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FINALLY. I'm extremely pleased with that news.

Didn't you know? Every zombie is actually Tonya Harding.

I could not agree more - this is precisely my point. I WANT DAYZ TO SUCCEED. It can't succeed if server admins aren't on board. Also, I agree with you about bandits - they're absolutely an integral and essential part of the game. It'd be pretty boring without them. They're not a "problem" like hackers are a problem.

What religion is that?

You've never heard of constructive criticism, have you? Being a good server admin and having a difference of opinion with the devs are not mutually exclusive. Thanks, that's very nice of you to say.

Read both. Frankly, there aren't a lot of things an admin can really do that don't also negatively affect him too (stop/restart server affects everyone, kick/ban/lock gets you blacklisted). I'm not sure where the admin hate and distrust come from.

I continue to be amazed at your jaded attitude toward admins. If you don't like the admins on one server, go play somewhere else.

I think your analysis is right. I'm just hopeful that in Arma 3 or in a standalone DayZ, they'll have a hard look at other, more effective anti-cheat engines.

Ok, I'll bite. Hackers and abusive admins are equally bad? So I assume the thinking here is "Since there might be some abusive admins, I'd better not let any of them have any control over their own servers." Right? There's a few problems with that thinking. First, the tug-of-war between admins and hackers is essentially a zero-sum game. One side must prevail. So, by neutering admins, hackers will prevail, as we see now. Second, not all admins are abusive (as even Lady Kyrah grudgingly stated). I have yet to see even one person hacking for the good of the community. Third, the message being sent to admins is "We don't trust you." Ok, fine. But realize that such a message doesn't make me more wiling to part with my money to host a server for your game if I'm just going to spend the whole time reading mind-numbing logs and beating my head against a wall. Think of this another way. Hackers are the criminals and we admins are the police. What we're being told is that we, the police, can't arrest anyone ourselves, but instead have to be present and film a crime occurring then submit it to the city council, since they've heard there might be some corrupt cops and they don't trust us. There are some cops that are corrupt and abuse their position, but there are more (more than half, I'd say) that want to do the right thing and keep the streets safe. The criminals, on the other hand, have only one thing in mind - breaking the law for their own purposes. None of them care about doing the right thing, keeping the community safe, etc. What you're saying is that corrupt cops are as bad as criminals. You're right. However, does that mean you cripple ALL police because there are a few bad ones? I'm sure you could imagine just how effective that would be in any city upon the deterrence of crime. Same holds true here.

Ok... then why are they preventing ME from doing anything about the hackers? Why are the DayZ staff asking me to submit proof of hacking (which I can't do) to them when they can't do anything?

Must not? Why? Do you even play this game? Have you not seen the cheat reporting forum here? It's ridiculous how many threads there are there. Our own server has hackers on it multiple times a day, often employing hacks that kill everyone and ruin the game for everyone. There's also something I don't understand, too. You keep saying that we need proof to submit to the devs for their consideration. Ok. What proof? How can I find that proof? It's not in the logs (any hacker worth his salt uses a BattleEye bypass), and it's not anywhere else. I'm not going to keep Fraps running the entire time I play, since that wouldn't really capture anything other than my magically being teleported into the air and dying. What, exactly, am I supposed to get? Can't that be done now? Ghosting is always a problem, as is duping. In any case, for some reason, there seems to be a fundamental lack of trust of server admins at work here. I'm not sure why, since that's never been a problem with any other game that I've been involved with. No other game developer has told me who I can and can't kick/ban. I'd honestly like to know why the devs don't trust us to police our own territory. I realize that there are some petulant folks out there who will kick/ban for any perceived slight, but frankly, I'd rather risk that than allow the game to be completely overrun by hackers as it is now. Why do you think this?

We've had a similar run-in with BoomPow on our server as well. I'm convinced he's cheating.

Fair enough. I wish rocket and the rest of the team the very best of luck. I know that they're working with an engine that wasn't designed for this - I just wish they'd at least officially untie the hands of us admins, so that we can help them succeed. Learning who to trust and how to delegate are important. Not having played (or adminned) Garry's mod, I can't comment on that specifically. However, I do take exception to your stereotype of all admins being douchebags. Believe it or not, some of us can actually lose gracefully, and some of us like to run servers fairly because we like playing on fair servers. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Your mileage may vary.

Well, thanks for at least replying to the rhetorical question. The message I'm getting is that I should be a better admin, find proof (which we all agree is next to impossible to find), and hope that the devs do something about that one guy, because they don't trust me to do my job. And if I don't like that, I can just leave. So, back to my original point, how is this a viable model for longevity? I'm curious, too. Do you all that are defending the current practice think that this is the best way to go? Do you actually rent/admin servers yourselves?

So, if I read this right, DayZ staff doesn't trust my judgment as an admin and demands that I provide "proof" (which you admit is nearly impossible to come by) before I can submit a hacker to them for consideration for banning? How does that even make sense? I've been running servers and adminning games for almost 15 years, and I've never had a situation like this where the devs of a game forbid me from doing anything on my own server. Not even EA went this far with its "Rules of Conduct." The devs must realize that they can't (and shouldn't) do everything. They have to have partners in this venture - players and admins. Right now, this admin is losing faith in their ability to make this work. As I asked before - why should I bother paying money for a server?

So why am I forbidden from banning cheaters on my own server by the DayZ staff?

Yeah, I know hackers will always exist. I just don't have ANY options to deal with them. I'm even forbidden from banning them from my own server (assuming I had a way to actually figure out who they are) for fear of getting my server blacklisted. I understand that there's a desire to deal with cheaters globally, not just locally on one server. If that's true, why not use a ban streaming service? Beans' thread title is absolutely spot on. Cheaters have more control than I do. That's extremely frustrating, and I can't help but wonder why I pay money for this.

Indeed, but there are few games that I can think of where admins have so little ability to stop cheaters. Are things as dire as I said? I hope not, but I can certainly see a more casual player getting completely fed up with the rampant, uncontrollable cheating and just writing off the whole DayZ franchise. There are enough other games out there that gaining and keeping the attention of a casual, fickle gamer requires strong support from the devs initially and strong support from the server admins to keep the game viable. Honestly, if you had just started DayZ after hearing how cool it was, only to have your ass repeatedly handed to you by some invulnerable player flying a helicopter that's not even in the game, would you continue to play, or would you quit in frustration and never give the game a second look? To put it in more personal terms, why should I, as a server admin, continue to pay money for a server that I cannot effectively control for a game that's currently at the mercy of hackers? Don't mistake me - I like the game a lot. My time and money are limited, though, and if I'm not thrilled about the state of affairs, how much more frustrated are normal players without even the illusion of power that I have as an admin?

I completely agree. Any number of people come to my TS server to complain about cheaters and beg me and the other server admins to do something. I feel terrible that I can't (because I have no idea who the cheaters are) and that I and my friends are paying for a server that's being overrun by cheaters. I feel very strongly that if something significant isn't done and this problem isn't seriously and decisively addressed soon, not only will DayZ in its current form be unplayable, but a great many people will lose faith in any version of the game, even future beta versions or even a standalone version. DayZ's reputation as a fun and viable game is currently at the mercy of cheaters who care little about its future viability, and at the moment, there's nothing I can do as an admin and fan of the game to stop them from ruining it.

I guess we can try to get it, but isn't five people with the same complaint pretty good? I think there might be another thread or two on the same subject.

I can confirm what the OP, Beans, and Phifty have said. Two nights ago (Wednesday, 27 July), the admin (Padre Patrol) restarted the server 5 times within the space of 10 minutes between 10pm and 10:15pm Eastern. I confronted him about it in chat, and he admitted that he'd crashed his car whilst performing "jumps," and proceeded to threaten to ban me for "vulgar language." This admin is definitely abusing his admin privileges to benefit himself.