Server Blackout

[shawnbayer75 83]

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 server's 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.

I guess my question then is what exactly are you asking for then? A change in policy? Have you read the refined/updated rules? Here

If you have read the changes/refinement what do you not like about it or what else do think would be added to it?

Let me also say, this thread needs to stay constructive (as it mostly is now) for me to continue reading it and make the feedback valuable.

[semipr0 402]

I guess my question then is what exactly are you asking for then? A change in policy? Have you read the refined/updated rules? Here

If you have read the changes/refinement what do you not like about it or what else do think would be added to it?

Let me also say, this thread needs to stay constructive (as it mostly is now) for me to continue reading it and make the feedback valuable.

Heres what we need. I'm currently up at 3:30 AM in the morning, because my public teamspeak was poking me like crazy and a clan mate called me and woke me up.

We had, since midnight tonight, 2 mass leg break events, two black SUV's spotted by players, one mass teleport which dropped everyone from 60m in the air and killed them, and another mass teleport to the NW Airfield before I finally brought the server down because I was in the middle of already trying to make heads or tails of my logs as it was.

Heres the problem, we got names on the guys that had the SUV's, there is nothing in scripts.log that shows them spawning them....hooray for the BE bypass, right?

Second problem, my logs are literally reporting an hour behind real time at this time. The mass teleport events I can't even investigate yet, I keep refreshing my FTP and the timestamp went from 12:57AM to 1:11AM in about 30 minutes, its currently 3:30 as stated, our server runs on CST, and I can't even BEGIN to prove my case against the two mass teleports that just occurred in the last 30 minutes.

The refined/updated rules are largely fine, the issue though is they require me to prove all this stuff occurred. I can't prove these black SUV's were spawned....the people that were in them have nothing in my scripts.log whatsoever. The people DO however show up in my RPT. Along with a constant spam in regards duplicate clips in someones secondary weapon slot that are spamming through my RPT in a fashion that I can't even tell who they originate from.

You know as well as I do and BE does that we're in the middle of one of the largest and most disruptive hack waves that DayZ has seen. The refined rules need a very simple addition.

1.) In regards to major disruptive events. You may shoot first and ask questions later.

Cause you know I am more than happy to admit that I may have banned someone in error, but right now, every time our server gets hit I have to spend an inordinate amount of time parsing logs and we're getting hit every day, multiple times a day.

Its easy for me to remove a ban that I mistakenly applied, its not quite as easy for me to conclusively prove EVERY single case of a major disruptive event because the three files we have that mean diddly squat to this process are frustratingly hard to work with, and in the case of scripts.log, hilariously easy to circumvent.

I am not looking to ban anyone. I don't WANT to ban anyone, I want to play DayZ on my server and enjoy it. But I'm spending every day sifting through these obtuse logs with absolutely no administrative tool suites that make them easier to parse and identify provided as part of our server tools, and I'm only able to prove half these hacks by a process of elimination.

If my server logs update here soon, I MIGHT be able to prove who did the mass teleports by doing a process of elimination by cross comparing server_console.log and my RPT to see who wasn't teleported during the event that was logged into the server at the time, but even that is hardly 100%.

You guys want us to have proof for the bans we place. How about loosening up the rules in regards to the burden of proof?

If you can't do that how about adding a cross comparative tool that analyzes these files more effectively so we can load in the logs, find the events we're looking for without having to GUESS at them, and upload a ban report directly to a central server.

In short, a lot of servers are in a near constant state of emergency right now, due to script exploitation, esp hacks and god knows what else. Perhaps the server administrators should be given the right, at least temporarily, to shoot on sight, cause these exploiters aren't giving us a break at all.

[Razzle Dazzle 49]

I know if something isnt done soon , ill be hosting a bf3 server or a warz server when it comes out

[Zoop 343]

I'm in, but for this to be effective we'd have to get at least half the server hosts in on it.

[Gogster (DayZ) 626]

My tuppence worth.

I don't think I've seen a 'community' where there is such a poor relationship between the game (dev's, mod's etc) and the server administrators. I've seen posts on these forums from alleged 'forum moderators', 'community managers' etc.. that have made me wince. Did Rocket just hand out these roles to friends who have zero experience in PR?

Server administration is a two way relationship, you cannot operate without our servers, we cannot operate without your software. In the first instance you have an idea of how the game should be hosted and these translate into a set of rules, which is to be expected. It may have been the case that the mod took off at a pace which caught you unaware, but I wonder what procedures were put in place to cater for its explosive popularity?

I ask because someone added 5 forums for the discussion of off-topic subjects, yet a closed forum for server administrators to discuss scripts, hack detection, server set-up etc... has been asked for numerous times over a long period and no one has said squat.

I appreciate the rules have been updated so we can now ban people for using cheats (scripts) as long as there is the log file evidence to add veracity to that ban. The IPB has several features to help the community to achieve it's aim of banning hackers, why not use them?

If we were to get a forum where confirmed server administrators had access, ban requests could be posted as a vote topic with server administrators voting on whether the player should be added to a ban list, which in turn could be a locked topic list. If enough votes are garnered the players details are added to the list, which server admins can download and add to their bans file.

This has several benefits aside from those listed above. You as devs get to keep an eye on what is being banned in the community, you can interject on ban votes if you have information that may be useful determining if someone is or isn't cheating. Finally the bans coming from such a forum should match the bans file - no more spurious players being banned for flimsy excuses. If a player posts in the forums (with screenshots that they have been banned off the server) you should know whether it is a correct ban or an admin abusing their powers straight away.

We all should be working together, this constant bickering achieves nothing.

[Gogster (DayZ) 626]

Bugger, I meant to add - with regards to the OP. I think it is too early for such militant action - a lot of the scripts being run are not the fault of the devs.

Lets sort out the rules for detecting and banning players first.

[Zoop 343]

I don't think I've seen a 'community' where there is such a poor relationship between the game (dev's, mod's etc) and the server administrators. I've seen posts on these forums from alleged 'forum moderators', 'community managers' etc.. that have made me wince. Did Rocket just hand out these roles to friends who have zero experience in PR?

I was actually wondering the same thing. The blatant disrespect that some of the forum moderators here show to not only server hosts, but forum members in general is pretty shocking. I'm all for a forum moderator having a controversial opinion, but if they insult members and troll threads, then they shouldn't be moderators in the first place. Being a moderator is a responsibility, and part of that responsibility is keeping order on the forums, not making things worse.