voxframe

It's true I seem to be posting quite negatively (As was pointed out a couple messages back) lately. Not my intention, but I do have some heavy gripes about the game. It's a hard balance when you're asking for money, then if you deal with server hosting, you're being asked for more money... And things start hitting the fan. Yes it's alpha, that's understood. But you're asking people to pay, so you do have some sort of commitment to live up to. (Which I think they ARE doing a good job of) But the communication is messy. Simply put, there are things that could be smoothed out communication-wise.

There's more to it I think than just desync. (OK yes maybe some form of desync, but from where?) I'm on a 100/100meg fiber line with crazy low pings (I average 8ms-10ms to anywhere in north america) - So client pipe isn't an issue. I average 40-50FPS and smooth handling with less than 50% CPU - So client machine is most likely not an issue. This leaves the server itself. I experience RBing solo on a server, or on a full server. Regardless of time of day since restart. Regardless of my character's items or equip. I do notice that servers from some hosts, tend to be worse than others. Frag, vilayer, are among the worst, and multigame being the better. My bet/money is this is based purely on server CPU/Load etc, rather than the communications between client and server. High or low pings don't seem to make a difference either. (To an obvious point, at 600ms+ you're gonna have problems regardless) Another big notch in the theory, is that many times the entire group that I'm with RBs at the same time. That's not client/server comms. That's the server itself taking a puke somewhere. A crazy note.... I can actually "feel" (if that's a term) it in game play when a new client joins a server or quits just from the lag jitter/bubble they create just as they load into/outof the world. That's CPU/Load based as well. All that to say, I don't think the RBing is coming from the way the server/client is relaying positions and telemetry, but rather something that was changed internally on how it handles or tracks all of that info.

It's funny as I see the exact same polarization in my line of work(Network Sysadmin) when dealing with certain equipment vendors. What stops the BS dead in its tracks, is active participation, involvement, and commitments/promises by the vendors/developers in the forums that contain the screaming. Trolls no longer have fuel, and whiners are fed. Period. Peace. I haven't been around for long, but already I see a serious lack of public participation (At least stable/standardized participation) on behalf of the dev team/leader. Get one guy who can actively respond in here, issue hard commitments and statements, even if they get broken (Shit happens obviously) people will understand when there is communication. Right now the announcement threads are ancient, a bazillion pages that nobody in their right minds will read, the dev blog is kinda/maybe active, the twitter account is random jargon... Etc. That's not communication kids. It just takes a little, consistantly, and people are happy. Ignore the crowd, and you will have an angry mob with nowhere to vent.

Oh I agree... I signed up for the rules... What I didn't sign up for was bullshit cheaters on the server, that I am powerless to deal with. They should nicely put that in the print "Sorry but as a renter, you have no power over cheaters, so if they ransack your server, too bad. You can't stop them or your hosting company will stomp you" I too have to agree, I've seen BE kicking a shit-ton of legit users for stupid reasons, but I've never seen it nail a single hacker thus far, and the numbers are growing, not shrinking. Yes it's all Alpha stupidities, I know. But have a consistant public server release, just as you do with a client release. Or give admins the means to properly target a problem individual. They abuse the power, THEN the hosting company can stomp them legitimately. Sorry for the whining, I know this will eventually get fixed, but it's a pretty damn basic request. I'd like to use my mouse and keyboard with the game, oh look they got that implemented...

Agreed. It's useless having a history tab unless it can tell you WHEN in history you used it.

Dislike. It's a pain yes... But a much needed and appreciated one. Makes death that much worse.

And yes I know... Alpha alpha.... But this is real money being pissed away. Release the software so people can come up with their own solutions at the very least. Convincing hosting companies to drop prices because "Alpha!" ain't going to happen.

I'm just really pissed about them not releasing the server software yet. I don't know what's holding them up either. Can't get a straight answer directly from them on the matter. But as a server admin, something needs to be done to identify users. Nametags, or some form of persistant ID tag of some kind. Normally I agree with the concept, "If you want it private and do what you want, put it on a private hive" ... But not in this case, as we as admins, don't have the godamn tools we need to manage these. It would be different if these were 10-20$ a month rentals. Who cares! But the server rental prices are downright stupid! I promise this much, the second the server software is out (They've at least confirmed to me that it IS coming) I'll host these things at a much better price (I sysadmin an ISP, resources aren't an issue) Sorry for the rant, but I know what it's like to admin a system, get your balls crushed from both directions, and not have a single damn tool at your disposal to deal with the situation... Meanwhile decent money is being pissed away.

No.... NO.... and NO! This isn't call of duty, and there's no reason to know who killed you in the game. This will just start bullshit wars, more admin abuse, and general retaliation stupidities. NO!

I would absolutely like to see more shotguns (MOSSBERG BABY!) At the moment I find the game far too military heavy when it comes to firearms. It's like the civilians never heard of a gun before. The sporter 22 is a good compliment to this, but let's face it, the classic boom-stick should be the most common. I also hope they introduce different shotgun ammo variants. (Slugs, buck, bird, etc... dragonsbreath? lol) Classic pump action mossberg should be a no-brainer though. And common as hell.

Wonderful discussion! You have my beans sir! (Please drop this reply to keep topic clean if needed) I'd like all of the ideas above, but I'd also like to see them integrated more/better with the existing medical facilities (Hospitals, clinics, etc). I'd also like to see the hospitals expanded physically. Right now 90% of the building isn't "built" yet and we can't go in doors/rooms/etc. I'm hoping they get completed. For the heartbeat/unconcious "metering" this could also be done visually with screen "drooping" or loosing gamma "blacking out", even mouse movements that become sluggish/jittery. Even a few character noises (Grunts moans gasps). Dropping to the ground, etc. IV administration to yourself, make it possible with something to hang the bags on. (Hospital can have hangers etc). Beds in hospital can be used for resting/sleeping with the above idea. (People can be restrained to bed with rope/duct-tape/cuffs) - For the medical sadists out there. What about, dare I say it, An outbreak of some kind in the game that can be spread.... Perhaps something to kill the patient and turn them into a zed? (OK that's dreaming, but imagine you have an entire hospital of people, suddenly they turn...) Vial of blood from a zed, injected into a person? I'm also on the side of people wanting a load more clothing/bags/emblems/etc for medics. Thanks again for the topic.

I'm assuming this is a widespread issue? The only "relaible" servers I seem to be able to connect to are the Gameservers.com ones. The rest either give me "Waiting for host" and never go anywhere, or as in the case of Vilayer servers, they give me errors about PBO files not being signed properly. I don't mess with any of the core files of my game and play on a completely "vanilla" install. I don't cheat, I've never been booted/banned to my knowledge. I don't get any form of errors asides from those (Which come exclusively from vilayer, no others). Am I the only one? Suggestions? Perhaps a complete re-install of the game? Thanks!

Nope not in experimental either. The problem seems to have gotten slightly better last night for what ever reason. I was finally able to connect to a couple Vilayer ones. Still no go for the majority of non-gameservers.com. Fragnet as well seems to be boned for me. Ahh well. Was a good night of gaming last night!

Just tried that (I didn't get anything reported back to me after doing the verify, so I'm assiming it didn't find anything out of the ordinary) Still getting same issue. (Good idea though!)

I would be VERY cautious, and would flat out avoid using the method described by the OP for looking up the BGP contact information regarding an IP address. The information in there usually does NOT belong to the game server hosting company, but rather their provider. Most of the time the person/people you'd be contacting VIA that information is not going to give a flying hoot about a server that doesn't conform to whatever rules, unless it is flat out breaking the law, or doing something very malicious on a network (DDOS attacks). You're bound to piss off some people who will most likely be much higher up the chain of command than the actual server company itself. Likely to get told to take a hike, and if you persist you could actually find yourself nullrouted to their entire network. That contact info is there in the case of emergencies or network attacks etc. Not for game hackers, abusive admins, jerkoff players, cheaters, etc. Even if the server admin is completely breaking the terms of service, he's not breaking any laws (I would think anyway). Essentially you've called the army to deal with the neighbor's barking dog when you should have been calling the animal control. (I say this as a network admin, who owns a network with BGP listed information... If you called me for an abusive admin on a server in my network, you'd be in for a ride if he wasn't seriously doing something illegal.)

I don't know what the current update mechanism is for the server architecture, but there should be something put in place that automatically pushes out the updates to the servers. If something changes, when the server instance gets started, or goes through a certain time check, it must check in with the central servers and update itself. If it doesn't update in X time, it doesn't start. Every server obviously has some form of internet access, so this is pretty dead simple. It's annoying for people in my position as I have access to multiple servers (Real servers in datacenters) on dedicated fiber links. I'm not going to pay 70$ a month for something that I'm being dictated how to run it. I would love to run a server publicly (And follow the ruleset that is in place)... But I'm not going to piss that kind of money away when I have the resources sitting right in front of me. If I wanted my own private server for me and buddies, SURE I'd pay it. But let me do what I want with it. In this case, I want to contribute (multiple) public servers, at no cost, on serious hardware... But I can't for hell knows what reason. (I've contacted support, and gotten replies, until it comes to the simple "Why" question.) The only sane reason I can think of is the ability to push updates, which could be mitigated very easily by an automatic update mechanism. As for settings and rules... Simple. If it's public, the options are locked and they have to comply. If it's private, well then go nuts. They have confirmed to me that it WILL be coming, but damn I hate to sound impatient, but this isn't a huge issue to overcome and then it can be allowed.

I think the sad thing is I can actually read those and say "Oh of course it's THAT one!" I think the funniest thing to see, would be a "How they made it" video with the voice actors in front of a mic trying to MAKE those damn sounds. Someone, somewhere had to actually do those sounds at some point lol. SCRIPT - "Wet throaty scream, while shaking head and drooling like a st. Bernard. Try and vomit slightly during process." BINGO!

Agreed. It's bizzare that all backpacks are found empty.

Not to derail the great ideas, but I wanted to come back to one of the OPs points about radios. In a "real life" style situation, communications would be a serious concern. It does suck a little bit because of 3rd party chat software that most people use to communicate with their teams. But there's no way around that. I'd like to see some more development in global/local communications. Spawn more radios, give them some different functionality, maybe different models? (Desktop versions found in bases/firestations/hospitals, walkies found randomly) Power should also be a concern. I've seen suggestions about generators, more developped batteries, etc. Hell I'd love to see something done with the power lines to the towns. They are already in place. Perhaps a method to disable them to knock out a town's power/lights? Abilities to repair them? Town power generation stations that need to be repaired/fueled/etc in order to get things rolling again. (At the same time, I'd like to see some more lethality introduced to power lines as well. Jumped onto transformers and lived... Would be interesting if suddenly BOOM dead) The props are already in the game. Could be interesting programming. Generators creating noise etc as well. Makes them more dangerous to use in a small campsite for attracting trouble. Also I want to second the camping supplies. Fuel (Liquid, not just propane tanks) should be a concern as well. Lastly... DUCT TAPE! Make it do what it does in real life. If I want to tape a flashlight to the gun, let me! If I want to use it to restrain someone, let me. If I'm crazy enough to tape a PU scope to a shotgun... LET ME! lol

+1 LOVE IT!!!!

Agreed! There needs to be a little more variety to sniping. Different weapons and different scopes. Range finders and charts as well please. Wind please. Realism is the key here. Sniping is an art form that can't simply be done by everyone, but right now it's too limited to have that talent kick. There should even be scope adjustments etc that can be performed. Better camo, dust kicks, etc.

I too would love to see some kind of arm-band marking system (Not just for medics but others as well) For the medic side of things, I would like to see a lot more medic style clothing as well. Yes it does help single people out, but it's great for RP or for people who actually do WANT to play the team/lone medic. In the end, those who don't like the stuff can consider it akin to the bright orange hard-hats. Just keep on walking and don't pick it up. I'd love to see medic style: Pants - Pretty much nothing to change here, cargo pants, maybe with scissors and such in side pocket. Helmets/Hats - Self explanitory Jackets/shirts - Blue, cross icon, reflective edges(Option to rip them off?) Bags - Backpack with medic logo (Blue and red variants?) First responder pack - Larger variant of med kits, perhaps shoulder sling verion? Doctor mask is great, glasses perhaps? Full hazmat suit? Just for laughs Blue surgeon gowns could be funny to find in hospitals (Can at least make rags out of them right?) I'd love to see a standalone IV pole or something that could be rigged with sticks to avoid needing a second person to administer IV, if you're concious. Sorry this is a bit of a tangent on the original post. But I like the idea, just need to not pick it up if you don't like it right?