maleitch

Ok all valid points you made, and no I am honestly not looking to trash this game or the developers. I truly want it to succeed. Obviously time will tell. Thanks for the civil discussion.

Not the best comparison. Skyrim is single player. A better comparison would be EVE Online, or WoW although still not perfect. I understand the challenges of this issue although the dev team should not have been blindsided by any of them.

Checking calendar...oh wait I see it is still 2014. Nothing proven...yet. One thing that BI has not mastered is milestone estimations. Come on man you are better than this. There are valid concerns with this project drifting into vaporware territory. Don't be a zealot. Faulty logic is the assumption that this game will ever reach Beta with the milestones they list, or assuming that by the time it comes out there will not be a competitor who creates something better.

Listen, don't get me wrong. I am not looking to internet argue so I will keep it civil. My frustration is that my fear that the team could not pull it off is coming true in my opinion. Love for them to prove me wrong. I will address your points below - new renderer <-- From what I have seen this is simply borrowed from Arma3 - new animations system <--- Again, what did this solve exactly or improve on what Arma3 already has. I would like some examples - new player controller <---- When they made this change people were not happy. Not sure the improvement. Mouse smoothing? - new AI system including new sensors and navmesh <--- The zombie AI continues to be a trainwreck. I fully appreciate the challenge of this, but nothing new for most game companies and with the money they are making no excuses - new netcode <--- Again, I do not see any increased stability of this over the netcode of the mod or Arma3 which is nothing great. Huge desync issues persist. - new client/server connection and communication system <--- Ahh the MMO decision. Show me the benefit. There certainly may be one and maybe it cannot be realized until the finished game - switching from content based on scripts to content using engine functions <--- Has this significantly reduced the hacking issues? - new system for loot respawn and distribution <--- Nice, but nothing that improved over the mod system. Again, full benefit may not be realized until finished game. - new physics system <---- Hit detection is still a nightmare so what did this solve? - vehicles coded from scratch using Bullet SDK <---- Since vehicles were just added I will give you this one - new User Interface <--- This interface is HEAVILY borrowed from Arma3 which I have no problem with, but framework obviously already existed. - new player model + customization functionality <---- Again, nothing different than Arma3 - new weather and seasons system that impacts players and items <---- Weather system is nice. Impacting gear is interesting but nothing more ground breaking than the mod coders have accomplished. - new sound engine <---- Need to see proof and impact of this system. Again, not looking to fight, but these guys OWN THE CODE, and I don't see what forward progress has been made. BI has collected millions from this Alpha so I expected the game to be much further along. 100% willing to eat crow...or beans.

They are not changing the "entire" game. This is what kills me about you guys defending the 2 year "alpha" status. This was not a new engine they had to develop. The modders appear to do more and faster with the Arma2/2.5/3 engines than the developers who have access to the raw code. Start listing off the 75% enhancements to the engine and what they have resolved. There really is no excuse any more except that the BI programmers are just not that good. Great you spit out a few models, textures and code a few gimmicky inventory/crafting tricks to show as "content", but the difficult challenges such as AI pathfinding remain unresolved. I have limited mod experience with this game, but I have modeled, textured, mapped and handled minor scripts enough with other games to know that most of you defenders do not know what you are talking about.

Sorry, but you know as well as I do that this is a garbage response at this point. If the developers cannot at this point commit to a date when it will move to "beta" then it is obvious they have coded themselves into a corner and know that they do not have the coding skillset to deliver a "complete" game as promised. The only possible way out is to simply squawk alpha any time someone gets suspicious then hope that you can continue this tactic for a few more years until the players have moved on to another game. I am not trying to cause a fight and you will not find a bigger supporter of the idea of DayZ but if the buyers of the alpha were stock holders the BI and the development team would be in court. You cannot be taken seriously if you cannot stick to any commitment. You grew out the "we tried our best" option when the BI bank accounts started growing over six figures. Please prove me wrong.

I am going to try and be a better person online so I am going to give you a few minutes to see why the issues you hate are not any different than the issues you like.

Yes he did, but quit being such a whiny, soulless, spoiled child and SHUT UP! /sarc

Please grow up...what is it with you true children who whimper when someone calls out another adult? You think life is a Disney sitcom. Standing by what you say you are going to do is an adult expectation. Were all of you crying about the "criers" raised by teen single mothers where your every challenge was coddled and sheltered from any hardship?

No one here is giving Rocket crap because of what appears to be an inevitable delay. The only thing us "spoiled children" feel entitled to is when a man says he is going to say something that he is going to follow through and not run to the safety of Reddit. We wanted a simple one or two sentence update, REGARDLESS as to what the update consisted of. If the suits pulled the plug on what he was going to say, then spend ten minutes to update the dev blog saying exactly that. End of story and everyone has their update and the wait continues. Don't just disappear, then pop up on Reddit of all places and post some cryptic garbage then go all emo. Of course the children of the millennium generation who are insulted at the thought of being held responsible for anything are the ones truly whining. He really needs to stick to the dev side and BIS needs to fork over some of the mounds of cash they are raking in off of Rocket's labor and help the guy out. In my opinion BIS is not supporting Rocket or the game enough.

The fact that Rocket is using Reddit as his primary method of communication while ignoring Twitter, his dedicated development blog, and even his own mods dedicated forum really makes me question his management skills. Guess it is just safer over there with the Rocket groupies. BIS needs to hire a PR/marketing person stat.

Totally agree...your success in this game is by sticking with the mindset you used in creating the mod to begin with. You are offering a real shift in gameplay mindset. A total departure from spoon fed, "no-consequences" gaming which people are obviously craving. I trust you, and you are going to be wildly successful with this.

Rocket, not all of us sit with Reddit on Autorefresh or stalk your every spoken word with groupie-like obsession, so if you have a stated stance against microtransactions then I am more than happy to be ignorant in this case. Glad to hear it.

I know this is said in jest, but to me this sums up 80% of the improvements that Rocket mentions in his dev. Rocket seems to be making the correct decisions, but I have to admit this latest post concerns me more than excites me. I have no problem with Steam, and I am a huge supporter of Chet's vision in gaming for the most part, however I can't help but get the impression that the development focus is on providing framework for goofy microtransactions. I hope that is not the case Rocket as the game will be immensely successful on its own gameplay merits and will have to resort to such gimmicks. Good luck and get back to work!

In my experience the exact opposite is true, and led to the death of much of the popularity of mod gaming. If you ever played some of the early builds of what is one of the most successful mods ever created, Desert Combat, then you would know how horrible some of the early releases were. The difference was that the mod developers were actively communicating with the public and they released fixes within days or weeks. Then every mod developer got the idea that they were going to become the next Trauma Studios and get scooped up by a real game developer. Mod releases slowed to crawl and most simple were abandoned. There was this amazing mod for Battlefield 2 called Point of Existence which could of easily come from a AAA level developer, the problem was that they insisted on holding off on releasing the mod until it was totally polished. Unfortunately interested in BF2 at that point had dropped since they took so along and there was little interest in the mod when it was finally released, even though their work was exceptional. The Minecraft guys have it right, and Rocket is correct in wanted to duplicate this model.