ChainReactor

The guys above me actually explained it correctly. What you see is "They change the Zombies all the time". What the devs actually do is changing, exchanging or improving the mechanics that control the zombies. You see zombies respawning because the devs tried out a system to simulate hordes of zombies because actual hordes can't be implemented yet due to server performance. As every new feature, it needs tweaking ( as dead zombies respawned immediately with aggro on you ) but its an improvement to before where you needed to kill 2 Zombies per town and would be safe there until the next server restart. Concerning melee, that's a system not exclusive to zombies but actually everything you can punch. Zombies, players, even trees to gather friewood. As you can read in the first link WhiteZero provided you, the devs just changed the melee system ( hit detection in particular ) from the scripted solution to a new, hard-coded version. It's a work in progress, as most of the mechanics currently ingame. So you see, "They changed the zombies" is a very unspecific impression since theres so much going on under the hood. Zombie AI is probably one of the biggest projects during the development of the standalone. Also, Zombies are no placeholders at all. Again, read the reddit links.

I can only tell you what i've read about some stuff you mentioned and what common sense tells me. Concerning the ambient sounds, Rocket and Eugene explained on Reddit that they are working on a sound system and that the current sounds are placeholders. That's why they dont fix it. You don't fix placeholders while working on the actual system. And before you ask why there is so slow progress as not a single bit of the sound system has been implemented yet - keep in mind that a sound system is complex. Its not just a pile of code that plays sound X on action Y. Sounds need to be rendered and filtered dynamicly according to every players very own situation and location. EDIT: Eventhough a good working sound system has a huge impact on the immersion the game brings, its not a necessary game mechanic, which is where they focus on right now, hence it has no No.1 priority. Concerning Desync thats a problem of client/server interaction and optimization of this. Client/Server performance is part of nearly every update since its an ongoing process. Almost everything they add to the game has an impact on this performance and the devs are looking to keep it as smooth as they can. They can't just delete desync however, since final optimization is simply not possible during Alpha.

Lol, i just imagined how you take a pickaxe into your hands and after some minutes running with it you start to smash the ground because you think you're playing Minecraft.

As far as i know, video memory allocation has no options yet and is always set to auto. That's why the drop down menu is empty. I think we will be able to change it once the game hits the optimization stage. Correct me if I'm wrong.

BlackLabel obvoisly plays on very low settings, hence the SNES remark. See, noone really can tell you how the game will run on your rig. There are players with better hardware than you who have performance issues, while on the other hand there are also players with lower-spec PC's that dont report any problems at all. DayZ isnt optimized yet and wont be for a long time. You will have to find out. But i think your system should run the game fine.

And what some people fail to understand is that serious, big issues are not ignored just because they don't get fixed within two or three updates. They simply take longer, because they are big issues. We even had two really major changes over the last couple of patches - the step from simple item respawn to central loot economy along with item persistance and the step from scripted AI navigation to hard-coded navmesh, and still some people claim the devs would ignore big issues. Of course such major improvements are not working flawless from the start, but you have to test them ingame first to see where you need to work on.

You know Mookie, the main problem really are the expectations of the players, espacially when it comes to the pace of the development. Let's be honest, most of us have no idea about game development. Most don't see the software and how it evolves, most only see their own gaming experience. Some are pleased with it, some are not, and the latter often come here for a rant because "they payed". First and foremost there are the players that really don't understand what an early access alpha is. They think they payed a certain ammount of cash to get a game in exchange that they can enjoy. That's not the fact. If you buy into early access, you either can't wait for the release or you really want to help with development. Naturally, the first get frustrated much faster than the latter. And it gets kinda annoying when those people start demanding stuff from the devs, especially when its ignorant. Why ignorant, you ask? Let me give you an example. Someone just posted another "OMG fix the frecking zombies before you add any other piece of clothing ASAP!!!!" thread just today, while he's totally not aware what "fixing them zombies" means compared to simple additions like items. Also, many of those people only come to this forums just for their rant without taking effort in informing themselves by reading the status reports and thus being aware about the actual progress. They do not know about something like a navmesh. They dont know that this system got hard-coded into the engine, replacing the old, scripted AI navigation completely. Ofc they can't be aware how much work is behind that if they dont care in first place. They dont ask where a problem comes from, they only complain about the problem. Thats not helpful, not in Alpha. Alpha asks you for actual help, not for your personal demands. TL;DR: People who have no idea why and what they payed for can be exhausting when they start to demand what they think they payed for.

To lighten you up a bit, Mercules is completely right. Climbing Mt.Everest is no package holiday, you have to plan this trip over a year in advance because the climbing season on Mt.Everest is a tiny narrow time window roughly going from the mid of April to the mid of May and the mountain is pretty much overcrowded during this weeks. So no, Rocket probably didn't spend any DayZ money to climb Everest. Also, such a hike is a "once in your life" - thing. You don't skip such an opportunity because "I HAZ A GAME TO CODE".

Smart phrase: DayZ isn't about having stuff, it's about getting stuff. I play Exp however, so I am used to random fresh spawns and wipes. It's actually most fun for me to start a new character. But it's a sandbox game, you can play however you like to. But claiming that you wont play DayZ until the wipe so you can keep gear that you are not using ( because you won't play anyway ) until its gone automaticly just sounds odd. Make a chemlight rave, invite random people to a last man standing, stop caring about your gear, everyone will lose it anyway soon. The wipe is a chance to do crazy stuff with your character because its simply inevitable. Let him die in a basejump off of a cliff, try to create a massive zombie trail, gather players and engage in a brawl. Pre-wipe times are the times to stop caring. You will loose everything anyway. And i don't see a point to leave my character unused on my harddisk until he gets killed by the hive no matter if I play or not. There's just no point in keeping a character that will automaticly die anyway soon. Log in and have some fun!

Noone knows yet. Also i don't get you guys. You wont play the game until you get wiped off all your gear? Why? You start fresh in any case, doesnt matter if you play or not.

You're partly right, but I would say that cars get sold in beta, since you will not be able to buy a car from a manufacturer before all its features are added, which would be alpha. Also i think we just turned towards offtopic street.

The comparsion itself was useless, no matter who brought it in first, simply because early-access does not exist for cars or houses. You exactly got the product described on the store page. Feel free to check it out again. It clearly says: “DayZ Early Access is your chance to experience DayZ as it evolves throughout its development process. Be aware that our Early Access offer is a representation of our core pillars, and the framework we have created around them. It is a work in progress and therefore contains a variety of bugs. We strongly advise you not to buy and play the game at this stage unless you clearly understand what Early Access means and are interested in participating in the ongoing development cycle.” That's what you bought. It doesn't matter much what the devs say, it doesnt change the product description. Also i wouldnt call their own personal schedule "deadlines", its more targets. When the devs claim "We want to finish X until date Y" or "We aim for the game to reach beta in december" thats neither a promise nor a deadline, its a target, a goal they set for themselves.

Simply awesome stuff, Joe. Keep up the good work and get your ass to Prague, there should be a chair waiting for you. :)

They sell Alpha-Cars and Alpha-Buildings where you live?

I should have mentioned that i play on Experimental, that might explain the different filesize. But well, sorry man, I run out of ideas. Wish i could've helped better.

Map development, AI navmesh, AI animals along with hunting / fishing mechanics, central loot economics, item persistence, persistant storage, new sets of clothings and guns, refined random spawns ( heli crash sites etc ) .... where have you been over the last couple of months?

Did you ever develop a software ? It's not about talent, its much more about necessity. You don't fix stuff you will break later on anyway. Let me show you an example on how stuff in influencing each other ( this is not confirmed, i totally made it up to illustrate my point ) PROBLEM: When climbing up a ladder with anything in your hand, you will die instantly ( this is/was a known bug ) CAUSE: Climbing up a ladder requires both hands to be free. Attempting it will make your character putting away whatever is in his hands automaticly. LEADS TO: Playing an animation while being on a ladder makes you loose the ladder and fall to your death. PROBLEM2: Zombies always play an animation, because they're AI. They either run, attack, or search. LEADS TO: Zombies can't climb ladders, they instantly die ( example made up by me ) COMMUNITY: FIX THOSE ZOMBIES OMG ! SOLUTION: You won't fall down ladders anymore because your character plays an animation OUTCOME: Players now can get prone on every single step up the ladder and levitate in the air while sniping. COMMUNITY: FIX THOSE SNIPERS OMG ! Get it ?

Mind to name these "false promises?" Read WhiteZero's post. We are in Alpha. There won't be any major bugfixing in Alpha because Alpha means feature-adding. Every new feature brings new problems, bugs, glitches, etc and everything is influencing each others. So you start to fix bugs during Beta, when you are done with actually "creating the game". It's funny that you actually adress the two biggest things in the game: Zombies and Loot. There is a hell lot of mechanics needed to make this two things working perfectly. And the devs are working on it. Did you notice the introducion of the zombie navmesh, the introducion of central loot mechanics? Both have been part of the last 2 or 3 updates, and of course they are not working perfectly, but if you look a bit closer, you will see the progress. It's also funny that you compare new zombie skins to what i've mentioned above. A skin is created by one guy in like one day including animations. The loot system and the zombie-AI takes an entire team to work for several weeks. And you complain that they are adding the "easy stuff" before the "hard stuff"? please keep in mind that the "hard stuff" simply takes a whole lot of time. When they add a new shirt to DayZ, that doesn't mean a single employee has stopped working on the core mechanics. It was just finished faster.

Some of us understood that we aren't "playing the game" yet. Its developing bit by bit, as every other game in development. The difference to most other games in development is that we are asked to be a part of this process. report bugs, make suggestions, taking part in the entire development thing. If you think the Mod is better, feel free to play the Mod. But dont compare build 0.48 ( read: not halfway done ) to it. DayZ SA is not a game by now, it's a software in development. And all of us are guinea pigs that payed money because we couldn't wait for the final release. Yes, if you don't like it, it was your fault. Please dont take this personal, but if you payed money to participate in an early access alpha and you expect a flawless, bug-free gaming experience, you certainly did something wrong. You, not the devs. Disclaimer: I'm not butthurt. I am just questioning your personal expectations when you bought the "game".

Hm, completely de- and reinstall dayz? From the error it looks to me as if the dayz.exe could be corrupted? Mind to share the filesize of your dayz.exe? Mine is 12.771.840 Bytes. It's weird to me though that the error message referrs to a dynamic link libary ( .dll ) while pointing on the .exe. But i'm no software expert.

Don't worry, that's just because you didnt read what has been actually said like "DayZ to PS4 in under 3 Years" or "A different team will do this".

Well, we all know they want to add vehicles, and we all know that they aren't in yet. So iBattle's post was just as unspecific as it was true. Vehicles will come, not now, but Soon™ :)

Found this on reddit. http://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/2f26ok/i_aint_even_mad_%E3%83%84/

Maybe because "fix the zombies" is no minor thing but rather a complicated, ongoing process involving stuff like AI navigation, collision system, animations, melee system, AI sensors and client/server interaction where every part of coding influences the other ones simultaneously? Coding a good working AI is not even close to coding a set of clothes or a gun. There's no "fix the zombies" guy sitting at his desk at the BI studios, it's a team that is working on all the things needed to make the zombie-AI work as they wish. And I don't get why people don't get this.

Self-tanning lotion. Because you're worth it !