Do *NOT* Spam Connections

[MasLegio (DayZ) 0]

"Trying" another server does not get you into the game faster.

I sorry but I have to disagree with this statement.

As a regular player I have noticed on the contrary that on some servers I get in the game very quickly and on some I have to wait forever.

So trying another server actually often gets me into the game faster instead of waiting 15 minutes or more if I am unlucky.

[CER10TY 3]

So, it's not hurting the server if I press Enter in a rather fast way? But it's hurting the server if I successfully join, see "Waiting for Server Response", disconnect and then try to join again?

[Mojo (DayZ) 66]

So' date=' it's not hurting the server if I press Enter in a rather fast way?[/quote']

Hurts nothing but your thumb.

But it's hurting the server if I successfully join' date=' see "Waiting for Server Response", disconnect and then try to join again?[/quote']

This is a matter of common sense. If you're the only person doing it, you're doing it after waiting, you know, ten minutes, and it's the only server you've experienced this problem on, then no, it doesn't hurt. It just happens sometimes.

If, on the other hand, you wait a minute or two, see a ton of people disconnecting and reconnecting, are running through every damn server out there and experiencing this everywhere, and are repeatedly quitting and rejoining the server, yes. That is causing damage.

It's a matter of common sense, really. Here's a good way to summarize it: When you read the original message, did you think "I need clarification on this subject, I should ask more questions"? That's a sign of intellectual curiosity and, therefore, common sense. So, congrats, there's a very, very low chance you're in any way responsible for these problems. From your post, you obviously fall into this category.

On the other hand, did you throw a fit, take it as a personal affront, and for the life of you not comprehend the concept that if you verify something experimentally by repeatedly attempting to connect and experience the same problems globally, get frustrated easily (and therefore take out that frustration by repeatedly disconnecting and reconnecting to servers), that attempting something for the 500th time genuinely expecting a different result, then you're probably a connection spammer and the reason why at certain periods of time my wonderful regulars (who, unlike you, Mr. Connection Spammer, actually help out with the server instead of breaking it in a fit of frustration) cannot play at all.

Thankfully, as I said, the majority of players, yourself included CER10TY, do not fall into the "freak out and break everything" category. Most players are patient, understand that if they're experiencing this problem across 10 other servers it will probably not magically change the 11th time they try it, know that ten other players are telling them to wait and give it time not to trick or deceive them, but because that's a thing you should do, etc. In other words, most players are goodies, listen, seek solutions to the problems they're experiencing, give active feedback, work with admins, and work with other users.

There's nothing wrong with troubleshooting one's problems. If you've been waiting an inordinate amount of time and this is the first time you've experienced this then yes, it goes without saying, attempt to isolate what the problem is.

Unfortunately, this being the Internet, one has to speak in bizarrely stilted legalese to get the point across that "I left one server I was having connection issues with and joined another without problem" doesn't qualify a person as a connection spammer.

[CER10TY 3]

Well, I was just worried I'm hurting the servers if I press Enter repeatedly. I'm not really disconnecting instantly if I see Waiting for Server Response, as I'm aware of the problem, so I'm waiting patiently. Thanks for clarifying though.

[wasrad 42]

Pictures are worth a thousand words.....

http://i.imgur.com/5gIui.jpg

[oilman 72]

And right now it's 45/50, what's your point?

[RenownedWolfman 0]

Thanks Mojo for putting this post up, i've been trying to explain this to players who keep spamming but they ignore me for the most part, hopefully now more people can get the word out now that this is up.

[singularity (DayZ) 3]

If waiting for server fades into the debug forest, should we drop back to the player lobby and reinitialize the world? Not the server browser, the intermediary between the server browser and the game, where in normal A2, players pick their slots for deployment.

[Mojo (DayZ) 66]

If waiting for server fades into the debug forest' date=' should we drop back to the player lobby and reinitialize the world? [b']Not the server browser, the intermediary between the server browser and the game, where in normal A2, players pick their slots for deployment.

No. This, 100%, does NOT constitute connection spamming.

Let's go over things that constitute connection spamming really quick:

Things that are NOT connection spamming:

1. You have spawned incorrectly, in the debug forest or the ocean. Reconnecting to fix this, either to the server you're on or another server, is NOT connection spamming.

2. You have waited an inordinate amount of time on a single server. You attempt to disconnect and reconnect to the server once, or you disconnect to reconnect to another server to see if that alleviates the problem. This is NOT connection spamming.

3. Repeatedly hitting enter to try to get into a server. This is NOT connection spamming.

Both of those qualify as TROUBLESHOOTING. You have encountered a problem and taken steps to see if it's a) reproducible or b) fixable. There is ABSOLUTELY NO FAULT WITH THIS, AT ALL, WHATSOEVER.

Things that DO constitute connection spamming:

1. You have connected to one server, become impatient after a few minutes, and make repeated disconnects and reconnects to the server you are on.

2. You have connected to multiple servers, become impatient, and hop down servers constantly unable to spawn in.

These both fall under violations of the common-sense definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

In the first case, if it didn't work the last 20 or 30 times on the same server, what makes you think it'll work the 21st or 31st? If you do this, you're connection spamming.

In the second case, if it didn't work the last 20 or 30 servers you tried, what makes you think it'll work the 21st or 31st? If you do this, you're connection spamming.

The keyword here is spam.

---

And right now it's 45/50' date=' what's your point?

[/quote']

His point is that 13 minutes after our scheduled server restart during twilight load hours:

...most players up and playing will be playing on the RU or ANZ servers, where they likely get much better pings, which is probably why when you look at his actual image, other North American servers display the same player gradient, ie Dallas, New York, and Chicago, some of which actually have less:

And, unsurprisingly, when you look at it at actual peak hours (warning, big), they're two of the few peak-hour servers operating at a 50-or-over cap.

Oilman, honestly, I love you and you're very beautiful, but you just asked a guy who barged into a thread and did the Internet equivalent of trying to flash his money around (I'D DONATE RIGHT NOW! 20 BUX! I'VE PERSONALLY DONATED OVER A HUNDRED!) about why he's acting like a child trying to get attention. The question kinda answers itself. (Also wow, twenty bucks -- that's, uh, about our average donation there Uncle Moneybags, but I'll be sure to pass on the message to the guy that offered to donate two full, physical servers that he won't ever get to play with Captain Entitlement here, he just might throw in a third box.)

[BubbaWilkins 0]

If what Mojo says is true on the Hive interactions, then they need to display some sort of indication of where you are in the list with the Hive server.

Last night I connected to the Australian server twice and was in game briefly until my ping went over the threshold and I got booted. The second time was right after a server reset to refresh their connection with the Hive. Every Chicago, Dallas, and "US" server I had tried in the hour before and after resulted in nothing but a black screen with "waiting for server" which I would tolerate from anywhere from 30secs to 5 minutes. I never got into any of those games even when my ping was often 30ms or less. I might be a bit more patient tonight after seeing this thread, but I'm skeptical that waiting it out is going result in any more game time. I've also noticed this seems to be more of an issue of your dead.

[Mojo (DayZ) 66]

If what Mojo says is true on the Hive interactions' date=' then they need to display some sort of indication of where you are in the list with the Hive server.

Last night I connected to the Australian server twice and was in game briefly until my ping went over the threshold and I got booted. The second time was right after a server reset to refresh their connection with the Hive. Every Chicago, Dallas, and "US" server I had tried in the hour before and after resulted in nothing but a black screen with "waiting for server" which I would tolerate from anywhere from 30secs to 5 minutes. I never got into any of those games even when my ping was often 30ms or less. I might be a bit more patient tonight after seeing this thread, but I'm skeptical that waiting it out is going result in any more game time. I've also noticed this seems to be more of an issue of your dead.

[/quote']

Ping to the server you're connecting to is, in those cases, not really all that material. Once it's handed off to the hives, it's handed off to the hives. You'll get the information back once the server gets it. If you ping 10ms to a server, and that server pings 20 minutes to the SQL server, then your stuff will get there at half past dark.

As for the hive suite's verbosity, on the admin's end, it's a pretty Chatty Cathy. The players don't have nearly the same access to the suite's talky behaviour. It just basically tells you Waiting - Requesting - Loading, and then you're in the debug forest. On the other hand if I switch over to Session 0, I can watch hive.exe spit out the unit initialization strings for the players as it gives the unit its gear and position, for example.

30 seconds to 5 minutes is what you're going to normally see for loading, but understand that two-five minutes can be the normal wait time. If the server's just restarted (along with the hive suite) then it'll go significantly faster than this. All the same, you'll likely want to wait longer than five minutes. If you're experiencing the problem across multiple servers, then the problem is likely global at the time you're experiencing it.

And if that's the case, believe me, you will hear about it, because everybody will be complaining. Loudly. Including the admins.

[Wüstenfuchs (DayZ) 105]

Thanks for your post Mojo! I've also been trying to explain people about this when waiting. There seems to be some people spreading misinformation that disconnecting and reconnecting somehow lets you join in faster. Some people have even started arguing about this when I've explained them that it only makes things worse.

I would like a server that if you disconnect and reconnect so many times in say 5 minutes that it will ban you for 15 minutes to try and give other patient users a chance!

Nice idea! Something like this on all dayZ servers would get the message through to people who keep doing it.

[marsjoseph 0]

Allow me to offer some basic logic.

If what Mojo says is true than yes connection spamming is making the problem worse. That being said if players are connection spamming because they can't get in game, then that means that there is larger root problem at hand. If I understand Mojo correctly than the main dayz database server cannot handle all the requests. If this problem is fixed than the subsequent connection spammer problem will solve itself.

[Disgraced 1123]

If what Mojo says is true on the Hive interactions' date=' then they need to display some sort of indication of where you are in the list with the Hive server.

Last night I connected to the Australian server twice and was in game briefly until my ping went over the threshold and I got booted. The second time was right after a server reset to refresh their connection with the Hive. Every Chicago, Dallas, and "US" server I had tried in the hour before and after resulted in nothing but a black screen with "waiting for server" which I would tolerate from anywhere from 30secs to 5 minutes. I never got into any of those games even when my ping was often 30ms or less. I might be a bit more patient tonight after seeing this thread, but I'm skeptical that waiting it out is going result in any more game time. I've also noticed this seems to be more of an issue of your dead.

[/quote']

Ping to the server you're connecting to is, in those cases, not really all that material. Once it's handed off to the hives, it's handed off to the hives. You'll get the information back once the server gets it. If you ping 10ms to a server, and that server pings 20 minutes to the SQL server, then your stuff will get there at half past dark.

As for the hive suite's verbosity, on the admin's end, it's a pretty Chatty Cathy. The players don't have nearly the same access to the suite's talky behaviour. It just basically tells you Waiting - Requesting - Loading, and then you're in the debug forest. On the other hand if I switch over to Session 0, I can watch hive.exe spit out the unit initialization strings for the players as it gives the unit its gear and position, for example.

30 seconds to 5 minutes is what you're going to normally see for loading, but understand that two-five minutes can be the normal wait time. If the server's just restarted (along with the hive suite) then it'll go significantly faster than this. All the same, you'll likely want to wait longer than five minutes. If you're experiencing the problem across multiple servers, then the problem is likely global at the time you're experiencing it.

And if that's the case, believe me, you will hear about it, because everybody will be complaining. Loudly. Including the admins.

I.... I hope you're female.

Or at least, no mustache???

I think I'm in love....

Don't tell my fiancee...

L

I'd rather have a mod that alleviates this pressure on the servers than 1000 new features and bug fixes in game!!!!!

:)

[Mojo (DayZ) 66]

I.... I hope you're female.

Or at least' date=' no mustache???

I think I'm in love....

Don't tell my fiancee...

I'd rather have a mod that alleviates this pressure on the servers than 1000 new features and bug fixes in game!!!!!

[/quote']

I have a biker beard and tattoos. Think a resemblance to Opie from Sons of Anarchy. Hottt.

Regardless, the shittiest thing is, you know, having to put out this information in terms people understand. Like when they ask if enter spam is bad for the server, and I have to say no (and I'll continue to say that), but really it can be -- the server is still being queried and therefore sending and receiving data and with enough load this cannot be defined as 'good' -- but because admins can't do a goddamn thing about that (what are we going to say, "STOP TRYING TO PLAY THE GAME!"?), we have to understand that it's acceptable and within the limits of what we have to allow people to do.

What this game needs desperately is a queue system for autojoining player-selected servers. What this game will probably never get is a queue system for autojoining player-selected servers.

[elghinnarisa 0]

what is a 'okay' time to wait befor retrying then? untill you see the lovly debug forest or a few mins?

i normaly wait around 5-10 mins or so if nothing happens then (or if i happen to rech a lovly little forest) i reconnect, either trying another server or the same (a bit different)

as i play the game in window mode and i got 2 screens i can just do something else while i wait.

but ofc some of my friends (and me sometimes) are a bit inpatient but without knowing, well anything we well cant know anything.

as i have no idea how a server really work even less about the hive and such i have no idea what it really means when you get stuck in the "waiting for server respones" but ofc atleast now i know i shouldnt connect spam and ofc i will not do that.

and ofc i will tell my friends to not do that too and direct them to this thread if so. i was just curious how long you should wait befor its okay to re-try?

no one likes waiting but i rather wait a few mins and get to play then to not play at all.

also this is the first i ever heard about this, as we (me and my friends) are not aware of how the servers work or what they do we had no idea what so ever.

however we have either way noticed that jumping form server to server does actelly mean that in a rather short time you find a server you get on instantly, there for it is not insanity as we all know that has worked befor and still do...

which we will not do anymore now that we know what it actelly does but for the avarage user, we cannot know something unless someone tell us or we look it up ourself. we are not psychic and we cannot read minds.

[BossFi 90]

I understand what OP is saying BUT ...........

I stay inline for 20mins ( like a good boy) and then a lot of times end up in the debugged forest, so now have to reconnect and wait another 20mins??

Defo not player error!

[Mojo (DayZ) 66]

I understand what OP is saying BUT ...........

I stay inline for 20mins ( like a good boy) and then a lot of times end up in the debugged forest' date=' so now have to reconnect and wait another 20mins??

Defo not player error!

[/quote']

No, it's not. That isn't a player error at all.

Trust me, I know it sucks. I enter spam my own server sometimes just to get in. It isn't anybody's fault, really, and the reality is this:

1. The players are pissed because they are, for the most part, behaving well.

2. The admins are pissed because they are hosting a server that can be rendered inaccessible through no fault of their own.

3. The devs are pissed because they are working with a delicate balance to hold together a system that simply wasn't meant to do something like this out of engine and have managed to pull it off anyway.

It's extremely frustrating for all three groups involved, and our interests often collide. I'm not talking about people who slam enter to get into a server (it's not the best but, again, we can't tell people not to play), or the people who wait patiently, or the people who change to one or two other servers to see if it's an isolated problem. Honestly, I don't expect you guys to do anything else, and I can't blame you at all.

It's a select sub-group of people who rapidly disconnect either from the same server repeatedly (essentially slamming the server over and over again) or hopping rapidly from one server to another. The latter can be especially egregious, because even though there's only 50 slots on a server, the server tracks more than that. If 300 unique players connect to my server during a single instance up-time, and I type #userlist while logged in as admin, the last player on that list will be player 300, not player 50. The game keeps and tracks every player that's connected to it until the instance is shut down. In that case, they're both slamming the server and bloating the living tits out of its footprint unnecessarily.

[naizarak 41]

here's an easier solution: get more servers for people to play on. until then make do with enter-key spammers and general instability.

[Mojo (DayZ) 66]

here's an easier solution: get more servers for people to play on. until then make do with enter-key spammers and general instability.

I've said repeatedly that enter-spamming is understandable. Do people even read these threads and what the underlying problem is?

Just some friendly advice: If you a) tell us to deal with you obstinately demanding to destabilize the servers we pay for out of pocket and then b) tell us the solution is not greater host-player cooperation when problems are brought to your attention, but for us to pay more for this kind of entitled, uncooperative behaviour, the solution the hosts are going to enact is c) fewer servers.

[Guest]

here's an easier solution: get more servers for people to play on. until then make do with enter-key spammers and general instability.

I've said repeatedly that enter-spamming is understandable. Do people even read these threads and what the underlying problem is?

Just some friendly advice: If you a) tell us to deal with you obstinately demanding to destabilize the servers we pay for out of pocket and then b) tell us the solution is not greater host-player cooperation when problems are brought to your attention' date=' but for us to pay more for this kind of entitled, uncooperative behaviour, the solution the hosts are going to enact is c) fewer servers.

[/quote']

Gave you rep. Thanks for taking the time to explain all of this and dealing with the entitled people who think you're just complaining.

I've generally just left my character loading in, but I'll avoid hopping around now that you've pointed out how badly it can impact server performance.

Wish there was a way to make this kind of information more front facing for the people who don't care to find out why they're encountering all of the login issues.

Thanks again, Mojo!

[Freeborne (DayZ) 7]

Now the newer versions of Hive and HiveAuth spit out the player names of the data they are processing.

So I can now see my own name come up in HiveAuth as I'm loading the mission. I'm stuck at "Waiting for Server Response". Argh.. I know that's never good.

I wait.... I wait... I keep an eye on HiveAuth and it spits my name out several times.... that seems pointless, surely once is enough. Several minutes go by, and I'm sure something is wrong.

Restart HiveAuth. Quit back to lobby. Load mission again and it takes about 30 seconds and I'm in. Advise everyone else stuck in the queue to quit to lobby and reload. Works for them too.

There is something inherently wrong with HiveAuth and the mission scripting. I'm using 0.8 of Hive and it still requires a manual restart at times to fix these issues.

It really should never take more than 3 minutes to load a player into the mission. If it does, I tell people to quit to lobby and try again. If they still have the same problem, check lots of other people are too, if so, grab an admin on TeamSpeak and let them know.

[Luieburger 15]

Connection spamming does not get you into the game faster.

Wrong. Depending on what server I connect to I get in faster, or end up waiting for server response for an hour. Switching to a server that isn't slow as a slug gets me into the game faster. It's been working for me for the past two weeks. Thankfully, load times are much faster than they were two weeks ago.

[Mojo (DayZ) 66]

So. Switching servers once, yeah. So not connection spamming, then.

Words: The things that mean things.

[Luieburger 15]

So. Switching servers once' date=' yeah. So not connection [i']spamming, then.

Words: The things that mean things.

Oh I definitely had to switch between more than one server back when the connection issues were really bad. Sometimes 10 to 15 servers. Getting in line, then out. Leaving "husks" and such. Until eventually finding a server that actually loaded. Is that not spamming?

You also say in your original post... "You will find that typing *sigh waiting for server response AGIAN* is, surprisingly, because every server is subjected to this at the moment." Not true. As I stated previously, some servers will be locked tight in "Waiting for server response" mode while others will log in in less than a minute.

You also criticize "enter spamming". Some of us use macros to solve that problem, and spamming is the only way to get on the same server as your friends at this point unless you want to inconvenience 5 people so that the 6th person can join them on a different server.

So lets just be thankful that connecting isn't as bad as it was a week ago on most servers, and stop with the "you being the 1% impatient children who throw fits and temper tantrums" BS.