Dr. Goner

Probably worth noting that the March 8th devblog thread was eighty-six pages long when it was closed on April 10th. The September Round-up is only at ten pages. Seems like a dramatic decline to me. I assume most people are waiting patiently or have moved on to greener pastures. EDIT: Obviously I am still here. I can't wait to play the game.

Work expands to fill the time you allow for it.

Do you know what the phrase "you've put your foot in your mouth means"?

This is true. I've been reading a lot of satire on how flooded the market has become with all things zombie anyway. I think the fad itself is dying, The Walking Dead will have a spinoff of a spinoff by this time next year. Also, the group I play with used to be really into DayZ, hell it's how I got associated with them, now we don't even have a DayZ server anymore, nor is it featured on our website and 99% of our group says it was a flash in the pan. The fact is, buzz dies, hype fades and some great ideas never bear fruit. Not to mention the fact that the technology itself evolves so quickly now. It's an incredibly tough industry in which to stay relevant. I hope DayZ kicks ass, but I also pride myself on being a skeptic and trust me as a gamer with nearly thirty years under my belt I know that there is always something bigger and better just around the corner. The dev team needs to set a public release date for the alpha version in order to give themselves a steadfast goal. I cannot fathom why they wouldn't want to at this point.

Have you ever had an actual job where you functioned as a subordinate?

Nevermind.

Let me ask you this, what would you do if someone told you, they would give you ten million dollars, if you finish your game by a certain set date? I know what I would do. Contracting companies work like this all the time. It's the reason private construction jobs take, on average, half the time to complete when a bonus is paid if a certain date is met vs. jobs that are paid on an hourly basis with no clear deadline. Honestly, the latter is almost never the case anymore. When the incentives are correct, this data is backed up time and time again.

We need a release date because it would give the development team a solid goal. It would set up accountability as they wouldn't want to miss that date. They would have set a clear expectation for themselves and the community. I never said anything about when that date should be it could be two years from now or two days for all I care. I know (and have show evidence to back it up so it's not simply my opinion) that this would benefit the development team as far as time management is concerned.

If I had a software engineer in one of my teams telling me "Uh, this task I received, well, I think it is ready when it is ready" I would simply tell him "Ok son, understood - you'll also get your next salary slip when your task is ready " and this usually works: estimating the amount of effort required to do something is a measure of your professionalism as a software engineer. Your peers will judge you on that as well. _Anubis_ Damn Straight. It's called accountability. Sometimes you have to set this up for yourself. Which is why we need a release date. It would benefit the developers more than the player base if they took it very seriously.

And this get's to the point of my actual post, I'm arguing that we do in fact need one because it will give the team a concrete date by which to have the job done. I've cited peer reviewed journals on Parkinson's law, noted the set date for the lunar landing, and made several other relevant points as to why we all do NEED a release date, but even now, some community members aren't picking up what I'm putting down. I'll say it again Why We Need A Release Date. Because work expands to fill the time you allow for it.

Jesus man, I just posted two journal articles that prove Parkinson's law empirically. Please read the thread and do your research before commenting. It is, in fact, science. It is often studied by behavioral psychologists. So yes, it is quite different than say Murphy's Law. Parkinson wrote a peer reviewed article on the subject citing sources and a study that was accepted by the scientific community. EDIT: @fraggle This post of mine proves your point about my dickishness. I'm seriously sorry man, you are one of my favorite mods and always tell it like it is. I can be a pompous ass sometimes.

This is true, but the simple fact is you all tow the line. I mean seriously how can anyone argue at this point that they don't want a release date. I've just come to see most dissent met with sarcasm or pure rudeness, especially concerning the moderators. If you legitimately think I'm crazy, I'll leave the forums now, but I won't do so before I say that some of the moderators have become so close to the project that they can't stand back and take a look at it from a normal players perspective. I'm sorry if this hurts as the truth often does. I hate to say it and I'm sure you'll have no problem pointing out the weakness in this logic, but you're doing it right now for crying out loud. My initial post stated that I think We Need A Release Date in order to give the developers a solid goal to meet. Just to keep everyone on track here. I think it's hilarious that as soon as I mentioned that people are like "shut up you'll get it when you get it" or "im happy to wait and you're a moron for not feeling like I do" yet here I sit ostracized to the point of people talking about banning me for my opinion. In fact, I'm proud to be a dissenting member of the forums. Dissent equals growth and evolution. I've never resulted to name calling and I feel that my ideas are, more often than not, posted in a clear and concise manner.

I love Arma 3. But I also have the advantage of being part of a really good gaming group. We are always looking for people to play on our server. It's laid back and fun for all. I would definitely suggest following the mod installation guide while installing all of the mods we use. Also, acre is a must. Here's the link to the site. And a separate link to our guide on setting up all the mods, seriously man use the svn method. It will save you hours of work and headache from trying to install each one manually. site: http://disgamingcommunity.enjin.com/home Mod installation tutorial also contains a video on installing acre which you have to do manually: http://disgamingcommunity.enjin.com/forum/m/11404557/viewthread/7507450-arma-3-server-supported-mods-tutorial

Not trying to be rude, I'm just saying, I already know what your opinion is man. I respect your loyalty but it's like asking a republican what they think of Obama. There's just no point. Fraggle you've been extremely helpful to me personally in the past, but I just don't think you can look at this one from an unbiased viewpoint. Hell man, you are already PLAYING the game. XO

That's fine. Don't think I don't understand by now the nature of these forums, I've been here for a little while. By saying we need a release date, I make no assumption on when that could be so please quit saying "im happy to wait". I've been listening to it for almost a year and it means nothing. If they say we're releasing it in two weeks I'm happy, if they say two years, I'm happy. It's not a matter of when, it's a matter of growing a pair and setting a date.

I'm sorry @fraggle, but your opinion is of no consequence on this subject. You're basically on the dev team dude. I frankly don't understand how you could even imagine a scenario where you should offer input on a thread like this. You are a moderator, you are currently playing the pre-alpha. I'm not trying to be rude but I think most of the moderators have been blurring the line between fan and worker for to long. Please quit swaying the conversation with your clearly biased input. I can't figure out a way to ask any nicer.

I don't know how many studies you are going to require me to post before we can get back on topic of Why We Need A Release Date. Here's one in detail. http://www.csun.edu/~vcpsy015/APAsample.pdf Edit: Here's another just to be safe. https://editorialexpress.com/cgi-bin/conference/download.cgi?db_name=IIPF63&paper_id=203

Fear not, you'll find the data. There have been studies done, with rats, where they set up a simple maze and give the rats various times to get to the food. If the animal is satiated (not hungry) at the beginning of the test, it will simply take the entire time allowed to access the food. If they start to slowly lower or remove the food access. The animal immediately grabs the food whereas seconds before it showed no interest. It was putting off this "work" because it had no need to get it done. Also, Parkinson's essay was funny but he did back it up with empirical data. Just read his publication, it's still readily available. The data is right there. Some argue that it's no longer relevant, but to me that's like saying that Newtons laws are no longer relevant. Parkinson did a study. That study backed up his claim. The reality is probably that most people fear his findings as it would introduce more pressure to perform efficiently. Also, if we enforced it, the world economy would most likely collapse due to the amazing amount of under-working that takes place in the most high paid jobs.

Well if you're telling me now that you don't understand George Carlin I don't know how to help you. In fact, it seems like you're saying you don't understand the point of satire. Fiction reveals the truth that reality obscures and all that. . . The Peter Principle was a satirical book pointing out a very real problem. There is virtually no one who contests its value and I think you're making yourself look foolish by doing so. Now Parkinson't Law has been shown over and over and over again ad nauseum especially in economic texts concerning venture capitalist firms and technology companies. I'm not going to spoon feed you any more info than I already have. If you're interested do the research on your own. I had to. Don't argue just to argue. If you don't want a release date just say I don't want a release date because blah blah blah. Trying to discount my reason for thinking a public release date is healthy using random anonymous internet trolling takes away your credibility.

You asked for a solution to dealing with KOS. I think, if one wants to avoid the KOS mentality, the only real answer is to leave the game behind. Hell the KOS mentality is embedded within this community. Just look at the way it responds to negative criticism. BURN THE WITCH!!!!

Setting a public release date (for most companies) would be the ultimate deadline. I can see why BIS is "Rocket 2" gun shy about doing it at this point though. I just think you set a date, tell the world, and meet that expectation no matter the cost. It's the old college try, the entrepreneurial spirit. Companies do it everyday.

Then it seems we are in agreement. They have plenty of free time to innovate upon their current build. Meanwhile the world is playing GTA V and Arma 3.

My point was that work expands to fill the time you allow for it. I feel like it's a pretty straight forward statement. I then included the scientific theory that it's based upon and once again, due to my belief that most of the people that still post on these forums are part of the Dev team in one way or another, I'm trying to keep my head above water by suffering the KOS mentality towards any criticism whatsoever. In fact, it wasn't even criticism, it was supposed to be fucking helpful. You know how we got to the moon? Someone in charge said we are going to do this in this time frame and we fucking did it. We didn't say oh we might do it by this date or we may do it by this date, we set a date and met that goal. A goal which was considered laughable by most of the scientific community and even more laughable by the Russians. Maybe it's an eastern block thing, I don't know. Set a date, tell the world, and fucking own that shit.

Wrong, the Peter Principle was meant to be satire, but it doesn't change the fact that it's true and proven. It's like how George Carlin's comedy is satire but still 100% accurate.

Actually, this is one of the main points of the law. In fact, less stress comes from a shorter deadline. It's a paradox but true. What people fill that excess time alloted with is usually stress, worry, over engineering etc. I had to point this out because it's one of the most relevatory points of the law to me personally. Tight time frame equals less stress and more actual work.