'Bird Simulator' Spectator mode Bug

[johannesmp 2]

Note: This is a technical bug report post. For a more personal account of what happened, with lots of pictures, please check this topic in the gallery section.

What triggered the bug:

• 
  Note: I believe that this was a one-time bug, since I was unable to replicate it when logging on again later. In any case, here is what I did when it was triggered:

• I updated my DayZ installation to 1.5.7.
  
• I started ArmaII: OA in steam and selected the 'Launch ARMA 2: Combined Operations' Option
  
• In the multiplayer server browser I connected to a free server with low Ping. I believe this might have been 'TX3', but I'm not sure (I'm located in Wisconsin in the US)
  
• After waiting the usual +15 minutes on 'Waiting on server response' I spawned in at the location I had logged off before in 1.5.6, but all my items, weapons, etc were gone.
  
• Being the reasonable player that understands what an 'alpha' is, I took it in stride and went through the steps to suicide/respawn.
  
• Another 15 minutes of 'Waiting on server response' later I spawned as a bird:
  

What exactly happens?

• You spawn as small black bird. It looks like the standard bird models you see flying around in-game sometimes. I couldn't tell the exact colors because it was night-time on the server.
  
• The bird controls exactly like a helicopter in hover mode. WASD/Arrow keys to move you laterally, Q and Z to move up and down, and X and C to rotate you around the vertical/Y axis. When not moving you hover in place and you can only move backwards at a very slow pace.
  
• The bird is able to fly through walls - You bump into a wall for a moment and will teleport through it a second later.
  
• Most standard user interface elements and controls no longer work:
  
  • Attempting to open the Player list [P] or Journal [J] cause the in-game task bar to blink for a moment but then hide again. Opening the map does however show the task bar correctly:
    
    
  • The middle mouse button does nothing - no menu appears
    
  • The gear button[G] no longer does anything. Same with weapon mode/flare [F] and the communication buttons [1,2,...,9,0].
    
  • Chat is limited to the 'Group Channel' and trying to switch to other channels does not work. Other users cannot see what you say in Group Channel.
    

  [*]Music and sound-effects were completely off, despite settings being up and my volume being turned up:

  

  [*]It seems that Zed as well as other players cannot see the bird at all, nor harm it.

  [*]Unfortunately it was night when this bug occurred.

[grezvany13 56]

The bird spectator mode is an ARMA feature for those who are killed during COOP.

The fact that you got it is probably because you died but didn't triggered the "you're killed" action of the DayZ mod. This could be caused by lag or other server issues.

Everything else you descibed is normal, so nothing to worry about.

[johannesmp 2]

Yeah, after some research and discussion it was pretty clear that this is not much of a bug, just an issue with the server spawning you wrong.

This post is more intended for the sake of documentation than really asking the devs to fix something.