Ragotag

Hey, watch out for that... BUMPITY BUMP BUMP!!!

Wow... I would have considered the issue of rendering vegetation, or at least occluding things (players, etc.) hidden in vegetation at long distances to be a very "major" issue, one that likely does in fact require "sweeping, architectural changes" to correct. This one actually breaks immersion time and again.

Not sure if this has already been suggested, but couldn't find a similar post, so... Assuming a server-side mechanism can be coded to reasonably assess a combat logging event, then the premise here is really very simply... treat combat logging as a suicide, drop a body containing the player's gears at the spot of the combat log, and tag the player for a fresh character re-spawn. For added protection, the server could also provide to the player a brief warning message - prior to allowing the client to disconnect - that the action to disconnect will be considered as a combat logging event. This *should* handle all other situations where the player is not intending to combat log, but the combat logging detection algorithm indicates that they are. Such a warning message would allow the player an opportunity to cancel their logging action and relocate and/or change their situation so that it is not construed as a combat logging event prior to disconnecting.

I'm pretty sure that the rate of food/fluid consumption is currently based on activity level, which IMO, works pretty well even with the somewhat short/unrealistic time frames.

Are you serious? That's all you have to contribute to this thread? I did mention at the top of my post that I did use the search function and came up with no results. It's not my fault the search function is less than stellar or other posters are not using relevant tags. Here were my "Search" results: " Suicide" - Didn't result in any similar OP. "Forced Suicide", results in "Website Currently Unavailable" "Ghosting" & "Combat Logging" got some hits: Safe Zones - Nope, not the idea I've proposed. Log off Delay - Nope, not the idea I've proposed. Save Your Location and Sleep - Nope, not the idea I've proposed. Log On Delay - Nope, not the idea I've proposed. Prevent Spawning In Locations - Nope, not the idea I've proposed. One Character per Server - Nope, not the idea I've proposed. Hive Handshaking - Nope, not the idea I've proposed. Oddly enough, what I did find was more than few posts by you bitching about people posting. Yep, you have an interesting way of contributing to a discussion -- kind of useless by my way of thinking but each to their own. p.s. - I agree with you that leaving an active character on the server is a bad idea, and that's not at all what I proposed. Did you even read the content here or did you just decide to take it upon yourself to bitch based on the thread title? No... don't bother to answer, I question whether any response would just be equally as pointless as your last.

You totally have a good point regarding people just "end tasking" or who suddenly lose connection to the server. However, I would gladly suffer a forced suicide if the latter happened while I was in a combat situation if it prevents combat logging and ghosting. I would certainly rather have a viable solution to this problem than to not have one for fear of that 0.009% chance that my system or Internet will crash while I'm in combat. Just my opinion though...

Yep, that's simple enough. In my opinion it doesn't solve anything though. In example, you're in a town and get sniped at from another building. You return fire and hit your assailant, who immediately backs up into the safety of a room. Now I don't know about you, but unless you go charging in, it will likely take you longer than one minute to tactically approach that room and attempt to finish your assailant off, which by that time he very well could have combat logged to exit a situation that he started. This happens all of the time by the way, which is why I don't think a one minute timer will work for such a solution. As it stands, I think Rocket is currently considering a 5 second timer like this for stand alone, which in my opinion solves nothing, even if players are ranked for server exclusive based on combat logging events. Why even go there at all, just force a suicide -- problem totally solved and no more advantages to combat logging or ghosting.

The answer to the first part of your question should be somewhat obvious if you've played DayZ long enough; but as to the second part of your question -- good question. The Short Answer If I were the designer of such a game mechanic, I would first approach this by defining what it means to "enter into a combat situation", "remain in a combat situation", and then "leave a combat situation". I would then consider applying a forced suicide to any player who "enters into a combat situation", "remains in a combat situation", and ALT+F4 or attempts to otherwise disconnect from the server without "leaving the combat situation". The Longer Answer There are a number of ways to skin this cat, and what I propose here is just one way, and not necessarily the best or most popular way; it is just an idea of how this could be accomplished. "Entering Into Combat" -- There are two ways that I can see this happening: You shoot at another player and your bullet/round/projectile passes within some distance of your target. You get shot at by another player and their bullet/round/projectile passes within some distance of you. In either case, I would consider the mathematics/geometry of a bullet/round/projectile's trajectory passing through a sphere centered on the character having a radius of X; the value of X would be something to play around with, but I would consider 10 meters to be reasonable. Obviously, that may have to get adjusted differently for melee weapons or explosives, but I would consider the maximum effective range of the worst in-game pistol as a default minimum range. "Remaining In Combat" -- This simplest solution to this would be a timer that gets reset back to maximum each time you fire a shot and/or get shot at in such a way that the above "Entering Into Combat" criteria is met. This way, as long as fire continues to get exchanged, the timer keeps getting reset. Once again, the duration of such a timer would also be something to play around with, but I would consider anything between 2 and 5 minutes within reason. "Leaving Combat" -- The obvious one here is when the "Remaining in Combat" timer expires, but I would consider adding one other way of "leaving combat" or killing the "Remaining in Combat" timer -- I would make it based upon the distant between the combatants, that is, some minimum range that must be met in order to kill the "Remaining in Combat" timer early. Again, this minimum range is also something to play around with, but I would consider twice (2x) the maximum effective weapon range of any firearm used during the combat situation, whichever is the longest between the combatants, to be a reasonable disengagement range. This way, the "combat situation" could be terminated early by either the shooter leaving the area or the target escaping from the area. Anyway, just one idea of how this could be done.

Gotta take the bad with the good if your going to implement combat logging / ghosting prevention of some sort. Plus, you can always run off and hide under a tree somewhere. =) I did say "in my opinion", but I'm also not a fan of a cool down timer as was mentioned or discussed in other posts simply because, just as you pointed out, everybody has a different idea of what is an acceptable cool down time. IMO, forced suicide for combat logging with a server-side warning regarding such actions seem to solve the whole cool down timer length issue.

That's been discussed before, but there seems to be two big issues with it: How long should the cool down timer be? (Anything less than 10 minutes is somewhat pointless in my opinion.) If the cool down is sufficiently short, it won't prevent ghosting. At least a forced suicide would totally eliminate combat logging *and* ghosting.

How often have you been the Dude in this conversation... TOD: Middle of the Day; LOC: Any City*Clueless, 10m ahead of you, stops and turns in your direction.* Clueless: Dude, why the hell are you crawling around like that... it's sooo flippen slow. Dude: Cuz I don't wanna aggro the Zeds. *Clueless begins to crouch run back in your direction.* Clueless: The Zeds never aggro me when I... CRAP! *A handfull of Zeds aggro Clueless.* ...or this one... TOD: Middle of the Day; LOC: Open Field*Clueless, heading into an open field at a full run, free-looking around, and noticing that you are NOT following.* Clueless: Dude, where are you going? Dude: Into the tree-line. Clueless: Why? It's only going to just take you longer to get past this field? Dude: Let's just say that I have an aversion to open fields. Clueless: An aversion to what? *WHIZZ... CRACK!* "Clueless was killed" Dude: That. ...or this one... TOD: Anytime; LOC: Anywhere*KA-BOOM!* Clueless: I got him! I got him! *Clueless stands up and begins running over to the dead player's body.* Dude: Clueless, wait!!! Clueless: Why? I'll be quick, wanna see what gear he has on him... *BLAM... BLAM... BLAM!!!* "Clueless was killed" Dude: ...because they're almost never alone. ...or this one... TOD: Anytime; LOC: Camping a Vehicle SpawnClueless: I'm bored. Dude: ... Clueless: This is friggen boring as hell. Dude: ... Clueless: I'm gonna go down there and scout around a bit. Dude: I wouldn't recommend that. Clueless: Who's gonna be there anyways? There's only two other guys on the server right now. *Clueless leaves; 5 minutes later... BLAM... BLAM!* "Clueless was killed" Clueless: WTF! Where did he come from? ...or this one... TOD: Anytime; LOC: AnywhereClueless: Where are you at? I'll come get you. Dude: You have a vehicle? Very cool, what kind? Clueless: An ATV! Dude: Think I'll just walk for now. Clueless: No really, I'll come get you. Dude: Better not; I'll be there in about 30 minutes. *You start walking north; 5-minutes later...* "Clueless was killed" Clueless: Damn that thing!

No. I learned weeks ago that attempting to join a server in either the "Waiting" or "Briefing" state nearly always results in the infinite "Loading" screen bug. I always wait until the ingame Multiplay listing shows "Playing" before I join a server.

You asserted that anyone who has experienced this particular bug would only experience this if they had ALT+F4'ed. I am simply informing you that this assertion is incorrect. Points of fact regarding my (and likely others) experience with this bug: I logged out normally from the server due to a pending server restart (5-minute warning). After server restart, I logged back in normally to see my own death notification and find myself in the debug plains; by "normal" I mean explicitly that I DID NOT "get stuck on loading"... the "normal" login process resulted in my being located in the debug plains. I did not die before logout; I was located under a comfy pine tree way out in the forest all by my lonesome. I know I did not die because when I logged back in, DC'ed from the debug plains, and relogged in a second time, my character stats remained unchanged from what they were prior to server restart. Now, the *only* way to resolve being spawned in the debug plains is to DC and then log back into the server, as you noted, and this does indeed result in a coastal spawn - which has been the case since the last DayZ update (1.7.2.4). However, when I did this it resulted in my inventory being completely empty -- no pack, no starter gear, no weapons, no tool belt items -- nothing at all. After relocating my last good location prior to the server restart, I found my dead body exactly where I had logged out - under the tree with all of my gear. The simple fact is, just because *YOU* have never experienced this particular bug does not mean it does not exist nor does it mean that it is the result of an ALT+F4.

That's an erroneous assumption my friend, one that I know not to be entirely accurate since it recently happened to me after executing a leisurely DC from a server due to a pending server restart; no ALT+F4 involved in any way. I can confirm that what the OP wrote was true in my case... I was able to return to my last logout location after server restart (a 14.5K run) to find my body and recover all of my gear.

I had the same thing happen to me on an updated, private, non-HIVE server following a server restart. After receiving a server restart warning, my comrade and I landed our Huey in the vicinity of the NE Airstrip, saved the helicopter to retain it's contents (fruits of our crashed-heli hunt), then we both found a comfy tree to go prone under and promptly logged out; neither of us had a G-suit. After server restart, I logged in, immediately saw my own death notification, and then found myself in the debug wasteland. I DC'ed to the lobby and then re-launched only to find myself west of Kamenka, with not one item in inventory (nothing -- no pack and no starter gear), naked except for my current stats which remained intact. My comrade logged back in to discover his pack completely empty, but everything else that was in his inventory was otherwise still there. Our helicopter had it's entire inventory wiped, so all that choice military loot was lost. Oddly enough, my comrade did find my dead body lying exactly were I logged out -- inventory fully intact. What a fun update/hotfix (read: patch)!

The exact same thing happened to me on a DayZ/Beta updated, private, non-HIVE, server following a restart -- so I'd say it's likely a bug and not a hack.

...and a few more undocumented changes... [FIX] Coastal Loading: Have increased the frequency of random coastal spawns for existing characters from once in a great while to every other login or so. [FIX] Zombies now ignore players sprinting around them within a 10m meter radius when not in direct line of sight, but will now aggro from 250m out if players are within line of sight even if the player is prone and making no noise. [FIX] Loading Times: Have found the issue that allowed players to load into the game within five minutes; should now take 10-15 minutes as originally intended. [NEW] Empty Inventory: When randomly loading existing characters on the coast, the loading algorithm now also has a random chance to load existing characters with a completely empty inventory. This should balance out tents and vehicles that don't save / or delete items on server restarts. [NEW] Wildlife Apparitions: Dead wildlife from past DayZ gaming sessions will taunt players by re-enacting their gruesome deaths only to disappear as players approach.

I really hope they support a player GUID whitelisting feature as an option for private hive servers as well.

I really feel for you server hosts & admins; if not for you, DayZ would not be as popular as it is right now. Sadly, here are some rough stats based on limited public Internet resources, meaning they are in no way conclusive but... in the last month the DayZ server population has increased by +50% in the past week player population on servers during server peak hours has dropped by 10 - 30% in the past 48 hours player population on servers during server peak hours has dropped by 30 - 50% in the past 12 hours server population (servers online at this time) has dropped by 10% Ouch! This mod has gone viral over the past few months, chiefly by word of mouth. But now I feel bad for friends of mine who have just picked up the Arma2 Combat Operations on Steam for the explicit purpose of playing DayZ --by my recommendation-- only to experience a plague of hackers worse than a Biblical swarm of locusts. I am now warning friends to stay away from Arma2: CO and DayZ till this rampant hacker issue gets resolved.

Fire Extinguisher... check. Fire Suit... check. Flame Retardant Gel... check. 911 on Speed Dial... check. With so much hacking and item duplication exploits/bugs goings on, how about a complete item wipe, to include tents and vehicles, as well as a fresh character restart each time a new version of the DayZ Alpha is distributed? After all, this is an Alpha version of DayZ. Could start doing this with 1.7.2.5...

I'm mad about "losing items or something similar", so I'm suggesting a frequent database wipe? How does that make any sense? From my point of view, it's those who are against such an idea who feel that they have something to lose -- just my opinion though. ;)

I'm against any such game mechanics for the following reasons: first, it would require more coding, which would invariably introduce more bugs, requiring more debugging and game "balancing", resulting in even more coding to counter exploiters and "griefers" abusing said game mechanic -- leaving such a game mechanic totally out costs no additional time or project budget; secondly, it would detract from the thrill of the game, never knowing for sure if the other survivor is really a bandit or not with regard to you -- I want that rush! Have I KoS'ed? Sure have. Have I been KoS'ed, many many times. But it's really pointless to accuse those opposed to such an idea as being griefers since a lack of such a feature is a valid game mechanic and, IMO, totally fits in with the DayZ concept and unique feel that is attracting so many players. Fact is, my current crew is primarily made up of players who: a.) I did not KoS, which got us to talking in game and playing cooperatively; b.) did not KoS me, which got us to talking in game and playing cooperatively: c.) noticed that I got murdered by the same script hacker that just murdered them, which got us chatting out of game and then playing cooperatively; d.) KoS'ed me and/or my crew, then later contacted me on Steam to offer me their respect for playing legit during our firefight (not attempting to combat log, ghost, or ALT+F4 on them), which got us chatting out of game and then playing cooperatively. I would suggest that any player who is seriously upset over the unknown nature of the existing friend (survivor) vs. foe (bandit) mechanics in DayZ to take a look at L4D2 (Left 4 Dead 2) as that game will be more suited to your taste as well as having a terrific gaming community in support of it.

What's stopping you and 19-29 other players from attempting that now? Good luck with that. :)

Are you kidding me? Us legitimate players are *already* vulnerable to the script hackers; nothing you acquire in this game will be enough to adequately defend yourself against the more sophisticated script hackers since they can just go God mode on your ass if they feel the compunction to do so. Rocket, BI and BattlEye will hopefully fix that soon enough.

Ah heck... it only takes legit players and evening or three to fully gear up. At a minimum it would make premium gear a valuable commodity for a brief period of time.