Dear Zombie Apocalypse Diary Day 2: Where I fail to pick up a gun...

[Day 1 of DayZ Diary Here]

Dear Zombie Apocalypse Diary…

A new day, and new life in the world of DayZ, thankfully it was daylight when I found myself on the coast. I dropped down to a prone position, and crawled in a random direction from there, still following the coast. It’s wise to keep low, and try to make as little sound as possible as I didn’t want to attract the attention of any zombies that might be nearby. On the right of the screen there are “eye” and “ear” icons, they indicate with bars how much sound you are making, and how visible you are to the surroundings.

Also under those icons on the right of your screen, is what I believe is a temperature icon, a drink bottle icon, a blood drop icon and a meal icon. When you have a need related to these icons, they change colour. I believe it is possible to starve to death in this game, if you don’t take sustenance. The icons indicate when you are thirsty, hungry, or losing mass amounts of blood.

Eventually I could see some buildings in the distance, what looked like a small town, and near the water some industrial buildings. Keeping closer to the water, I continued to crawl in the direction of the buildings. When I got closer, I could see a zombie ambling around a house. So I veered off in the direction of the industrial building, a warehouse I think, that was facing the ocean, suspecting there was less of a chance of zombies being there.

My instincts proved to be correct. I crawled around a fence, and found myself at the door to the warehouse, it was a nervous experience. I could see that zombie over by a house, and hoped it could not see me, and when I went around corners, I could never know if there might be a nasty surprise on the other side. But thankfully there were none. I opened the door to the warehouse, and big sigh of relief no zombies inside! I went in, and closed the door behind me. And oh my gosh, I was completely safe.

Feeling a little more relaxed I explored the warehouse, it was just one large empty room, at a far end I found some supplies, finally something to add to my gear! I picked up soda drinks (both Coke and Pepsi), bandages, painkillers, various different types of ammo, but I was somewhat disappointed to find no actual weapon in the warehouse. I still had no way to defend myself.

I couldn’t stay there, I had to explore more, I needed to find a weapon, so I could defend myself, needed to forage for more supplies too. So I left the safety of the warehouse, continued my slow crawl around the building, very slow, as I could see another zombie out in the field to my right. I started to make my way to the town, I had to risk it. I needed to find a gun!

The crawling into town was a nerve wracking experience, as there were zombies near some of the houses, so I had to be very careful not to attract their attention. First house I tried, I couldn’t open a door. But the second had a fence, thought that looked extra safe too with that fence, the gate opened, and the gate closed. It was a nice high surrounding fence. I’m sure a zombie couldn’t get through that! And at the house, the door opened! Yes! Relieved, but of course what if there were zombies inside was my thought, but it was a small house with only two rooms and no zombies. Other doors appeared to be just cosmetic, like the first house I tried. And I found more supplies, some flares, even a Hunting Knife, but still no gun.

I’d noted earlier that the sun appeared to be going down, so I briefly considered signing out while in the house, all nice and safe. But decided that would be a lame idea, I really wanted to find a weapon. So I left the house, back on my belly, I crawled around to back of house to see if there was anything of interest, yes there was, that fence I thought looked safe, did not surround the entire house. Not a safe fence after all!

Belly crawling I made my way around the town, trying more doors. But to my frustration, none of them were doors that opened. Feeling very nervous about zombies that were close by, I decided to make my way out of the town, and start exploring other areas. Very carefully, I belly crawled into the fields, and continued in a straight line.

Wasn’t long till I sighted hangers in the distance, so I changed direction to make my way to them. Not in a straight line, as I had avoid getting too close to some zombies I could see, but I eventually made it to one of the hangers. One zombie was making me very nervous, it was kind of ape like in it’s behaviour, that’s why I had to make a small detour on way to hanger, around some trucks. Being very careful that I was not in it’s line of sight. Keeping an eye on that zombie I looked at some military dressed corpses in front of the hanger, there was nothing on the bodies to loot.

But inside the hanger, I found a gun! It was a machine gun. I can’t remember what type now. And other various supplies and ammo (though still no food). And so I tried to pick up these items, just the same way I picked up items in the warehouse, and the house in town. And I couldn’t, I don’t know what was wrong. I tried getting rid of some stuff, thought maybe I needed to make more space. But that didn’t work, and then discovered I couldn’t even pick up the stuff I just dropped. That’s when I decided it was time to call it a night.

So I shut down the game, aborted/disconnected, that was phrasing used to leave the game. Leaves me a little worried if what I’ve done so far has been saved. Well, I’ll find out next time I log into the game. I’m not worried about it, as DayZ is a game in it’s alpha stage, so I’m very zen when it comes to glitches in game.

Later on that night via twitter I’d heard that there had been DDoS attacks and the main DayZ server had been taken down for maintenance, so my current theory is I couldn’t pick up those items because the main server had been taken down.

All up, I had a fun time in game, and am very happy that I definitely lasted more than 31 minutes and that I managed to still be alive when I shut the game down.