DayZ Standalone Alpha LAUNCHED on Steam!!!

The DayZ Standalone dropped today! It is $29.99 on Steam right now. I am downloading it as I am creating this topic, so I haven't played it yet. I just wanted to get the topic started to get the word out in case anyone else is interested.

For those who don't know, DayZ is a mod for ARMA II. It is often regarded as the most realistic simulation of a zombie apocalypse. It does have some bugs and glitches which take away from the realism, but if you can get past all that it does become quite realistic. They have been planning for some time to release a standalone version of DayZ, separate from ARMA II. Now it is finally out!

Before everyone gets overly excited, the version on Steam right now is an early access alpha. Purchasing that will get you the final release too, though, eventually.

Oh, and here's our previous thread on it, if anyone's interested: [link]

Sweet. Um, now I need to redownload steam again, because my PS2 Emulator jacked up all my applications...

Oh I forgot to mention it was alpha? Sorry haha.

So I played the game a little bit and I definitely noticed some improvements and differences from the DayZ Mod. On the title screen you now have a Character customization option, pretty handy for dressing your character in woodland colours. Load times for game start-up and joining a server have been cut down to almost nothing! Upon entering the game I noticed that the side bar which showed your current blood level, hunger, thirst, visual, and sound emission is gone. I don't know if that means you don't have to eat and drink in this version, although I suspect you would. Maybe it hasn't been added in yet? You also start off with zero supplies, not even a bandage or flares. The next thing I noticed was a surprising lack of zombies. I was in a town area and I only came across 2 zombies after around 10 minutes of just randomly running around. The zombie detail has been increased greatly, and some glitches like how the zombies could only walk when inside buildings is out the window...I learned that the hard way. Apparently they still possess the ability to clip through doors though. The zombie animation is better too. They still move close to as fast as they did in the mod but they have more of a stagger for added realism. Oh! Almost forgot! In the DayZ mod one of the biggest complaints from players was that most buildings and houses were inaccessible. In this game I found that I could enter pretty much every building I came across. I even found a two-story house!  

I only played for a little bit because I didn't have much time, but those were just a couple things I noticed. It is an alpha, so things are bound to change with time.

spawn wrote:

Oh I forgot to mention it was alpha? Sorry haha.

Oh no worries, you did say it in the title. I just wanted to make it clear so people don't have any huge expectations on this build.

spawn wrote:

Upon entering the game I noticed that the side bar which showed your current blood level, hunger, thirst, visual, and sound emission is gone. I don't know if that means you don't have to eat and drink in this version, although I suspect you would. Maybe it hasn't been added in yet?

I know for a fact that you still need to eat to live in the full game. This has been mentioned in the development blogs.

Must...get...STEAM ACCOUNT!

Mass Distraction wrote:

spawn wrote:

Upon entering the game I noticed that the side bar which showed your current blood level, hunger, thirst, visual, and sound emission is gone. I don't know if that means you don't have to eat and drink in this version, although I suspect you would. Maybe it hasn't been added in yet?

I know for a fact that you still need to eat to live in the full game. This has been mentioned in the development blogs.

I noticed that little messages started popping up where sidechat messages normally would in the mod. At first I assumed it was just other players chatting, until I started looking closer at them. Little things like "I am thirsty", "I am hungry", and "I am tired, I want to take a nap". So I know my character is starting to get thirsty but I have no way of knowing how thirsty he is, or how hungry he is. Like I mentioned before, they could just be adding the sidebar in at a later time...but then I started thinking. In real life you don't have a magical meter that shows how thirsty you are. You can't say: "Oh. My thirst is almost empty. If I don't drink something I will pass out very soon". You would know that you are dehydrated in real life, but you wouldn't know the precise moment that you would collapse because of it. Maybe a meter won't be added in for even more realism? Only time will tell I guess.

One thing I am really enjoying about this alpha is the cooperation between players. If you play the DayZ mod today it is pretty much kill or be killed no questions asked. I mentioned this is in the other thread.. Yes you can come across some nice people but they are rare. It starts to feel more like a war simulator than a zombie simulator. With this alpha though, everyone is in the same boat. We are all just trying to figure things out and survive.

I can now give it a thumbs up after playing it for, and this according to Steam, roughly 6 hours. Had a few crashes, some crazy lag spikes and a couple of server deaths but otherwise it was a fun experience. Again. I love how easy it is to find the server your friends are on now. I did once lose all my stuff after a server went down AND had to run through the mountains to reach my team but that was okay. Well, until we all got shot down after looting a dead teammate's body after he glitched through a wall on the second floor of a building.

Seriously though, having everyone on a voice chat is a must if you want to survive.