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Private servers really are the solution for all the server hopper complaints. Is there a reason why all you folks don't play in them? All play styles are legitimate. Server hopping might be cheap but it's still legitimate and private servers are readily available to offer a server hopping/ghosting safe haven. Complaining because someone shot you is a tad redundant. This is the apocalypse. Nice people are very few and far between and it's futile to try to impose some form of moral code on other players. If you want to avoid the nastier element of this game, stay in the boonies and don't covet military gear. It's pretty much that simple.

Well put And yet here you are still playing the same game aware of its history of hackers kos and sever hopping/ghosting since long before SA I bet you are the type of person that changes servers once it gets dark or trawls the NW and hops if its empty if people were so against server hopping why did the reload bug on entry get removed and why did the sometimes up to 5 minute timer get lowered ? It was no justification it was a fact this might come as a shock but not every one server hops some people just accept it as something that happens just like we accept all the other things that piss us off in this game but yet here we are still playing it instead of bitching about something offer up a solution as stated before the reload bug on login was perfect

I can't wait for .56 either. My son and I started playing on public and the mil bases are a joke. We found 3 servers without ping kick and looted nwaf one end to another 2 servers had nothing but boots clothes and if we were lucky a makarov mag, the third was packed but already worked over for anything good. I watched the player list all day and one or a few clan members hop in for fifteen minutes and hop off, wonder why they do that on relatively low pop servers? Lok, jk they're ghosting in grabbing any thing good and fucking off back to where they play. I can't see how hotspots ate going to work for us playing dayz and those playing loot up for group peeveepee.

You mean like the Ghosting Timer that we had in the game for about 4-5 patches now?

I would LOVE to see the public hive come back! However, it would be really neat if there could be some sort of anti-ghosting implemented. I don't know how you would do this with multiple servers owned by different people, but BMRF had 3 vanilla private servers hived together and had a 10 minute timer that disallowed you from jumping from one server to another. Again, not sure if this would be possible but it sure would be great!

Will we have a certificate or IP based whitelist to the hive? I'd like to avoid the mom and pop 24 hour servers to the hive that are used as private farms and ghosting transit points.

they could still server hop to the other servers tho and loot up if no one is on. atleast if they make it so each server you get a new character then you cant loot up on a low pop server. i just think that makes the most sense i mean you make a char and that all you get for that server you cant just take him when he dies to loot up and come back. it would also eliminate ghosting. i think having to loot up your character on the one server he was created on would be more fun and challenging IMO.

The barricading issue also affects private servers but to a lesser degree: Imagine Player Adam logging out inside a random building and not playing for a certain time. A few days after Player Bob decides to barricade the building and keep his stuff there. Some time later Adam logs in - and finds himself inside the barricaded area. This is basically the same as ghosting even though it only affects the time axis. Now Adam could get Bobs stuff for free - or he could be trapped inside the building with no means to get out. Here we can see the two major issues: players should not be able to get into barricaded areas by abusing the logging procedure (more important on public servers)players should not be randomly trapped inside barricaded areas that appear after they logged out (more important on private servers) I think a good idea to solve this is the "safe zone" concept: a zone is created by completely barricading an areapeople logging out inside a zone get "saved" and are able to log back in as usualpeople who did not log out inside a zone but want to log in there are placed outside the zonezones are only active on this specific serverzones persist some time after "broken" (e.g. a door gets cracked open)zones are not overwritten but expanded/modified instead (you cannot kick out sb. by breaking his door and locking it again)

1. Server Hopping multiple servers for loot. 2. Gearing up on an empty server then jumping on a busy server. 3. Ghosting. 4. Inability to "secure" an area as it is very simple for someone to log in behind you, you can never be sure. It is less likely someone logged out on a private server in a busy area than hopped over from another server. 5. Pick up a vehicle on one server that your group has locked down and use it as transport to get to certain locations on another server quickly so that when you die you can be picked up, taken to gear stashes, and then dropped near where you died on another server. All these were issues in the Mod and nothing has really changed for the SA. Once we can start to barricade buildings and secure them they will have to do something about the Hive otherwise you log out on one server, open the door and walk in on another server, then log back into the first and you are through their barricade making it pointless.

Stryker, I agree with you, but also disagree. I understand the philosophy from a hardcore roleplay standpoint. And that's something I would usually do as well. But what you need to understand is that some people, including me from time to time, enjoy the endgame (geared and hunting/surviving, be it against players or the environment)far more than the rush of being a fresh spawn in constant danger. For me its the rush of being on the hunt that I enjoy most. But, as said, from time to time I also don't mind starting fresh once in a while. Its a strange dichotomy. Nobody is more of an advocate of realism and sim elements than me, yet, in the end, we ARE still playing a game, and want to have fun in our own way. In the end, everyone, including you, will play in the manner that is most fun for them to do so, whatever gives them the most enjoyment. And in terms of exploits (like server hoping or ghosting, etc.), I would rank this pretty low on that list in terms of offensiveness.

No. It's too hard to determine what was your own free will or not. You might think it wouldn't be but it would be blindingly simple to Alt-F4 out of the game or pull a network plug or Taskmanager-Kill Process to get out of the game for the purposes of Ghosting and Server Hopping which is why the timer exists in the first place.

I'm not sure if server-hoppers was the only issue this idea was meant to help soften. Just the chance of logging in to an already occupied space is a tear in the reality of the game. Dying by choosing to join a server at the random moment that someone is also in the same building or room sounds like a design oversight. Having a mechanic in place to prevent such mishaps would reduce the amount of deaths by uncontrollable circumstances, and hopefully help keep the game enjoyable while keeping our survival related to skill rather than luck. I acknowledge that this could also bring problems in the way of people camping known spawn locations outside of any given town. Or as you mentioned, people combat logging will have a chance to be given an advantage by their random relocation; but it would also hinder server-hoppers repeatedly looting the same building. It would also encourage exploration and add challenge by forcing players to re-orient themselves upon each login. Now that I think of it, maybe any logout should just spawn players randomly in the vicinity of the logout, rather than in the exact place. 500 meters sounds about right. As far as the design and development of the game goes, making all public servers playable should be a priority. Maybe now it is acceptable to refer people seeking a solid play experince to the private servers, but the public servers need to be stable and as secure as possible by full launch. Hopefully we will see reasonable fixes for duping, ghosting and other forms of logging abuse. Then we can get back to arguing about weapon availabilities and the other finer balancing issues.

I like this idea quite a lot, but it is difficult to envision how it could be implemented in DayZ. Thinking out loud, I suppose that this could be a thing, if it is used in conjunction with the re-log timer that has already been proposed by the devs. To clarify my thought: I want to log off, so I need to find a safe place to do so. I initiate the log out sequence, which includes climbing into a sleeping bag and going to sleep. For the next ten minutes (I just pulled a number out of the air for the purpose of discussion), I will be asleep and vulnerable on that server. After the timer counts down the ten minutes, I am then free to log back into the original server or any other available server on that hive. There would be no countdown penalty going from the public hive, to a private hive, or vice versa, however my character remains vulnerable for the full countdown period. I think that this mechanic could significantly add to immersion. IRL, a lot of thought and planing would go into selecting a location to camp for the night, because it is at this time when you would be the most vulnerable. I suspect that the level or paranoia would also necessarily increase (in case you didn't have enough already :D ). Additionally, while server hopping would still be a thing (let's face it, a ten minute timer is not going to dissuade any one from this practice), I suspect that this would tend to reduce combat logging and ghosting because this behavior would expose the practitioner to significant risk. The downside is the ten minute timer. The question is, do the benefits outweigh the penalty?

I actually really like that idea. I know it probably wouldn't be accepted by the majority but it is a good idea to stop the ghosting and such like. Besides, logging off in a town is a terrible idea, best to go find a tree or something to hide in! But I definitely think the idea of spawning you outside of the military zones is a good one, yes its not perfect and yes it may only be 1km to run but its that 1km the server hopper will have to run and potentially be seen. And as the hoppers wont exactly be proficient in dealing with players seeing as they are clearly doing the easy option, hopefully they will get murdered and lose their precious gear!

I'm still up in the air as to whether or not this would be best at night or during the day. My last party was at night, and it was great, but social gatherings don't have to be at night automatically. I'll see what can be done about that, if anything. Still working out the details. I wouldn't worry about ghosting. If it's going to happen, it will happen (people logging off there beforehand), and locking the EU server won't entirely prevent it. I'll help you look for fertilizer before the party!

I wasn't sure if logging out in a stuck truck would kill me, but now I know a few more workarounds. My driving is sketchy enough without trees stopping the truck dead in the middle of the road, or magical ramps in the middle of fields tossing the truck around. If anyone played State of Decay on XBOX 360, that is a good example of how not to do vehicle physics in the finished game. The two fastest cars, the rally hatchback and carballo, could easily outrun the renderer. I lost count of how many top tier vehicles that I PERMANENTLY destroyed by hitting a fire hydrant that didn't render until my car already exploded. I usaully have multiple trucks on my "home server," so I'm more likely to just wait it out and go use a different truck. The tree-eaten truck was safely on the ground when I came back to check on it yesterday. I'm just never sure when it is safe to get out, if my view of the truck matches what the truck is actually doing. I've seen people flip trucks and get out while I was still seeing the truck taking 100 foot bounces, because he said it looked fine; then died to an epileptic truck. I hate to lower myself to ghosting a truck, but maybe it's the only way sometimes.

I found a "position penalty" unreliable as well. In case of people hopping between (near) empty servers for loot it does basically nothing at all (3m are not much) and ghosters/combat loggers might still get the advantage from disappearing and reappearing some time later even though they have less control about where they reappear. The currently discussed pentalties for server hopping are: a time penalty that may increase for frequent switchersa switch limit within a certain time framea position penalty where you respawn away from your destinationhaving to start a new character (aka "private hives only")"ingame penalty" (lose energy/water/health/etc.)For ghosting/combat logging: prevent character disappearance under certain conditions:other players close (minus certain types like players who are logging out as well)gun fired within a certain distancecharacter took damage within a certain time framereposition players who log in:randomly if they rejoin the server within a certain time frame (OP)outside of barricaded areasoutside a certain radius around other players (again minus certain types)outside of certain fixed areasprevent logging back into a server after switching to another for quite some timeIf I missed something please add.

Much has been discussed about it. I'm just brainstorming a bit. Maybe there should be some kind of penalty (at least not worth changing your position in a 'magical' way) when you leave a server and join the same server at a different position (maybe with a tolerance of 3 metres 3D distance) within 15 minutes, no matter how many other server have been meanwhile. (Btw, using fired bullets near you to determine whether you are combat logging is quite stupid and very unrealiable. Don't know who came up with this first.)

So, you want me to argue against the idea that I think rape is the fault of women who are victimized? OK then, fine: no, I don't think that rape is the fault of women who are victimized, because it's being done against their will, and they have done nothing to directly antagonize the aggressor into doing so. If they had, then they would be aware of and accept the risk of it happening, and would therefore be effectively consenting to it. Happy now? And don't you DARE say that had nothing to do with what you're talking about, because it is in DIRECT response to your original post towards me: Also, don't try to tell me I'm missing the point, because I'm not; the principle is NOT the same, because one instance is a GROUP of people who (in a VIDEO GAME, mind you) decided to corner another group of people inside of a building, forcing the people inside to find a way out of the situation, which they apparently did by "ghosting". I said his group was at fault for getting "ghosted" because they didn't consider it a possibility (which is hard to believe considering he said it happens a lot) and therefore take precautions against it, such as keeping watch on their surroundings. The other instance is of some shitbag who decides to overpower someone and take advantage of them sexually in reality, possibly leaving behind emotional as well as physical wounds, not to mention a possible unwanted pregnancy that could have the very real possibility of being terminated early. I, for the love of God, cannot fathom how you could POSSIBLY consider those two situations to be ANYTHING alike. In my honest opinion, you would have to be very mentally unbalanced for that to occur. Now, for the sake of all that is still good in this world, can an admin or mod PLEASE send this thread to rest.

a) you can do it once, but you will have ensurance, that you will actually be able to get to your one buddy in one jump, so whats the deal? more importantly is that you dont have an advantage through ghosting. b) the spawns are now distributed over the whole map, so no danger from being camped.

That really is not a viable tip. There is literally nothing the player can do to not get ghosted. There is no indication sound when logging in, no log in warning when in close vicinity to a player, nothing at all. Ghosting is just a by product of a broken hive system where every server shares characters. This novel idea just leads to problems everything from server hopping to item dupping is partly a result of this bad game mechanic.

it's their own server, but there are rules... they break thoses rules, and benefit from it at the depends of the other players. as explained before : thoses servers are used to farm loot without being looted with random player, then the owners joins a public server with their AKM/drum mag/PSO and spray players that aquired their gear the right way, taking risks and time for it. those servers owner have to be forced to respect the rules. maybe one character per server is the solution.... that would not have been needed if people wouldn't have abused the system. hopping/ghosting/combat log/server loot farmers... so many bad habits to destroy :(

im not an expert on ghosting but if you were in a firefight and you notice that the guy isn't around for a minute or so, wouldn't it be safe to assume he's logged out and is about to show up someplace else? and then just move your position and wait for him to appear? example. you take a shot from a rooftop. you miss. he runs behind a shed. you wait.....and wait.... and then move to the other side of the roof so that you can keep an eye on your rooftop position/ladder/door or whatever, knowing that he will probably pop up on the roof with you after 1) exiting 2) switching servers 3) running to the new position 4) exiting 5)spawning back on the original server. seems like that would take at least a few minutes to accomplish?

I've been hosting trading posts since August. Ghosting is a reality of the game. Yes, the solution is to deal with it. Set up patrols and keep your people frosty. At least carpet bombing hackers aren't showing up to every single public event anymore. Organizing events in Day Z isn't easy. Figure out the logistics with your own people if you want to be the guy doing it. That said, if you want to talk to someone with experience hosting and defending events, feel free to hit me up some time.

All I can see that people like to cry and point out all the bad things but when a possible fix takes away even a tiny bit of comfort for them they raise arms against it. Can you elaborate? I wrote this after a few thoughts about the issue and reading another topic where people complained about ghosting and server hopping. So it's pretty far from a fully fledged out design and is expected to have some major issue I just not thought about. I don't really get those arguments. All those "reasons" you mention are present in private hives as well - even more pronounced as instead of having a hard time switching you could not switch at all (which also reduces the loot economy size). What if your private server crashes? What if your private server is full? That's why I mentioned specific "events" that could help people not being stuck in queue. Some examples (ideas that might or might not work): on server restart/crash the players are moved to Limbo (both On-server and Off-server players)you can choose to "suicide" on server switch and thus avoid the waiting time (but you will respawn at a random spawn point)similarily if you switch servers while your character is dead there should be no waiting timeupon being kicked from a server your switch time is much shorteryou can "reserve" a slot on a full server, if a slot opens you receive a message and have X minutes to switch without penaltyThe whole point is to make the public hive a little more like the private hives getting rid of the major disadvantages caused by rapid switching while still retaining most advantages resulting from having a connection between servers. I intentionally decided to make the initial Travel Timer noticeable (~30 minutes) instead of peanuts (like 5 minutes) to make even switching once something you would like to avoid if not absolutely necessary. If you are switching for non-ingame reasons this might be annoying. However, the vast majority of server switches are most likely for ingame reasons (looting, ghosting, combat logging) and we cannot refuse to fix the main game issues because it would also hurt a small minority to a far lesser degree. And as mentioned above there could also be some functions to help those players (who should be the majority of server switchers when the system works).