every server is dark

[Damage1200 3]

Listen up buddy, you're supposed to test the game, not to play it. If you're unable to test at night, yes, sucks for you. It's not like I could change anything about that!

No, no, no... You obviously don't understand, he tested it and deemed it unplayable for anyone looking into getting the game for the first time. Which I fully agree with.

I'm a DayZ supporter and always will be, but my cousin picked up the SA for the first time and is trying to figure out the button mapping which is complex as possible and impossible to learn or test in the night if you are new, which caused him to call DayZ the worst alpha he has ever taken part in.

To me this says a lot about what new players may think when they learn they'll never get the chance to test the game in daylight because of the cycle and server-time offset.

[herrjon 478]

No, no, no... You obviously don't understand, he tested it and deemed it unplayable for anyone looking into getting the game for the first time. Which I fully agree with.

I'm a DayZ supporter and always will be, but my cousin picked up the SA for the first time and is trying to figure out the button mapping which is complex as possible and impossible to learn or test in the night if you are new, which caused him to call DayZ the worst alpha he has ever taken part in.

To me this says a lot about what new players may think when they learn they'll never get the chance to test the game in daylight because of the cycle and server-time offset.

 

Except that's not what an alpha is for.  Alphas are buggy, confusing, and have a lot of placeholder mechanics.  They don't have any sort of tutorial or intuitive way of learning typically, because the mechanics are always changing.  So most early alphas are difficult for people who are "new" to it and haven't followed development, and that's not the game's fault.  That's where forums and whatnot come in.  They should be used for people finding out how things work and discussing it, not whining about already known issues in a place the devs won't actively look.

 

Sure, the game in difficult to learn, and sure starting in the nighttime made this harder, but should we have server be set to 24/7 daylight to cater to new players?  No.  There are daylight servers out there, at reasonable times, you just have to find them.  If your friend feels he can't play right now, have him come back for the beta and try it out, when the game is more intuitive and put together.

[wolfsburg62 66]

Nighttime would be fine if there were chemlights & flares, or if you spawned with a flashlight. The SA is simply leagues behind where the mod was a year ago.

 

 

.......are you for reals?

[PongoZ 127]

I love the "realistic" night time world this game is proposing.

 

You cannot see your own hands, you cannot see your own feet, you cannot see anything around you but the horizon faintly.

(if night was like this, man kind would never have made it as a species we know that many predators can see very well at night.)

 

Instead of hunkering down for the night in a secure place to SLEEP, our realistic hero is walking around waving his flash light that can only see a 2 degree arc for 10 feet. (you would never do this, it wrecks your night vision, makes the world seem way darker then it is...oh ya. see above, and who uses a 9 volt battery in a flashlight?

 

Why do we do this, because we must eat every 10 minutes and drink every 2 minutes.  And tie the whole unrealistic, irrational mess to the actual world clock so that your customers can only play the game in the broken dark.

 

 

But then call it DAYZ instead of NIGHTZ

 

 

There is no component of this that is remotely realistic, it is not even rational. 

First the designer must abandon his infatuation with a 24 hour world, it is out of sync with everything else he is trying to do. 

hour day hour night cycles are silly too. All day is silly too, night is too cool if it was realistically dark. 

Put the clock on 4 hour days. like the navy watch system.  sunset at begining of the 4th watch, sun rise at the end fo the 1st watch, Full dark would be one hour from the middle of the 4th to the middle of the first.

 

If you cant fix the way that dark is presented in the game to make it at all realistic. Then quit screwing with the gama access, the night actually is far more realistic with the gama adjusted then the way the game presents it now.

[Damage1200 3]

Except that's not what an alpha is for. Alphas are buggy, confusing, and have a lot of placeholder mechanics. They don't have any sort of tutorial or intuitive way of learning typically, because the mechanics are always changing. So most early alphas are difficult for people who are "new" to it and haven't followed development, and that's not the game's fault. That's where forums and whatnot come in. They should be used for people finding out how things work and discussing it, not whining about already known issues in a place the devs won't actively look.

Sure, the game in difficult to learn, and sure starting in the nighttime made this harder, but should we have server be set to 24/7 daylight to cater to new players? No. There are daylight servers out there, at reasonable times, you just have to find them. If your friend feels he can't play right now, have him come back for the beta and try it out, when the game is more intuitive and put together.

I wasn't asking for 24/7 daylight servers, I was saying that either offsetting the time or shortening the cycle should fix the problem so people who work and are new to the game of can't handle always being stuck logging on during night can see the daylight.

I agree the mechanics are still alpha and subject to change, but I haven't heard of any change to the night/day cycle.

Yes you can look for other hosts in other countries but who wants to try and test a game when their ping is so high that they lag every step they take? Hint: No One, and thus why this topic is being so heavily debated.

Just shorten the cycle or offset it so it's 18 or 20 hours instead of 24 so it's ever changing every day.

[daze23 549]

night time in the standalone is far from "pitch black", or at a level where I "cannot see anything around" IMO. I really only need to use the flashlight indoors (where the flashlight 'cone' kinda sucks, but that's another issue)

[herrjon 478]

Yes you can look for other hosts in other countries but who wants to try and test a game when their ping is so high that they lag every step they take? Hint: No One, and thus why this topic is being so heavily debated.

 

Except the daylight servers I refer to are in my own timezones when I play on them.  People are hosting their own servers now and are aware that all the dev servers are synced to one timezone.  Therefore, at least some of them, are making it day when the dev servers are night, and night when the dev servers are day.  Sure there aren't that many at the moment, but as more and more non-dev servers pop up, the less the problem will become, even if the devs don't change anything about the day/night cycle.

 

And honestly, as far as the ping issue goes, that really only comes into play for the vast majority when dealing with Australia/New Zeland.  Most players are NA or EU, and connecting across the antlatic gives most people 100-150 ping, maybe 200 if the server is bad.  Yeah it's not the best connection ever, but it is plenty playable.  For the cases of those who can only reliably connect to servers in their timezone and work during all daylight hours, I feel sorry for you, but we can't cater to all those fringe case, especially during alpha phase.

[Pliskinki 52]

Overall I just think that the lights of this game must be completely remade. The sun is pretty nice and day time is astonishing, but even in day as you guys can see there are places inside houses, that the light kind of sucks and glitches through it... Then my opinion is that the game light sources should be re-made to make it all fits perfect, so then, it works perfectly on night times.

[Damage1200 3]

Except the daylight servers I refer to are in my own timezones when I play on them. People are hosting their own servers now and are aware that all the dev servers are synced to one timezone. Therefore, at least some of them, are making it day when the dev servers are night, and night when the dev servers are day. Sure there aren't that many at the moment, but as more and more non-dev servers pop up, the less the problem will become, even if the devs don't change anything about the day/night cycle.

And honestly, as far as the ping issue goes, that really only comes into play for the vast majority when dealing with Australia/New Zeland. Most players are NA or EU, and connecting across the antlatic gives most people 100-150 ping, maybe 200 if the server is bad. Yeah it's not the best connection ever, but it is plenty playable. For the cases of those who can only reliably connect to servers in their timezone and work during all daylight hours, I feel sorry for you, but we can't cater to all those fringe case, especially during alpha phase.

I still fail to see how this is a fringe case if so many people are arguing it...

On top of that, I thought Rocket said server hosts will not be able to alter in-game-time since everything is supposed to be synced so people don't hop daylight to daylight?

I was just proposing a fix that would work for everyone even if all servers are completely synced, sorry for trying to help better the alpha(?).

[Luthor Chickenfeet 29]

After playing for my first 7 hours on Monday purely in the dark, last night (yes night) I found a UK server that was in Daylight!

 

And very quickly found out that them there Dead Folk's seem to have extraordinarily good eyesight during the day (considering the grizzled state their eyeballs are in)

 

One minute I thought I was looking at a tiny speck/dot of a lamp post off in the distance...carried on creeping around only to turn round 2 minutes later and find it right up in my grill after it had sprinted about half a mile uphill. 

:rolleyes:

[jannoli@web.de 2]

Wait!

There are actually people who ... "slept" since the release?!

[Deathlove 2283]

I feel like im being punished for not living in a European time zone mind set. This seriously needs to be worked on cause MY ENTIRE DAY is spent in night and daytime for me is around 5 or 6 AM in the morning.

 

This really needs to get looked at maybe have servers with ACTUAL time on them before you enter so you can see if its day or night. Would save ALLOT of server hopping just to find the one.

 

I understand the game is based in Europe but seriously 90% of my game experience has been in the dark now.......

[beechey 2]

Problem solved, for the most part, at least on Gameserver servers:

 

 

So after a restart (I set mine at ~17:00 GMT) the server will restart at daytime. I finish at university at 17:00 most days, so I'd like to be able to play on my server in the daytime with my friends. I imagine it will still do the day/night cycle, but a few hours delayed, which is nice.

Edited December 19, 2013 by Beechey

[damdifino 4]

Problem solved, for the most part, at least on Gameserver servers:

 

 

So after a restart (I set mine at ~17:00 GMT) the server will restart at daytime. I finish at university at 17:00 most days, so I'd like to be able to play on my server in the daytime with my friends. I imagine it will still do the day/night cycle, but a fgew hours delayed, which is nice.

 

I'm on US Central Time and last night I jumped on a server around 9 p.m. and it was daylight.  Not sure what server but it was a U.S. server and by the look of the sun it was approximately mid day.  Must have something to do with this.

 

+1

[PongoZ 127]

night time in the standalone is far from "pitch black", or at a level where I "cannot see anything around" IMO. I really only need to use the flashlight indoors (where the flashlight 'cone' kinda sucks, but that's another issue)

 

well, I am seeing a totally different thing on every server and every setting. In the middle of a wide open field, with no clouds and all the stars visible, I can not see anything around me, just the horizon of the forest.  in 1st person, I cannot see a single thing around me, in 3rd person, I can swing around enough that I can see my body in profile if the camera is on the ground. 

 

It is a kind of dark you have to go in a dark closet to reproduce, with no light coming under the door.. but your in the middle of an open field on a star lite night. This is absolutely, undeniably wrong.

[Bocui 13]

Would be nice if nights were like this: 

 

Before:

 

 

After:

 

 

From /r/DayZ by /u/Kittykathax

Edited December 19, 2013 by Bocui

[klesh 2423]

Just join one of the 24/7 daylight servers that are popping up then.

[daze23 549]

well, I am seeing a totally different thing on every server and every setting. In the middle of a wide open field, with no clouds and all the stars visible, I can not see anything around me, just the horizon of the forest.  in 1st person, I cannot see a single thing around me, in 3rd person, I can swing around enough that I can see my body in profile if the camera is on the ground. 

 

It is a kind of dark you have to go in a dark closet to reproduce, with no light coming under the door.. but your in the middle of an open field on a star lite night. This is absolutely, undeniably wrong.

as someone that lives in semi-rural Louisiana, I don't agree. unless the moon is rather full, it's hard to see much without a flashlight. maybe I could see well enough to walk down the street, but much of that is because I know the street is a even surface that most likely won't have any obstructions. I definitely wouldn't try to run through 'the woods' at night

I'm not going to argue with what you personally can see ingame. but like I said, I was honestly able to navigate at night without a flashlight (and without adjusting my gamma/brightness)

[Clarkeh 58]

Apparently from my own research some servers are day and some are night it doesn't matter what timezone/region the server is in.

[agentflippy@gmail.com 1]

Guys, this is alpha. Meaning this is for ALPHA testing. Not even beta testing/etc. I'm betting that a majority of people complaining that purchased this alpha have never alpha tested anything before. We are lucky it's working as good as it currently is. There might be reasons for the majority of servers to be run on whatever weird time zone it is. I can see not allowing servers to change the time zone to prevent people from server hopping from day to night. When I used to play the MOD, servers at night were the least populated servers. Making it easy for people willing to venture into the dark to get loot at those hard to reach places in the daylight. Then jump on a server that's day light and get busy hunting. Maybe the devs are going to be working on adding some more night time objects, like flares, glow sticks, or improved light sources soon. Those will need to be tested. If that's the case be happy there is even a day cycle at the moment. Again this is not even BETA yet.

 

I feel Rocket made a BIG mistake by releasing this on steam, in ALPHA for the price he did. Usually alpha testing is with a small closed group of testers, not what we are seeing here with DayZ SA. People are going to want to just play the game and not do any real ALPHA testing. They are going to want to play the way they played the MOD and be grumpy that they can't play as they would like. Or noobz are going to bitch, whine, and complain because they can't play the game because it's dark when they play. Again it's ALPHA! If you don't like the way it is at current don't play, wait for the beta. You were warned things are not even close to being finished. I have alpha/beta tested quite a few games over the years. Did I bitch? No, I was play testing an alpha/beta game and lucky to have the chance to offer ideas/report bugs/etc. Complain is not one thing I did. Granted those alpha/betas I tested, I did not pay for. I knew what I was getting into before purchasing this alpha due to my previous experience testing alpha/betas.

 

That said, I have yet to play in the daylight. However that has not detered me from playing the alpha. It would be nice if the servers ran timezone specific to the server location, they don't at the moment though. Maybe it has something to do with the current alpha state they want to resolve first. It might not be at that point yet? Maybe when it gets to beta? Who knows. I'm CST and at 1:20am last night I just started to see the sun rising in game, It was a beautiful sight. When I have some free time in the mornings CST over the holidays and weekends I'll be enjoying the daylight. Until then I'm happy testing this pay for alpha game.

 

I think there should be some sort of word from Rocket or the devs to let us know about their decisions concerning the timezone/day/night issue we have here in this thread.

 

 

***** EDIT *****

It looks as though server admins are able to change their servers time zone/etc. They can't change the length of the day/night cycle, just offset it to their preference or timezone. So contact whoever manages the servers for a change.

 

:)

Edited December 19, 2013 by RangerFlippy

[JESUSARIUS REX (DayZ) 163]

It's really not a big deal. I would really like to play during the day, but i've been fine playing during the night. 

 

IMPORTANT:

I think all the AUTO servers have the same time zone hence why all servers are dark. When people start buying servers, I think it will be day on more of them.

[drayson 158]

Gotta test the gameplay at night too you know. I found some day time servers now but man I enjoyed being forced to play at night. If you don't cheese it and bump the gamma setting it increases the atmosphere quite a bit, at least for me.

[Coco-Nuts 0]

Hello,

 

Just to give you more informations about the Time Zone settings.

I got a DayZ SA server from Vilayer hosting.

 

So we are able to set the time zone as we want on our server.

Actually I set my server on the daylight when it's the night in France. So I think the server is on the daylight when it is the day on the USA.

 

See bellow the settings that I can do :

 

[Ambetanterix 6]

I agree with a lot of posters here, so far I've been on 1 server with daytime and all the rest was night. Like a lot of adults I can only play after I come back from work so atm that limits me to testing night only. I don't mind the night but it would be nicer to see some daylight too from time to time, before my flashlight battery runs out. 

[hoschelhoff 15]

Some times depending on your other settings, brightness/gamma does jack shit.

If clouds is off. Turn it on.

If HDR Quality is set to Low. Set it to Very Low.

 

These 2 has fixed pitch black for me.