echo38

So there's a stickied official announcement by the developer saying that private hives are okay, but the FAQ still says that in order to host, you must first contact the developer and must be able to host enormous amounts of players, and it must be public and connected to the master database, and must be up 24/7. So, how does this private hive thing really work? Say I want to host a small private hive--because, currently, there are zero Expert difficulty private Day Z hives (at least which show up on my <= 200-ping server list filter) for the last official release of Arma 2: Combined Operations, and also only one Expert server running the default "DayZ" mission for the current version of A2:CO. In short, there are very few options (exactly one) for those who use the current official version of A2:CO to play Day Z on Expert difficulty, and that one such server that does exist is constantly crashing (server-side, not client-side), losing data, and mass-kicking people for pings which often spike for all players at the same time (i.e. it's the server's connection problem). Well, mass-kicking is an exaggeration, because I've never seen more than five people on the server at once ... So, I want to host a small private hive--my connection is unable to handle a large number, and I want it to be private because my friends and I are tired of all the script kiddie cheaters. So, is this possible? Is it allowed? Where do I find the files required to host? I know about router configuration, at least for hosting other games, but I need to know the basics for Day Z-specific private hive hosting, such as how to get the mission to host. Can't find any info on this on the forum or wiki.

It's about the same as cheating in a single-player game. Not nearly as bad as cheating in multiplayer, but it's still rather lame.

Problem with the gear is things like light amplification goggles. At night, someone without night vision has no chance against someone with night vision goggles. I don't even mean PvP--someone without night vision can't do anything if there's someone around who has night vision. Some nights are so dark that I can't even move without turning on my light, because I could be walking into something nasty like one of those death-rocks or a man-eating willow. I've actually even bumped into ninja-zombies at night. Yeah, literally touching them before they make any sound. Turn on your light, and you're a beacon for anyone within a kilometer who has night vision goggles. Light shines through houses (not only through walls, but through the whole house!) for those with NVgoggles. And, suspiciously, it seems that everyone except for me has night vision goggles--even on servers where there's no known hacking, the percentage of people who have them is oddly high. For this reason, night vision is the holy grail to me. It is the most valuable piece of gear I can imagine, and I've only ever found one (it was on a corpse), despite having searched barracks and helicopters hundreds of times. When I lose it, I'm going to be devastated, because I'm going to again be completely helpless at night to all of the people who somehow mysteriously all have night vision goggles. I won't be able to effectively travel, let alone hunt zombies and search for supplies. Oh, sure, I could use the gamma exploit like everyone else, but if I need to use exploits in order to have a chance, then what's the point of playing? No, no, thanks, I don't use exploits. Really, night vision goggles gives such an enormous advantage that it shouldn't be in the game at all, especially because there's nothing a person can do to legitimately have a good chance of finding it.

I only play on Expert servers, unless there are none available. So, quitting because of all servers being expert would be the farthest thing from my mind.

What Expert servers? : / I'm not even joking. I'm only aware of three--count 'em, three--public-hive servers running the current version on Expert/Mercenary difficulty, at present. One's in Germany, one's in Luxembourg, and the other's in U.S.A. At least two of these are frequently down for entire days at a time, so there's a maximum of one that's reliably up (that'd be the Luxembourg one). Actually, I'm not even sure that the other two even exist anymore. Haven't seen them for two days. There are a few more private-hive Expert servers, but these are often just as unreliable, and also usually have the added requirement of signing up to a forum or something before joining. I play on one which is very good, but it is an exception--the only one I've found so far. As for your question, the answer is simple: people, as a rule, don't want to have to work in order to win. With few exceptions, they want to win without having to put forth any effort.

So, I've come up with a challenge for myself, and I'm wondering if anyone else might find it interesting. I'm a zombie hunter; my play style is to kill as many zombies as I can, with as high of a percentage of headshots as possible. Ideally, my every kill would be made by a single headshot, but I'm not that good at it. Now, if that were the only aspect of the challenge, it wouldn't be much of a challenge, primarily because of the building exploits. Shooting zombies in a building isn't that difficult, generally (although you can get overwhelmed if you're using a Lee-Enfield or something in a small one-door building), because of the zombies' artificial indoor speed limitation. So, I've made a few rules to make the challenging more interesting: 1. Kill as many zombies as possible, as rapidly as possible. 2. Always aim for the head. 3. Never enter a building to escape a zombie. 4. Never shoot a zombie while you are in a building. 5. Never shoot a zombie while he is in a building. 6. Do not deliberately utilize the uphill-walking exploit. 7. Never walk onto a dock to escape or avoid zombies. 8. And, of course, everything must be 100% legit. No logging to escape death (even to zombies!), no server hopping to find better equipment, etc. Well, what say you? Anyone else up for it? : D

Hoo, boy! That'll be rough, I think. I had to give up my beloved AKM and replace it with an AKS-74U, because my very loud AK-47 was getting me killed. A Winchester 1866 is just as loud, but not nearly as effective. Good luck! It's quite possible to shoot them while they're zig-zagging, but I tend to simply sprint away once they notice me. A few seconds later, usually, I've lost them in trees or around a corner, and then I peek out and shoot them again while they're shambling.

This is normal, realistic helicopter behavior. In order to maintain altitude at any attitude*, a helicopter must have positive collective. Positive collective means torque, which will cause the helicopter to yaw if anti-torque pedal is not correctly applied. Applying anti-torque pedal will also cause some sideways drift, by the way. Also, due to gyroscopic effect, any change in pitch will also result in a rolling motion (and vice versa), which will then require an additional adjustment of collective to prevent altitude loss or gain, which will then require more torque pedal adjustment. There's also things like P-factor, propwash vortexes, and other things which can cause lateral instability under various conditions. And I'm not even going to try to explain things like retreating blade stall and vortex ring state. You really need to do more research, at the very least, before trying to say that something's wrong with ToH. Real helicopters are inherently unstable, and so flying a real helicopter is extremely difficult and complicated. It takes, at the very least, dozens of hours of practice to get the basics. Thousands of hours to master. It isn't altogether unlike trying to balance three plates on three sticks while riding a unicycle on a tightrope. I'm not going to say that TOH is 100% realistic. There are a few things wrong with it, by several expert accounts. But, it's a fairly reasonable approximation. You may want to examine your control bindings to be sure that your controls aren't part of the problem. * Actually, if you're inverted, I think positive collective would increase your altitude loss. But you generally shouldn't be inverted in a helicopter anyway, of course. In real life, I've only flown fixed-wing aircraft, so I'm not an expert on helicopters. With that disclaimer: as I understand it, modern helicopters use mechanisms not altogether dissimilar to the constant-speed propeller, only in reverse. A CSP's governor automatically adjusts prop pitch to match the RPM set with the propeller lever. I believe that modern helicopters have a similar governor which adjusts thrust to match desired blade angle or RPM--I'm not sure exactly how it works, but I don't think that modern helicopters require throttle movements in normal flight conditions. The only time I can think of that one adjusts the throttle during flight is while practicing autorotations. Again, not a heli expert, so don't take my word about the throttle. P.S. See this rather well-known video of a real helicopter noob having some difficulties rather like what you seem to be having: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfvqdIPJVsk

No one is interested in trying this out? Do I have to make a movie to show what this plays like?

I've noticed that in Day Z, there are two different words for the highest difficulty setting. Officially, in the game, it's called Expert (although, digging into some of the game files shows that it is, at least sometimes, called Mercenary in these files); that's what you'll see in the menu options. However, most of the server titles call it Mercenary. I'm baffled by why the decision was made (by whoever) to obfuscate things further. It's very difficult to find a maximum-difficulty server in this game, because the great majority of servers run lower difficulty settings. Having two different keywords to search for makes things twice as hard. Why was the decision made to informally call max-diff "Mercenary," even though "Expert" is still the name for it in the game options, and who made that decision?

Dreygar, you might want to do a little bit more research on how real helicopters work. If you don't understand why you've always got to be jockeying the torque pedals, then you don't have any idea of how helicopters work.

While I agree with the assessment of Erizid and others, which assessment explains for much of the hack-users' behavior, there's another element which hasn't been mentioned yet: it's a defining human element to use tools, and almost a defining human element to maximize effectiveness of one's tools. Let's ignore hack-users for an example, and instead focus on legit players: most legit players use the most effective tools the game offers them, such as thermal scopes, night vision, and GPS. It is a very unusual player who deliberately handicaps himself by using iron sights only, and who never uses the "you are here" GPS, preferring instead to navigate solely by map and compass. (I am such a player, because I enthusiastically enjoy this challenge, although my friends think me a masochist for it. But even I use light amplification goggles, albeit that's only because I can't possibly survive at night when they have NV goggles and I don't.) So, most legit players use the best tools they can find, and most of these also use the most effective bug-exploits (e.g. zombies walking indoors) that they can use without being labelled non-legit, and so on. They are, in short, maximizing the effectiveness of their tools. A real-life comparison is a soldier choosing a gun over a spear. (People want to win, and they generally don't care how, as long as their method does not result in undesirable consequences for them.) This is also what the hack-users are doing, only they don't care (for whatever personal causes) about legitimacy. Just as a real-life soldier doesn't care that it "isn't fair" to use a laser-guided bomb on an enemy machine gun nest, and just as a legit player usually doesn't care that it isn't fair for him to use a sniper rifle on a player who has only a pistol, the hack-user doesn't care that it isn't fair to use a hack-script on a guy who doesn't use one. In conclusion, there are several elements at play in the minds of hackers, and these are just some of them: the near-universal element of human nature which enjoys causing unhappiness to others (which others in this thread have pointed out), and the near-universal element of human nature which seeks to maximize the effectiveness of one's own tools in order to gain an advantage over the foe who has only lesser tools, and that which causes people to not object to unfairness when the unfairness works in their favor.

I know someone here can beat that. Go, go, go!

Whenever you hit "Abort," you are shown a score screen. Your score is the number of zombies you have killed on your present character.

Ah, but that would violate rule number one! The tactic I've found works best for me involves using a moderately-quiet rifle (I use AKS-74SU) at medium range (perhaps 200 yards). Pop zombies in the head as they stagger about, then when they start to hear you, sprint around a building (or through a dense cluster of bushes. Once you've broken line of sight once, drop into a crouch-run and run around a second building (or through another bush). You should have only just begun to pant when you come to a stop, and the zombies, being zombies, should have forgotten about you because of the double LoS-loss. Out of sight, out of mind! Repeat.

So far, I've only managed to get a maximum of about 1500 zombie kills on each character before dying to various causes. I haven't been able to significantly surpass that figure yet, but I know a good (and lucky) player can do it, because I'm still rather new to Day Z and there must be a lot of better marksmen & tacticians out there. How about you?

First hour ever playing the game, I met two hack-users, about ten minutes apart. After that, I encountered them at rate of approximately one every two days. Since switching to private hives, it's gone down dramatically, although one particular private hive I was playing on got bombed* really hard and frequently, so much so that I quit that server forever. * Literally. Chernogorsk and Electrozavodsk were suffering non-stop satchel explosions for hours. The cities were little more than a pair of rubble piles by evening.

My first hour ever in the game, I encountered two separate hack-users (one hostile, one friendly) who teleported me to them. That was about three weeks ago. To this date, I've encountered as many hack-users within the game as I have legit players; that is, 50% of my unique player encounters have involved the other player using a hack. A private hive with a good admin can indeed have a very low instance of hack-use, but on public hive servers, hack-use is almost the norm. Forgive my bluntness, but your assertion that hacking is no longer a problem is the biggest piece of B.S. I've seen since the presidential election campaign advertisements. Perhaps you have vested interest in down-playing the hack-using problem? As for the bugs; I've died legitimately ~8 times* (by various causes--mostly zombies, but 2 to legit players), died to hack-use ~4 times, and I've died to bugs ~18 times. Some of those bug-deaths are avoidable once one is familiar with the bug and its workaround, but other bug-deaths are unavoidable regardless. (An example being the time I randomly died while jogging across a flat plain with no rocks or other objects near me ... full health to death in zero seconds, with no other players on the server, and not a zombie in sight.) That should be enough good information for the O.P. to ascertain whether or not this mod has a high enough level of polish for his liking. I myself presently enjoy Day Z despite the bugs (well, it's a love-hate thing ...), and I haven't encountered any hack-users on the private-hive server I play on now, but the O.P. was asking about the hack-use and the bugs, and it's only fair to give him an honest answer. * Discounting the many newspawn deaths to zombies before I figured out that LoS-loss is featured. ; )

I didn't have the mind for the long crawl, the one time I broke my legs without any morphine. I was at the northwest airfield. So I stuck something on my W key and went AFK. I was dead at the hands of zombies by the time I got back. I hoofed my way up north from the coast, and reached the airfield without incident. I couldn't find my corpse, and so I gave up, but six hours later I was passing through the same area on another errand, and I found my body with all my gear. : D

So, since the config file lists "Mercenary" in Operation Arrowhead, and not only in Day Z, it appears that the change was made by BIS. However, since the actual game options still call it Expert and not Mercenary, the community really should have continued to call it Expert, since that's what it's called in the game itself. Not many people dig into the config files, compared with how many people play multiplayer (in which it is again called Expert, as well as in the game options and hosting options). In short, it looks like BIS--for some odd reason--made an internal change, which is only found in the files themselves, and then some of the community irrationally began using that term, even though the game itself (the main menu options, the hosting options, and the server list display) always uses the Expert term. What a mess! Why doesn't the community simply refrain from using the "Mercenary" term until BIS actually officially changes it? Right now, it's still officially Expert, or it wouldn't say that in the game itself (as opposed to what one finds when digging in the config files). Sticking to what it's actually called in the game would eliminate virtually all of the considerable confusion currently present, and would make it much easier for max-diff players to find servers.

Yeah, these are mislabelled servers. If it's actually running Expert difficulty, crosshairs aren't possible at all. Try it out--go to the game options, hit Difficulty, select Expert, and hit Edit. The crosshair option, along with almost everything else, is red and cannot be enabled. Many servers have Expert in the title, but are actually running Veteran with crosshairs on. That's surely what you're seeing. See my other thread on mislabelled servers: http://dayzmod.com/f...belled-servers/

Do tell. I have always been told that they are the same, and I've never heard otherwise until now. I'm not seeing anything at all about the subject in the manual or wiki.

There is a large number of the official-hive servers which do not follow the official naming standard. Worse, there are quite a few official-hive servers which are actively mislabelled, regardless of the standards. For example, there are servers which say in their title that they are Expert/Mercenary difficulty servers, but they actually run Veteran or Normal difficulty setting. Is there some place where these servers can be reported, or is nothing done about the problem of servers being mislabelled? Generally, I can't even contact the server admin about this problem, because there is no contact information (nor, as far as I can see, any information which could be used to find it). Not that contacting the admin would be a good solution, because if they C.B.A. to name it right in the first place, they probably C.B.A. to fix it after being asked by a player.

Heh--at least that'd let people know what they're in for! In seriousness, any name-change at all for the difficulty levels is a really ill-thought idea, for all sorts of reasons. Anyone can figure out that "Expert" difficulty means a high difficulty, but "Mercenary" difficulty isn't so self-explanatory. But, more importantly than the logic of the word itself, "Expert" was already established for a decade within the game series. Changing it is unnecessary, and, beyond unnecessary, it causes all sorts of confusion now. When I'm looking for a max-diff server, I now have to run two different searches, modifying the filter twice--one to look for servers with "Expert" in the title, checking them for other parameters, and then a second time for "Mercenary." It's the same damn thing! Why the doubling of the effort for the search process, which is difficult enough already due to their rarity? And there are quite a few servers which have mislabelled it altogether, calling it Mercenary when it's actually running a lower difficulty setting, so that makes it even worse. It's just a terrible idea all around to have two terms used for the same difficulty level; is there any decent reason, which I am perhaps overlooking, for it? And was it BIS who started the trend, or the Day Z team, or some sort of weird movement within the community?

I am looking for a private hive server to play regularly on, but I have some fairly specific requirements which eliminate most of the servers. They are as follows: * Expert difficulty. * No hackers, script kiddies, or other cheaters. I understand that it's impossible to keep 100% of them out, but if it happens once a week, that's too many. * Unmodified "Day Z" mission--the only difference between this server and an official hive server must be that it is a private hive. * Side chat off. * U.S.A. server location. * Server must not suffer from frequent resets which "eat" vehicles and tents. Once in a while is one thing, but if it happens every week, that's a deal-breaker. * Server must not be operated & dominated by a clan. * Server administrators must not abuse administrative abilities to gain an advantage in gameplay. Can anyone think of any servers which meet all of those requirements? I realize that this may be difficult, but perhaps there is at least one out there.