Getting the hang of it now ... combat system still sucks, but I've got hunger and thirst under control. Turns out that you spawn in near death (pretty much starving and dehydrated), so you need to imbibe large quantities of food and liquid to restore yourself to health. Once you're full of food and drink though (Energized and Hydrated statuses respectively) you need much less, and you also start to heal.
EDIT 1:
Yeah ... logged out, came back later ... char reset >.< Lotsa bugs.
EDIT 2:
The game IS buggy, but it's also pretty darn addictive. The whole concept of putting together your own survival inventory and dealing with (1) player threats; (2) zombie threats; (3) hunger / thirst requirements; (4) environmental hazards; (5) various status effects (eg food poisoning from eating rotted food; infection from drinking untreated water or not treating wounds) is really immersive.
Because your inventory is currently persistent across all servers, some people server hop on low population servers and gear up with minimal risk that way. It's pretty wussy and would take most of the fun out of the game though. The fun really is in creeping through high-risk military bases on servers with decent populations, scoping out and clearing each area before you dare move through it.
I played quite a bit yesterday and have managed to gear up with high level sniper equipment. I haven't yet had to engage anyone in combat as I've been avoiding it, but next gaming session I'll move back to one of the contested city areas and see what happens. I'll be playing to assist rather than as a bandit which will no doubt end up getting me killed rather quickly, but that's all part of the fun
