Cross-server inventory and location preservation is a mistake.

[jafit 0]

Being able to carry items and retain your ingame location across different servers is causing a lot of gameplay problems by allowing players to meta-game around intended ingame checks and balances. It has effectively turned DayZ into some kind of weird 5 dimensional game where if you can't get around a problem in your current world, you can slide into an alternate universe where the problem doesn't exist anymore.

This applies to everything. You can bypass shitty spawns when scavanging for basic supplies or for high end gear. You don't have to deal with other players or zombie agro if you can just server-hop to where they aren't after you anymore. I also think it limits PvP greatly in that it's too easy to disappear into the aether of hundreds of other servers, so rivalries between different groups of players won't really emerge.

A player should be invested into their game in one world/server. If you join a new server you should start on the coast with nothing and only retain your progress within that one server. By keeping your gear and location across multiple servers it seems like DayZ is trying to be a bit of an MMO without actually having the right infrastructure to support it.

[Nightmare_Pwner 2]

Uhhhh.... No Sir. Just no.

[l mandrake 61]

+ 1 Totally valid points

-1 the reality of tying players to an individual server is too problematic, e.g. you often can't get a slot on your preferred server, so you would spend the majority of your DayZ time staring despairingly at the server browser or restarting elsewhere.

[SupWithThat 2]

I get what you're saying, but having loot tied to one server is too hazardous and woudld (in my opinion) quickly kill the game.

1.) Tempermental servers with sudden instability problems would mean you couldn't access your 'main' character.

2.) Servers randomly shutting down, poof goes a character you've been working on for 14 days.

3.) Server owners/admins are not trained individuals, whilst 80% of them are good people - I would not want my character and his progress being subject to the potential abuse of an admin.

4.) Potential long waiting times to access your server of choice and your character.

[heminized 1]

http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=19051

[jafit 0]

+ 1 Totally valid points

-1 the reality of tying players to an individual server is too problematic' date=' e.g. you often can't get a slot on your preferred server, so you would spend the majority of your DayZ time staring despairingly at the server browser or restarting elsewhere.

[/quote']

I did consider that, but I don't really seem to have much trouble getting into my preferred server. Plus there might be more slots available on your preferred server if it weren't full of day-trippers trying to find NVGs and silenced weapons.

Necessitating having a couple of secondary games going on other servers I think is preferable to the current state of affairs where people are reaching the endgame too easily and quickly and then finding themselves with nothing to do but shit on everyone else for fun. This isn't an anti-PvP statement, it's just an anti-boredom statement.

Thirdly, there's always the possibility of signing up for a password protected server or having reserved slots for your preferred server(s). Hell you could even play single player if you really wanted, that'd probably please a lot of the anti-pvp crowd, and their progress gained in private wouldn't be able to negatively affect any other servers

[Greenhound 33]

Or instead of doing all this stupid shit you fuckers are coming up with..

Make it so everything is saved per-server.

[heathy87 1]

I agree that characters should be saved per server, it probably is one of the only ways to stop the hopping. maybe not entirely but it will cut it down a bit.

[Jack Dant 158]

The problem is not people changing servers occasionally, but people changing servers a lot.

Solution: if you log on to two different servers too quickly (say within 15 minutes now, more once servers become more stable), your location gets reset and you spawn on the beach.

[creepymoto 16]

Or have MMO Style character menu. Possible to have 2 characters! But OP you are so wrong ....Thats the main damn point of dayz. You cant just take away main features.

[StealthyBrayden 6]

I like the way it is now :| If you make people play on specific servers then, it will become admin dominated and ruin the mod :P

[Hawk24 94]

Considering that servers may go down any minute because the admin doesn't want to continue paying for it....no

Also:

-Full server = no DayZ for you at all, have fun spamming that enter key

-Laggy server = you want to play on your main character? Enjoy the lag

-Server fails to connect with HIVE = no DayZ for you today

-Server is clogged with items because the cleanup routine fails = 5-10fps for your gaming session, deal with it

[rancor26 0]

Yes good idea but having character on one server instead across all of the servers would create more problems than it would solve.

There just has to be improvements to prevent server-hopping and ability to quit to avoid death. So what can be done? Well if you want to talk about MMO's then i guess we should look at the MMO king World Of Warcraft that has it right, ya you can hate on WoW but it's the most successful MMO for a reason.

So WoW has this combat mode that prevents you from logging out when in combat, i don't know exactly how you would implement this on DayZ but something like this is pretty much the only way to avoid nerds abusing the current server mechanic. Maybe make it so that you can only log out in a middle of the forest or something? Sure this would piss some people off and there would be some rage on the forums but soon people would get used to it and it would be normal for them. I really can't come up with any other mechanic to prevent it, log out timer alone doesn't work people can still abuse it, there has to be something a little more extreme.

[StealthyBrayden 6]

Considering that servers may go down any minute because the admin doesn't want to continue paying for it....no

Also:

-Full server = no DayZ for you at all' date=' have fun spamming that enter key

-Laggy server = you want to play on your main character? Enjoy the lag

-Server fails to connect with HIVE = no DayZ for you today

-Server is clogged with items because the cleanup routine fails = 5-10fps for your gaming session, deal with it

[/quote']

^

True that, +1

[heretic (DayZ) 76]

I disagree.

If like me, you can't find a single consistently reliable server to play on all the time, what do you suggest I do? Stop playing the alpha of DayZ? Sorry bro, but I like the game, buggy as may be and I have great hopes that by beta and/or retail release it will be even better!

And if you haven't experienced the last week with 5 hotfixes and an Arma2 beta update causing you to spawn on a server with an inaccurate version description in the title, then you haven't been playing enough, or, you've been playing too much on one reliable server and are one of the lucky few.

I disconnect frequently due to some of the many legitimate reasons for doing so (including having a life). I've never dc'ed during PVP and my toon has died for it frequently. No big deal! Just "pick it up and start again".

Frustrating? Hell yeah! Challenging? You bet! Punishing? You'd better believe it!

Am I gonna whinge about it and tell others what they SHOULD do about it? Na!

Or am I going to try to make constructive suggestions as to how game/server mechanics may be improved? Yep!

I made a couple of posts re. this on another thread;

http://dayzmod.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=19383&pid=179273#pid179273

[daedrick 90]

Yes because I hate server hoppers.

No because servers admin are crap and half the server are not updated or updated very late. They also crash and very often are full.

Conclusion; Its a no-go.

[Tossing 0]

I've been thinking about it for a while now. But it won't work. Players need to be to keep their characters if something happens to a server.

My Solution to the problem:

Your location is saved server side. If you join a new server (that you've never been on) you are randomly spawned on the beach. This greatly benefits people that persistently play on 1 server but doesn't completely screw over the people that want/have to server hop.

[heretic (DayZ) 76]

I've been thinking about it for a while now. But it won't work. Players need to be to keep their characters if something happens to a server.

My Solution to the problem:

Your location is saved server side. If you join a new server (that you've never been on) you are randomly spawned on the beach. This greatly benefits people that persistently play on 1 server but doesn't completely screw over the people that want/have to server hop.

Sorry Tossing,

I think any discrimination of this type against the player base to be inherently unfair and likely to do more harm than good. For example why should my 6 day old (best attempt so far) character who avoids overpopulated areas (either zeds or players) and scratches a living further inland be forced to start on the coast just because I am unable to play on the same server all the time?

It doesn't make any sense and in a game where "realism" seems to be the bee in so many players bonnets is totally out of place.

[heathy87 1]

there needs to be some sort of fail safe for this, however unrealistic we're playing a freaking game about a zombie apocalypse for goodness sake.

the beach spawning idea seems like a good one but, it still doesn't really stop the issues beyond extra planning, you simply have to save your char in 2 places on 2 servers for a work around.

having a delay would probably be the best option, after all its the speed ppl hop which is the issue, if you make it so that the accessing of your character data from the hive has a delay before it can be accessed again, the ppl have to wait a certain amount of time before they can reconnect. that way if you disconnect the idea is you have given up for the day, or your inet has dropped, in which case the time it takes you to restart your router, your connection cool down will be over anyway.

only needs to be 5 mins or so, stops ppl hopping behind others, stops server farming. or at least decreases them both.

hell make it so you HAVE to wait 2 minutes in the lobby on EVERY server you connect to, that way ppl will fuck around less. its not going to cure the issue, but it will make it less viable.

[StealthyBrayden 6]

I've been thinking about it for a while now. But it won't work. Players need to be to keep their characters if something happens to a server.

My Solution to the problem:

Your location is saved server side. If you join a new server (that you've never been on) you are randomly spawned on the beach. This greatly benefits people that persistently play on 1 server but doesn't completely screw over the people that want/have to server hop.

Sorry Tossing' date='

I think any discrimination of this type against the player base to be inherently unfair and likely to do more harm than good. For example why should my 6 day old (best attempt so far) character who avoids overpopulated areas (either zeds or players) and scratches a living further inland be forced to start on the coast just because I am unable to play on the same server all the time?

It doesn't make any sense and in a game where "realism" seems to be the bee in so many players bonnets is totally out of place.

[/quote']

Valid points there... It would be an idea to save the location server side. But once again it will only cause issues. I think that maybe there should be some sort of tax... Like every time you switch servers your water and food gauges are empty so you have to eat/drink. It would make people avoid server swapping... In some ways. Maybe useless..

[heathy87 1]

every time you switch servers your water and food gauges are empty so you have to eat/drink. It would make people avoid server swapping... In some ways. Maybe useless..

yeah its not a cure but it does have the right attitude' date=' you don't want to create a system that penalizes everyone, but you do want one whereby it makes doing something not worth it, or very inconvenient.

making the water and food gauge reset to near empty when you join a new server, at least it forces you to stay there until the problem is solved, but again this doesn't really stop much with any sort of planning, having extra food and water is common place.

nope it needs to be a flat out delay if anything, when you join a server, you need that count down period to happen regardless of whether the game has started or not, if ppl have to wait 2 mins at [u']least every time they join a server, there is less of a chance you can switch fast enough to get behind someone, and farming items becomes less profitable because you need to wait in the lobby for about the same amount of time it takes for loot to respawn. so in the end you don't really gain anything from switching.

as ppl have said you can't dictate which servers ppl play on, some hopping will exist so players can find a server they actually want to stay on. the best you can hope for is making the hopping as inconvenient as possible.

as far as disconnecting to avoid death, i'm not sure tbh, the delay may make it less of a reflex 'oh im gunna need to waiiiiiit' but yeah that is a different issue, this idea mostly only removes the benefits of hopping for vantage points and farming loot.

also with this you need to make the disconnect, boot to the server list and not to the lobby, so players need to rejoin and resit through the 2 min wait. basically what happens with this is it totals a 4 min wait, to switch between 2 servers.

[jafit 0]

I think that the concerns about lag and unreliability from servers are unreasonable given the inherent buggy nature of the game and mod.

- You can break your legs by closing a door.

- You can instantly die for no reason by walking on rocks or rubble.

- You can be spawned inside of a hill or out in the middle of the ocean for no reason.

- You can log onto a server and find yourself up in a tree, which you promptly fall out of and die. (happened to me once)

- You can lose your weapon and all your ammo if you try to put it directly into your pack instead of putting it on the ground first.

- Zombies can glitch through closed doors and other obstacles

- You can even accidentally hit the 'respawn' button instead of the 'options' button in the menu

- You can drive a car over an object like a bike and explode into a firey deathball

- You can try to swim across a body of water and lose all of your equipment.

- A patch could, at any time, make a certain aspect of the game harder and you could starve or be eaten by zombies, as happened in the last few patches where zombies could see you through walls and food became very scarce.

And of course there's one of the problems we have currently which stems from server-hopping which is:

- You can get killed and lose all of your progress to a bored server-hopping endgamer with a DMR and NVGs which he got by meta-gaming around the limitations of a single instance of the game.

Now lets go through some of the problems with a player being tied to a single-server:

- A Server could be unreliable or laggy: This means a temporary loss of access to your progress, not nearly as bad as anything listed above, because being forced to start again on another server while you wait for it to be fixed isn't as bad as losing all your stuff forever. If a server is constantly unreliable then you probably aren't going to acquire much progress worth losing anyway

- Admin drama: You have to find another server and start again because the admins are dicks and abuse their power. No worse than being killed by anything listed above. But at least admins can't abuse their power to duplicate items and then go ruin a bunch of other servers.

So I still don't really see a valid case for having cross-server inventory and locations.

[vanilladragon 1]

clear loot spawns in a certain radius when someone logs in, or make people log out/in in the woods away from any spawn point

---

i lold at the meme too

[heathy87 1]

well i think it probably has something to do with the data centre, if characters are stored per server it still needs to be kept on the main server, to avoid ppl tampering with the data.

what is stopping me bouncing servers all day an creating 1 gig of character data across all servers... who pays for that space usage, who pays for everyone elses space usage.

I could see the separate character data per server becoming a space and or cost issue. maybe not initially but eventually. having one character per guid cuts down the space usage, as opposed to having 100 characters each.

[jafit 0]

what is stopping me bouncing servers all day an creating 1 gig of character data across all servers... who pays for that space usage' date=' who pays for everyone elses space usage.

[/quote']

1 gigabyte would be 500,000 pages of text, or 1000 really big thick books.

I have 2 terabytes of storage on my home computer, that's 2000 gigabytes, or a library of 1 million really thick books.

I really don't think you're going to stress a datacenter by making it store your inventory for multiple servers. You might possibly push the boundaries of a floppy disk if you were really dedicated, but otherwise no.