DayZChainGang

I totally agree that their attitude to putting out a good game is admirable, but what concerns me is the failure to communicate a clear strategy and produce regular updates. We only get sporadic updates of limited purpose because along with too much of everything else they are left to Rocket to do. After this long, we still have no clear dates for when we might expect it, what it will be when it comes etc. You can tell that people are starting to get frustrated with the 'surprise reveal' marketing approach, because it turns out its not an approach it's just lack of resources for a proper dedicated activity to keep fans up to date and engaged Ok I have no idea what BI costs are but they made an awful lot of profit on a game they'd probably already substantially written off. We know that if done properly and released in decent time they'll do very nicely out of at least a million, but potentially 2-3million units of standalone. My hunch is they could afford to invest more resources into a proper plan and better comms if they thought it was important. As a simple example, if they had dedicated website with properly regular updates they could feed correct information, share successes and failures and respond to press speculation. My fear is that DayZ has propelled them from cottage to big time and they haven't really adapted so what's next - they launch, sell too much too quick and get overwhelmed, or you have to wait for weeks for a key?

It does beg the question, why does the development of a $20-30million product feel so half assed. I'm convinced it's not Rocket's fault, but somebody's doing very well out of all this and I'm not sure they respect the fans

What I don't understand is why they didn't follow the kickstarter model for the whole standalone project. Chris Roberts' Star Citizen has raised $7million for their game (mainly direct preorders not kickstarter) and they have enough money for a properly resourced Dev team and a very good regular video blog. At $30 a pop you'd need just 250,000 preorders which isn't out of the question, a couple of $mill would've been easy. I know Chris Roberts is a gaming dev god, but Rocket could've mustered enough faith to fully fund the project. As it is, through lack of proper funding, this has the feel of something that will either never be fully launched or never be fully finished. With the history of standalone and the W**Z debacle, people will now actually want something for their money at point of sale, whereas Star Citizen and Elite Dangerous both got away with collecting cash on a promise and got 18months grace. I suppose what I'm saying is I'd have been happy shelling out money for an unfinished or not started Standalone concept months ago to support the dream but now I feel it's reasonable to question where it's all going and wait until there are results before piling in. If you want money for a six month project, ask for it at the start or ask for it at the end. Don't ask for it when you're six months in with a projected six months to go.......

I suppose the next question i'm dying to know is 'is it a better melee than the hatchet?' Or the same. Appreciate the whole melee thing is a bit of a programming fudge anyway.....

As someone who's only really gotten going in DayZ with the latest patch and finding it a struggle, the problem seems to be that the gameplay isn't graduated, in many ways the game starts at it's most difficult ( a new player with no weapon and no experience) and gets easier as you develop skills, get gear and learn where the gear is. I'm not saying it's too difficult now, but I think if the basic elements were much trickier it would definitely put a lot of people off joining in. Ideally what is needed are some characteristics that develop in a persistent way with a character (like humanity), in effect balancing the basic difficulty of the game with the experience of the player. I had a few thoughts, based on how other games work it, and taking into account that the game environment needs to remain a level playing field *give peripheral dots to players for the first few hours of gameplay *limit poss of infection for the first few hours of gameplay *a better range of melee weapons of varying quality I.e power & reach, as a gun is actually a bit of liability at first and the hatchet is literally a bit hit and miss *slow auto-heal/better blood from food for the first few hours of gameplay *give them a morphine for the first few hours of gameplay These are only suggestions and I'm not claiming to have all the answers but I suppose my main thought is that for the first few hours any new player is basically trying to learn the controls, how zombies work, where everything is and in particular avoiding PvP. I don't think it would unbalance the game to give them a leg up particularly if the environment then was made harsher to suit the more experienced player. Otherwise it might risk pulling the drawbridge on new entrants

Hi, me too, I'll pm you

Slenderman? he looks like a George....

Sorry mate, I wasn't o/l, tbh I'm still struggling with the basics in the latest patch - too much aggro and only ever guns or Ammo but no matched pair yet - proper meds and finding people both way out of my league!

Bandit race :D. Not me I still suck!

Blimey! Just how unlucky are the people of Chernarus ?

A very scary bunch, on the TV series I got the impression most weren't just preparing for a doomsday they were sort of looking forward to it.....

When you eat at restaurants do you ever find the food tastes a little bit, you know, 'spitty/semeny'.

False advertising tbh, just three guys mooching around to their won amusement, standard stuff. Nothing wrong with it but to say it would help a new player is just rubbish, after the first minute you forget you were addressing the audience and just prat about with your friends for the next 13...

They were my introduction to DayZ too, esp Squirrel (DaSquirrelsNuts). They are the only vids I've seen by good players who don't just run around shooting noobs in the face....

Come to think of it, one flaw with the carefully selected tester list is that it will be like those airplane evac tests. Lots of like minded people behaving in exactly the manner the designers expect and according the the rules, respecting the responsibility they've been given. The danger is they may fail to spot issues related to concern number one....the hacker exploits.