philbur

Nope...not what I was expecting, guys. The first SR of 2016 turns out to be a "hi everyone, we're back, and we will start working on the game again shortly" No hint about Audio, either. Reserving judgement until I see the Roadmap.... Tick, Tick. Tick

Using this logic, then, means SA will inevitably become the PVP Base-Raiding abomination the MOD has evolved into? A consideration is the eventual release of a Single Player version of this game. Maybe it will reduce the number of Public servers and maybe it will encourage server operators to be more involved in bringing players into their offering. I can actually see myself having fun (for a short while) loading up a huge number of infected and just surviving. I am SURE hostile AI will eventually be modded into the game as well, so there might be a whole new game to mess with eventually. Lone Wolf players are ultimately the ones that are going to get screwed, here... Hermits and Base-Builders will be the reason for loot-less maps. I am being selfish here, as I exclusively play as a Lone Wolf Hero, and since I do not KOS I am resigned to loot Bandits I catch or wait to get lucky on a loot re-spawn. As the game progresses I will pretty much be stuck playing on Private Shards and joining up with a group in order to enjoy the "good" gear.

OK, I'll bite. What Rules would need to be enforced? I can't think how stashing loot is breaking any basic guidelines for server operators. As much as I would like it, how would the "watchdogs" scan servers for abnormal Admin or player loot hoarding? How would you enforce these kinds of constraints on Private Shards? I WILL be doing persistence wipes on my own server until base building is in full effect, and even then, I think there might be enough demand for "clean" servers that people might enjoy jumping in for week-long adventures. We'll see, I guess.... DayZmod had so much loot available that even on well-established servers with loooong persistence cycles there was still enough to go around. Standalone is different in it's approach, so I am looking forwards to how the team is going to address this.

I know you dont want this to become another "Server Hoppers are Assholes" discussion....but.... When BI eventually does something about loot whores on Public Servers (If they do anything at all, of course), it will probably affect how player counts rise and fall across the SPs. How about just making it impossible for an Admin to kick a player before a minimum time has elapsed after log-in..unless it is a BAN or connection isssue. Also make re-spawn timers a lot longer globally. It seems like the CLE will need a serious overhaul before the game goes 1.0, so I hope they are listening to ALL of these concerns.

Wow!... I totally missed the original post date...as did everyone else who replied, methinks. :blush:

I will triple-check tonight when I log in...but I am certain I am getting the full surround experience with my setup. X-Fi Titanium (The sealed black unit without 5 1/4" panel) and my Creative 7.1 speakers. I originally did a LOT of experimenting with positional audio when I started and found it to be pretty decent (but not as precise or defined as it will be in the finished audio module I hope). If you are running Windows 10 there is an updated X-Fi driver that resolves many weird losses of functionality. As a matter of fact there is something else it might be.... When I was messing around with the Audio settings I changed the number of sounds slightly and lost surround. Maxed it out and all is well again. Did you originally HAVE surround, and now you do not? If so, what changed? And...quick response to Waldemard....the Audio module is not a priority right now, "Understand"ably. It is kind of early to start using the cliche' about the Dev timeline.

Yes. This. I was afraid no one would come forth with the obvious problem here. I like the requirement for a sling to shoulder carry, though. It adds some realism and provides another metric for the player to deal with. A sling can be used as a splint ingredient, tourniquet, or restraint. If you are bleeding badly you need to sacrifice the ability to shoulder your weapon so you can apply a pressure bandage or tourniquet. Also...a sling is a great help in steadying a weapon in all positions. I was a competitive shooter in the forces and whether you were prone, sitting, or standing you always had better accuracy when your sling was incorporated into the support. The material could be rope, burlap, fishnet, or even torn shirts and bandages (and yes, even actual webbing slings or leather from animal hides) but the need to decide on using the sling to carry a weapon on your back or for other purposes is an enhancement.

Any day now I suspect (read; EXPECT) the big news from the team. The year end synopsis and the next big roadmap. As the originally projected Beta is inevitably delayed and some features have yet to materialize I just hope everyone takes a deep breath and considers the data before posting their comments on whatever the team comes up with. I am not happy about the directions a few core gameplay features have taken but on the other hand it has not necessarily been at the expense of the total in-game experience...and it took me a while to figure that out. Just as I was thinking about what my reactions would be to the upcoming schedule of development I happened to bounce over to Star Citizen's site for a look-see...and I am now even more grateful I decided on DayZ instead. Regardless of the next year in development, here in DayZ, the trend towards adding content and features beyond measure is something I am grateful this team knows how to avoid. Having a parent Studio counting the cash and monitoring timelines makes it a far easier pill to swallow than having an independent group running amok trying to deliver never-ending content to appease the "donators". I was pretty frustrated when we got clothes instead of cows, bows instead of ploughs, guns instead of ghouls, and biggest of all Mini-games instead of better frames! That said, I realize that one by one these initial deviations from the core game mechanics will eventually run their course and in time the meat and potatoes (so to speak) of the game will get the attention it desperately needs (gimme my new AUDIO module!). I paid a very reasonable price for this game compared to the PTP offering over at SC and it suffers from even greater loss of focus on deliverables than DayZ could ever achieve...so looking at the big picture I think the guys and gals have done enough to earn my respect and applause for getting through 2015 in relatively good standing. As usual, my opinion, and yours may vary, but all matter. Thanks, everyone, for your company in Chenarus and on these Forum Threads, Have some Beans on me!

Hmmm.... Lots of suggestions/opinions on PC specs, But I will chime in with the big one first..... Your processor is going to eventually KILL your in-game experience if you don't make sure you have enough horsepower to run both ARMA3 or DayZ. These games are not optimized as well as other AAA titles and without at LEAST an i5 you will quickly max your bandwidth out. Many users are noticing massive lag and chop when using even the "fastest" AMD CPUs. I have built many gaming rigs and it quickly became apparent that without ensuring a solid mainboard and CPU are behind your build you will be spending unnecessarily on GPUs trying to increae frames and overall performance. The way GPU architecture changes every 6 months or so you should think about starting your build off with the core components. 250 pounds is not a realistic budget to go that route...but you should consider holding off until you CAN afford a current chipset MB and hopefully an i7. RAM is needed as well and don't get sold on insane timings,,,,just get at least 8GB of good stuff. Ensure your power supply is at least a Gold Certified 850W unit to handle the inevitable power-hungry GPU or SLI/CFX setup. Don't even bother with traditional hard drives, as proper-fast and reliable SSDs are well priced now. As far as which game? I have played both (DayZ a lot more than A3+mods) and the choice is yours inevitably. I choose to stay with DayZ SA because it is more than just a "Game" to me...it is a valid "Early Access Alpha" game that has returned so much more to me than just the actual gameplay. I have witnessed the "creation" of this title over the last two years and I have engaged in Forum conversations that give me a deeper understanding of how games are developed, deployed, and how the overall package matures over time. Again...your opinion of what constitutes "value for your money" may differ from mine...but I honestly feel that you would be hard pressed to find another title as "interesting" as DayZ SA. Hope this gives you pause for thought, before you spend that hard cash. Cheers!

Hi Brian. I did not notice if weather was tweaked for the upcoming EXP build. Is there a greater risk to the player via rain and cold? (moot point, I guess, but this would push me towards opting in.)

This was in reference to Riddlers' post "sorry if I missed the answer to this question, but I too am hoping this is going to improved on? Shooting a few bullets into a car door makes it fall off the hinges? Sorry that just really really bugs me and I certainly hope they will be improving on that. I was expecting bullet holes before a weathered looking door/truck/fender. Bullet holes also to me would be much more realistic and be able to tell a story of the vehicle's past. IMHO the only thing that should take a door off its hinges is brute force caused by running into a stationary object, hitting another car/truck etc or an explosive device. It just seems so cheap looking at its current state"

It is truly frustrating, I agree, to see time in the dev cycle being allocated for things like the "Pop-a-Matic Car". I honestly think that some of the team become too focused on "cute/cool" little things without being kept on-task. The mechanic shown in the SR for the doors being shot off is simply un-realistic and I am surprised it was allowed to get this far. I am also peeved that so much time is being given to game mechanics that are only present within the immediate world of the individual player's perspective. Can we just move on from seeing how cool the weapon models are, and maybe spruce up other objects? Can you guys spend more cycles on making the player feel uneasy and threatened by the world, instead of making him think "wow, my MP5 makes a really cool animation when I reload it!"? Sorry, but the excitement in Brian's blurb about the car damage sends warning signals to me. I truly hope they are a lot closer to the Beta release than I think, as tangents such as this are just pointless fluff.

Hi Brian. Can you provide insight into these two items? 1: Will the Audio Module you mentioned earlier in this thread have the ability, and do you plan on using it for the added effects of weapon sounds and metallic/world object sounds reverberating (echoing) off into the distance? There is some great work being done in ARMA3 that, IMHO, massively increases the immersion and "fear" within the game. I am pleased you mentioned earlier that the Audio side of things is still far from fleshed-out, but a lot of focus seems to be on the local (close proximity to the individual player) sounds when I feel that adding audio cues to give the player a broader awareness of potential dangers farther away would be time better served. 2: Has the Inventory screen and functionality thereof been examined any further, or has the .58EXP Opt-in version been given the green light? Many contributors have added their feedback on this element and I am wondering if there has been thought given to perhaps a more user-inspired look and feel to it. I have not noticed a direct reference to the UI and related game elements so can you update us on when we might see more on this, and if a re-think is in progress? Thanks again. (You hit the Gym? I thought you had enough exercise carrying the rest of the dev team around on your shoulders...)

OK....can't resist... Why U not fix no M4 for me?! Bad Don Corridor lie to us all! "Don Corridor".....I kill myself... Heh hee... "I made him an Alpha he couldn't refuse"

How do you guys feel about potentially binding the CLE to each server exclusively? I find the loot hoarding at camps and the endless quest for top-end military gear is a bit annoying. When a player starts out on a server he should be a new spawn, and only the gear he/she finds on that particular server can be used. When you change servers you begin another new character. What logic drives the decision to allow constant loot cycling? Thoughts and input please and thanks!

Yup....That would work for me!

I wonder, then, if maybe Early Access is a detriment to the pure vision of the dev group? Did Rocket and Hicks originally think that server hopping would enhance gameplay? The "majority of paying customers" are paying for a dry hump...not a happy ending.... I would even welcome an exponentially-increasing rejoin timer, as mentioned earlier (by one of the non-trolling contributors to this discussion)

("This shouldn't even be a discussion—if you don't want to deal with server hoppers, pick a Private server and stick with it—problem solved.") Really? You have 2000+ posts and all you can offer is a "suck it up, buttercup" response?. Thanks for the input dude. Private Hive = no server hopping, great. Public = server hopping, OK. But it is pretty hard to understand the obsessive camp/loot hoarding either way. That was the driver behind my original post. I can see the game becoming a base/camp raiding war as the chance of finding prime items dries up due to this. The point of my original post was to get differing opinions on how you fellow survivors feel about hopping. Everyone (well, ALMOST everyone) has given me food for thought. I am of the mind that the easy/lazy playstyle of server hopping is a blemish rather than a benefit. Another question, then. When an M4, Tent, V3S battery, Etc., leaves a server due to a hopper....when does it become "re-spawned" into that particular server?

CPU, CPU, CPU.... I doubled my frames when I went up to an i7 from my old 920. Arma and DayZ NEED the processor muscle. This is also old news...but hate to see good money spent on GPU solutions before they consider the MB, CPU, and RAM.

Found a YouTube podcast from Basement Underground with Brian Hicks last month. I missed it and I am sad....it really put a lot of my concerns on hold, as Hicks does a great job. If you have not listened to it here is the link. (Hicks' interview on Basement Underground) THIS should be the stuff they post as Status Updates....it goes a long way in keeping the faith. I suggested this last year, BTW....that they should release Twitch Streams showing bugs or progress and talk about their stuff. It would be FAR better than a thousand threads all randomly talking about the Dev processes.

Thanks guys...glad you feel the same about this kind of thing being important for us "Alpha Testers". How long do you think it would take for Hicks or Eugen to rattle off a quick synopsis of the weeks' work...with maybe a Twitch Stream demonstrating some of it? Not long and not hard.... Hope they go this route. See ya'll on the Coast.....I'm the one with his primary still over his shoulder!

I see a lot of owners of DayZ posting various questions on their system issues and FPS/Net drops. Has the team decided to provide an internal source for GENERAL (meaning high-level, overall, basic) suggestions regarding hardware configs? I would imagine a "What works and what doesn't" type of thing for GPU settings (SLI and CFX) and CPU loads as well. With so many people trying so many config (Game and System) settings it is hard to keep track of what actually is best for optimizing your experience. If one person posts a nice bit of work on how they are getting good frames with good visuals then a lot of the times this info (greatly appreciated, of course) is not as effective for the ones trying to sort out their own issues. ARMA 3 users are faced with pretty much the same problems when it comes to performance on their systems but for them it is less crucial (in my opinion) when playing that game over what I want out of DayZ. I am looking for as immersive an experience as possible and this means having the maximum graphics levels without it being in a slideshow. It would be nice to at least have a "If you have this...this is what you need to do" list given to us straight from the Dev team responsible for hardware compatibility/optimization. I know there are an infinite number of configs, guys... and that CPU loads are the biggest hurdle for this title...but things like "Does my discreet X-Fi help or hinder my sound performance?" or "What does the Graphics Subsystem need from my SLI/CFX settings to run best? or perhaps "Does running a dual NIC mainboard help my Server pings or game latency?" would be very helpful to at least let us know the general requirements to achieve the best experience. While a quick Google search can lead you to an infinite number of "solutions", these are mostly specific to the OP and do not necessarily benefit all those who experience similar issues. The Enfusion engine is new and has yet to be fully realized, so it makes sense that many "proven" tweaks just won't have the same effect for DayZ as other fully developed engines. I am looking forward to DayZ 1.0 or hopefully the Beta to be provided a comprehensive explanation of how to optimize. Is this something the team have considered, or will this be left to the users to eventually come up with? I remember just how much of a Beast the CryEngine2 was when Crysis first came out, but the team worked very hard to ensure the game became playable and beautiful as quickly as they could...which resulted in greater acceptance and stronger fan base. This was primarily an effort by the developers and not a bunch of random work around fixes by the end-user. Thanks in advance.

Hi, sorry... have been with the Alpha since X-Mas 2013 I agree with your guess/hopes on the renderer. I run a high-end system and do not have show-stopping frame drops....but I would...if I ran it the way I want to. I have room to upgrade on the MB/CPU front but only if I had definitive news of multi-core support...as well as confirmed multi-GPU support. No other game (except ARMA3) is as hard to optimize as DayZ (and I don't mean "now" obviously....I mean that it does not use CryEngine, Frostbite, Rage, or any other mass-deployed "Engine"...so the weird little nuances are still unclear. Again...as Q3/Q4 hits us it would be nice to see the Dev team "developing" into a post-ship game builder...that's all. It is too soon...yes...I know...but I sometimes find myself forgetting that the game is not really a "game" yet. When this development process ends and the GAME (Beta, at least) hits the streets I expect to see a proper Game Studio at the controls. This means an active support team.

I personally hope that Brian and the others have internally decided to use the coming quarters as a structured "milestone" time of the development phase. As I am not one of them (and neither are any of you) then I can only speculate....but this past year has seen so many wasted cycles by the team just being reactive to whatever focus we happened to trend on. If the team would be more specific in their requirements from us as Alpha testers then maybe we can better add to their hard data and the resulting monthly progress would be far more efficient than perhaps it is otherwise. All in all, though, I am sure the core testing crew are given absolute requirements rather than just being told to "go have some fun with the cool new stuff". This leaves us as ancillary participants and it is kind of them to refer to us as Alpha Testers...but quite honestly the bug reports and content feedback is more likely a distraction rather than constructive input. We are being given an opportunity to share in the development process in a way that has not been readily available for big titles and I personally find it interesting that as I have played over this past year I have a better understanding of game mechanics and the inter-relationships of the various layers of design. Back in the day of id Software and the early years of Valve they had some pretty interesting game development blogs and progress reports, but most of it was just fluff and was more for the magazine articles and pre-launch hype than it was for true fans to feel better connected. You can sit behind a wall of glass and watch your Porsche or BMW being assembled...but do you actually help? You just dropped $140k on a car, and you are given less access to the product than you have with a $30 game....perspective is a learned attribute, apparently. On the contrary, is the story from the DAyZ team, where we have transparency on a forensic level compared to most other games. The forums have been a constant ebb and flow of emotion and outright lunacy and I am under no illusion this coming year is going to be any different....that is, unless the team chooses to take the point and set the tone early on. I would like to see them drop a release onto experimental and then ask specific questions from the user base. If it has made it past art and coding then chances are it is something they want to be included and unless it fails to impress THEM then it is most likely a foregone conclusion and we are only needed to provide mass-deployment, server loading, and stability metrics. If the team were to treat us as an attentive and willing datum pool rather than vast and oppressive customer base then I honestly think there would be a cleaner line of sight between Devs and Alphers. With apologies to anyone who feels offended, the maturity level is something that can't realistically be controlled, so a lot of the pain is inevitable....but..the choice, for example, of some team members to chime in on Twitter, Reddit, and other SM sites is like watching slow motion train wrecks. You just KNOW a fed Troll is a happy Troll and you guys still do it. I would welcome a related Twitch stream of releases so we can first WATCH the changes being demonstrated by the people who built it, with an explanation of what they want out of the content and what they want us to provide feedback on. (Hicks can only make casual conversation with Septic for so long before he is overcome by his compunction for mischief and outright banditry). With a Twitch tutorial to go by, I think the time between releases would be a tad more civil and progress would be more easily "felt" by us. Anyhoo....that is my wish for the coming year for DayZ...for less low-level pandering from the team, and a more structured release process....I will pass judgement on the actual dev team when Q3 ends and we see how many objectives have been met, and how close to BETA they are. The return on my investment in not guaranteed until DayZ RTM so anything between last fall and then is just gravy. Notice how I did that? No mention of my money, no tirade about CTD on my "killer rig", and no sweeping generalizations on the Teams' dedication or competency (Sorry Brian, but the sarcasm and indifference in your communications with "us" just seems like normal frustration and exhaustion from repetition to me...so no offence).