DayZ

Just tried the sanctuary servers tonight, it's a nice change much less shoot on sight. Plus I run with a group on the normal hive so It's nice to have a hive on the side where I can play and not get far away from my group when they aren't playing.

Storytime:
Right after a server reset we are near the main airfield (we didn't plan this like I'm sure some people do but we did try to capitalize on it). Both of my friends have axes and I have an M16. We see a downed helicopter, nothing in it. We move to the barracks and they look pretty bare as well. My girlfriend suddenly gets shot standing in the doorway to the barracks with nothing but an axe (she's pretty terrible but getting better). My other buddy is laying near the runway and I'm in the barracks. I begin to play the waiting game. The guy eventually walks by oblivious that she wasn't alone, and I put 3 bursts into him while he's crouch walking past my door. He somehow makes it past and then I try to run out the door to finish him off, but have problems getting out the door as so often happens. By the time I'm out the door he's logged off like a gigantic pussy. I can only hope that whatever server he jumped onto he's bleeding out and dies, or someone else kills him while he is on the ground. I'm pretty sure from the gunfire that he was rocking the FAL from the downed helicopter and I would wager camped the server restart too.

SIDENOTE:
Start playing Sanctuary servers with my small group of newb friend, and play the main servers as my side server :-)

I need both the game and the expansion correct?

You need ARMA II: Combined Operations. It's $30 on Steam. Supposedly you can use the free version of ARMA II and buy Operation Arrowhead for $20 and still be able to play DayZ, but it is not recommended.

This page is really useful:
http://www.dayzwiki.com/wiki/How_to_install_DayZ

I suggest using the Six Updater method. It has worked for me, at least. Here's a tl;dr version from Chruser:

TL;DR is to install ARMA II, start it and exit from the main menu, do the same for Operation Arrowhead, then download Six Updater ( http://www.dayzmod.com/?SixUpdater ), and install DayZ with it. If you're doing this via Steam, you may have to verify the integrity of your game files, and/or start Steam as an administrator to be able to launch Operation Arrowhead. Or more rarely, you may have to install DirectX 9 due to some files that are missing from newer DirectX revisions. If you're using Steam, you can add "-mod=@dayz" sans quotes as the launch options to Operation Arrowhead, then launch Combined Operations. (But launching with Six Launcher is okay, too, even if you may not get the Steam overlay.)

I'm going to try to put up a resource thread (links to useful things like this, and a map, item database, etc) and a beginner's guide today or tomorrow. I'll probably break up the beginner's guide into a lite version and a more detailed version.

It's worth noting that starting Steam as an administrator will take care of a lot of different problems for the initial launch of Operation Arrowhead.

More specifically about the DirectX part: If you're getting various error messages about DirectX components missing (particularly X3DAudio1_6.dll), or Steam tries to install DirectX perpetually, try installing the latest version of DirectX. If that doesn't work, you may want to install the DirectX 9 Redistributable from here as well: http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...009_redist.exe

I play TF2 so DX9 is already on my computer. I already run as admin. Tomorrow I'll go and buy it. Just have to deposit my paycheck.

Hey so I've been playing for a while. Played for a couple hours last night even on a private hive. So if people wanna get together and play on the main hive I'm game as long as I don't have work. I wanna have some good PVP fun in this now.

Played for a couple hours last night even on a private hive. So if people wanna get together and play on the main hive I'm game as long as I don't have work. I wanna have some good PVP fun in this now.

Sounds good. Hopefully, I'll be playing DayZ for a while tomorrow evening, but Sunday is more likely.

On another note, things like this make me want not to shoot on sight: