The first night

Build 42.21 on this server is the Viewpoint build, so the street already looks different from a vanilla isometric memory. O toggles first person. Shift+O flips between first and third. If the camera makes you nauseous, third person still works. Combat advice further down assumes you can see the swing, not that you enjoy it.

Do not fire a gun to “see if Gael’s pack loaded.” A shot is a dinner bell. The parking lot of any building with sheets on the windows is somebody’s bedroom. Walk. If you need a weapon in the first twenty minutes, a short blunt tool you can actually swing is enough. Buttstroke exists for a reason once you have a firearm, and it is quieter than the firearm.

What to take

A bag, a water container, something that cuts bandages, and one weapon you will not drop when your inventory fills. Knox Inventory is a grid. Tab opens it. If Tab does nothing, the Java half did not load, and you should stop and fix the loader before you fill a vanilla list you cannot see the same way everyone else does.

Better Sorting will rename and group a lot of junk. Read the category, not just the icon you remember from an older build. Has Been Read will mark skill books later. You do not need a library on night one. You need a room with one entrance.

Fitted Sheets means a bed is also a source of cloth, and a window with a sheet is a window that does not advertise your lamp. Take sheets from a house you are not claiming. Do not strip the beds inside a safehouse that already has a name on it.

Where to sleep

If someone is on and offers a couch, take it. The shared sleep at the moment is written up on the board as the laundromat. Showing up with a bag of their canned food is not the rent. Showing up with a spare hammer is.

If nobody is on, pick a small building off the main road. One door. Curtains or sheets up before the lamp goes on. Barricade the side you are not using as an exit, not every window, because you still have to leave. Push furniture only after you know you are staying. A chair scrape is noise.

Water, food, and the moodle you ignore

Drink before you are parched. Fill a bottle from a sink while the water is still safe, and keep that bottle. Cooking can wait until you have a pot and a heat source that is not a house fire. The food page is for the second day, when Project Cook and the expanded foods start mattering. Night one, a can you can open is a complete meal.

If you are exhausted, stop looting. A tired swing is how a single zombie becomes a grab. Sleep. The server will still be there.

If you die anyway

Say so in chat if anyone is on. Your bag stays your bag until you release it. You will not have a skill journal yet. Make one after you have skills worth writing down. That ritual is on the journal page, and it is the difference between a bad night and a deleted character.