CitizenIosef`

Definitely one of the best servers I've yet played on. If you're looking for something not vanilla, this is a good choice. Admins are active and the one hacking incident I've seen was resolved rather quickly.

Mission statement: The Shack is committed to providing... -A different kind of DayZ experience than vanilla, -An environment where small groups of 2-6 can thrive along with lone wolves and large groups, -A server which features an accelerated starting loadout with weapons and survival gear, -A server who not only listens to its players, but actively seeks their opinions for making the server better, -Side chat free of voice comms, -Teamspeak server to contact administration as well as provide communication for small groups, -A fair experience where admin do not unfairly help one group over another, -Active monitoring for hackers, and our best efforts at restoring gear after a hacking event. The setting we seek to provide in game terms is somewhat removed from the vanilla DayZ experience. Where vanilla DayZ provides an experience representing survival months after a zombie event, The Shack seeks an experience days or weeks after a zombie event. The Taviana map provides a perfect setting for this venture. Vehicles are more varied and more common, streets are clear and connect to an excellent highway system, large cities make an excellent backdrop for fights against survivors and bandits. The drive to create this server was sourced from a difficulty finding a server with faster-paced gameplay and fair administration. I distinctly recall a map where I was informed that the helicopter spawn sites had been removed... right after I watched two UH-1Hs fly overhead. I questioned this, and was told that the helicopters were for admin only. Now every private server is allowed to run their own server how they see fit, but I want to make this very clear: We are committed to a fair environment. If you see another player using a weapon or tool, you have the opportunity to find the same. No favorites, all players are the same. The requisite info: We are running the .com version of Taviana, not the .eu version. Server IP: 173.192.170.117:3085 TeamSpeak IP: theshack.teamspeak.net Admin contact e-mail: DayZShack@Gmail.com Darkness at around ~11pm PST, regular difficulty, many vehicles of varied type available. Gotcha anti-hack running(teleport detection autokick/ban disabled - no more being kicked for flying). Players of all type(friendly, survivor, bandit) welcome. Groups of all sizes welcome. Players from Butte College especially welcome! Chico State D-bags can go elsewhere(just kidding[or am I?]).

DDoS attack seems to be over. We will hopefully be deploying a feature tonight - variable NVG brightness. PGup and PGdown will change how bright/dim NVG are, just like you can do with real NVG systems.

It appears that our server is being DDoSed once again. In the coming days we will be moving to a new server based out of LA with very good DDoS protection. Current estimate for move is 20th to 26th. IP will change - stay tuned.

I'm hoping that the vehicle update will be deployed this upcoming weekend. This means that all vehicles will be wiped. As such, new spawns are spawning with tents(which were recently re-activated for people to be able to save their gear over the wipe). One week after the vehicle update, tents will be disabled again(unless the tent bug goes away before then). This should give players plenty of time to re-acquire transportation for storage purposes.

Due to complications, this had to be undone. The removal of radar also removed fuel readouts, weapon selected(making throwing a grenade quite an interesting experience), damage readouts, and the like. We're working on a fix, but in the interim, we've pulled the new vehicles back out and returned setting to pre-attempt values.

Your ban appeal was opened some weeks ago. I kicked it upstairs to the server owner, but I haven't heard anything about it since. I'll see what's up today - normally does not take this long to process an appeal, I'm at fault here.

Pretty exciting day. I'm fairly sure that the fast roping script has been fixed - will be doing testing soon. Also disabled all radar on all vehicles. This has opened up the possibilities for several vehicles that were rejected due to radar in Stage 1 testing. A handful of these vehicles have been pushed into stage 2 testing, and are available for use.

It's looking more and more likely that a vehicle wipe will be required to bring the new vehicle system over from the test server. To facilitate the ability for people to save their gear, tents have been re-enabled. After the vehicle change, players will have a week to move tent contents back to vehicles before tents are turned off again(unless the tent bug is fixed before then).

Just as a heads up here, the server will be moving from a Seattle-based server, to a LA-based server. This new server is supposed to offer better ping rates for the majority of players, and much better DDOS protection. We already have the IP and port reserved on the new server: 192.31.185.207:3085 As it stands, the move will happen sometime between the 20th and the 26th, barring any weird occurances. No wipes of any kind will be made on account of the server move - the data that comes out of one server will be the same data going into the other.

Hello folks, It dawned on me that I had forgotten to define what the new vehicle project entailed. Simply put, there are quite a few vehicles that are not normally found on Taviana(most shown in the screenshots above), and we intend to include them in the spawns on our server. We intend to go beyond simply plunking down some spawns and calling it a day. Our intent is to completely re-do the vehicle spawns to something more themed: Low-income towns may have more beaten-up looking vehicles, rural towns will have more work-truck like vehicles, and cities will have the sort of vehicles urbanites might be found driving. This project has proven to be more ambitious than I originally thought it would be, and we may even end up doing a vehicle wipe if all else fails. On a plus note, vehicle parts salvaging has been confirmed to be working on the test server, and we are looking forward to deploying this feature on The Shack. I hope everyone is having a good weekend!

Hello folks, We have secured a testing server(thanks Sendit!), so we will be dialing back our in-server testing over the coming days/weeks. It will take some time to get the testing server fully set up, but once we do, we will be able to drastically reduce the number of testing vehicles and restarts required for function tests. Currently, we have the fields around Kameni(north of large island) set up for vehicle testing for our most ambitious project yet(more on this later). To prevent people from taking these vehicles(some of which are quite powerful), we've set up the area to deliver 3 warnings and then kick/teleport intruders to another area. There are other mechanics in play to keep these vehicles secure so they aren't grabbed by ner'do'well bandits. We understand that this testing area can be pretty disruptive to people that prefer to operate up north, which is why we're excited about the testing server to open this area back up. In the meantime, I thought I'd take a minute to share some of the fruits of the testing area with you folks. One of the things we had the opportunity to do is set up screenshots of most of the vehicles in game. Eventually these will be incorporated into the promotion of the server, but for now, enjoy! https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56997382/ShackCars.jpg https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56997382/ShackLTrucks.jpg https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56997382/ShackHTrucks.jpg https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56997382/ShackSingletrack.jpg https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56997382/ShackAFVs.jpg https://dl.dropbox.com/u/56997382/ShackAircraft.jpg I'll post more on the vehicle project at a later date.

It's back up.

Okay, I guess the problem wasn't fixed, but now it is.

That was me. Turns out the restart issue was caused by an FTP client I left running on the laptop. Oops. Problem fixed.

Got an eyecandy update for you folks - showing off the new weather scripts.

Server looks like it's back up for good. We've beem up for some hours, but it was hit or miss there for awhile. We have more exciting features! We've gone and buggered with the weather scripts - now visibility ranges from 4km(very, very rare) to next to nothing(also very, very rare). Average looks like it's pretty similar to DayZ standard, with some times when it goes longer or shorter. We're futzing with wind as well - we'd like to see if it has any impact on ballistics to make those 1,400m shots challenging.

Server is currently down due to a DDoS attack. No ETA on the server returning, but will keep you all posted. WES10, we currently are not able to influence the spawn rates of those items at their natural spawn locations. We may be able to influence the availability somewhat via wrecks and care packages, but that will be more difficult than it sounds(as well as being kind of odd - why are there bundles of razor wire here?). Don't worry about the tent thing too much. I hadn't specifically stated that placing tents inside of bugged rocks was an exploit(although it does stand to common sense), and I think that not supporting saving items out of those tents was enough punishment for something relatively minor. I guess this DDoS attack will give me some time to bugger about with the base building construction code at any rate.

Demo version of base building is online. It is possible to build items at this time, but the recipes are not showing up. We still haven't finalized costs yet, so this may be fine.

Sometimes, even admins can have a little fun too.

I think we need to define the parameters in which a 9mm *can* be more devastating than a 5.56mm. The only loadings that I can see the 5.56mm performing worse than the best 9mm loadings at similar ranges would be non-fragmenting and way underloaded loadings. Needless to say, once a 5.56mm fragments(and by far most of the loadings are designed for fragment), you're looking at a wound channel that a 9mm could only dream of. From this point of view, the 9mm and .45ACP having the same damage values as the 5.56mm doesn't make a whole lot of sense. On the other hand, the 11.43mm(my bias is showing) doesn't quite live up to the years of "blow a man in half" hype that has been set out for it. Effective? Sure. Efficient? I'd disagree. Compared to the 5.56mm, the 9mm and the .45ACP are both, well, wussy. Both have killed in one shot before, surely, but that speaks more to shot placement and luck than stop probability of pistol-caliber cartridges. I stand by my claim that the best way to get DayZ close to real-world data is with a damage range. 5.56mm should have a higher ceiling and floor in it's range, and the range should be narrower. 9mm or .45ACP should have high enough ceilings to make for devastating damage, but the floor should reflect the 'do pretty much nothing' hits.

New anti-hacking measures have been implemented, and the anti-combatlogging script has been tweaked - most likely the first tweak of many to come.

There may well be enough noise for rMod2 to be added to DayZCommander. Here is the thread on the DZC forums; be sure to sound off if you like what you read. http://forums.dayzcommander.com/index.php?/topic/494-rmod2-addition-to-dayz-commander/

Oh yeah, DayZCommander will list rMod servers. I mean that we do not want to use addons that are not downloadable/update-able through DayZCommander.

We've become very interested in rMod2. When we originally considered rMod(which unlocks most(all?) vehicle classes), we found it interesting, but of limited utility due to air assets retaining radar. rMod2 brings in additional weapons - critically, it vastly increases the selection of handguns available. The limited selection of handguns has been a sticking point with me for some time, and it's nice to see a solution. rMod2 also removes radar in all air vehicles, and may remove radar on ground vehicles as well. Also, there are unarmed(in terms of rockets/bombs) classnames for the aircraft. This is all sounding really good to us, but we probably won't implement it if: 1) It is not supported by DayZCommander, 2) If the playerbase is firmly against it for some reason. Feedback on this or any other subject always welcome.