Junos

Rest in peace, coolstorybro. My squad was north of Cherno, planning to raid apartments and the hospital on the north side of town for medical supplies. We were setting up for overwatch when we heard Makarov fire. I looked at the apartments and saw you shooting your Makarov from the roof--at what, I don't know, though you fired at least 12 shots. I saw an Enfield rifle on your shoulder. We were headed toward those apartments, and I figured if you liked to shoot your pistol in plain sight so much, you might like to shoot it at us too. So I waited as you moved toward the ladder, and as you were getting in position to climb down, I took you down from 500 meters with my CZ 550. One shot was all it took. You died instantly. I didn't want to shoot you--I don't consider myself a bandit by trade--but seeing what an itchy trigger finger you had, I decided it wasn't worth the risk. I got a photo from the top floor of your legs sticking out over the ladder. May it serve as a warning to all players to not announce their presence with gunfire from an open rooftop in the middle of a big city, exposed to a hill a few hundred meters away. If it makes you feel any better, the gear screen gave me quite a time trying to look through your pack: it made me drop mine and then swapped mine with yours. I had to go on the roof to get it back.

That is a good idea, Vault, except that whenever you shoot, you'll give away your position, and probably get countersniped or flanked. :/

I posted it more for his own benefit than yours. Thanks for sharing your snideness, though. :) I suppose I could have spammed the roof as he ran around, wasting ammo, and perhaps causing him to jump to his death. The smart thing to do was shoot at the ladder. For this fish, I chose the smaller of the two barrels. What's not manly is disconnecting or jumping servers during combat. Lesson: be careful, especially in cities and on ladders.

That would have been funny, but that kill message was just a coincidence. Both shots were of coolstorybro. :)

That's so pathetic and cowardly. They already outnumber everyone else on the server by at least 4-1, up to 12- or 25-1--but that's not enough, they have to cheat by server-flanking, too. People like that should be banned from DayZ forever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEc59lR1ppY My buddy recorded it. Sadly the video didn't continue recording until we repositioned to the hill and they appeared on top of us, but you can see how they disappeared into an open field with nothing to hide behind. Note that they aren't hacking like the title may say, simply cheating by switching servers and then coming back. US 191. Approximately 0730 UTC 18JUL2012. Near Stary Sobor. With 3 buddies. One of us is separated from the group, to the east. I spot players at nearly 1000 meters running to the west into a forest. My buddy gets his thermal sight on them and tracks 4 of them as they run back out of the forest to the east. A few minutes later, our teammate gets shot. She was far to the east. We pursue the enemy players to the north. Then we see four of them running toward us through an open field at 400-500 meters, zig-zagging. We take cover behind some large rocks and wait for them. Several minutes pass. We see nothing, hear nothing. They seem to have vanished. Then we see a lone player sprinting to the east with a pistol in his hand, through the open field, 300 meters away. We move to the east behind a small hill to watch him. Then we see nothing. He seems to have vanished into the air--there were no trees anywhere near him. We figure they disconnected, switched servers, and were flanking us. The lone player with the pistol was their scout, feeding them intel as the rest of them repositioned on another server. We move to the south onto a higher hill overlooking Stary. We go prone and watch our sectors. We see nothing, hear nothing. Pop pop pop pop pop, bang bang. The three of us are dead. Shot by at least two different weapons. Out of nowhere. They reconnected right on top of us. It's bad enough when people disconnect after being shot at. It's unbelievably cowardly to disconnect when the enemy sees you, log onto a different server, flank them, then return to the previous server, and shoot them. I had just spent 4 hours, after dying to a reconnect-can't-move-die bug, reuniting with my team. One of my teammates had a thermal sighted rifle, a very rare weapon. We had enough gear to sustain ourselves. Hours and hours of game time invested. When it hit the fan, we were careful to take cover, watch our sectors, and track the enemy. We knew a fight was imminent. But the enemy was a team of four cowards who cheated to gain an unfair advantage. I don't mind bandits--it's a zombie apocalypse. But cowardly cheaters are intolerable. Simple solution: After disconnecting from a server intentionally, disallow the player from connecting to the same server for 30 minutes.

Sadly, this is not good enough. Cowards like these could disconnect all but one player, have a scout tell them when it's safe or advantageous to reconnect, and then come back, appearing out of nowhere. All they'd need to do is wait until their prey gives up and turns around. Then, pop, they're magically behind you again. The only solution is a reconnect timer that prevents any player from reconnecting to a server within 30 minutes of when he last disconnected from it. If they want to be cowards and leave the fight, then they leave the fight. Period.

I think a simple reconnect timer like I've suggested would put a definite stop to this kind of abuse. Once they leave the server, they'd have totally left the engagement. It wouldn't stop cowards from changing servers to retreat, but it would definitely stop cowards from changing servers to flank. ...That's exactly what I proposed. 10 seconds? So all I have to do is run behind something before I log out? What good does that do? That is fundamentally flawed. There is no such thing as a "safe zone" in DayZ. Any part of the map can become a combat zone. What you're proposing is like playing tag: "Nyah, nyah, can't touch me, I'm touching the base." DayZ has become as phenomenally popular as it is precisely because it's so different than any other game. Let's not ruin that.

Certainly there is. When the player disconnects, the client tells the server. If the game crashes or the connection is interrupted, there will be no more data from the client and the connection will timeout. Of course, those who know much about computers will realize that even this allows abuse, because one could simply interrupt the connection manually (pull the Ethernet plug, power cycle modem, etc)--and there are plenty of people who will go to that much trouble to cheat. So, really, whether a disconnect is intentional should be irrelevant. With the multitude of servers we have to choose from, you should just find another server. That might be helpful also. It might be extreme, because if you shoot a zombie and then have to quit the game, you'd be punished. It'd be nice if the server could measure the distance between the shot's impact and other players, and only punish shots that were directed at players, however this would be much more complex to code, and might add unreasonable load to the servers. Only Rocket could say for sure. Sad but true. But it's not nearly as big of an annoyance as cowardly cheaters. That's fundamentally no different than a simple reconnect timer. All that matters in this case is server A. I'll just ignore your ad hominems, since by using them you undermine your own credibility. Assuming that a "standalone game" will fix anything instantly highlights your naivete. A standalone game has to run a client engine and servers, just like this does. Problems don't magically disappear if it's a "game" instead of a "mod." In the end it's all software. Why are you vehemently arguing against a simple fix to an egregious exploit? Methinks thou dost protest too much. I can't help but wonder if you're one of the ones who likes to take advantage of it and want to protect your way of playing. There's no rational reason to argue against fixing it. 5 minutes is not enough, as I've explained several times already. That gives them plenty of time to reposition and reconnect, and if their non-cowardly opponents don't realize that the enemy has changed servers, they will likely still be vulnerable. This is doubly true if the cowards leave a scout on the first server to feed intel over voice chat. The only true solution is a timer long enough to make it utterly pointless for them to try to exploit server-flanking.

That is completely irrelevant. Sadly, I am beginning to feel the same way. We had an exciting adventure today that started when, while constantly scanning 360 degrees as far as I could see, I barely picked out an enemy player running across open terrain with my eyes--I didn't even have binocs at the time. My constant vigilance paid off. But the adventure came to a preposterous ending brought about by cowardly, cheating griefers. Time spent on this game is like an investment. It takes a lot of time to rendezvous and to acquire gear. If cowards like these can so easily ruin the game, my time ends up being wasted. All they have to do is cheat to gain an unfair, unauthentic advantage, and they win and get all our gear. Why should I invest time into being careful and vigilant when it's all for nought? I look forward to these issues being addressed. I've never played any other game (or anti-game) that provides a similar experience. So what? Boo hoo. There are thousands of servers. That's why there's a central database that keeps your character the same across all servers. 5 minutes is simply not enough. Between the time we saw four players running at us, and the time their scout disappeared, it was more than five minutes. That's plenty of time for them to do their dirty deeds. Ideally this wouldn't be necessary, but because of evil people, who abound, this is a necessary measure. Because of a few bad apples, we all suffer. But having to change servers with a few of your buddies is a small price to pay for never having to worry about such cowards again.

What are you missing? Um...everything? Do I need to draw you a picture? THEM | \/ FIELD US They disappeared. They didn't go to our left; they didn't go to our right; they didn't retreat; they didn't run into us. There was nowhere for them to hide. They vanished. On a server with about 15 players, it's reasonable to assume that they were the same players who had entered the forest one minute earlier. How am I supposed to know who killed her? It says "player was killed," not "player was killed by player." We don't play on servers with nametags. It's reasonable to assume she was killed by the people who were running toward her position a minute earlier. Proof? How can I even prove that I played DayZ last night? This is a strawman. I said that there was no concealment near their position, that we watched all directions, and that they disappeared into an open field. Take my word for it or don't. Why are you here? Reading comprehension fail. From my first post: "We figure they disconnected, switched servers, and were flanking us. The lone player with the pistol was their scout, feeding them intel as the rest of them repositioned on another server. We move to the south onto a higher hill overlooking Stary. We go prone and watch our sectors. We see nothing, hear nothing." Again, why are you here? The player was running through an open field from the last known position of the 4 players who were zig-zagging toawrd us. He was last seen in the middle of the field. He was not seen again. Draw your own conclusions. Take my word for it or don't. Again, why are you here? The team that was zig-zagging toward us, and the lone scout, was last seen running toward the hill we moved to. In hindsight, we should have moved toward and past their last known position, rather than in the direction they were headed. We probably ran into their trap. This was our mistake. However, it does not excuse their cowardice. Combat is more than just shooting. Combat is about outmaneuvering and outsmarting your opponent before any shots are even fired. Do you really not understand this? Your lack of basic reading comprehension astounds me. Don't accuse me of lying or being stupid when you can't even understand what I wrote.

I don't know how close DayZ's ArmA2 development is to being stopped. I'm not aware of Rocket having set a date. I'm not even aware of him confirming that this is the plan--only that it's an idea he'd like to pursue. Unless you know for certain, you shouldn't spread rumors. Besides, this "aging" engine is still being updated constantly. I just installed a new beta today. Regardless of that, it would not be difficult or time-consuming to add a reconnect delay, and it would improve the game more than things like adjusting zombie behavior. I'm not afraid of other players. They make the game exciting. If I just wanted AI, I could play singleplayer games or L4D2. But it takes hours and hours of game time just to gear up and rendezvous with teammates. Cheaters like these make it not worth the effort. With all the servers that we have, there's no reason to let people reconnect so soon. As it is, if I see enemy players, do I want to take the risk that they're going to cheat, and throw away hours of time invested? The smartest thing for me to do is disconnect before any shots are fired--but then all I'm doing is avoiding imaginary zombies, gathering imaginary gear, eating imaginary food, and drinking imaginary soda. I do 75% of those things in real life. I don't want to play like that--only slightly less cowardly than these cheaters--but to not do so would put me at the mercy of cheaters.

Five minutes is not enough time. More than five minutes elapsed after they disappeared before their scout disappeared. It can take longer than that to be sure that they disconnected. Even 15 minutes is not good enough. If they disconnect, I shouldn't have to worry about them coming back, period. Unless I'm camping the town myself, they should be gone. They should have no option but to pick on someone else. No tolerance. No mercy. Cowards should always lose.

Temperature: It shouldn't be that easy to get too cold. I've been in rain before. I didn't get hypothermia. Rain causing one to get sick should be a very rare thing. Zombies: In 1.7.2.3 I've seen them aggro from 150 meters while running. I've seen them aggro from over 50 meters while crouched. I've seen a few who were frozen. I've stood outside a building a few meters from the door looking a zombie in the face, and he didn't react. It varies. I'm ok with some variability (the frozenness is a bug). If there was a hard limit that was the same for all of them, that'd be boring. You want to know a problem with the game? http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/36645-disconnect-change-server-flank-reconnect-simple-solution/

US 371. 1.7.2.3/95054. I was running across a hill. Then instantly I was next to a barn I had been through about 30 minutes earlier. I was so close my rifle was clipping through it. I was afraid my character was going to get stuck and glitch out and die, but I was able to move away from the barn. Luckily, my teammate happened to be a few buildings away, so it saved us some time meeting up. But it was very strange. A similar teleportation happened to one of my teammates a few days ago. Teleported him a klick or so. Took a while to get back together.

US 232. Beta 94876. Disconnected prone next to a bush. Reconnected to a different server (US 232). Was turned to a different angle than when I disconnected. Couldn't turn my body in either direction. Stood up, still couldn't turn. Went prone again. Unconscious. YOU ARE DEAD. Now respawned, separated from my squad on the other end of the world. Demotivated to play.

Nor should there be.

"You should add X, because I think it's so awesome!" ... Come on. Just let rocket do his thing.

Footprints would be client-side, created by players' footsteps when they are synced to a client, just like grass gets flattened when players crawl through it. The server wouldn't need to preserve them and sync them. Could be very interesting to use to shadow players. I'm not sure it would make sense for all terrain to have them, though.

Fantastic idea. It would also lessen the need for out-of-band comms after spawning, which would let players play in a more realistic way.

There are no bandits. There are survivors and there are infected--that's it. It's a zombie apocalypse. The world is a hostile place. Not knowing who you can trust is part of the experience. Deal with it. That's what makes DayZ DayZ. We don't need more artificial consequences, magically changing clothes, etc. That makes it a game, rather than the great anti-game it is. What we need is for the zombies to be so challenging that the only way to survive for a decent amount of time is to team up. It's almost that way now. As someone said, there are no more laws, no more courts, no more witnesses. It's more wild than the Wild West ever was. As rocket said, every minute you survive is a miracle. The only real problem is out-of-band communication, which allows people to artificially coordinate against players who aren't in their channel. But this is something that cannot be prevented--it's the nature of things. What are you going to do, send someone to their house to stop them from talking with their buddies on the phone? Besides, it might not even be wise to do so if you could--would you really want to never be able to play with your friends unless you ran into them at random? Bottom line: stop trying to make DayZ what you think it should be. Stop trying to make it like other games. Enjoy it for what it is. Look at what rocket has accomplished. Don't you trust him? The world just ended. Adapt.