jaws4096

Been awhile since I checked this threat. Nice suggestions, Radivmo!

Has anyone heard anything solid on ammunition management and reload modeling? See video from my suggestion list. Hope it makes it in!

Thanks for saying what I was trying to say, better than I said it!

Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Rocket. I continue to be really excited to see how things develop. This may not be possible to answer publicly, but do you feel that Bohemia would agree with / stand behind what you've said?

Rocket, I totally agree that you should make the game that you envision, and as I've said in other posts, I'm amazed by what you've done and will certainly buy the standalone. I'm not sure if your rant about statistics is a direct reply to my OP, or a more general reply to everyone that is asking you to make this game (including the free alpha version of it) more playable. You aren't making games for the money, and you aren't making them for you and 50 friends (which you don't need Bohemia to do). Okay. It's probably worth pointing out that money aside, making a blockbuster game buys you the freedom to continue making exactly the software you want to make, with minimal oversight, but maybe that doesn't do it for you, either. I don't know what rings your bell, then. Maybe, hopefully, it is the joy you get from watching people enjoying something that you created. If that's the case, I think that doing what you can to fix the game-breaking problems with the alpha would be a good use of time. Don't get me wrong. It would be totally understandable for you to say, "Fuck the mod, you guys are on your own! I'm going to concentrate on the standalone." This would, I think, indicate that player input is no longer wanted or needed, and that issues I brought up like play balancing are irrelevant to the finished game. it would also say, "Not only does money mean nothing to me, but the enjoyment of all the people who are so committed to the alpha doesn't mean much, either. The diehard fans will stick around, regardless." That's a reasonable position to take, and I don't think anyone would hold it against you if you did. The fact that you're still supporting the alpha, however, and continue to release new versions, seems to indicate that you do care about the experience of all these fans TODAY, and not just the diehard ones like me who will forgive anything and buy the standalone no matter what. If that's true, and I hope that it is, I'm guessing that we'll see some major fixes, particularly with regard to scripting, long before the standalone is released.

For #1... no one ever has enough user case data. If the creators of WoW are still constantly analyzing user behavior to tweak their game (which they are) then it's safe to say that there's no such thing as too much user experience information and analysis. Regarding #3, that's a fine perspective, if you only want to sell games to "normal" people. If you're going to make a game that adheres strictly to your (somewhat unconventional) design principles, you certainly want to capture the full market of folks who like what you've done.

10-1 those are hacked items...

Have to disagree here. It's only by getting a minimum viable product out there that Rocket was able to convince a major studio to put more resources behind the game. The point of my post is that supporting the minimum product, while developing the final product in parallel, is something that ultimately leads to a better final product and higher sales.

Nice work. Good suggestions. You have my beans!

Do you think they all quit mainly because of hacking? Or bugs? Boredom? Of they have just moved on to the next game?

My vote would be to keep the season choice a local server thing. I don't have any problem with players hopping between seasons on the main hive.

That's a bummer. I'm sure there are many more like you.

I think some aspects of the ACE mod are not quite intuitive, and it's full feature set requires lots of new controls for the player to remember. I'm not against including most of ACE, but I would probably want to figure out how to make the interface more intuitive, without breaking immersion.

Since I'm not a coder, I can't really comment on what should be done about it. It seems like an optional patch would be possible. People who play other mods wouldn't download it. People who play Dayz (who currently outnumber all other mod players and Arma II players combined, by a large margin) would download it.

This isn't just another post bitching about hackers. Or, at least that's how I hope it will be viewed. I realize hackers are a part of the alpha experience. And yes, I'm probably going to buy the standalone no matter how much hacking occurs on the alpha servers. But I think the current level of hacking is bad enough that it has a few important consequences that will negatively impact the standalone game: Any concept of play-balancing during the alpha stage is impossible. Rocket has a million free testers at his disposal, but so long as hacking is so rampant, he isn't getting any useful data about how to properly balance loot, zombie abilities, etc. Player interactions aren't genuine. An important part of the final game will be the myriad ways in which characters choose to interact with one another. Those interactions are up to the players, of course, but they are also heavily influenced by the game's design. Dump a bunch of hackers into the mix, and player interactions skew towards the current environment of KoS... with a big gun you didn't earn. Again, the alpha is a wonderful chance to refine the way players interact, but all the data that's being collected is polluted by hacking. Many players have become frustrated with hacking, and have quit playing, or don't play as often as they would. Some of these people won't buy the game as a result, which means lost sales. But more likely, these people will just be less enthused about the alpha. They won't participate in discussions, and won't tell their friends about Dayz. This not only results in lost sales when the standalone comes out, but also lost (potentially valuable) input into the alpha. I believe that the enthusiasm over this mod is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for Rocket and for Bohemia. Alpha players need to be managed just like paying customers, because if the devs play their cards right, that's exactly what we will all become. If something is breaking our experience and making the game significantly less fun than it could be, it needs to be fixed as quickly as possible. Taking the approach of, "What do they want, it's a free game?" is just a bad business decision. I'm not saying that's Rocket's approach, but the devs' seeming lack of concern about hacking when they've spoken in public is a big worry, in my opinion.