VLG Castiel

TL;DR: Flak from the community passed the limits. Closure This post (and a follow-up on the community website) marks the closure of US 488. We MAY have it be picked up by someone else, but to be safe, I recommend taking all your things out of the server as soon as you can and enjoy your vehicles for the time it still has (server will run for another month) - Even if that is to happen, there'll likely be a week-long downtime in the process. Reason Paying and maintaining DayZ servers has officially given more pain than pleasure over time, I don't know how it is to fellow server admins out there (a considerably few now that there are thousands of servers), but over the course of these few months the small community supporting this has been endlessly trashed and received a tremendous amount of hate-mail. Admin access is locked to a grand total of two members. However, guaranteeing there's no admin abuse doesn't mean you're not going to be called on it. It's just something we have to accept and move on from and frankly, the time those things have taken from us is unbearable, even further affecting the rest of the members of the small community for the flexible users who can find them elsewhere through their nicknames and harass them there (it's that bad). Latest Example < removed > - After over 20 mails filled with profanity, the maker of the semi-popular video formally apologized for his mistake. To avoid having a server with inactive admins (that tends to lead to a hacker-heaven despite BattlEye's best continued efforts), we're not just ignoring everything and let it be an abandoned home for those of us who play (especially new-found members that have sticked around). We're closing it and possibly moving the donation to a different game. Thanks for the support so far and for playing in our servers these last months.

You'll most likely run into another AK with Kobra sight in one of the two fire stations in Elektro. You don't have much to lose yet. I really do just carefully sweep around Cherno/Elektro in the beginning of every life until I have all necessary means of survival and basic tools. ...Then GTFO and never return.

Hold a survivor at gunpoint and tell him to give you his stuff, survivor DCs and joins another server. I honestly don't think it's more complicated than that, the reason this doesn't happen anymore is because this game turned into DCWars. You need to kill immediately or the person will most likely disconnect. I believe this is the core problem that when solved will slowly stir the community to many other forms of banditry and a considerably less amount of kills on sight. I'm avoiding complaining at all costs, I know this is an Alpha, I know there are other priorities. And I know it's not my position to demand anything. However.. Rocket himself said this "DCing" is an exploit and "is easy to fix". It is ruining the very core experience of the game. Why is this not a priority? The thought annoys me.

The range-finder is handy but the anti-material sniper rifles are one-shot-kill on players compared to the 8k damage of the SVD (non-headshot). If you know what you're doing you can also use the mildots in the M107 or the AS50 to estimate the distance your target is at, the range finder is not an absolute necessity. The SVD needing a headshot so that your target doesn't Alt+F4 makes it less favorable, not mentioning it's extremely rare ammo. You don't have to be a "newb" to drop the SVD. It's a bad sniper rifle unless you pair it with a ghillie suit in the middle of the woods. And with all the ESP hacking and/or server nametags, I wouldn't do even that.

^Totally not a racial stereotype. If I was a female survivor of the apocalypse, I'd try to look as manly as possible. Just saying. Would be nice a bit more priority on female characters being able to wear camo, though.

Yeah, if you do some noise or do something to get autoSpotted you'll show up on other player's maps. No way to tell from the selection screen, though. Just something you can see when you get on the server.

Example of server settings: class Regular { class Flags { 3rdPersonView = 1; //3dp armor = 0; autoAim = 0; autoGuideAT = 0; autoSpot = 0; cameraShake = 1; clockIndicator = 0; deathMessages = 1; enemyTag = 0; friendlyTag = 0; //nametags, nt hud = 0; hudGroupInfo = 0; hudPerm = 0; hudWp = 0; hudWpPerm = 0; map = 0; netStats = 0; tracers = 0; ultraAI = 0; unlimitedSaves = 0; vonId = 0; weaponCursor = 1; //crosshairs, ch }; skillFriendly = 1; precisionFriendly = 1; skillEnemy = 0.7; precisionEnemy = 0.5; }; And you're probably looking for nametags, servers rarely say if it's on/off in their name. I wouldn't recommend those servers, however. I'd recommend you avoid them best you can. With that setting on not only you're easier to spot but sniping your head off becomes a kids task as your exact distance from the sniper is shown in the tags.

No such server-side configuration. I'm also pretty sure it doesn't guaranteedly mean the killed player was a hacker, I've seen this message happen with me as the victim from a heli before. Curious, I always associated the killer to be a hacker, not the other way around. Can anyone confirm some kind of version mismatch as was implied by invisibility? That'd be my best guess.

Would have to be sharing a GUID (and CD Key henceforth). Looks like someone's been playing DayZ with your account!

^What this guy said. While in a 50-player server I rarely see anyone on the barracks, if I join a low pop one... There's always a group there. I'd assume the same applies to "patch hopping". I doubt you're gonna be able to consistently avoid PvP. I do believe everyone should be forced to play the latest though. As with any other game. Can't really play the previous patch because you don't like certain changes in the new one. Especially considering the previous versions are rarely what the developers of the game wanted the game to be, and/or filled with balance issues fixed thereon after.

So long as this is mainly avoided (regular maintenance during off-time at the campfire being more than enough), it'd be a good feature.

I'd actually be saddened by such a change. Multiple characters violate the spirit of the game and would be thoroughly abused to keep certain items safe. Solutions needed to prevent such inevitable outcome are complicated and... ...not worth it. You have one life, if your survival group is asleep, you should either sleep with them, or go off hunting and looting for them. They'll surely appreciate all the good things you've brought when they awake. Considering the risk of your death and the downside of it, leave all your gear in the camp with the rest of the group as you set off in the same conditions as a newspawn. My clan mates tend to do the above. They comeback to camp with a lot more things, and they can use these "extra" things the next time they're awake alone. Essentially the same gear benefits as a second character. In short, once you have a camping tent with your group it offers a more elegant solution to your problem. This even gives tents more value. Perfect.

Can drag a player if they're unconscious and even load them into vehicles, pretty neat feature. +1 for being able to carry people with broken legs as well.

(1) Existance of Military Weapons This is "nowhere" in Russia because it's the map that was given to us. We can't simulate the entire world, otherwise, we'd be doing that. Justify it whatever way you want. Military, Special Ops, they exist and they're most likely trying or have tried to contain the infection, they should be split all around the world doing so. Something went horribly wrong, they seem to all be dead. Why would their equipment vanish? Why should these military-grade weapons be removed and considered to not exist in the game world? They should be there, as you'd expect from any scenario ever created for a zombie apocalypse. Maybe, just maybe, they should be a little more rare. Since it appears nearly every player is able to find military loot. It should be something far more unique, far harder to find. It's the top tier weaponry, the best defense you can get and it's rare, god it's rare. Military areas should be better guarded, as they would, and military zombies with their heavy armor shouldn't be as easy to kill as others. Hell, add live NPCs shooting anyone on sight, someone ought to have survived from the military, and whoever that was is probably not handling it well. (2) The removal of PvP gear What? PvP is a major factor in the game. Hell, it's a major factor in a zombie apocalypse. Take Walking Dead, for those who have read the comics, what is always the greatest threat? The zombies? No! Zombies are driven by instinct, they possess no intelligence. The same way we always got rid of our natural predators, a united front of what's left of humanity would easily find a way to survive in a community. However, people... People, with the absence of law enforcement within current society's standards and mentality, anarchy ensues. People tend to become the biggest problem. This is part of the game. If a player uses an acquired weapon solely for the purpose of killing other players, so be it. Again referring to the Walking Dead (comics, further in story than the series currently is): notice how they have I-forget-her-name ALWAYS in a vantage point with a sniper. She can look for zombies and alert, something easily done with binoculars. No, she's there mainly for the human threat, with her sniper in hand, having more than a few times ensured the safety of the group with well-aimed headshots at potential human threats.

^Supporting the OP 90%. I dislike the vocal majority's blind agreement with every change made. I especially dislike the "Dude, it's an Alpha" comments on response to game mechanics in a civilized thread (what do you think the purpose of an Alpha is?). However, this doesn't happen nearly as much in the suggestions forum - which is where most of these threads belong. Most people come here and complain about game mechanics overestimating their own importance, truth be told, these are the entitled gamers that trigger most of these responses. If we're looking for a civilized discussion of game mechanics, problems and solutions, this should be the place. Expect chaos anywhere else.