Wayze

A core feature has nothing to do with popularity, but with functionality. And yes indeed I honestly believe that if DayZ mod came out without zeds it would have been popular.

But what do zombies actually change?

Why would the zombies be afraid of jumping after him?

I get what you mean but still I don't think so. Also, it is not that Dean wanted to make a zombie survival game, he wanted to make a normal survival experiment in the first place. People fight for their survival, kill each other for a can of beans. This is what he originally intended to do as a kind of simulation. This didn't work out so he started to think of a zombish concept as a game. And what you don't get is that I don't say zombies should be gone for ever, but we don't need them to play the game. To test it out. To find buggs and broken gameplay mechanics. And this is what the alpha is for. Like I said it would be kind of cool to see what DayZ is like without zombies, sure it would be just a short period of time but anyway it would be very cool to expirience. Maybe not for you, but for others. I don't think that it wouldn't sell at all. Actually that depends on many other things. But as I see you are being very childish and arrogant by calling me an idiot, I will stop the discussion with you here, sir. Absolute intolerant behaviour. If you cannot handle another opinion you probably shouldn't be part of a forum or to be honest any social community.

I am not quite sure if he wants the movie to be like DayZ. In DayZ obviously almost all survivors end up on the beach. A individual scenario wouldn't work. But if that is no the case, your idea is simple and good.

DayZ Virus: -airbourne -90% of infected people die -9% turn into zeds -1% are immune -people try to escape via planes and cars -> escape routes per land are blocked, planes are gone -> people try to escape via ships -> people on ship turn into zeds -> immune people jump off the ships -> immune people end up on the beach

I remember this discussion very well and in my opinion zombies are just no core feature. They never really were a core feature. They are just an addition to the concept, a kind of decoration for the game. The game would work without them probably the same as with them. Sure, the difficulty will increase if they are really deadly (but what are the odds for that), but even then besides that they are just some running fools easy to outrun. Besides that it would be really cool to see the DayZ SA without zombies a oppurtunity we won't get a second time. And if you don't like it, nobody is forcing you to play the game.

But if you spend all your money on your credit card? How are you going to prevent this? :huh: Yes, I know it was a joke, same as mine. :rolleyes:

And how are you going to use that for Steam?

Once you kill the zombies of a town they won't respawn until all the players left the area or until the server restarts.

Exactly like that. Sure, rationally speaken it was stupid, but that is how people act. Why did nobody kill the nazi officers in WW2? The soldiert knew it was wrong (not all of them but still), but why didn't they just form a rebellion? Well, probably because of fear. Why didn't the black people in america kill the white ones when they were enslaved? Probably because of fear. Fear is very strong emotion that can overwhelm everything else. Now you say "I would never kill someone without a reason!", but then if it comes to the reality and you stand infront of another guy, holding a shotgun, you would maybe shoot without hesitation. It's called survival instinct and most people cannot control this. In reality you do not take chances like in a game, you just do whatever you have to do to survive. What you took as an example is perfect. The people who helped the kid, they followed them for days. They never engaged them, they waited until the father died. This is how people would do it. Never take chances. They were so afraid that they did save the father, but just let him die. They didn't help him. A kid on the other side is mostly harmless and is a very valuable addition to the group. Fear is bigger than the desire to help others. Nope, never said that. People would avoid each other and if confronted directly, probably kill each other. This is not pessimistic, it is just realistic. If you do not realise that, you have no idea what normal people are capable of. What they will do to survive. And, sadly in such a world, everyone who does not do everything to survive, will just die. I don't say people are murderers, but they are survivors. They kill if necessery. People who won't will be selected out by nature. This is not something I say because I think so, you just have to look in the past.

That would mean the Alpha would release within the next 4 days.

I disagree. Peope will help each other within a group, but if it comes to other groups or people they will probably avoid or rob them. It depends if they are desperate or just cruel. The problem is, the people who kill others for their own advantage will always be on top. Just image you are alone and you help another guy. Maybe the other guy wants to kill you? How can you ever trust him? Why would you even trust him? It is no game, helping another person is a very high risk and if the other person is psychopathic, your life is over. End of story. You cannot respawn on the coast and go to another guy and ask him for food. You are just dead, there is no second chance. I don't think that people will be as stupid as that and go around saying "Hey do you need help?!" or "Help me out here please!". Even if the chances are 1/10 that the other person will kill you, why would you take the risk? If you go around and ask everyone for help or if you go around and help others you will eventually die by one of these psychopaths who just want your food. I think people will just try to avoid each other. Like in The Road. If I got a son and I am walking through the streets seeing people I won't go to them even if they seem friendly and even if I have no food. There are worse things than the dead, people are capable of horrorfic things. Kill on sight would not be caused by psychopaths, but by people who are afraid. People who do not want to take the risk. Sure there would be groups running around, but I don't think that a group would ever group up with another group. Within the group they trust each other, but they have expirienced this world for long enough. They have probably seen people killing each other. So it is very unlikely that they will run around and like you said "help each other". But that's just a theory the same as yours. Maybe human are like you said, but if we look in the past, well sadly the chances are low...

"Stop trolling!" Is what people will tell you. ^^

I am wondering what the opinion of the community is regarding this matter. For me deathmessages are just immersion and gameplay breaking. It takes away a great feature that would make combat way more thrilling. Why would you know when someone is dead? If you want to make sure, you just go up to him and shoot him in the head. In the SA this will actually a decision that in some situation could be hard to make. Do you want really waste your last bullet just to make sure he is dead? But that is just my opinion. What do you think guys?

Well, if it "sunsets" the entire project the developers did something wrong. An alpha is an alpha. No matter if it is open or not it still exists to test the game. In my opinion developers who do not use that alpha time just miss an oppurtunity to get the best out of the concept. An open alpha is very flexible. Mostly the developers do not have to change much because they have planned it out. In that case the flexibility of the game is kind of handicapped (my bad english sry). But like I said DayZ is unique. But this is something many people argue about, we could talk days and it still would result in two different opinions. Anyway, my point regarding to the zombies is that I don't think that they are a core feature and even if they are it could be very accomplishing to actually see how they effect the game/player behaviour. Like Dean said himself, he is willing to release the game without zombies, for him the zombie feature is surely important but as far as I can tell he doesn't see them as an ultimatly necessary core feature. Or do you all think Dean is stupid and willing to destroy all his plans just to release the alpha?

Zombies are a kind of obstacle sure, but it doesn't prevent us from running around collection food and water and then go and do deathmatching and I don't think they ever will. How can I possibly claim that? Well, because I don't think that no zombies will result in absolute deathmatch. Wow, have you ever even concidered that I have another thought-process than you? I don't have a valid insight, but you don't have one either. That was the point I was trying to make the whole time. In my opinion the "no zombies = deathmatch" is just nonsense. But maybe you are right, we both do not know. And exactly that is why it would be such a great oppurtunity to just test it out. Like I said, this is the advantage of an alpha. You just can take out the zombies from the game and see if they really prevent deathmatch. If they do you know that this is a very important element. If they don't you just have to think of another core element which could cause this player behaviour.

Nope I am not trolling (again, kind of childish to say that just because I have another opinion). And I explained to you, as an indie developer with the power to just not implement a core feature it is a valuabe oppurtunity to actually see how this feature does effect the game. And no I was not talking about testing a game, but about developing a game. I tested some MMOs, but just to play them not the help the developers. As you see DayZ is no ordinary game, the planning and the development and even the alpha are kind of at the same time. Normally you first plan out everything, then you start to develope, then get the alpha out to see if it works and then you get a beta out get the last glitches and buggs. In DayZ it is more like they are planing it, but also trying to get the alpha out as soon as possible. This has advantages but also disadvantages. For example you are able to change a core element because it is not an essential part of the game. You know what I mean...

So I was right, everything just assumption and theories. And actually I was never trying to prove my point, I just wanted to show you that there are also other possibilities than just yours. You think it would result in a deathmatch. That's ok, but before you cleary state it would result in a deathmatch as kind of fact. But I don't think so and it is very arrogant, sorry for that strong word, to call other theories bizarre, desperate and ridicilous just to point out that your argument is "better". I don't like DeathmatchZ, and again a very childish, sorry again for the strong word, way to actually debate in a discussion. You throw with accusations that are clearly no true at all. The same as "I have no idea how game development works", well actually I was part of more than one project (nothing commercial but still) and I think I have enough expirience to alteast state my opinion without having it to be called ridicilous. Yes I played DayZ pretty much from the beginning and I know it was always easy to survive. Get some beans and water and that's it. You are good for hours if you just go and hide. But let's get into it. Why do you think there would literally be nothing to do? What do zombies change in that? In the mod I always ignored the zombies. And in the SA I don't think that zombies would change much. I won't use my valuable, rare ammo to just kill a zombie. Especially now, I can kill them all with my bare hands. So, what exactly do you think do zombies change in "having something to do". I never go out there to hunt zombies, would be kind of pointless.

You abandon your previous arguments and always try to find new one. Before you stated "No, an alpha is not for testing how a game will play it without integral features in place". Probably you realised that this was kind of incorrect. Now you trying to tell me that it would scare off people. In the beginning you called my argument ridicilous and I don't want to insult you, but for me it looks like you just want to be right, no matter what I say. Maybe it's not true but that's my view. I got three problems with your new assumption: 1. You don't know if people will like zombies or not, maybe they even enjoy more without them 2. The game will be very instable anyways, so no matter if it includes zombies or not it will scare of many people (or maybe not) 3. If there are no zombies included, the players, even the casual ones, will notice that it is clearly an alpha state. If zombies are included, and I think they will be bad anyway, players could think that this is the final state, which would result in probably even more "casualties" And IMO we've learned nearly nothing about player mentality in a survival scenario, because the DayZ Mod IMO was never a real survival scenario. In the beginning it was, kind of, but even then it was not like weapons or ammo were rare. Plus there was not much to do, surviving was really easy, even without any weapons. Also I don't understand why you think no zombies would result in absolute deathmatch? In my opinion dayz would work perfectly, maybe even better, without the zombies. For me they are kind of "decoration" and a cool feature for beginners.

Some aggressions. Well, an alpha is for testing and I had many projects myself with demos not including core features, however the feedback and the results of these demos have greatly increased my knowledge about how important that feature is, how I could implement it and if I should implement it like I originally intended to. As a matter of fact, even if you don't have a core feature implemented, especially for an online game like DayZ, the player behaviour and the resulting facts can be used to improve the game in many ways. It is not easy to say how important a feature is for a game and an alpha has the great oppurtunity to actually play with these features. What I mean by that, you can turn off a core feature and compare the results of that with the planned way. You know what effect this feature has to the game and this is a huge advantage for future development (like I said). Development is not as simple as you think, especially with games. Don't try to be smarter than others by calling them incompetent.

There was no reason to kill unarmend people. But in SA there actually is. Hand to hand combat ftw!

Sure it is deniable. Actually there is no way for you to prove it. It could even encourage team play, who knows? Anyways, I don't think that zombies will change deathmatching at all. The most important part is the probablity to find good stuff like weapons or ammo. Besides that, people will kill each other regardless if zombies are running around or not. That's my theory though, I cannot prove it the same as you are not able to. But that is exactly what an alpha is for, these situations can be tested very easily within a short time period. Like I said the results are very valuable for future development.

Nope, of course there are none real zombies in DayZ mod. You can't denie it, these things are nothing but annoying, I haven't died by zombies since more than a year now. It is not that they are buggy, they are just to weak and don't work. Sure additionally to that there are some buggs, but the core functionality in of the zombies in the mod is just awful. To be honest I don't see any difference between a server with zombies and without, just the fact that sometimes you got to run into a tree. Also an alpha is there to collect data etc. so a time without zombies could actually bring significant results for the community.

The question is what are most people doing? We simply don't know...