Universal server time

[specfreq 2]

I couldn't find another post exactly like this, i apologize if it's been brought up before.

What would be the harm in locking all the servers to the same time, but then make time move at 1.2x speed?

I'm suggesting this because i see empty servers just because it's night. I have to confess I've been playing on daytime servers nearly exclusively, regardless of latency hit, just to play in larger/fuller servers. I've seen multiple 70-100 player servers empty out just after dusk. it's possible that this will reduce server hopping to the people that want to play with buddies and double looters.

This is more for players that don't have any ties to a particular server e.g. boats, cars, tents, clan.

Of course, I realize people do play at night.

[Techercizer 82]

The "harm" is permanently dooming people in certain time zones to spend every waking hour of Day Z in the dark, and people in certain other ones to spend all their time in the sun. A better question is, what possible reason could exist to make this sort of thing reasonable?

You can't run the servers at 1.2x speed, or 2x speed, or any x speed other than 1x thing. Welcome to ArmA.

[specfreq 2]

At first it looked like you misunderstood my suggestion by telling me what the harm is in leaving it locked at a 1x speed for all servers.

I think anyone could figure out the harm in leaving it at a 1x speed.

I Honestly didn't know it was locked. But more importantly, what if a Dev could fix the time speed to 1.2x? Would this be possible for ArmA3?

Edited July 16, 2012 by specfreq

[specfreq 2]

I've given two possible reasons in the suggestion.

[specfreq 2]

Apparently It is possible to change the time.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?81967-skipTime-setDate-daytime-and-Multiplayer - see Tajin's post

Or, with this script It could work if the servers regularly restarted (at least once a day). But you would need to enforce it.

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/setDate

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/1251-want-to-host-a-dayz-server-read-in-here/

I rather not let my idea be killed off by a lie. Is this a good or bad idea?

[CHOSENMARINE 43]

People are scared of playing at night, but that's the best time to do high risk scavenging. Zombies can't see you (or players) and nobody is in the server. Perfect if you have a G17 or other guns with flash lights.

I don't know if this is a good idea because many players might just stop playing when the servers are in night.

Besides, this would be unfair because some people around the world may be limited to always playing in one game time. For example, if I live in Canada and always play during day, what if all the servers are always night then?

[nydoc 0]

Besides, this would be unfair because some people around the world may be limited to always playing in one game time. For example, if I live in Canada and always play during day, what if all the servers are always night then?

I guess if the servers all skipped 4 hours out of every day this would never happen. That would make every 5 RL days become 6 days in DayZ so you'd have a chance to play at different times if you played at the same time each day for a week. It isn't *that* much harder to play at night, but still the servers empty out when night approaches.

Edited July 16, 2012 by MrMedic

[nydoc 0]

Can anyone confirm that the skipTime function works?

[Tyrog 10]

Earth is spherical and spins around its axis. Well, there's your problem.

Edited July 16, 2012 by Tyrog

[starwarsfan@gmx.de 450]

Sure if you make it GMT so I can play in the daytime, I don't care. :P

[0only1 4]

People can see you in the dark with high gamma and resolution pretty well, sadly. Not to mention video card configurations... It's like walking with nightvision On.

Edited July 16, 2012 by 0only1

[specfreq 2]

If you played at 8:00pm real/local time on any server and it was 12:00pm in game, the next day at 8:00pm real/local time it would be around 5:00pm in game on all servers at 1.2x speed.

I could see how gamma could be a problem for people that refuse to turn it on. I've seen other posts about night and i agree it can be unfair sometimes and should be fixed.

[yogyog 1]

This idea is great, but playing at night may frustrate new players quicker. ruh-roh

[hishnik 23]

This is somethign that absolutely drives me up the wall lately.

We went from having servers follow the timezone guidelines, to "This server restarts every 4 hours for ultimate performance" which can be translated into "This server is always running daytime"

I am tired of sun, and tired of never playing nights/evenings anymore. Only time you can do that, if you go to one two absolutely dead servers.

Rocket originally mentioned that it's 'impossible' to speed up the game due to engine limitations, however maybe its now its no longer the case.

I would love to have servers running at 2x the time, so we could enjoy all aspects of the game. Though i fear it will still result in servers clearing out :(

[hawc 63]

No, here is the reason why:

The "harm" is permanently dooming people in certain time zones to spend every waking hour of Day Z in the dark, and people in certain other ones to spend all their time in the sun. A better question is, what possible reason could exist to make this sort of thing reasonable?

You can't run the servers at 1.2x speed, or 2x speed, or any x speed other than 1x thing. Welcome to ArmA.

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

Ok, first off, the time is actually linked to the server time zone, speeding up time might be possible on a standalone version of DayZ, not as an Arma Mod. The skiptime function or w/e just borks up all sorts of stuff ...

Second, it's actually nice to have all sorts of times on servers, i personally wished the community somewhat organized itself in doing 6h differences (or even 3) between servers on each continent, that way people can play when they want. and are not locked to the timezone they are in. A lot of players work and have other RL stuff to deal with, giving them a few hours in the evening to play. I don't think it's fair to let them play at the same time all the time!

[Madfast 22]

Whilst the skipTime function does work in regular Arma Missions, rocket has stated before the way DayZ handles loot spawning and zombie spawning make any other time except 1x impossible. And as other people stated locking all the servers to one universal time mean some people will never see DayZ in the daytime, or never see it in the nighttime.

[specfreq 2]

Ok, first off, the time is actually linked to the server time zone

Then why do i see local daytime servers in the middle of IRL night? There are no rules that state the server time must be local time.

Second, it's actually nice to have all sorts of times on servers, i personally wished the community somewhat organized itself in doing 6h differences (or even 3) between servers on each continent, that way people can play when they want. and are not locked to the timezone they are in. A lot of players work and have other RL stuff to deal with, giving them a few hours in the evening to play. I don't think it's fair to let them play at the same time all the time!

This is where you want to have the choice of picking a daytime servers whenever you want, and where i want to not see servers empty out because it's after dark.

That is the whole point of shifting the time when servers restart. ~19 hour in-game days will affect the play of people that only play an hour or two in the evening just as much as people that have 5+ hours to play.

Whilst the skipTime function does work in regular Arma Missions, rocket has stated before the way DayZ handles loot spawning and zombie spawning make any other time except 1x impossible. And as other people stated locking all the servers to one universal time mean some people will never see DayZ in the daytime, or never see it in the nighttime.

My solution would be this: Servers restart.

every 5 hours skip one then have time synced to all the servers when they restart. It wouldn't be perfect but if servers do restart a few times a day time would be "close enough" to a server that restarted only once a day.

Would this still mess up loot spawning if time is handled by a central server?

[robosheriff 13]

Can anyone confirm that the skipTime function works?

it does

[Madfast 22]

My solution would be this: Servers restart.

every 5 hours skip one then have time synced to all the servers when they restart. It wouldn't be perfect but if servers do restart a few times a day time would be "close enough" to a server that restarted only once a day.

Would this still mess up loot spawning if time is handled by a central server?

My understanding is, that it all relies on very precise timing, and that changing it currently completely screws it up. While I am sure it is possible, I imagine it would require a massive overhaul in the way the loot is handled, and at this stage in development I don't think such a massive re haul would be beneficial just to stop people only playing daytime servers. But I am no expert on DayZ's code, I am just going on what rocket has said in the past.

[specfreq 2]

My understanding is, that it all relies on very precise timing, and that changing it currently completely screws it up. While I am sure it is possible, I imagine it would require a massive overhaul in the way the loot is handled, and at this stage in development I don't think such a massive re haul would be beneficial just to stop people only playing daytime servers. But I am no expert on DayZ's code, I am just going on what rocket has said in the past.

Since we're both not experts in DayZ code neither of us really know if it would be hard or not to implement. I think you're slightly diminishing the weight of this by saying it's "just to stop people only playing on daytime servers".

More to the point, I'm not sure if you're saying this is a good or bad suggestion.

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

Then why do i see local daytime servers in the middle of IRL night? There are no rules that state the server time must be local time.

i meant 'local' time as in the time that is set ON the server, so if you set the time on the server to be say -10 GMT, the game then uses that 'local' time or 'server time' or w/e as the time to determain day or night...

This is where you want to have the choice of picking a daytime servers whenever you want, and where i want to not see servers empty out because it's after dark.

That is the whole point of shifting the time when servers restart. ~19 hour in-game days will affect the play of people that only play an hour or two in the evening just as much as people that have 5+ hours to play.

First off, you know nothing of me, so Idd suggest talking in more general sense that 'people' want to pick daytime servers for some reason. And servers will empty when it's after dark because kids and teenagers gotta go to bed on time!

My solution would be this: Servers restart.

every 5 hours skip one then have time synced to all the servers when they restart. It wouldn't be perfect but if servers do restart a few times a day time would be "close enough" to a server that restarted only once a day.

Would this still mess up loot spawning if time is handled by a central server?

It wouldn't mess up loot spawning (skiptime or w/e might though, as well as animations and what not, as those rely on the clock as well)... what it would mess up is the players freedom to play the game when they want and how they want, at w/e time they want ingame. Ever heard of Freedom of choice? And what's it to you anyways? just goto a night time server and get easier loot since there are no nubcases running around with a trail of zombies on their bum running for you in hopes to loose a couple...

Realy i can not see a reason to limit somebodies freedom to chose how and when to play this game just because somebody wants everybody to be on the same page ? ... When the game goes standalone, the Dev team may well 'fix' the dependancy of the gametime on server time and replace it with some other clock. That way the cycle can be shortened and everybody will be happy, untill then, give people freedom

Edited July 17, 2012 by L0GIN

[specfreq 2]

i meant 'local' time as in the time that is set ON the server, so if you set the time on the server to be say -10 GMT, the game then uses that 'local' time or 'server time' or w/e as the time to determain day or night...

I realize this, nothing is stopping you from changing -10 GMT to -8 GMT. please clarify if i'm misunderstanding this.

First off, you know nothing of me, so Idd suggest talking in more general sense that 'people' want to pick daytime servers for some reason. And servers will empty when it's after dark because kids and teenagers gotta go to bed on time!

I apologize if this looks like a personal attack on your opinions, i'm interpreting it to a simplified form that may or may not be skewed.

Servers empty becuase kids and teenagers have to go to bed on time is not entirely true. Implying that mostly kids and teenagers play DayZ need to go to bed on time would also imply that these kids and teenagers play on servers local to them. But not all local servers share the same local time as these kids and teenagers.

If i'm playing on a Seattle (local to me) server at 12:00 on a Saturday, but it's in game time is nearly nighttime, these local kids and teenagers do not need to go to bed. The server empties out because people like to play in the daytime. Why would i go against something people like?

- far from a complete list

Favorite servers aren't deserted 50% of the time

forced to switch it up and potential for interesting scenarios

what it would mess up is the players freedom to play the game when they want and how they want, at w/e time they want ingame. Ever heard of Freedom of choice? And what's it to you anyways? just goto a night time server and get easier loot since there are no nubcases running around with a trail of zombies on their bum running for you in hopes to loose a couple...

Realy i can not see a reason to limit somebodies freedom to chose how and when to play this game just because somebody wants everybody to be on the same page ? ... When the game goes standalone, the Dev team may well 'fix' the dependancy of the gametime on server time and replace it with some other clock. That way the cycle can be shortened and everybody will be happy, untill then, give people freedom

I've given a few reason what this is to me, and it's not about going to a night server to get easy loot. However, this could actually reduce the amount of double looters as a side-effect but yes, it would limited your Freedom of choice to play on day servers only.

Again, this is more about a fix to stop servers from having 5-20 people in them half of the time then 50-100 the other half

[inexorable 26]

I like to play at night, some times i want to play at night, other times i want to play at daytime, i like to be able to choose with the servers all around the world

it would suck if i could'nt choose that

btw, you think about the people that would be +10 hours from the country that have the universal day z servers time, they would be forced to play at night unless they play instead of sleeping ?

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

First bit, i think we both know what we mean by now, we just seem to be misreading eachothers posts somehow. As i thought you misunderstood my meaning by the reaction you gave...

Just to be on the save side i think it's always better to generalize a statement, as even 'if' i were to change servers in favor of daytime, it's not just me doing it... so use 'people' isntead and nobody needs to feel attacked.

As i said, i think the time is likely to go up, which means night & daytime will be reduced, hopefully to a point where people stop caring about jumping ship for just that hour. night is actually a lot of fun, and in general actually the easier time, as zombies have as hard a time seeing as the player has, but the player has a brain and the zed have lost theirs...