I think the way this is implemented is a mistake. Please let me try to explain what I mean.
I play with a group of friends. Most of them more casual DayZ players. Some do not know the map very well. They are used to certain places. Used to be able to have friends spawn nearby. And most notably: they're used to having certain freedoms in the game. I can't and I won't try to convince them that the freedoms and choices they used to be able to make, have all been taken away. Be it about the nights, be it about server population. We plan our missions carefully so everyone on the team has fun, and everyone has a place.
Playing on a hive means options. Means choice. Means freedom.
The way anti server hopping is implemented right now, is so punitive and restrictive towards new players and those who want to accompany them, that I'm honestly quite shocked.
I understand the need to prevent server hopping in some capacity to prevent mass looting or ghosting or base raiding by cheating. I am OK with taking measures against that happening.
But what this currently does is a massive interference in everyday gameplay. Just plain put: it ruins all the fun. Please give people a way to switch servers. Limit it to 1 hop every X hours if you have to. Find other ways to do this. I implore you.
Many geared players will now constantly spawn at the coasts. New spawns have even less incentive to go in-land. They might as well just sit at the coast and wait for the next best geared guy.
A lot of servers will be traveled by the same players. There will be considerably less a chance for the randomness that makes DayZ so great. It's going to make the experience increasingly more stale as time passes. That's another advantage a Hive has over private servers. One that we intended to benefit from.
Simply exploring a server, -any random server really- is one of my favourite pasttimes. I enjoy wandering servers for hours just to see what's where. Not to rob. Just to enjoy the traces other players have left behind. While I enjoy long walks, I would vastly prefer to have free choice for where I start, and where I end my hiking trips. These adventures have been incredibly fun! I found amazing setups! Please don't make this harder to enjoy.
I cannot expect my friends to sacrifice more time. I cannot expect them to run all the way to a meeting point, because it's been raining on a server. As a group, we enjoyed the game greatly up until now, and suddenly, everyone is sure bound to be pushed around back to punish or prevent what they didn't set out to do in the first place. And that even if a full day or even a week has passed since the last time they joined another server, I expect. I haven't seen any information on how much time needs to have passed, if such a mechanism is in this.
This is a major discouragement for any new players, and for those trying to simply avoid the night, or learn the ropes of the game. This even is a huge annoyance for experienced players who want to simply change servers once every few hours.
The benefits of playing on a hive have been helpful in so many ways, to this day. Please reconsider. Find a better way to do this.
Thank you for reading! :)