I'm glad to see night time back with the moon because it makes for cool and creepy scenes like this:



Spooky!

The only issue is, it gets to be pitch black around the same time that the server is heavily populated. Me and the guys usually play from around 8pm (GMT) until anywhere from 12am to 3am most nights and we had to pack the game in because we couldn't see what we were doing. Base building and scavenging eventually has to come to a halt when you need someone to point a torch at a container for you!

So basically what I was thinking was.. why not work out a day & night cycle that gives you sunshine one day and night on another. For example..

Say you play on Monday..
It's on the 8am - 8pm cycle. Daylight, bright skies and almost no fog.

Then you come back on Tuesday..
Now we're on the 8pm - 8am cycle. Moonlight, darkness and scary rustlers hunting for jimmies.

Then just keep cycling that. Daytime one day, then night time the next. I'm not sure exactly what the multiplier would have to be for offsetting the time based on real world GMT because I'm shit at Maths but I reckon it would keep things fresh! You would have people preparing for a "day run" one day and a "night run" the next, each requiring different gear and play styles.

And we can shit our pants from looking at things like this..!

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I love the night time too, I just wish the full moon wasn't so fucking hard to make stay out!

Unfortunately changing the date/time offset on the server is a bit of a pain in the arse. I could indeed do it in a scheduled task when I restart the server, edit some text files before starting it up again at a different time offset from GMT. A variable timestamp would definitely solve some of our issues but would also confuse a lot of players who don't keep up with server changes etc.

It's something I'll definitely consider but only after some other avenues have been exhausted, what I'm looking into trying next is actually shortening the length of time it is dark for. Ideally though the fucking full moon would just stay out for everyone and we could all enjoy the awesomeness that is ARMA 2 at night

I'm going to put it back to daytime on the 10pm restart tonight, but I will continue trying different things out over in my test server. Really thought we'd finally hit the solution with this last patch I will get there eventually though. I've seen the player count drop off the last few nights and am aware its too dark for most past a certain time currently which is why I'm sadly going to have to turn nights off for now

possibly a #2 - 24/7 day time server on the new host?

i do like nights but every day in monochrome is tough. a cycle would be nice, or an alternative server with more light or a different time offset for people not in europe.

speaking of, im ready to help set up the new host whenever you are.

We don't have the player count to fill one server yet, I wouldn't want to fragment our player base further by adding a second server like that. Maybe one day when we are back to a 60 slot server but not right now

New server was ready to be ordered a couple of weeks back, I've been putting it off because its a german datacentre which I'm guessing would mean higher pings for you US guys. Haven't had luck finding a UK datacentre with competitive pricing yet but I'm still looking.

I'd rather we didn't go into an "Origins" style 4-hour cycle. It's great in writing, but when you see the big jumps in darkness every few minutes, it's jarring. I'd rather have real life time speed, just offset for suiting the most popular playing times.

I knew that'd be a bit obnoxious towards anyone not playing from the UK, that's the reason I thought of the alternating cycle but I can see how that could confuse new players. Anything for variation, really. Base building is already a fantastic (if imperfect) addition to keep the end-game interesting and fun.


Honestly I think splitting up the servers would be a bad idea. Keep everyone together, knowing each other and a sense of belonging. The only reason to have a second server in my opinion, is for deathmatches and/or server events.

(Unless of course Zero Survival gets really populated and you need to make room for 40+ players each night, in which case fair enough!)

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that is true. i wonder if people are leaving completely because of it.

i know i will be playing a lot less if the only times i can play in the day is on the weekends. i love the nights, but not enough to play solely at night. a cycle would be cool. i had mentioned something like that before, alternating days where night is skipped completely.

once the full moon is fixed it will be great. cycles would make it even better. feels like im playing on an old black and white TV from the 50's.

Yeah I've not actually played origins but I've read about the weird lighting effects increasing the transition of time can bring with it on opendayz. I'm thinking more along the lines of server restarts at say 10pm, goes from total daytime to night time + full moon. Then at say 4am for the next restart it reverts to day time.

One thing is for sure I will definitely be trying everything I can to bring nights back as soon as I can, I had great fun killing fools in the dark with Z on Tuesday. Americans should just all move to the UK

my time, 5pm - 10pm = darkness

yeah, i guess i will be seeing you guys on the weekend...

nights are fun, thats for sure. but you and Z try playing only in the dark from the time u get home to the time you go to bed, every day.

i have many videos of me rockin dudes at night...so its not like i hate it cuz i cant kill or move around or do anything, it just gets old real fast if thats the only condition you can play in. leave the nights as it is if you and Z dont see any issues, and people will adapt.

Exactly why there needs to be a compromise. If it's set in stone, you'll lose some people to situations like this.

Add a bit of variety, and you'll attract all kinds of players and keep as many people happy as possible. I know I'm just saying it like it's easy because I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to server side code.. or any code for that matter, but it's just something to consider.

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I agree and I can also see the advantages of "dark nights" on set days, it still all relies on me fixing the full moons unless you guys are happy with local date/time and one - two nights a month where its possible to see more than 10 metres in front of you without nvgs. I will keep working on it and will definitely try and automate the changing of server date time between a restart if that's the most viable solution.

Naturally, the moon fix is a big want on everyone's list, but hopefully when Rocket gets back and signs the new patch it might bring some fixes with it.

For the mean time, the alternating cycle offers a solution for everybody. In fact, some people actually like the pitch black night (freaks!) so everyone should be happy at some point.

How does the server deal with restarts? Is it just controlled by a cPanel timer of sorts or is there a config file? Is there any way to have, say, four different ".ini" files, each identical except for the setting of the time launched at each restart? (LightDay.ini, DarkDay.ini, LightNight.ini & DarkNight.ini etc.)

..I don't know. I don't even know what the fuck I'm talking about when it comes to this stuff!

I trust you'll figure out the best solution either way, Seaweed.

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is it possible to set it so when there is the cycle change, from skipping a night to adding a night, the night begins normally with a dusk, then night?

like say at the 10pm restart, kick the time to 6pm (step 1), so there is a slow transition and people can adjust instead of a sudden SNAP, darkness when they log back in after the restart.

im trying to think of how we can make it smooth for the players. like oh shit...its starting to get dark, i need to go get this plane somewhere safe and grab my NVGs from my tent.

then at the 4am restart, (step 2) set the time to 7am in game and the night will transition to day normally. then at the 10am restart, (step 3) set it to noon and leave it there for 36 hours and then repeat step 1.

gives us the awesome cycle, alternating nights and smooth realistic time transitions. might be too much work tho.

If I do fail on the full moon thing, I would like to have say 3 nights a week where its dark from like 8pm gmt till around 6am gmt, that way everyone would get a "dark night" US or EU. The other days I would switch the config file out for a static time one at noon, or maybe mix it up and set it to different times which are still light.

It's all pretty basic as Zom-B says, create a few txt files and stick rename them in a batch file on server restart. Give me a day or two to finally give up on the full moon and I'll try it regardless of how black it gets. The strange thing is some hives report they have full moons running others say the same problems as us. I need to try and connect to a few and see if they really do have a full moon for the full night...

Sweet I've missed night play.
Keep it to normal real world conditions and moon cycles (not always full moon), it makes players actually learn to use lighting objects and not just run around like spastics in the open since it's revealing their positions.
One of my fondest memories of DayZ was back before it took off with only a handful of servers and when you could find friendlies in sidechat who wouldn't shoot you in the face if you meet up.
Meet up with a group of about 4 in Elektro in the pitch black aided by flares, we all attached glowsticks to our bodies and made our way through the woods and wild following each other to Cherno looting and getting geared up.
Then we got engaged by a sniper with NVGs and probably a DMR, and 2 in the group went down, but damn was it fun.

Actually, the sun starts coming up(Dawn) @ around 4:30am in-game time in DayZ. By 5-5:30 am, it's usually already fairly bright.

Seaweed, why not set up hosting in the Netherlands? It's cheaper than UK and the ping difference shouldn't be huge, since the hardline for US-Europe is the same one as US-UK.

I like nights, but the pitch black version is only fun for guys with NVG's

Also, the current bug with nights seems to be that the full moon is working for some time, then suddenly switches off for everyone. Completely logging out and back in solves the problem, until it happens again.

confirmed. told any new people to relog if they lost the moon.