Admin abuse US 137 Tacticalgamer.com clan server

[Apophis (DayZ) 15]

I'm not going to deal with the individual player issues here. We have forums on our site set up to deal with bans on players on our servers. But I understand you keeping this thread open. I can deal with your bans from US 137 once you submit an unban request in the forum that I linked. I can assure that you will be treated fairly, as all players are within Tactical Gamer.

As for the discussion in this forum; here are my final comments:

I understand the frustration you have in dealing with admins that act to their personal benefit rather than to keep the integrity of the game intact. I can't speak to what admins on other servers and other clans/communities do, only that which is done by admins at Tactical Gamer. That being said; I am just as sick of hearing from players when they are banned that it MUST be because they were "better than the admins" or "raided an admin camp" or other such nonsense. As I said in my previous post; *I* was the one that instituted the bans based on previous events that occurred as much as 48 hours PRIOR to me enacting those GUID bans.

The way I see it; you're making a big deal out of this because the construct you've created in your opening post ASSUMES that you know a) who banned you, B) what was going through their mind at the time, c) the behavior of the majority of our players. The reality is you don't KNOW any of the above and are creating straw men in order to justify your chosen path of action. Surely, you MUST realize that you have NO idea who the admins are, WHO owned the tents you found, etc. This is clear as day to me as you assume you were banned for stealing stuff our of our "main camp" by upset admins when the reality is nothing of the sort.

As an admin, it is NOT my responsibility to figure out who all the anonymous players are, where I can find them, and how I should open dialogue with them to determine if the activity we're seeing on our server is the result of said player's actions. Are you seriously suggesting that if we experience issues with hacking we should try and identify the person and track them down to any number of websites to talk to them PRIOR to taking any action? That's simply ridiculous.

In terms of the acceptance of varied forms of gameplay on US 137. I have NO issue with outside teams coming in and legitimately raiding TG sites. This is what makes this game FUN. If all I had to do was run around and hunt zombies, I would have quit playing shortly after I started. The PvP elements to this game are what make it fascinating and fun, and it is not my policy, nor the policy of TG or my admin team, to enact ANY punitive action for these types of activities. It's unreasonable for you to expect ME to provide YOU with hard evidence of 'x' when you take the liberty of making blanket accusations against the community without providing evidence yourself. This whole "hard evidence" thing is another silly aspect that seems to crop up in the larger gaming community quite often. I think many "gamers" don't realize they are not operating in a court of law, and that legal rules of evidence do not apply to bans on game servers. I'm not trying directly to be an arse with that statement, but I think it's important that people take a step back and realize what they're talking about here. A game.....

[bigeazyxx@yahoo.com 10]

Of course I cannot PROVE who restarted the server, or who's tents we found. I can only make educated assertions based on the evidence I've seen. For example, we check the bodies of the dead when we were engaged at a VERY remote camp. They were TG, so does that mean we were raiding a TG base? Well I guess its possible they just HAPPENED to be in the middle of the woods at night with few people on the server. But its high unlikely. Its just a logical thought path based on basic observation. Also, your explanation still does not cover the fact the we heard an admin in your teamspeak talking about our conduct. We know who some of the admins are in the teamspeak and it wasn't that hard to understand what was going on in the conversation about us. I really don't see how these kinds of things can be misinterpreted as creating a strawman to justify our claims.

As for the hacking allegations, I really don't know where that is coming from. Anyone caught hacking on your server is NOT associated with our group. We observed a hacker in Novy and promptly reported it, as well as another teleporting hacker who I suspect was in your teamspeak. No I can't PROVE that either, but a friend of ours discussed it with Wicks and he was made aware of it. I do not expect any admin to confront a hacker, just ban them. But since we do not hack, there should be no reason for a blanket ban on us. Furthermore, you said yourself that your players were displeased with our conduct and wanted us banned. I assumed that meant in regards to our play style, so I would expect an admin to initiate a dialog based on that; not a hacking claim. I would like to know where all this hacking bullshit is coming from, because it sounds to me like that is YOUR "straw man" with it being an assumption and not actually provable or substantiated in any way.

[bahuistehwin@googlemail.com 12]

Another thing is that you guys knew about the stockpile code named 'Walmart', which is what we used in TS. It's just for general supplies and stuff, it's not like there was epic loot there. Funny, how you guys knew about that while we never, ever, saw any of you in our TS. Then when we return the favor (Didn't take too much effort either) and listened in, you guys get pissy. Go cry me a river.

You guys talk about there being so much butthurt here by TGers, when you're the ones making page and a half posts about there being a TG conspiracy, most of our people exploiting glitches and all that bull, please. The only thing you guys are doing is embarrassing yourselves. Begging the mods on here doesn't exactly work either.

http://images.t-nati..._t_Even_Mad.jpg

You insufferable fool. I don't quite get what you're suggesting? That we've somehow reverse engineered the game to get your codenames for tents or that we've been engaging in metagaming? Of course we've been in your ruddy teamspeak. Why in gods name would we log in with our in game names?! You've been had and you don't like it. We're not crying about you being in our teamspeak either, are you not reading my posts?! We would have relished that kind of competition! So would you PLEASE stop avoiding the fact that you banned everyone you could see on a certain teamspeak. I think you might have misunderstood the meaning of the phrase 'returning the favour'.

Now Apophis, I respect that you've taken the time to post in this thread and you appear to be reasonable. We also realize there was a lot of unneccesary bluster and bickering in this thread - partly due to our frustration and how 'petty' we perceived the bans to be. We do KNOW however that we hit several TG camps - I was raiding one on my own when I heard rustling behind me, I turned around, and standing right behind me was someone no doubt checking in teamspeak right then to see if anyone was at camp. I let loose with my M240 and inspected the body (That's how we identify our kills when we go TG hunting) to find it was none other than LPBronco, a ranking member of the community. Believe me, we did not readily jump to conclusions here. While we lack things like photo or fraps evidence to back up these claims and I realize I am perhaps not the most impartial witness, I'm sure Bronco will confirm this is what happened. We're not just stirring things up here, we genuinely believe we have been wronged.

As for tracking us down and identifying us, for all your talk about fallacies - You HAD tracked us down already to our teamspeak! That's how you administered the blanket ban as has already been established! Contacting us was a mere push-to-talk button away! You say that such a course of action is ridiculous and yet that is precisely what you did prior to banning us.

As for the hard evidence - we have none. I'm sorry, the secondary allegations were simply our reported experience on your server. On whom the burden of proof lies is irrelevant, we cannot prove beyond reasonable doubt that TG ghosts, dupes etc. However for proof of our unjustifiable bans, we really need look no further than your banlist and server logs. Asking for evidence of hacking from a server admin with access to the logs is however not unreasonable. We're not in a court of law, true but that seems like a fine straw man fallacy to me. Just because we're in a court of law means admins can ban players with impunity, without so much as providing some sort of proof to justify an allegation when the tools to do so are all at their disposal? To end on a lighter note, YOU THINK THIS IS A GAME?!

Edited August 6, 2012 by Fidels

[Apophis (DayZ) 15]

As for tracking us down and identifying us, for all your talk about fallacies - You HAD tracked us down already to our teamspeak! That's how you administered the blanket ban as has already been established! Contacting us was a mere push-to-talk button away! You say that such a course of action is ridiculous and yet that is precisely what you did prior to banning us.

Incorrect. I never logged into your TeamSpeak server. I did see a screenshot someone posted after the fact, but the collection of names was based of date/time stamps of incidents and then a review of the logs (which included direct and vehicle chat) that tied you all together in some form or another. So I was considerably more than a push-to-talk away. I was trying to get things resolved so I could get back to my non-DayZ weekend playing with my son. Please don't assume you know what *I* did and why I did it. But I'm addressing this part of the issue through the TG contact an admin forum already with bigeasy.

To end on a lighter note, YOU THINK THIS IS A GAME?!

I did... Although my 6 year old was questioning why I was stocking up on beans at the grocery store this weekend. He hates beans. :)

[ytman18@gmail.com 9]

I think thats that.

Hackers caught wont admit it specifically if they have an issue. Evidence is plenty and technical and has no need to be on a public forum. It will be dealt with by the higher ups on both US137 and DayZ.

The fact that US137 server will remain up will prove that there was no wrong doing. The DayZ team is very strict with admin abuse.

Edited August 6, 2012 by ytman

[bahuistehwin@googlemail.com 12]

Apophis, I'll respect your decision to handle this in your own way, on your own forums until such time as the matter has been settled to our satisfaction. I would point out however that we don't use direct/vehicle chat - we were using a teamspeak server - and one of our new folk (the man who spent his time dying with varying levels of dignity in Cherno) who got banned from your server never came within so much as 5km of us, let alone 40m required for direct chat.

ytman, I'd advise you if we're to settle this amicably to not jump to conclusions as Apophis was asking us not to. Let me translate what you've essentially just said:

"They're guilty. There's loads of evidence, I haven't seen any but don't you bother your little head, humble forum visitor those in the rarified heights of admin-cy know best. The evidence is so technical you probably wouoldn't even understand it anyway.. If you don't hear any more on the matter, just assume we sorted it and TG's good reputation remains unsullied!"

Why is there no need for it to be on a public forum? We the accused(/accusors) are ASKING you to provide it. Why can't server bans stand to public scrutiny?

Edited August 6, 2012 by Fidels

[bigeazyxx@yahoo.com 10]

I think thats that.

Hackers caught wont admit it specifically if they have an issue. Evidence is plenty and technical and has no need to be on a public forum. It will be dealt with by the higher ups on both US137 and DayZ.

The fact that US137 server will remain up will prove that there was no wrong doing. The DayZ team is very strict with admin abuse.

If we were hackers why would we make such a big deal out of this? Honestly. The childish speculation has gone on long enough.

Evidence is plenty and technical and has no need to be on a public forum.

Arma script is stupidly simple and I've been designing games since Duke Nukem 3D and Quake. So if its too "technical" for you, I'll be happy to tell you what it means.

[ferren 4]

Bump. I want to see what irrefutable evidence we were banned on.

[Apophis (DayZ) 15]

@Ferren;

I am the only one that has the log data, so anything at all will come from me. I'm dealing with bigeazy on the TG forums as a collective unban request and have been reviewing logs in HIGH detail since I got home from work.

Edited August 6, 2012 by Apophis

[bahuistehwin@googlemail.com 12]

I appreciate the effort you're taking and we'll await your reply. I hope we'll soon be sorting this matter out on the plains of Chernarus instead of sniping each other on the forums.

[Charles Darwin (DayZ) 11]

Just an FYI on tents. I have no idea what tents were raided and I have actually been unable to play for almost a week, however I do that a little over a week ago there was a serious issues with tents on our server that was fixed when the tents issue was fixed where a camp that originally had 2 tents ended up randomly spawning 2-4 new tents every server restart. If the new tents were taken down four tents "packs" would show up instead of one. The guy who I maintained this camp with and I tried to keep the tents down but it was impossible and eventually we gave up resulting in a tent city with about 20-30 tents. This would also explain why it was poorly hidden since the tents spawned randomly in about a 100m radius of our original two tents.

If this is the one you raided it was maintained by a TGer and a Public player, because we only cared about our original 2 tents, and I am not an admin nor is the public player and since I dont even know if this was my camp site or not I can assure you I didnt fire on you or restart the server.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Charles Darwin

[james222 49]

Just because your post is long doesent mean you're argument is better TG.

[ferren 4]

Still waiting on supposed verdict from our private conversation with Apophis.It really doesn't take this long to browse server logs.

[startrekern 88]

Still waiting on supposed verdict from our private conversation with Apophis.It really doesn't take this long to browse server logs.

Yes. Yes, it does. It takes an immense amount of time, and an immense amount of effort. The server logs are confusing, extremely technical and detailed, and spammy as hell.

Don't be ignorant.

[ferren 4]

It really does not. I was a server admin for quite some time. It does not take that long to CTRL+F someone's name in the logs. As for technical? They are about as technical as your 5th grade math book. I don't believe immense anything fits here. We will be patient for a time longer, I suppose.

[startrekern 88]

It really does not. I was a server admin for quite some time. It does not take that long to CTRL+F someone's name in the logs. As for technical? They are about as technical as your 5th grade math book. I don't believe immense anything fits here. We will be patient for a time longer, I suppose.

Well, that's true. I guess I looked at it from the perspective of not specifically knowing the name or PID of the person in question.

[ferren 4]

Ahh I see, the server admin has our names, he needs simply look them up and see that nothing has been done wrong. But I also agree, browsing script logs without the names of the people involved can be quite... exciting, to say the least.

[Rick KG 0]

*Bump*

[Apophis (DayZ) 15]

I completed the review of all the available log files for ArmA2 as well as some third party logs for some custom tools that we run. As a result of the review, I am removing the bans.

When the hacking issue was going on over the weekend I made a hasty decision to implement several bans based on a cursory review of the logs and player reports. Due to the combination of the active hacks as well as the metagaming that was going on between your group and Tactical Gamer, it seemed like a pretty sure thing at the time.

The bans have been removed and I apologize for the inconvenience.

[bigeazyxx@yahoo.com 10]

On behalf of our group, I would like to thank Apophis for his time and diligence in reviewing the logs and clearing our names. We will consider the matter closed and I will withdraw our admin abuse report.

We will see the rest of you lot on the fields of Chernarus very soon... ;-)

Edited August 7, 2012 by bigeazy

[bahuistehwin@googlemail.com 12]

Aye, I'd like to add my thanks there and extend it to all the TG members who weren't sanctimonious bastards who felt it their duty vilify us. Star, Masterjack, Reinhold and Darwin, this one goes out to you.

But i'm afraid we can't be merciful. Batten down the hatches, stockpile your beans and equip your L85s. The Ural Collision Crew is coming.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Fidels

[ytman18@gmail.com 9]

We'll win. You've yet to take anything from me. :D

Edited August 8, 2012 by ytman

[startrekern 88]

felt it their duty vilify us. Star

I was unilaterally banned from TacticalGamer's community several years ago, actually.

I'm not a TG member, nor was I trying to vilify you, I was offering my opinion which is that server administrators in a normally solid and honorable community deserve the benefit of the doubt, and that to publicly accuse them of restarting the server to get their way and duping is ridiculous.

Sure - your names are cleared. But what you have accused them of doing, and the impression you gave to others about their server, is permanent. This is the problem I have with these public debacles that just *can't* turn out in a positive light for community administrators, even if it's proven that they're in the right. There needs to be a system of handling these sorts of complaints that doesn't lead to the entire DayZ community reading half-truths or assumptions, and then never reading the proper rebuttal or resolution to the situation buried on page 5.

Edited August 8, 2012 by Star

[bahuistehwin@googlemail.com 12]

I think you may have misread my post. Emphasis on

weren't sanctimonious bastards who felt it their duty to vilify us

It was a compliment. Nice one.

As for the impression we have given - lets be blunt, despite being handled fairly and reasonably by Apophis, it was correct. We were banned after raiding several TG camps on the strength of what appears to be hearsay from TG members. As much as i'm glad this was sorted out amicably, Apophis never did show us the suspicious parts of the log pertaining to us. Furthermore the reactions from certain TG members who knew nothing about the matter speaks to a certain arrogance, perhaps based on a pride in their community and disbelief such a thing could happen, but arrogance nonetheless. Although I do agree with you with regards to the half truths and buried resolutions - we had the same problem as server admins a while back, however the transparency is an important aspect.

Edited August 8, 2012 by Fidels

[startrekern 88]

It was a compliment. Nice one.

My bad. Failed to transition out of debate mode there. All I read was "sanctimonious bastards" followed by my name. :rolleyes:

Edited August 8, 2012 by Star