DayZ, a zombie mod for ArmA2 - Now standalone on Steam Early Access

[Whisky]

I'd be up for a Codex Adventure, if I can get the damn thing working first.

 

[someone else]

Just started, having a blast, got pked a couple of times. Once I shot all my bullets then picked up a mag just in time to reload and shoot a zombie chasing me, and I did that twice. Then I joined a gang of 6, they shoot the zombies for me while I restock my ammo. Once you get into a big enough gang people don't dare to attack you. Just like real life!

 

[Whisky]

Played for my first time. Spawned at a harbor somewhere with no map, which, since I didn't play vanilla Arma II that much, meant I had no idea where I was.

Wandered around the place a bit, being all careful, until a Russian guy started laughing on the voice chat. Thinking this was a bad sign, I ran the hell out of the harbor and into the nearby town. As I ran away, I heard on the chat, "Yeah, run, fatty!"

Found a sniper rifle at a school or something like that. Took up residence on the roof of a hospital or something. Helped a group out that was surrounded by zombies.

Got shot in the head when I bent over to pick up an M1911 that was on the roof.

 

[Quilty]

I wish they'd somehow try to make up for the engine's shortcomings. For example, it's way too easy to die because of the game's glitches, like zombies hitting you through a wall or stuff like that, so it would make sense to give a dying player some slack, like the ability to be rescued once by another player. It would perhaps stray into arcade l4d territory, but it's irritating to die because the engine decided that, well, yes you did shoot the zombie, and it's dead, but the death won't register until another second or two pass, which is plenty of time for him to zip over and maul at you some more.

 

[villain of the story]

I propose the use of the suffix "Dex" for ingame names to easily identify fellow Codexers. Eg. you see a VossDex, that's me.

How do you run this thing in correct window resolution, though? Not only is it missing aspect ratios in window but the window is ridiculously small regardless of the resolution.

 

[MetalCraze]

Quilty engine has nothing to do with mod issues. What did you expect from "alpha".

Also it takes a long time for zombies to kill the player - but bleeding will kill you too. Zombies are not as dangerous as bullets. Once they brought me down and started eating me - 3 of them, I was paralyzed for 10 seconds from shock (the hourglass indicator) then I shot them all and still had half of HP. This is nothing compared to being 1-shot-killed from Lee Enfield. It's easy to survive zombies unless you are totally fucked.

 

[mck]

I'd really like to play this, but for some reason I can't get multiplayer working at all in Operation Arrowhead.

 

[Arcks]

It really annoys me that only engine capable of simulating big enough world for online zombie survival is that piece of shit master-of-the-clunky engine that arma uses. You can forget ever having proper melee system, zombies that move properly, intuitive inventory system or satisfying reactions to shooting. But on the other hand, you do get large enough world with some nice ambience. Perhaps it's a worth a try again when/if they manage to fix phasing zombies and general lag problems.

 

[Trash]

Looked at a few videos to check it out. Lolled at zombies running THROUGH walls because the ARMA II AI still can't handle pathfinding otherwise. Looks as buggy and wonky as always (which anyone not a blind fanboy will admit) but like a potential fun mp game. Guess it does depend on playing with BRO's though. Doesn't seem like much fun alone and if I would want to go the wierd lonely guy in woods route I could always move to Alaska.

Three questions though. Does it work with the steam versions and do items and loot spawn during the game or is it just what lies around after server reboot? Oh, and are there any good video/written LP's/AAR's out there?

Loved this one. Not because of the guy playing and making the video but because of his partner. Awesome accent. "You and I get along. If you kill me, you and I will not get along." Guess Arnie is enjoying retirement.

 

[villain of the story]

The mod is butthurt-drama magnet. We should organise manhunts for teh lulz.

Yes, it does work with Steam versions. I believe the item respawn randomly. There don't seem to be "loot spawn points" that stuff spawns with any consistency.

Here's a quick guide for everything:

 

[RK47]

i really wanna play but time zone suck balls for GMT+8
And I don't feel like buying Arma anyway...but the intense satisfaction from causing grief is pretty much the sole motivation to play.
Don't even try establishing some kind of permanent accomplishment in this mod IMO, it takes too much work and will tear you apart if you lose it.
Unless you're a dedicated player like Skyway.

 

[CreamyBlood]

Arma is one of the few games I've been interested in trying out the last few years and the Dayz videos (the five part series with Killroy is particularly amusing) inspired me to try out the Arrowhead demo, who knew people made demos anymore? It seems that my rig is finally able to play it but want to know what others think. I haven't dug through all the old Arma threads here yet although I've read all of them at some point in the past.

I'm running an ATI4870, i5-2500K with 8GB ram and am getting 40-70fps in the single player campagian but haven't tried multi yet as I'm still trying to adjust to WASD and the rest of the controls and learn the basics. I remember that view distance is important in this game and I have mine at just over 5000. Is that enough to play multiplayer with the original game and/or this mod or do I need a new card?

Thanks for the summary Villan, it helps. It looks like I just need to buy Arrowhead from Steam for twenty bucks and that's all I'll need. Is there any reason why I shouldn't just buy it from the developers directly? I'm not a Steam fan though I have a few games on there but rarely use it. Would it make it easier to hook up with codexers? Looking for opinions on this (not steam debates).

 

[MetalCraze]

Yeah your card is weak-ish for Chernarus but you shouldn't have problems running it at 3K and high detail. Also there is one thing that you can turn off to boost performance if you use antialiasing - find ArmA2OA.cfg in My Documents and set AToC=0
This will disable transparency antialiasing but you will be able to use antialiasing for everything else with much more FPS.

As for controls - here they are if you are too lazy to RTFM

 

[CreamyBlood]

Thanks for that, resident Arma dude. So 3K is alright? I'm quite stoked that I finally have a system that can play this. Thanks for the keyboard layout, I actually bit the bullet and reset everything to default and have three pages from the manual printed out, but this is more convenient. I've only really read threads about it on the codex so I'm jumping in blind. As I said before, I'm 'old-school' and have been using right-mouse button for moving forward for at least fifteen years. I'm not sure when WASD became popular, I'm thinking Q3 but it might have been Q1. Plus, I'm an ESDF guy (without the E), I prefer having the extra row of keys that my pinky can hit.

Anyways, I'll just do it their way for now and set things up my way once I get used to the gameplay, I'm still getting my ass kicked on the first Arrowhead Demo level. This is more like a flight sim to me, the last MP games I liked were ETPro, BF1942 and a bit of Quake Wars. I'll worry about setting up the flightstick later if I ever bother.

Loving the demo so far, and happy that I can play this now. I just thought of something, I know the world is huge, is the map the same for the main game and the Dayz mod? And is there a link to a printable map that uses maybe six or eight or whatever pages to print out and paste on my wall?

Thanks for all help. I'll probably buy this from the devs tomorrow unless I hear a compelling case to spend more on Steam.

 

[Nattvardsvin]

Anyone tried the new update?
Supposedly a lot more Zombies implemented. Also new sound effects, performance improvement and fixed death when entering crashed Helis.

Going to give it a try later. Playing as a lonewolf btw.

 

[MetalCraze]

CreamyBlood

Yeah the map is the same.
http://h11.abload.de/img/armaii_mapgwjzc.jpg

You can use it to "cheat" until you will find a map in DayZ (they may be in stores and military bases and of course players may carry them)

Maybe I'll check 1.5.7 out today to see that new shit.

 

[CreamyBlood]

Thanks for the map, it's a huge world and now I know what "Chernogorsk" means. Or at least where it is. Plus this will come in handy for playing the regular game.

I was fucking around trying to cut and paste chunks to print it out in Paint.Net (I can't afford Photoshop anymore) when I found out the the lowly Paint program included int XP/Vista/7 prints this out easily. I went 5x4 but you can probably do it at 4x3 and get a good enough resolution. Just takes beer, tape and scissors. Here's the link for those interested:

1. Open the image you’d like to print in Paint
2. Select: Print -> Page Setup (Vista and 7), or File -> Page Setup (in XP)
3. Under Scaling, select Fit to and change the setting to something like “2 by 2 page(s)”
4. Click OK
5. Print the image from Paint, and make sure to select “All Pages”

Now, I just need to figure out how to remap the right mouse button. 101 keys on a keyboard and you can remap any other button but I'm starting to think they hard coded the Right Mouse Button. It makes no sense to me. When Villan mentioned that I needed a key remapper I thought he meant a program made for Arma 2 that edits your INI and makes it easier. I'm thinking he meant AutoHotKey or something similar. Probably have to go that route. If any die-hards here could take a few minutes out and see if you can remap the right mouse button to Move Forward or just confirm that you can't it would save me some frustration.

 

[Nattvardsvin]

So zombies are pretty much fucking everywhere now.
It's hard to even raid small villages because of the amount of fucking brain-eaters running for you when they hear gunshots.

Tread lightly out there survivors,(or bandits, you scum) shit just got way more hardcore.

 

[MetalCraze]

RMB is not hardcoded. You just need to unassign it from its usual functions since you can assign several functions to the same button. The game also distinguishes between hold and click. F.e. holding RMB is assigned to holding breath and "zooming in" (using real FOV)

So zombies are pretty much fucking everywhere now.
It's hard to even raid small villages because of the amount of fucking brain-eaters running for you when they hear gunshots.

Tread lightly out there survivors,(or bandits, you scum) shit just got way more hardcore.

Sounds like an incline indeed. I guess it's another way to force people to form groups for successful raids? Apart from making it more fun.
Which server are you playing on? I play on US3 mostly (basically any UO server)


Also I recommend people to download Six Updater
http://www.six-updater.net/p/download.html

It will keep mods (incl. DayZ) up to date easily. It's basically a one huge mod depository and launcher.

 

[CreamyBlood]

Yes, I know all of that. I've deleted and reassigned those functions and it still gives me a red Sec. Mouse Btn. [Optics] when I assign it to Right Mouse Button. I've deleted and re-assigned breathe as well. And I can't move forward. But I'm still using the Demo, hopefully the full game with patches doesn't have this issue, I'm probably just wasting time. I'm buying it later today/tomorrow after I wake up. Thanks for the help though. The game and this mod both look like a blast.

 

[villain of the story]

Key detection is somewhat wonky. For instance, I assign Z to Lean Left and it works as I would expect it to. But then I assign another function to a key combination that includes Z, 2xZ for Toggle Lean Left or Left Shift + Z for Evasive Move Left for instance, and just leaning left is no longer as smooth and instantaneous as it was; there is an annoying latency between pressing Z and seeing myself lean left in the game. Most infuriating.

Is this normal, MetalCraze?

Also, too many fucking controls. Was OFP or ArmA 1 this intense with keys? I don't remember. For instance, could you list the keys that are useless in Day Z?

 

[thesoup]

I am going to get this when I get some moniez. Looking forward to playing with bros.

 

[Nattvardsvin]

Fucking bandits everywhere shooting me, even in remote locations up north inland. What the fuck.

I just ragequitted, but I will be playing again later. And then I'm going to fucking shoot some people, no questions asked , I don't give a fuck if they are friendly survivors or not. People are going to die, I'm calling this shit.

See I got this shit all planned out. First I'm going to make my way to a military base I know the location off that I found before. Then I'm going to collect some nice shit from there, hopefully some sort of assault rifle.

Then when I'm all geared up I'm heading to the south coast to start shooting some fuckers.

 

[MetalCraze]

Try removing that single Z from Toggle Lean Left so only 2xZ remains.

And yep OFP and ArmA1 have just as many keys. What did you expect? This is a PC game. It isn't like those keys don't do anything.

As for keys useless for DayZ - ignore cyan and green keys on the keymap.

Also you should use ALT too. Holding it lets you look around you while moving/facing the other direction. Supports toggling too (double ALT)


Nice butthurt there Natt. We need to form a pack and raid survivors.

 

[CorpseZeb]

Hm... land full of gentlemen without basic grasp of grammatic and zombies...

Ps. ... waiting for arrive of my OA.