First off, it should not be so hard to register on the forums, took me almost 20m due to not knowing the answer a question it asked.
Second, some tips I have found: (I play with night vision, weak scent, and light step, so they may not work for everyone)
When you are playing for the first time, get a crowbar, as practically everyone recommends. (Rock + pipe from locker) Once you have your crowbar, find a way to waste time until night, such as throwing rocks to level your throwing skill up, or crafting/deconstructing things to level crafting skills. Once it is night, find the nearest house in town and apply the crowbar to the BACK door (A key). This will let you in with a minimum of noise, preventing the whole getting your face eaten off problem. From there, circle the house in either direction along the wall, when you come to a window, close the curtains from the diagonal (C key) - this minimizes the chances of anything that may happen to have night vision from seeing you, if anything is out front.
Once you have done that, you will have a base of operations at the edge of the city, so long as you did not manage to break anything inside. If you have any zombies while clearing it, lure them out through the back before you try to kill them - you don’t want noise attracting more zombies inside.
Another tip - if you cannot find enough leather to craft anything, try zombies. Plenty of them wear leather clothing. Likewise, if you cannot find plastic chunks, try zombies. Footwear seems to give plastic quite often if you cut it up (shift+B)
For vehicles, I highly recommend a motorcycle to start with, very low fuel usage, and it is quite speedy. Find an empty area such as in a field and start spinning in circles to level your driving skill (hit 8 on keypad once to speed up, then hold 4 or 6) and try to hit level four or so. I believe you stop losing control then. After that, you can zoom around to check out garages – you want an acetylene torch, and hopefully welding goggles. You can then tear the cargo storage off of a truck and weld it to the motorcycle to carry huge amounts of loot back to your safehouse. The same torch can also breach the bank vaults (A key, direction of metal door) letting you get very high end equipment as long as you have a picklock kit and stethoscope, which you can find in a hospital, though that is rather dangerous. With high strength, you could also try smashing the safes.
Another tip for if you get a van/truck instead of a motorcycle - put curtains up on all the windows, and replace the quarterpanels with boards to block vision. Each curtain needs a sheet, but allows you to close your doors twice to block sight, or close your windshield to block sight. This can be a HUGE help, as you can then sleep in a ‘non-safe’ area and have much lower risk of waking up to having your face eaten off.
For trying to loot, again at night time, try checking each vehicle you come across for a horn (E key on any part of the key selects driver seat where the horn is by default) - if it has a horn, you can honk it a time or two (E+direction of seat, then hit V to go to controls, then you can select the horn) and it will attract all nearby zombies. Then just run off and enjoy being able to avoid zombies easier due to them all being in one little area.
If you need a fire to cook food or boil water, try cutting up some wood into splintered wood (shift+B while standing on a pile of wood, then cut it up) - then drop one splinter of wood outside and light it on fire. It lasts a surprisingly long time, and you can easily cook a few meat or boil a few bottles of water with it.
If at all possible, try to find the following: kukri (mil surplus, maybe sporting goods store?), refillable lighter, antibiotics (pharmacy, house bathroom), sheath/holster/scabbard, nailgun (hardware store), and any small knives/rocks/etc. The kukri knife slaughters things with ease. The refillable lighter can use gas (quite common) to refill again and again preventing the problem of not having a fire source. The sheath/holster/scabbard allow you to hold your weapon for zero volume by wearing them, though the weight still applies. Nailgun is nearly silent and burst fire does surprising amounts of damage and is very easy to hit with at point-blank range. And any small knives or rocks can be used as throwing weapons to take down spitters or shockers to avoid their nasty side effects. Additionally, you can throw them into windows at night if you are being hunted to distract whatever is after you.
If you apply your sewing kit/soldering iron, you can repair clothing, then refit it, then reinforce it. Practice both using clothing found on the ground, and rags obtained by cutting up clothing you find. Try not to work on your own equipment until level 2-3 in tailoring. You can also use the soldering iron on metal weapons to repair and reinforce them. I have found that a handful of reinforced knives is quite potent when you need to kill something - just keep chucking knives into its face as you retreat.
Shotguns bad. BIG BOOM draws in all the zombies, more big booms fighting them, then you get swarmed and die. Guns bad. Bang = more zombies, more bangs, more zombies. If you must use a gun, get a silencer, or be sure you can kill anything that comes your way. Bows, crossbows, and throwing are much safer alternatives for ranged combat.
If in doubt, get a lot of attention and run into a house with a back door, race through, close the door, then set the house on fire. You can easily kill 30+ zombies at once doing this, even if you do not stand a chance in direct combat.
Strength is nice, but intelligence keeps you alive. Be tricky if you want to stay breathing.
