Taking away even more access to our servers?

[mrsherenai 64]

I bet I will get another warning for this but things have to be said. The private Hive Server Community is growing with each day there are more and more private servers. This is a clear sign that people are not longer willing to host official servers under the current conditions. Yes its nice to support this mod, yes it makes me feel good and yes im proud to be part of this project. But in fact that the success of this project is based on volunteers Dayz Staff should rethink the way they treat hosts. There are strict rules, they are needed with 50000 players connected to one database, there is no way around it and I have no problem to follow them as long as things dont start being unfair and distressfull. There is no help coming from the side of the Devs, no troubleshooting guides, every question is asked 1000 times here, people have to beg days or weeks to get access to the Admins IRC or Google group, there is no communication when updates are released no list of new bugs and fixes nothing. You want help to catch a hacker? Write your own parser and false positive ban some innocents because you get no replys on your questions regarding scripts, and if you ask a staff member to parse your logs with his parser you get a harsh negative answer...if you get an answer at all. There is too much arrogance and nearly no support from the Staff to keep Hosts pleasured while on the other side every single user comes here crying about his miserable life and call us names. It is still us who pay the bills that should never be forgotten!

On the other side you have those who release private Hives, they have either well made tutorials or even full installing services. Its idiot proof and the possibilities are unlimited in fact you are no longer restricted to run nothing but DayZ. They even support server networks like the "real" Hive. I understand why so many ppl choose that option, its luring.

Edited July 16, 2012 by MrSherenai

[domistyle 221]

We could all stop our servers for 24 hours. See how much fun that is for everyone.......

Just tell me when. ;)

[mrsherenai 64]

We should follow jskibo then. So the 20.June

Edited July 16, 2012 by MrSherenai

[machomanugget 26]

I bet I will get another warning for this but things have to be said. The private Hive Server Community is growing with each day there are more and more private servers. This is a clear sign that people are not longer willing to host official servers under the current conditions. Yes its nice to support this mod, yes it makes me feel good and yes im proud to be part of this project. But in fact that the success of this project is based on volunteers Dayz Staff should rethink the way they treat hosts. There are strict rules, they are needed with 50000 players connected to one database, there is no way around it and I have no problem to follow them as long as things dont start being unfair and distressfull. There is no help coming from the side of the Devs, no troubleshooting guides, every question is asked 1000 times here, people have to beg days or weeks to get access to the Admins IRC or Google group, there is no communication when updates are released no list of new bugs and fixes nothing. You want help to catch a hacker? Write your own parser and false positive ban some innocents because you get no replys on your questions regarding scripts, and if you ask a staff member to parse your logs with his parser you get a harsh negative answer...if you get an answer at all. There is too much arrogance and nearly no support from the Staff to keep Hosts pleasured while on the other side every single user comes here crying about his miserable life and call us names. It is still us who pay the bills that should never be forgotten!

On the other side you have those who release private Hives, they have either well made tutorials or even full installing services. Its idiot proof and the possibilities are unlimited in fact you are no longer restricted to run nothing but DayZ. They even support server networks like the "real" Hive. I understand why so many ppl choose that option, its luring.

you hit the fucking nail on the head there mate,

[urbanfox 116]

PLEASE READ THIS

Ok, where to begin? First of all Soujyo, you aren't a host. You are a server admin. I'm not being a prick, an asshole, or trying to be rude/mean when I say that, I am just stating the facts here.

You are paying another person/company to host the game for you while you admin it. I think that's a very clear disctinction that needs to be made.

Admin a server

Pro's: A LOT cheaper; don't have to worry about setting the server up; paid support (well, depends what company you go with lol...)

Cons: Virtually no control over the server (which itself has pro's/cons)

Hosting a server

Pro's: 100% complete control over the files/setup

Cons: Got to figure everything out yourself/hope there is help on IRC

Now, I'll give you two scenarios:

Scenario 1: You want to lock your server 5-10 minutes before you restart it to prevent new players from joining

Admin a server: You lock the server 5 minutes before scheduled/unplanned restart. 30 seconds to 2 minutes later your server shuts down and you get an email from your host about how locking your server is an illegal configuration.

Hosting a server: BattlEye Extended Controls automically locks server, warns players, and restarts server.

Scenario 2: Your server is experiencing technical difficulties

Admin a server: Email/submit support ticket to your hosting company and let them figure it out. If it's a substantial amount of time down, expect a credit to your account for time missed.

Hosting a server: Figure it out yourself or hope someone on IRC can help you; no "compensation" for downtime

I guess you could say there are more privleges with hosting a server, but like anything else, there is also more responsibility.

It's important to always remember the disctinction between being an "admin" and being the actual "host". With that said, $ permitting, I encourage everyone to be there own host as it's a very rewarding experience.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

Much respect to server hosts and administrators who are probably the greatest contributors to the DayZ effort next to the team themselves. Especially enjoy the admins who make their personal contact information available and willingly engage players on their servers to answer questions, give updates and generally be available.

That said, this whole thread strikes me as childish petulence. You don't cite any rules specifically nor attempt to discuss why they are unreasonable. It's just "there's a lot of rules and new ones sometimes."

Like, okay? It's a constnatly evolving mod built from unstable code on an unstable engine in an unstable environment. Things are going to change. Constantly. And the dev team is asking for you to adhere to a series of guidelines which will help them focus their development efforts while maintaining a persistent, consistent environment in which their play-testers can play & test.

Reducing volatility by ensuring that servers are all adhering to the same set of rules takes a ton of variables out of the equation and when you're hunting for some obscure bug or attempting to patch an exploit or loophole, the fewer variables involved the better off you are.

I bet I will get another warning for this but things have to be said. The private Hive Server Community is growing with each day there are more and more private servers. This is a clear sign that people are not longer willing to host official servers under the current conditions.

I'm really not sure that the presence of a few people who are unwilling to follow the rules is a "clear sign" of anything except that not everyone wants to follow the rules. This should come as no surprise to anyone, and it hardly bodes doom for the future of DayZ hosting. There are plenty of servers. More than we need at this point, and more coming online every day. The vast majority seem to follow the rules.

Take your servers offline if you want. 24 hours. 48. 480 if you want. I really don't think you're going to put an appreciable dent in the available servers. The people who play on your machines now might be disappointed, but they will find new homes and DayZ will go on.

[mrsherenai 64]

ZedsDeadBaby you didnt get the point. Its not about following rules its about respect. What im missing as the reward for dontaing my server is some cooperation. You are literaly left alone with a bunch of rules, a not working anti cheat engine, a weak game, an alpha mod, a fucked up community crying for mummy and calling you names every time something happeneds on your server and the blacklist hammer. So you go and figure stuff out. Its like leaving a blind man in a mine field because the community is aware of every mistake you might do while its not giving any help on the other side. Things aint working like that. Yes there may be more server here from day to day, DayZ is floating on the mainstream wave, but dont except it to be forever. Maybe now you may not care if people leave the mod, but with them people the reputation goes down. You can figure it out with google how many people are using those custom hive. There are many more then just a few...for one of many private hive solutions its ~600.

When I started hosting there was a guy named Mojo, who always helped me when I was in trouble, he started to build up a support group, for guides and troubleshooting, from hosts for hosts. But this project got burried for what ever reason. After this there was nothing that helped you. When it comes to patchday the forums get flooded by the same questions over and over and when you ask for help on the IRC you get harsh answers or trolling instead of help most of the time. You ask in here for help with for example script detection, noone helps you and then if you do a fault cause of bad knowledge and the shitstorm unleashes upon you all the dudes that have the knowledge come out of their holes to blame you. I mean what the fuck is wrong with just helping each other? I dont want a cake and rocket kissing my ass. All I want as a host and therewith a base of this mod is to be involved in the processes.

[govnogaming 52]

I'm trying to set up a server, just by renting. The reason? I have a group of approximately 12 - 20 people who compete against each other / which each other over several games and communities. It's no fun joining US 520 (for example) where every car is saved in a random location and being camped by people 24/7. I want all the cars to be in their spawns, there to be no tents and no one with base camps around my server.. At least not until every has a fair chance.

I will open my server publicly, not locked or anything, but the first 20 or so people who will connect (a few minutes after it's open) will be my friends and fam from these other communities. We're probably going to disconnect close to vehicle spawns, so as soon as we log in we should be good to go. Some may find this unfair, but I find it unfair how certain people hide a vehicle then never log into that server again. It's ridiculous, and really frustrating. I hope that when I open my server we will be able to get set up. My small group (about 8 of us) who work together will be restricted to 2 vehicles. That leaves a shit ton for everyone else.

[PersonalJ 5]

First off let me say, while I absolutely have had a blast playing this game... enough so that I myself even rented a server for some friends to further spread the Dayz fun to others. This alone was by far and large one of the strangest and most ridiculously restrictive processes to get ahold of a server I've ever been through.

However for some reason I can't fathom other than a belief that the mod & community would fall apart, there are a series of fairly restrictive rules before a server is allowed to be a part of the hive. Rules that are regularly broken for both malicious and innocent reasons I might add. All the while having this looming threat of being "Blacklisted" from the hive for being a heretic. :P

While I felt they were a bit overkill, I was still weighing in the enjoyment factor and idealism behind the rules and decided it was worth the effort to support this game and the community behind it.

Sadly since then I've received email after email recently informing me of just one more restriction, then another, then another... and finally tonight one more arrived informing server admins they'd now be stripped of access to their server files and configs. Essentially placing us at the mercy of whatever patch was deemed the new "stable" version (I might add I've not been able to play since 1.7.2 released nor any of it's mini updates). Then it finally hit me, that I was spending more and more time trying to make sure my server didn't get blacklisted from some increasing and seemingly ever expanding list of do's and donts, and I began to wonder exactly when or if that list would ever stop growing. I'm after all taking the risk paying for a place for people to play, I'm constantly losing more control over the very server I supposedly operate.

When does it stop?

::TL:DR::

It's not just a privilege that we're allowed to play Dayz, the very nature of gaming relies on cohesion between the Dev's, the server hosts providing a place to game, and the community as a whole in order to thrive. This means one cannot trample or trump the other with out ruining the very delicate balance of all three. This is not a mindless rant, this is me requesting server hosts start taking an active role in making sure that we are heard and respected as much as we're supposed to be respecting the DayZ team, as well as asking them DayZ team to show a little respect back and stop waving the blacklist threat in our faces to force compliance.

We want to help be a part of your dream and help provide a community.

This seems to be a limitation that HFBservers has imposed to prevent being blacklisted. As someone who has a dedicated server whitelisted by the Day Z team I have not received any notices as of late in regards to any policy changes.

[urbanfox 116]

You are literaly left alone with a bunch of rules

I don't feel that way, especially with support tickets and IRC. Also, there aren't a "bunch" of rules. There are a few, and they are very, very easy to follow.

, a not working anti cheat engine

It works pretty well, actually. Can you stop people from exploiting every BattlEye update or buying new copies of the game once they are banned? No. Also, can you name an anti-cheat engine that works 100%? I doubt it.

a weak game,

Your opinion; don't play it then?

So you go and figure stuff out. Its like leaving a blind man in a mine field because the community is aware of every mistake you might do while its not giving any help on the other side. Things aint working like that.

I think you are greatly exaggerating things...

when you ask for help on the IRC you get harsh answers or trolling instead of help most of the time.

There are still a lot of helpful people in IRC, but you have to realize not everyone is going to have an answer for everything.

Honestly, how about we try this: What SPECIFIC complaints do you have that are pertinent to your unique experience hosting?

[Soujyo 23]

Let me be frank, I'm not here to incite some sort of Devs versus Hosts kind of argument. I'm not some child who is lashing out in some sort of tantrum, nor is any of that the point of the thread.

The main and only point I've been trying to push is for a little more mutual respect and interaction between those who are hosting and/or runing servers themselves and the DayZ staff. The concern is valid and real when you take a step back and realize that while rules are good in moderation they also start to lose their purpose when they start trying to overly tighten and restrict their subject matter. It is not one specific thing that has caused me to make this post, it was merely the fact that in a relatively short time I have watched them grow from a few general purpose for the good of the community type of rules to more restrictive ones that are being enforced with a do as I say or be blacklisted type attitude.

I think it's rather fair to say that just because some one is paying to rent a server, they are not of less calibre than some one who happens to have a setup that allows them to directly host themselves. While one may provide greater freedom to do as you like, you're still bound by the same restrictions. The problem arises when you realize a great deal of servers are being rented, and when the DayZ staff has their hosting company firmly under thumb which directly trickles down to each individual server admin. You start to see the disconnection between server owners & Devs.

We are not your enemy, I think it's safe to say the folks hosting or "renting" servers are in general interested in the success of the mod & community. I myself am more than happy to make effort to abide by rules that were made via interaction between DayZ & the community. I'm certain many people would respond in a lot more positive and helpful fashion when they're being treated with an equal amount of respect, of which we were expected to place in order to even host a server.

Consider this for a moment:

• Actual communication with the community before rules were implemented
  
• Explanations as to why something is being restricted
  
• Being open to the possibility of giving some measure of control back
  
• Using well thought out & diplomatic means with new rules rather than knee-jerk reactions
  
• Realizing that using the same threat over and over alienates rather than creates cohesion amongst the community as a whole
  

I again reiterate it's not just "what" was being taken away but rather how & how often it keeps happening that is creating a recurring problem with no real end in sight. As for those who were saying I should just stop paying and simply play on other servers, I certainly could do that however not saying anything at all would be not even trying to solve an issue before it becomes a larger problem. Better to try and open communication than just hope for the best and possibly watch a fun game fade away.

Thanks for the replies all, I wasn't sure if any one else felt similar or not.

Edited July 16, 2012 by Soujyo

[Lith 80]

project honeypot for dayz would be cool

anyway what new rules are taked about here? i did not get any email yet o.0

Was thinking that too after reading this. There's been nothing about "new rules" in my email at all in the last 2 weeks.

Edit: Nevermind I should've read all the way through. I run off a dedi, so I didn't get any email about those "rules". Guess it's just a managed box thing.

Edited July 16, 2012 by Lith

[urbanfox 116]

Let me be frank, I'm not here to incite some sort of Devs versus Hosts kind of argument. I'm not some child who is lashing out in some sort of tantrum, nor is any of that the point of the thread.

The main and only point I've been trying to push is for a little more mutual respect and interaction between those who are hosting and/or runing servers themselves and the DayZ staff. The concern is valid and real when you take a step back and realize that while rules are good in moderation they also start to lose their purpose when they start trying to overly tighten and restrict their subject matter. It is not one specific thing that has caused me to make this post, it was merely the fact that in a relatively short time I have watched them grow from a few general purpose for the good of the community type of rules to more restrictive ones that are being enforced with a do as I say or be blacklisted type attitude.

I think it's rather fair to say that just because some one is paying to rent a server, they are not of less calibre than some one who happens to have a setup that allows them to directly host themselves. While one may provide greater freedom to do as you like, you're still bound by the same restrictions. The problem arises when you realize a great deal of servers are being rented, and when the DayZ staff has their hosting company firmly under thumb which directly trickles down to each individual server admin. You start to see the disconnection between server owners & Devs.

We are not your enemy, I think it's safe to say the folks hosting or "renting" servers are in general interested in the success of the mod & community. I myself am more than happy to make effort to abide by rules that were made via interaction between DayZ & the community. I'm certain many people would respond in a lot more positive and helpful fashion when they're being treated with an equal amount of respect, of which we were expected to place in order to even host a server.

Consider this for a moment:

• Actual communication with the community before rules were implemented
  
• Explanations as to why something is being restricted
  
• Being open to the possibility of giving some measure of control back
  
• Using well thought out & diplomatic means with new rules rather than knee-jerk reactions
  
• Realizing that using the same threat over and over alienates rather than creates cohesion amongst the community as a whole
  

I again reiterate it's not just "what" was being taken away but rather how & how often it keeps happening that is creating a recurring problem with no real end in sight. As for those who were saying I should just stop paying and simply play on other servers, I certainly could do that however not saying anything at all would be not even trying to solve an issue before it becomes a larger problem. Better to try and open communication than just hope for the best and possibly watch a fun game fade away.

Thanks for the replies all, I wasn't sure if any one else felt similar or not.

How often are things being taken away?

You need to realize something: It's between YOU and YOUR HOST.

Your host requests whitelist access, then they sell the admin rights of that to you. Because of people abusing that, your host decides to restrict things more and more so they aren't blacklisted.

Here's the best part though: cut out the middle man and you don't have to deal with that stuff.

I cannot reiterate enough how your posts are a direct result of your interactions with your host company.

How do I know this? Because I used to be in your shoes! I had a managed Day Z server and due to all the BS and problems I encountered (on the host's fault;not the Dev's), I jumped shit and got my own server/hosting account with Day Z directly. Things are so, so much better now.

If you have problems, PLEASE realize it's with your host.

[azunai 32]

Was thinking that too after reading this. There's been nothing about "new rules" in my email at all in the last 2 weeks.

Edit: Nevermind I should've read all the way through. I run off a dedi, so I didn't get any email about those "rules". Guess it's just a managed box thing.

as stated before: just HFB servers

[Lith 80]

The only complaint I'm in agreement with that someone brought up was lack of communication from the staff and hosts regarding hackers and handling them. They've gotten so much worse over this last patch. Hopefully it's just popularity and not extra loopholes. Otherwise, I know what I signed up for when getting whitelisted and I know what I agreed to. No complaints here about the rules.

Edited July 16, 2012 by Lith

[zolfo 13]

i agree with this post, originally. We pay for a server to call our own, granted we have to follow some general rules to allow anyone to play on the server.

however paying $30-$50 for a server where the only thing we get contrl of is weather or not we put an additional name in the name bar, while still complying with the name rules for some rediculous number tha removes the personal touch.

now even more access is removed from server admins/owners. now we cant monitor those that hack or script in the game and so in effect those griefers will have free un-bannable access to our servers. this is a bad idea and im certain many servers will be shut down due to being unable to monitor your server and having hackers run wild due to a gross lack of action against them.

[ynefel 38]

The incentive to run your own server is rapidly diminishing.

I'm not talking about having the right to lock your server and run rampant farming, restart at will without warning, or just be an asshat in general, but as it goes on, we seem to have less and less control over our servers. We have to adhere to strict naming conventions, any deviation from which is threatened with a *gasp* BLACKLIST. We cannot do much of anything. We get no more benefits from forking out, in my case $90 p/m to run a dedicated server than the users who at times, ungratefully populate it.

Any deviation is met with cries of despair from the users, 'ADMIN ABUSE! PASSWORDS! RESTARTS!' and any appeals to the devs for things to change is met with indifference, if anything at all.

I renewed my server for another month with HFB several days ago, and unless something changes, it won't be up next month.

Why should I pay to run a server that I get absolutely nothing out of except for more rules, threats and regulations to follow? Throw in the usual measure of ungrateful, self-entitled users who expect admins to pander to their fragile sense of fairplay, and their every whim - why the fuck should I bother?

I'm not expecting immunity, or any change to the rules. I would, however, appreciate a small measure of respect and gratefulness from the users, and the ability to do just a little bit more with my server. Let me choose my own name. Let me set some realistic rules and boundaries, that I can enforce without having to screenshot or record every single thing and check the forums in case I have to leap to my own defense at any given time?

Something needs to change here - DayZ devs are currently riding the crest of a wave birthed by possibly THE most popular mod of all time. I won't take anything away from the project - it's one of the most original and well-made mods I've seen in an extremely long time. BUT - there needs to be a change in the attitudes of the users first, and the devs need to follow.

The disillusionment from admins grows, just read the forums. The pissing, bitching and moaning from users continues across the board. Forcing more rules and draconian regulations on everyone does not improve anything.

If we're not careful, this mod will be dead in record time.

[soppa 39]

We have been leasing servers where leaser has only access to difficulty settings and logfiles.

Servers have been working great. If they have need some changes to motd etc, they have just opened an ticket.

I see no point for more access than that. If they are asking for it, they are propably gonna use server for cheating imo.

[eXcecution3r 0]

I recently leased a server and to be honest I haven't really even played much on it....

I really wanted to try it solo and was hoping to maybe lock it for an hour and just kill zombies and try to survive in this apocalyptic world... I know, I know... there's other games that I can do that on.... WHAT EVER.

What I love about this game/mod is the feel of everything. The world is huge. So much possibility. I love the gameplay. I can't find that in another game.

We need to be able to control our servers the way we wish. Why lease a server when all everyone does is horde up outside map boundaries? Where people snipe others running around trying to survive and get a feel for the game in the cities? I honestly can't stand that. People think they're so awesome because they killed someone else. Hurray.... You're awesome bro! .... Right.... Most people aren't even looking for you or trying to engage with you. Everyone is focusing on the zombies, not the other players enough, so now you think you're cool because you killed someone who wasn't really even looking out for you....

I just want to play this game with friends and have a good time. Fight zombies, try and survive, build our own camps where the rest of the world is GONE. Worried about people hoarding stuff and looting the best things on private servers and then jumping with open servers? Make characters server specific.

I think if things don't change I won't be paying for the server next month. Why pay for something I can't really enjoy myself?

Edited July 17, 2012 by eXcecution3r

[U.B.C.S. Ravin 326]

It's something that's not changing anytime soon unless a bunch of serveradmins boycott DayZ and demand more control over their servers, sadly.

Not even then. DayZ makes no money off this mod. Its free. Arma2 is what makes the money, If a bunch of people complained about DayZ, they wouldn't cave. Even Rocket himself said he'd rather his game be the death of itself and he'd be happy with that.

Like spiderman, the amount of fucks people give are none.

[pxxl 259]

We have been leasing servers where leaser has only access to difficulty settings and logfiles.

Servers have been working great. If they have need some changes to motd etc, they have just opened an ticket.

I see no point for more access than that. If they are asking for it, they are propably gonna use server for cheating imo.

Exactly.

[mtuckner 46]

Access to change the MOTD means they want to cheat? You are retarded. I would never pay for a service where a support ticket is needed to change the MOTD.

[jskibo 143]

We have been leasing servers where leaser has only access to difficulty settings and logfiles.

Servers have been working great. If they have need some changes to motd etc, they have just opened an ticket.

I see no point for more access than that. If they are asking for it, they are propably gonna use server for cheating imo.

Really? So you don't monitor your logs? Check for scripts? Don't bother FTPing out to prune the logs to a manageable size and archive them?

[Hakultair 114]

Why would anyone pay 50+ euro's a month to host a server just so they can cheat, when there are private cheats available for 20 euro´s that give them unlimited cheating oppertunities?

[andb52 12]

Why would anyone pay 50+ euro's a month to host a server just so they can cheat, when there are private cheats available for 20 euro´s that give them unlimited cheating oppertunities?

I'm afraid that your logic won't work on everybody!