Woah... DayZ is by no means a shooter.
Just want to warn you before you go down that path. DayZ and the likes are survival sandbox type games... you have to work quite hard before you get a gun and even harder before you can run around shooting zombies. Even when you can its not the best thing to do.... these games are about stealth and survival and hopefully a bit of crafting.
There is no way you are just going to jump in to a DayZ game and start shooting zombies.
Even ARMA, is still more military simulator than shooter... its flipping hard as well.
Yep.
Since DayZ (Stand Alone) is built on the Arma engine, it's a proper military simulator. I don't get the same feeling from H1Z1 though. It might be a survival game, but has more of a shooter feel to it.
I took a 3-month break from DayZ and played/tested around last week on both experimental and stable branches:
I find it to be relatively easy at the moment. Once you have full grip of the game mechanics and know the map layout, you can be fully geared up in around an hour; 30 Minutes if you spawn in the right location and have help. Spawnable items (all grade weapons and food) are bountiful and it is still easy to gear up, even though they have somewhat decreased spawns. I know that it's on the development road map to decrease spawns by much more, so it'll be a true accomplishment (read: suicide mission) to get complete military grade gear kit.
(I don't recall how long it took me to explore the whole map, but remember dying at least 5 times during my first 15 hours. From thirst and hunger to zombie attacks to being robbed and murdered by would-be "friend" turned bandit. Not as easy jumping into DayZ as it is jumping into CoD or BF.)
Zombies/Infected/Walkers/Zeds/Zoids are back to being easy once you've geared up (after they eventually fixed those hit box and clipping/path finding bugs). If you don't have a melee weapon though, you choose flight over fight.
Players still bring that chaos factor into the game play and you're 100% spot on when it comes to stealth. Often times I avoid players as they tend to get you killed (either by them or by other players). Some are still "sadistic", breaking your legs, poisoning you and leaving you for dead. Bambi killing (killing of new spawns) is still a thing, which is sad and such a waste. (So, recklessness, trust and faith in humanity will get you killed or worse).
The devs have released quite a bit of crafting as of late as well; you can now hunt animals (boars, rabbits, deer), butcher the carcass with a knife or bayonet (you get steaks and pelts), create a fire (chop logs from trees, chop kindle from branches, combine with rocks and light with matches) and enjoy a BBQ. Don't stand too close to the fire, as you can burn and make sure you don't eat raw meat, as you will be poisoned.
They don't have an ETA on construction (base building) yet, but that might be released towards the end of the year. Wonder how it's going to compare with Rust. I've already got a location in mind for my base.
They don't have a solid ETA on vehicles either, but I wouldn't want that type of attention drawn to me in any case. Once that is implemented, things will get a lot more interesting. For those that haven't played the game - it takes a good hour or so get from one side of the map to the other. That's running in a straight path and past/through cities/towns/villages and not encountering any other player, otherwise add another +4 hours to it.
The game play and developments might sound interesting and fun to people that haven't played the game yet, but as I said, it's far from polished and there's a lot of content that has yet to be developed (never mind conceptually thought of).
Mandatory comment/disclaimer in DayZ thread:
Game in development. Early Access. Alpha.
You have been warned.
