This is for all the hate that this release has gotten: Played a solid 4-5 hours today and got what I expected when I paid the $29.99 USD for an ALPHA RELEASE that Rocket himself said was going to have its share of bugs and should NOT be bought if your expecting it to be perfect, for christ sakes it says it on the store page! The game is exactly what I expected, there are new fun mechanics for drinking and eating, the Zed and Item spawning is differnt: Everything gets spawned in at server start ( Something all the haters who played 30 mins and quit to go post crap on the reviews would have know if they watched maybe a single dev video leading to this moment) so yes there will be buildings that have no loot and towns that seem devoid of zeds becuase they have been cleaved thru by the horde of players wanting to play. As far as all night servers, totally bunk: From what I see the servers are bound to the Realtime of there location i.e. a server hosted in IL in the states would be off CST so if you join said server at 9pm central time guess what? ITS FLIPPING DARK, shocker I know. Other servers I joined DID have daytime but a majority were hitting dusk meaning there local time was prolly hitting the early evening as well. Movement IMO is better looking, I did swim a bit too for S**ts and giggles and even that seemed a little faster than the mod and deffinetly nicer looking. Inventory system is a little wonky at first but very easy to get used to, the hot bar at the bottem is great for quick selecting important items and even remembers the last item that was placed (I hotkey'd a soda and after drinking it the outline stayed put and the next time I grabbed THAT kind of soda it was placed in that slot) seemingly random spawn in : alot of us seemed to spawn in at the coast which wasnt surprising, but a few people spawned inland as well including my buddy who spawned at Stary Sobor (Practically the middle of the map). Lastly the servers are linked via a hive, meaning that if you didnt like the connection you had or the population, or simply thought there wasnt enough loot spawning: Hop to another server and be at the exact point with the same gear as when you logged off on the other server.

Thats just a few of the things I experienced in one night on a few differnt servers, now for the bad: The KOS mentality is deffinetly a problem and seems to only make the task of Alpha testing that much harder, not that anything can be done about the rampant PvP or should be done but it pays to know that the process of helping the staff debug this game in Alpha stage only gets harder when someone fresh off the coast with nothing but the cool fancy axe he found and the gear he spawned in with see's you and buries said axe in your head while you try to talk with him or loot gear unknowingly, and of course is followed by "You mad bro" or my personal favorite "What a dumbass!" (Followed by his mom telling him not to cuss, LOL) that said, griefers abound so watch your six, alot of folks I ran into were genuinly nice and trying to just figure out the game and not♥♥♥♥♥♥rush the nearest breathing human with the kitchen knife they JUST looted (I fear for the survival of humanity in a real zombie apocolypse). A big one here and has been address'd already in testing is the fact that when you pass out from thirst or hunger or a good hit from a weapon you dont wake up, this is true to a point, IF your in a group or IF a friendly passerby see's you he/she can hit you with an EpiPen if they have one to wake you up but as to be expected that doesnt happen very often so basically you might as well press Esc and Respawn (Effectivly a built in suicide button, kills character and spawns you again) Infuriating to say the least but deffinetly on the top priority fix list. To finish the bad up I really dont like the lack of a Thirst/Hunger/Blood/Temp UI. The text warnings are OK, but spam too much and seem to give you very little in the way of knowing EXACTLY how bad off you are, something that only seems to compound the Unconcious-ness issue.

Again ill reiterate that this game is NOT a finished product, dont believe me? why not read this message thats right on the store page:

“DayZ Early Access is your chance to experience DayZ as it evolves throughout its development process. Be aware that our Early Access offer is a representation of our core pillars, and the framework we have created around them. It is a work in progress and therefore contains a variety of bugs. WE STRONGLY ADVISE YOU NOT TO BUY AND PLAY THIS GAME AT THIS STAGE UNLESS YOU CLEARLY UNDERSTAND WHAT EARLY ACCESS MEANS and are interested in participating in the ongoing development cycle.”

Couldnt be more clearer, but at the same time this is also the lowest you will see this game priced for a VERY long time. If you love DayZ, want to be part of the process to make it better, can overlook the problems it has currently, and maybe JUST MAYBE take some stuff with a grain of salt like a mature adult than I hope to see you in Chernarus sir/ma'am.

EDIT: Some changes to take into consideration:
-Saline Bags can be used as a form of Epi-Pen for unconcious-ness
-New Color coded Text in the TAB menu for Thirst/Hunger

Also Ive noticed a few things that you should be aware of, as of yet I have NOT been infected in game at all. Friends have told me the same and the ones that have been infected all say its from zeds. This may be due to them not fully fleshing out or introducing infection to the other regular sources so that being said get your fill of stagnant ponds and water pumps while you can. This also means Water purification tablets are unnessesary, if someone finds out otherwise let me know! Also Cooking has not been implemented yet so dont waste ammo on the bunnies as fun as it might be to murder the little ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥s (Bunnies as of yet dont have there own SFX so instead they make Zed noises, annoying and scary when you here a zed and theres not one around), this also means you can stop picking up Cooking pans and taking up Inventory space. There is also a few bugs that my buddies have let me in on that involve dup'ing Saline on unconcious players that are glitched out somehow, and server lag can sometimes result in Dup'ing items from one backpack to another (Seen this happen alot with ammo clips, specifically the FNX42 pistol) Also alot of people I know keep getting♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥when they see there hatchet/Gun carried♥♥♥♥♥♥eye'd resulting in missed shots or swings. Ive made a bug report for it and my fix has been to either hit Spacebar to re-raise it to rdy position or de-equip it and re-equip it via the hotkey bar.

I think I may need a discussion channel or something lol
Good Hunting Survivor!


This review is not all about melee "angrymonkey". But since you brought it up, yes melee currently is pretty lame, hit detection is off with zeds and players alike until you just get used to using the damn weapons as they are set at the moment. I have no problem dancing circles around zeds swinging my axe and killing them without taking DMG. What you fail to realize is at the moment zeds cant hit a moving target very well so staying mobile and swinging your axe/pipe/wrench etc... will yield results. Also I should note that only the 2 Axe weapons will outright kill a zed in 1-2 swings, players may take around 1-4 depending on your aim. Also, when has melee combat in DayZ been anything BUT difficult? taking into consideration as well that most PvP encounters with melee or otherwise results in spamming of the attack button (Almost every axe wielding maniac has just run up and swung madly, and every gun toting ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ has unloaded an entire clip while running around), nobody seems to care about Accuracy but more about how much chaos they can create for there target, and how many shots/swings they can make before one lucky hit happens and call it "Skill".

This is for all the hate that this release has gotten: Played a solid 4-5 hours today and got what I expected when I paid the $29.99 USD for an ALPHA RELEASE that Rocket himself said was going to have its share of bugs and should NOT be bought if your expecting it to be perfect, for christ sakes it says it on the store page! The game is exactly what I expected, there are new fun mechanics for drinking and eating, the Zed and Item spawning is differnt: Everything gets spawned in at server start ( Something all the haters who played 30 mins and quit to go post crap on the reviews would have know if they watched maybe a single dev video leading to this moment) so yes there will be buildings that have no loot and towns that seem devoid of zeds becuase they have been cleaved thru by the horde of players wanting to play. As far as all night servers, totally bunk: From what I see the servers are bound to the Realtime of there location i.e. a server hosted in IL in the states would be off CST so if you join said server at 9pm central time guess what? ITS FLIPPING DARK, shocker I know. Other servers I joined DID have daytime but a majority were hitting dusk meaning there local time was prolly hitting the early evening as well. Movement IMO is better looking, I did swim a bit too for S**ts and giggles and even that seemed a little faster than the mod and deffinetly nicer looking. Inventory system is a little wonky at first but very easy to get used to, the hot bar at the bottem is great for quick selecting important items and even remembers the last item that was placed (I hotkey'd a soda and after drinking it the outline stayed put and the next time I grabbed THAT kind of soda it was placed in that slot) seemingly random spawn in : alot of us seemed to spawn in at the coast which wasnt surprising, but a few people spawned inland as well including my buddy who spawned at Stary Sobor (Practically the middle of the map). Lastly the servers are linked via a hive, meaning that if you didnt like the connection you had or the population, or simply thought there wasnt enough loot spawning: Hop to another server and be at the exact point with the same gear as when you logged off on the other server. Thats just a few of the things I experienced in one night on a few differnt servers, now for the bad: The KOS mentality is deffinetly a problem and seems to only make the task of Alpha testing that much harder, not that anything can be done about the rampant PvP or should be done but it pays to know that the process of helping the staff debug this game in Alpha stage only gets harder when someone fresh off the coast with nothing but the cool fancy axe he found and the gear he spawned in with see's you and buries said axe in your head while you try to talk with him or loot gear unknowingly, and of course is followed by "You mad bro" or my personal favorite "What a dumbass!" (Followed by his mom telling him not to cuss, LOL) that said, griefers abound so watch your six, alot of folks I ran into were genuinly nice and trying to just figure out the game and not♥♥♥♥♥♥rush the nearest breathing human with the kitchen knife they JUST looted (I fear for the survival of humanity in a real zombie apocolypse). A big one here and has been address'd already in testing is the fact that when you pass out from thirst or hunger or a good hit from a weapon you dont wake up, this is true to a point, IF your in a group or IF a friendly passerby see's you he/she can hit you with an EpiPen if they have one to wake you up but as to be expected that doesnt happen very often so basically you might as well press Esc and Respawn (Effectivly a built in suicide button, kills character and spawns you again) Infuriating to say the least but deffinetly on the top priority fix list. To finish the bad up I really dont like the lack of a Thirst/Hunger/Blood/Temp UI. The text warnings are OK, but spam too much and seem to give you very little in the way of knowing EXACTLY how bad off you are, something that only seems to compound the Unconcious-ness issue. Again ill reiterate that this game is NOT a finished product, dont believe me? why not read this message thats right on the store page: “DayZ Early Access is your chance to experience DayZ as it evolves throughout its development process. Be aware that our Early Access offer is a representation of our core pillars, and the framework we have created around them. It is a work in progress and therefore contains a variety of bugs. WE STRONGLY ADVISE YOU NOT TO BUY AND PLAY THIS GAME AT THIS STAGE UNLESS YOU CLEARLY UNDERSTAND WHAT EARLY ACCESS MEANS and are interested in participating in the ongoing development cycle.” Couldnt be more clearer, but at the same time this is also the lowest you will see this game priced for a VERY long time. If you love DayZ, want to be part of the process to make it better, can overlook the problems it has currently, and maybe JUST MAYBE take some stuff with a grain of salt like a mature adult than I hope to see you in Chernarus sir/ma'am. EDIT: Some changes to take into consideration: -Saline Bags can be used as a form of Epi-Pen for unconcious-ness -New Color coded Text in the TAB menu for Thirst/Hunger Also Ive noticed a few things that you should be aware of, as of yet I have NOT been infected in game at all. Friends have told me the same and the ones that have been infected all say its from zeds. This may be due to them not fully fleshing out or introducing infection to the other regular sources so that being said get your fill of stagnant ponds and water pumps while you can. This also means Water purification tablets are unnessesary, if someone finds out otherwise let me know! Also Cooking has not been implemented yet so dont waste ammo on the bunnies as fun as it might be to murder the little ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥s (Bunnies as of yet dont have there own SFX so instead they make Zed noises, annoying and scary when you here a zed and theres not one around), this also means you can stop picking up Cooking pans and taking up Inventory space. There is also a few bugs that my buddies have let me in on that involve dup'ing Saline on unconcious players that are glitched out somehow, and server lag can sometimes result in Dup'ing items from one backpack to another (Seen this happen alot with ammo clips, specifically the FNX42 pistol) Also alot of people I know keep getting♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥when they see there hatchet/Gun carried♥♥♥♥♥♥eye'd resulting in missed shots or swings. Ive made a bug report for it and my fix has been to either hit Spacebar to re-raise it to rdy position or de-equip it and re-equip it via the hotkey bar. I think I may need a discussion channel or something lol Good Hunting Survivor! This review is not all about melee "angrymonkey". But since you brought it up, yes melee currently is pretty lame, hit detection is off with zeds and players alike until you just get used to using the damn weapons as they are set at the moment. I have no problem dancing circles around zeds swinging my axe and killing them without taking DMG. What you fail to realize is at the moment zeds cant hit a moving target very well so staying mobile and swinging your axe/pipe/wrench etc... will yield results. Also I should note that only the 2 Axe weapons will outright kill a zed in 1-2 swings, players may take around 1-4 depending on your aim. Also, when has melee combat in DayZ been anything BUT difficult? taking into consideration as well that most PvP encounters with melee or otherwise results in spamming of the attack button (Almost every axe wielding maniac has just run up and swung madly, and every gun toting ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ has unloaded an entire clip while running around), nobody seems to care about Accuracy but more about how much chaos they can create for there target, and how many shots/swings they can make before one lucky hit happens and call it "Skill".