufficient amount of time to conclude he was operating on his own. Darken grabs the M14, I took his M9 SD. We fall back to a position well up in the trees with a vantage point on the camp still, and wait for Slayerik to hike it back. After 4 or 5 long-trek spawn location suicides, he decides to call it a night. Darken and I log hiding in the trees north of Stary.