Server questions

[robbierocketpants 2]

I'm pretty new to DayZ and have been playing essentially "multiple" characters on various private servers but I would like to have a character on public servers too, but here's the problem... It seems like half the time I try to join a server I can't because I get a message saying something like "an error has occurred, please try again later". These servers for me are just jacked, I can never ever join them. Then last night I joined a public server that I spent hours on, logged out, came back in later and while my location was saved all my gear was gone. I have tried that server multiple times and it's the same, if I pick anything up on that server when I log back in I get reset to default spawn gear. Today I joined another public server whose 3rd person didn't work, it was all funky.

So long story short, here's the question. Is my DayZ messed up? Should I reinstall it? And if I do that, will I lose anything? If I can't play on public servers so be it but I'd prefer not to lose what I have on the private servers.

[herrjon 478]

Have you tried other public servers beyond the one where you lost your gear? Different servers can have strange glitches that come with them, public or private, and there's really no what of telling until you play on them. Just try other servers and see what happens. If it's just on that server, it's server side so just don't play there, otherwise it's client side and the best general fix is reinstall.

As far as a reinstall goes, I can't say for sure everything will go completely smoothly, as there is always issues with changing dayz versions and arma patches, but I do know people have completely reinstalled Arma as well as DayZ and maintained their gear and location just fine on the public hive.

Oh, and the 3rd person "not working" just has to do with the settings of the server. The admins can enable/disable a lot of mechanics including 3rd person, crosshairs, waypoints, nametags, death messages, etc. Most servers list what features they support in the name that you see in the browser, and dayz commander has them shown separately in the details, and can even be filtered through.

[robbierocketpants 2]

Have you tried other public servers beyond the one where you lost your gear? Different servers can have strange glitches that come with them, public or private, and there's really no what of telling until you play on them. Just try other servers and see what happens. If it's just on that server, it's server side so just don't play there, otherwise it's client side and the best general fix is reinstall.

As far as a reinstall goes, I can't say for sure everything will go completely smoothly, as there is always issues with changing dayz versions and arma patches, but I do know people have completely reinstalled Arma as well as DayZ and maintained their gear and location just fine on the public hive.

Oh, and the 3rd person "not working" just has to do with the settings of the server. The admins can enable/disable a lot of mechanics including 3rd person, crosshairs, waypoints, nametags, death messages, etc. Most servers list what features they support in the name that you see in the browser, and dayz commander has them shown separately in the details, and can even be filtered through.

I did try other servers too but apparently logging back in losing the gear on that one server unfortunately translated to all of the others because I still had no gear. I guess it's that one server but now I'm nervous playing on any public server because what if I spend hours playing and it happens on a different one too? I understand that dying and losing my gear is going to happen, I'm not attached to it, but putting in all that time just for a server glitch to wipe out my hard work is a bit frustrating.

I should have clarified, when I say the 3rd person wasn't working I mean to say that when I press Enter the screen rooms out to the 3rd person perspective but the actual character model isn't physically there. Which makes it pointless.

[herrjon 478]

I'd recommend doing a little troubleshooting to see what works. Spawn in, find some form of loot, can even be an empty can, then relog and/or change servers and see if it is still there. This is probably no way to regain what you lost from the first server, but you can test other ones to rule out this issue on your side. All else fails, just reinstall, your private hive gear should be fine.

As for that lack of a character model, I actually experienced that on one of my servers I played on. At least for me, in first person I looked a bit like soldier clothing, and since that skin isn't supported by dayz, there is no model for it. You are basically invisible. I tried everything I could think of to get rid of it, but nothing worked, I ended up having to abandon that server, one of which I had 3 vehicles and 2 tents on. But life goes on. Thankfully that's a server side issue.

[robbierocketpants 2]

Well the loot I lost on the one public server is definitely gone, but when I switched to a different server and picked up a few things, when I relogged into that server I still had the stuff so it must have been that one glitchy server. I guess the only reason that I like public servers is that I can pick and chose ones that actually have people playing. Some of the private servers I play on quite often have almost no one playing when I want to play which sort of defeats the purpose of playing at all. So I'm trying to find reliable public servers. I'll have to keep testing them to see which ones work and which don't. I think then that it must be a server problem and not my game.

My point being with the 3rd person not working is just that even that is a reason for me not to play on that particular server, so I am starting to feel restricted in the servers I can play on. Some are glitched and don't save loot, others don't have working 3rd person, and some I can't get into at all. Maybe I should retract my previous statement and only play private servers, at least I know they work. What I'm afraid of the most is having loot on a public server, logging into a new one and then it deleting my inventory. I can't know which work and which don't without logging into them but then I might lose everything, as has already happened.

[herrjon 478]

This sort of thing just comes with the territory when playing a mod/game in alpha state. There will be glitches and bugs that will force you to restart, and they're not limited to public servers.

Playing on private only is perfectly fine, but if you'd like to play on public, the best thing you can do is find a few good servers that work well for you and you get good ping/fps and stick to those. Beyond that, to save your gear you do have the options of tents and vehicles to store gear in. If change servers and you get a glitch death or something, you merely have to get back to your tent and your gear is still there.

Best of luck