Apophis (DayZ)

There are a couple people who got banned inappropriately by Battleye with some of the anti-hack scripts we're running. The bans all surround helo destruction and are not "legitimate" bans for hacking. The ban on Sarge as well as Pointman45 are going to be reversed and cleaned up due to this. I believe one other public player also got auto-banned as well and that ban will also be lifted this evening when I return home.

I completed the review of all the available log files for ArmA2 as well as some third party logs for some custom tools that we run. As a result of the review, I am removing the bans. When the hacking issue was going on over the weekend I made a hasty decision to implement several bans based on a cursory review of the logs and player reports. Due to the combination of the active hacks as well as the metagaming that was going on between your group and Tactical Gamer, it seemed like a pretty sure thing at the time. The bans have been removed and I apologize for the inconvenience.

@Ferren; I am the only one that has the log data, so anything at all will come from me. I'm dealing with bigeazy on the TG forums as a collective unban request and have been reviewing logs in HIGH detail since I got home from work.

Incorrect. I never logged into your TeamSpeak server. I did see a screenshot someone posted after the fact, but the collection of names was based of date/time stamps of incidents and then a review of the logs (which included direct and vehicle chat) that tied you all together in some form or another. So I was considerably more than a push-to-talk away. I was trying to get things resolved so I could get back to my non-DayZ weekend playing with my son. Please don't assume you know what *I* did and why I did it. But I'm addressing this part of the issue through the TG contact an admin forum already with bigeasy. I did... Although my 6 year old was questioning why I was stocking up on beans at the grocery store this weekend. He hates beans. :)

I'm not going to deal with the individual player issues here. We have forums on our site set up to deal with bans on players on our servers. But I understand you keeping this thread open. I can deal with your bans from US 137 once you submit an unban request in the forum that I linked. I can assure that you will be treated fairly, as all players are within Tactical Gamer. As for the discussion in this forum; here are my final comments: I understand the frustration you have in dealing with admins that act to their personal benefit rather than to keep the integrity of the game intact. I can't speak to what admins on other servers and other clans/communities do, only that which is done by admins at Tactical Gamer. That being said; I am just as sick of hearing from players when they are banned that it MUST be because they were "better than the admins" or "raided an admin camp" or other such nonsense. As I said in my previous post; *I* was the one that instituted the bans based on previous events that occurred as much as 48 hours PRIOR to me enacting those GUID bans. The way I see it; you're making a big deal out of this because the construct you've created in your opening post ASSUMES that you know a) who banned you, B) what was going through their mind at the time, c) the behavior of the majority of our players. The reality is you don't KNOW any of the above and are creating straw men in order to justify your chosen path of action. Surely, you MUST realize that you have NO idea who the admins are, WHO owned the tents you found, etc. This is clear as day to me as you assume you were banned for stealing stuff our of our "main camp" by upset admins when the reality is nothing of the sort. As an admin, it is NOT my responsibility to figure out who all the anonymous players are, where I can find them, and how I should open dialogue with them to determine if the activity we're seeing on our server is the result of said player's actions. Are you seriously suggesting that if we experience issues with hacking we should try and identify the person and track them down to any number of websites to talk to them PRIOR to taking any action? That's simply ridiculous. In terms of the acceptance of varied forms of gameplay on US 137. I have NO issue with outside teams coming in and legitimately raiding TG sites. This is what makes this game FUN. If all I had to do was run around and hunt zombies, I would have quit playing shortly after I started. The PvP elements to this game are what make it fascinating and fun, and it is not my policy, nor the policy of TG or my admin team, to enact ANY punitive action for these types of activities. It's unreasonable for you to expect ME to provide YOU with hard evidence of 'x' when you take the liberty of making blanket accusations against the community without providing evidence yourself. This whole "hard evidence" thing is another silly aspect that seems to crop up in the larger gaming community quite often. I think many "gamers" don't realize they are not operating in a court of law, and that legal rules of evidence do not apply to bans on game servers. I'm not trying directly to be an arse with that statement, but I think it's important that people take a step back and realize what they're talking about here. A game.....

I'm going to attempt to clear up some misinformation and address a couple issues regarding US 137 and Tactical Gamer. First off, I am the Owner/Manager of TacticalGamer.com. There is no higher authority within the Tactical Gamer community. As you all know, there have been numerous hacking issues plaguing DayZ that have been quite problematic for many servers and communities. Admins are doing their best across the entire title to try and help curb these issues and deal with those that take advantage of others using less-than-honorable methods. US137 is no exception in this regard, and we do our best to identify and punish those who are manipulating the game engine to gain an unfair advantage. We also do our best to identify and punish those who utilize third parties to gain said information through manipulation/hacking of the DayZ environment. This is a never ending process that we, as server operators, have to accept and do our best to deal with. As for the admin culture on US137; We have an EXTREMELY limited admin team and they have only been given very limited powers. They can kick/ban and restart the server. None of the admins have access to the actual server as I want to keep as much of the log data, RPT files, etc., locked up to prevent accusations of using said data to their advantage. The only DayZ admin that has full access to the environment is me. The original claim of this thread is that "admins" are "abusing" these players because they got their stuff stolen. This simply isn't the case. The players in question were banned by ME based on a review of two days worth of logs, player reports, and active players on the server at the time of said reports. At no time did any of these players raid my camp, tents, or steal anything in any other way that I would have considered "property". I have little attachment to anything in this game simply due to it's alpha nature so I don't get bent out of shape if I die, lose stuff, or end up dying as I walk past a rock. It's a game, it's fun, but not something that should be life-affecting. Tactical Gamer is also largely decentralized in terms of DayZ. There isn't a "main camp" for our community to be raided. Players within the community each have their own camps, operate independently, and we even fight/steal from each other. Is this really important? Not particularly, but the original posts from the banned players would have you believe that they somehow magically know the intent behind their bans as though they could read the minds of everyone they believe had a hand in them being removed from the server. Creating whimsical stories about the great plot against them by the admins and community are just that, whimsical stories. The facts; Some of these guys were playing on our server and being observed for a couple days. This DISPLEASURED many on US 137 because I refused to simply ban them immediately and allowed them to continue playing. *I* banned these players after reviewing a number of player reports and log data. *I* was not on the server at the time the bans took place and the ban was not punitive in nature due to them stealing some weapons out of a tent. There is no other conspiracy behind this event. The accusations; The TG community (branded as a whole here, which is a silly accusation) is populated by people who will ALT-F4 at the first sign of engagement. While I can't vouch for every single player, this is NOT common behavior within the community. There are players that I suspect of behaving like this, and I treat those players just as harshly as a guest playing on our server. It's not something that we accept as common behavior. The second accusation is one of item duplication. I know that the game as a whole can create instances where items in tents or persons are duplicated and just as I suspect a small number of people jumping on the ALT-F4 bandwagon, I believe that some area also taking advantage of item duplication. This is also something that we do not accept as common behavior and are working to identify/remedy. As for the bans; we have a forum where players can request to have their bans removed: http://www.tacticalgamer.com/dayz-mod-contact-admin/ We treat all requests made in a mature manner equally. The key here is we expect people to act like adults. If you file an unban request filled with conspiracy theory, unfounded accusations, and fueled with personal insults; you will likely NOT get a satisfactory resolution. If you're capable of having a reasonable discussion, that's a different story...