Arma2 servers are a problem

Hi

last night i hit a problem in arma2 that surprised me. especially with all the talk of not enough people playin mp.

i joined one server. tbgaclan or something like that. it looked good as it had a low ping and 57/60 players. So i tried to connect. and was promptly recieved a messgae that i was banned. banned! great experience that. It said i had unsigned addons (which were the tracked sounds and RHS sounds - all of which had keys plus the english moddfolder which also had a key). i removed all addons from my startup line and tried to reconnect. same response. I am banned. for what reason i had no idea.

so i tried another server. i got in fine. played for about 5 minutes. just long enough to get to an objective when i got kicked. now i had only fired at OPFOR in a UAZ far in the distance once and missed. nothing else. certainly no TKing or swearing.

well fuck that for a nights fun. I fired up a SP mission and played that instead.

I have played a lot of OFP, Arma and now arma2. In Arma I used to play on tactical gamer as it was all about teamwork and great missions together. but this was a bad experience simply trying to connect.

If the MP community is going to grow then perhaps admins of servers may consider making the play experience a little friendlier and maybe even letting people play on their servers?

Hi twisted

Most major clans used the first month of public gaming to gather evidense of cheaters, TKs and griefers and it has been very effective. Contact the server admin or clan court and ask them to review your case.

Most public servers do not permit any MODs those that do list what they permit. It may be that you missinstalled your language pack. One of the early language packs over wrote core ArmA files rather than working from a MOD folder that may be your problem.

Kind Regards walker

There's a certain default server signature config that actually has a auto-ban on "hacked" data (instead of a simple kick) which has been putting some people on banlist for using for example a language mod without using the -mod method

I got kicked from a couple of servers last night for having that chinook.pbo lol ...TBG clan was one of them.

Hi twisted

Most major clans used the first month of public gaming to gather evidense of cheaters, TKs and griefers and it has been very effective. Contact the server admin or clan court and ask them to review your case.

Most public servers do not permit any MODs those that do list what they permit. It may be that you missinstalled your language pack. One of the early language packs over wrote core ArmA files rather than working from a MOD folder that may be your problem.

Kind Regards walker

thanks but i use -mod folders and never change core files. my language file is reference via -@english

won't bother asking them to review my case. that kind of draconian admin style is reprehensible to the extreme and hinders a community that should be growing not being over managed and cut dowbn.

I was banned on a server two days ago too right after joining. Mods installed = 0. So thats nonesense. For me the problem was that the Harddisk was still busy exporting stuff to my external drive and loading mission took a bit longer, nothing extrodinary though. If they ban me for that, who xxx cares? I dont depend on some stupid server admin who thinks he had developed the hyper-algorythms how to keep out the bad apples. There are tons of other great servers out there and usually my presence is rather con- than destructive.

Maybe if you're unlucky and there's a transfert error during keys exchange, or a bug in hash calculations, etc... and admin used the default configs from the biki (which has a BAN instead of a KICK for certain entries), you'll end up banned

I know I've also had complaints on my server about people banned for no reason, I changed this entry, and since (even though the server is now barely used due to me removing crCTI causing crash, and not playing and Evo/Dom on it) have had zero complaint (and a empty ban file)

it's the english mod. i tried to reconnect and it mentioned that i use modified CA; @english.

well, if i have to choose between understanding what i am reading or playing on that server I'll choose understanding.

75th server worked well and had lotsa fun. as did a AAS server. AAS is more fun than i thought it would be.

the only thing i think i have added that could be causing these problems is the no blur mod. I removed the tag in my shortcut but still the same problem. Is there anyway someone could upload the original bin.pbo for a uk bought game? it's just i overwrote that when i applied the mod :( maybe that is still causing a problem for me. Thanks

Ive noticed Server stability with JIP is as bad as it was with Arma 1.08.

im guessing Server Admins are more cautious with Overseas Pings with Arma II in its current state.

Ive seen some shocking Dysnc compared to Arma v1.16

as a server admin I can pass along this info

Alot of people are getting kicked after de-installing mods but have bad shortcuts... so far, even after they tell me 25 times, their shortcut is fine.. it has turned out to be their shortcut...

try making new shortcuts and see if you still get kicked...

as a server admin I can pass along this info

Alot of people are getting kicked after de-installing mods but have bad shortcuts... so far, even after they tell me 25 times, their shortcut is fine.. it has turned out to be their shortcut...

try making new shortcuts and see if you still get kicked...

my shortcut right now is "F:\program files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2\arma2.exe" -nosplash -xp -mod=@english;@CBA

I don't understand why so many servers don't allow mods, it seems arma admins whether its arma1 or 2, either they know how to disable addons completely or they allow anything. How about using the signed addon feature guys? What do you have to lose by allowing VOP, especially on dedicated coop servers.

I've run into so many jerk admins as well, you are either in their clan or you are a mindless noob who gets kicked if you make a suggestions or get in a vehicle the admin wanted (ie SEALZ, Charliefoxtrot, etc)... usually right after they say "go back to bf2 noob".

There are just some terrible admins on power trips which is nothing new to gaming, but in arma2 they are running the more populated servers. Also some of the less desirable admins' knowledge of the game is astounding, Voice IP isn't lagging you! It's the complex missions like evo and domi with tons of information that's sent to new players connecting.

There are some servers on the right track with fair admins, but they don't seem to be the popular ones for the most part.

they have their server config set to autoban when mis matched data is encountered

some servers I cannot even seem to connect to with 64 ping. I can see the chat scrolling by. people connecting and disconnecting, almost instantly and I am still waiting for host

There loss:yay: Certainly ot the best way for recruitment either=there loss. Not everybody out there is a hack, cheater, tk'r= there loss is my philsophy towards servers as such. Did I mention it was there loss? My 2 cents.

I've run into so many jerk admins as well, you are either in their clan or you are a mindless noob who gets kicked if you make a suggestions or get in a vehicle the admin wanted (ie SEALZ, Charliefoxtrot, etc)... usually right after they say "go back to bf2 noob".

You hit the nail on the head there!

I was in a server the other day (unfortunately can't remember the name) and this admin was insulting other players for no reason with the old "You are a noob" argument. I told him to stop acting like a child and he proceeded to lecture me on how hard it is to be an admin - people like that need to get off their pedestals!

Oh I remember what I said to get him annoyed with me! I mentioned that all the server log in messages had bad spelling in them, but my lord almighty mr admin was too busy calling people noobs to fix it.

Moral of the story is alot of admin are jerks. The rest of them are a great bunch of guys, its worth wading through the sewerage to find the best servers out there :)

well if I hear an admin use the word "noob" then I usually decide to leave anyway. :)

You hit the nail on the head there!

So did you, I've been in various gaming communities now for about the last 10 years, and in all that time I've never seen such a poor attitude displayed to newcomers from an existing user base as there has been with this game.

Well, it's not easy easy to admin a server with many people on it, I'm rather new to this role and learning avoiding mistakes, but it can happen quickly. Example, some1 was TKing a tad bit too much, I had several request to kick, but I don't kick just because requested, I try to check exactly what happens before. I kicked the guy out eventually after stating "one more and he's out", but afterwards, thinking a bit into it, I should probably have been more clear and talk to the guy directly. This kind of mistake happen quite fast when you're yourself in the heat of battle :) + you miss a hell lot of important messages with the chat system as done in ArmA2 where everything is mixed together at the same place, spammed with connection attempts and kills, in the middle of this you must spot what's wrong and what's not.... well :) you get the picture

That said, it doesn't mean you should be rude in any way when admining. You just lack time for always explaining what's happening

there was an application that we used when we had several 64 player BF2 servers running that let you read in game chat in real time even when not in game. We were able to admin our servers even when we weren't there. It was very useful tbh.

Over at {SAS} towers we are a couple of weeks away from launching our new 8gig / dual quad 5420 xeon (8 cores) server and I'm not looking forward to hosting a large ARMA2 server tbh.

Well, it's not easy easy to admin a server with many people on it, I'm rather new to this role and learning avoiding mistakes, but it can happen quickly. Example, some1 was TKing a tad bit too much, I had several request to kick, but I don't kick just because requested, I try to check exactly what happens before. I kicked the guy out eventually after stating "one more and he's out", but afterwards, thinking a bit into it, I should probably have been more clear and talk to the guy directly. This kind of mistake happen quite fast when you're yourself in the heat of battle :) + you miss a hell lot of important messages with the chat system as done in ArmA2 where everything is mixed together at the same place, spammed with connection attempts and kills, in the middle of this you must spot what's wrong and what's not.... well :) you get the picture

That said, it doesn't mean you should be rude in any way when admining. You just lack time for always explaining what's happening

People who are with BIS since OFP often tend to forget the complexity of this game. It may take a Newbie a lot of time to understand how the game works, TKing included. Sometimes I feel there should be slightly more tolerance especially on public servers.

there was an application that we used when we had several 64 player BF2 servers running that let you read in game chat in real time even when not in game. We were able to admin our servers even when we weren't there. It was very useful tbh.

Over at {SAS} towers we are a couple of weeks away from launching our new 8gig / dual quad 5420 xeon (8 cores) server and I'm not looking forward to hosting a large ARMA2 server tbh.

With the way the system is done in ArmA2, I don't see such tool appearing anytime soon (even though I've a little experiment to do to test an idea for this...), leaving us with admining at stone age

I've run into so many jerk admins as well, you are either in their clan or you are a mindless noob who gets kicked if you make a suggestions or get in a vehicle the admin wanted (ie SEALZ, Charliefoxtrot, etc)... usually right after they say "go back to bf2 noob".

If you got kicked from the Charlie Foxtrot server it was because:

1) You Tkd

2) You decided to take a Helo for a joy ride without transporting any troops and decided to dump it leaving no transport at base.

3) You were shooting all around the base

There would have been repeated warnings like 'Hey Joe, we already have a pilot running taxi, please leave that MH60 as a backup and jump in that one' (-off goes joe in his empty MH60). In some cases they will say, 'I wanna run a taxi too' and that usually fine.

We make no apoligies for being tough on players, you need to be at this stage. Only 1 guy can ruin a game for lots of people. Having said that the 100 or so players who join us every night dont mind that as it means they get as good and clean game as is possible with an open server. Many of them return night after night so we must be doing something right.

Speaking as a noob to Arma2 and as an admin, I can say that getting to know Arma2 is somewhat challenging. I'd like to allow addons but am not sure exactly how to do it ... it was like jumping through hoops just to get the server running. If a list of admin commands were available it would help. Some good and concise configs examples would be nice too. I'm sure that in time, this will all get weeded out.

I don't understand why so many servers don't allow mods, it seems arma admins whether its arma1 or 2, either they know how to disable addons completely or they allow anything. How about using the signed addon feature guys? What do you have to lose by allowing VOP, especially on dedicated coop servers.

What is the signed addon feature?