Admin Experiences

[simfreek@hotmail.com 48]

I used to admin for three servers. Each owner had a diffrent way of running things. In this post I'm going to share what experienes I had while admining for both styles. I can't remember every thing I have done as this had been over a number of months.

The first Server I admined for. There wasn't much I could realy do. It was a public Hive server and banning any one is near impossible. I didn't have access to any database or any thing to see if people were spawning stuff in or even teleporting. You could kick people but you had to have a good reason for it. But all this lead to was the guy you kicked to bring the rest of his buddies on then a hacker box "care package" being placed on the ground and then every one taking the items out. Now you couldn't prove who hacked it at all, then they would start porting around. Which was, in most instaces, the one hacker, moving his friends around. So in the end there wasn't any thing I could realy do at all to be an effectie admin.

This is about when I moved to private hives, back in October of 2012. This server had its own clan and a good amount of players on it. I played on this server for two months. The admins were active but only one admin knew how to fix any thing. Bitching the entire time that the other admins were just being lazy and not realy being an admin. He got tired of being the only guy that could do any thing so he left for another game. At this point, the server started to get overrun with hackers and the server owener flipped his lid and cut the cord to it.

So moving onto another server, especialy after doing a Namalusk for a month. A PvP map in my oppinion. I had gone from being a hero to straight up bandit. Which, I think was a good thing as I leanred many tactics on how players react or unt other players. So going to this other server, I went in, found a little bird and was shot down real quick. The server wasn't highly populated, but I was in a little bird. So, upon respawn, I went bandit mode and was taking players out left and right. But I had becoom a server local at this point. Eventualy being asked to take up an admin position as the owner couldn't cover the game 24/7. Since I was a late night player, I could easily take that slot up.

This is when I was introduced to a few tools for admining a private server. One was a map that displayed where all the vehicles were on the map, and also showing me where all the players were on the map in real time. Accurate to about 50 meters. This map also leaves a colored line, a diffrent color for each player and vehicle, on where it has moved to. So you can follow a players entire track of where they have been. With time and experience, you can figure out players who are using ESP to get around. Some players are harder then others though to figure out if they are using such a hack. Also this window lets me look into what you have in your inventory and modify if it I want. With out having to bring up the actual database.

Being an Admin at this point changes the entire game for you. You wont be playing the game much any more as you will have access to this map and every one knows it. The owner of this server I was admining was a Bandit player. And some how, some way, he could fine you with in 15 minutes of freshly spawning, even if you were up in the woods up north. He claimed he didn't use the map like that but I don't know...

I played on this server as an admin for a month before the server owner got tired with the game. The other admin on the server, who was into changing things around decided to create his own server. I went with him as he was a good friend. But to be an admin, I had to be a friendly player. This I didn't have a problem with as I prefered playing Hero any ways. Also, with the drama created from the previous owner and him hunting people down so well. We didn't want a repeat of this.

Eventualy, my day was just logging on, finding a place to hide, and then watching the map for players who were doing things suspiciously. We had a few scripts implemented on the server as well, and the one I liked most as an admin was the Observer mode. This allowed me to remote view your character. I could see if you were looking down a scope, or running around. I saw what you saw. Easiest way to see if some one was brining in a hacker box. Since the server was private, there was no way you could use the exscuse. "Oh I spanwed in with this stuff as it is on my hive character." I heard it a lot, but it was BS.

Playing the game no longer was an option as you already knew where all the cars were, and where the players were. Even if you turned the player tracker map off, you still knew where the cars were. So I normaly would find a safe place to hide and sit there for hours. Or camp a road for hours with a snipet rifle, wiating to shoot some one out of the drivers seat. Get up and then run to some other road out of the way. Though my favorate kill was on the chernarus map when a ural full of people came driving by and I had satchel charges on the road. Good times, good times. That was a long wait though.

For a while, I did the split personality of being in bandit mode or admin mode. One thing I noticed is that the server was a friendly place. Every one knew each other, and 95% of the new players to the server was a script kiddy. They would spawn in, press a button, be fully loaded, then port around the map. That ban list got long real fast. Becuse the server was friendly, the way people played had gotten sloppy. They were not scared of running out iin the open of the air field. So, I let them know I was in bandit mode. I would take all of my gear off me, then gear up all over again at the closest city. Avoiding cars as I knew where they were, but if one was in a road or an obvious place, it was fair game. Gearing up didn't take long at all, as even starting with a lee or a winchester was enough to peg another player. Take his gear, and then keep going from there. The entire play style of the server changed at that point. The server locals would then team up, while the lone wolves avoided the cities all together. Avoiding PvP hotspots.

The largest issue with this play style is that I had to annouce I was in bandit mode every 10 minutes so that players wouldn't get caught off guard and claim I was abusing admin rights. I also couldn't do this till at least another admin was on so that they could actuly admin the server. As when I was hunting, I didn't have access to those programs.

I had a good reputation already on the server so i didn't get flack from the locals when I did this. One thing I did was when ever I came upon nice items but couldn't carry them with me, I hid the items with the bodies. This way they were lost forever. Once I was killed, the gear was yours. I didn't seek revenge. I was an admin after all, I couldn't let petty stuff ruin the trust the players had in me.

Speaking of nice items. The fastest way to flood the server with high end gear is to have the server reset every 3 hours. Even 6 hours is pushing it. I would recomend 12 hour resets but on many servers, this brings perforamce to a crawl in the latter hours before reset. If you have a server with helicopters every where. You players who have nothing better to do but play all day, will, on every server reset, farm. Server resets, they jump in thier helicopter and fly around looking for crashed helies. NVGs, in a 12 hour day of of playing, You can have about 10 pairs of NVGs in stock. AS50s, M107s, rounds, rounds and rounds. It was nuts.

Also, when it comes to giving starter weapons. We tried the M9SD with one mag. The resualt was being in cerno, electro, bolota and a few other cities and finding an unlimited amount of m9sd but no rounds. Sure survivabilities goes way up, but it realy does show you how even haveing such a weapon for a fresh spawn is like. "Oh look, I don't need to sneak around any more." Also, fresh spawns became deadly. This promoted a KoS mentatlity on the server so we removed the weapon. Starting load out was a bandage, soda, sardines, pain killers, and a road flare. No flashlight.

So, lets review quickly.

No Having a server reset sonner then 6 hours.

Weapons at start up leads to a PvP orientated server.

Vehicles every where makes it easy to camp roads.

Being a bandit admin leads to a bunch of drama.

Sarter gear should be kept to a minimum.

Placing a special vehicle that repwans at a spawn point on every server reset, leads to players camping it to get it first.

There are a few others that I know I am missing but can not remember right now. I want to hear what other experiences server admins have had.

[Inception. 9443]

I'm an administrator of a few servers and I play bandit-like; no drama there.

We have four hour restarts which are perfectly fine.

Starter gear is more of a personal choice but I prefer what you have posted; a minimum.

[simfreek@hotmail.com 48]

I'm starting to think I put this in the wrong thread. It looks like this thread is used for advertising private servers and not realy a discussion place.

Inception, I know the advantages of a short duration between server resets. Four hours would still be to often in my book. Hoarding and farming of loot from choppers just is abused to the point that after two days of a fresh wipe, every one has NVGs, AS50s and rounds. The last server I admined on had about 20 locals and then about an average of 10 to 20 more players who would pop in and then leave for a week then repeat.

Also, how do you avoid the drama invovled when you raid some ones base? Before I even admined, When I did my bandit stuff, I normaly raided a base, took enough stuff that only I could carry then destroy thier base, cars, gear. With the admin map, you know where every ones bases are and people were quick to claim admin abuse.

On this last server I was on, the owner had found a way to put an aircraft carrier in. This thing was equiped with a little bird, a mi17, and huey, and a v22. The way it was set up, is that you had to find it, and from the ocean you could geton the carrier by stairs. Also on board was a refuel ural and a repair ural. Also a medical box and then some food. To make it so that hackers couldn't see it on thier map hacks or other programs. The items would reset on every server reset. We initialy thought that people would be rewarded for exploring a part of the map that no one realy cared for, as you had to get to it by boat and couldn't be seen from shore.

What this lead to was having to remove the 3 weeks of coding to get it to work in the first place. The hackers never did find it, so that worked. But, it also lead to the guy who found it, to get a group of people together and then turn it into thier base. They would do every thing they could to make sure they were on the carrier before server reset or when they logged out. They were guarenteed a vehicle when they logged back in. Also they had moved every boat to the carrier to make sure no one else could find it. If they died, they just had some one fly out and get them. Also the medical supplies meant they never had to go into town, same with the food. Upon every server reset, they would each take thier own chopper or the v22 and look for heli crashes, ensuring that no one else had a chance at the loot.

Now becuase the ship and helis would reset, every thing would be gone when the server came back up. So they had other tents spread around the map that they hoarded all thier gear. As an admin, I could look up in the database for tents, but I never realy cared for doing that. Since they had so many tents when I stumbled upon one of thier stashes, I was quick to destroy it. On this server I was never acused of admin abuse, at least not by the locals. New guys to the server, they would pull that card out in a heart beat if thier poorly placed tent was raided. After two weeks of this group doing thier thing, I had relayed my experiences to the server owner and he decided he would pull the code, even if it sucked with all the time we had put into putting it into the game.