Perks for donating..

[ToejaM]

I'm not hating on pay2win or not pay2 win. You're just being as transparent as a pane of glass. (Shrugs).

 

I can't take anyone seriously that blatantly ripped off the name of our community in an attempt to generate traffic to their site, nor should anyone else... but as above, haters are gonna hate. Stop selling ingame items and listen to the wishes of the A3E devs and there may be more A3E servers up pre-public release and those servers may last through the public release.

[dayzlauncher]

The big problem here is, communities are offering perks that the Epoch devs have endorsed yet they chastise anyone not in the "Epoch" club.

[cen]

The big problem here is, communities are offering perks that the Epoch devs have endorsed yet they chastise anyone not in the "Epoch" club.

 

This times one million.

 

I have ZERO issues with epoch devs stating that they want rules followed, it's their right to make any rules they want for their mod.

 

The issue I have is that the rules seem to only apply to some and not all.

 

Pick a side, either no perks, or allow perks, but don't say no perks then have your first official servers offer up donator perks.

 

I don't care what toejam does with his servers, if he doesn't want to offer perks, that's awesome, but so far he's the only host (Dave is ok in my book as well) that has went along with those rules.

 

So either let others that have perks host servers, or remove BMRF and Zombies.nu from your "official" servers so it's fair.

 

 

Their all access pass includes reserved slots, which is against BI tos :)

[aspen014]

Respect for this. 

Most people get money hungry once the cash starts rolling in & it becomes more about the money each month & less about the community and games.

eat shit hacker...u pay for hacks and only exploit cause u never good enough to be considered good. yeah its me and i'll call you out everytime. youre hacking scum; u and i know it....kill yourself

[MGT]

Cen for president B)

[Carl-R]

Cen for president B)

seconded

[Peep]

Their all access pass includes reserved slots, which is against BI tos :)

 

Genuinely curious, where is this specifically mentioned in the ToS?

[GasT]

Yeah pretty sure they allow VIP slots since its been on Wasteland servers forever and Breaking Point implemented it a couple of months ago.

[Kenturrac]

This times one million.

 

I have ZERO issues with epoch devs stating that they want rules followed, it's their right to make any rules they want for their mod.

 

The issue I have is that the rules seem to only apply to some and not all.

 

Pick a side, either no perks, or allow perks, but don't say no perks then have your first official servers offer up donator perks.

 

I don't care what toejam does with his servers, if he doesn't want to offer perks, that's awesome, but so far he's the only host (Dave is ok in my book as well) that has went along with those rules.

 

So either let others that have perks host servers, or remove BMRF and Zombies.nu from your "official" servers so it's fair.

 

 

Their all access pass includes reserved slots, which is against BI tos :)

 

GOLD! Sequisha, how about liking that post ;)

 

Actually I am currently out of the whole scripting, hosting and Epoch business at all and you guys would smile about threads like this, if you would take a step back from it. Its really not worth arguing about and its also not really an important topic at all. At some point BI put out a statement about whats allowed and what not. They probably had a reason for it, but we also learned that they really dont care about it or did anyone of you hear about any actions against any server owner? (Origins is still out there, right?)

 

So how about you all look at it as mature human beings and accept that hosting a server can be a business. Some people like to make money with it. Its not about getting rich. I mean look at CCG. Maca owns basically everthing that is left of the A2 Epoch community, but he will not make a living out of it and if he would, he is probably not driving a Ferrari.

On the other side, he will probably also never get the A3 Epoch files since the Devs dont agree with his actings. So I guess both sides win and the players just lose out of the endless war between these two factions. I mean, I doubt that any player really cares about it. Its not like they have to spent money or they will automatically lose against a player that donated. I guess player would love to see their beloved server running on a better hardware that was only affordable because of donation. I mean, lets face it. If the player gets something in return, its more likely he will donate.

 

Having said everything of that, I dont like perks. Not because I dont want that anyone gets money for the time he spend maintaining or because I think its not fair. I just think its spoils and alters the intended gameplay of this Mod. Most servers offer settings that already ruined most of the gameplay that attracted over 1million people at one point and perks these days are often just another step in the same wrong direction.

 

Just burry that topic. Respect the player and threat him as that. Both sides. Hosters: Dont put insane perks out for money that alter the gameplay for players who didnt spend money. Epoch-Devs: If the player wants to spend money, let him, if he doesnt want to play on a server with perks on it, he can decide and leave. I really dont get why we are talking about this stuff. It's like every single one of you thinks he is smarter than the player. Dont play mom.

 

Besides all of that: Please, dont be stupid. Nothing of this is pay2win. Its all part of a common F2P model. If you want more education in what is F2P and what is P2W, just ask. I can enlighten you.

[Peep]

I mean for one, the DayZ-related ToS they have isn't even related to A3 Epoch in the first place. I can't see anything in the A3 ToS that mentions it. Reserved slots (especially with the way we have it implemented where they don't kick anyone) aren't pay to play or pay to win. We'd also have them anyway for admins, which is obviously fine.

 

It's far different from selling in-game items (or any in-game advantage) or running an actual store. The reserved slots system I have literally benefits everyone involved. We pay for our servers, admins get in when needed, players get in if they really want to. It's a finite resource, it's not like we can give it to everyone. If we didn't have them, the people who didn't donate still wouldn't be getting in because the server would cap. I run the server cap 5 higher than I normally would because those slots never completely fill.

 

Can anyone think of a single valid reason why this is a bad thing other than "money is bad". Because if you want to take that route, the advertisements for sites that actually commercialize Arma on the front page aren't any different.

 

By the way, I don't give a shit about making money off of this. The reserved slots earn just enough to help me pay the $200 server bill in a way that is fair for everyone.

 

Anyway, instead of arguing, how about we propose an actual solution:

 

Don't allow in-game perks or advantages (for the A3 Epoch server specifically, if a community does it for other mods that is fine), and make reserved slots an exception. Don't allow anything that violates the ToS directly.

 

This should make everyone happy, or atleast as happy as they're going to get.

[cen]

Completely agree peep!

[Kenturrac]

I mean for one, the DayZ-related ToS they have isn't even related to A3 Epoch in the first place. I can't see anything in the A3 ToS that mentions it. Reserved slots (especially with the way we have it implemented where they don't kick anyone) aren't pay to play or pay to win. We'd also have them anyway for admins, which is obviously fine.

 

It's far different from selling in-game items (or any in-game advantage) or running an actual store. The reserved slots system I have literally benefits everyone involved. We pay for our servers, admins get in when needed, players get in if they really want to. It's a finite resource, it's not like we can give it to everyone. If we didn't have them, the people who didn't donate still wouldn't be getting in because the server would cap. I run the server cap 5 higher than I normally would because those slots never completely fill.

 

Can anyone think of a single valid reason why this is a bad thing other than "money is bad". Because if you want to take that route, the advertisements for sites that actually commercialize Arma on the front page aren't any different.

 

By the way, I don't give a shit about making money off of this. The reserved slots earn just enough to help me pay the $200 server bill in a way that is fair for everyone.

 

Anyway, instead of arguing, how about we propose an actual solution:

 

Don't allow in-game perks or advantages (for the A3 Epoch server specifically, if a community does it for other mods that is fine), and make reserved slots an exception. Don't allow anything that violates the ToS directly.

 

This should make everyone happy, or atleast as happy as they're going to get.

 

I just want to point out that not everyone benefits from it. The player that has no access to the reserved slot will have problems joining a full server with reserved slots. Lets say the server has 55 regular slots and 5 reserved. If all of them are filled, 6 "no matter what"-players have to leave until the first normal player can join again.I mean thats unlikely, but something that I experienced multiple times: You dont get instantly thrown back at the lobby if the server has 5 reserved slots open since you will receive a message that you got kicked because of reserved slots. That makes joining way harder since you cant simply join spam. That can get really really annoying. I am not saying that reserved slots are bad. I like them, but saying everyone benefits from it, is not entirely true.

 

Feel free to correct me, maybe you have a different system that avoids all of these "problems".

[Peep]

I just want to point out that not everyone benefits from it. The player that has no access to the reserved slot will have problems joining a full server with reserved slots. Lets say the server has 55 regular slots and 5 reserved. If all of them are filled, 6 "no matter what"-players have to leave until the first normal player can join again.I mean thats unlikely, but something that I experienced multiple times: You dont get instantly thrown back at the lobby if the server has 5 reserved slots open since you will receive a message that you got kicked because of reserved slots. That makes joining way harder since you cant simply join spam. That can get really really annoying. I am not saying that reserved slots are bad. I like them, but saying everyone benefits from it, is not entirely true.

 

Feel free to correct me, maybe you have a different system that avoids all of these "problems".

 

That does kind of happen with our system but it's extremely rare and doesn't happen for long. The reason for this is because 6 "no matter what" players wouldn't have to leave. Anybody leaving the server at all would bring this down, so it tends to happen very quickly. This is why I compare it to the server being full anyway. *Anybody* can leave for a slot to become open, which is the same as not having reserved slots. You're kicked immediately on join attempt, too, so it doesn't fuck you around -- and it never kicks you if you're already in-game as I mentioned before.

 

It's fairly simplistic though, this is all it does:

if (Whitelister.CurrentPlayers.Count >= (_config.MaxServerSize - _config.VipSlots))
{
    if (!player.IsVip)
    {
        KickPlayer(player.Info, _config.VipKickMessage);
        return;
    }
}

[Punchmonster]

I would politely like to interject as I see a lot of misinformation in this thread.

 

This is the current EULA, there is no specific terms of service for ArmA 3 available.

 

http://www.bistudio.com/community/licenses/arma-3-end-user-license-agreement

 

This is the specific part that discusses monetization:

 

 

1. End User's Obligations
   1. As a Subject to the Grant of License herein above, you may not, in whole or in part, copy, duplicate, reproduce, translate, reverse-engineer, modify, disassemble, decompile, derive source code, create derivative works based on the Program, remove any proprietary notices or labels from the Program or otherwise modify the Program without the prior written consent of the Licensor.
   2. You are entitled to use the Program for your own use, but you are not entitled to:
      1. Sell or transfer reproductions of the Program to other parties in any way, nor to rent, lease or license the Program to others
      2. Publish and/or distribute the computer Program or any of its parts
      3. Exploit the Program or any of its parts for any commercial purpose including, but not limited to, use at a cybercafe, computer gaming centre, computer aided training center or any other location-based site where multiple users may access the Program

 

In legal terms this means selling in-game items is a grey area, selling reserved slots or other services that do not actually sell parts of the game (a server transfer for instance) however is 100% allowed.

[Peep]

I think what he was getting at is that it's against the ToS for DayZ mods (selling in-game items is, I doubt reserved slots are, but I might be wrong). The Epoch hosting agreement states that your community as a whole cannot have any of this, which includes DayZ mods at that point.

 

Epoch is A3 and not DayZ, so it's separate from this. What we're trying to propose here (atleast I am anyway) is that the requirement be changed from your community to A3 Epoch specifically, since the two are very separate when it comes to the ToS.

[SkyDogs]

It is of my opinion that purchasable reserved slots are unfair at a social level. For example, a popular server incorporating reserve slots that is full or near to, and thus more appealing to the player base, will allow those players with spare cash to buy a 'queue jump' that allows them to leapfrog over players that cannot afford a reserve slot. I see it as a case of the haves having and the have-nots, not.

 

Experienced it myself on BMRF Dayzero when I suffered a PC crash and was unable rejoin my friends because there were no slots available on my return except for reserved slots for the slot buyers.

 

 

Regarding these communities not being businesses, may I ask those concerned why you allowed your operations to become something akin to a small business? 

 

A successful community shouldn't want or need to corner the player-base, in my opinion. If they do, on the back of purchasable perks, then to me at least, it's a case of if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it usually is a duck.

 

I see absolutely nothing wrong with pay to play as long as it's the same for all, and every contributor to the making and presenting of the game gets their cut if entitled, including staff such as moderators. But of course for such an operation, you probably would need to be registered as a business. 

[YarwoodUK]

Just to clear things up.
ZOMBIES.NU accept donations towards the mod for that they developed - dayzero - you won't find server files for it anywhere nor will you find another ARMA 2 DayZ mod that has equal performance. As a reward for donating, players are offered a reserved slot and an in-game neckwarmer/bandit skin. That's NOTHING compared to actual in-game items that provide an advantage over other players. That's not a monthly subscription. You don't have to pay to have a teamspeak channel from us.

No way at all do the DayZero donators get any perks on ARMA 3 Epoch nor will they ever do so.
I solely fund the ARMA 3 Epoch server and will continue to do so.

If Fisk and I (the only two admins from the ZNU team that have an interest in A3 Epoch) have to split off from Zombies.NU name and create our own new community for ARMA 3 Epoch so that we are not affiliated with the donation scheme then we have no problem doing so, other than choosing a good new name ;)

Stop comparing molehills to mountains. They really are not on the same level at all. It's no secret that the Zombies.NU DayZeroC servers have not been earning enough donations to pay for the servers and has been funded by the owner for the past 12months (probably longer). Can the same be said?

[Peep]

Experienced it myself on BMRF Dayzero when I suffered a PC crash and was unable rejoin my friends because there were no slots available on my return except for reserved slots for the slot buyers.

 

You're talking about being unable to join because of reserved slots versus being unable to join because the server is full. The total slot count wouldn't have changed (nor would the fact that the server is still full) whether we had them or not, so this doesn't really make any sense as an argument.

 

Regarding these communities not being businesses, may I ask those concerned why you allowed your operations to become something akin to a small business? 

 

Is the Red Cross suddenly a for-profit organization for selling t-shirts? Is it not possible to use reserved slots (or whatever scheme) as a means to fund costs and expansion without directly paying anybody off of it? I'm not saying you can't turn things into a business (profit directly, pay people, etc.) if you wanted to, but it doesn't have to be that way. The mere idea of offering any kind of reward for donations shouldn't put that into your head.

 

I mean hell, you can still pay people and not be a business. The people who write scripts and design websites for these communities can be paid out of donation money without the community itself needing to be a business of any kind, no?

 

Becoming a business would imply that your one of your primary interests is selling stuff to people and making yourself a paycheck. I'm not interested in doing that. That being said, some of them definitely do (which I still think is fine), and you have a point there.

[Namindu]

Why do people give a sh*t about other people. Everyone here who complained about pay2win server. Are NOT even running Dedicated Servers and dose not even have a player base compared to the GSP ones. If a player wants to give money, Then thats HIS option. We dont force people to play on pay2win server. Plus if someone pay then he pays to keep that server up. And everyone else gets a great server to play on which stays online. And dose not post "Servers down due to host" topics. We dont lock players down to only our server. They can leave when they want. They can also pay if they want. Pay2Win only happends in FPS Games. Not arma. Just because i get a better gun to start off with dose not change the fact that am a shitty shot.

 

 

Best Regards,

   Namindu

     Knight Instinct Gaming

[SkyDogs]

You're talking about being unable to join because of reserved slots versus being unable to join because the server is full. The total slot count wouldn't have changed (nor would the fact that the server is still full) whether we had them or not, so this doesn't really make any sense as an argument.

It's been a while but if I remember correctly, a player with a reserved slot would trump a player without one, right?

So, you have 55 players, 5 of those places reserved and already taken. For me to get in wouldn't 6 players have to leave, leaving one slot unreserved?

Also, wouldn't I need to be hoping that none of the other guys waiting to get in had a reserved slot? If they did, they would reoccupy any slots from 51-55 that became available. Spamming enter would only become viable when player count dropped to 50, right?

At the time Dayzero was king, and this particular server was full, and had no shortage of people reoccupying reserved slots 51-55 as and when they became available.

Without the reserved slots I would have had an equal chance of getting that newly available slot as the rest of the guys Spamming enter.

[theirongiant]

It's been a while but if I remember correctly, a player with a reserved slot would trump a player without one, right?

So, you have 55 players, 5 of those places reserved and already taken. For me to get in wouldn't 6 players have to leave, leaving one slot unreserved?

Also, wouldn't I need to be hoping that none of the other guys waiting to get in had a reserved slot? If they did, they would reoccupy any slots from 51-55 that became available. Spamming enter would only become viable when player count dropped to 50, right?

At the time Dayzero was king, and this particular server was full, and had no shortage of people reoccupying reserved slots 51-55 as and when they became available.

Without the reserved slots I would have had an equal chance of getting that newly available slot as the rest of the guys Spamming enter.

 

But if people hadn't donated it's possible that the server would have had 5 slots less so I don't see what you're losing here. Surely the donators are covering the costs for those extra slots and it's something that doesn't imbalance the game much in the same way the alternate skins didn't. 

[Kenturrac]

Just to clear things up.

ZOMBIES.NU accept donations towards the mod for that they developed - dayzero - you won't find server files for it anywhere nor will you find another ARMA 2 DayZ mod that has equal performance. As a reward for donating, players are offered a reserved slot and an in-game neckwarmer/bandit skin. That's NOTHING compared to actual in-game items that provide an advantage over other players. That's not a monthly subscription. You don't have to pay to have a teamspeak channel from us.

No way at all do the DayZero donators get any perks on ARMA 3 Epoch nor will they ever do so.

I solely fund the ARMA 3 Epoch server and will continue to do so.

If Fisk and I (the only two admins from the ZNU team that have an interest in A3 Epoch) have to split off from Zombies.NU name and create our own new community for ARMA 3 Epoch so that we are not affiliated with the donation scheme then we have no problem doing so, other than choosing a good new name ;)

Stop comparing molehills to mountains. They really are not on the same level at all. It's no secret that the Zombies.NU DayZeroC servers have not been earning enough donations to pay for the servers and has been funded by the owner for the past 12months (probably longer). Can the same be said?

Isnt that against the DayZ ToS? You know, share alike and so on.

[SkyDogs]

But if people hadn't donated it's possible that the server would have had 5 slots less so I don't see what you're losing here.

I'm not sure what you're trying to explain here, sorry.

Did the reserve slots command a set price, or could you donate any amount you could afford in return for one?

[YarwoodUK]

Isnt that against the DayZ ToS? You know, share alike and so on.

 

Specifically, which bit do you mean when you refer to "share alike" ? :)

 

Either way, I'm not sure if Zombies.nu (DayZero) donation scheme in accordance BI / DayZ ToS/licensing because I've no involvement in the donations.

Zombies.NU donations are nothing to do with the "Zombies.NU" ARMA 3 Epoch servers.

[Kenturrac]

Why do people give a sh*t about other people. Everyone here who complained about pay2win server. Are NOT even running Dedicated Servers and dose not even have a player base compared to the GSP ones. If a player wants to give money, Then thats HIS option. We dont force people to play on pay2win server. Plus if someone pay then he pays to keep that server up. And everyone else gets a great server to play on which stays online. And dose not post "Servers down due to host" topics. We dont lock players down to only our server. They can leave when they want. They can also pay if they want. Pay2Win only happends in FPS Games. Not arma. Just because i get a better gun to start off with dose not change the fact that am a shitty shot.

 

 

Best Regards,

   Namindu

     Knight Instinct Gaming

Again, dont be stupid. Nothing anyone offers is P2W. All of it is just part of F2P. Besides that, i agree, its up to the player.