I've seen the huge drop off in numbers since the patch, I think it's pretty universally unpopular right now. There is a proposed update on the way which will help in some regards I'm sure.

I hate to be paying so much money for a machine that is hardly being used right now, we have the capacity to run 2 or more servers at high player counts. There are several routes I can proceed

- Run 1.7.6.1 alongside 1.7.7 - This would require minimal setup on my part, I could use our old database with all the old bases or just wipe them. There would be no whitelisting or stats for this server and I can't promise the amount of admin time I devote to the whitelisted one.

- Run another map or mod server - There's a whole load of others maps for DayZ, I've been running a Chernarus server for so long I haven't even had a chance to play some of them. A chance to explore Taviana for example with you guys would be cool.

- Roll the main server back to pre 1.7.7 - I like running on the latest patch, understandably that brings some issues with it's current state. What's the point in taking part in a mod which is meant to be driven by community feedback if you aren't a part of the development process. This patch hasn't been out long enough for the devs to react to feedback yet, there have been patches that "break" the game like this many times before...


Ultimately if I am running two servers they need to be populated, pre 1.7.7 we had an average player count of 10+, peaking at 40+ players. I do not want to run 2 servers which both have 5 people in and fragment the player base. Let me know what you guys think and what your reasons for leaving are.

My opinion and the buddies i play with is pretty much the same, this patch isnt that bad. The only part that is not so great are the zombies/antibiotic war. I would say wait a bit longer untill this gets fixed. If its not fixed set the server a patch back.

I don't know to be honest, as I said multiple times before, I don't mind keep playing on the same patch, the only reason I haven't been active / will be active the following days is because I have exams.

First of all I hope the devs fix the loot / infection problems, that will, atleast I hope, bring a lot of people back.

In the meantime I think a rollback isn't a good idea, I would be more interested in discovering the new maps, I have never played on another map than Chernarus so a new experience might be cool so I would vote for that.

Greets
Ebby

i think a taviana server could be good for a while, but i just like taviana so im gonna say that

Only reason i don't play it as well as here on zero survival is that i just can't find a good taviana server (read a server that a script kiddie doesn't come on and ruin within half an hour of me joining)

Yeah id vote for another map just to keep things fresh.

Im 'successful' in 1.7.7 but its really boring....im not sure why. I guess its more about survival now and once you are able to survive then its just a case of playing the game to see if/when you die.

Then start over again.

Theres plenty other maps out there and id be interested in trying out any one of them....as long as the pop count rises again. Never thought id say this.....but i miss the old pvp days :/

I think a lot of people have a diffrent understanding of what the game is for them compared to the developpers. Devellopers want a survivor game, most people want to kill other people^^

Personally I think the new patch just needs some small adjustments, mostly:

- Infection rate needs reducing, I haven't looked through the code but it feels like you can't survive more than 4 zombie bites without an infection. Due to the glitchyness of zombies in general avoiding bites at all times is never possible.
- Spawn rate on anti biotics is literally ridiculous
- Zombie knock down is too common, the zombies themselves are a tiny bit too hard to lose too and you gain agro from really far away. Crouch walking is the only way to loot currently and that still results in agro.

I'm glad they went back more in the survival direction, and it does remind me of my early days with the mod in some respects. However for me they have simply made it far too frustrating to play. I had 4 or 5 characters since this patch, I got one kill and all 5 died early on due to zombie infections. In one life I used 3 sets of antibiotics only to get immediately reinfected straight after.

I'm happy to try and find some time to run a second server for another map, but as I said in my OP I want to give you guys a reason to still play here. When this patch is "stable" and the kinks are ironed out I have a lot of time I need to spend merging all the mods we had before. Setting up a second server and keeping it going will detract from the time I can spend on this, I also don't want to fragment the player base further and have 2 empty servers....

well in both cases youre surviving while in one, youre accomplishing 2 goals...staying alive and killing people.

unfortunately you can only do 1 with the pop so low. i can go on and survive for weeks but i will watch my humanity drop (or rise, depending on how you look at it) with no one to replenish it.

if the developers didnt want you to kill people, why include so many guns? why are there more types of guns than there are animals (5) to kill? in rockets latest interview with jackfrags, he talks about how he still plans on having thermal weapons and jack speaks up and says he doesnt believe those guns have a place in dayz. my point is, who are we to say what the game is developed for and how it should be played? it's what you make of it and i think its awesome for the survivalist to try and live with the elements and other players against him.

as for my 2 cents on what to do...anything to get the numbers back up but i dont mind waiting till reality is fixed and seaweed can make sweet love to the code and give us what we want. i enjoyed taviana back when we were on the original host.

I said this elsewhere:


I am all for a new map at the moment. I would love to log in to a Sahrani/Namalsk/Tavi server and play with the guys who are normally active here. I think each map has their positives and negatives so we would probably need to have a poll or some sort of vote to see which is more popular.

Taviana seems like it could be quite fun to explore but i'm not all that keen on the art direction and it seems a bit cartoonish from what i have played.

Namalsk has a great PvP/Survival aspect that delivers more of the "zombie apocalypse survivor" aspect (but still fun) than any other map while keeping you on your toes with awesome PvP since it is a smaller map. The map delivers more adrenaline to me than any other and I am still yet to explore most of it.
Also the Electromagnetic storm that happens with a 5 minute warning for you to get in a building is awesome for interupting PvP etc and creating epic moments.

Sahrani I have only played once, Today. I thought it was awesome even though I only explored a fraction of the map. The server I was on had a lot of custom buildings though, so i really cant really say too much about it. I like how I had no idea about every place I went since there are no lootmaps.

Panthera is quite fun for a quick death match but it's a bit "immature" for how we play on this server, in my eyes.


I would most like to see a Namalsk server, with hopefully a lot of our additions from previous patch on chernarus (if thats possible) like skinning, knockout, dynamic crashes, etc. I want to kill people, and this is the map for it. It causes players to go out of their comfort zone to survive (getting warm clothes, staying in low ground to stay warm, looting a town for that oh so rare food and drink). It's harder than chernarus, but it is still great fun.

If not, my second vote is for Sahrani just because it is new and many people have not explored it.

I survive quite a lot of zombie hits and iv been saying this to my SFG mates; I hardly ever run anywhere, even in forests, im always crouched. Iv been hit plenty of times, I just seem to find I dont get infected as often as other people when im crouched. Could just be me being very lucky, but I get infected A LOT less than others. Its more an observation than a tip, and I still get infected when crouched, just 'rarely' in comparison to others.

Again, not sure if this is luck or code.

edit - If a new map will take your focus away from the whitelist, make the new map available just until this hotfix arrives?

I just cant stand the boredom of running around empty servers with only zombies to worry about. :,(

The new patch certainly has some good features included, but theyre out weighed in my opinion by all the bugs that still persist in dayz. The new features are just a pain when combined with pre existing issues e.g. the infection and its frequency, as well as knockdowns, when mixed with poor zombie hit detection and erratic pathing make for extremely frustrating gameplay. They have just added broken features ontop of pre existing broken features, I just cant see what the logic is for that, surely it makes more sense to fix everything first then try and improve on what youve got.

Although I am having a bit of a moan, I am surviving perfectly well atm but I feel like all I am doing is hunting for antibiotics, which is a chore because they are as rare as rocking horse poo or that unicorn they found in North Korea (<<<let this be an example that drugs are bad). The pvp or the unpredictabilty that you get from any sort of player encounter is what 90% of the community(including me) play it for, so getting chased by OP zombies and hunting for antibiotics doesnt make my heart race or the hairs stand up on my neck and it never will.

1.7.7 is a patch in my opinion that will be too unforgiving in regards to new players, I can just see them logging on and going through a cycle of Infection/searching for antibiotics/death, then eventually giving up on the game.

I just hope that something can be done soon but I doubt it, reading most of Razors posts on the dayzmod forums make him look like he is either arrogant or just totally ignorant to his mistakes, this isnt helped by the bum lickers on there that help to continually inflate his ego and give abuse to anyone who dares criticise the patch.

so its nice to see you doing the opposite Seaweed and actually listening and engaging in the correct manner with your community.

I think a new map would be nice to freshen things up but again I think the majority will probably want a rollback, either way I'll be playing where the masses are. Get a poll up and post something in the admin channel that reposts everytime someone logs in and tells them they can vote on the direction the servers will take until 1.7.7 has its issues resolved.

I'm all for a new map for the moment until the bugs in 1.7.7 are ironed out, this patch has killed our server pop ='(. i think we should poll a couple of the other maps see what the general consensus is. I'd like to get the same big groups back on here to get some more dynamic firefights, Namalsk has to be the most terrifying and unforgiving map i have personally played and would probably get my vote(unless somebody can sway me otherwise).

i love Chernarus and the community we had built around it, it would be a colossal shame to see all the hard work of the past 6-8 months wasted because of bugs in this particular patch, and I would like to return to Chernarus once the issues are resolved.

That said i do think that a lot of people have gone OTT with their reaction to this patch, I think the mindset of people in our particular server should lend itself well to the new patch as almost all of us roll around in groups, alas this has not seemed to be the case ='(.

we need solidarity as a community in order to find a solution that benefits us all in the short term, at least until i can start parachuting out of planes onto the chernarus grain silos again =D.

*EDIT* i have so far found no bugs with the way loot spawns in the new patch, some items being more common/uncommon is not a bug its different loot tables. even on the old patch you could go to places and there be no loot. (first person to tell me not to drive up to loot spawns will be abducted and made to give my SVD a blowjob)

how many hours have you put in looting since the update? i just played alone in the server and both north and south barracks (NWA) spawned nothing aside from 2 pepsi's and a HE grenade in the shower of the north barracks. I ran to the ATC and fire station and then returned to both just in case i got there"too quickly" No loot. Nothing was in the ATC as well, but there was a MP5 in the fire station. If loot is really this rare, then it will make the journey to the north pointless. So many flaws in this patch its unbelievable and im not just talking about loot.

On a side note, I ran through Vybor, not crouch walking and not crawling around like a sissy (as some have suggested doing in another thread) and I was able to loot the market and office building which both had nothing worth taking (no maps, no tents) but it goes to show that the game style of a player doesnt need to change to avoid the shitty bugs/chances of being infected. You just have to get lucky and not get caught in some bad zombie hit detection and random infection math. I did try crouch walking (not crouch running) at stary tents and i picked up an aggro from behind the long barn. it was funny to hear an aggro, wonder where it came from, then see a russian zombie come running out from behind a barn 100m away.

The only thing about this patch that reminds me of the "old dayz" is the weird bugs and glitches that were abundant when i first started playing.

namalsk would be fun. sure hope the regulars download and play it.

The strangest thing about this whole patch for me is that for all the criticisms you see it getting on here, they are not universal. If I read reddit or dayzmod forums, some people share the same contentions as most of us but the more vocal majority seem to be in favor of the patch e.g - http://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/1 ... tion_rate/

The dayzmod forums have always been a circle jerk over anything they release to a point, but reddit has always been pretty inline with my opinions in the past. I've seen a lot of new patch posts this weekend though and all have had more positive feedback than negative.

i'd completely forgotten about namalsk, i wouldn't mind that map either , though i think we should all agree not to camp the bottom of the ladder of the underground bunker.... cause thats just cheap (and there is truly nothing you can do about someone camping there :/)

I think a New map while thinks are broken could be fun, I would love to play some taviana but my only problem with this map is that it takes a while to get geared up etc etc. In namalsk on the other hand gearing up is pretty easy. The problem with slowly gearing up is that you are probably attached to your gear and if the fix comes out you'll probably lose it all if that server gets taken down.

I personnally dont have that many problems with the new patch, but I wouldn't mind plaing an other map while most people don't wanna play this patch right now.

taviana would be good. I've not had chance to explore that map properly.

Updated OP with a poll

Voted for Taviana, my hearth can't handle seeing the server pop so low

* [UPDATED] - More reliable loot spawns.
* [UPDATED] - Infection rates are much lower (based on #zeds attacking you) viral zeds have 4x greater infection rates
* [UPDATED] - player knockdown by zeds should be less common.

New updates on the forum, hope they get implemented soon but in the meanwhile we could discover a new map perhaps indeed

I'm not bothered what version we play to be honest.
There may well be a fix tpday anyways :-

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/top ... changelog/

I think the new patch is great. But I think the knockdown rate is slightly too much, the infection rate needs turning down a tad..even 10% less would be fine. And antibiotics are just too rare.

I like the difficulty of the new zombies. But the fact remains that presently they are just too glitchy for the current infection rates to be fair and playable.

It's fine making the game harder, i'm all up for that. But they seem to have forgot that a game is played for enjoyment. So above all, it at least needs to be fun.

1.7.7 Fanboys gonna hate.

SEAWEED, I'LL MAKE A VIDEO INTRO FOR Z.S. & NEW FORUM DESIGN IF YOU DOWNGRADE THE SERVER

More goodies in-coming.

Sry for capslock. :>

_________________

YES

That's the change I was looking to see, number of zeds attacking you at one time rather than whatever dumb system they currently have sounds A LOT better.

The rarity of the antibiotics I can always take care of myself after the patch anyway in my own loot tables. Here's hoping they get this hotfix out pretty soon and it doesn't introduce any new bugs

honestly i'm all for running the main server on 1.7.6.1 ! I'v had tons of fun since i found this server and now that 1.7.7 is out the game is honestly not for me if it's 10000 unbeatable zombies against you. I'm finding myself playing on fun servers with 1000 vehicles which is fun for the moment, but will get stale pretty soon. Old zerosurvival with bases, omen chasing me with a plane and the general atmosphere was great and my best dayz experience so far.

YES!

if our server pop was up, id play no matter what. id be annoyed by the bugs and shitty implementation of "features" trying to make the zeds harder, but i would still play. its the lack of player count that keeps me from playing longer.

if i could vote for 2, it would be taviana or namalsk but im voting for taviana because it has more substance in my opinion. i just hope we get more people playing it.

can we have it be a permanent map running along side Chenarus? (a nice break from chenarus every now and again)