Fraggle (DayZ)

Nope, accepting donations is helping to pay for servers. Really though you're missing the point because anybody should be able to host a server for DayZero or Origins if they wish, that's how modding has worked for years. You need to ask yourself why they only have specific servers in the first place. Could it be that they've altered files that as modders they're not legally allowed to alter? Making those files public would quickly shed some light on that. Could it be to drive people through certain websites to gain revenue from advertising? Could it be both? Either way if the server files weren't locked down we wouldn't need to ask these questions. If your sole point is that they deserve money for what they've achieved then you don't understand the whole concept of community made mods. Most of the content they're "selling" isn't theirs to sell in the first place. All they need is a home website with a "donate" button, job done.

And how does that make you feel?

We all create our own realities.

Yeh, here you go: http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/08/ut_dayz/

Cheers for clearing that up.

One small group of friends can easily cover server costs for months by paying $10 each. This is money making pure and simple.

Exactly. As soon as I see server files locked down alarm bells start ringing. Personally I'd like to see BIS grow some balls and start cracking down on this shit but it's probably wishful thinking tbh. I doubt it's worth their time or resources. Shame though. If someone works hard, makes a great mod then the donations will roll in regardless. people will just want to support it and see it grow, that's how it's always been and that's a good thing. Locking stuff down goes directly against the whole concept of modding and charging for perks goes directly against the core concept of DayZ.

I think it's undeniable they've done some great stuff, my friends that have played it love it and speak of it as highly as you do. But... That pay to win bollocks (and that's what it is) couldn't be further away from the core concept of DayZ if it tried. And as I said before, if you take up modding to make money you're in it for the wrong reasons. People managed to make Arma mods (some extremely professional ones too) for years without getting the urge to try and profit from it. Why do they need to host their own servers at all? That's what bothers me. If a mod is good it'll take off regardless. That's what modding is all about. It's a community driven thing made by the community for the community, not a business venture. As I explained before, if you want to make a business out of it there's a whole different way of going about it. I mean cummon, 25 euros for unlimited access? That's not cheap, they'll already be in profit and it won't stop there. Servers really don't cost that much. Good luck to them but it's not something I want a part of tbh. Modding is a creative hobby, that's just what it is, all I see now is people cashing in. To me that goes directly against the whole concept of modding itself. Saying "we accept donations" is very different to charging for certain perks in-game, optional or not there's a fundamental difference.

I gave you beans and then took them back again. Twice.

But your'e Swedish. The Nords tell me that only makes you half a man. I jest, I love the Swedes too. In fact for some unknown reason I've made more friends from your part of the world than anywhere else.

I still like lone-wolfing it the best. When the SA hits I will be playing with different groups and hopefully my old team of 3 will join back up because we used to work well together. My best moments have always been either on my own or as part of my 3 man army with my two viking chums. Those Nords are cold calculating bastards, perfect for DayZ.

What story?

That list pretty much sums up everything I hate about the mod right now. Roll on the SA.... The peeps playing on those servers are gonna be in for a bad time if they do buy the SA. Their delicious salty tears will fuel me for months.

Your screenshots always look really nice

Could you not have put hose into one post Deathwind? Try not to spam a topic with pointless posts, many thanks.

I like it because it's different enough to open up some new gameplay ideas but it can keep the core elements of what peeps like about DayZ. Also (bearing in mind I know nothing about coding) it solves the constant and ongoing issues the modders have with trying to manipulate the current soldier AI to make zeds work. If you used intelligent Aliens you could literally just use the already existing AI from Arma, it's all just there waiting to be used, whether it's groups/squads of them or anything else. You could probably keep the animations initially too, it'd just need some nice moddeling/texture work to really sell the idea. Imagine looting a futuristic weapon off of an alien, laser battles in Arma would be pretty epic if done well (tracer fire already looks nice at times and could maybe be toyed with/enhanced to simulate lasers). And mixing that with the real world weapons we (the survivors have) would rock. Adding some scripted events (such as the harvester thing at night) or maybe the odd fly-by of a squad of alien fighters would really sex things up a bit too.

I second this. It'd differentiate the "infection" from the Zed infection which in some peoples minds are currently the same thing. Also being a real world thing might give you some inspiration for real-world ways of dealing with it. Either way I'm super excited to see the possible addition of plants etc as that opens up a whole new bag of potential for foraging, crafting, cooking and so on....

If you're gonna run a poll you might want to give us more details about it. I currently have no idea what it is you're talking about =)

I'm gonna go way off topic but I'm mildly drunk so humour me. Imagine a survival mod inspired by DayZ but using the whole alien theme instead. Basic survival would be your main goal (as I hope it will be again in the SA) but the threat of Aliens opens up so much potential. Imagine at night there's massive AI/scripted harvester ships that slowly and ominously hover over the map sucking people up into the ship (like WOTW's). Imagine having dog-fights with AI alien fighters, them in futuristic fighters and you in a traditional plane or heli (Independence Day stylee) and their glowing blue contrails lighting up the night sky. Imagine in the daytime small AI groups of them scour the map on foot attempting to clear up the last of the humans. In DayZ I'm dead against AI being used because I think all "humans" on the map should be real players, I think that's core to DayZ itself but in a mod like that, it'd rock. GODDAMIT, if I had any skill or talent, that's what I'd be doing right now.

Oh yeh, that too.

Well that would be the BIS forums themselves, as it's Arma 2 etc. that's being modded. Over there they have guides, tuts and a 10 year archive of modding discussions and Armaholic which is a massive resource for all of the modders to upload/download their files/work. There's also OpenDayZ (cheers SmashT) This forum exsists due to the success of DayZ itself, it warranted it's own forum purely for discussion of that mod alone due to the large playerbase. Regarding the other mods (Origins, Epoch, Aftermath) well they have their own forums too.

That's an odd thing to say considering that currently this forum and everything surrounding DayZ is exactly that :/ Currently this is the Mod forum and we just have a section for SA news etc. That'll probably swap around once the SA get's released though and then it will be considered just the DAYZ forums and we'll have a section for the modding side of it.

I'd never do that, especially with my limited understanding of such laws or DayZero. I was generalising about the state of modding in general and some of the liberties that people take. When a mod get's released with limited servers I ask myself "why?". In the case of Origins it was so that they could make money from it, they held a monopoly. If you wanted/want to run an Origins server you had to pay "GamersPlatoon" for the rights to do so which in turn meant you were paying "Kinghunt", the mods developer. So what's wrong with that? Well it's not his to sell. They took peoples work, bagged it up as there own and profited. They also threatened legal action against others that tried to use it, effectively stopping people from using community written content (they, or at least someone proposing the be from the Origins team also asked/demanded that I removed a post I made about it a few months ago as well as other negative posts made by our members on these forums, I ignored them). Lets be clear: Modding is a hobby, not a profession. People do it for many reasons, improving their skills, demonstrating ideas/concepts, a passion for coding, getting noticed, CV/portfolio building, fun, and so on. It's great for fledgling coders/developers/artists/map-makers because they get to use a developers resources and many pre-made assets for free and basically mess around with them. Being able to do this for free comes with certain responsibilities both ethically and legally. If you want to make money from game development modding isn't the way to do it (unless you intend to pay for the rights to do so further down the road as in the case of Invasion 1944 - a popular Arma mod that went on to become a game in it's own right). You need to pay for the correct licences etc. If I want to make a game right now using the Unity engine for example I need to pay them for the right to do so because they've invested a hell of a lot of money building that engine, if I want to add sound to that game I need to make it myself or seek permission/pay somebody to to it for me, the same goes for art assets. I can't just pluck anything I want off of the interwebz, shove it into my game and then sit back and watch the dollars rack up. If I want to make a mod for a game and explore some ideas, that's cool and as I said BIS have been actively encouraging the modding scene for years, more so than most publishers out there. If I want to make money from developing something that's a whole different kettle of fish and I need to start seeking permission from the people, developers and publishers who's assets I'm using. Anyway, to be clear I'm just generalising about modding in general. I have no Idea how DayZero have been able to make performance enhancements by only editing the files that they as modders have access to when literally hundreds of other talented coders/modders before them haven't managed to. We could speculate all day about it, maybe they hacked/altered the EXE. files, maybe they're just seriously good coders, maybe it's something I have no idea about. Who knows? I don't.

I'm not sure I understand the question? You're mixing up modding (which is what Rocket did when he created DayZ using Arma2) with what they are now doing with the SA which means actually creating a game. Or am I missing something? (and don't say Deans just thrown the mod to one side, it's his baby, he's taken the idea and run with it (the SA) whilst still doing his best to support the community devs) I agree it's the community and other modders that have kept DayZ alive, that's nothing new for BIS or mods in general, that's how it works. They've been supporting and encouraging the modding community for over a decade. There are however rules (and laws) within modding. For years with Arma people have been creating mods and crediting other people with the content (custom maps etc.) where appropriate and respecting the actual rules (and law) set by BIS when it comes to modding a pre-existing games content, it's never really been an issue because it's a small (ish) community, most of whom have a mutual respect for eachother. When I refer to peoples work being used, I'm not refferring to Deans, I'm reffering to the Arma community at large. Most of the "new" things you see in the current mods aren't new at all, they're ripped straight off of the Armaholic site with no though or credit given to the original authors. And then some modders have the cheek to to try and "sell" this work, most of which was done by somebody else for free out of passion/as a hobby. Over the last year I've frequently seen these rules thrown aside as people start to see dollar signs and to put it bluntly it's bullshit. If I spend months designing a sexy new type of hoover and then you basically change the colour of that hoover, call it your own work and then start to sell it you bet your ass I'm gonna be pretty pissed off with you.

Here you go: See, not a DayZ mod-mod, just an original idea, an Arma2 mod. That's all I meant when I said I was getting bored of the modders just re-hashing stuff, I want to see new things, exciting things! It can still use DayZ as inspiration when it comes to the survival elements etc but FOR THE LOVE OF GOD just at least please try to be original. DOWN WITH ZOMBIES <3