themightylc

or add and increase randomization in having to start over again. If that's what the BioHaze suggested, I think that feels more "realistic" than just - maybe predictably - take longer at doing something. A little more time to bandage yourself is maybe not a big deal to most survivors, while never knowing if you will be EVER able to stop that bleeding when the time comes is a 100% incentive to do something about your current health state.

Insurgency does this. We love it because of it. The feel is unique and very immersive. That is exactly what happens. The source engine on modern Hardware is quite capable of delivering a good experience with this technique. I highly doubt that DayZs engine will be.

No you couldn't. Like seriously... TIRE is the example you're going with?

Why join the EA then...?

yes, legacy branch. We've talked about this a lot among our group. How great it would be to have just kept playing say 0.43 (even on just a few select servers) before some of the "less convincing" updates made some of my friends get completely burned out by the game. There was a build that brought performance to a grinding halt on full servers. That was the point when a lot of my friends thought the game stopped being fun. That was fixed by removing the infected. That didn't really bring them back. And that shouldn't even be a problem. "DayZ will be great, menwhile go play something else". But there are so many "content" updates that feel like they are purely there to engage players to come back... I don't know. It all seems pretty incoherent.

EDIT: I just realized I could have written this all in a more positive, upbeat way like "hey, wouldn't it be good to do this" instead of insinuating that "you are doing it wrong". I meant it in the first way. Please, read it like that <3 :o* Okay it has come to the point that I feel pressured to make a disclaimer at the start of my posts as to how much I love DayZ and how much empathy I have towards the devs, being a developer myself. But maybe I'll put this in my signature some time (don't count on it I'm lazy) I feel DayZ - the actual game in development - has never really fully profited from EA in this way. It's always been this pressure to have a playable game all the time - the "stable branch" - and... well... something else, "the experimental branch". I get the idea behind it, or maybe the intention, but i really think it is executed and handled suboptimally. First of all, there are so few EXP-Servers, that i doubt the value of information that can be pulled off of them. Secondly, update intervals have almost become identical to the point that experimental has ceased to justify it's existence. IMHO "stable" should always have been experimental. And "experimental" should have been WAY closer to the internal builds. Somehow the devs seen to feel pressured to supply BOTH as a "playable, enjoyable experience". My assumption being, that they are in fear that the reputation and future sales (though after 3.000.000 copies sold i cannot see this as a threat) of the game are too closely connected to the playability (NOT the quality) of the Steam branches. Hicks keeps advertising EA as an opportunity to change things up, but we're getting those changes in frustratingly long intervals. I would LOVE to play completely broken builds. Reset shit every 2 days I don't care, but how can i contribute to the development, playing old-as-shit builds with legacy systems that won't have an impact on the development at all anymore? On the other hand, the "enjoyable experience" on "stable" is hindered by miniscule things, that could be fixed in an instant. Let me give an example: DayZ has a detailed nightsky with star systems that help me orientate myself which I can't even fucking look at anymore, because my character is obviously wearing some kind of neck collar, that prevents him from looking up more that a few degrees. This change is pissing me off so much and I know for a fact (I promise to grab my leg and rip myself apart if this isn't true) that changing it (back) would be as much work as changing a single line of code, maybe even just update a config file. No new clothes, animations, weapons, long overdue zombie fixes would be nessecary, but these little changes are not being made to "stable" because "stable" has to be "stable" and god forbid they break something EVEN MORE.... So "stable" is by far not the experience it could be. "experimental" has by far not the value it could have. We should at least be able to play "weekly builds" on it. I understand pushing and merging builds does by no means not involve some work. But heck, even "monthly builds" would mean a lot within the current world-of-goo. The goals, the bugs, even the BLOCKERS should at least be possible to be experienced and evaluated by a part of the community. Actually, the BLOCKERS should be the frontmost experience, so that they can be tackled. Even if it means that I can't reload a single wepon in the "exp" branch for a week? What does it matter? I'm playing an UNFINISHED product. I can either TEST other things or maybe even provide information and help to fix it. Be it actively by reporting or passively through server-logs. But this current system - sorry - it just doesn't make any sense to me. DayZ user numbers currently PEAK at 0.3% of the buyers. Thinning out the herd even more by BREAKING THE STEAM BUILDS EVEN MORE could be a good thing. Trying to keep them happy by stabilizing builds for months and months on end does not seem to accomplish anything.

"DayZ is a gritty, authentic, open-world survival horror hybrid-MMO game, in which players follow a single goal: to survive in the harsh post-apocalyptic landscape as long as they can." Taken from the DayZ homepage, emphasis by me :P

The question is why even long-time-EA-veterans have to be speculating about this. Why is this not common knowledge provided by the dev team?

The more I think about it... if it wasn't connected to the shaping of the development at all, if the revenue would not be going into development, it would be absolutely counter-productive. Then EA is nothing more than selling an unfinished product, cashing in the profits and nullifying the "high-level" pressure to deliver a good product. I am NOT questioning the morale of the dev team - heck, I myself would feel all the more pressured to deliver - but B.I. could care less about how many "additional" copies will be sold once the game is released. How is this an invalid thought process? Honestly. Tell me.

Exactly. This is how I remember it, too. But it's all such a blur at this point really, and "researching" information on this just to check who - if anyone - is right or wrong about whatever just feels silly.

This might be the most crucial snippet of information concerning the DayZ development that I have read since joining EA Alpha (when EA Alpha started)... was/is this clear to everyone? I mean it's easy to see the HUGE implications of thinking, that the budget would be directly impacted by the 3.000.000 copies sold, which in our minds roughly translates to 60.000.000€ in intake before taxes, fees and shit. ... consider me speechless.

To be clear what this means: the loot and objects after a server restart will be exactly the same. No new loot will spawn and no old loot will despawn as a direct effect of the restart. However loot will still spawn and despawn after a given amount of time.

Biggest Bullet points, seen from a year's ago's perspective: pretty reliable persistence on all servers for all loot and "placable objects" 4 vehicle types with solid basic repair and driving mechanics more stable server performance, especially on full servers (this was a HUGE issue for me about a year ago which lead to a long absence after 500+ hrs played) a shitload of new items and clothes, a lot of them sadly not having any function at all in the current state of the game That's about it for noticebale changes if you'd ask me.

I just skimmed all status reports from this year. The only one to even mention the infected is the latest one - in a half sentence with a new spawner that won't be ready for 0.60 Is there no progress to report in this area at all? Or has everyone forgotten about them? Like mad cow disease and H1N1 ;)

That's beside my point. I have a pretty solid understanding of development. I don't ask for zombies to be fixed NOW, be it in stable, exp or internal. I just would love to hear/read about some progress/work being made. There should be enough people on the team to tackle several tasks at once. The designers are designing. The programmers are programming, the renderers rendering. You catch my drift. I cannot imagine nor will I believe that they start tackling this important feature of the game only whey they're done with everything else. It's just amusing to me there always used to be such a shitstorm about the zombies. Then they were gone for several months. Now they are back in miniscule numbers, still glitching like it's 1999 and nobody cares anymore... it's amusing... and troubeling at the same time.

I want to elaborate on a topic again that was discussed here: https://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/226510-increase-map-size/ Background: Last night we were scouting for a good camp site on a private hive and while doing so we encountered several camps from other players. Some hidden well, some not so much. Some with high end gear, some not so much. All(!) of them with a collection of Blackskull masks. Seeing those camps got me thinking: why do we keep on stumbling across other camps, while ours stays untouched for weeks on end. Easy to find. All other camps were near some road, remote but still easy to find (to benefit the owner i suppose)Easy to spot. Not a single one of them bothered to look for a "dark forest"Too big and unorganized. There were camps that looked like a pure show off. 12+ civilian tents with NOTHING in them (zero items), accompanied by one or two overstuffed military tents that contained all kinds of crap.To make a good camp it comes down to determination and time spent scouting and actually traveling to and from a remote and well-hidden location. DayZ is supposed to be a hard, unforgiving, skill-based game. Reflexes and awareness can give you an edge in shootout-situations. Navigational skills and determination should give you an edge in securing your improvised base. This is not possible right now: The current map size bothers me to an extent, that actually might severely impact the enjoyment of the game for me if it's not changed by 1.0 (It was something to brag about three years ago... not so much anymore) there is not enough room to build camps. Imho a good and easy to implement solution would be to extend the map along the northern and western borders with a vast forest area. It does not have to be infinite, but it should expand in one direction at least as far as the map is at the moment, quadrupling the current size. This forest should have water sources, not too many, preferably in the form of long rivers. The edge of the map should not be recognizable from far away - in my opinion an invisible wall, padded by more forest to the end of sight, would be preferable to a "stone wall" or something similar, just to keep a sense of disorientation. I could imagine something like an uncrossable chasm or river - just something that can only be seen when you almost step into it. If that sound's too crazy I'd still prefer an invisible wall. Navigating with the help of landmarks ("I know this tree, this stone etc.") will be hard. A slip of the compass for just a few degrees could result in being tens of kilometers from where you wanted to end up. Crossing this by foot would be very challenging and impossible without proper preparation. Random chasms, steep hills and dense woods would make it very hard to navigate through here by car, though the dirt bikes would be the shining stars. Wildlife should be spawning there to a greater extent than in the main area, making life there dangerous and trips to the "civilization" for medical supplies a must. In my opinion, this would enhance the "survival" aspect of this "survival" game to an enormous extent and open up totally new playstyles. And to almost negligible development-cost, I must add. Painting a big, random-y forest with a few rivers cannot be that challenging for the talented art-team. I cannot stress enough how mush i think this is essential to the feel of DayZ as I have come to know and love it. If we build bases on a map as small as this, with a population of 100 players and above per server, this will be Rust all over again. And imo, it really shouldn't be. TL;DR: after finalizing the intended design, the map should be expanded with a huge, foresty area for players to build camps, get lost in and die of starvation. Only the clever survivors will prevail there.

Well to be frank: We are exquisite at hiding camps. They last forever. I have traveled and seen every inch of the map. It's still (way!) to small for private hives.

Do you mean feature in beautiful colors? I'm just teasing. I'm a cranky old dude envying your enthusiasm. And also maybe your spare time ;) It's just after close to 600hrs of DayZ (even with 3 months abstinence) you start seeing things a little less colorful. My enthusiams towards this wonderful survival-diamond you can still see has made way for a more grounded worrying what will actually be accomplished until 1.0. And a few core pillars have never really been adressed directly by the devs imo. Nobody knows what's supposed to become of the plug-ugly abomination that is "the edge of the map" yet, as far as i know.

The "damn sizeable map" has not been achived in any way. It came with Arma 2, a game published in 2009. Back then it was big, but ridiculously empty. By today's standards it's nothing short of embarrasing. What the DayZ developers have done is make the buildings enterable and built new cities, with a handful of cool new designs, but 80~90% using the same old assets. And frankly - and I don't mean offense myself, but this 'let's put a lot of effort in this to make this game more fantastic' attitude, as sweet, honest and admirable as it may be actually offends me a little bit: I'm not going to draw sh** and feature it in no way whatsoever! I have a day job and so do the developers. BI should invest the millions upon millions they have made with the EA and hire a professional forest-drafter if they so desire. They don't need me as a random forum user for that. Sweet Jesus. <_< Also: how can you say "wait and see" in the same post as "make a sexy presentation"... I don't even...

Do you play on a private hive? It's a big difference in my opinion, playing a high-pop-server on public, where population still changes all the time, or a private server, that is full every night, where people actually are bound to have seen THE WHOLE MAP (I've seen it). Once a location is known, it's compromised. That's my main stance on this. Ugh, now that I've read that I know how much hate I'm gonna attract, but nevermind. I stand by what I've said. Where? If the map cannot be expanded?

A combination of this for me please. Nothing on the screen that takes my attention as long as it's not critical. In my opinion this makes the most sense for the vision of DayZ. The deliberate "hidden" numericals behind the system (ANY video-game-system) is what makes playing with it interesting. I am "well energized", "well hydrated" - but have I actually reached the (very high) energy or (very narrow) water limit? I will never actually know. That's why I have to learn how to intake food and fluids effectively, not look at some stupid numbers. Imo this is as unfitting for DayZ as a killcam. Hiding the icons by default would raise immersion, but the mandatory press of a button to "see how i am doing" is acutally not that stupid either. If I am engaged in any activity, I sometimes actually need a friend to ask me "Hey, do you maybe need a Snickers?". That said I'd get rid of hydrated/energized indicators altogether. Just learn how to eat and drink, people!Status effects like broken bones, poisoning etc. should stay in the game as text-only messages with the usual vague tone. "My arm hurts like hell". "My mouth tastes funny". It's always been the spirit of the game to never know 100% what's going on. It's part of the *FUN*. that also goes forStamina, Health, Body Temperature, Blood should - as long as it's implemented reliably (D'oh) - still be available through context only: Shaking, Trembling, Loss of color, loss of focus, heavy breathing etc. I have always liked that system very much. It's another way of saying "learn how to use/read it or die"How good can people see and hear me? Really? I can only assume that was meant as a joke, otherwise we should all spawn with nightvision goggles and extra-stealthy-kevlar-pants from the get-go.There are two major exceptions to the above and imo the following should always be indicated in real time:Player stance: Because in 1stPP i actually can't tell whether I'm leaning or crouching, which I friggin' can ALL THE TIME irl, no need to press a button.Dropping stuff on the ground "by accident": Because seriously, DayZ. Hard and punishing is good, but this is NOT FUN.

Wow... that's strangely personal. Have to re-read my old posts to see if I'm really that bad. Did you forget they plastered "your" game with christmas trees last year? I guess it was okay then because whatever, right? Because there IS nothing else like DayZ i actually try to keep my chin up about it. But what are you going to tell someone asking you right now "How is DayZ coming along? Any progress worth mentioning?" - "well they fixed the zombies".... Of course there is progress but videos with beard-textures and an completely empty "development calender" on the official website is just begging for cynism.

Did not know that... thank you :)

I can't help but feel a little underwhelmed by this status report - and the general progress altogether. I orbit forums and website almost every day and I still hope for this game to become that unique zombie-apocalypse-survivial-simulator, but I always feel like the promises and talk about stuff that cannot be shown yet get's me more excited that what is EVERY time. I feel like everything DayZ has to actually show off at this point - be it in game or "development videos" (sorry but I cannot help but put these in sarcastic quotation marks) - is borderline irrelevant at best. That weirdly low-res beard-texture video is as sad as it gets in that respect. I mean 3 years ago this open huge map was a fantastic selling point in itself - I remeber a friend asking me the first time he played "are there other maps like towns or airports" and then I could with a big grin on my face tell him that we can just go to a town or an airport and it was blowing his mind. A lot has happened since then and "showing off" the DayZ Map today is more of an embarrasing endeavor. Just Cause 3's map is 4 times as big and filled with so much detail that the comparision alone would not make sense (please don't bother making comments about me comparing JC to DayZ unless you really have too much spare time). I hate dissing the dev team because I'm a delevoper myself but with the biggest updates being in areas that are either widely ignored or just removing zombies altogether... I mean c'mon this early-access game didn't sell 3m copies because people thought it'd be a good investment but because it was FUN AND PLAYABLE for my group and me when it went on sale. Now it's absolutely irrelevant. Why not keep a fun build around just for people to play instead of this nonsensical Exp/Stable Update scheme? I mean c'mon they talk about "blocking issues" for even a experimental push and then decide to remove the zombies in stable? Knowing how insanely long it takes them to cook up another update? That wasn't a blocking issue? Oh man, I'm tired writing this. TL;DR: Blame it on my disappointed faint hope for a surprise Halloween Update. Fucking pumpkings with lights in it to bump up the mood in Chernarus might have been enough - but maybe they are actually unable to do even that.

Well after the clean install everything is reset anyway... ;) If this is the only thing not working, you can still try the suggestions first and see if there is any improvement. Save yourself some time.