BattleFate

Anyone have any ideas what might be causing this? I have a custom server running various mods, including DayZ Expansion. I make adjustments to the types.xml and expansion_types.xml files. It seems that the changes I make to the zones for items to spawn in take effect, like making the MP5 spawn in police departments. But it seems to not be taking into account the nominal values. I set military belts to have 20 that spawn throughout the map, and yet I found 14 in the barracks in NWAF, which is highly unlikely. Also I find vaiga guns all over the place, even though I only have 8 spawning on the map. And yet other weapons with similar spawn rates in the same zones aren't being found at all. I've checked my files for syntax or logic errors and have found none. Does anyone know what might cause these issues for me to check for those problems? Is there any program or script I can run which will tell me what loot is currently present on the map in what amount? I could use that to know if I'm just getting lucky or unlucky, or if it really is flooding the map with Vaiga guns and military belts.

I like it in theory when we know the server is running and functioning correctly. I do not like it when I'm trying to see if the loot is cycling correctly on my own server from one day to the next when no one else logged in. Haha I have been having a similar issue on my low pop server and was starting to think maybe this was a setting that I didn't know about. But even after a week loot hadn't cycled for me in some areas. Is this idle mode server-wide? Or is it based on a range, so if we're all playing around NWAF the loot there will cycle regularly, but the loot in Novo and Cherno will not?

Honestly I thought it would be best if characters were server dependent anyways... Join a new server, get a new character. That way you could have private servers for your own little community of 40 or so people who like playing together (although aren't necessarily avoiding PVP with each other), and not worry about someone abusing your server to get their character ahead for other servers, nor worry about letting anyone in that might be running hacks. I don't disagree with Valec's point. A locked server could be used to 'safely' farm for the rarer loot for your character. I mean how pissed off would I be if I joined a server with 49 snipers in it with ghillie suits, nvg, the best rifles and rangefinders all setup along the coast? But it's a matter of picking the lesser of two evils isn't it? If you can just materialize yourself all this equipment out of thin air anyways, what difference does it make if you get it through hacking, or through safe farming? At least if it's through safe farming, all you have to worry about is someone being fully equipped, not teleporting around behind you, or teleporting you into a closed building with 50 zombies, or seeing through the trees in the forest where you can't... Valec though, you could be a little more... diplomatic... in your responses if you want people to take your concerns seriously. The more you attack someone, the less they listen to what you're actually saying. I'm sorry for my tone from my last message to you. I was annoyed at having just died under misterious circumstances (maybe hackers? not sure, what causes you to just die spontaneously without taking any damage?), and it was late and I was trying to compose a response quickly so I could get to bed. If given the option, I'm sure there are a lot of admins who would rather keep a server running fairly and avoiding letting safe-farming happen on their server, rather than abusing their power and getting themselves ahead. I don't disagree that safe-farming will happen. But when those servers are discovered, and as you pointed out, they can be fairly obvious, they could be reported to DayZ and those servers could then be banned (or warned then banned, depending on how lenient DayZ wants to be).

I fail to see how you can say the second can never happen... It's the current state of affairs in the game. It's not impossible, it's happening now!I don't think he was saying all servers have hackers all the time. He's saying no server is safe from hackers. You can load up your character on any server, and if you get teleported and killed, then your character is dead. It can happen at any time, on any server, if an asshole hacker decides he's tired of how the game plays normally and instead wants his momentary powertrip... what can the admin do? If there's no log to prove the hacker did what he did, and there's no fraps to show to Day Z? Even if the admin knows who hacked, he can't do anything without the proof... So the players playing on his server, the ones that just lost all their gear they'd been accumulating over weeks of cautious and painstaking play... they don't play on that server anymore... and who knows, maybe they get fed up and quit the game altogether. Losing all your equipment because you died from your own mistake is one thing, losing it because some douche decided he wants to be an asshole that day? Well that's just frustrating and not fun. So what he was saying was simply that we need to pick the lesser of two evils. There will be admins who abuse their power, yes. And the argument put forward, which is most relevant for that, is that players will learn that server is shit and stop playing on it. I have to say your response indicates to me one of two options... either you have been abused by admins of servers before (presumably from other games), and now hold a grudge against all server admins, or you're a hacker trying to preserve your ability to ruin other people's play...

I shall take your beans sir, and I shall cradle them and treasure them always. :)

I would say no. BUT if the hacker appeals on the 'ban appeals page' and you cannot provide proof, then you'll need to unban him. A real hacker likely wouldn't appeal because he doesn't know if you do have the proof, and bringing this attention to himself would just get him banned on more servers. A non-hacker could appeal as you wouldn't have proof, since he wasn't hacking. A Ban mistake would then be resolved... So it would be preferable for you to have proof, but not required if you are ok with unbanning him if he appeals. At least you can prevent him from hacking for the next hour or so on your server that way, enough for you to try to setup a means to get proof for future offenses.

I was thinking of paying for hosting of a server myself. I'm tired of spending hours everytime I want to play looking for a server in the appropriate timezone that's not already full. I'm especially tired of never being able to play on the same server twice because the one I played on last time was full, or wasn't even in the list anymore? (particularly when you consider the vehicles and tents are server-dependant). And I was particularly frustrated one day when my week-old character with some pretty good gear on him suddenly appears in some sort of an airfield with a bunch of other survivors, then was suddenly dead. So I wanted to look into my own server, where I could get my friends to log on and play. Not exclusive to us, but at least where we could be confident in our OWN server having room in it and safety against hackers (in that we'd have a whitelist of trusted players capable of accessing the server, and anyone hacking would then be removed from that list). I toyed with several ideas. I'm a data center admin, and one of the ideas I was playing with was installing one of our unused servers in the DC and running it off of there. Another one was paying for a hosting company to handle all the setup for us. Divided among the group of us, the hosting couldn't be THAT much. Well it is, it's damned expensive, and I was still considering it, until I saw the rules. These are the ones that turned me off: 1: IT MAY NEVER BE PASSWORDED 2: NO KICKING TO MAKE ROOM FOR 'FRIENDS' OR CLANMATES (only bothers me because of rule 1) 3: Their are only two reasons why you, as a server owner, should ban a player on your server. Those two reasons are: Malicious talk, and racism. You may not ban a user for stealing your loot, killing you, spying on you, etc. So basically, I'd be paying for a server me and my friends could play on together, and I can't guarantee that only trusted players log on, I can't guarantee my friends (or even myself) would be able to access this server if already full, and I can't ban a person from the server for being a known hacker? So then what's the point of taking on this expense? I wouldn't resolve any of my complaints I mentioned above (except possibly not having the server there two days in a row). I'll just use one of the other servers out there. It'll save me money and hassle. Imagine if a majority of other admins also felt the same way? Imagine if the list of servers available dropped to a handful? That would dramatically hurt the game. Now imagine if rules were slackened a bit to entice more servers to be made. I'd sign up... others would too I'm sure. We'd probably double the number of servers out there overnight.

Hey there, first time poster here. I've played Day Z a little in the last few weeks. Enough to learn survival strategies not only from watching youtube videos but also from in-game experience. So I'm no expert by any means, but I do know a little, and have learned the hard way that trusting other players will usually get you killed. What I think on this subject is that zombies should be hard. I want them to be hard to kill, and a real threat. But I think that right now they are hard for the wrong reasons. Some people mention the zombies seeing you from accross the map. I can vouch for that. I've been crouched in thick grass with 2 bars of visibility, with a small town right on the edge of my visible range. I can barely make out the form of zombies at that distance, and yet sometimes (not often, but sometimes) one will come at a full sprint from that distance. It's impossible that he heard me from there, and for a zombie with supposedly 'poor visilibity' he sure does have eagle eyes. One the flip-side though, I can normally take out a zombie or two without aggroing the nearby ones if I'm using an AK74 or a revolver. Zombies move too fast. They shouldn't be able to keep up with you. BUT they shouldn't be able to be lost very easily. I'd say make them move at 95% of player max speed, So eventually you can just lose them by running away (assuming you don't attract more in the mean time), but they shouldn't just lose you in trees or bushes, not unless they are a fair way back by then. Now, I have mixed feelings about the weapons nerfing. I think that no handgun should kill a zombie in one hit. So I'm all for making a zombie take 2-3 bullets from a high-powered handgun, or a full clip from a lower one (or one headshot from any weapon). But they should be hard to kill, not hard to hit. Their full sprint in a zig-zag pattern is just too hard to compensate for. Unless I run, even if I'm well armed, a single zombie is a big threat. To me, if I'm using a military grade weapon, even if a zombie saw me, I should be able to take him out. Now of course... if all his nearby buddies then react to my shooting, I should be screwed... Now, another player should not be able to survive 2 full clips from any gun. Not unless he's found some body armour, which as we know isn't in this game... So that's the reason I don't like the nerfing. Perhaps make the zombies hit less powerful and also nerf player health? That should compensate. However sniper rifles would then be that much more dangerous. So I'm not sure as they are a major threat as it is (perhaps make sniper rifles that much more rare then? I don't know, I'm just brainstorming). On that note, the number of zombies does not accurately reflect the area I'm in. I've walked through cherno and elektro (just after respawning, because I know how stupid that normally is when you have equipment to lose), and seen not a single zombie in the whole town. Now when I go to a small town with 2-3 houses and a gas pump, well there's 50 or so zombies all over. It makes raiding a large town like cherno a must for new characters as the zombie-to-loot ratio is much better. And this isn't a rare occurance. It's most small towns I've been to. Maybe some have less than that, but still many many more than I encountered in a larger city. These are just my observations and ideas. If anyone tells me that I'm obviously a noob because zombies see me, or that I should be running instead of shooting, I can say that I have successfully navigated my way through those small towns with 50 or so zombies without being seen, and survived raiding cherno and elektro. And shooting a single zombie that's charging you should still be a viable option, assuming you're willing to take the risk of another player (or nearby zombies) hearing you...