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Recommended
175.1 hrs last two weeks / 9,129.0 hrs on record (4,876.8 hrs at review time)
Posted: 4 May, 2023 @ 10:58am
Updated: 14 May, 2023 @ 11:27pm

Check my hours played. Satisfied? Okay.

Don't bother with Vanilla Official servers. They are infested tryhards, russians, and hackers. Go straight to getting an alternate launcher like DZSA or MAgic Launcher. It will make life easier.

Go find a nice PVE server to learn how the game works. Avoid PVP servers until you are solid on game mechanics, and learn a good loot path. Perhaps try one of the Alternate maps like Namalsk or Deerisle.

Mods make this game work. Period. Unmodded servers are trash and boring. Just go straight for something crazy like BearMountain or something and play on a hyper modded server for max fun.

Play over 4,000 hours in PVE and enjoy the silence and leisure of not having worry about psychopathic murder hobos just looking for something breathing to shoot. Hunt bears. Hunt Giant Orange Murder bears using a .338 Lapua Magnum Rifle, and get killed anyway. Try a Barrett .50 cal with a 100 Round Mag! Get killed by a polar bear in a fog bank. Twice. Its fun!

Trust me. PVP is for sweats and hackers. Don't worry about it. Just treat this game like a PVE game and pretend like PVP doesn't even exist. Its not worth the effort or stress!

I have played on between 100 and 1,000 servers. Closer to 1,000 than 100. Every server has issues. some just disappear overnight. Find one you can bear, and stick with it. make friends. Make nice with the mods. Join their discord. Become a mod. Ride the server into the ground until everyone hates each other and three people have mental breakdowns and shut it down. Repeat the process ad-nauseum. Its fun!

If you really want to engage in the PVP experience after learnign the basics, have at it! There can be some great interactions out there... But You are much more likely to get sledgehammered in the face by a guy yelling "Am Friendly!" in a russian accent than you are to have the kinds of interactions you see from scripted videos in carefully regulated and curated servers. I can honestly guarantee from watching many of the videos, that most of those are modded servers with administration tools that are made to look vanilla. Many of those "Organic interactions" are not. If you can watch someone play for 9 hours, and they never get KOS'd (Killed on sight) or have some bizarre interaction in broken english... then its fake or curated.

Edit: I have received several questions about some of the things I mentioned here!
1: I suggest avoiding the Arma 3 Dayz version simply because it is not an official method playing the game and has dramatically fewer people playing at any given moment.

2: Third Party launchers are strongly suggested simply for speed and ease of use. They work from lists of servers that get supplied from the community, and thus load almost instantly compared to the Vanilla launcher, which can take several or many minutes at a moment to load or update.
Furthermore, different 3rd party launchers offer more flexible management of mods and list the mods you have installed and available much more readily. They also tend to allow you to search easier and update mods as needed much quicker.

3:Any aggressive or offensive comments will deleted. I won't engage if you are insulting or rude. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Once you learn how the game works, jump into some PVP, get clapped from 1.9 Km by a guy with a Mosin. Nine times. Get raided by a party of players hopped up on godmode with Admins helping them. Never go bakc to PVP or PVP/PVE Hybrid servers again!
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33 Comments
John Raeder 29 Sep, 2023 @ 1:36pm 
I think that Bear Mountain has dropped their servers, I could be wrong, I agree that MiddleAgedGamers run good servers. Good review and suggestions, many of the reviews that trash the game seem to be people complaining about PvP, if they just played on a PvE server they would not have the KoS problems they say are ruining the game.
Soraääni 30 May, 2023 @ 9:09am 
I do enjoy vanilla servers tho.
Koala 29 May, 2023 @ 6:36am 
I have been playing this game since the first few years of the arma mod. I have taken about 7 years off. Your review is excellent, especially the server bit. This game got me into gaming and the good times I had on my original server were some of the best in gaming. Carry on friend.
Celendrin 29 May, 2023 @ 1:25am 
One of the best reviews I ever read,

and thanks for pointing out how 'scripted' (or 'fake') so much of video game-playing is,

whatever gets those youtube counts is all that matters nowadays...

(and I mean any and all games, not just this one,

in fact 99% of youtube is all fake, and people don't even realize it.. )
LykosNychi 28 May, 2023 @ 8:03am 
I have to agree with most of this except the map and the infinite stamina, but if that's how you like to play the game, then that's how you like to play the game.

For new players, I do recommend trying to play without the ingame map as much as possible, keep the sense of mystery and exploration until you get tired of it.

Infinite stamina definitely takes away from balance, although that balance is usually PvP related, even in PvE stamina is important, and having infinite stamina means you can always escape any non-AI-with-gun threat by... climbing on top of something.

Stamina is an integral part of the game, and learning how to manage it and what to bring is important, though I do champion servers which have some increased, but not unlimited stamina.
Ashrubel 28 May, 2023 @ 1:19am 
Other mods to look for:

Morty's Weapons: Just a really nice, well balanced set of guns with interesting attachments and scopes. Very fun for PVE. My suggestion is the .300 Blackout Sig Virtus with a 60 round double mag. Makes shooting zombies actually entertaining.
Most of the guns take attachemnts like stocks, foregrips, bipods, and silencers.

MVS/Modular Vest system/MMG : These are various armor systems that offer pouches and attachments. They come in various camo patterns and make the process of building a kit a bit more involved and interesting. It makes the game feel much more like you came here for a fight, and less like you fell out the back of a russian jalopy on the way to mug some guys grandma.

These just add more depth and complexity to gear.
Ashrubel 28 May, 2023 @ 1:18am 
Generally the mods I look for for a good time and less headache are as follows:

Infinite Stamina: If you are running for days, you don't want to have to stop every 35 seconds. It doesn't take away balance, and with high loot, you will be packing like 2 to 4 guns as your primary weapons against various kinds of threats.

Map Mods: Just hit "M" on login, and if a map doesn't come up, pass. Maps make PVE playable for most situations, and unless you can confirm that there is a mod that gets enabled by having a map in inventory, its usually just a headache to bother.

Diesel Gear: While it is often unbalanced and insanely powerful stuff... it generally indicates that there are things that call for bigger calibers and massive magazines. If you see Diesel mods, you know you're in for a fight. Good stuff 95% of the time.
Ashrubel 28 May, 2023 @ 1:17am 
@Everyone Requesting Server Recs:

Servers come and go and drop off so often, and every update seems to kill the server I'm on for a day or two, so trying to recc a server is a nightmare.

Like others have said... Most Namalsk servers that are full PVE tend to be pretty good. I would actually suggest a Namalsk server with no Trader, as the trader there kills the experience.
If you want something a bit more straightforward, Bearmountain and MiddleAgedGamers run a tight ship. Good mods and tons of PVE threats.


For Namalsk maps:

ToxicDrip has always treated me well and the admins are friendly.

Dreamwarrior has some decent mods, and if you are wanting to build they have good support.

White PEak PVE has been good in the past, but recent updates took it offline for me for a while and I havent tried it in a while.

Isolation Namalsk has some pretty complex PVE addons that make it a bit more challenging.
Gromulus 27 May, 2023 @ 4:50pm 
Do you have any PvE Server Recommendations?
LUCAS 27 May, 2023 @ 7:42am 
Lol that is the beauty of the game. You can play it however you want, and it is still fun.