Daricles

Nice video Espa. Thanks. I completely agree with Vertigo's assessment in the video.

Well, I'm convinced of this: This next release is a pivotal make or break moment in the development of the game. Either the new engine will open the floodgates and the bug fixes and features will start flowing at a steady pace over the next few months or they won't and the devs will wind up treading over the same ground again yielding the same disappointing results in a new engine. I've seen both outcomes from projects that started over with new architecture in the past. However, as I said before, I've seen more failures than success stories after that reset button was pushed. It has been about 2 years since Dayz hit the reset, so now seems about right for the moment of truth to occur. Here's to hoping Dayz beats the odds, overcomes the difficult setbacks of starting over, and goes on to become a spectacular success. I guess that BI does have one thing going in their favor that most projects that I have seen fail after starting over didn't have: Deep pockets. BI did make a crap ton of early access sales back in the day and the project shouldn't be in danger from lack of funding unless they have terribly mismanaged their finances or diverted the money to other projects. That could very well make the difference in the project's success.

How much later? I waited three years before checking back in last time and the state of the game is largely unchanged in that time. I think a little healthy skepticism is reasonable.

Kiwis that show up in slain Dean Zombie inventories often appear as a grey square. You can drag the grey square from the slain Dean zombie to your own inventory and it changes back into a kiwi. It has been that way since at least 2014. With regards to zombies, the biggest change I'm hoping for is for them to aggro on the location where you fire a weapon and not telepathically lock onto your character. I have frequently had zombies clip through walls, tents and concrete barriers to attack me. You actually can't interact with trash piles. However, it had been so long since I last played that I forgot that. As soon as the game crashed when I tried I instantly remembered that the game used to crash back in 2014 when you did that and was frustrated that it was still a problem. Looking back through older status reports I see that many of the same problems were going to be addressed in upcoming patches as far back as 2015. Your optimism is earnest but perhaps misplaced.

Emuthreat, I hope you are right. If beta does address all these things or even some of them that would be great. However, the demo video doesn't showcase those improvements. I still see a lot of the same problems on display in the video with a new inventory management system layered on top.

Biohaze, only BI can decide what is acceptable in terms of progress. They are the ones sinking their time and money into the project. I only commented that I am disappointed that the game still had many of the same problems it did when I first tried it out back in 2014 and was worried that the project is exhibiting some of the same telltale signs of trouble that I've seen in many projects that ultimately failed. I like DayZ. It is a great concept and has some engaging gameplay elements, but it is plagued by some longstanding problems and has been in development for a very long time. Close to five years despite your claims to the contrary. I hope it succeeds, but there are potential signs of trouble that indicate it might not. No, I won't want my money back if the project fails. I'll just be disappointed that a potentially great game never made it to market. It wouldn't be the first or last game to have that happen. I understand what early access means and feel I've got my money's worth out of what I paid for the privelige of playing with their development builds. With my expectations tempered by that understanding, I have enjoyed many hours playing with what they have been able to deliver. That doesn't mean the development is going along just fine without any problems. Only that BI has fulfilled their limited obligation to give me access to their development builds for purposes of evaluation and feedback and I've had some fun in the process. Which is all I expected. That doesn't mean I can't say that I'm disappointed the game isn't further along by now or that I won't be surprised if it never makes it to market. If anything, I'll be pleasantly surprised when (hopefully) it does make it to market and even thrilled if it happens any time soon. I don't care what modding might bring to the table, that's not my cup of tea. I know nothing of furlongs.

BeefBacon, I hope you are right. I played the game for a while back in 2014 and thought "this is pretty cool. It still needs a lot of work, but it's a great concept and has a lot of potential." Having seen what there was to see at the time I left. Three years later I thought "hey, remember that DayZ game? It was pretty cool. It has been a few years, I wonder if it's ready for prime time yet." I logged in and played for a couple weeks. At first glance I thought "it looks better." It was nothing but disappointment after that. Hmm. Kiwis still show up as grey squares? That's surprising. Hmm. Zombies still have rudimentary ai and animations? That's surprising. Hmm. Crawling Zombies still push me around the map? That's surprising. Hmm. Items in my inventory still sometimes leave ghosts behind that occupy slots after I drop them? That's surprising. Hmm, I clipped through a wall and fell to my death? That's troubling. Hmm. That zombie clipped through a wall and killed me. That is troubling. Hmm. I can't pick up any items and have to restart the game? That is worrisome. Hmm, I just tried to interact with that trash pile and the game crashed. That is very troubling. Delivering graphics upgrades when the game is still riddled with clipping errors and crash bugs is just putting lipstick on a pig. If this demo were released as a proof of concept demo four years ago I would be thrilled. After this long in development, I'm just disappointed.

Oh, well, excuse me then. If we ignore all the development going back to 2012 and assume the game's development started in 2013 when it released as early access on Steam and it has only been in development for THREE AND A HALF YEARS then all of my concerns are completely invalid and should completely dismissed. Seriously, three and half years is still a very long time in the development world and all of my points are still valid concerns. If you want to be BI's biggest cheerleader go right ahead. I'm rooting for them too and want to see them succeed. It doesn't mean I have to stick my head in the sand and ignore warning signs that my hopes for their success might not pan out.

Only if the man building the house timber by timber actually finishes the house and doesn't instead change the plans mid stream, screw up the plumbing, run out of money and end up with nothing but a shit filled hole in the ground to show for his years of effort. That's not to say DayZ is necessarily going to wind up like that. I'm just pointing out how pointless and arbitrary your comparison is.

I don't see what all the excitement is about. All the video demonstrates to me is that the development team has managed to replicate all of the problems that have plagued the game since the start in a new engine. Sure, there are cosmetic changes, but the game is hampered by the same crash bugs, clipping issues, zombie ai and animations that are little more than barely functional placeholders that were problematic back before I started playing the game in 2014. I used to work in software development (admittedly not a game development team) and Dayz is exhibiting many of the telltale signs of a project in trouble. It is a red flag when a team says they need to start over with new architecture. You can almost guarantee you are looking at something like a 2 year setback. You can plan on hearing "we are learning the new architecture" for 6 months to a year followed by "we had to start over from scratch and rebuild everything from the ground up" for a similar amount of time. Many projects never recover from that kind of a setback. If, more than a year after pushing that reset button, you still aren't seeing progress toward actually eliminating the longstanding problems that the old architecture was supposedly preventing the team from fixing it is time to start looking at other possible root causes like: does the project have adequate resources and/or do we need to bring in new personnel with a proven track record of solving similar problems? I don't know what the situation is at BI, but after, what has it been now, five plus years of development, it is time to re-evaluate the resources and personnel assigned to the project and start delivering results or shut the project down and move on to something else. I hope this project goes on to be a stellar success. Dayz has a great premise and a lot of potential, but it has been a very long time in the making and most of that potential has yet to be realized and many more projects have failed than have gone on to succeed after such a protracted development process.

I don't know that I find the demo all that encouraging. Knowing how much effort the devs put into this, I'm concerned by how unfinished it seems to be. I noticed that one of the player models froze up during a player vs player melee fight leaving the player model hanging motionless mid swing. The person playing the demo promptly ran away hoping it would go unnoticed. I played Dayz for a while a few years back and recently returned after a few years hiatus to see what the current state of the game is. After a couple weeks being back all I can say is that I'm disappointed that so many problems from the early days of development haven't been fixed yet. I like Dayz a lot. It's an engaging survival game, but it is still deeply flawed in some important areas, which is disappointing given how long it has been in development. Working Beta still appears to be months away and actual release state could still be years away from what I'm seeing on display in the demo. I hope I'm wrong.

So, guys, I get what you are saying about not wanting to make it easy for players in game to camp a player spawning in for an easy kill. However, the way things stand now, the player spawning in has a huge advantage over players already in game by appearing out of thin air ready to fight with no warning. A simple visual and audio cue, it doesn't have to be exactly what I suggested, would solve the problem and create a more balanced situation for both players. The suggestions I made use assets already in game and just seemed easy to implement I'm not looking to nerf the player coming in. The flare might drop 5 seconds before spawn or whatever works best. You could drop a different color flare depending on the proximity of other players. Say red if another player is near the spawn point or green if not. This would give the player spawning in the same kind of warning the player already in game is getting and should put both players on fairly even ground. The goal is that a player already in game would see or hear the warning cue and have just enough time to hide, get out of the immediate area, or get to cover. If the player coming into the game has a brief period of invulnerability and the same kind of warning they would have enough time to recover from the spawn sickness and get out of the immediate area, get to cover or engage a nearby camper with the advantage of invulnerability. There has to be some way to address this problem. If not, I can see myself quickly losing interest in the game again and not coming back despite the things the game does well. I don't mind playing a game where I die frequently if I can look at the situation and see that I made a mistake or could have done something better or the other guy was better than me. However, when I feel there was nothing I could have done differently to prevent my death, I don't really feel like playing that game any more.

Hello all, I've just recently returned to Dayz to check out the game's progress after a long hiatus. I see that there have been many improvements to the game engine and inventory system. I think you guys have the survival part of the survivor-horror genre nailed down pretty darn well. I can't think of any other game that does it better. However, one of the things that initially disappointed me about the game and eventually caused me to lose interest still remains: Being killed by someone spawning behind me into a location that I have recently cleared. Just the other night I searched a barracks house in a campsite and visually cleared all of the rooms. The barracks only has one entrance and I was watching the doorway -- no one came through it. Suddenly I hear a noise behind me and turn around to see a guy standing in the hallway -- he shoots me and I die. This is incredibly frustrating to me as a player in an otherwise immersive and fairly realistic survival game. It cheapens the experience and makes me wonder why I bother with all of the realistic gameplay tactics I employ such as visually observing an area before I approach and clearing buildings before I pick up items and manage inventory. I understand that persistence and drop-out and come back later to resume the game where I left off Is a central mechanic of Dayz. I'm not suggesting that be altered. However, it would greatly alleviate my frustration if there were some sort of warning that a player is about to spawn into the game nearby -- potentially into a place I have determined should be cleared of enemies. Therefore, I propose that, when a player who is not a recently killed player is about to spawn, a lit flare be dropped at the spawn location about 30 seconds before the player spawns and the character immediately vomits as if they were sick when they enter the game. This will give a brief visual and auditory warning that another player has magically appeared nearby. If necessary, you could also grant the spawning a character a brief period of invulnerability to prevent them from being ambushed and killed by nearby players immediately after spawning. I think some version of the above proposal would be an effective compromise to balance the advantages and disadvantages between players logging back into server and players who happen to be nearby when geared up players spawn back into the game.

That's my fault for mentioning it. As a new player, I didn't realize it was such a hot-button topic. The rampant KOS gameplay probably wouldn't have bothered me so much if it wasn't happening in the context of the other problems. Also, I understand that the game is in development and is still being worked on. I wrote the post to provide costructive feedback to the developers and to share some of my impressions with other new players who are just starting the game. As I said, I hope the developers are able to make some changes and fulfill their objective of making a brutally realistic horror survival game. I hope my feedback is well received by the developers and is helpful to them. The game has great potential, but stll has a ways to go before it achieves it.

Glad you liked it. ;)