Future of public hive servers

[Akoran 2]

not a fucking chance. Public servers make this game worth playing. Private servers are the "hey lets go waste my time" of servers

[TikTactical 61]

I think it would be better if the devs controlled the public hive servers if there's people actually still playing on those servers afterwards (that meaning you need better servers running public hive). I personally like public hive servers because I have the freedom to go on a night time server If I want to get some footage during night time, and also a much more diverse playerbase. I've played on a lot of private hives, and I still do and also enjoy playing on them, but I've had several times where I've run into the same person again, after a few days of playing. I don't really like that, which is why I want the public hive servers working. And then there's also the nostalgia part ofc. Having played the DayZ MOD back in the early days, there's just something about the whole thing with having your character connected to 100's of servers.. :) The only thing is try! and see how it turns out!

EDIT: Awfully typeset! Sorry! Rushed it

Edited April 10, 2017 by TikTactical

[Sqeezorz 839]

1 hour ago, Tazhar said:

As a side note, maybe you could ask your server providers to request specific information from a buyer before the purchase is complete - to help ensure the server is for community purposes and not just the needs of a few players. Simple things like asking for their website address could determine whether a server is being purchased for private use or for a public community purpose.

I have only played on public servers at the beginning of Dayz. It was a 1/10 experience ... often kicked .. after 2-10min. (Low-pop) or direct on the coast (Cherno / Elektro KoS), then I was looking for private hives. The veteran servers are mostly empty because they can not be "controlled". It is a double-edged sword. For honest communitis, it is a shot in the back, for Duper and Hort based players a good step. I myself support a private community, but can also well understand speakers like @Tazhar. The solution should be a mixture: only public veteran servers AND approved by Bohemia and also with details of the tenants for public servers. These servers could then also be monitored by BI, so as veteran servers. That would separate a lot of wheat from the shit. It should not be that a few white sheep have to pay because of a large quantity of black sheep. In short: it may not be so easy to get a public server.

[Soupy98 34]

In my opinion public hives should not exist. Every server should be a private hive. The idea of being able to leave one server, join another and still have all the same gear just rubs me the wrong way. It leads to all kinds cheap tactics and things that people do. I know public hive is never going away, so yes not allowing the renting of public servers is a good first step, but maybe also if you leave a server in any way besides crashing or a server reset should start a 10 minute timer to join a server. This would stop these cheap tactics of ghosting/ combat logging. 

[meuchel 1]

1 hour ago, IkaikaKekai said:

End it.  They pretty much only get abused by the 'owners' who think they're justified to have their own private lootfarm because they're spending money.  There will still be people loot farming on low pop servers, but they'll never be completely safe or have options such as server restarts in high tier areas.

Question that might be related.  Will private servers be able to 'share' hives?  IE say two clans each have their own server, and decide to have a event/pvp server that's shared between the two, so the 3 servers would all be on the same hive?

*EDIT* It would also remove an arrow from the quiver of the naysayers that say DayZ is just a money grab.

No! You are generalizing! There are a lot of public hive server owners who do not do this and if anybody misuses the powers he payed for then they need to be punished! I believe... no I know this is a lot more simple than fighting hackers without the community! 

[exwoll 255]

I think that BI should be the only one able to run public servers. 

As a lot mentioned here, the only reason a person might want a private public servers is for loot (and duping it) and that´s an unfair advantage over other players, it´s almost a Pay2Win scheme. 

If they´re completely removed would be better (the ability to hop from server to server I mean, or at least limit it for like 1 per week).

51 minutes ago, r4hDex said:

 

[Hunter Gross 0]

I'm in favor of keeping them. While they may be slightly abused, its still fair if everyone can do it. Maybe set the loot on the official servers to be specific (like private servers) to reduce exploits. All of my favorite servers are rented public ones, and I would hate to see them go.

[exwoll 255]

3 minutes ago, Hunter Gross said:

I'm in favor of keeping them. While they may be slightly abused, its still fair if everyone can do it. Maybe set the loot on the official servers to be specific (like private servers) to reduce exploits. All of my favorite servers are rented public ones, and I would hate to see them go.

basically everyone will just go to the official ones. Public is public. 

[chambersenator 106]

If there is nothing preventing separate, unrelated people to share a single private hive across different hosting companies if they choose to do so, I don't have a problem with the idea of restricting player-run servers to private hives.

 

2 hours ago, Tazhar said:

Hi Baty,

Public hive is a great way to engage with the DayZ community. Private Hive servers are more often than not whitelisted, and also require applications to join. This means that a player could invest hours of his/her time into a server with signing up and getting started, just to find out that the community itself is not what they were looking for. This means that the player is back to square one and has to look yet again for another community. 

I disagree that the majority of private hives are whitelisted and require applications. There are many that do, but unless I see actual numbers, I cannot buy the idea that they are the majority. There are plenty of private hives that are open to all, and some that only have restrictions at certain times. 

 

2 hours ago, Tazhar said:

Public Hive servers that are run by gaming communities like mine, gives us the opportunity, as a community, to engage with players and give them a small 'taste' as to what our community is about, this means we can emphasise that our server is a friendly one and we can encourage player interaction which is what a lot of people on DayZ seek. Once we have put our message across to the various players that join our server, we can then attract them into our community and encourage them to join our private hive server - which is a lot more convenient for them considering they already have an idea on what the community is about.

Why exactly would this not be possible if both of the servers were private, and sharing the same hive, with one open to all and the other whitelisted/passworded? This way, players who want to become more involved get to keep whatever gear they have from the open server and move to the 'member' server.

 

2 hours ago, Tazhar said:

In my personal opinion, removing community public hive servers and replacing them with official DayZ public hive servers will ruin communities that have established themselves around your game as it completely stops their ability to attract new players. I have gained 650 members in a few months because my community offers a friendly environment and player interaction which is popular across DayZ. Official Public Hive servers will essentially turn DayZ into a free-for-all. Every single public hive server will be a complete battle ground and this will drive away a lot of players who enjoy the roleplay aspect. Any roleplay type activity in DayZ such as hunting and crafting will be completely void on public hive due to the risk of being killed at every corner by a player that treats DayZ as if it were Call of Duty.

...

Honestly though, I genuinely believe that taking away public servers from communities will kill off many communities that have invested hundreds, if not thousands of pounds/dollars into your development. For communities such as mine, without a public hive server, we have no way of attracting players to the private hive server - it acts as a marketing tool. I think it would be much more efficient to rework your hosting rules, allowing communities more freedom to adapt your amazing game into their own niche. And spend a little more time evaluating reports correctly for servers, and removing the ones that are quite obviously not community servers. 

If a server's existing community is at risk of being ruined just because they have to re-gear (if you end up having to move that server to a private hive), what's going to happen when the next server wipe comes? If you've managed to create a place that has a reputation for the quality experience it offers, do you really believe they will abandon that just because they can't loot other servers when they can't find the particular loot they want? Even if the doom-and-gloom scenario of public servers being a KOS-fest and drive off those who like the RP aspect happens, wouldn't that actually help drive players to servers just like yours, as it makes what you are offering all the more valuable?

As for the promotional/marketing point you made, I understand the difficulties of marketing a server and attracting new players. All server admins have to deal with it, whether or not they are on the public hive or not. If it was just your server being restricted to having a private hive, I'd agree that the change would make things very difficult. However, if all player-run servers are on private hives, I see it having more benefits than the way things are now. I see it leading to more cooperation and cross-promotion events between different server communities, and higher player population for all involved. 

Lastly, I would strongly recommend to the devs that if this did come to pass, that it would be done at the same time as a public hive reset. To do this change without wiping the public hive would unduly penalize the server owners that have to switch, as it would make some of the public hive players have to decide between their gear they have on the public hive and the particular server that they enjoy playing on. I would hope that would be a non-issue for most players, as a well-admined server is 100x more valuable than whatever loot you may have on the public hive.

 

 

Edited April 10, 2017 by chambersenator

[St. Jimmy 1631]

8 hours ago, Baty Alquawen said:

We are considering the idea to discontinue the possibility to rent public servers.

Finally. At least I've been waiting this to happen for years. There are enough public servers that you don't need to give random people to rent more.

This way you've more control and you can give public experience how you see it.

Edited April 10, 2017 by St. Jimmy

[IkaikaKekai 1957]

1 hour ago, chambersenator said:

They can, and many do (at least when they are all run by the same people) . Though I don't know if there would be an issue with servers are using different hosting providers. I know in the past, the Gents of Novo had linked their hive to at least two separate, unaffiliated groups.

 

The hives would have to be all wiped and then linked beforehand into a new hive, as AFIK, two existing hives can't be merged/combined into a third one. 

 

I more or less figured they would have it planned if they didn't already have it up and running, never experienced it myself though.  Opens up a lot of options to say have 1 or more PVE servers hooked up to a PVP/Event/'Arena' server, or even when other maps are more of a thing, Server 1 is Chenarus, Server 2 is Tajikistan, Ect ect.

Thanks, that's more or less what I meant, same hive for all 3 not 2 different hives and one 'merged' hive (I bet that would be a bitch to program and would still be prone to glitches).

[kubas246 4]

I think that's good idea. Only official servers should be on public hive and everything else on private. As far as I know most public hives are anyway not used as they should:

- they are treated as gear farms (join and you will be kicked, they are passworded sometimes even thought it shouldn't be possible or owners just turn them off when they leave server)

- they are treated as gear hiding spots (Few times when I joined some public non official server with low pop I found tons of tents and barrels filled to the max with gear in places like Cherno, Bere and I mean in the middle of them or near/on general military zones)

- they are treated as safe way to travel to you destination. You have own server you gear on, they go on public one and die, so you just switch to your own, grab gear from barrels/tents places in coastal areas, travel to place where you died and log in back on server where you died. 

I would like to also see some more mechanics that would prevent ghosting. I'm sure you will figure something out.

[mithrawndo 166]

I think it would make sense to have *three* types of hive:

• Official - Unavailable to rent, controlled dayz experience
• Community - The existing public hive
• Private - The existing private hives

Assuming modding is still on the cards, now might also be the time to also further subdivide servers into modded and unmodded categories, perhaps encouraging people to rent unmodifiable servers to maintain the vanilla experience's online presence, whatever that may be when complete?

[scarecrow382 6]

Are there any other restrictions you could add such as passwords, server change limits, or reset cool-downs? I've always wondered how fortifications would work if you could just ghost into the location from another server. If nothing else, then yes I would agree that we need to remove the ability to rent. I only fear random servers shutting down and losing my character or gear. Is there any way an inactive server could allow all active players one server switch?

[Influence_X 51]

As someone who has played since the early mod dayZ. I'm fine with your idea. 

Here are some random thoughts. I do not play private hive. 

I love that I can take my same character to different servers.

It allows me to avoid fully populated servers, and play with friends in different time zones more easily without having to start as a new character every time.

 I dont want restricted hives because I dont want to have to fight to get into the same server if it's full population. 

It's true server hopping is the issue with this, but there's going to be downsides with every type of server, public or private, restricted or not. 

People will complain about server hopping and hacking, but that's not always my experience with it, as someone that plays low pop I've only seen one or two hackers in DayZ SA since it's release in dec 2013. 
 

Edited April 10, 2017 by Influence_X

[Chatham 8]

I am in full support of this. From my experience the people renting public servers are mostly those who want a safe space to loot. Removing the option to rent public servers will significantly reduce the amount of "badmins" running servers. I can't tell you how many times I have been kicked from a server because I killed the admin or his friend.

Edited April 10, 2017 by Chatham
spelling

[Kieranfretwell 1]

I have played private hives exclusively since they were introduced, they are just a whole lot better because of some of the things you mentioned. 

I think that getting rid of the hosted servers will clean up public a bit. 

[THEGordonFreeman 664]

We've rented servers for almost three years now, albeit, we are a private hive, and run our servers according to the rules set by BI.  All of this talk about private hives being run by badmins and private hives being empty is simply not correct.  Our server is full every Saturday Night during our events.  Our admins follow the rules to the letter. 

[JBURNS489 165]

9 minutes ago, Chatham said:

I am in full support of this. From my experience the people renting public servers are mostly those who want a safe space to loot. Removing the option to rent public servers will significantly reduce the amount of "badmins" running servers. I can't tell you how many times I have been kicked from a server because I killed the admin or his friend.

I can agree with being kicked from a public server for no reason...that really sucks. But I really don't care if someone who pays 50+ dollars a month for a server has a safe place to loot. They aren't invincible, and anything they collect can be looted by anyone else

Edited April 10, 2017 by JBURNS489

[Cosmical 79]

As far as the CLE goes, i think public hives ruin all sense of item achievement/scavenging.  Whats the point winning a fight on a server full of 50 guys with AK74's because they all server hopped to get them.  Its completely ridiculous.

 

It ruins your decision to play in a community, cos everyone has found their own ways to glitch/dupe/cheat/abuse DayZ's systems.  it also encourages this weird "weekend wanker" play as i call it, where squads of people gear up all week just to swap to a populated server and kill noobs/hold a starter town for no reason.  If those same guys are forced to travel and loot on a populated server, all the better, don't encourage their lame style of play.

 

Keeping in mind, squad play is fine.  Even big bandit groups are fine.  But them having pistols, shotguns, and chambered sporters on the coast is more fun, and leads to interesting balanced encounters.  Rather than getting sprayed down as a freshie cos you have a stick, by 4 guys with AK's

 

But don't let them be able to switch to their LOCKED PUBLIC SERVER, get 2 assault rifles from tents they have in cherno, and log back into public servers.

 

 

 

 

[camcantrun 49]

Hey Baty! I personally think Public servers provide nothing to the DAYZ experience. Although I do think the DAYZ player numbers will drop when it happens, I think it's the best thing for the community.

[Moscow Matt 9]

43 minutes ago, camcantrun said:

Hey Baty! I personally think Public servers provide nothing to the DAYZ experience. Although I do think the DAYZ player numbers will drop when it happens, I think it's the best thing for the community.

I have to disagree, No matter how you play DayZ be it lone wolf, squad, 1pp, 3pp, private, or public the experience is still what you make of it. I also believe that hacking and duping only occurs more on public because we can't combat it with a ban. I have 3k hours of nothing but great experiences on both private and public. I don't dupe, kick people off for no reason or wipe persistance. Do we have gear and camps? You bet your sweet ass we do and the majority of it came from my server.  As far as the best thing for the community I just have to disagree and my good friends whom which I enjoy the DAYZ experience with on my server would also disagree. If pricing went down on private I would definitely rent one. Until that day I gotta stay strong with my server and my friends and hope that my ability to provide such fun is not taken away. 

Edited April 11, 2017 by Moscow Matt

[Irish. 4886]

In my opinion the wisest decision BI could make is to discontinue the renting of public servers.

It serves no purpose, other than the stated negative ones, to be able to rent a public hive server. I see a lot of people getting upset over it, but I think it will help tremendously in cleaning up DayZ, so to say. 

If private hives are always there, then we can all custom tailor our experience if we find its worth the rental fee. Communities and websites can rent private servers and thrive as always. The public servers will be under BI's control, and therefore hopefully will be easier to keep exploiting to a minimum. 

 

TL;DR - I love the idea. Please move forward with it ASAP. 

 

[Moscow Matt 9]

2 hours ago, Chatham said:

I am in full support of this. From my experience the people renting public servers are mostly those who want a safe space to loot. Removing the option to rent public servers will significantly reduce the amount of "badmins" running servers. I can't tell you how many times I have been kicked from a server because I killed the admin or his friend.

You are more than welcome to come to my server and not get kicked for killing me or finding my bases and as long as your name isn't racist, have hacker characters or just plain down right offensive then you have never been kicked off my server. Removing all admins from public isn't going to help anything unless BI has a team of admins and a report button or something to that effect. I am going to page a GM. yea that will do it. 

[WOLFGEIST 122]

I'm all for it. Besides I think private 1st person servers such as DUG are where it's at. Never had a "great" experience on a public server in SA or the mod.