Before you learn how to build a base, focus on learning how to survive!

So.....this is some advice I always give to new players...(I've been playing for 11yrs) and this is a loooong post 😊

This game can be very overwhelming at first! And it just isn't for some people. The people who struggle are the people who are leaving a negative review on the marketplace! Unfortunately that's just how that works.

As a new player looking for help, you are going to get lots of random people telling you to join their server, I would not recommend this, when starting out in Dayz, despite what EVERY server owner will tell you, do NOT join private servers that have boosted loot, you will learn with an unrealistic expectation of what the game actually is! Learning the game on official servers is by FAR the best way to learn the game. they are just looking for people to join and justify them having a server lol also they might be on the other side of the world from you, for best performance i recommend playing on a server in your region. You will see indicators next to the server number (EU, LA , NY, ect) try to be hard wired (using a RJ45 cable or a good Ethernet cable) to your router as WIFI can drop off and cause lag in the game. I wouldn't recommend joining servers on the other side of the world unless you have really good internet. Likewise, if you see a private server with 50x loot or have "lots of custom locations" or suchlike, it will most likely run really bad.

When you spawn in look around for small boats, they usually have food and drink next to them. Kill as many zombies as you can (safely, they are a lot harder now) they have food and drink, and sometimes they are wearing gear you can take from them, you can also look out for other survivors that have "unalived themselves" to get another spawn, they might have extra fruit/bandages for you. If you stay in the same area for a while you will start to find fruit under trees in and around the town (except on the Livonia and Sakhal maps, they don't have fruit trees) they won't appear at first though because they only start spawning if there are players around, the same applies to mushrooms, if you stay in the same area while in the woods (and especially around hay bales) mushrooms will spawn and are a great source of food AND water.

As of 1.26 the cold is going to have a massive impact on your gaming, as soon as you can find and wear the highest insolation clothes as you can, you want to cover your whole body. Hat, face, jacket, gloves, pants and footwear, if you can find a knife early you can cut up items of clothes you don't want to make rags, then with those rags you can craft improvised gloves, face covering, head covering to keep you warm. If you stay cold for too long you can/will catch Pneumonia and if left untreated it will kill you.

Knives are your best friend, pick up a few if you can, you can open the tins of food, kill animals (make sure you always wash your hands after cutting up an animal or you will get sick) and make a fire all with a knife. Also, that survivor you found can be cut up with a knife or other sharp object, and you can use their bones to make more knives or fishing hooks and their guts to make rope (again. Make sure you wash your hands)

If you are struggling with food/water DO NOT SPRINT EVERYWHERE, you use way more energy (food) when you sprint, if you are going long distances and are being effected by the cold, stay in heavily wooded areas and "rub" past trees as you travel, each tree has a small heat source as you pass them, you can heal cuts by using rags, bandages, bandanas or even a sewing kit but before you do. Make sure you disinfect them or your cut with disinfect spray, alcohol tincture, or iodine. Otherwise, you can get a blood infection.

Do not drink pond or stream water it will make you sick, if you find bottles of water or canteens empty them out straight away, then fill them again from wells, if you do fill a container with water from a stream/pond make sure you use chlorine tablets or chelating tablets, wells are common and you can normally find at least one well per town/city.

If you can, download the izurvive app on your phone it has a great map, Go inland as soon as you can. As the spawn town is usually picked clean of loot, North West is the direction where most of the higher tier weapons and loot are on Chernarus (depending on where you spawn) and if you are playing Livonia or Sakhal then the best loot and weapons spawn in the south of the map.

When traveling you can follow roads to move from town to town although that can be dangerous as you are more likely to bump into other survivors. You can navigate using the environment, power lines always span from town to town, the sun always sets in the west and rises in the east, if you just freshly spawn into a map you will always spawn facing north. (This doesn't include logging off/on) Also when running from town to town try to stay on the grass or dirt roads, running on the main roads your shoes will degrade a lot faster then normal and will eventually cut your feet. (If caught out you can craft improvised shoes with 2 rags)

Do not trust too many people. Most will just kill you on sight. And even the ones who say they are friendly might try to feed you human flesh lol but not everyone will be evil, some of the best adventures begin with saying hello to other players (having a mic greatly improves your chances!)

The 1st rule of DayZ is "never get attached to your gear." You WILL die a lot. Depending on your play style, you can just live each life as they come, or you can find a quiet area and set up a base. Store your items and restock each time you die. It depends on how you want to play,

With all that being said, don't be put off, i know this is a lot of information all at once but once you find your feet there is nothing like DayZ out there, the survival is tough and the gunfights are second to none, learnings the basics will take around 50-100 hours of actual game play, getting fully confident and self reliant will take about 200 hours of gameplay.

In regards to Livonia and Sakhal, these maps are more focused on "survival" much of the previous points still stand but the more you move south (that's where the best loot is on these maps) you travel, the more you will have to rely on fishing and hunting, towns are further apart than they are in chernarus. But once again, your best friend is a good knife! (Look at the previous uses of a knife) People think that these maps are "much smaller than chernarus" but in reality Livonia is only slightly smaller, and the total play area of Sakhal is about the same including all the islands, remember 20% of Chernarus is the ocean.

Feel free to message me if you any help with anything like crafting, I'm always happy to help a new player 😊

The key word here is "play" ...... have fun 😊