How an SL Creator Learned to Love the Zombie-Filled DayZ

DayZ is a hardcore zombie-survival multiplayer mod built on a hardcore FPS, so you might be surprised that Cyclic Gearz, a well-known SL content creator, is among its biggest fans. After I shared my interest in DayZ yesterday, Cyclic (who has a crazy cool Plurk profile) shared her interest in the game as a player with me:

"To me, it's a semi-accurate simulation of what zombie survival is like, everything is dynamic and you really do have to work hard to survive past a day or two," she tells me, and explains how a maker of adorable virtual furniture came to love fleeing from the ravaging undead instead:

"It's like an MMO in that it has a main server where the data is stores but player servers that you can join and your data is saved across all servers, wherever you log off, you'll log back there on any server, but that's the only similarity to an MMO that it has, everything else is FPS. Most people play solo, and to be honest it's geared towards that, with the survival aspect.

"It is a brutal world, where there is no society and you will be shot on sight by others who are just more willing to do whatever it takes to survive.

"Zombies in this genuinely scare me, not so much their physical appearance but their unpredictability. You might think you're not visible or audible as you slowly eke your way around them 50m away but suddenly one might turn and run madly towards you screaming, prompting another 10 of them hidden around to follow suit.

"My first time in the game was harrowing - I spawned in on a beach, I had basic supplies, a handgun and a few mags of ammo, canned food and drink, some painkillers, bandages, enough to keep me going until I found more supplies. I had no map, no tutorial. It was 9pm at night and I was alone in an open space. Logic told me this was a bad idea, I could hear gunshots in the distance, and hear grunts of zombies in the opposite direction. I chose to run inland into the woods, sure I couldn't see any better in the woods, but it was cover, and I figured maybe I'd find some places to loot supplies further inland.

"I ran through the woods as moonlight peeked through the treetops, lighting my way just enough for me to spot a cabin by a nearby road. I slowly sneak up to the building, just in case of other players or zombies and I hear screaming from behind me.

"A horde of 20, 30 zombies swarms over a nearby hilltop behind me, towards me, at great speed. I am swearing under my breath out loud as they chase me down the road back towards the coast, every so often one of them lands a swipe and I am slowed down a little more and a little more, until they knock me down and unconscious.

"I come to and I find my legs aren't working. I can't get up, and I am forced to lie prone and crawl. My legs are broken. The zombies don't notice me shuffling across the ground to begin with but one by one, they notice me again.

"The next 3 minutes was spent watching them tear the crap out of me.

"I lasted 20 minutes.

"This is what makes this mod SO good. You're real life survival instinct kicks in and you're left either screaming in fear, trying to survive by looting trash in houses, or cold and emotionless, casually taking potshots at passers by in order to let them lure off nearby zombies, and murdering people in cold blood for the contents of their backpack."

Color me convinced. So when do we send an SLer expedition in to help her survive?

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Comments

[day z survivor]

Might want to keep an ear to the ground I know of at least two sl groups active in day z. Plus the sl military community is more then likely all over it.

[jo yardley]

Sounds good, I'm interested.
Any female avatars available in the game?

And how about bringing something like it to SL?
See my other post.
I'd be interested in brainstorming about something like that.

[Pathfinder]

We need to know the name of the server that all the SL peeps are playing on. There are a gajillion servers out there.

[Ehrman Digfoot]

I have it installed now! I'd be interested to know too.

[day z survivor]

Random ones they play on, hopping from stable server to stable server that're daylight

[Ehrman Digfoot]

Jo, as of the latest release today the game begins with an option to choose your gender. The decision is permanent. They have updated the servers twice today, however, and I haven't been able to find a working one all day.

[Cyclic Gearz]

Just thought to add in this: http://kronzky.info/missions/arma/dayzsp/

It's a singleplayer version of DayZ so you can get used to it and orientate yourself.

It goes in your missions folder in your Arma Operation Arrowhead folder, and you can access it by selecting Singleplayer, then loading it in as a mission.

There's still zombies, but no players, so it's good for training and getting used to the controls and the lay of the land

Feel free to wave if you see me on, my name on DayZ is ElTurbulente :)

There's no specific place anyone plays, I just try and log on on servers in daylight, the servers are realtime based on server location usually, so if you only get to play at 8pm EST, try playing on a European or Russian server to play in daylight hours with a decent ping.