@DayZ Server rules - Necessary review

[Yshido 34]

This topic is about a necessary review of the DayZ server rules.

Here are the original rules:

BEWARE - The same restrictions apply to Non-Dev run servers!

- IT MAY NEVER BE PASSWORDED

- NO OTHER KEYS OR MODS. NONE. PERIOD.

- NO KICKING TO MAKE ROOM FOR 'FRIENDS' OR CLANMATES

- NO LOCKING THE SERVER

- NO EDITING DAYZ/MISSION FILES

- IT'S YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO UPDATE YOUR SERVER TO THE LATEST VERSION OF DAYZ

-BATTLEYE MUST BE ENABLED

- Minimum slot count of 40 (30 for countries where bandwidth is expensive i.e. developing countries)

- Their are only two reasons why you, as a server owner, should ban a player on your server. Those two reasons are: Malicious talk, and racism. You may not ban a user for stealing your loot, killing you, spying on you, etc.

- You may only kick for disruptive behavior (such as continued VOIP over side channel). But you may not kick due to race or language or because the person does something you do not like.

- Kicking for extremely excessive ping or desync is permitted, but if abused is grounds for blacklisting

I will go through the list step by step and will give reasons for necessary changes:

1) IT MAY NEVER BE PASSWORDED

This one should really be reviewed for the following reasons:

- Lag spikes whilst players are connecting (at least in Europe). Player are encountering massive desync every time another player is joining.

- Hackers, Skammers, Cheaters. Even you have the newest BE version installed, you will encounter problems with these guys. Actually there is no way to prevent these people to join a server, an ruining the fun for all those who are playing fair and investing shit loads of time.

2) NO OTHER KEYS OR MODS. NONE. PERIOD.

Agreed.

3) NO KICKING TO MAKE ROOM FOR 'FRIENDS' OR CLANMATES

This one MUST be reviewed, cause it is not accordable to civil law. Actually you, the DayZ team, prohibit the server owners to actually use the service they are paying for. This is not legal (at least not in Germany)

3) NO LOCKING THE SERVER

This one should be reviewed out of the same reasonst given in 1)

4) NO EDITING DAYZ/MISSION FILES

Agreed.

5) IT'S YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO UPDATE YOUR SERVER TO THE LATEST VERSION OF DAYZ

Agreed.

6) BATTLEYE MUST BE ENABLED

Totally Agreed.

7) Minimum slot count of 40 (30 for countries where bandwidth is expensive i.e. developing countries)

Well.... but agreed.

8) Baning

Must be reviewed out of the reason given in 1) and 3). As the server owner pays for the service he is the one who decides who is allowed to play on his server.

9) Kicking

same as 8)

Summary:

The intention behind the rules is good, but they cut off the rights of the server owner far too hard. I hope we can bring up a calm discussion here, without any flaming.

Edited July 24, 2012 by Yshido

[Bushmaster14 51]

There are only 2 reasons I see kicking a player is justified and one is automatic and that is ping. I've have BE boot me. The other is hacking. Beyond that no deal.

[Gogster (DayZ) 626]

Personally I agree with the ability to kick for clan members, which is essentially what you are saying, or at least implement reserve slots.

[ebianbluefox 29]

There are only 2 reasons I see kicking a player is justified and one is automatic and that is ping. I've have BE boot me. The other is hacking. Beyond that no deal.

And lobby idling, I have mine set to kick at 10 mins of sitting around doing nothing with warnings 1 min before the kick.

[Malef 1]

Well I don't actually agree with kicking for clan members, Rocket let people make their own servers, but they are hosting a service they do not own, they are simply the vessel, you are just like a moderator, and like the moderator you are, you have to be neutral, hence why most clans are not, hence why I tend to avoid their servers.

Clans need to understand, that servers aren't just a place where you go and wait for people to join so you can kill them, you might be surprised that it turns about.

Now if such thing is allowed, imagine this situation:

" I kicked him yeah, but it was only to make room for my clan member " when the person that he kicked, killed him moments ago.

[suspense 210]

This topic is about a necessary review of the DayZ server rules.

Here are the original rules:

I will go through the list step by step and will give reasons for necessary changes:

1) IT MAY NEVER BE PASSWORDED

This one should really be reviewed for the following reasons:

- Lag spikes whilst players are connecting (at least in Europe). Player are encountering massive desync every time another player is joining.

- Hackers, Skammers, Cheaters. Even you have the newest BE version installed, you will encounter problems with these guys. Actually there is no way to prevent these people to join a server, an ruining the fun for all those who are playing fair and investing shit loads of time.

2) NO OTHER KEYS OR MODS. NONE. PERIOD.

Agreed.

3) NO KICKING TO MAKE ROOM FOR 'FRIENDS' OR CLANMATES

This one MUST be reviewed, cause it is not accordable to civil law. Actually you, the DayZ team, prohibit the server owners to actually use the service they are paying for. This is not legal (at least not in Germany)

3) NO LOCKING THE SERVER

This one should be reviewed out of the same reasonst given in 1)

4) NO EDITING DAYZ/MISSION FILES

Agreed.

5) IT'S YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO UPDATE YOUR SERVER TO THE LATEST VERSION OF DAYZ

Agreed.

6) BATTLEYE MUST BE ENABLED

Totally Agreed.

7) Minimum slot count of 40 (30 for countries where bandwidth is expensive i.e. developing countries)

Well.... but agreed.

8) Baning

Must be reviewed out of the reason given in 1) and 3). As the server owner pays for the service he is the one who decides who is allowed to play on his server.

9) Kicking

same as 8)

Summary:

The intention behind the rules is good, but they cut off the rights of the server owner far too hard. I hope we can bring up a calm discussion here, without any flaming.

No.... No.... No... Please do not speak of law, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

[Gogster (DayZ) 626]

No.... No.... No... Please do not speak of law, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

How do you know? He could be lawyer for all you know about him.

[P5ykoOHD 63]

We should also be allowed to lock 5 minutes befor restarting the server. To avoid people some possible issues due to a server restart.

For those who do not listen to the 3 warnings I give befor restarting, too F bad.

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/43981-server-admins-need-the-dev-team-to-answer/

Edited July 24, 2012 by P5ykoOHD

[suspense 210]

How do you know? He could be lawyer for all you know about him.

Because the service you purchase are subject to the terms of service of the hosting company you use, let me use an example.

Multiplay CLEARLY states the service you purchase and the limitations you have if you want a whitelisted ranked service, Some of them are:

• The DayZ instance ID is provided by Multiplay.
  
• Certain entities (including but not limited to vehicles) are controlled by the DayZ development team. There is no guarantee that these will regularly spawn on your service.
  
• The server must remain public at all times. Passworded servers are not permitted.
  
• Your service must comply with DayZ naming conventions set by the development team.
  
• The DayZ server code is in the alpha stage. As such features may be missing or unstable from time to time. This includes but is not limited to memory leaks, server crashes and high CPU. We will pass any information of this nature to the DayZ development team for review.
  

Server hosts are asked to make this clear when renting DayZ servers, if a server does not comply with the rules, they are taken off whitelisting and thus not able to connect to the hive. This is perfectly legal per contract

Edited July 24, 2012 by Suspenselol

[tido.schmidt@googlemail.com 29]

Absolutely what I'm talking about. Since a few days I will ban everyone on our servers who disconnects while pvp, wirefencing abuse, kit trap abuse, glitching, exploiting and hacking.

Your connection should be hold open for 1 Minute after you log off, so when you disconnect while pvp you might die and dead bodies can be lootet like it's meant to be played. There are too much server hoppers on the servers who dc after getting shot and their bodies disappear.

The server owners must have the right to ban those people, because they ruin the game. We pay over 150 Euro for ours servers a month and we don't have the right to ban those players? I play multiplayer games since 17 years I guess and I never saw something like that. If the dev team wants their own rules, they have to set up their own servers for dayz like blizzard does for Diablo 3. I totally agree, there must be rules for Battleye for example, just like it's for Battlefield 3. If you restrict server owners in banning people from their own servers, you can't expect them to hold their servers for a very long time.

Also you can't tell those server owners not to kick for members! Did anyone saw those things on other multiplayer games? I don't and when my server is full all day long, I am not allowed to kick anyone, so I can play on the server, which I pay for? That's ridiculous!

Edited July 24, 2012 by 8odycount

[Yshido 34]

No.... No.... No... Please do not speak of law, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

Just to let you know: I am a lawyer IRL, so I guess I know what I am talking about.

How do you know? He could be lawyer for all you know about him.

Actually I am a lawyer in Germany :) But lets stay on the topic:

I agree with some rules for whitlisting servers, just like ranked servers. But in my opinion the rules are way too harsh. Specially the game is in alpha stage.

I.e. we encountered problems with ppl joining right after the resart of a server, with the result the db was not loaded properly. This let to item loss and people were complaining. Regarding the rules you are not allowed to lock your server.... never ever. TBH regarding the database issue this is not practicable.

In addition we are still facing lag spikes when ppl are connecting into the game. So nearly everybody freezes and makes him vunerable to all other players. We still havent figured out, why we are getting this kind of lag spikes. One idea is, the hive is overloaded.

Server hosts are asked to make this clear when renting DayZ servers, if a server does not comply with the rules, they are taken off whitelisting and thus not able to connect to the hive. This is perfectly legal per contract

Yes and no. Unless everything is according to national law, yes. But regarding the servers located in Germany this is not the case. So the contract is illegal, at least in some parts. Anyway this should not get into a legal discussion.

[{sas}stalker 108]

Necessity to lock for minor issues such as server restarts or BEC control for joiners (although it’s a far smaller issue now) is implied; iirc there was even a post from the dev team stating that fact.

With regards kicking for clan members, it’s simply not needed imho. It’s not hard or indeed an inconvenience to get into a server and you can do so on even the busiest of servers in 5 minutes max. Auto Kicking idle lobby players is both fair and crucial to facilitate the point ive just made and anyone rude enough too hog a slot in lobby deserves to be kicked imho, log out and come back later.

That aside I agree that they should be made clearer because too many people take them as inflexible gospel.

Edited July 24, 2012 by {SAS}Stalker

[Yshido 34]

Auto Kicking idle lobby players is both fair and crucial to facilite the point ive just made and anyone rude enough to hog a slot in lobby deserves to be kicked imho, log out and come back later.

I agree, but regarding the rules you are not allowed to do so. Thats why I suggest a review.

[{sas}stalker 108]

I agree, but regarding the rules you are not allowed to do so. Thats why I suggest a review.

I disagree, the rules are directed at people in the game and state you cant kick someone from the game. They are in the lobby ergo, not in the game.

Edited July 24, 2012 by {SAS}Stalker

[tido.schmidt@googlemail.com 29]

Every server owner must be able to decide who is allowed to play on his server. we had a guy on our teamspeak who really was kind of crazy and now all our tents are gone. we know he stole all our cars and later he came on our server and killed everyone in our clan with a hack. so, we can't proof this but we are sure and now we aren't allowed to ban that guy? other thing are the wire fences and kit traps, which are placed in front of nearly all houses in cherno and after a restart they reappear and noone can go in. Those players must be banned. Also exploiters and people who disconnect when they got killed must be banned or at least kicked. The dev's know about that issue and will fix that and future patches but until there isn't a fix the admins must help theirselfes with bans and kicks.

I'm an admin since many years now for several games like bf2, bf3, l4d2 and cs and I never was such restricted like in dayz. I agree, some rules are necessary like they are now but i really feel patronized.

[AADiC 182]

There are only 2 reasons I see kicking a player is justified and one is automatic and that is ping. I've have BE boot me. The other is hacking. Beyond that no deal.

Switching servers to get position on someone is/should be a completely legit reason to boot someone from a server.

[Yshido 34]

Switching servers to get position on someone is/should be a completely legit reason to boot someone from a server.

Completly agreed! Actually this is a tactical shooter with mmorpg aspects. Switching servers like discribed above is actually exploiting and must be honored with a ban! Not a global ban, but a ban!

[spazfokel 1]

heavily agree with OP, the log situation aside, as long as this mod requires externals to supply the space for people to play, those should be granted the right to decide to a certain point. standards are a good thing, but denying any right for what one pays for is a bit too much, plus those rules are simply not applicable as it is at the moment, to a extent where they threat to become counterproductive.

I used to work for a big games company, and am very familiar with a certain code of conduct when it comes to what to tolerate from players, and what not. as it is at the moment, I can´t apply that on my server at all, actually making the situation worse than it would need to be. hence I´m seriously considering saving on these expenses for now and removing those slots I supply to the community with my private income.

[Gogster (DayZ) 626]

Well kicking has been part of server administration for some time. Yes it is open for abuse, but in my opinion I'd rather give the ability for persons who have taken the time and the cost to rent and provide a server, be given a tool to be able to play on it. Whether it is kicking for clan members or reserve slots.

If this comes at the cost of a few spurious kicks from a pedantic admin, so what - you go and play on a different server. The system polices itself. Toss-pot admins soon become known, their servers lose players as the word quickly gets around.

The flim-flam about you're not buying the game etc is utter tosh. All server files belong to the respective game maker. Lest you forget - without people hosting servers - the game would not exist.

Edited July 27, 2012 by Gogster

[Rhovan 1]

So my 2 cents

- IT MAY NEVER BE PASSWORDED

Mostly ok, but if i update, change and test Update or new settings its better to lock or passworded it, instead kicking players with 5-6 restarts. Next thing if server is invaded by cheaters or hackers.

- NO OTHER KEYS OR MODS. NONE. PERIOD.

yes

- NO KICKING TO MAKE ROOM FOR 'FRIENDS' OR CLANMATES

in other game there are systems with clanslots. If you play on a clanserver and a clanmember join you will be given a message that you will be removed from server after xx seconds. Fair enough i think.

- NO LOCKING THE SERVER

See 1

- NO EDITING DAYZ/MISSION FILES

yes

- IT'S YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO UPDATE YOUR SERVER TO THE LATEST VERSION OF DAYZ

yes

-BATTLEYE MUST BE ENABLED

sure

There are reasons why people rent servers. You can make your own setting, have a server with good ping and i a timezone you want to have him. But although most of them have friends or clans to play with. Without this a big reason to play DayZ is gone.

As a single player you often have problems to find a good server. Some are at night and you want to play at day, some are full, some are outdated or you cant connect or have terrible lags.

So if DayZ will blacklisted all server who are against these restrictions, they soon have a very small list of servers left and a lot of players will left because they get not good server.

My point:

I am against passwording or locking (only maintenence) but with a system that let your friends/clan members have VIP slots.

If a VIP logged in the full server one non-VIP get a friendly message and will locked out after xx seconds.

[Ensign2 2]

About the kicking players for clan members:

The only incentive for people now to host servers is to have a home to play on (and maybe show support to the DayZ team). We just lost some on another server because it went offline and we didn't want that to happen again.

A fair system I feel is to have 40 slots minimum that are open for everyone and some extra slots for clan members. So you want a clan server with 6 reserved slots? Host a 46 slots server - 40 open to public, 6 reserved for clan members.

[Kroenen 6]

Whilst I don't entirely agree with everything above, there are definitely points in the rules that need looked at. I made a similar post here;

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/45510-server-requirements-and-performance-discussion/ .

It is obviously a double edged sword. Give admins too much power, some will abuse it. Don't give them enough, they can't effectively moderate their own server. Neither provides for a good experience for the average player, but like all public servers for all games...the people who pay for the server should have certain controls. If they get abused, people will go elsewhere. I fully agree with Gogster here. The system does police itself, and without the players hosting servers, the game would not be what it is today. This is not a statement of entitlement, but of recognition for people having a belief in the future of the game, and willing to pay their own money to help it succeed.

K

[tced 45]

I wouldn't have a problem with pswd servers as this the single best protection against hackers... until they get the pswd that is.

As the lead Admin for two different communities & perhaps that sways my perspective, but it seems that if you were to lock a server for a specific community, then ask ppl who want to play on your server to join your community, you would then do a better job of screening out hackers. Now a hacker could join your community for sure, but if you've every been part of a gaming community, you know it's much easier to find hackers as ppl on the server will have a better chance of communication, see the person who has godmode or other things, see who it was that killed loads of ppl after a teleport hack, ect..

Plus, hackers don't usually join groups/communities like this as they don't like following rules to begin with. Other games, such as BF3 for instance, allow servers to be maintained by the server renter/owner, they are allowed to kick/ban at their discretion because who else is going to do it. They allow them to make room for clan/community members again at their discretion.

Again, I place no load of blame on DayZ for hackers, this is a BIS/BatEye issue & they are the ones that need to address it, but DayZ can give server admins & players a better solution to addressing some of these problems by adjusting their rules. Rules must be adjusted at times to fit the current problems.

[JESUSARIUS REX (DayZ) 163]

I agree with pretty much everything. Some people think if server locking was allowed, ALL ADMINS WOULD LOCK THERE SERVERS. Not true at all. A lot of admins make server specifically for public use. I although, am part of a group that would liked to have a locked server with a community anyone can join. Also I agree, if you kick/ban people on your server, people will leave, and if you get kicked/banned, simply leave and find another of the 3000+ dayz servers lol. I see servers all the time that are empty so locked servers wouldn't change anything.

[SleepyRhino 0]

If admin could lock server at any time yes most would be fine but the small majority could ruin the game by locking there server and farming the crap out of everything with no risk.

If the items couldn't be transferred to other servers then yes passwords would be fine but not if you can farm on locked server with no risk then join an unlocked one with your shiny new gear.