rickyriot

In short... 0.62 Stable: Pros: Em... it's stable? I suppose? Cons: Pretty much everything else. 0.63 Exp: Pros: It's the best state DayZ SA has been in since... ever! Cons: Possible character/server wipes as new stuff is being added... and it is being added. If I had to advise anyone it would be to avoid 62 stable. DayZ as a game is going to annoy you. Amaze and excite you too, but definitely annoy you. If you are to get annoyed, at least do so by the evolving world and not the one that'll be consigned to history very shortly.

I believe it's called "Doing a Dean", making sure you get the hell out of dodge before the shit hits the fan.

It's been longer than 5 months. Even then .62 was still massively disappointing, as is the entire development pretty much since DH left (not that I am suggesting DH was the mitigating factor here). The .63 demo came, went to one of the shows, seemingly was played by quite a few people only for it to "disappear" despite vague hints that there would be a playable demo released at the same time. Using Occam's Razor here you would deduce that the game was not playable, and certainly not suitable for a demo despite claims. That in itself was as good as 5 months ago. Ultimately the game is "vapourware", and in my opinion won't be delivered. I presume the devs are working on something but who knows what as the developer diary report thing is now sitting idle for a month. Holidays or not, that's pretty poor considering it takes 10 minutes to write up a summary of development even if people are on holiday. It might seem a small thing but it's the primary source of information regarding the dev. No, seriously, if I were you, I'd just delete DayZ from Steam, find something equally good (and with the time taken to develop this title lots of games are equivalent or better have appeared) and maybe pop in around August and see if any movement has been made. I doubt it will, but you know, maybe we'll be in luck. For me? I've gone from playing regularly 20 hours a week, to now removing DayZ from Steam (the tiny updates simply annoy me now) and play numerous other far better titles, and if I ever want that clunky DayZ interface/weapon/environment feel then I just boot up Arma 3.

Source: https://dayz.com/blog/status-report-28th-november So.. why have I cut and pasted from the Status Report? For one simple reason, the vast majority of infrequent visitors to this site are looking for that information. Previously we were constantly told, "it's Alpha", "it'll be ready when it's ready", which is a bit of a lazy response but it did have it's merit because we had no definitive information either way. Now, however, we do have a concrete timeline statement so I think it should be published prominently. I am both disappointed and completely unsurprised by this information, but giving my 2 cents worth really won't help here. I hope the moderators will see this thread not as a negative, it's purely informative without any spin added on top.

Sadly that seems to be the case. In many ways I wished they had said no demo until at least Q1 2018 when it was abundantly clear the expo demo was not capable of making it as a public exp build. I do want to talk more about this, but as @kichilron has pointed out there are other threads for that intent. I'm keeping this one clean purely to stop this being merged with other threads when really most people come in here looking for one answer (the one in the title).

As a mod you'll be the arbiter of whether this thread has value in this part of the forum. I feel that the majority of non-frequent visitors to the forum will be looking for this information. I'm sure you'll appreciate I could have been far more aggressive with my comments, I specifically stepped back from that. You are completely wrong, it is not negative it is informational. The very fact you only chose to highlight one part of the sentence and not the rest shows you are scrambling to fit an agenda.

It's only a matter of weeks until Christmas so it's not that long really, but the longer delays to a playable exp or stable release are two fold - at least for me. On one hand they allowed people to play it at whatever expo they did (can't remember which one it was), if that was the case and they have had to go and put another 3 months worth into it then it suggests the .63 demo was very limited and more just a showcase than an actual playable demo. The other side was the hint that after the showing, there could be a playable demo released to the public. OK, it was only a hint, but still it was raised by the devs themselves. The community, from my point of view, has been starved of really good news for so long so it seems a little unfair to suggest a demo if it was clear from those close the project new that this was unrealistic.

I find the opposite reaction. DayZ for good or ill, has moved into an almost mythical category. Granted a lot of people know the name without actually playing the game. The biggest annoyance for me is how the 'development process' (and we don't need to go into that in detail) has squandered that legacy somewhat. As for the original question, and as I already own the game, the only caveat I would add is "will there ever be a time when Alpha ownership doesn't guarantee Beta ownership?" It certainly seems unlikely Bohemia wouldn't do that, purely from the backlash, but considering my £15 (or whatever I paid) was 4 years ago does that continually guarantee updates?

I have owned the game from the start, and I am negative. I also know the history of the game, from mod to SA to further alpha releases, so to suggest that those who are complaining are ignorant of it's development is both naive, and a touch insulting.

"How To Win Playerbase Back?" Simple answer, "make a good game". Sounds trite, yes, but it is the most honest answer. As most have said though, the DayZ legacy is well into the 'on borrowed time' category.

I get why people say "when it's done" or "it's in alpha, expect delays", which is a fair point, but... I bought DayZ stand alone 4 years ago (ish, I don't know the exact date) and the constant, "it'll be ready when it's ready" response has lost it's value somewhat when it's trotted out time after time. It's up to the DayZ devs to decide when/if 63 ever comes out, but that doesn't dismiss the views of those frustrated at the wait. For me? .63 really needs to be worth it. The game has had so many false dawns (then several "steps back"). One more failure will relegate this game to the vapourware category.

From reading that, it sounds like you are crying out for Arma with a DayZ-esque mod. Both Arma2 Dayz mod, the thing that started it all, is still available as are numerous other Arma2 mods. Full servers are a little thin on the ground, mind, but it's still an active community. Now, Arma3 is a different matter. It's going strong and has a plethora of mods you can apply to get that zombie hunting fix. DayZ the standalone might either be completely broken or due a surprising Lazarus like resurrection from the death, but in the meantime that shouldn't stop you shooting zombies in Chernarus. There are a lot of mods, so I won't recommend one in particular but I have a friend absolute loving how Desolation (Redux) is coming along.. http://desolationredux.com/

I have been a constant supporter of DayZ, this is not a hatchet job, but an honest reply to the topic's title question. --- Simple answer is no. After years of waiting and watching an eternal car crash my sympathy for DayZ is now depleted. There are lots, and I mean LOTS, of games that can give the game experience that DayZ offers. That wasn't the case before, but when I look at games like Miscreated, 7 Days to Die, even things like Plunkbat there is a wealth of titles now which might not match like for like but they perform capably which is something that can never be said for DayZ. Not now, and not even when Dean first released SA. It's a shame but DayZ is dead. The servers are empty, the people who initially bought the EA up to four years ago are (mostly) p*ssed off they were taken for fools, and the chance to make an impact has long gone. Essentially the devs are swimming against the stream and with every delay, every step back, it just makes people realise what a waste of time it is waiting for DayZ to be worth playing. No amount of Beta, which in itself has already been delayed - after years of delay - can convince people Bohemia/DayZ are capable of producing a decent play experience. As it is, buying the game now is (literally) like throwing your money away. Buying it when Beta hits (heh, if it _ever_ does) is a sign of optimistic folly. In fact the ONLY way I could recommend buying the game is when Beta has been released, tested, played, and been found capable of producing a decent gaming experience, and with all the best will in the world, that simply isn't going to happen and that has been shown up by the way the game has been developed so far. So, not quite a Duke Nukem vapourware, but by God it's not far off it. Sorry people, this is an honest opinion, and if anyone involved in the game are annoyed or insulted by my comments but the bottom line is this is genuinely how I feel.

As much as it saddens me, I agree with sneakydude. The delays and especially the lack of updates (we all know the reasons and I am certainly not going to bitch about it) has set DayZ back quite a bit in the eyes of the public (imo, anyway). If a "normal" development path had been followed I believe the momentum would have been maintained from the hype train days. That said, while some games come close, not many match the true nature of DayZ - or it's potential. I know what I want from the game, and I hope it can provide that experience, so I am far from giving up on the title. The devs (heh, as if they need me to tell them this!) really need to get a move on though. It's a much harder task to put this top of the pile now than it would have been several years ago.

My apologies for coming to this conversation late but allow me to give my two cents. I started competitive FPS gaming with Quake 1 (a 1PP game) in the mid 90's then moved to things like MoH:AA and CoD (again both 1PP). All the time I was seeing console games like Lara Croft et al, being played in 3PP and just thought that not only is it unrealistic it also looks too awkward to properly see things 360'. Fast forward to modern shooters and the 3PP is not really the same viewpoint as before. With mouse look combined with 1PP when shooting it's like a hybrid which encompasses the benefits of both perspectives and when the stakes are so high (ie: death, respawn and lots of bloody looting) using something available to you when it might help it is utterly understandable. So in that sense I don't begrudge 3PP players for using that view mode. Ultimately I do believe a survival game like this should be 1PP but here is the rub, I am clearly in a minority - quite a small minority at that. Many people enjoy 1PP but not many would only restrict the game to such a view. Locking out 3PP players will reduce the share of the market especially with many similar games on the go (remember when DayZ was literally the only zomvivalist game around?) who are more than willing to expunge the existentialism of the argument and give their audience both viewpoints. My only real gripe about 3PP is that you can't really have a mixed server. The advantages of 3PP over 1PP are noticeable and understandably so considering 3PP makes the game considerably easier and it's that unbalance that I find most disheartening.

On the list of things that need to be addressed, server hopping is some way down it. After all we have timeouts which in some way does address it a little and perhaps if persistence and loot spawning are tweaked to work consistently then maybe that will even it out somewhat. However, I had picked up a Mosin and a LRS. Not really my game play but as it just happened to be the weapon available to me I decided to give it a shot (no pun intended). I had been wandering about the map and an exchange of fire had pushed me up towards Vybor. Now I don't tend to visit military bases for several reasons, but as I had a LRS I thought I'd take some time to do some observation. Placing myself on the roof of the warehouse building to the East of Vybor (040,064), grabbed a cup of coffee, rolled myself a cigarette and switched into full on lurk mode, and Oh, my... my, oh my, oh my.... The number of players that just materialised out of the house at 035,069, the barn at 037,070 and on the Veresnik hillside (044,072) was considerably more than I had expected. I counted over 20 in a matter of about half an hour. Obviously some might have come up out of my eyeline but those who know the position I am talking about will know that it offers pretty good coverage. You might say these are just people joining and going on their way to other parts of the map, but these 20 I am talking about started from one location, would move towards the military base, loot (or not as it was clear the place was cleaned out by then), then go back to where they had joined the server. I should point out I am not complaining about these guys, just pointing out it's quite rife, and wondering how, or even if, we can counter act it.

All this is completely wrong.

You have completely and utterly misrepresented the point I made. Re-read, digest, then reply.

Like most, I have struggled with FPS in the game, and like most I have done the best I can to mitigate that. The game offers an awful lot and so what if you just have to suck up some bad frame rates and reduce the rendering quality? Improvements have always been hinted at and with the new roadmap announced for the year ahead there was the faint glimmer of hope that the new render could resolve some of the client sluggishness. However, head over to http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/219113-brian-hicks-on-twitter-fearmoho-nothing-of-any-lastingpermanent-measure-could-be-done-via-client-optimization-until-we-get-close-to-betarelea/ and see Hicks' reply regarding client optimisation. I understand where he is coming from and I also appreciate the hard work the devs do in order to progress the game. This is not a hater thread and there is no point in telling me it's still just an Alpha product as I've been playing the game longer than most and have always accepted this. However, the idea that the client will remain as unresponsive and to be told that this will be the case for the remainder of pretty much the rest of the year, well... it's a bit of a hard pill to swallow. Many people will say, "Just don't play it if you aren't happy", and that is fair comment and that, I have to admit, is basically the point I am at. I'm not sure if I really want to continue investing my time in a game I feel I have a constant disadvantage in despite easily having a PC capable of running similar titles without issue. It's a shame as I really do like the game (and did the mod) but with this latest tweet I feel like the rug has been taken out from under me a little and that light, albeit faint, at the end of the tunnel has just been switched off.

Provide military weapons and you'll end up with a military simulator. Sadly they are in, and I can't really see a way of undoing that, nor can I see any real justification for them not to be. Personally I'd like to see no military grade weapons in the game at all but you'd just get the usual suspects whining about me DayZ turning into some sort of hardcore niche survival experience while these same people completely ignoring the fact that the real military sim (Arma) is what they want DayZ to be. Ideally we'd see a dialling down of the amount of military weapons, meaning not every idiot and his dog has an AK. Surely a middle ground can be found until dedicated hardcore survivalist private servers can start to appear. There is enough demand for it, so I can see that happening.

I chased a chicken with a bow and arrow for about 5 minutes. Tricky little f**kers to kill with that weapon! Edit: If people are adding to this thread, to be the "true" master outdoorsman surely it's all got to be arrow kills.

You might be getting mixed up with the zombies super vision. I can fire an arrow and not get aggro, however on the flip side I can move an inch 600 yards away and have one spot me.

Bolts are much harder to find these days, when they were first introduced I was finding hundreds. I tend to find them in the "piano house" on the shelf on the ground floor, if I find them at all. Ultimately if I wish to use a silent weapon I craft a bow as arrows are very easy to craft for it.

The hoe, if aimed right, is a fearsome weapon. If there are lots of zombies and I don't have an axe, a hoe is what I go for. As for the sounds? Probably bugged more than a shooting hoe.

To put it into a meme... If the devs seriously want people hunting, fishing, trapping (no not Bailey Jay) or farming then stop providing so much food. I also want the food values amended. At present if you eat one tin of peaches it's worth nearly 3 times a deer steak in calories but almost the same in terms of water content which is surely way off. In fact I started a thread a while back saying that we should now get rid of all food spawn (or at least make them very rare). Making people survive in the game rather than just being a giant PvP title. http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/217845-time-to-remove-all-the-fresh-fruitveg-loot/