Funkmaster Rick

Try packing a tent in real life. If it takes you thirty minutes, you're doing something very wrong.

Good for you guys. It's a very different picture on this side of the pond.

Eh, this point bothers me when I think on it. That's how companies like EA get such terrible reputations for abusing their staff. 'Crunch time' is a horrible concept, an abuse that relies on exploiting your employees' love for their field to get them to work in a manner that is notably unhealthy. That kind of managerial behaviour isn't tolerated in businesses where there's no passion to exploit - your employees just leave, unafraid of being black-balled from the industry.

Eh, I bought the SA for a reason. =p How are the hackers in the mod? =)

So, I've got some legitimate concerns about DayZ, but I'll get to those in a moment. First, I feel like there's a certain aspect of reality that some people in this thread are ignoring. No, it's got nothing to do with the alpha tag. Nothing to do with development. It has more to do with the dwindling population numbers. I'd give a drum roll, but I'm too lazy, so here it is: it's the middle of fucking August. August, people. It's summer. People are going outside. It's like DayZ only the graphics are better and it's slightly harder to find military loot. It even has no zombies! It's DayZ+. In all due seriousness, though, it's the hottest summer on record around here; sitting in front of the computer for the hours-at-a-time that it takes to really get a good kick out of DayZ is a recipe for bedsores from the sweat. Worry not on the numbers, they're just busy having lives. Second, Samuri - if you know nothing about game development, as you professed just a few posts back, why are you saying that six months without an update is ridiculous? You don't know. That probably sounds like I'm insulting you or goading you on, but I swear I'm not. It's just clear that you weren't around in the old days when six months was about the expected time between game patches, and many retail games didn't release bug-fixing patches for a year or more. Your perspective seems limited. And if you think DayZ's dead, I can promise your perspective is limited. =) But now, let me talk about my actual concerns. Hicks seems... perhaps 'off his rocker' would be too strong a phrase. I haven't actually watched any of his announcements, but the actual words I hear reported on his behalf seem... unreasonably optimistic. It doesn't feel like we're less than a year from beta. The Status Reports don't feel like the kind of communication I expected when I signed up for an Early Access game. The developer-player dialogue feels non-existent to me. Between the somewhat grandiose public announcements to the world, and the lack of a more private discussion with the community at large, I'm starting to think there's a major disconnect between the perspective of the developers and the perspective of the long-term playerbase, which strikes me as a recipe for disaster. Maybe the news that ARK recently released paid DLC while still in unfinished Early Access has me rattled, but I'm starting to worry that there's a significant aspect to the development that's not being communicated to the players. It's almost always a bad idea when developers start relying heavily on the opinions of what's often a vocal minority on the internet, but it's also bad when they drift out of touch. There was definitely a clear direction, a general feeling of certainty, when Rocket originally announced that he wanted to pursue a standalone version of DayZ to expand its functionality and kill off the skiddie population. I don't feel that certainty any more. Thoughts?

You know, whether the map is too big or too small depends largely on what you're doing in it, I think. For example, if you're looking to build a quiet little base where you can stash a few things and hopefully not have them destroyed next time you log on, the map is too small by at least an order of magnitude.

If you're talking about kill animations, they probably wouldn't fit in DayZ; the momentary loss of control of your character as the animation completes is something I've always found a bit jarring.

+1

Ah, well that's quite the different story indeed!

Only 20% of basic, core functionality remaining? That feels like too low a number.

Even snakes can't serpentine as fast as we can in DayZ.

Yes, there was an underground bunker at Kamensk base for a time. See Gews' post above for how they made it.

That's exactly my thinking - BT generally simulates various different parts of a 'mech with a fuckton of redundancy; the 'mech in question can still function with half its torso missing, for example. The vehicle system still needs a lot of work, but once its done, I think it might make a good base for exactly that.

The tinge is because of the dark spirits haunting it.

You know what's even better? "There's a guy!!" "Where?" "He's shooting at me!!" "Where is he?" "Right there!!" No further indication. Apparently some people's brains go right off when they're playing DayZ, which explains KoS sprint-looting quite easily.

It's called South Barracks as a throwback to the mod days, when the only building you could enter there was one of the old-style long-hallway barracks with the bunk-cots.

You forgot to mention that prayer, voodoo, and healing crystals are useful at all stages of vehicle maintenance and operation, to ward off the bad spirits.

Yes, it would affect the FPS. More objects to render, more trees to sway, more foliage to conceal.

I hear vehicles keep their cargo, but have not confirmed.

Wow, jeeze, 48 hours after you mentioned 1pp and 3pp in the same thread, and it hasn't exploded in violence and crying. Is... is this what happiness feels like?

I don't get it. The information is out there. You release the bowstring before reaching full draw. Too many Hollywood movies with bad archery. It always cracks me up when some idiot holds his bow at full draw pointed at someone's head like a gun.

Incoming 1pp vs. 3pp flamewar. I can feel it in my bones.

Next time someone posts a 'State of the Game' thread - and I fully expect some rando with less than a hundred hours to repost such a thread inside of a month - I vote we all insist that the game shits golden unicorns and cures cancer, erectile dysfunction, and HIV all at once. At this point, I've seen them so often that I just want to fuck with these threads. =)

I'm constantly amused by how people underestimate the improvised bow; after practising with 20 shots, I was able to reliably hit your average window from 50 yards without difficulty. At that point, I'd say it's a viable weapon. Of course, its damage sucks, but that's because all weapons currently under-perform, likely due to clothing and items absorbing way too much of it the damage.

You know, it just occurred to me that, with some work, DayZ SA could be modded to make an excellent Battletech simulator.