cifordayzserver

Sorry all, it's been a hectic few weeks... Good news though, Plisken got back to us and has done some SLA units so you guys get an opfor! Going to get the next map release buttoned up, then the next DayZ Sahrani version, then this and hopefully the buildings package as well.. Might be a week or two.

1. I find it odd to infer youth and then use z's in place of s's, or use the word "gank" really at all. ;-P 2. The RULES for operating a DayZ Server attached to the public hive (where all player data is stored for all other dayz servers), the server must have BE enabled, it must be available 24/7 to the public, and it CAN NOT have a password. That was the only way server hosting was available... feel free to see the rules as outlined in their forums: http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/62195-server-hosting-rules-updated-3009/ 3. Signature checks (v2 always for me thanks) and BE did absolutely nothing to stop the onslaught of hackers, script kiddies, and exploiters that ruined a once great game until it was taken to private hives... where admin abuse became a huge issue due to all the tools they ran... however you were actually safe from hackers unlike on BE enabled servers. 4. I think many Arma guys are missing the fact that DayZ is not a mission, and it's not something meant to be played in an orderly pre-defined way at certain times. - DayZ is a persistent multiplayer game, so the servers can't get shut down or only play at certain times, because the game never ends... - The thing that makes DayZ so attractive is the Risk and Reward, and fear of loss.... There would be literally ZERO point in playing DayZ in a closed community with nothing but friends at predetermined times. I'll use your analogy, bar fights with friends are better had in a pub than your house.... Frankly I love the idea of DayZ servers just living and breathing on their own so much, that I've kept my public hive server running for one year (as of today)... I haven't played on it regularly with my group of friends since January.... but I want it to be there for others to discover and play on.

Ha, Yes this was something we promised ourselves to do from the minute we started trying to find places to put Arma 2 buildings on Sahrani that are need for DayZ. The Markets for example are fantastic and no problem at all, there is even the 2nd model with a VERY deep foundation and steps built in.. Then there are residentials with literally just 2 inches of floorboards at the base. Even on flat surfaces grass would still pop through floorboards if a separate clutter cutter object wasn't placed down as well. We are at a stage right now where M1lkm8n really only needs to get shattering glass totally figured out, then we should be ready to apply the same standards to all the current buildings... One of our students has already gotten back to us with his 1st shots at opening a building on his own, and from my limited perspective it looks good. M1lkm8n will give it a proper once over and then we may already have another workhorse on the way to help lighting M1lkm8n's load. Due to our many projects, we are still trying to get the 1st proper session of Armaversity done and documented. After 2 or so of those I should have a How To written up and recorded. Hopefully that should REALLY get things moving forward quickly. I think with the right ease of access, intuitive instruction, direct intervention when needed and proper oversight many eager modellers who might have been previously overwhelmed or confused might find Arma Modding a lot more accessible. Once the tutorial, the next map release, and next DayZ Sahrani update are released, I will be taking a bit of a break. But hope to use the tutorial to start modelling some of the buildings myself in my spare time.

Mini update, We are pulling the large apartment buildings (dum_istan2_01) for now, they have a strange floorplan and shadow LOD issues... Original modeller is a college student and just back to school recently so it will be redone/fixed in due course. In the meantime M1lkm8n the one man Dev Team has finished up several buildings. - dum_olez_istan2 - dum_olez_istan1 - bouda_plech both with 2 different versions with the furniture proxied in differently in each so they don't all look the same, functioning shutters, glass and doors obviously. Should have a version ready for Thursday or Friday. This will also have a few other bug fixes as well. We have actually decided to take the time to make United Sahrani as well. After this next release, we will begin making all the changes made for United Sahrani... THEN we will begin making the map changes for the DayZ Version we have planned. It will reflect a total Unification of Sahrani including removal of all propaganda posters, and statues, removal/repair of ALL bombed/burned out buildings, complete removal of all tank traps, wrecks, and other clutter.... We will also expand/repair ALL the outlying islands, and many of the towns and cities are going to get expanded, as well as the addition of a few all new towns.... There will be quite a robust story taking the players from the end of United Sahrani right up until the moment DayZ begins on Sahrani. (sorry lol)... The idea is that we can use systems already built into DayZ code to affect the evidence of a catastrophe. So the map should be able to coexist in both Arma and DayZ. These will simply be additional selectable maps in the editor.

No I wouldn't disagree, for you, or other communities like Gunter's that host locked or heavily admined play sessions at given times, that's fine, and my points are mostly irrelevant to you. However if you want to run a persistent public open server then it is, which was what I was addressing. As a DayZ Server host, the rules are, NO password, and must be listed/public. Honestly, I see BE, antihack, and hacking in general as some sort of dark art, It looks amazing from where I'm sitting but it scares me and I don't "get it" I don't doubt you're right about my naivety, but I would call it optimistic, and frankly think my suggestion of offering the ability to spectate, players and their gear or rate of travel, is of little or no risk to BE, BI, players or server hosts in general... Tools (in some cases partially authored by you lol) are available now on Armaholic that have formed the base for countless hacking script packages that people then sell to cheaters. Seems like updating the server side tools available by default for admins is just a no brainer. I mean is spectating players, gear, and rate of travel seriously THAT scary of a prospect? Most custom anti hack for DayZ I have seen has literally NOTHING to do with BE. Maybe that is just chance? But I've talked to 15-20 server hosts who have custom antihack and ALL of them have BE turned off. Right now, there are over 2000 "Vanilla DayZ Chernarus" servers online... under 400 of those are attached the public hive, and that is due to the fact that you are not allowed to turn off BE and admins have zero control besides monitoring logs and banning hackers post facto. I haven't played the public hive (or any dayz mod really) lately but the lack of hackers on public hive might have to do with the numbers outlined above. I think my comments might need some clarification that they are entirely revolved around my experience with BE in the DayZ Public Server environment only. Obviously as stated above if you're in a closed, well secured community that only runs missions you are likely to never even encounter the type of problems we deal with.

Having worked in an industry that largely avoids the involvement of lawyers or courtrooms (unless absolutely needed), however is HEAVILY governed by contract law... and millions, and in some cases billions of dollars are at stake... EULA's are a "deadman's switch" so to speak... They are written by lawyers in order to protect the company that lawyer works for, ABOVE ALL ELSE. The Steam Workshop EULA is more about YOU not suing THEM for selling your assets after you say it's ok. Not about them taking them, and selling them w/o your permission. The problem for Steam is that if they do not "own" the material, they can not sell, or redistribute it. Steam, will not, has not, and never will, STEAL anything from anyone and sell it as their own or not compensate the original author.... Seeing as how the company has been around for over a decade, and there has NEVER been a case of theft, I don't really even get what this Tsunami of drama is about over it. I used to read and interpret contracts and determine liability "hidden" in them... so I will take a look at the EULA, but again, these things are written to be IRON clad in the case of someone suing THEM... so obviously by signing it you are basically handing them your first born as it were... Thing is, as bad as that sounds, I sign releases for my ACTUAL children's school that says they're allowed to lose, kill, or maim my child during that trip... but I'm pretty sure that's not actually their intent.. and I sign them, and send my kids off onto wonderful field trips that they have fun on, and learn... Can't always protect "your baby" from everything, part of being a good parent and adult is figuring out which battles are worth fighting.... IMO fighting BI's choice to facilitate addon author's profiting from their works and more easily and widely distributing their products is just reactionary at best. Seems to me like a lot of this uproar is based on irrational fear of Steam (a major and profitable company that distributes 100's of thousands of top quality games and as far as I know does not have a history or reputation of stealing assets or encouraging piracy), wants to take your addons and sell them without your consent or paying you? Unless I'm misunderstanding the fear or counter argument... I'm stumped as to how/why anyone would think that's "the plan"?

I will preface by saying, I have not admin'd an A3 server at all... but am pretty familiar with BE and it's efficacy (or complete lack there of) on DayZ Servers. Dwarden, your efforts, and knowledge regarding this situation are appreciated and greatly respected by myself, so PLEASE do not take offence. There is literally NOT ONE secure server on ALL of DayZ mod that relies on BE for security. ZERO, ZIP, ZILCH. BE is so regularly hacked around and scripted specifically for, that most server owners have it set off... ONLY the public hive servers are bound to leave BE enabled and not run external anti-hack which is why NO ONE plays or admins on the public hive anymore... well, that's not true, hackers play on it for 30min after new version releases so they can update their BE work arounds. SOME private hive servers, leave BE running but, they are for all intents and purposes ALSO running hacks that BE should be kicking or banning them for. Having been in approached by, and in contact with some of the A'holes that are responsible for the hacks, gotta say, they could not be any happier about BE's existence and BI's marriage to it. BE/BI relationship basically provide them an easy way to quickly sell their new batch of hacks, by telling BE how to detect their current batch so they can sell their "new ones" to the same folks all over again... Then you've got all the poor idiot server hosts that buy "anti hack" software from these F'ing guys. In DayZ you end up with entire mods, "created" (read copy/pasted/cherry picked from armaholic) that have NO CLUE about any of this and end up advertising for the very people that were creating their problems to begin with. Anyone who wants to see how wonderfully effective BE is and has been on DayZ for OVER a year (yes since Sep 2012 DayZ Public hive has been completely taken over by hackers, if a server gets over 20 people on it, HACKERS GUARANTEED) feel free to check out my youtube channel and enjoy such amazing things as "bus box heli's" and nukes going off in Elektro... all on a BE "protected" public hive server... all latest scripts all latest ban lists updated, everything done TO A TEE as per the official announcements and releases. The punchline of the whole thing for DayZ is, to be on the official hive you are NOT allowed to run 3rd part antihack and MUST leave BE enabled... The only way to admin a public hive DayZ server and keep it safe is to "hack" yourself, and thereby risk getting a GUID global banned once BE actually catches up... top notch system. I finally gave up, I changed the MOTD on my server 8-10 months ago basically informing all the players, I am totally at the mercy of BE and they do not allow me to actively admin the server, and do not update often enough or aggressively enough to prevent hacking... so, best of luck, nothing I can do. In an effort to "help" I ended up repeatedly getting my own GUID banned for attempting to pro-actively admin the server... FYI, lots if not all hackers just started making their scripts get executed from the text chat, and they put HUGE strings of text leading their scripts so that it would be beyond your character limit and never get detected. This of course doesn't even address the fact that memory hacking is now becoming more prevalent and is TOTALLY below the radar and out of the scope of BE's abilities.... ++++ I made this suggestion over 1 year ago... Lets try it again. There needs to be a trusted group of Server admins who are given official moderation tools, including spectate, inventory check, and rate of travel check, at the VERY LEAST (I would like to see the ability to pause a player or ALL players actions MID GAME, IE prevent them from causing further damage while you are trying to figure out if it's even them....) Think of an emergency shut off valve at a petrol station. ANY admin caught using those tools against the spirit of the community, will get a GUID global ban, if the same admin or server is caught doing this more than 2 times, it is permanent blacklist from the group. For ALL server hosts there should also be a player "whitelist" option AS WELL AS the banned hacker "blacklist". That's all. Hacking problem mostly if not entirely gone. Setup an automatic whitelist generator for clan websites so players can see the URL, atl/tab out, click the "Whitelist Me" button and boom they've been added. If they cheat, or act inappropriately they are immediately banned by the admin. Whitelisting makes hacking for the sake of griefing almost pointless and too much of a PITA for lazy script kiddies which is at least 70-80 percent of the problem. All that would really be needed is a report tracker for admin abuse. Could trusting and hiring dozens of "anti hack" programmers help or maybe even solve the problem? Maybe. Could it also lead to a HUGE security leak in your Co? Yup. Would trusting the admins of Arma servers and the players to conduct themselves in an honorable fashion work AND cost BI not one single penny??? Cheaper and more likely to work IMO.

Hello! Big Fan of your work. If there is anything our group or any of it's members can do to help or assist with your work we'd be honored to lend a hand. Keep up the great work!

That was def. not the intention of my post. I hope it's clear my wish is for the MLODs to simply be provided as a DL link on the BIKI with a simple license as they have in the past.

You know I/we are behind you kju, my only slight opposition to this though, is the suggestion that it should be given only to experienced or trusted authors... and hear me out. Should free Official DLC, much less Paid Official DLC be made by the general community? NO WAY. Should the source content only be available to those that are good enough to produce sale-able content for BI? NO WAY. I think what we need is the fully open sharing of the entire A2/OA and ALL DLC content for use similar to the A1 Mlod, IE no use outside of Arma and it's sequels. The only caveat required for the DLC, is that the textures, and units may NOT be used for A2 addons... and only the low res textures can be used for non official DLC. *edit* Removed for lack of clarity or relevance to topic.

Just a quick update to show an example of something that will be in our next build, and the building pack. A1 had NO industrial sheds you could enter, this is obviously quite a large problem for DayZ folks as that is where parts to repair cars are found... In our DayZ Sahrani build we simply put A2 sheds on the map to make it easy, but the goal has always been to get the original bouda_plecht open... however we like to do things "above and beyond' when we can, and add little interesting nuances to them: As you can see there is a latch on the door, similar to what represented in the texture of the original un-opened version: http://puu.sh/4wIoi.jpg (169 kB) Our plans are to add as much detail as possible to each building, sound, proper rubble, or destruction, materials, function... etc etc etc. ALSO worthy of note for terrain editors, or mission editors who add buildings, ALL our modified buildings are given foundations so they can be set on fairly un-even terrains without worries of the ground poking through in some spots! For our DayZ Version it will be possible to trap people inside this shed. teehee.

Video added to front page!

Please change my name to NonovUrbizniz might require an account merge. NonovUrbizniz nonovurbizniz@gmail.com and CiforDayZServer cifordayzserver@gmail.com

*reserved? There will likely end up being a lot of pics/media. Here are some of M1lkm8n WIP videos, he has a thing for only recording WIP and never finished buildings lol... Will fix that shortly. NM lol, Just re-watched some WIP vids and they need redone, I will do some comparo's here shortly.

We are in the final stages of training two new modellers for A2 building modelling. Our group has started a project of taking all the viable Arma 1 MLOD buildings and opening them up. A sub-project born of that is "ArmaVersity" we hope to spread the knowledge of every level of modding so that it is less of a journey for only the brave at heart! http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?160746-ArmaVersity-Est-2013-Are-you-ready-to-go-quot-Back-to-School-quot Our hope is to make the information widely available and accessible as well as provide a live environment where new modellers can share screens and get direct advice from experienced modders! We hope to start holding "Hangouts" on a regular basis where anyone can join and help teach or learn.

Good Points from Mikero! I am going to try to get a feel for Dev's current setup in the next week or so, see if I can offer any input. The Features Mikero mentions make is sound VERY enticing. Having dug around it a bit more since this thread was posted, I can say that I do encounter dead links fairly frequently, but not sure what can be done about that. The modding Bible is FANTASTIC. https://dev-heaven.net/projects/cmb/wiki

ArmaVersity had it's first test run session last night!!! It was VERY exciting, two guys who are competent 3d modellers began getting trained by M1lkm8n on the steps required to take a building from the A1 MLOD, and build out all the LODs in O2 and get it 100 percent ready for in game use. We are going to have these same two do 2-3 more sessions on buildings that are nearly identical so they are all reaching the same steps at the same point... hopefully by the end of 2-3 sessions we have 3 new enterabil buildings with all the LOD's AND 2 FULLY TRAINED new eager modellers ready to give back. I will be monitoring and recording the sessions in order to build tutorials that should be AMAZINGLY easy to follow for any kind of learner... One thing I've found is the Youtube video tutorials are not well documented enough, and the written tutorials lack visual aides to make it more clear. I am also in the middle of preparing a VERY basic Mission/Cinematic Tutorial with some examples packaged in SMD Sahrani, DayZ Sahrani, AND the SMD_Assets package. Due to permissions and lack of support for dependencies in most DayZ launchers we will likely have to splinter the SMD_Assets packages to SMDZ_Assets and SMD_Assets to avoid you arma folks getting all kinds of lovely "Cannot load zombie animations" warnings lol... I'm sure that would go over well...

Well folks, we've got another update in the pipe with a few new buildings by M1lkM8n. I'm not sure even how to quantify how much of this project is his work alone... Map, Majority of the buildings, and all of the configs, and animations for destructions... The SMD_Assets release has basically everything that he didn't do which is the smallest pbo! We are working on getting Pliskin back to making some SLA units which have been requested but he's been quite busy with work and unable to dedicate any time. The main programmer, and other building modeller are back at work/school respectively, and I myself am likely going to be going back to work. We should have the next version of the map out within a week or two at most and it should be VERY polished, and have quite a few more enterable buildings. +++ ArmaVersity had it's first test run session last night!!! It was VERY exciting, two guys who are competent 3d modellers began getting trained by M1lkm8n on the steps required to take a building from the A1 MLOD, and build out all the LODs in O2 and get it 100 percent ready for in game use. We are going to have these same two do 2-3 more sessions on buildings that are nearly identical so they are all reaching the same steps at the same point... hopefully by the end of 2-3 sessions we have 3 new enterabil buildings with all the LOD's AND 2 FULLY TRAINED new eager modellers ready to give back. I will be monitoring and recording the sessions in order to build tutorials that should be AMAZINGLY easy to follow for any kind of learner... One thing I've found is the Youtube video tutorials are not well documented enough, and the written tutorials lack visual aides to make it more clear. I am also in the middle of preparing a VERY basic Mission/Cinematic Tutorial with some examples packaged in SMD Sahrani, DayZ Sahrani, AND the SMD_Assets package. Due to permissions and lack of support for dependencies in most DayZ launchers we will likely have to splinter the SMD_Assets packages to SMDZ_Assets and SMD_Assets to avoid you arma folks getting all kinds of lovely "Cannot load zombie animations" warnings lol... I'm sure that would go over well...

As you have been for so many years, you are a HERO!!!!! Thanks for this!

When we got the files we got, it was sort of a perfect storm moment, I can put in an additional request for Porto, but my guess is as follows: 1. They are rightfully busy with other things and will not have time 2. They may be in the middle of deciding whether or not to release some A1 terrains as MLOD samples #2 is a COMPLETE stab in the dark, #1 is almost for sure. I will send out an official request in the next couple days and see where it goes, but with BI I've found it takes a perfect combination of patience, persistence, luck, and timing. Thanks so much for the kind words, we should have another version buttoned up here in the next few days, then will circle the wagons on the buildings completed so far, and release them as a package for map makers to use. Hopefully begin the Armaversity training sessions and get some more eager modders to work!

While I like the spirit of this I think the regimentation and implication that mods outside of the badge somehow are lacking is not a healthy or productive method. This sort of dissemination of method and information was and remains one of the main goals of our group. Unfortunately we are still buttoning up our methodologies and staging in order to begin lessons. http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?160746-ArmaVersity-Est-2013-Are-you-ready-to-go-quot-Back-to-School-quot&highlight=armaversity We should begin training the first few aspiring modellers within the next few weeks. We will first train a few guys that are pretty far along, but missing the last bits and bobs... Then we will have the work reviewed by some of the top level modders who have agreed to help. Once everything is reviewed and approved the steps are documented and added to the library of tutorials. The idea is eventually to have eager new modders grab assets from the A1 (and hopefully A2 shortly) MLOD... they mark that asset as being worked on... they can post about whatever issues or problems they are having and get direct assistance. We hope to eventually stimulate an environment where much like the current skype channels where expert community members offer their advice to others, are now able to view and share their desktops real time without so much as clicking out of the chat environment. We've been quite swamped with the Map and Buildings, and DayZ project, but we are reaching a stage now where we should be able to focus on sharing the knowledge we've gained with the community. I have been in contact with Dwarden as well about contributing these tutorials and other documentation to the BIKI and here in order to sure the information is widely available to all. As a relatively new member of this community, I find the passion of the players and modders of this community to be second to none, and our whole group is honored to have been treated so well by so many! We can not wait to start really giving back beyond just asset/map contributions.

I think OP just needs to realize that the folks doing it are doing a great job, and that they have a LOT on their plates. You can't be everywhere at once, although as shown above Dwarden tries to disprove this assertion. From what I understand they are planning on expanding and it would appear possibly in a few different ways which would ease the burden on the current staff and provide even more support and information. But also keep in mind that rapidly expanding companies NEED to take the time to make the RIGHT decisions, especially when something as near and dear as Arma is at stake. From my perspective, I see a LOT more developers posting here, and offering advice or replying to PM's here than at any other gaming or other company I've ever dealt with. The open spirit of sharing and community here seriously warms my heart. Just think... a game about war would make me want to hug everyone. Arma: This is War(ming my heart)

Is there a chance at integrating with Play With Six? It would very beneficial to have more synergy between production and publication. In general I think stimulating the atmosphere for creation and facilitating the distribution of the content created would be a lot more incentive for devs to use Dev Heaven. For example, if there was an "all in one" approach. I really think that there is a perfect storm waiting to happen in regards to development and integration with social media. Google+ is pretty close to being the crux of it all IMO. ability to share screens and co develop. as well as communicate to a community and share updates quickly.. and google drive for sharing/hosting manual DL files... You guys get a development backend tied into that and THAT would be something amazing IMO. Even if it's just adding some sort of basic "share" feature for updates and information or a devblog or something.

As someone who comes from the DayZ Community, and waded my way into this one, and then really figured out what this whole world was about, I have to say I'm astounded this wasn't done in January of this year. I have been recommended something similar since April I think for companies it's just more difficult to make bold decisions, and especially to do so in a rapid manor. Would they have benefited from doing so? Yes, I think so, however when there is a lot at stake, you owe it to yourself and your customers to take all decisions seriously. Obviously I think this would be an amazing idea. One of my fears though is loss of community members through becoming full time employees and then tasked with internal goals, instead of focusing on the amazing work they've been doing from the outside. @Nou, IMO, you would not be ideal for this task at all. You should be one of the consultant/contractors that they pay to continue your work, licenses assets for their internal use in A3, AND you should be allowed to monetize your mod... I think that realistically ACE needs to exist on it's own, but obviously also feel parts of it should be built into both A3 AND DayZ Standalone... Frankly I think you should be getting 2-3 salaries and different but equally impressive checks from BI to license your work, AND be allowed to monetize ACE3 on steam for example.... For you to take focus off the amazing WORK you do in order to coordinate a task I think would be a waste of amazing technical prowess, and I think you working "in house" for BI would be like Steve Jobs working at Microsoft.... Bill and Steve talked, and took cue's from each other's work, but could you imagine how boring the world would be without BOTH? *Edit Oh and for the record my #1 pick "has left the building" but should still get a reparations check lol.

Sorry folks, been busy again, will get this all bundled up and re-updated. I'm trying to make it work with the zombie unit's we've made as well for DayZ, but since it depends on DayZ it will give A2 folks errors... so if I can't figure it out, I'll just have to make 2 different versions. Don't want to give you guys error messages for silly zombie stuff... I might be able to get permission to package the zombie attributes with the package though, so people could use them for movies, missions etc, but not sure if that will get OK'd or not.