INFORMATION ON SERVER REQUESTS 08.23.12

[urbanfox 116]

UPDATE: NO MORE UPDATES. DEADLINE MET EARLY.

Oh and....

Hey Everyone,

Right now we have a rather large backlog of server requests and there is a lot of misconception out there surrounding this situation. As a support team, we understand that not knowing what is going on is half the problem, so hopefully in this post we can clear up a lot of confusion. We get a lot of very similar questions from different people, so I’m going to start with posting them here so others can see them as well.

What is taking so long? > Honestly, the game is becoming increasingly popular and the demand is hard to keep up with. Over 1.1 million unique players have tried DayZ and the number keeps growing. A LOT of those people want to host servers and as such we are inundated with requests 24/7. We literally receive hundreds of server requests and support tickets a day so keeping up with them is extremely challenging.

It’s been X amount of days, I’ve submitted a ticket asking you to review my order and instead all I got was some blah blah we will review it in the order it was received. I am paying for a dedicated server that is just sitting there and I’m wasting my money. > Our philosophy is pretty simple: review the requests in the order they were received. We feel this is the fairest way of doing things and ensures that people who have been paying for their server longer will be in the best position to have their server approved/denied first.

Why aren’t you guys doing your job better? > This is a mostly subjective (and usually sarcastic) opinion, but nevertheless it does come up. The answer is simply because we have real, paying jobs. The support team doesn’t get paid for answering your tickets or reviewing your server requests. We are already juggling work, families, significant others, and the free time that we do have is spent a lot of times providing support for this mod. Does this make us saints? NO! Does this mean we want praise? NO! It just means we really love this game and want to help it grow. So next time you are frustrated, bent out of shape, or just plain pissed at us, please remember this. We really are doing the best we can.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, how about some transparency on the situation? As of this post, the oldest order is from August 11^th. Just as you are not happy with that, neither are we. As result, as of the time-stamp of THIS thread, ALL orders BEFORE that time are going to be processed by Wednesday, August 29^th 12:00 AM regardless of what time zone you are in. The support staff is simply going to power through these orders. We are going to ignore our wives, girlfriends, friends, and old episodes of Breaking Bad on the DVR so we get the queue back in order. As for orders submitted after this thread, we are going to do our best to get to those to in a timely fashion as well once we are caught up.

For those reading this thread, let me ask four things of you to help this process go smoother for everyone:

1. Do not submit fraudulent orders. Processing them is a complete and utter waste of time. No one believes your residential ISP offers an unlimited bandwidth gigabit connection.
   
2. Input the correct information in your request. If we are going to take the time to review it, please at least have the common courtesy to provide the right information. “Processor: Intel/Speed: fast” DOES NOT cut it. Take the time to find out exactly what you are running. If you don’t know, ask your host or a friend to help you.
   
3. UNLESS you submitted an order before this thread was made AND it hasn’t been processed AND it is past Wednesday, August 29^th, PLEASE DO NOT submit a support ticket asking us about your order.
   
4. Know our requirements. If your request won’t meet them, DO NOT submit it! I know it’s written differently all over the place, but if your request doesn’t have at least 4GB of ram, Windows Server O/S (we do not accept Vista/7), and at least a 100mbps/100mbps connection in a data center, don’t submit it! We won’t accept it!
   

I hope this thread provided some clarification on things. I will continue to update this post with where we are at the queue so everyone can know. Please also understand that the majority of support staff are at work right now, so the mass processing of orders (even for those who have orders from the 11^th) may not commence until 12-24 hours from now. Once again, “As result, as of the time-stamp of THIS thread, ALL orders BEFORE that time are going to be processed by Wednesday, August 29^th 12:00 AM regardless of what time zone you are in.”

Edited August 25, 2012 by urbanfox

[HostVenomLLC 0]

Very informative. Keep up the hard work it is really appreciated! I'm sure this will help clear things up for some people.

[SurvivalServers (DayZ) 69]

Good to hear, thanks for this information.

It seems to me you guys are spending a lot of time on each order.. is there a way you can automate some of these tasks?

I had an idea of building a request form that is outside of WHMCS. A simple form which would save the orders and be able to make multiple requests (instead of having to enter the same information over and over again). Upon form submission, all of the specs would be checked against the minimum requirements so that would filter out all of the bad requests.

Is there automation generating the mission files from the DayZ backend? Seems that could cut down a lot of time as well.. right now you have to upload the mission file to WHMCS, manually copy over the instance / server ID.

Just some ideas.. the more transparency we have the better I think. Really happy that you posted this!

[urbanfox 116]

Good to hear, thanks for this information.

It seems to me you guys are spending a lot of time on each order.. is there a way you can automate some of these tasks?

I had an idea of building a request form that is outside of WHMCS. A simple form which would save the orders and be able to make multiple requests (instead of having to enter the same information over and over again). Upon form submission, all of the specs would be checked against the minimum requirements so that would filter out all of the bad requests.

Is there automation generating the mission files from the DayZ backend? Seems that could cut down a lot of time as well.. right now you have to upload the mission file to WHMCS, manually copy over the instance / server ID.

Just some ideas.. the more transparency we have the better I think. Really happy that you posted this!

The process, including instance ID assigning, is virtually all automated, but we hand-check every order to make sure it meets certain requirements (specifically the network the server is on).

[SurvivalServers (DayZ) 69]

So you are just doing a whois search to make sure it's not residential? Good idea but it seems even that could be automated.

Take the major ISPs and add them to the block filter.

[VRocker 6]

Good to see some feedback on why its been taking a while :) I'm one of the lucky ones that isn't paying for my server (using spare processing power and network bandwidth on a friends server) but if i was paying monthly for a host i would be pissed that it takes 2 weeks to get approval. At least with this explanation people should be happier :)

We do understand that you all have other things to do an cant dedicate as much time as you'd want to approving servers but couldn't you take on a few more people that have a lot of time on their hands? Personally i'd be happy to help out in any way and i'm sure a lot of other people feel the same way, although finding trusty people that would approve servers properly would be the main issue i guess, since you wouldn't want somebody approving a dodgy home connecting in the middle of nowhere :P

Looking forward to being hived by next week anyway :)

[urbanfox 116]

So you are just doing a whois search to make sure it's not residential? Good idea but it seems even that could be automated.

Take the major ISPs and add them to the block filter.

We do more than that, and we prefer a more hands on approach, but we appreciate the suggestion.

Edited August 23, 2012 by urbanfox

[urbanfox 116]

UPDATE: It's been roughly 22~ hours and we are currently working on orders from August 12th. THIS IS A DECEIVING way to gauge progress, however, since we had an incredible influx of orders during that weekend. For a more accurate assessment, in the past 22~ hours the team has processed about 18-20% of the orders we need to get done by our deadline.

[SurvivalServers (DayZ) 69]

Excellent! Let me know if I can buy anyone over there a pack of Red Bulls.. :D

Edited August 24, 2012 by SurvivalServers

[rabble-rouser 3]

Thanks for the heads up should be a nice bit of info for people waiting on verification and an InstanceID.

[mgsloth 12]

This is just a question related to this thread regarding GSP's that would like to provide Dayz hosting to it's current or future customers.

Instead of GSP's submitting each and every customer request for an instance ID, Have you thought about seperating the GSP's from others requests?

I understand this is a first come first serve approach, but would't that make things easier on you as well as the GSP? Maybe authorize a block of ID's? to the GSP?

A seperate order form maybe?

I know I can submit as many requests at a time , but most GSP's would just be taking ID's they may or may not use in hopes of filling them with a customer..

I guess I am just wondering if you are thinking of something that makes the Instance ID approval faster for GSP's...

Thanks.

[urbanfox 116]

This is just a question related to this thread regarding GSP's that would like to provide Dayz hosting to it's current or future customers.

Instead of GSP's submitting each and every customer request for an instance ID, Have you thought about seperating the GSP's from others requests?

I understand this is a first come first serve approach, but would't that make things easier on you as well as the GSP? Maybe authorize a block of ID's? to the GSP?

A seperate order form maybe?

I know I can submit as many requests at a time , but most GSP's would just be taking ID's they may or may not use in hopes of filling them with a customer..

I guess I am just wondering if you are thinking of something that makes the Instance ID approval faster for GSP's...

Thanks.

At this time, no, all requests must go through the same sign-up system. This is reguardless of if the order comes from a GSP or someone who just rented a dedicated server for their own personal, non-commercial use.

[umandez 139]

Our community is patiently waiting and we understand that how much effort the team is putting in for us. (in your free time) so we are hugely appreciative.

There is one minor problem with our order though... even though I selected slot count to be either 50 or 60 I can't remember it says on our order it is 30 but I put in a ticket along side it with the request ID so hopefully you'll see it.

Safari must have been my problem there :P don't even know why its installed.

[urbanfox 116]

Our community is patiently waiting and we understand that how much effort the team is putting in for us. (in your free time) so we are hugely appreciative.

There is one minor problem with our order though... even though I selected slot count to be either 50 or 60 I can't remember it says on our order it is 30 but I put in a ticket along side it with the request ID so hopefully you'll see it.

Safari must have been my problem there :P don't even know why its installed.

Can you PM me the ticket number?

[umandez 139]

Can you PM me the ticket number?

Sure thing, one moment.

Edited August 25, 2012 by Dez.

[urbanfox 116]

UPDATE: It's been roughly 34~ hours and we are currently working on orders from August 16th. THIS IS A DECEIVING way to gauge progress, however, since orders are submitted in waves. For a more accurate assessment, in the past 34~ hours the team has processed about 38-40% of the orders we need to get done by our deadline.

[umandez 139]

I try to PM you but I receive an error that you cannot receive any more PMs.

[h4zt3 43]

Keep up the good work! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[urbanfox 116]

I try to PM you but I receive an error that you cannot receive any more PMs.

Just bump the ticket then, I'll keep an eye out for it.

[urbanfox 116]

UPDATE: It's been roughly 48~ hours and we are currently working on orders from August 18th. THIS IS A DECEIVING way to gauge progress, however, since orders are submitted in waves. For a more accurate assessment, in the past 48~ hours the team has processed about 58-60% of the orders we need to get done by our deadline.

[urbanfox 116]

UPDATE: NO MORE UPDATES. DEADLINE MET EARLY.

[umandez 139]

Well done to the team.

[andreasb 45]

Nice picture. I actually have gigabit at home though, so yes.. Some ISP's do :D

[HostVenomLLC 0]

Nice picture. I actually have gigabit at home though, so yes.. Some ISP's do :D

But how much bandwidth are you allotted?

[andreasb 45]

But how much bandwidth are you allotted?

Unmetered :) I guess I would get a call if I used 1 gigabit constantly, but thats not the case :) Do you know how hard it is to even use 100mbit continuesly?