What the hell happened to night servers?

[aesaunic 2]

It's been a little over 2 months of play and it's saddening to see the amount of populated night servers screech to a halt. Remember when there were about 10 reverse cycle servers (my favorite being VA13 - Midnight Oil) and people HAD to deal with the darkness? The problem now is there are SO many reverse cycle servers that the community insta jumps at about 7-10PM PST-EST over to a daylight server.

Daytime is fun, but night time is FUCKING GREAT, even without NVGs. It slows you down, it slows potential adversaries down and you can't get picked off from 1000+ KM because guess what!? The nasty snipers can't scope in with NVG :P I think if the community would stop running to a daylight server the second the sun starts to set we'd have a much richer, well informed community that isn't hellbent on stashing 5+ tents with military crap and hording every vehicle they can touch.

Please play a night server for more than ten minutes and experience what you're missing out on. ARMA 2 has AWESOME lighting effects, but if you're uncomfortable with pitch black, then pop the gamma up a little and get your bearings. IMHO DayZ really starts to show off how unforgiving, thrilling, and immersive it can be when the sun goes down...

/Rant

Edited July 30, 2012 by Aesaunic

[boxman80 964]

I agree but I do know the problem with night servers - the only people who play them are tooled upto the nines with military grade weapons and NV. There's no point playing them unless you are heavily armed and have night vision yourself or you are just fodder. I agree this is purely because there's so many options now instead of players being forced to play night.

[Miragenz 71]

I play on the same server regardless of time, if its pitch black i just walk based on my map and use flashlights in town, flares if i think its safe enough.

The server always restarts though as soon as it gets dark, so i never get to play in the dark, even if i have 3 NVGs now.

[Element47 2480]

being gangraped in a darkroom? not my cup of tea, thanks.

wakling the highlands on a starry night, watching the landscape in the moonlight is awesome. but with full cloud cover, cranking brightness and gamma to full only helps to know whether im looking at the sky or the ground. its not enjoyable to me.

[LordRayken 30]

Very few people like night time servers.

The only few that do have night vision goggles, and those get old because of how much they limit your vision to a small circle.

[aesaunic 2]

being gangraped in a darkroom? not my cup of tea, thanks.

wakling the highlands on a starry night, watching the landscape in the moonlight is awesome. but with full cloud cover, cranking brightness and gamma to full only helps to know whether im looking at the sky or the ground. its not enjoyable to me.

Fair enough, but there are flares and chemlights for a reason ;)

[Mooseocalypse 59]

Yep. When I first started playing in May, there were so few servers around that they were all 100% full 24/7. People played in the dark because they had no choice. But now there are more than enough slots to go around, the item duplicators have spammed NVG's for themselves, and the community has been invaded by kids who aren't up to the challenge of playing at night.

[LordRayken 30]

Fair enough, but there are flares and chemlights for a reason ;)

Thanks for using flares.

It's people like you who show me where to snipe at night.

[Ankhenaten 111]

I play a lot at night :) The first time I went into the NW AF barracks was at night, just with the light from my weapon.

But you need at minimum a compass. Met up with some friends at night, it's cool as I had to guess so hard where I was. But also died once going into Berezino, when a night ninja Zed was breaking my legs while running. I hoped the night would loose them easily. :|

My best heli crash was also at night as the light from the turret attracted me to it. As 50 and MK 48. Only once had NVG. Miss them though. Never found any in a loot place, just once in a hoarded vehicle.

[j.ortiz85@gmail.com 1]

I prefer playing at Night. Zombies aren't as annoying as they can't see you even if you're standing up straight, and most players can't see you. Having brightness and gamma maxed is the best!

[aesaunic 2]

Very few people like night time servers.

The only few that do have night vision goggles, and those get old because of how much they limit your vision to a small circle.

True, maybe a less darker night, as been suggest many times in the past. I know vanilla ARMA nights are still dark enough to present a challenge. Maybe ambient glow off cities (while a bit unrealistic) would help.

Or hey! Maybe Rocket could get off his arse and script it to where generators can be powered back on! So many possibilities, yet we get a patch that disables respawn button and presents tons of artifacts :rolleyes:

[Gogster (DayZ) 626]

If the night was remotely realistic I may be interested - the current can't see your hand in front of your face scenario is crap.

[Ankhenaten 111]

Thanks for using flares.

It's people like you who show me where to snipe at night.

I use flares and chemlights to detract snipers. Throw five in different directions.

[aesaunic 2]

Thanks for using flares.

It's people like you who show me where to snipe at night.

It's people like you who assume I'll stand within it's light ;)

[RSOblivioN 8]

I love night sorties, used to do it a lot, but the veteran servers seem to have this insatiable need to make it pitch black (no night is that black unless deep in a forest with no moon). I live in a non-light molested area and unless it's a new moon vision at night is pretty good, but then I have good night vision. If there were less pitch black nights and more a mix of the dark but seeable nights then it would have more playing then, but most are still afraid of the dark anway ;)

[Rollonio 54]

I think the other reason for the decline in servers with plenty of players at night is that recent ARMA 2 patches have closed the brightness/gamma loop hole. Now a moonless night really is pitch black.

[Ankhenaten 111]

Fair enough, but there are flares and chemlights for a reason ;)

Sadly a guy throwing one in a supermarket is now dead. Him and his pal arrived like the cavalry shooting like mad, so my trigger finger got "itchy". Throwing a chemlight in Electros supermarket is a death sentence. Silly..

[j.ortiz85@gmail.com 1]

I think the other reason for the decline in servers with plenty of players at night is that recent ARMA 2 patches have closed the brightness/gamma loop hole. Now a moonless night really is pitch black.

Has it? Even during moonless nights, I can see pretty well without need of flashlight or flares/chemlights, except for inside some buildings.

[gunnyrolling 15]

I only play on nights with moons, but without the moon its just unrealisticly dark. I've been far away from cities on clouded, mooonless nights IRL and it still isn't THAT dark!

[vekien 84]

The only time i usually go in nighttime servers is when its "just getting dark" in that there is still moon reflection off things that you can make out objects and when I am fresh spawn so that way i have a easier time gearing up lol XD

but i do have NVGs now!

[aesaunic 2]

I only play on nights with moons, but without the moon its just unrealisticly dark. I've been far away from cities on clouded, mooonless nights IRL and it still isn't THAT dark!

Yeah, somethings gotta change. I think the daylight further exacerbates the roflstomp CoD kiddies. I just want to make it known that I love PvP, but Arma has always imo been about smart, precise killing. Not lulzing around like a chicken with it's head cut off.

[a_casual_banana 38]

I love night, but it's just damn hard to play at night.

Hey, at least I have a ghillie now, hopefully no one can see me now :D

[Mooseocalypse 59]

If the night was remotely realistic I may be interested - the current can't see your hand in front of your face scenario is crap.

Hahaha okay, city boy. I take it you've never been in a pitch black moonless night far away from cities. Zero ambient light. ARMA is the only game that does night time even remotely close to realistically.

[Mooseocalypse 59]

But you need at minimum a compass. Met up with some friends at night, it's cool as I had to guess so hard where I was. But also died once going into Berezino, when a night ninja Zed was breaking my legs while running. I hoped the night would loose them easily. :|

Ooooooh man. Sneaky night time zeds. My scariest night time story, it was late evening during the first week I started playing and I decided to make a run for Stary before the sun set. I took a visual bearing for Zub and descended into the darkening valley. I pretty badly mistimed it though, I was less than half the distance to Stary when the sun went down and the moon was nowhere and boy was it black with a vengeance. I was in the middle of nowhere with just 20 flares.

As it turned out I had just enough flares to almost get back to Cherno, but then I accidentally fired my Enfield instead of throw a flare and dinner bell was on in full force. I couldn't run from zeds and throw flares at the same time, and I couldn't run too far from the flare I had out because then I would get hopelessly lost in the dark. I had to battle it out right there with my Enfield against an almost never ending supply of zeds. Night time is so much fun.

[Grandchamp (DayZ) 14]

A few days ago I played with 4 friends. We startet at 18:30 or so and geared up and tryed to find us. After we survived a mad guy pulling zombies all over Elektro with a car, a sniper who had us pinned down at the supermarket, my brother who never was in Elektro just run to us with a horde of zombies in his back, we finally made it out. At the time we had 19:30 or smth already and it was gettin dark, damn dark. We took the path to the mountain next to the fire station. At the smaller hill the sniper had us again. I was badly wound with 2k blood left, my brother had his leg broken.Our friend gave us fire cover and we made it onto the top of the mountain Dobrry. The one guy head back to Elekto to get us med supplies and in the mean time the other 2 guys found us.

After we were setup and ready to go it was night. Pitch black. It was our first time playing at night and we had no NVG´s. We made our way to a village nearby to restock our food supply. 3 useing flashlights, 2 with hatchets so we dont attract Zed´s. We made it with not too much of Z attention and when we finally head out from the village we saw two giant lights comeing closer to us.

Before we even realized what happend we were surrounded by Zeds running around in all directions. One of our friends was hit by the car and died. The driver came back 2 guys jumped out I got one of them and the other was mauled down from Zeds who were FUCKING EVERYWHERE.

This night tons of other stuff happend which wouldnt at day time it was so damn awesome we wont forget it for a long time.