Anyone play the DayZ stand alone?

I have never played dayz at all but after watching some gameplay videos I have been interested.

Anyone play it here and if so tell me about it. Good, bad and ugly...

I have been having a hard time finding something to get into lately. Tried both borderlands 2 and dishonored and could not get into either for some reason.

I have 170 hours in the standalone game, and it's incredible.
When games are in this stage of development, we only get to see a vertical slice demo and not the actual game. DayZ is not being alpha tested, it's still being built.. So expect bugs, glitches, and incomplete features. But none of that matters, because what's there is just so amazing.
I could type a whole page about what's great in the game, but you probably already saw that in the videos.. The player encounters alone are like nothing in any other game. So as long as you don't mind what I said earlier, you're in for a fantastic experience.

I havent played it for a while because I didnt like the direction the game was heading. Every new update adds more guns, and all I see people asking for in the DayZ dev forum are more guns. Its a survival game that needs to be about surviving, and not about hoarding ammo and guns to go around shooting unsuspecting noobs. If I want more guns I can just play Arma.

There have been a few patches over the past couple of weeks and I hope it has changed but when I read the change logs I see more guns, and people in the forums are still getting excited for them. I talked with Dean Hall after a developer session at EGX Rezzed in Birmingham earlier this year and he was telling me about plans they had to encourage more friendly interaction between players, he had some really good ideas but I am yet to see any of these in the game or the change logs.

Im sure these changes will come eventually, at least I hope they do because as it was when I last played, I wouldnt say the game is fun.

I've got 320 hours in but not played properly for a couple of months. I will be going back this month to try the latest update.

Good
- Project has been a lot of progress, seems like game is shaping up well, huge amount of sales will allow them to expand their project to include an updated rendering system and eventually bring game to consoles
- Interact with players on a absolutely huge map (big huge)
- Tons of loot and lots of ways to interact with it (find a bandana for example - do you want to wear it on your head to protect yourself from the sun? fold it and wear it on your face to look like a gangster? or tear it into rags and use it as a bandage to patch yourself up or make a splint?). The huge variety of items makes decking your character out with scavenged loot pretty fun
- One of the deepest shooters on the market (detailed weapons and ballistics system compared to any non-simulator on the market).

Bad
- 40 player limit on ridiculously huge map
- still dozens of minor bugs that dampen the gameplay experience, though probably 1/3th as many as there were when the game hit 1 million sales
- No end-game goal (once you've hit the point that you can survive, which is easy, there's nothing else to do but interact with other players or hunt for rare loot).

Ugly
- Zombie gameplay still practically non-existent. There are zombies, but few in numbers, present very little danger, and often go through walls, doors, and other glitchy behavior.
- Hiking simulator

Like most zombie-oriented movies and novels, the zombies aren't the real danger in the game - it's the other people that you have to survive with. There are tons of people who play this game their own way - many people like to roleplay, many people like to treat the game like a DM, many people like to play by themselves and avoid players, etc. - lots of variety in how you can play the game.

I love it though. It's the only thing popular on the market that isn't a copy-cat clone of already existing games. Meaning that if you're looking for an FPS experience that's different, fresh, and dynamic - DayZ will be the game for you. I've been playing since the ArmA 2 mod first came out...so I've probably played the mod and the standalone for over a thousand hours.

So it's kind of a post apocalyptic world where you run around collecting loot, surviving zombies and dealing with other players. Right?

i've never played it, but i would like too, is it free and does anyone know the site name to it?

When has zombie survival been about friendly interaction between players anyways? Sounds like people are wishing the game was Left 4 Dead or something. You know other people are supposed to be just as deadly in a world where there's not enough resources for people to survive, right? Aside from adding vehicles which require people to work together (though it will never be randoms and won't encourage friendly interaction in the way you're hoping), there's not that much they can do to incentivize team work play.

But then again, why should they? Like I said, zombie survival games aren't always about cooperative play. Grouping with other players increases your odds to survive as is - they should definitely avoid making teamwork a necessity. I respect Dean Hall and his vision because it's not about catering to everyone. It's about catering to the people who share in his vision of a realistic zombie survival game. In a realistic post-apocalyptic zombie game, humans aren't necessarily going to work with each other.

There are only so many realistic mechanics that can possibly add to encourage team play - and they're in the process of adding that stuff. But really, teamwork in this game works just how it should - you can watch each other's back, heal each other, pool resources, etc. - there's no reason friendly interaction should be encouraged to be the main play style of the game. The game hasn't amassed 3 million sales based on promises of entertaining PvE content. If you want PvE, this isn't the game for you. Doesn't mean the game is bad or not fun...it just means it's not to your taste. There are many people who can claim this game is exactly to their taste, like me.

Having said that, they still need to improve the PvE in the game. But I don't really expect them to flesh it out and turn the game around so it's no longer PvP oriented. It's always going to be PvP oriented. You complain about not enough survival aspects, but what can they possibly do to add more survival aspects to the game? It's already getting extreme that you can have heart-attacks and have to dress appropriately to avoid death by hyper/hypothermia. When they can optimize and add a bulk of more zombies, I can imagine it being pretty damn difficult.

That's precisely it. You spawn into the world in a semi-random location with nothing but your fists. You're cold, hungry, and need to find clothes and food right off the bat. If you die, you lose everything and start again.

It's an excellent game even in early alpha stages. The only warning I can give you is that if you're expecting some fast paced zombie shooter you're gonna be disappointed. It can be very very slow paced. Also, you can spend hours searching houses and getting good gear and then be shot dead by someone you never even saw. It can be played solo but it's probably best to roll with a friend. Go for it.

hmm...I want to try it out. Problem is I have not liked the last few games I bought and I don't want to waste money. I'll watch a few more videos and maybe some twitch.

@BSC14: Watching videos of it is pretty boring and you won't really get a feel for the game. There are some entertaining moments on Youtube however. Part of the fun is all the strange people you meet. The game is what you make of it. Watch this...

@BSC14: look at some of my pics on steam

Now that was freaking funny!

A great concept, but awful dev team behind it. never expect it to be finished.

How so? They're actually ahead of their own schedule - which allowed them to expand the goals of their project from their initial vision.

The time frames were horrendous in the first place....

A 3 year development cycle is pretty standard in the gaming industry... and for a small dev team, they've actually been quite efficient.

I haven't tried the new update as well. We should try meeting up again, even though the last time went horribly. :P

@harry_james_pot: Yeah that was not ideal. We didn't even meet any bandits!

I was reading some of the reviews on STEAM and man they had me laughing. I'll probably pick it up next week.

So every video I see is just really funny...is it always just funny stuff or is the game ever serious?

It is mostly serious and mostly boring. However, from time to time you get an intense encounter with a bandit or a funny encounter with a survivor and despite those encounters being semi rare, they are really satisfying and keep you playing. The best way for me to put it is that its the most boring game that I enjoy playing a lot.

@Nick3306:

hmmm....how does it compare to nether? Any idea?

You lose everything if you die so the firefights with a bandits instantly becomereally intense and if you come out on top it leaves with a great feeling and keeps you playing the game. Unfortunately, running from town to town to search for loot feels tedious to me and gets boring after a short amount of time imo. If you enjoy running long distances to look for loot, you will enjoy the game.

Have you played Nether?

I looked into it but the overwhelmingly negative reviews turned me off.

Yeah that's why I have not pulled the trigger too...but it looks good.

Every time I play usually something funny happens AND something serious happens. Last time I played, 3 unarmed dudes snuck up on me while I was crouching in a bush and started beating on me. It was funny because I had a sawed off shotgun with a speed-loader in my backpack. I told them to back off and they weren't convinced so it was fun blowing them away. Then some clan of a dozen dudes approached me with assault rifles and I forgot how to put my weapon down (I was aiming it at their faces). Surprisingly they weren't afraid and answered me when I asked them how to put my gun down :p It was pretty damn dense though, I have my ideal gear load out.

I would get it if i were you. They are adding more and more stuff. This video shows you

Sup BSC14.

Like many people said before, the game is being built. It has come a long way, but I still don't think it's worth the purchase unless you feel this is a must play. It's not a zombie apocalypse. You will not have any of the amazing experiences you read in World War Z. I honestly think the technology is there to provide such a experience, but that's not what many people want to play. Or perhaps they just don't want to comprehend the possibilities of a game like that. I actually did play Nether. While there are many things to dislike about it(much like DayZ), I feel the NPC enemies are more interesting.

I remember I had been running from two players in Nether. Right before I thought I was about to die, I saw 5 NPC enemies teleport in and just consume them. While I was relieved, I found myself running from the creatures that saved me. In all the hours I played DayZ, I did not have any encounter like that what so ever. But like some said before, these games are being built around more gun play as development progresses.

I think PvP is a very important aspect in these games, however the PvE(at least between NPC enemies and you) isn't strong enough to compliment the other part of DayZ. There's always State of Decay. lol

This is an old topic that has been bumped :\

I'm still regularly playing DayZ. They're just about to add door barricading (it's already in experimental). They're also decreasing the amount of food floating about so you'll likely have to grow or hunt your own food. They've integrated the weather system more too (need to dress according to the weather or you'll die from heat or cold).

Are the zombies still shit? yes? And there are no vehicles?

i'll continue not playing it then.

They rarely go through walls and doors now, thankfully. They are a bit desynced, and they are a threat if you don't know how to properly handle them. When they optimize the netcode more server-side, I think the zombies will be fine (in a bare-minimum sort of way). Vehicles probably won't be in for a couple of months. They've been mostly just adding meat to the infantry gameplay (adding more items, clothes, crafting recipes, item functionality, weather-stats for items, weapons, fun stuff like that).

I guess that is when I will give the standalone another go.

I feel giving the game a long break as I have might bring some of the fun back into it anyways

Definitely would wait 4-5 months. Especially if you're wanting at least somewhat of an interesting PvE experience. It'll be awhile, I can feel it.

For me, I have very little interest in the PvE aspect of things. I just treat the game as a super-elaborate sandbox deathmatch. There's absolutely nothing like it. It's the only game where killing someone gives me satisfaction, because I know the person I killed isn't going to respawn and have all of his gear within the next minute. There's actual tension in the gunplay - this leads to real satisfaction to combat. Once you start playing DayZ a lot, it's difficult for me to get satisfaction from other shooters knowing that my kills could actually mean something and have an impact on the person I'm playing against.

Oh yea, I played the crap out of the mod. I just found after like hundreds of hours I needed some kind of objective to work towards, running around killing people didn't do it for me after a while. I played a lot of Dayz Origins so fixing up vehicles or getting to salvation city for me made the game way more enjoyable. This added more meaning to each life and motivated me to live because in that mod there were tons of broken vehicles so there was ALWAYS something to work towards.

Like last time I played me and a friend found a plane, and had just enough fuel to fly it to a nearby field. There was a farm nearby, I went into the farm to cover the plane while my friend walked 500m to the nearest gas station. A helicopter flying over noticed the plane and two guys jumped out and parachuted down to steal the plane, I killed one and the other got into the plane and drove it 20 feet before it ran out of fuel completely. My friend was coming back with fuel, the other guy got out of the plane and we killed him, but another guy had dropped from the heli and was shooting at my friend. He managed to fuel the plane and drive it further down the field...

you get the idea. Coming from that kind of crazy situation which was surprisingly common place to the standalone was super anti-climactic. But origins was also janky as shit with broken zombies so we stopped playing that as well. So i'm waiting for the standalone to get to a place where there is stuff you can actually work towards besides getting geared and killing dudes.

The standalone lacks this completely.

Day Z is only fun with friends... I have had very little fun playing by my self, which usually involves spawning and then searching around for equipment. Zombies are essentially homing beacons that will follow you even through walls for long distances. Interaction with the majority of other people is usually death on sight.

I have logged in around 80 hours into the game and have played about 10 of those hours with a friend the other 70 hours I spent I regret since its not challenging and neither was it exciting for the majority of the time.

Simply put its a game where you walk around looking for equipment for hours on a huge map where you are unlikely to run into someone and if you do you just end up having a gun fight but the worst possible gun fight from a technical point of view.

Don't ask me why I kept playing after the first 10 hours.

Couldn't disagree more, I've rarely had fun with friends in DayZ. It's a hassle playing with friends because...

- You're handicapped to their skill level, so if they suck, they'll likely get you killed
- Always take time to meet up (boring)
- Having additional people with you doesn't do much to contribute to the game experience
- There's very little you can do with additional people that you can't do yourself

Also, I disagree that interaction with the majority of other people is usually death on sight. The majority of players I come across try to engage in some sort of discussion or help as opposed to KoS. If you're sitting around the air field, people are more likely to KoS, but in towns, usually people offer help or invite to group up. Also, the gun mechanics are ace. I'm sure the preference of working in a group depends if you're an introvert or extrovert, but honestly think DayZ offers the best game experience when played without attachment to other people.

Attaining the best gear possible alone is enough of an objective to me, though I don't really see why "having fun" isn't an objective enough. I guess I'm a little creative and I'm good at creating my own goals so I don't really need to rely on the game to do it for me. Even when vehicles in the game are added, it'll ultimately be a shallow goal - they will be hard to fix up and maintain and very easy to lose. It's a ton of work for a little gain, so I don't really view it as much of a fun objective.

Here's an example of my creativity - if I'm bored, I'll grab a rifle, accumulate pistols + sawed off shotguns, patrol the coast for freshies, and recruit them into my unit, and then scavenge the map for heli-spawns to divide up loot. The game is a ton more fun if you stop getting focused on have some singular objective to work on and focus more on a bunch varied shorter-term goals.

Really though, killing people is enough for me. I absolutely love open-world PvP. You just see a lack of objectives, I see endless possibilities :p

@KHAndAnime:

"Really though, killing people is enough for me."

After seeing your support for Hatred ^ that quote kind of scares me.

It's not my fault killing people is so much fun D:

Thankfully they're switching out the rendering engine used in the upcoming months.

Every time I play the standalone I fervently wish that it was made using BF4's engine.

2 years from now, the devs will still be making excuses as to why the game isnt finished.

meanwhile, nobody will care anymore.

But could the Frostbite engine actually handle a map so big? I'm not sure if the engine is really optimized for a map the size of DayZ.

Game is going to be in beta in a few months, you've incessantly whined more about the game's unfinished state more than anyone who actually purchased the game lol

BF4 maps are getting pretty large. I don't doubt, with tweaking, it could work.

The biggest BF4 map is absolutely tiny compared to the DayZ map. I don't think Frostbite is built to handle that.

Not sure I agree with you. Either way, if DayZ had the movement and player control of BF4, it would be a much better game.