Considering getting this. But have questions holding me back..

[Excelsior24 0]

Hello.

Ive been following this game for awhile now and there are two things that really make me hesitant on purchasing this.

Hacking and bugs/glitches.

These two things seem to be happening quite a bit and I really dont want to get this game and get awesome gear only to be screwed over by a hacker/glitch and lose it all.

So basically are these things easily avoidable?

[fathairybeast 246]

No, they're not that easy to avoid. You learn not to make mistakes that lead to bugs/glitches, and you learn that some servers are buggier than others.

Currently playing on a private hive that is the most stable server that I've found so far, very few glitches (relatively speaking).

[Gert-Jan 32]

wait for Stand Alone......?

[rossums 2190]

Unfortunately, hackers and glitchers are the one thing that's pretty much impossible to avoid.

You can play on a whitelist only private HIVE server, but even then hackers can still sneak in and ruin it all, although some servers have very vigilant admins which mean that it won't be a massive problem.

If you are not desperate to play right now the standalone DayZ is meant to be launching before the end of the year (This is built properly on a new engine and from the ground up built to counter hackers and scripters).

[Excelsior24 0]

Damn.. I was really hoping to play this now but ill wait for the stand alone.

Shame too. I love zombies so much and this game to me looks like the best game to pull off the zombie apocalypse theme.

[rossums 2190]

Damn.. I was really hoping to play this now but ill wait for the stand alone.

Shame too. I love zombies so much and this game to me looks like the best game to pull off the zombie apocalypse theme.

It should be worth the wait!

I've played a few zombie games but DayZ just manages to catch the atmosphere a lot better than the others and certainly evokes a lot more emotion from me.

One of the only games that I get properly sucked into and can get very intense, especially when someone is hunting you :D

A lot of the big problems are getting sorted in the standalone, especially a lot of the graphical bugs as well as hackers, it will be a much more polished game and I can't wait to get my hands on it.

[excitable1 156]

half the fun is getting geared out.

once you have all the gear what do you do?

go looking for people to kill.

you roll the dice... get shot or shoot someone.

[Sula 1205]

Excelsior, I've been playing since May or June and I have never seen a hacker. I did once get transported to another part of the map but that's it. So anyone saying hacking is a problem is talking about the past. Battleye is dealing with most of the hacking problems and if you play on private servers (they're free and easy to access) you will have no problems. So you should not consider hacking an issue at all.

As to bugs and glitches, there are a few, so what? There always are in most games. Just get the game and have fun! :thumbsup:

No point in waiting for the standalone. It's not like that's going to be perfect. Nothing is. Like I said, just play the game and enjoy, it's worth it.

Edited November 9, 2012 by Sula

[humandirty 18]

If you got a few bucks laying around id say why the hell not. Honestly hacking is hardly a problem for me and even if it does occur i really have gotten over dying. From fresh spawn to death its all a thrill and my heart pounds faster the more loot i aquire. Although I've been eaten by walls, fallen threw floors, and few other bugs but after learning the ropes they are easy to avoid and now i hardly have this problem. Even if I do i just laugh it off and start again.

[Excelsior24 0]

im assuming that the stand alone is going to cost money right?

for example if i were to buy arma 2 for this (i dont plan on playing arma 2) would i have to pay again to benefit from the enhanced security measures that the stand alone will be bringing to the table?

[jc984 3]

yea you would. But I believe i heard somewhere rocket is going to give owners of Arma2:OA a discount....dunno if that true or not though. And Arma2 is a pretty fun game in itself, I am personally looking forward to arma 3.

Edited November 10, 2012 by jc984

[echo38 4]

anyone saying hacking is a problem is talking about the past. Battleye is dealing with most of the hacking problems

My first hour ever in the game, I encountered two separate hack-users (one hostile, one friendly) who teleported me to them. That was about three weeks ago. To this date, I've encountered as many hack-users within the game as I have legit players; that is, 50% of my unique player encounters have involved the other player using a hack. A private hive with a good admin can indeed have a very low instance of hack-use, but on public hive servers, hack-use is almost the norm. Forgive my bluntness, but your assertion that hacking is no longer a problem is the biggest piece of B.S. I've seen since the presidential election campaign advertisements. Perhaps you have vested interest in down-playing the hack-using problem?

As for the bugs; I've died legitimately ~8 times* (by various causes--mostly zombies, but 2 to legit players), died to hack-use ~4 times, and I've died to bugs ~18 times. Some of those bug-deaths are avoidable once one is familiar with the bug and its workaround, but other bug-deaths are unavoidable regardless. (An example being the time I randomly died while jogging across a flat plain with no rocks or other objects near me ... full health to death in zero seconds, with no other players on the server, and not a zombie in sight.)

That should be enough good information for the O.P. to ascertain whether or not this mod has a high enough level of polish for his liking. I myself presently enjoy Day Z despite the bugs (well, it's a love-hate thing ...), and I haven't encountered any hack-users on the private-hive server I play on now, but the O.P. was asking about the hack-use and the bugs, and it's only fair to give him an honest answer.

* Discounting the many newspawn deaths to zombies before I figured out that LoS-loss is featured. ; )

Edited November 10, 2012 by A. Darkthorn

[The Bean Marine 29]

Yes there is hackers never actually met 1 in dayz and bugs/glitches there is some but not the worst ones though i don't regret buying DayZ

[Bizzyb 9]

Unless you have tons of free time, hackers WILL effect you and your friends. Ive been playing a month and there has been nights where me and 5 or so friends, are playing. We get a car, meet up, everyone gets a gun, have a few fun shootouts. Someone we kill gets butthurt.

5 minutes later the whole night is ruined and everyone logs out very sour.

Other nights there is no ending like that, but at some point someone we never seen on server has an amazing gun.. Another guy shoots our guillie suit scout in a bush where WE COULDNT SEE HIM WITH DIRECTIONS... Someone is suddenly behind us at a bottlednecked location.

Dont let people above lie to you, this happens and happens often. Ive played with random people and found out they've been using hacks the whole time.

The game is absolutely OVER RUN with cheats, to the point where if youre a normal calm and sane person. If you think someone is cheating, youre probably right.

HOWEVER, its not like this is an MMO. Honestly dont go for crazy items, get something you like, grab a vehicle, and help/kill other players. Have fun and find friends, your stuff stays around longer.

If you find a decent server and just play for fun, then you will barely notice the hacks.

Dont be fooled into stand alone changing any of this. Knowing how "bambi" the crew is to game devolpment, I wouldnt expect stand alone to be too much better.

[AMF3 18]

My 2nd day I played on a server where we were all teleported in a group way above the ground, off the normal parts of the map and dropped to our deaths. 3 times within an hour. Luckily the admin was on the ball and did a rewind and it was ok the first 2 times but the 3rd time I was out of luck kept spawning unconscious on that server. Since then I've been on a nice quiet little server and have only died from my own stupidity so far. Quite often. The only part that still drives me nuts is zombies running through walls and fences to beat the hell out of me. Just never get used to it. But so far it's part of the package, which overall is pretty badass. All that loot stops mattering until you know you're in a tight spot and are about to lose it and that's the exciting part of it.

[AMF3 18]

Oh yeah, every once and awhile there's awesome glitches, my 3rd night I spawned on the map at night and there were no other survivors, OR ZOMBIES, on the entire map. I just ran around the entire map as much as I wanted, getting all the loot I could carry. I wish I knew the layout of the map better, I could've cleaned up. I didn't wanna shut my comp off because I knew it was too good to last. The next day I logged in and promptly got shot for all my cool new loot. Part of the fun :)

[Sula 1205]

Darakthorn, private servers are the same as official servers in that they are not passworded. Passworded servers are passworded and that's all. I play in open servers but I play low pop. If you play in high pop, expect problems. Like i said, I've never had problems with hackers in all the many months I've been playing. I've come across a few skiddies but they're just silly children wanting to show off because they don't know any better. There are thousands of servers, just move to another.

[:VADER: 88]

don't forget around 80% of admins use hacks themselves, and the amount of power they have can turn them to the darkside pretty quickly with having massive advantages over bambis and trusting players. They will do anything and everything for their friends and clan mates. Your best bet at this point is just to wait for the stand alone version. Hackers will have been mostly killed off and struck with the ban hammer due do it being the number one priority .

Edited November 16, 2012 by :VADER:

[Rage VG 4033]

I really dont want to get this game and get awesome gear only to be screwed over by a hacker/glitch and lose it all.

There's your first mistake.

You should never consider your gear to be "Awesome" or of any value at all. It is so easy to lose it without hacks or glitches (A zombie could break your leg, then knock you out, then you die.) that it'll be incredibly hard for you to find the motivation to play again if you considered yourself at end-game or near it.

Just consider your gear as you would in a Rogue-like; They are all more or less equally as important, and you could easily get the gear back in the first 15 minutes of spawning.

[flypp 21]

...

get awesome gear only to be screwed over by a hacker/glitch and lose it all.

...

If you want to enjoy DayZ (standalone or not), you're doing it wrong. Don't get attached to your gear.

Edited November 16, 2012 by flypp

[echo38 4]

Problem with the gear is things like light amplification goggles. At night, someone without night vision has no chance against someone with night vision goggles. I don't even mean PvP--someone without night vision can't do anything if there's someone around who has night vision. Some nights are so dark that I can't even move without turning on my light, because I could be walking into something nasty like one of those death-rocks or a man-eating willow. I've actually even bumped into ninja-zombies at night. Yeah, literally touching them before they make any sound.

Turn on your light, and you're a beacon for anyone within a kilometer who has night vision goggles. Light shines through houses (not only through walls, but through the whole house!) for those with NVgoggles. And, suspiciously, it seems that everyone except for me has night vision goggles--even on servers where there's no known hacking, the percentage of people who have them is oddly high.

For this reason, night vision is the holy grail to me. It is the most valuable piece of gear I can imagine, and I've only ever found one (it was on a corpse), despite having searched barracks and helicopters hundreds of times. When I lose it, I'm going to be devastated, because I'm going to again be completely helpless at night to all of the people who somehow mysteriously all have night vision goggles. I won't be able to effectively travel, let alone hunt zombies and search for supplies.

Oh, sure, I could use the gamma exploit like everyone else, but if I need to use exploits in order to have a chance, then what's the point of playing? No, no, thanks, I don't use exploits. Really, night vision goggles gives such an enormous advantage that it shouldn't be in the game at all, especially because there's nothing a person can do to legitimately have a good chance of finding it.

[Penny Sue 77]

If you got like $30 you don't mind wasting for some entertainment just get ArmA 2 and play the DayZ mod. I say 'wasting' because you'll be buying the standalone game in a few months; not that ArmA 2 or DayZ mod is a waste. It's truly a game style the world has only seen a few times with the likes of Ultima Online and Darkfall. What I mean is a game where the developers are not afraid of placing total freedom in the hands of the players and letting THEM decide what kind of game world they will play in. It's so rare to get any sort of non-linear, sandbox, game ... DayZ delivers and is on the road to great success.

Can't afford wasting $30? Wait for the stand alone game. They totally re-engineered the server to client relationship which will eliminate 99% of the hackers / cheaters. Right now way too much of the game is processed locally and shared amongst the clients and server. The same problem Diablo had back in the day and any game that has this architecture. Leaves the game wide open to even the most novice "hacker".

I've only ran into three cheaters / hackers the whole time I've played. Here's how to avoid them

- Public Hive: Play on low population servers. If you start seeing people, especially the same people, getting kicked by Battle Eye then just leave the server... hackers abound. Go join another one. Hackers are, at their core, griefers and want to grief as many people as possible so they are attracted to higher population servers. They are also inherently lazy thus they rarely put forth effort to join private servers. I've known several of hackers over my life... my generalization is pretty spot on =)

- Private Hive: Find some servers managed by good admins (like Planet DayZ and DayZ RP), that have a password, and / or a "whitelist" (which means only those accepted on the list can join the server). For example Planet DayZ runs an extra anti-cheater program, their admins actively look for cheaters both in and out of game, and they have a password. This means that random noob "hackers" won't just join the server... they have to actually put forth effort to go get the password which instantly weeds out most of these knuckle heads. Then if they do actually join and try to cheat the software will usually catch them. Even if they circumvent that the admins will find out about them and ban them. Plus the community is tighter and does not tolerate these tools so they will instantly rat out anyone they find cheating.

Playing on private hives I've never encountered a cheater. I'm not saying it never happens it's just so rare and dealt with so quickly that it's a very small chance of it actually effecting you.

[fluxley 2228]

yea you would. But I believe i heard somewhere rocket is going to give owners of Arma2:OA a discount....dunno if that true or not though. And Arma2 is a pretty fun game in itself, I am personally looking forward to arma 3.

There will be no discount for people who bought Arma2 just to play the mod.

DayZ standalone will be released as an alpha for around $15 if you buy it when it is first released, the price will increase as more content is added upto around $30.

[rossums 2190]

At this point I really don't see any point in buying Arma II for the mod.

The standalone is to be released in December, probably around just less than a months time (at most) - just before Christmas.

Unless you plan on playing Arma II (and like more realistic simulators) I'd personally just wait, keep up with videos to learn a bit then buy the standalone.

[Inception. 9443]

As stated before: Wait for Standalone unless you are planning to play Arma II as well.