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Have you ever joined a BOOMING DayZ server, spawned in with icons all over the screen, 10 FPS and pink sports cars? You may find yourself asking, “Who the f__k is playing this corny s__t?”
Well, the answer is, probably nobody.
You see when you join a full-pop server, but find there are no gunshots, no players, no dead players, no dead zombies and no action, you may find yourself thinking, where is everyone? Am I doing something WRONG?
Well, no. It’s very likely that your favorite server is spoofing their player counts.
What is spoofing? Well, spoofing is where server hosts upload a .PBO pack into their server which gives the STEAM query a false player count.
To put it simply, STEAM asks the server how many players are in the server. The server then responds with the population count.
The offending servers use a file, which I’ll vaguely refer to as a spoof file, to avoid having this video removed. The spoof file is packed into a PBO and uploaded server-side.
Now when Steam queries the server, it will respond with a falsified population count.
I found myself curious one day, after joining an embarrassing amount of FULL servers to find absolutely zero activity.
I always heat the same excuses:
“Everyone is hiding in their bases.”
“You’re in a low-traffic area.”
“Maybe there’s apathy somewhere you weren’t invited to?”
I’ve been an admin enough times to know that 75 players aren’t idle in their bases all day everyday on the same server. Just stop, bro. Do you hear yourself?
So, I jumped on DuckDuckGo and found some cheater forums where they explained, in detail, how this grift works. They also recommended delisting the server from BattleMetrics.com to avoid detection Although, one fellow offered to sell me a similar file that would spoof the BattleMetrics query as well.
Many people were offering to sell me the file for $50. So, I added them on Discord to discuss the transaction. One of them responded very quickly.
Now you may be wondering, “Archie, why the fuck would you give some grifter $50.”
I grabbed the file from the guy and blocked the dips__t. $50 is a gram of cocaine here in Florida, what do I look like? A re___d?
So, I went to a very close friend who knows the DayZ engine better than the Bohemia Dev team. He threw it into a PBO for me, installed it on an unlisted server I rented and guess what? It worked!! There is a similar file which allows scummy server owners to spoof their pings to falsely appear static around 100.
I sent what I had to the DayZ team, but to be honest, I don’t foresee too much being done about it.
I debated producing a video covering this topic. Fearing that, at the very least, all it would do is expose new potential grifters to a new path of least resistance. Some folks ask me why I even take issue with such exploits.
The answer is simple, absolutely nothing in this community is organic anymore. Everything is pay-to-win. The issue I have is the lack of variety this leaves the average player to choose from. Every server is a copy/paste of another.
No bases.
Max loot.
MOAR ADVENTURE!
So many creators pay hundreds to thousands of dollars to commission custom mods and create a unique experience for their communities, but no matter how much they advertise, no one joins their servers, because the population is too low.
Meanwhile, those of us looking for action and interactions are stuck patronizing the same mediocre servers.
My motivation behind this upload is simply to bring attention to such an abhorrent practice by some of the most popular DayZ creators and server hosts.
I stand to gain absolutely nothing from shedding light on such wrongdoings. I’m inviting nothing but hate and discontent upon myself by exposing this. But, I have been making content for the DayZ community for ten years and you deserve better from those who seek to deceive you.
In closing, what can we do about this issue as gamers?
Well, besides harassing the development team, which I do not recommend, the most important thing that you as a gamer can do is notice it.
Make it common knowledge that this issue persists and convince people not to waste their time and money on any new servers until the issue is resolved. Because once you’ve spent a few hundred bucks on a server for crickets, it’s too late to say. “I told you so.”
Let me know your thoughts on this issue in the comments and if you have any additional information with regards to the Spoofing issue, please let me know.
Also, I started a second channel for my streams and gameplay uploads, I hope you’ll join me there and subscribe. Stay alive and Hail Hydration.
#dayz #dayzstandalone #archiestormcloud