Server Blackout

[semipr0 402]

What do the server admins think about perhaps collaborating a single day server black out for as many DayZ servers as we can rightfully shut down as we run them and pay for their services?

Overall the idea would be to demonstrate that we're tired of the state of script abuses and generalized hacking. And to demonstrate that within the rights that we have, we do not have to sit here and tolerate it.

Keep in mind this isn't an idea that is being put forward to attempt to make some kind of "DayZ sucks" statement. We're hosting servers because we like the game. But I know that myself and several other admins I'm acquainted with are very tired of our nearly every single day in DayZ being a constant battle against hacks and hackers.

Even if we can only shut down 60% of the active servers we will have made a statement that says "Without us, try hosting 75,000 players concurrently." and perhaps, we could at least get a little more understanding from the DayZ team what our love for their mod is costing us......and I'm not even talking about the money.

Most of us hosting servers have the money to be doing it. Money isn't the issue, but consistently having our servers raped and compromised by hackers has become a near to daily affair. BattlEye can't stop it, it can only give us short reprieves.

So if we take down a good percentage of the hosted servers that we do, as admins, have the legal right to shut down and leave down for as long as we like, we could potentially make a stronger statement in regards to pleading our case for stronger allowances for individual server control and autonomy, with the DayZ team, than consistently attempting to argue the point here on the forums where we receive very little in regards to attention to our concerns, and the rules keep stacking up against us, rather than in our favor.

I am not, by the way, arguing for password protecting servers, private whitelisting or anythng else. I'm simply saying, if we blackout the network for just one day, and spend that day doing, I dunno, something that doesn't involve dealing with at least 18 separate and individual incidences of major exploit that have disrupted our entire servers legit player base, perhaps we can start a more constructive dialog with how servers are managed and reassert some rights, within the rules, of the server administrator that Bohemia Interactive Software seems to have no issue with allowing its private server admins to have.

Again, just a thought. I'm not saying I'm right, or this is the right course of action. But, perhaps it could be a step in a larger direction.

Feel free to share your opinions or vote on the poll.

[ODoyleRulez 195]

So this will prove what exactly?

[ODoyleRulez 195]

I mean rocket JUST said on his most recent interview that taking care of this problem is priority one.. WTF else do you want?

If by chance you can write the code or whatever to be iron clad against scripters.. by all means get on it. Shutting down the servers does what? Hurts the community cause you are a little butt frustrated.

Offer a solution.. or just shut your server down and move on. Server hosters doing some poorly thought out retard strike isn't exactly going to help the game.

[semipr0 402]

So this will prove what exactly?

That our hosting agreement rules need a little stronger faith in the administrative teams hosting servers, and, perhaps to allow us to develop a more cooperative and less hostile hosting agreement with the DayZ team.

As stated, if I put up an Arma 2 server, BIS isn't standing over my shoulder telling me how to run it. DayZ though does. And I afford them the rights they demand, but, in spite of my attempts to play by their rules, the constant daily assaults on my server consistently force me to bend those rules. And in doing so, I am put in a position where I am violating my agreement, in some part, simply by trying to be responsible admin on behalf of the legitimate players on my server.

Effectively while I'm not saying all server admins are saints, I believe there is far too strong a belief that "all server admins are potential admin abusers", this is far from the case, its about as true a belief as "all DayZ players are hackers".

There are bad admins, but the largest percentage of admins don't need this draconian ruleset we're dealing with. The largest percentage of server admins are just trying to run a fair game for everyone. And this draconian ruleset can, by its very definition of the language it uses, stop a legitmately responsible server admin from being able to present a fair game atmosphere for their players.

Effectively, we do a lot of work, we deal with a lot of shit, I think we deserve a little more trust, simply because we're willing to do that....and the money doesn't even come into the equation.

We need more power as admins to decipher who is exploiting our servers...there are third party tools being developed for this purpose but someone at BIS or the DayZ team should be handling this. We should be able to detect script injections in progress and ban before the damage is done, not after.

Effectively, I'd like the DayZ team to treat admins like partners, not potential criminals. Cause I'm not abusing the DayZ system...I'm spending 10 hours a day AFTER my real job, trying to deal with the fallout from the people who are.

[khalimerot 76]

I'm in , if their is at least 75% of the server admin in It will work...other wise it useless.

[semipr0 402]

I mean rocket JUST said on his most recent interview that taking care of this problem is priority one.. WTF else do you want?

More than words.

If by chance you can write the code or whatever to be iron clad against scripters.. by all means get on it.

BIS's engine is not open source, I'm not sure how you'd expect me to attempt to do this. There are a lot of good developers on the BIS forums that have done their best to try to help, nothing can be done without a major alteration to the Arma engine itself.

Shutting down the servers does what? Hurts the community cause you are a little butt frustrated.

You mean the community that consistently treats me and all the other server admins in the system like we're their personal servants? The community that continually pays 15 dollars a month to some hacker site and makes our servers unplayable, completely joyless chores to manage? Or the community that sits here on the forum and shits all over people who have valid issues? Cause I'm not sure I give a rats ass what either of those three parts of the "community" think.

Offer a solution.. or just shut your server down and move on. Server hosters doing some poorly thought out retard strike isn't exactly going to help the game.

Everyone knows the solution.....DayZ needs to be running a version of arma2oaserver that doesn't accept remote client script execution.....you don't even need to be a software engineer to understand that.

[ODoyleRulez 195]

So you want deeper server controls? That's it?

Didn't they just update them and make them somewhat more comprehensive?

I offer this solution. Remove the ability to even inject scripts in DayZ. This seems to be the problem as it stands right now.

What good does it do to punish all the 99.9% of players who are playing it right? Do something more constructive like forming a council of server owners and flat out telling them what needs to be done. Or what you need to help do the job.

[Pyro_Marine 147]

I'm afraid to get on and play due to hackers. One killed my friend the other day. He warped through the sky, flew in front of us with an M14 and began to unload. I dove underneath him while he fired at my partner and aborted. :/

[khalimerot 76]

So you want deeper server controls? That's it?

Didn't they just update them and make them somewhat more comprehensive?

I offer this solution. Remove the ability to even inject scripts in DayZ. This seems to be the problem as it stands right now.

What good does it do to punish all the 99.9% of players who are playing it right? Do something more constructive like forming a council of server owners and flat out telling them what needs to be done. Or what you need to help do the job.

That's the point...like a strike...you annoy 99.9% of the good people to make them cry...if they cry , our beloved dev-team can't still doing nothing for them...Ah yes they can...their master they can...they will take control over our server to relaunch them with their T-90.

[semipr0 402]

So you want deeper server controls? That's it?

Didn't they just update them and make them somewhat more comprehensive?

I offer this solution. Remove the ability to even inject scripts in DayZ. This seems to be the problem as it stands right now.

What good does it do to punish all the 99.9% of players who are playing it right? Do something more constructive like forming a council of server owners and flat out telling them what needs to be done. Or what you need to help do the job.

We have been telling them. We're not being heard.

I wouldn't call our server controls all that comprehensive. Nor all that informative. The log data we actually have access to is pathetically nondescript and requires quite a lot of cross comparison and process of elimination to find out who used a script at any given time. We don't have half the information we need and the information we do have is inordinately difficult to work with, and probably for many newer admins, to even accurately interpret.

And our legitimate players are being punished already ODoyle, every day, because we do not have strong enough tools to stop these problems at their source before the damage is done. Whats more, all indications seem to point to the fact that the DayZ team doesn't want us to have these tools in the first place.

[ODoyleRulez 195]

We have been telling them. We're not being heard.

I wouldn't call our server controls all that comprehensive. Nor all that informative. The log data we actually have access to is pathetically nondescript and requires quite a lot of cross comparison and process of elimination to find out who used a script at any given time. We don't have half the information we need and the information we do have is inordinately difficult to work with, and probably for many newer admins, to even accurately interpret.

And our legitimate players are being punished already ODoyle, every day, because we do not have strong enough tools to stop these problems at their source before the damage is done. Whats more, all indications seem to point to the fact that the DayZ team doesn't want us to have these tools in the first place.

Fair enough.

I still say you should organize an actual union of sorts. Then maybe you can make the demands before doing some shut down.

Edited August 7, 2012 by ODoyleRulez

[ODoyleRulez 195]

That's the point...like a strike...you annoy 99.9% of the good people to make them cry...if they cry , our beloved dev-team can't still doing nothing for them...Ah yes they can...their master they can...they will take control over our server to relaunch them with their T-90.

I didn't understand half of what it was, you were saying.

[semipr0 402]

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/61662-us-360-admins-tents/#entry589528

Theres a good daily example of why this needs to be done.

Admins shouldn't threaten players, but players threatening admins is just a completely unacceptable state of affairs.

Just today there have been two incidences of players getting banned from a server for some reason and going all batshit insane on the general discussion forums and metagaming camp information and telling admins how they're supposed to be running their servers.

This is not an acceptable state of affairs, its not fair to server admins to consistently have their servers ravaged by these teenage "lawyers" who are blatantly misintepreting the DayZ hosting agreement rules as their justification for completely ruining an admin's server and even in many cases attempting to get them shut down.

Why? Cause someone banned them...thats why. And the language of the server agreement leaves too much room for intepretation in that regard.

No forum admin takes down these metagaming threads. They just get left there, the servers that are subject to their contents ruined, any attempt to play the game as intended is completely destroyed.

And its all because the "players" believe they have more rights than the "admins". In my mind, everyone should have rights, a player should have a right to appeal a ban they feel is unjust, a server admin should have the right to place a ban they feel is warranted. And the appeals process should be followed to untangle the mess.

But its not, all to often its just "THIS ADMIN BANNED ME, HERE IS THEIR CAMP GO LOOT IT AND DESTROY IT AND I'M TELLING ROCKET THAT THEY ARE BAD!"....what a wonderfully cohesive experience this is for our "community", and its all because the hosting agreement has engendered far too much player sided entitlement, and views all server admins with suspicion and whats more, the DayZ forum team does nothing to even attempt to mediate or control these situations.

Admin bans player for alt+F4ing out of combat, player metagames admin, ruins server for...god knows how long, and completely makes all previously invested time on that server, for the admin and his group...worthless.

I'm all for the rights of the player, but what about the rights of the handful of people who just had their entire DayZ experience ruined by one petulant child?

[Smiling Bandit 5]

.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Smiling Bandit

[Nariquo (DayZ) 39]

well i dont think so really. i meant he think a player blames and admin and the server is runined.

i and my clan have a server too. and we are banning people for alt f4 and if we see them with cheated weapons. ( and i know it is a grey zone with the cheated weapons, but really we dont care. if you want to play dayz well there are no cheated weapons)

and you know what.. yeah just blame us, tell everyone our sever is shit. you know what thats perfect. so no one is coming onto our server we can play pve and alone and if we want pvp we just go onto another server :-)

this blaming bla bla is really shit. thats right. and all of you there is really one important thing. admins pay for the servers. no admins. noone pays, no servers thats it :-)

admins should stay to the rules thats right, but really look at yourselfes. 90 % press alt f4 in combat. in my personal statistic EVERY SINGEL player disconnects when i shoot at him. so on OUR SERVER i look at names first, then i shoot, and if he is gone, THEN I BAN. and you can cry here in the forum as long as you want. I BAN YOU FOR NOT STANDING TO THE PLAYERS RULE.

so before you are blaming the admins, look at yourseves.

ps: sorry for mistakes and bla bla english isnt my motherlanguages and i dont really want to learn it perfectly .-)

peace

[tyler@tytanis.com 28]

As a former senior staff member to a large gaming community, also managed a few communities of my own for online games dealing with dedicated servers;

Deal with it. There will always be hackers/scripters/Republicans.

The best thing that you can do is BE ACTIVE, watch the logs and get people who you trust to help.

Edited August 7, 2012 by Tytanis

[semipr0 402]

As a former senior staff member to a large gaming community, also managed a few communities of my own for online games dealing with dedicated servers;

Deal with it. There will always be hackers/scripters/Republicans.

The best thing that you can do is BE ACTIVE, watch the logs and get people who you trust to help.

The problem is being active leads to potential transgression of our hosting agreement. We are active. As the example I linked shows, there is a obvious cognitive disconnect on where the rights of the admin begin and end.

And the language of the agreement is where the cognitive disconnect begins.

Without at least a tacit trust between the DayZ team and the responsible admins that are watching their logs and doing the best they can to weather the storm of exploits and server disruptions, there will never be any real progress in the collective effort between the DayZ team and the DayZ community server hosts, to address the issues positively and proactively.

It takes server admins to ban hackers locally, it takes a partnership of tacit trust with the DayZ team to have the tools to ensure these bans are legitimate, properly logged and recorded to a central database, and, of course, used for the betterment of the community as a whole.

[Tom316 10]

We just need to be given control over the servers we run. I should not have to wait through a lengthy process to get someone banned from my server because he was hacking.

I understand where the community comes from when it comes from admins setting up there own private server just for them and there friends to farm gear. You know I get that 100%. I do not want that to happen. But on that same token, you know I would rather that happen then having a hacker pop on an be able to within seconds get everything that same group of people spent hours doing.

The ultimate solution is that the client should NEVER be able to run scripts that do anything outside of local things on there client. Why should a client be spawning items into the world anyways? That should be something the server and only the server can do.

I give props to the BattlEye guys for ramping it up alot the last few weeks to do what they can to combat the problem. But there is only so much they can do for a poorly thought out client <-> server model.

[aphex187 52]

Count me in, maybe why our server had dwindled from 45+ players to under 20!

[hunter2123 106]

When a day/time is figured out, shoot me a PM.

[1917Admin 9]

Myself and my server are in. Figure out a day/time.

[ken@thekab.com 37]

I mean rocket JUST said on his most recent interview that taking care of this problem is priority one.. WTF else do you want?

If by chance you can write the code or whatever to be iron clad against scripters.. by all means get on it. Shutting down the servers does what? Hurts the community cause you are a little butt frustrated.

Offer a solution.. or just shut your server down and move on. Server hosters doing some poorly thought out retard strike isn't exactly going to help the game.

One simple change in policy. One post.

Server admins: ban cheaters from your servers at will. If we determine you're being abusive, we may decide to take action including blacklisting. That is all.

Done. Of course with the upcoming logging changes it might be much harder to determine who the cheaters are, but that's an entirely separate issue.

[OutlawXGP 29]

I mean rocket JUST said on his most recent interview that taking care of this problem is priority one.. WTF else do you want?

If by chance you can write the code or whatever to be iron clad against scripters.. by all means get on it. Shutting down the servers does what? Hurts the community cause you are a little butt frustrated.

Offer a solution.. or just shut your server down and move on. Server hosters doing some poorly thought out retard strike isn't exactly going to help the game.

I find your post to be pretty stupid too, you would feel the same way if you see the shit we are going through at the moment and the fact that we have very little control over what we can do.

My server is been under constant attack for the past week now from hackers mass teleport to a "thunderdome" to item spawning, mass killing and ect. My regular players are frustrated that they getting killed after having spent hours/days on there character finding rare gear the legit way and then losing it in matter of seconds.

So yes i would be "butthurt" too and i do agree with a mass shutdown of all servers, i find this to be a good idea so we can send a message that we are the ones choosing to pay from our pockets and is because of people like us that DayZ has such a large community, and so if nothing is done about these hackers/script kids then one by one the list of dayz servers will start to decline.

As for offering a solution, what possible solution can i offer when the control we have over the servers we pay for are so limited.

As it stands the current condition of hacking as raised to a new height over the past few weeks and is really out of control.

[Sna.ke 43]

I'm not sure it will do anything or even be effective. However, if you can find enough people, I'd be in on a time and date.

The atmosphere in this game is amusing, and the number of players I get that accuse me of running scripts when they get teleported by a hacker to the Thunderdome, and instead of alt+f4'ing they actually try to fight.

I actually had one little shit come into our vent because, in his words "an admin teleported behind him and killed him and his friend was getting rocket to look at the server's log files to prove it was an admin and then the server will be shut down". He raged for a good 15 minutes before he left. Threatening to have the server turned off. I checked the log files and I think I found the real hacker.

Which leads me to my next point: the tools in this game to find and identify hackers are absolute shit. End of story.

[zuk 39]

You knew what you were getting yourself into so why are you bitching about your lack of control?

Yes hacking is out of control and it is really stupid but I am sure it will be addressed. If it is too much for you at the moment, take a break.