Prag

I especially agree with the last sentence. Overall I think that it's a well thought out statement and a valid point that added to this. Before we have people who come on and say "I only payed x amount of money for it and I've already gotten my value. Don't you get that AAA games that have been worst cost more. Great Value" I'd like to say that I get that you're coming from... a place of principle. If I only paid $2 for lemonade at a neighborhood stand only to realize that it was water with yellow food colouring in it I'd still be pissed and feel cheated.

Only Dean could answer that. But my guess would be that he signed a two year contract or so that had it's incentives. It could also be that within a contract he's obligated to see the game at least through beta. But within any media business (film, game, traditional art) the artist spends years on one project. It's a huge chunk of their life to commit to one thing. I'm sure that having such an overwhelming response to the game this early on made it easier to not sign another contract and begin another part of life. Anybody that's worked in the arts before (I have) knows that from conception to realization is usually a 5 or 6 year process. It takes a lot out of you. I'm sure that when weighing all of the pros and cons, whatever amount of money he made and the fact that the game got such a great response helped him walk away more easily. The other thing is that as an artist when you take on a project it's so hard to not get overly attached to your work. I think that Dean giving more (perceived) responsibility to his other collaborators can only aid the game.

I assume that you're speaking more generally rather than directly and anyhow I agree. Everybody seems to agree that it does let the game off the hook currently. I guess the thing that split me was more related to a different subject. But I've gotten my answer. Thanks posters.

That's a small part of the problem that I was speaking to. It feels like people have chosen sides between two teams that are hated rivals on the forums. I think that like a sports team you can still really enjoy the product but want just a few things improved and that doesn't mean that you should be told that it's Alpha so STFU and get off. And LaughingJack did a great job of explaining it. I get that it would be frustrating to see a million threads about Zombies coming through walls and I myself get annoyed at the threads about how KOS can be fixed even though again that's just a style of play. But I don't go and yell at a person and tell them that they're worthless. I just don't reply so that the thread can die faster and I wish that others did that. I can't tell if you were being serious but this is another small part of the problem. If you were being serious then you couldn't have read the entire thread but you still decided to take a hard defensive stance. But getting back to the original point, the consensus seems to be Yes during Alpha. So my next question is do you truly honestly expect for the game to reach beta stabilization? Not if you care or not but if you really think that it will by the end of the year? I don't want for people to read to much into this and tell me to bug off because I want beta too fast. I didn't play this particular mod but I noticed that a lot of people seem to think that it was half-done. I personally feel like that's the nature of any mod but again I can't personally give an opinion on this one. So I'm leaving another question open to you more experienced guys.

First let us examine what DayZ (in my eyes) attempts to be. A fun multiplayer survival game where players can play in many different ways. Some people would prefer that survival is more from zombies than other players but it succeeds in being a survival game. The dev team have been throwing a lot of minor features into the game with the goal of allowing players to be highly unique in their look and playing style. And it's mostly fun. Now let's look at what the SA was supposed to improve upon. It was supposed to have fewer hackers and bugs while bringing more stabilized features. I can't say if there are fewer hackers or bugs but I can say that as of now (understandably) there aren't many stabilized features. Lastly I want to examine the argument that people make when they scream IT'S ALPHA. To me, the problem with telling others that it's Alpha or to uninstall the game and quit playing or whatever it is that we've seen so often posted with hostility is that you're then telling those players that they MUST have the same expectations that you have even though they paid for the same product with the same amount of money as you. You're saying that because you expected the game to be developed slowly that the other player must have had the same expectations from the beginning and if you didn't you can just quit the game and stop whining. But what if a person is going off of what Dean has said the timeline is? We all know that he and the devs have maybe overestimated what they and the engine could handle within a given time. To give a specific situation: To a person who hasn't played (much or at all) but saw Dean say that he expects for cars and bases to be here in x amount of time (within months), if those things are implemented and then pushed really far back should the disclaimer really cover that? This is an open question. I'm personally split. I think that the developers expected more from the engine and now there behind because they're working on the game in a different way. But then should they and the game be let off the hook if it appears that they are pushing forward with plans rather than catching up because of the disclaimer? I agree that some things that frequently get complained about go back to it being a really stripped version of an Alpha game. But then other things shouldn't get the benefit of it being an alpha. I should point out that I'm not talking about the players that post crazy things like "The game could have been done within a matter of weeks" or people like that. I've seen people make some valid points in post obviously rooted in frustration (which is understandable) only to be told that they and their opinions don't matter because it's Alpha. And as more of a personal question aside from the main point of this thread: Is there any way that the developers could have known about the issues with the game engine before they started using it for development? I ask because one friend that I have that works in game design says they absolutely should have given the fact that they used a version of it for the mod and the time that they had to work with it while the other says that it's more complicated than that.

This is just my opinion and speculation. After reading these forums for a while and talking to some posters that say that they're game devs as well as my two friends in the industry I wanted to kind of make this thread. I'm not a developer but I do go to school for PR&Marketing . I'm also not so naive to take what these guys have said as 100% truth. I see the bigger picture that they're making. When Jovlon posted What Alpha Should Be he said that he saw dysfunction within BI. FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT HAVEN'T READ THAT MONSTER OF A THREAD GO TO THE LAST FEW PAGES TO GET WHAT HE WAS TRYING TO SAY. (Sorry for the bold but it's slightly important to my point) He started off as a jerk but he ended up having some valid points (especially now) whenever he explained himself both in forum and through pm. Fracture posted about the Direction of Development. He made similar points. These two guys said that they're in the business and they didn't really feel comfortable with the direction of the game before this announcement. Once I talked to my two friends in the business and read Rocket's statement I kind of went from maybe to agreeing with the guys that say that they're game devs. Though we all know that Rocket isn't the best PR guy this feels like he's trying to stick it to BI while setting up his next move. Most people in Rocket's position would wait until things are closer to a big landmark goal to announce their departure. That way instead of it becoming a lame-duck period it becomes a period to celebrate all that they contributed to the project. Most people would announce this 2-3 months out. Most people would say something cliche like "I want to thank BI for giving me the opportunity" and etc. instead of "I never wanted to be here". Maybe Jovlon was right in speculating that Rocket didn't get as much power to push his vision as he thought he would. When he did live streams he made a huge PR blunder by not knowing what was in his own game for christ sake. It could have been very telling though. Rocket also announced that he's already working on similar ideas with new concepts and planning to create a new studio once he leaves. From a PR standpoint he's basically discrediting this game as a work that he couldn't push towards his true vision for whatever reason and saying that he's going to attempt to do so with the new studio. Jovlon made the point that Rocket has been passionately working on the same game concept for years now. He said that whether he's being limited on the technical side of things like the game engine and or power is being stripped away on a project that he's slaved on for a while now, it makes sense that he would use the exposure that he's gained to setup a move to regain pure control over his vision. I know that this is just speculation and that's why I didn't try to make a strong argument. Whether intentional or not based off of my studies I just see the timing and wording of this as a swing towards BI. I'm probably completely wrong though. (:

Hahahaha. Rocket's been in the military. Don't know if that's a good idea.

Nooooooo. Lol. It sucks but a lot can be accomplished in 10 months. Wasn't there a huge thread about how this would happen not to long ago? By some guy that said that he was a game developer? I don't know if that guy was right but this sure seems like he could have been. It seems like Rocket didn't have as much control over SA as he thought he would. Rocket has always been the straightforward type but usually when a person announces that they're going to eventually leave they go cliche and say something like "I want to thank BI for giving me the opportunity" not "I never wanted to be here". To me it feels like he's sticking it to BI and trying to let us know that they screwed him.