Hicks_206 (DayZ)

The current gameplay is far from what the team would describe as hardcore. Ohh man, just you wait. We've got some excellent ideas stewing around in our heads. As far as making DayZ easier, I think you might have a better experience playing something like the Wasteland game mode for Arma 2 / Arma 3 - or some of the mods of DayZ Mod for Arma 2.

Access to the source code is not only never going to happen, it would be industry suicide. ;) We're busy making a game, we just don't have the time to pump out regular Youtube content. I think our transparency is exemplary, sure there is always room for improvement - but people get weekly reports, access to the developers on twitter, and the forums. Hell folks even get the weekly standup notes. You get your solid proof with the weekly experimental updates and monthly stable branch updates. If you want more detail on what was accomplished in the first year of development, I encourage you to read the Year in Review document.

I appreciate the positive vibes. Know that what developers are allowed to communicate externally has a lot to do with what the "powers-that-be" decide to allow them. Like any other developer, this will go back and forth with us. We have a lot more freedom with Bohemia as an independant developer than say.. someone working with Activision, or Electronic Arts. We'll continue to try and engage the Early Access user base as much as possible, but understand DayZ has a long way to go until 1.0 - and sometimes we'll just get damn busy ;)

Contribute to the discussion, or find the door.

Vehicles are not invulnerable - they do however have a very high damage threshold. Anyone wanna see a mod get a ban? :D

Just because you don't see what you want in the stable branch, does not mean work is not ongoing on the issue. Some things (A.I., Animation Systems, Renderer replacement, Audio engine) take significantly more time than script prototyping, or model creation.

Two points - 1) Developers will begin in 2015 to use the forums as the central point of communication with the userbase. You will see more of us here. 2) As mentioned prior, DayZ has little to no optimization done on it client side at this time. This is tied almost entirely to the fact that we are in progress of replacing the renderering portion of our core engine. Any optimization done on the original renderer would be man hours lost, and time added on to the development of DayZ. Concurrents do not equal uniques. DayZ has an average of 1,100,000 unique players cycling in and trying the new content each month.

Not only is this wrong, it is super wrong. I took out someone in a V3S last night, on stream - with two shots of an MP133.

Knock it off dgeesio - If you want to insinuate that all we've done all year is add the V3S and some hats you can do that elsewhere. Constructive criticism, not misinformation. -_-

Go ahead and open a support ticket over at feedback.dayzgame.com - SMoss should be able to help you out.

I should really mess up my hotbar more often in these shots, as it is amazing watching you guys try and figure out what is going on.

Persistence is a core pillar of the DayZ project. Thus it will not, and can not be "removed". Thats really the final point on it, anything past that is just people discussing their personal opinions.

Please refrain from trying to stir up a mob. I gave my personal opinion on play experience, nothing more. We will not be removing 3PP, and I disagree strongly with trying to force folks of other play styles to conform. We offer servers for both camera modes.

Yup!

This statement is untrue - While functionally it is possible to "just chuck old Arma 2 content in" - the implication on network and server performance, as well as complimentary functions within the title would have caused more trouble then such a task is worthI'm not at all interested in appeasing the masses - Early Access for us is a chance to develop the title in tandem with real time user research, data analysis, and volume/stress testing. This is the purpose, and goal of our Early Access. To fine tune the title and experience throughout development.Rallying folks to your cause to "hurry up" is not going to accomplish anything. We have been very transparent with our time tables, and development progress - This project will not be rushed, it will continue with the exact 2.5 to 3 year development cycle that has been repeatedly communicated.You "paid your money" for access to development builds, and ownership of the released title at a reduced cost - the opportunity to participate in the development process through broad scope user research, and engagement with the development team through channels such as the forum. Not to get the features you want, when you insist on them.If you feel the title is "taking the piss" that is entirely your right, I encourage you to take a break and come back at a time that the gameplay elements you desire have been implemented in the primary branch.

Honestly the only thing holding an increase in player count back is server side performance. (Think tick rate for the simulation) I'd personally like to see us focus on 0.50 hitting server side optimization, but this will need to be discussed with the leads, and more specifically Mirek and Fido from the programming team.

This is actually very good data. We've already tracked down what we believe to be the cause of the bug - but it was a good deal of investigation as the repro steps were unknown. Will be interesting to see once stable gets updated if we nabbed the proper culprit.

Holy walls of text, Batman. I'll be honest - I seriously do not have time to read through the 9 pages in this thread, let alone more then one or two of the OPs posts. What I'm seeing here seems to be a whole hell of a lot of text, and opinion - without actually saying much of anything, aside from being upset that vehicles are not ready yet. I will try and address the bullet point issues I see from the original post. You start off by citing the Wikipedia definition of an "Alpha milestone". This is a flawed basis of argument for several reasons. The first of which being that anyone that has worked in game development of any scale knows that milestone definitions can be fluid internally, especially on the publisher side. Case in point: Microsoft Game Studios (Now Microsoft Studios) frequently use a model of internal milestones similar to the following structure for 1PP and 3PP projects. First Playable: The title will launch, can crash - but it is possible to launch the application at a base level and at least reach the main menu Alpha: Title launches, crashes are limited to those that do not interrupt the basic gameplay loop. Very basic framework of what the title is is present. (User can enter gameplay, navigate the world at a base level, etc) Code Complete: All critical crashes are addressed, the core functionality of the title is present (large chunks of content however can still not be present) any non critical crashes are flagged as high priority fixes for moving to the next milestone Content Complete: Levels, artwork, music, the meat on the bones of the title is complete and in the build. No crashes should be present at this time, issues with content are allowed but must be addressed in order to pass this milestone. Release Candidate / ZBR: This is considered the final milestone, when high level final tests are run past the build - the title is checked for a complete play experience in all provided areas of gameplay. All design document functionality originally laid forth in the greenlight process must be functioning. Once past this milestone the title will proceed into certification testing for whatever platform it is intended to release on. Now, these milestones are just a rough example and can and have been applied to projects as short as six months to as long as three years. The specific definition of each of these milestones (and any additional that may be project specific) would be declared in that projects TLA, Contract, or internal project documentation (What works for Minecraft, might not work for Gears of War) Every developer and publisher will have their own way of operating, and their own naming scheme for their milestones. What is important to understand is the difference between what the consumer market prior to Early Access views as an "Alpha" or "Beta" and how these terms are used internally months, and sometimes years before a consumer would normally have the option to touch a build. OP seems to object to the definition of what these milestones mean for DayZ, and wants to hold them to how he believes they should be defined. To be fair, I have on numerous occasions spoke on this. OP is upset because he believes the active DayZ userbase is not being used as testers. This is partially true. There is a point in which you get diminishing returns from trying to use a public, opt in userbase of a project this visible as your testing group. This follows with the approach we take, which I again - have been very vocal on. While we do get some outstanding bug data from the feedback tracker, the core base of testing comes from a combination of internal QA, and smoke/stress testing on experimental. What Early Access offers us is something far more valuable than a large testing headcount. It allows us to not listen specifically to what the vocal users -say- and instead focus on what the active playerbase -does-. Early Access users of DayZ actively shape the design of the title as it is developed by playing the development builds. We track metrics, we observe how players interact with systems and adjust based upon this. We also actively parse community feedback for potential improvements to the experience. So OP is right. You are not testers. You are designers. OP believes the Steam store page is essentially a lie. Harsh language, for sure. The first thing I would like to do is quote a stickied post on the official steam forums for DayZ. Next I would like to point out why I feel OP is incorrect when it comes to challenging the statement that DayZ is an open and community driven development. We have weekly status reports giving you transparency into the development of the project that you just will -NOT- see outside of Early Access/Kickstarter like public development models. (Eg: Standup notes, communication from the leads directly) We have weekly dev streams on twitch (twitch.tv/dayz) - Every Friday (New schedule starts this weekend) We engage on our forums, on the steam forums, on reddit, and on our personal twitters. (I personally find myself answering random tweets regarding DayZ at all hours of the day and night) The people that work on this project work on it for love. This leads a lot of us to spend way too much of our personal off time stressing about how you, the consumer view the current development build. I can admit to coming into the office on many a late nights and weekends.​

I'm always careful with what I say - 3 year standard development cycle, meaning in standard terms this would be a 3 year, closed development cycle. Early Access changes a lot of that, I don't need to tell you. We are still aiming for end of 2014 to hit our beta phase entry. You can be certain the weekly status reports will keep everyone updated on that. We're trying to effectively do a 3 year standard cycle in 2 to 2.5 years. It might be a lofty goal, but as long as I have something to say about it - you will all be kept updated as to what is going on.

I'll be honest, I do not have time to go through 9 pages of posts, so I'll respond to the first and last posts with this statement: You are not playing DayZ, you are playing development builds. Early development builds. DayZ is 11 months into principle development, on what should be a 3 year standard development cycle. I can't force you to be a fan of DayZ, but I can call this out: Defining or judging what DayZ is by a build so early in its development is much a kin to judging a painting within the first few brush strokes. Hell, even Bob Ross's paintings didn't look great for the first few minutes (until you realized what it was he was making). I can promise you none of your favorite AAA games played, or even resembled the final product that early in their cycles. (Okay, maybe some of the larger titles that push small incremental updates out every 12 months - but we all know those are special snowflakes) Take a break, and come back in beta or even the full release. The Early Access period of development will have many peaks and low, low valleys. This is the nature of software development. Yes, it is stressful as heck - for all of us, but you get to be part of shaping the DayZ experience. For me, its worth it - for some of you, it might not be. No one can fault you for that. :)

Alright, this is where I will draw the line and set a small example. I want the DayZ forums to be a place for constructive criticism. This means both negative, and positive feedback. However, this -HAS- to be within reason, and actually constructive. The first portion of this post is fine. The user has valid complaints, and I would under normal circumstances engage them on these concerns. Unfortunately, he follows up with conduct that is not acceptable. If you want to make attacks against the integrity of competency of the development team, go somewhere else. If you want to talk constructively about DayZ (this includes complaints!) - Meet me here. The team will try and engage as many users as possible.

Aside from infected, and dead bodies - all characters in DayZ must, and will be - living, breathing human beings.

Any time i see a gas mask, or a payday mask - I assume something is not right.

While the ability to annotate your personal map is something that we'd like to do, and will more than likely be resolved - I'll be honest, right now its definitely below the bug bar.

Out flanked while pinning a group of bandits in the Svetlo church.