Rocket - shut down the alpha test if you ever expect to get ppls money

[Rocket - shut down the alpha test if you ever expect to get ppls money]

The only way to save DayZ is to kill DayZ. While this might be a good idea for someone in-game with a broken leg and no morphine, it makes no sense in development. It's like saying that testing will ruin the game...

[Why the "HIVE" won't work until we have some stability]

Well, not to give away my ideas... but people love looking unique. If you made clothing a micro transaction purchasable item, it wouldn't affect the game as such (in terms of unfair balance etc) but people would pay loads just to look different. Obviously clothing of this nature would "respawn" with your player, as it would be the default look of your character.

Problem is, in this game, camouflage makes a big difference. In order to make the micro-transaction system worth the bother, there would need to be a significant number of offerings and a significant enough variance between them. I just can't see there being enough potential to be sustainable. Chances are, a few early purchasers might buy that pink t-shirt and then spend the next hour trying to take the damn thing off after it draws attention.

Well as I said, it would be a temporary measure, or for people who simply don't want to play in a public environment. If it wasn't for the hackers and such, I would never have even brought this up since I wouldn't have a problem with the HIVE system at all. I think it's a great idea... for the future.

Unfortunately, once split, it'll be nearly impossible to recombine. There'd be no good justification for removing the feature. Whether it's called a nerf or worse, it's a feature that would have been removed to limit play options. Nothing brings forth fan ire like removing something for the sake of removing it.It's Pandora's Box...

[Why the "HIVE" won't work until we have some stability]

Honestly, he has already proven that this mod has merit... He should call it a complete feature set now, move to beta, fix the bugs then move on to standalone. The "experiment" has already taken place, and has proven the value of the project. Anything from now on, is not really an experiment any more...

Actually, that assumes a lot about the nature of the experiment and the Rocket's goal in making this mod in the first place. While we've all seen that it's incredibly popular as is, we've no idea the full extent of the things he intends to be part of it. The only thing we can state for certain is that the current set of features are incredibly popular.

On the note of subscription, I do agree there needs to be some form of payment being made to maintain. I'm not entirely convinced a subscription is the only way to go, rather a micro income system would probably also work. Giving the game away free, and allowing people to play for free, but having a "shop" where items can be purchased for real money. One thing I do agree about a subscription though is, it wouldn't cause any imbalance in the game (like being able to buy a high powered military grade weapon for real money, that's better than any other gun in the game, etc). doing so however might eliminate a large player base (mostly kids, so I don't really care) but keeping it free would broaden the demographic massively.

Subscription is the only method that makes any sense without killing what makes the game so unique. The only micro-transactions that make sense would be tweaks to the starting kits. Any purchases that added to that kit would ruin the whole point of the game. Even if the purchase only changed the starting kit for a single respawn, it wouldn't work. That model would lead to bandit/griefer gangs farming respawn points for easy loot.

As for the whole issue of private vs public HIVE servers, it's a matter of game dynamics. Just like the issue of micro-transactions, a private server or HIVE alters the community dynamic. Once you set up restrictions on who can get onto a server, the cuthroat nature of the game drops. How a player is granted access to the server becomes a critical factor in determining social interaction in the game. Is it white-listing, friends only, black-listing, or some other structure? If it's a friends only server, the population is going to have a harder time reaching capacity than a black-listing server. White-listing servers will have the problem of managing access requests. On top of that, having private servers will add custom server rules to the mix. PvE only is just the tip of the iceberg.

While allowing private servers might eliminate the issue with hackers now, it would also kill the most significant part of the game. Once the community is split, they aren't going to want to be shoved back together once DayZ goes standalone.