HMS

If you want to lose your gear, just play the game. You can't win either way. The dirty little secret is that while there may be less hackers on private servers, the server admins can find out where your tents and vehicles are with about 3 mouse clicks. So just try to play with someone you trust, and don't sweat it either way. Hopefully all of this will change with the stand-alone.

Yikes! I did not notice. Well, it officially sucks to be him then! OK, then Keleg will have to let us know how he's doing...

Chris, You didn't mention if this happens on all servers. If you joined a server that hasn't rebooted in a while, things will lag. Your machine is a little better than mine, and I don't lag at all - except on laggy servers. It plays every bit as smooth and responsively as any other game. I am not sure what he means by negative mouse acceleration. This feels as smooth as glass to me.

Hey jgonzo, Short answer: don't worry about it. Long answer: You can still play DayZ with the free "light" version of arma 2, somehow. Or so I heard. So that's not a cause for concern. If for some reason your CD key is not legit, you won't be banned. You just won't be allowed to play. Either way, you couldn't play, so what's the difference? The bans only happen for executing hacks. I have never heard of anyone being accidentally banned, btw. Maybe it happens all day long, but I'd never know, and there'd be no way to prove they _weren't_ hacking, so in summary... see the short answer above.

Hey Devil, this is a total drag. Have you tried joining a different server? The problem with the character is an issue that can probably be resolved in the character_data table in the SQL database (in the Medical column). Obviously, you'd need a server admin who has access to that who would be willing to help you out. If you are lucky as hell, joining a different server - even if you are a fresh spawn again - may fix it, then you can come back to the original server. But it may not, because it would be stored in the public hive. I got stuck with a corrupt character_data entry on a public hive and couldn't play for 6 weeks until after the game updated. If that is your case, then consider joining a private hive server. You will not start out with the same issue. If you are on a private hive, then you are really lucky because the problem is confined to that one server, and you also have about a trillion times more likelihood of getting hold of an admin who can help. Let us know how you make out.

There are no reliable sources of what you might find, unfortunately, because server admins can add whatever they want. As far as capacity, keep adding stuff until you find your steaks on the grass. That is the only way I do it because I'll never remember which vehicle has how many slots.

Fly too high and you die.

G17 is a 1-shot drop on any Z within 100m with some practice. Any Zs much closer, and, well something very wrong has to happen for you to find yourself in that situation. Retreat if you have to. If you are out to kill players, well good luck with all that anyhow.

You have to watch the little sight n sound icons on the right. Depending on the time of day, ambient light, and your stance too. Example: crouch lowers your visibility a lot from standing. Standing, they'll see you in broad daylight - or even ambient light at night - from 100m. (Dunno the actual distance, I am just using conjecture). Crouch, and they'll have to be way closer. Move quickly while crouching and vis. goes up a little. Hold shift to crouch-walk slowy, and it doesn't go up at all. Prone, and you are essentially invisible. I get this all the time looting a hospital for some reason. Making tons of noise crawling across a street. I'll even have to hit SHIFT to crawl slower while prone to get the audio footprint down to 1 or 0 bars. You'll figure it out. If you are in the cities a lot, still, then it's harder to get the hang of it because there are so many Zs around. Go off in the hills a bit, with nothing but a shed or gas station around, and things start to get easier to keep track of when you are learning the cause and effect of what you are doing vs. what the Zs do.

Good question about the gear stuff. I don't believe the game makes the distinction on something like that yet. As for why you were targeted and not your pal, it's probably just crazy bugs about the mod and zombie pathing. It happens to me and a friend all the time. Best bet is get some good hatchet practice in and make the Zs sorry! And be glad you didn't just get squashed by your own helicopter! I mean, that's the level of craziness we are dealing with. You just can't explain some of it other than that Arma 2 is being pushed beyond its limit I guess. Good to move with a buddy though - in case you need some cover while bandaging or otherwise need a hand. I'd love to play with you, if I ever were to play on a public server again.

One more thing... If you find yourself trying to get out of an Mi17 helicopter, and you are INSIDE the cargo hold, do not move. You will die a painful, yet hilarious, death. Get on your stomach and crawl out. This is way worse than before for some reason. 80% of my exits are not to the port side like they should be.

Keep in mind, Griffith, that certain actions now are like ringing a dinner bell for Zombies. Filling gas cans, filling cars with gas (not as bad as last update), gutting animals (not as bad as last update) are all aggro-inducers. Using in-game voice will also call them. Repairing a vehicle anywhere in a town is basically suicide. Same with pitching a tent. It's like announcing an early bird special in North Florida. You didn't mention that you were doing any of those activities, but I just wanted to let you know in case you do and find yourself getting swarmed again. They are definitely more "out there" now. Spawning in buildings, non-aggro pathing very differently than before, and gravitating toward stuff you wish they wouldn't be drawn to. All in all, major improvements in my book, because Zombies after all, are dangerous creatures.

Definitely in the last 2 updates, it has become far more prevalent.

It can be a pain - adds to the challenge I suppose (though there is NO challenge for server admins, who know where everything is anyhow - private hives included - though that is a separate discussion). But at least there are situations in which you can use SD mags that you happen to find, in non-SD weapons. So I guess that is something.

Can you please list your BattleEye ID so I can ban you permanently from the servers I admin?

60 pages of complaints about bugs vs. bad design vs. great changes vs. silly names later... Are tents working now or not?

I see your chengqueeh, and raise you one solid yakshemash.

Do you know what build was used for the private server? Bliss, P0WNZ0R, etc?

If it had been beans instead...

No sir, Spentmind. This is actually a very thoughtful thread. OP is going into the not-so-subtle distinction between true bandits and idiots who just want to pull a trigger. Col Brown, I have found that you are correct for the most part. If you are looking for a more immersive experience (with regards to true survivor/bandit roles) you will have to stick to lower pop servers. There are many benefits to this approach, which I'm sure you don't need me to elaborate upon.

In Commander, look on the left side. There is a slider that controls what range of pings your server masterlist will query. Make sure that thing is set so you are looking for servers between 0 and about 150 ping. If that is OK, then let's look at your local machine. As an example, before I upgraded to an i5, I used to have to shut off everything else while playing. If it sat in the system tray and wasn't steam or my audio controls, it would get shut off. Then I would run the game with everything set to low. If there was a little lag on the server side, it would be compounded on my end, and I would run in windowed mode. But that is getting ahead of things, because I don't know anything about your rig.

Hey dude. I had something like this a long time ago. I don't recall exactly if the ping went really high or not, but my framerate would plummet to nearly unplayable. It turns out it was the handful of servers I was playing on. Does this happen on all servers?

Sending PM but I don't know that my method will create a public hive. And if it did, that would be a no-no... though, under the circumstances, who could blame you? A public hive will need to be public at all times and can't be locked, etc. I'll post here on what happens on restart.

I am scared to even test saving in vehicles, Shoker. Two servers I was on, vehicles disappeared after restart. Then, returned after subsequent restarts. So fed up, I went ahead and created a private server so I can actually test and stop guessing.

There is no etiquette. What some people USED to do, when tents were practically raining from the sky, was to put one in the middle of Elektro or something, and throw some blood, bandages in there, etc. Nothing wrong with helping someone out. If I stole anything from a tent, I'd usually leave something mildly useful behind.