Despite DayZ's Early Access Steam page containing enough warnings to make even the most dedicated impulse buyers pause for thought, it seems as if PC owners really want to trudge through a grey field, before being held up by bandits and robbed of their shoes. A new post on the official DayZ blog reveals that the standalone alpha sold over 875,000 copies in the first three weeks of its release. That post also outlines some of the priority features that should see their way into the zombie sadistic jerk survival game over the following weeks and months.

"We didn t want to compromise on the brutal and unforgiving nature of the early days of the DayZ mod so we re very surprised to see such interest as this clearly is not a game for everyone," writes Bohemia's Marek Spanel, "especially considering that there are some radical changes under the hood in comparison to the mod."

"We re already seeing unbelievable player stories happening every day in the game even in its very limited Alpha and we re focused to make huge progress in 2014 on many areas of the game," he continues. "In the short term, we re going to focus on the most critical problems you re experiencing, and at the same time we re going to work on the road to the DayZ Beta."

That beta isn't due until much later in the year. In the shorter term, then, the team will be revisiting their roadmap towards the end of the month, but their top priorities are the following fixes and features:


Server performance, stability and security
Animals & hunting
Cooking & gathering resources
Playable user customizable vehicles
Player created constructions in the environment
More complex interactions with the environment and crafting options
Streamlined user actions and interface
Control and animations expanded and improved for fluidity
Upgraded graphics and physics engine (including ragdoll, etc.)
Support of user mods and more flexibility for user hosted servers and game types


Spanel wasn't wrong about the player stories that alpha DayZ is already producing. For examples, just see our round-up of the best DayZ videos so far.

DayZ has surpassed 400,000 sales after less than a month in alpha. That's enough players to generate plenty of horrifying and hilarious survival stories. Luckily for us, a few have been caught on camera. We've picked out a few of our favourites and gathered them below to offer a glimpse of the weirder side of Bohemia's survival horror sandbox. Read on to see one man's grand quest for a DayZ high five, and an encounter with a nightmarish musical killer.

The quest for a high-five in DayZ

Some have entered DayZ determined to survive at any cost, others just want to spread happiness up high, down low and on the rebound. 1TimeGames posted his attempt to high five a guy coming out of Grishino. The response was non-violent, but predictable, and perfectly timed.



Fortunately Koto and Sen picked up where his predecessor left off, and traveled the island recording the varying reactions to his quest for a high five. A noble cause in a post-apocalyptic world.



The Gentleman Bandit

Banditry is a way of life in DayZ. The best way to stay in supply is to take what you need from other players, but there's no need to be a dick about it, as Joab Gilroy demonstrates. His methodical robbery of a poorly armed player is so reasonably executed that his victim asks to team up.



An Agonising Execution

You've encountered a man with a broken leg dragging himself across the road in the middle of the zombie apocalypse. Do you A) laugh at him and run off or B) put the poor guy out of his misery so he can respawn and play again. Lir Ik makes the humane decision in the end, but his well intentioned attempts to axe murder a wounded and immobile man is more horrifying than it ever needed to be.



Dean "Rocket" Hall ambushed by a bandit

Not even DayZ's creators are safe from other players. In the middle of a livestream DayZ designer Dean Hall and his pals are ambushed by an unseen bandit in the dark. They hole up in a building, panicking, enjoying the same fear that all DayZ players have felt at some point in their careers.



An encounter with a psychopath

There are lots of murderers in DayZ, of course, but they're ordinary murderers who kill others for understandable reasons with conventional weaponry, like axes and assault rifles. It's rare to find a killer with a theatrical knack for menace, but this player did on one dark, quiet night.



Survivor Sonic

Also some players have started doing this. Nobody knows quite why.



The Wiggle Cultists

Is the collective raving of the Wiggle cultists some form of defence mechanism, like the squid spraying ink on predators? Or do they believe in the dark power of wiggling? It's impossible to tell, and nearly impossible not to giggle at the ranting and raving that greets this group of bandits.



More will surely surface in the months to come as DayZ grows and grows. Got some favourite DayZ videos and moments of your own? Share them in the comments.

Last week DayZ players on Reddit proposed a Christmas ceasefire to promote harmony and good will in this cheerful season of giving and eating until you explode. How's that going, then? I dipped into DayZ for an hour to see if the festive spirit has softened the relentlessly brutal survivalist nightmare of DayZ. Will I have a super happy rainbow fun time with a mob of new friends, or get horribly axe murdered by a stranger? I think we all probably already know the answer to that one.



I seem to have spawned into a Windows desktop background, but I have a spade. A spade that I refuse to raise against my fellow man on this, the day of DayZ Christmas ceasefire.

There's a whole lot of grass and zombies inland, so I plan to stick to the coastline and investigate some settlements. If I'm lucky, I'll find an airport or a military base that's populated by players not shooting each other.



There's no military base, but a petrol station will do nicely. It'll have an attached convenience store that might have a few bandages, or some food. There's also blatantly a zombie standing right outside - a great opportunity to find out what the undead population thinks about the Christmas ceasefire.



Things deteriorate rapidly when the zombie starts clawing at my torso instead of answering my questions. Don't they know it's Christmas? I resort to interviewing my subject repeatedly with my spade instead. He keels over and stops moving, but I'm set upon by two more walkers attracted by the commotion. I give them both the gift of Christmas spade and limp towards the petrol station, badly wounded.



I move into the back room of the petrol station and freeze. A human! We both do the DayZ stand-off, when strangers stand completely still for a moment, examining the others' equipment to see what level of threat they pose. He has an axe; I have a spade. We'd be evenly matched were it not for the gouts of blood spewing continuously from my chest. We both know I'm at his mercy. Will the Christmas spirit prevail?



The stranger kneels down in front of me. This is awkward and a little weird until I realise that he's bandaging me up. Yes! The Christmas spirit is strong with this one. I'm so grateful I mash the keys looking for a chat button and go prone instead. Embarrassed, I stand up again slowly and back out of the building. He watches quietly, and doesn't follow.



Wounded but inspired, I set off towards the next settlement, hoping to find supplies and more friendly humans. The town seems empty, so I duck into the nearest building, only to hear the tell-tale squawk of the undead nearby. Are they outside? Have they heard me?



Damn.





My second life starts near a build-up zone. I miss my spade, but find a wrench in a shed and continue toward town. I never make it. I'm shocked out of the exploration of a residence on the outskirts by the sound of a voice calling me.



"Hey. Come out!" says the voice. "You! At the window! I won't hurt you. I have no weapon. Come down." It's a human player talking using DayZ's local voice chat. There's something chilling about the slow delivery of his requests that makes me instantly distrust him. My instincts tell me to find a back door and run, but what cause do I have to run on this, the day of DayZ Christmas Ceasefire?



I leave the house and walk out to meet him. I notice that his chest holster is empty before I see the hideous clown mask. I mentally dub him Clownface, and only then notice the axe on his back. Not so unarmed after all. "I'm sick. I need charcoal," Clownface says. "Do you have any charcoal?" I don't. I shake my avatar's head with a waggle of the mouse. "I need to go and find some. Will you help me on my mission?"

Still worried, I nod my head with the mouse and he sets off down the road. As I follow I start to wonder why we're running away from the town, where we're more likely to find supplies.

After a few moments, Clownface stops. "One thing I will say. Don't take my stuff. That would be a bad idea, to take my stuff." I freeze for a moment, and then nod, wishing my mic was plugged in. I want to explain. I want to tell him about the man in the petrol station, and how he helped me, and how I was going to write an article about DayZ and the Christmas spirit and how people can form truces in the most fragile situations, even when there's no rule of law to enforce the peace. We stand completely still, staring at each other across the road. Suddenly, he draws his axe and charges.



I take a moment to react, startled by the attack. I draw the wrench under repeated blows from his weapon. Blood starts flying out of me, but I get in a few good shots. He goes down, unconscious. He mentioned that he was ill. He must have been weak. Why did he start the fight?



Panicked, I keep hitting his corpse, over and over again. 'What did I do?' I wonder. Perhaps he thought I planned to murder him. Perhaps it was always his plan to kill me. He may get his wish. I'm bleeding profusely, my vision is blurred. I try to loot his corpse for bandages, but his body is slowly sliding away. Eerily, it won't stop moving, which means I can't snatch any bandages he might possess. Clownface's corpse glides into the sea, and I feel a pang of despair. DayZ is still very much in alpha. This particular bug has doomed me.

I wander down the beach, knowing I'll never have time to find supplies and staunch my wounds. I'm done for. All I can do is walk and admire the waves for a few moments before my character keels over and the screen goes dark.