BC_Hawke

US434 and US3480 are the most populated vanilla servers I know of. Both are on the public hive. 434 is a bit more hardcore as it actually has dark nights sometimes where as 3480 is full moon every night.

dotjosh came out of hiding to reply to a comment I made on Reddit :) http://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/27w4qf/dayz_commander_help/

True. It's a cinch now to switch between versions. I've linked to your post on Reddit on both r/dayz and r/dayzmod. Lots of people are seeing it. What cracks me up is the "No, DZC works fine for me thankyou" comments. I supposed I could have prefaced the title link more or worded the title better. http://www.reddit.com/r/DayZmod/comments/27v693/psa_for_anyone_having_troubles_connecting_to_181/ http://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/27v6f9/psa_for_anyone_having_troubles_connecting_to_181/

THANK YOU! This worked for me as well! Word about this needs to get out.

Good info! Especially #5. This video is from back around 1.8.0, but I think it is still applicable:

My friends and I fell into this trap early on, but then we went through a series of changes. The first was finding out we could stash our valuables in a well hidden tent or stash and go Leroy Jenkins anywhere we wanted to. Then, after dying, come back and get our gear. Then I got to a point where that wasn't satisfying. It took the thrill out. So, I started going to places like Cherno and Elektro with my friends fully geared with DMR, M14, NVGs, Rangefinders, and ghillie. I'd certainly get mad when I died with all that gear, but then, after relying on it for so long, I realized I had forgotten how fun it was to start with nothing and make my way around Chernarus with minimal gear. The final step was realizing that once you become good at the game, you can re-gear in a fairly short period of time (save the super rare items like NVGs and rangefinders). Even on a populated vanilla server you can get all the essentials without too much risk, especially if you have friends watching your back.

Agreed, I have been doing this successfully, however, I failed to back up my expansions folder before updating via Steam and have no way of getting it back. I was going to have a friend zip it and send it to me since he hasn't updated, but I might look at the method Jimmy just posted. Jimmy, could this be the case? It would be nice to be able to join 3480 without overhauling everything.

Be aware, though, that anybody that updates via steam while their beta is at 112555 or higher is *stuck* there and cannot downgrade to 103718 and therefore won't be able to join your server. Even deleting and reinstalling Arma 2 OA beta starts it out at a more recent update and DZC can no longer downgrade it. I suppose I could try wiping all of Arma 2, Arma 2 OA, and Arma 2 OA beta and reinstalling, but I don't know if that will do anything. This is a real bummer for the vanilla DayZ fans. Even the people in my group that used to play nightly have wandered off to play other games due to the confusion and low pop on vanilla servers.

I have updated Arma 2 OA to 124802 via steam and Arma 2 OA beta to 116523 via steam and I cannot connect to 3480 when launching from the 116523 beta ("Bad Version, server rejected connection"). I can launch Arma 2 OA 124802 via steam to connect to 124802 servers (I connected to US 435), and I can launch Arma 2 OA Beta116523 via Steam or my own shortcut and connect to 112555 servers (I connected to US 434). But I *cannot* connect to 3480 which is on 103718 when launching with 116523. Also, since I updated Arma 2 OA via steam to 124802, DZC will no longer let me downgrade to 103718. Not sure what to do. I can't join a 103718 server unless I uninstall everything and start from scratch.

I had an FX-8150 with a GTX 770 card and wasn't happy with performance in cities. I decided to upgrade to the 8350 because it benchmarked well in Arma 2 vs the similarly priced 3570k. Well, it does *better* than it did, but it's still crappy for an 8 core processor OC'd to 4.4Ghz because of the above mentioned fact that it really depends on single thread performance. That being said, it's not horrible with my setup. I get anywhere from 40-90fps in the wilderness (depending on server performance), but on a full server with lots of players and zombies nearby, I'll get anywhere from 15-30fps in the cities. Luckily it tends to average around 25-30, but it's when it dips to 15 that it gets nearly unplayable. specs: AMD FX-8350 OC'd to 4.4Ghz 16 Gigs DDR3 GTX 770 2GB superclocked 128GB SSD

Woah, this sounds interesting! That's where I grew up. Now that you mention it, it's a fantastic idea for a DayZ map, considering the military bases on the outskirts and the elevation change. Thing is, though, it's a really large area (nearly 6 times larger). Are you going to scale it down, or use just a certain portion of it?

I know that humanity is a hot topic in the DayZmod world, but I wanted to throw out a couple of thoughts I have on the subject in light of some of the changes to the medical system in 1.8.1. As most of us know, the medical system is more complicated in 1.8.1, which is fantastic, but it also means that it's more difficult to gain humanity while losing humanity is still very easy to do. This has lead to some discussion on the possibility of changing or even removing humanity from the mod. Well, this is my plea that whatever is done in the upcoming patches, please please please don't remove the system entirely! Here's why I think it's important: One of the biggest factors that attracted me to DayZ is persistence. It's a persistent, realtime world on a 24 hour clock that exists without you when you log out. Nothing outside of what you carry in your inventory is safe once you log out. The game provides harsh, and sometimes lasting consequences for the choices you make. You really have to be careful in this game or it will bite you in the butt later. Should I venture all the way to NWAF and loot the barracks without finding some morphine first? Is this really a safe place to hide this car for the night? Should I ruthlessly shoot this survivor, or risk talking to him and maybe teaming up with him? In this game death is incredibly harsh. Some call it permadeath, but it's not really permadeath when you can run back to your body and reclaim your gear. Even if you can't get to your body, there's always more loot to be found, and vehicles will respawn eventually after you crash or lose them. The only really two really persistent things in this game is the 24 hour day/night cycle, and...humanity. A lot of people criticize the humanity system for many different reasons. Sure, it's flawed and can always use some tweaking and changing, but I personally think it adds so much to the core gameplay. It really makes you think about the consequences of your actions. It leads to very interesting scenarios, from survivors helping each other out to a hero taking the risk of trusting a bandit and letting him go. This is an identity that you carry with you. It's something that stays with you, making the consequences for your actions really matter. So many people became interested in DayZ because of the social aspects of the game. The fear of interacting with people that you're not sure if you can trust. The humanity system put a very base level ruleset into what is mostly a sandbox game that offers just enough guidance to make interactions really intriguing. The humanity system also offers a whole new challenge to the game. PvP, looting, gathering vehicles, all take a certain amount of skill, but adding the factor of trying to maintain a humanity status makes all of those aspects of the game more challenging. Simply shooting someone can be very easy. On the other hand, approaching him and trying to be friendly while maintaining the upper hand is very challenging. It makes you question whether or not to enter certain situations rather than just saying screw it and going in with guns blazing. It gives you an incentive to think about situations before you walk into them. Without the humanity system, people have no incentive to trust or talk to someone, and betraying people brings no consequence with it. This is my plea to the devs to not abandon the system, but rather improve upon it. You guys have already proven with the 1.8.1 patch that you have the skill and direction to take the game in an amazing direction, one that in my opinion improves upon but stays true to Dean Hall's original idea of a post apocalyptic zombie survival game. I believe you can do the same with humanity. TL;DR: The humanity system certainly has flaws, but I feel it is an integral part of the game and that the devs should develop and improve upon it rather than lose it altogether.

I just wanted to add some more feedback after playing all weekend. Again, *can't* stress it enough, this update is FANTASTIC! Really brings DayZ back to it's roots! I'm enjoying the fact that elements like hunting, cooking, and crafting are actually useful now and in some cases a necessity. I love the changes to the infected campsites, and the fact that you can loot tents and pack them up. I love that you really have to be wary of zombies now, and I find myself using my M9SD a lot more frequently. I'm also a huge fan of what you've done to limit the lifetime of tools like hatches, knives, matchboxes, etc. We now find ourselves actually looting towns rather than just passing by them. This gives it a genuine apocalyptic feel, yet avoids crossing the line to be tedious. It really doesn't feel like a grind similar to so many other games. The sense of fear, isolation, and the necessity to work to stay alive is finally back, and the game feels so much more complete. I wanted to amend something I said in my first response to 1.8.1. I said that I felt the hunger meter goes up too high. While it can be a struggle for fresh spawns that don't have the necessary tools to hunt and cook, I'm finding that I *really* do like the necessity to gather food and keep my character healthy. If you do change it, *PLEASE* don't change it drastically. It's really change the game for the better to need to hunt animals and cook fresh meat. I can't ever remember being so overjoyed to see a cow in an open field in DayZ. :) Either way, keep up the good work. I'd really like to see a revival in the vanilla DayZ player base. I honestly think 1.8.1 offers so much of what the SA crowd likes about the game.

I've noticed the exhaustion bug in both servers running 112555 and 103718. 103718 was the beta patch used for 1.8.0, right? Just wanted to mention that in case it means anything.

So, are you saying that as a client I can install the 116523 beta patch and play on your server running 103718? Currently I have 112555 installed and I can join US434, but when I want to play on 3480 I cannot join and have to apply the 103718 patch. I'm assuming 116523 is available through steam, correct?

Here you go: http://dayz.gamepedia.com/Mod:Weapons

This question is not directed not at the DayZ mod devs, but rather the server admins that might be watching this thread. What's the deal with admins running different Arma 2 beta patches? The Readme on how to update is a sticky in this forum: http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/198513-arma2-oa-beta-patch-system-update-admins-clients-please-read/ I get that admins are worried that clients that rely on DZC might not be able to connect right away, but is it a better alternative to have various servers running on literally 3 different Arma 2 patches? It's mass confusion amongst players right now, and when people ask for help in communities like Reddit you can't direct them to the Readme because it ultimately depends on which server they're loyal to. US434 is on 112555, US3480 is still on 103718, and only a handful of servers are on 124802. Let's face it, DayZ mod (especially vanilla servers) doesn't have a huge player base anymore, and dividing such a small community even further is going to make it worse. The 1.8.1 release is a refreshing and exciting change for the mod that's been long awaited, and it's being used as a talking point on Reddit and the forums to get people to come back to or try out the mod; but that potential for gaining new players is being ruined by the mass confusion of what beta patch to run. It's sad to see the population plummet on the few remaining official DayZ mod servers because of this. :(

I'd love to see this system tweaked and improved, but whatever you do, please don't lose it all together. Though many people criticize it, I think the humanity system adds so much to the game. It offers incentive to choose different styles of gameplay. It has a persistence factor which is congruent with the themes of this game. It adds so much to player interactions. It gives you a reason to hold people up and/or approach them rather than just blowing them away from 500m with a sniper rifle without reason.

I'll get the few, puny negatives out of the way first so I can end on how damn good this patch is: - Nutrition: we *LOVE* the new nutrition mechanics, but we feel that the rate at which your hunger meter goes up is just a tad high. So far we've found that we spend the entire night gathering food and eating it, and haven't yet really had a chance to get into much PvP or repair vehicles - Exhaustion: I saw a post in the bug tracker pointing out how your player is constantly exhausted now, leading to massive amounts of gun sway. Even getting up from prone makes my character exhausted and I can't aim with a sniper rifle. Is this a bug or an intentional change? If it's intentional, I get the intent but it is too far. I hunt in real life, and I can walk or even run a dozen meters and still aim a rifle accurately. - Humanity: I *really* like how difficult the new medical system is (love the blood tester especially!). It really puts a much larger emphasis on hunting, which I think is great. However, it seems that now it will be nearly impossible to gain humanity at any significant level. Before this patch, if I killed a high humanity survivor in defense and became a bandit, it was possible to lose that skin by putting some effort into helping other players out with blood transfusions. However, now it's really difficult to get the proper medical supplies to give someone a transfusion. This will make gaining a significant amount of humanity a near impossibility, while you still lose a lot of humanity for killing survivors. Could this be changed by significantly increasing the amount of humanity given for administering medical care? Or possibly adding other ways to gain humanity? Okay on to the good: This patch is the best thing to happen to DayZ since I started playing. I absolutely love it! It really feels like the game I wanted DayZ to be when I first heard about it. We are now actually investing time into gathering resources and maintaining our equipment and health while playing. We are deathly afraid of zombies. We literally jump for joy when we find a cow, sheep, or goat roaming the fields. All of this really adds to the game, and the fantastic PvP element of DayZ is still present so now it all feels complete. The devs don't get nearly enough credit for the work put into this. It's too bad this patch was on hold for so long, as it's the most profound change to DayZ mod that I can remember.

Finally got to put some hours into 1.8.1 tonight and let me say I'm really enjoying the updates! Same goes for the group I play with. We absolutely love the fact that we have to maintain gear now, and PvE is actually a challenge. Zombies are finally something to be feared. DayZ is more fun, challenging, and scary than ever now. It's the game I imagined it would be when I first heard about it. Thanks for all the hard work, guys. It really is appreciated!

Quick question, why is everybody freaking out about not being able to roll back to 1.8.0? I was able to do this just fine and retain my public hive character going back and forth. Just backup your old @DayZ folder and rename it. Swap folders when you want to go back to 1.8.0. As for the beta patch, just select the drop down in DayZ Commander to patch to the newer or older version (it says it shouldn't work for a rollback, but it does). My friend and I have been able to go between 1.8.1 and then back to 1.8.0. All you have to be careful about is blood bags (and any other items that are new in 1.8.1 I guess) as they will be gone when you log into a public hive server on the old patch.

Apparently you're not familiar with 28 Days Later, one of (if not *THE*) best "zombie" films in modern cinema that, interestingly, feature people that are infected rather than the traditional resurrected from the dead rotting flesh type zombies. Infections and mind altering drugs that remove people's inhibitions, rational thought, and ability to process pain can make them do insanely inhuman things. Look up videos on YouTube of cops trying to restrain guys on PCP. It's insane.

I really wish that there had been a much larger distinction between vanilla DayZ and heavily modified private hives and sub-mods as all of this was developed over the last two years. Yes, if you are in the know, you can search for official servers in DayZ commander, but I find that a vast majority of newcomers to DayZ have no idea of the differences between a vanilla public server, a vanilla private hive, and a modified private hive. I think that more people would be interested in playing the mod (especially people coming from SA) if there were more clear definitions and separation within utilities like DayZ commander. Most new players jump on 1,000,000+ vehicles/choppers/etc servers and think that that is how DayZ started.

Welcome to the Mod. The zombie system in SA right now is temporary and far from complete. The absolute lack of zombies in SA is one of the biggest drawbacks to playing it during it's current state in alpha. Ultimately, there will be many, many more zombies in DayZ SA once they complete them. The amount of zeds in the mod is intentional. They are supposed to be a constant threat anytime you are in a populated area (towns/cities) and an occasional threat in the wild. You can sneak past them, but you have to be very stealthy to do it. Walk on grass, not hard surfaces. Crouch or go prone. Slow walk with the shift key. Stay behind them so they don't see you. Inevitably you'll aggro zombies (especially in big cities), so you have to become skilled at killing them with melee weapons and evading them by losing line of sight or going through building interiors. Here, this video should help:

FANTASTIC news! I'd love to see development on the mod continue.