Jachim

So it's been about three months now of alpha testing for me. I came into the game around the initial surge of popularity in late Juneish, just around the time the major PC gaming websites began to spout about how awesome this game is and whatnot. Rocket has specifically stated that he considers this a proof of concept. An "experiment", so to speak, to see if this type of grueling difficulty in a game can truly succeed and in fact thrive. So, three months later I think many conclusions can be made and I'll list them out in no particular order. These conclusions are made from some of the most common complaints/compliments/etc on the forums and in no way actually represents anything learned by Rocket and the Day Z team. 1) People thought this game was something that it wasn't. This one is obvious. People saw 'zombie survival horror game with a 250 sq km map zomg' downloaded it expecting to just lose themselves in the game. Hey yeah, perma-death adds to the suspense! What a great co-op experience! What people got was exactly the vitriol the internet provides and it shouldn't be any surprise at all. Douche bags who run around the major cities griefing/killing, snipers in random places offing you while you run unarmed etc. Augh! There are a plethora of suggestions/demands on the part of people who play on how to fix this. 2) People assumed this was a retail release. This one is the most astounding of them all. It takes several years for large companies to develop a full game, sometimes a year or more just in alpha stages. Rockets team was very, VERY small, even smaller than most indie developers when it began, and yet people automatically assumed the games broken state would simply be fixed in a few weeks and that'd be that! Let alone the fact that it's a mod crammed into a game not designed for modding in the same way as the Source engine, or Unreal engine is. I'm pretty sure when Rocket releases standalone, there should be a giant 'If you purchase this you understand this is purely an alpha release that will be updated over time not instantly you entitled twatknockers.' 3) People thought the game was too hard and so began hacking. http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/81146-today-i-have-been-legitimally-global-banned-for-cheating/ That's right. You made this man hack your game Rocket. With all the broken legs randomly from running, opening doors, walking up or down or within 100 feet of stairs, buggy zombie AI, random bleeding from looking up too quickly, being killed by a random person, bandits, Republicans, AIDS and International Communism. It's all your fault he hacked to make the game easier for him and his buddies to get weapons and roleplay being all awesome. 4) People in Day Z apparently don't play any other first or third person shooter type games. Thousands of threads. Fix the hacking problem! Why aren't you fixing the hacking problem! It's getting worse now! Rocket likes hackers because it gives Bohemia money! I implore everyone. Please, go take a look at any other popular first or third person shooters forums. If you believe them, every other person is a hacker there too. It's just a whole lot less irritating because, well, permadeath is a bitch and in those games it isn't so blatant of an issue. Hackers in Day Z have an absolute HAYDAY because the game was built for scripting things into it. This cannot just simply be coded out, and there are entire hacking communities who make a living off of selling hacks that cannot be detected by either Bohemia, Rocket's kludged together hive network, or Battleye. Sure let's use another anti-cheat! But wait! Bohemia has a contract with Battleye already! Legally they can't! Obviously this is Rockets fault too! Pitchforks and torches!!! 5) People thought they bought Day Z when they bought Arma 2/Combined Ops/Whatever Now here, some people have at least a little validity. Mostly because Arma 2 by itself is nowhere near worth the 30bucks most people paid for the damn thing and Day Z is (initially) a lot more fun. But that's where their validity falls apart, and actually isn't the first time this has ever come up for mods before. Half-life had a great mod called Counter Strike. Two people developed that mod and it became immensely popular. While I can't confirm that their user base was as much of an abomination as Day Z's currently is, I'm certain there were heaps of expectations dumped on them both. Eventually, Valve bought it up (seeing a trend here?!) and made it into a standalone title alongside Half-Life and then eventually Half-Life 2 (Counter Strike: Source, and now CS: GO) Another great (or not so great) example was Battlefield 1942's mod "Desert Combat" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Combat) that helped spin off the even more popular Battlefield 2. I actually played this heavily (both 1942, Desert Combat, and BF2), and can truly say that the community for Desert Combat was a really positive for the most part. People did not have these unreal expectations and delusions of entitlement, even though it was so freaking buggy. The helicopter physics were laughable, and if you ever go shot you could just smash the 'z' button (for prone) to dolphin dive around, leading to skirmishes between enemies with all of them bunny hopping and diving in mid air all over the place like fish out of water. Hilarious. So! Those are my observations, does anyone else have any others to add?

Did you read anything I said? Honestly, I think tent saving is one of the big problems that needs to be addressed. You're claiming that someone who supports Rocket is a fanboy, and that the natural thing to do is spew vitriolic hatred at Rocket for "not fixing shit fast enough". Read my whole post. Thanks.

110% agree brosef. The experiment failed. There can be many things to attribute to that, and I think item inflation is definately one of the big ones. Some can answer with simply 'It'll be fixed in Standalone', but I think the proper response should be 'it'll be fixed in time'. I'll be honest, I haven't logged into the game in 2 weeks. Still follow it because I think it can be so much better. This is just my vent about the forumites here. :)

Oh, haha. I think it's the tone people use and how they make their posts really. If someone makes a suggestion of what to fix or whatnot, sure go ahead. That's what the forum is for, but have some realistic expectations about its implementation and don't add in entitled BS like "I paid for this game so there, i don't care what reality is saying or what my credit card statement says "Arma 2 Combined Operations" I bought Day Z and thus I am a consumer with rights to demand this rawr!" I just get fed up with that.

Don't get me wrong. If I was Bohemia, I'd be ripping myself off by reducing the price right now, especially while Day Z is still such a hot seller. It makes no sense to sell for less if the game is so immensely popular that people will buy it for the higher price. Even if the game itself is garbage, and that goes for CoD as well.

You know, you got me. I never actually played Arma 2, but I have a barber who played it and said it was garbage so I believed him. I still wouldn't pay 30 bucks for it. Come now, it's worth maybe 10 for its campaign and modding ability, but 30? Naaaah.

Yes us forumites have a magic wand that can make global bans go away. If its legit it'll stay, if not they'll unban you in time and probably say sorry or something it's happened a few times now

If you listen to the hackers and their sympathizers, Rocket is to blame for them hacking. Just like an abusive husband screaming "YOU MADE ME DO THIS!" as he beats his wife with a golf club. Give me a game that fixed all of its issues in four months flat. A single game. Diablo 3 hasn't fixed all of its issues and it's been out HOW long? Oh wait. May. The same month Day Z was release in alpha.

Sounds like victim-blaming to me. Like telling a victim of rape they shouldn't wear "revealing clothes", or a kid beat up at school shouldn't have talked back to the bully twice his size. Or making excuses for pussies who cheat. If you don't like the game then stop playing the fucking thing until it's fixed that's what alpha is for. Ruining the game for others doesn't help anyone except yourself. Making shit easier for yourself still ruins the game, even if you don't thunderdome or whatever else hackers do. Because what do you do when you're geared? You shoot other players The OP is just trying to justify himself and he will get no sympathy from me, and frankly anyone who sympathizes with him for any reason, including but not limited to broken game mechanics, needs some time out of this game. Hell, I haven't played for almost two weeks, but I'm not on the forums throwing a fit that god forbid Rocket went out to a fucking game convention "instead of slaving over the game fixing bugs waaaaah".

Someone saying something SANE? Gasp!

Oh ho ho ho you sir have street cred now we best be listening to your negativity for it is fact because you're an arma hipster!

What other video game introduces updates almost every other week? fuck me, people are impatient

i'll be honest i haven't really logged in in about 3 days mostly 'cause I'm fully stacked and don't wanna lose it to hackers so end up just playing another game instead lol my own damn fault but meh i agree vaguely that standalone hopefully will be the start of something new but it will have its own set of problems for sure

Yep. Hack.

Oh snap.. forum team just threw down what now bro WHAT NOW

um patch was pretty stable dogs were garbage sure but isnt that why we're testing this game?

The deal just got struck for the standalone like what two weeks ago? Give the man a fucking break. It's obvious shit isn't going good, and Rocket has said it himself repeatedly that the game exploded and outgrown his expectations tenfold. His response was to release a standalone product which they're doing. The viral explosion of Day Z only really began in July. It's August now. One fucking month later.

What the fucking shit? It's been three months man, how the fuck much do you think a one-two man team can get done in that time frame? It takes years to develop games with full 200-man development teams. Go, make a game and show Rocket how lazy he is working for free on a mod for a milsim that initially had nothing to do with zombies.

Hey OP, trying to dissuade the internet from posting anything that might be an opinion counter to your own usually doesn't work adding legalese to your post doesnt work either just saying also yeah new clothing would be awesome but I doubt it's as simple as you think to add shit.. last time they messed with ghili suits and people would randomly die, lose their inventory, be unable to load into the game, and so on. so yeah

im shocked no more people get pissed off when EA makes some ad-hock bullshit game that's complete garbage and then decides to just make an expansion rather than fix the fucking game they made no one seems to give a rats ass when that happens, but bitch and moan on a mod websites forums about having to pay now that the game has gone standalone what the shit internet...

OP comes to a mod forum for one game and demands the internet sell him on another game using a new engine lol

*spoiler* www.dayzdb.com *endspoiler* check out the various spawn areas for what spawns in Day Z :) Also available at the dayz wiki

Welcome to forums

if there is an issuew ith global bans battleeye is the only one who can do anything about it. you're crying on a forum that has NO CONTROL AND CAN NOT DO ANYTHING ABOUT YOUR BAN Read the fucking stickies you morons

Solidiers in day z are hemophiliacs and have brittle bone disease