PhilB

Long Live DayzMod! Thanks Razor et al! You guys are da shit!

I had issues with both zombies and player combat. It seemed to crash whenever "projectile" information (bullets, axe hits, zed hits) was communicated between server and client. I wonder if code still exists to detect when a player "is in combat"? If so, I wonder if that might be part of the issue. As the base owner and being nearby my base, It never seemed to crash if someone was "shooting" in a direction away from me. However as soon as bullets were fired in my direction I would crash. And for sure a crash happens when I'd take damage from bullets. Something else I was wondering since I had a small example of this once while playing-Try pulling the trigger on an unloaded gun aimed directly at a base owner standing next to his/her base. I have a feeling that won't trigger a crash. Another test that might be worthwhile is to see if it is exclusive to wooden fences. I noticed in the video the zed's wailing on Geryon while he was near your metal fences and no crash. Also wondering if the total number of items built in an area can increase the likelihood of a crash. It seemed to get worse as I built more stuff. Just before I stopped playing I had appx 5 stashes and 8 wooden fences. At that point it seemed to be wreaking havoc on the entire server, crashing a dozen+ players at a time. I don't recall having the client crash problem for the lengthy period of time when I had like 3 stashes and just 2 walls built. Thanks to Luke and Tommy for investigating this. I agree with Luke about this needing to be a priority before next patch. There's no point in implementing further base building features like lockable doors if any meaningful structure built by a player means his/her game is borderline unplayable. Or worse! the player earns a false reputation for combat logging.

What great comedy

Building system-Really cool, takes a ton of material and work to get anything built which I like. Downside is you can't yet truly build workable defenses because fences/barricades won't let you build/snap to existing structures on the map. Building a free standing structure is a little impractical if you're a lone wolfer; it would be really helpful if I could seamlessly build additional fortifications next to existing buildings. The best I can do currently is place bear traps/trip wires at these unnatural gaps between fence and in game buidling in an attempt to discourage a player. Except I've also learned recently that one can survive fairly easily after tripping a grenade trip wire.

I like the suggestion of +1 humanity for each zed kill. The notion that true bandits will exploit this or farm humanity is silly. If you're a "hero" please go spend a few hours ingame with a bandit or bandit clan and you will see first hand how interested these players are in killing zeds i.e. none at all! I only like this idea because it would add a small reward for my already ongoing goal which is highest zed kill count possible per life. Once again I'd like to suggest a slight expansion to the skin tiers as I think this would also help the situation. For instance--I have 350 hours played on a particular server, I play mostly alone and I've been able to keep humanity at negative 5-7K even while BB is currently broken (this has required me to eat a ton of shit from survs). On the other hand I know a player on same server who has 1/3 my hours played and is appx -250,000 humanity. So 1) he deserves some "uber bandit" skin to reward him for his exploits and 2) I don't deserve to classed the same as him or be treated like him cuz I am truly the nicest person on this particular server. Ironically any neg humanity I incur is from those times I forget how completely pointless it is to go into a populated area to help survs. They simply kos you (and each other). One can either die over and over recollecting med supplies each time OR defend yourself in the hope of staying alive so that maybe the next guy might be willing to be helped and thus one walks away from a "Cherno hero" run with -10,000 to -20,000 humanity racked up. The fact that players' intentions have completely opposite results is a way in which I'd describe humanity system as "broken". To further this, the particular skin in no way provides any predictive ability whether another player might kill you or not. In fact, my anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise. I now feel far more safe interacting with bandit skin players versus survs. The reason is because the two skins only tell how long a player has dedicated to that particular server, not how dangerous they are. More experienced players are more willing to have deeper interactions with you and survivors have become synonymous with noob/casual which is someone who is simply logging on to get some cheap thrills/kills. (I will start keeping actual statistics on this as I know this idea will be viewed with suspicion. Trust me though, survs are far more kos'y than bandits.) Compounding the issue as well are those few survs who aren't noobs but use the bandit skin as their justifiable exception to kos. Which would be fine if the system was equitable in any sort of way but it's not. My issue with it in a nutshell Survivor=highly dangerous, stay away! Bandit=not sure, potential new ally Hero skin=never seen one

Thanks for all the positive responses! A couple things-- Some guy/gal called Bakerland has a new hive. 4 vanilla servers hived. Even described as "New Vanilla Hive" in DayzCommander. Tommy Geryon has two servers hived (and if he would just change 435 to 434 settings and got it to filter in DazCommander that server would surely fill up as well). I understand the cost issue. Subscription to access the hive? I'd pay. Crowdfunding? Also, I am surmising that there are way more challenges when trying to hive separate owners' servers versus a single owner, such as this Bakerland, who individually owns all the servers in a hive. I get that. If that is the challenge then maybe we all need to pool our resources in one direction to revive the hive? Because I'm now seeing at least 5 new Vanilla servers on Dayzcommander that weren't there 2 months ago. All with zero pop! And won't be getting any pop sadly. If those individuals are willing to pay a premium to start a new server that won't ever get busy then there must be enough interest and available cash to start a hive so that new server owners have at least a fair chance to get population on their servers. Everyone is treating 434 (and DayzEuropa) as the de facto hive. When those servers are 50/50 I don't hop on yet another unrelated server. I simply don't play. We don't yet have an organized way for the current community to grow. But I think the potential is definitely there. I am enthused at the level of interest while in-game. A constant stream of chat like "Just got this after playing SA, wow this kicks ass, what I thought SA was gonna be!" or "Just came back after playing SA, I forgot how amazing this game is, why did I ever stop playing?" or "Wow, look at all the new features in vanilla, and wow so stable and lag free!" To the Bakerland guy/gal-Thanks! Maybe you read this post? But do me a favor. Rename your servers US 001, US 002, US 003, US 004. So "US 001 Vanilla Hive". There's a valid reason players continue to click on "US 434" versus the "So and so's vanilla hive hurtlocker" or whatever. Players are human beings who aren't entirely rational at all times. Using the old hive nomenclature of US 286, for example, invokes the authority and majesty that was once "DayZ Mod". It clearly delineates no extra tampering with the files, as well (or it should). I guarantee if you rebrand a little as the original hive and get rid of "Bakerland" in server description your pop #'s will start to rise significantly. This may seem like a silly thing but note how critical it still remains to have your server as showing "active" in dayzcommander. Whenever 434 goes dark in Commander the pop # plummets. SA is a long, long way off. Razor & team has done a phenomenal job perfecting the mod. The current state of the mod is viable competition for H1, Miscreated and any other attractive knock off. If none of us had ever heard of DayZ and it was released on Steam tomorrow I have no doubt it would once again become a hit. Some history: I can imagine the rebuttals about the viability of the mod. "People started migrating away from vanilla while in its hey day to play other maps, mods of mods, etc. The mod was losing interest even then and the current situation is the natural result." My answer to that is this: The ONLY reason players migrated away was because of the hacking, nothing more. I remember because I was there. Lingor was the first derivation. The interest in playing a different map was secondary to the dire need to try to find a haven away from the hackers. I think that lasted like literally 3 days on Lingor. The hackers came and ruined that one and then we all tried to move in yet other directions to find a legitimate play ground. A little rambling and disorganized on this post, sorry. Just a few thoughts for the conversation :)

434 seems to be where it's at. Pop numbers are beginning to rival any overpoch server. Only 5-8 available slots on server yesterday during prime time. Won't be long until it will be overcrowded. But why bother going to another server if they aren't connected? I think because the mod has matured finally it isn't really different from other popular mods in the sense that there might be no permanent solution for hacking, ghosting, etc. but the player base is reduced to mostly only those who wish to truly play the game. 434 and 435 are connected and I haven't heard any issues with people using 435 to ghost.

Houses!? I'm excited and concerned. What a game changer. The refinements and added depth while also continued fidelity to the core difficulty level (dayz should be hard) has been nothing short of spectacular. A player cannot be idle for very long in-game now. The variety of priorities/tasks allows even pve centered game play to be distinctly NOT mundane. Great job. Please keep working on craftable structures but as always modesty and taste are what make classic DayZ great. Obviously none of us want physics defying base towers like in the "Epochs". No longer getting kicked for build fence but now can't build panels "itemneeded nails". I have nails. I do not know its proper name, but I want to mention the loot spawn mechanic that prevents new loot from spawning by the same player in the exact spot the player just picked up item(s) for I think 5 minutes. I think that timer should be adjusted by literally 30 seconds more or so. It is just barely too easy to loot farm one locale. I highly endorse Bullet Catcher's underlying concept about increasing zed difficulty as the player progresses. There's no doubt a fundamental way that happens is by travelling inland and north. If it were possible to not only adjust infection chance but also zed hit damage some and maybe bleed chance a tiny bit that would be ideal. Essentially we'd love 1.8.1 up north and 1.8.2 on the coast. I also think backpack storage should increase by 2 slots across the board for all backpacks. Crafting and added depth has left the heretofore acceptable capacity a little lacking. I love how crafting isn't entirely optional. Some activities like repairing a bottle with duct tape are fundamental. But all this awesome new stuff requires more physical items one must carry. For instance, 6 months ago it wasn't absolutely necessary to be carrying 2 matchboxes, 2 hatchets, 2 duct tapes, 2 water bottles and tin can. 6 months ago it was 1 match, 1 hatchet, 0 duct, 1 water bottle, 0 tin can. If we look at player item capacity and average kit size as a ratio we can see that if we followed status quo from June 2012 then a basic patrol pack should have like 20 slots now considering all the extra stuff one must carry around. However I enjoy the fact that the difficulty level of the overall game was increased (maybe inadvertently) because backpack size wasn't ever increased along with increased gameplay depth. So I don't suggest anything too outrageous I think. Just two extra slots for the tin can and duct tape basically. In summation, kick butt dude, lovin it, thanks! Can't wait for hotfix. I'm so ready to build by stockade!!

I think we already saw the result last night. A lot more players! Real DayZ is just as viable as it was 2 years ago. Initially the mod's popularity spread like wildfire almost exclusively by word of mouth. I think the same will happen again. 1.8.2 is a great time to play the mod or experience it for the first time! It all starts with one server. Once that server has more players than available slots, we'll need another server. I'd love to see the mod experience a rebirth. But this time on our terms and in a slow, structured way. Maybe Tommy (434,435) is willing to become the defacto vanilla public mod (basically what is happening anyway)? He can take donations and only add new servers as needed and/or "whitelist" new vanilla servers hosted by others that connect to his db. As a first step, I think Tommy should change 435 into normal 3dp. Time is not a factor. No competitor nor the SA has come close to delivering the stability and depth of gameplay. If DayZ mod released yesterday for the first time it would be a hit. It may be years until one can confidently say that any particular IP actually obsoletes the mod. Why BIS, purely from a business perspective, isn't interested in keeping the mod vibrant is beyond me. The mod is responsible for at least half of the SA's 2 million sales. A strong mod would continue to drive sales for the SA. It's remarkable how many players I meet up with in-game who have never bought SA, just finally dl'ed the mod after two years to try it out.

The humanity system simply needs to be better. I think some obvious answers have already been stated. 1) Why so easy for bandit skin? Let's change the paradigm on this. Make it valuable again by being hard to get. Maybe you need 50-100 kills of all types to garner "bandit" Remember stats are persistent through each death. If you play this game long those numbers accumulate quickly. I also think "bandit" should gain some humanity back (or overall kill stat reduction) for cumulative hours alive per character based on the premise that a "bandit" who survives long is presumably "taking it easy" and not pvp'ing much. "What about someone who survives long but is still killing a lot because they're so successful?" you might ask. Well all the humanity lost on those kills will be somewhat offset by humanity gain back from survival, which I think is a fair reward for an excellent bandit. Great "banditry" should be rewarded and extremely difficult to get. 2) Or this. Right now having a bandit skin is the mark of an average player. Decent players know how to stay "survivor". Excellent players can achieve hero status. If we assign "humanity" and its representative player skins to a number system, then bandit is 0, survivor is 1 and hero is 2. We don't yet have, or maybe lost, our -1 character/skin. How about 2 stages of hero and 2 stages of bandit? So -2,-1,0,1,2 on a humanity scale. Maybe even a 3rd tier hero for the fun of it. 3)Players should receive humanity gain from killing bandits. A player should receive positive humanity proportional to the negative humanity of the bandit he killed. The bigger the takedown, the bigger the payoff. And vice versa, if you kill a hero with massive humanity, you are gonna take the hit for that. I agree with Bullet Catcher on most. My takeaway is that what is core and engaging about Dayzmod's humanity system is the difficulty in maintaining the survivor skin in "such a hectic pvp environment". My point is the survivor skin has now become 1st tier hero skin.

Also this- Vanilla is for elites! You can have your Overpoch, your SA character but the one that matters most is Vanilla, cuz surviving Hell is an achievement unto itself. I challenge all elites, from Frankie to the lowest dog, can you survive Vanilla for more than a day!?!?

Love it dude! Thanks for bump! There's probably something more special about us "purists" having our hive. I wanna know how I stack against the legendary RomanZ, bup bup, my suviva!

*This isn't a post for complaining/discussing the current state of the mod. The purpose here is to say, "What kinds of positive, proactive steps can us players take to bring back the vanilla hive? And how popular is this idea truly?" Anyone reading this post most likely is aware of the very modest and casual discussions so far about resurrecting the hive, such as the few remaining vanilla servers joining together. I, for one, thinks this is a great idea. My sense is that others do too! While I can't provide any technical help because I am not a programmer, only a very dedicated player, I can donate! I'm willing to provide financial support for the undertaking. I mean, how hard is it for me to plop a few bucks in a pay pal account so I can have my hive back? This thread is to: 1. Reply back just to show support for starting a new vanilla hive 2. What you can offer in the way of help (even if that just means being eager to be on 3-4 nights a week with a full and vibrant player base) 3. Any other positive ideas you have in regards to all this Here I go! 1. Bring back da Hive! 2. I'm totally ready to play and pay if need be 3. I'd love to see a global stats webpage again. I'm curious to know global average life span, my average life span. Without giving away any info that might lead to meta gaming such as knowing pvp hot spots on the map, I like to know how well I stack up against all the other players. Final thoughts . . . 1.8.1 is extremely stable, feature rich and sublimely difficult. For instance, I don't think zombie pathfinding and the threat they now pose could be much improved upon. Feels that way for most parts of the game. Only some final tweaking now and it is as perfect as Arma 2 engine will allow it to be. We sit in this ironic quandary where the mod is nearly finished and IS SO AWESOME right as the hive goes down and the database is apparently lost forever. However I really see it a s a golden opportunity to essentially start from scratch and rebuild a whole community.

Ditto, thanks for everything Jimmy! Let's not end it! Please talk with Tommy Geryon of 434 about setting up another hive! We only need 4 servers right now to support the current community. But I have no doubt that if we could somehow run a new hive well that we could rebuild the community in a big way. The more I think about it there are many benefits to running a private, public hive. First, we can control exactly how many total servers are available so that some individuals can't effectively pay-to-win by purchasing a server connected to hive that serves as a private loot farm (used to drive me nuts how many people would script in high end gear in their own server just to log into 3480 to deathmatch). It could reduce ghosting as well. Ghosting is predicated on an abundance of empty servers. For instance, if you're fighting in 434 in Elektro, you'd never log on 3480 to ghost because it is so busy and dangerous there. You'd never make it back to 434! . . . some random thoughts.

Was wondering about your crew. I still see Deanzphx on 434, too. Glad some of you guys are sticking around. ANYWAY, it appears we have enough players and enough interest to start our own private, public Hive. SO LET'S DO IT! I can't provide any technical help, but I can donate! Tommy Geryon (us434) has two servers, TG clan prolly still runs 3480, get one more server and that should be a great start. There's a lot of extra noise that gets thrown into the discussion. The point is the Vanilla Mod is still the gold standard (especially now thanks to Razor for making it so stable and feature rich). Imagine there's no SA, no h1z1 or anything else and today 1.8.1 Dayz appears on the gaming scene for the first time. It would be a massive hit, just like it was two years ago. But even more so again because 1.8.1 is so nearly perfect. There's a passionate group of us who love vanilla (maybe 40 players). I think that's plenty enough from which to build the community back up again. Every night on 434 I see 10+ players' names I've never seen before. These are all potential "converts". I don't think they stay for very long because a) vanilla mod is quiet/dead thus no notoriety for epic deeds and 2) vanilla is so deliciously difficult it is not noob friendly at all. Despite all that, vanilla clearly draws significant interest even now because so many potential new customers every night.