DayZ Developer Blog 8th March

[DedMan 10]

South is the best anyway.

Except South Australia - that's just shit.

Your a Vic, you cant talk mate :P

Btw I'm pretty sure that Port kicked Melbourne's ass :D

[joe_mcentire 2074]

i've been off for quite some time..any new infos or links of some sort? or what has this thread turned into?

[mattlightfoot 2463]

I have no problems with a moderator being pro you Matt, I just expect them to use a personal account rather than an official account. A tad more professional don't you think?

EDIT: To clarify it further. A moderator should use their account to uphold the rules of the website, not to comment on non forum based issues. We have developers and DayZ staff members to do that.

I think it's better that moderators only have one account so you can quite easily see their opinions on things, rather than pretending that they aren't people and don't have opinions. They do already uphold the rules of the website and are very fair with that.

For example;

South is the best anyway.

Except South Australia - that's just shit.

But he isn't going to go banning people from South Australia. But I think this has gone fairly off topic

[slivniku@gmail.com 93]

This thread is turnin into...bit**** about just about everythin'

The smartest thing to do is to play arma3 and just peak in here ocasionally...

[Xucphra 453]

I have no problems with a moderator being pro you Matt, I just expect them to use a personal account rather than an official account. A tad more professional don't you think?

EDIT: To clarify it further. A moderator should use their account to uphold the rules of the website, not to comment on non forum based issues. We have developers and DayZ staff members to do that.

To the best of my knowledge, most of the moderators were just active forum members that got promoted as volunteers to moderate the forum they frequented. They had a normal forum account just like you before that, and they'd have the same account if they left that service. I'm sure most of them consider it a privilege to help out around here.

Why do they have to hold their opinions to themselves just because they moderate the forums now? They play the game like everybody else, and they share their ideas in a civilized manner. You're more than allowed to disagree with them.

I don't see how it's unexpected or problematic that the people who actively play BI games and respect the staff are inclined to support them.

[boneboys 7988]

I have no problems with a moderator being pro you Matt, I just expect them to use a personal account rather than an official account. A tad more professional don't you think?

EDIT: To clarify it further. A moderator should use their account to uphold the rules of the website, not to comment on non forum based issues. We have developers and DayZ staff members to do that.

This will never happen, you wish that Forum Moderators come in and make comments incognito ?

Multiple accounts are not tolerated on these Forums, this applies to all, Moderator included.

As for being professional, we are all volunteers doing a job in a professional manner, few gaming Forums have had such an influx of members in such a short space of time, even if things have calmed down somewhat.

We are not a blind fanboy team following our leader, we are not biased in anyway and all decissions are disscussed before being implemented, this includes bans and Forum Rules.

Also , you have not understood the role of the Dev's or staff (or Moderators for that matter).

The Dev's develop and the Mods Moderate and the Staff look after everything that cannot be seen, this is the way it is and a good and wise direction to take.

A Moderator that participates in a discussion with unacceptable propositions will be called out soon enough.

A Moderator that participates in a discussion with unbiased and honest "chat" can only be a good thing for the Forums and more importantly the community.

There is a vast difference between the DayZ Forums, the BIS Forums and just for the occasion the WarZ Forums.

What you are asking for is a mix of the two latter,,, sorry, not gonna happen, ever !

Carry on.

[Zeppa 562]

Seriously, I had to use notepad to read this rhinochea... guys post.

There is nothing wrong with these forums and its "fanboyismsmsmmmm", there is only limit how much bullshit and egoism we can take.

[philbottle 430]

Anyway, I think Matt is about to tell us he's releasing a devblog tomorrow :rolleyes:

Off topic again, try visiting south London, it's actually full of aussies lol

[herbster 34]

This will never happen, you wish that Forum Moderators come in and make comments incognito ?

Multiple accounts are not tolerated on these Forums, this applies to all, Moderator included.

As for being professional, we are all volunteers doing a job in a professional manner, few gaming Forums have had such an influx of members in such a short space of time, even if things have calmed down somewhat.

We are not a blind fanboy team following our leader, we are not biased in anyway and all decissions are disscussed before being implemented, this includes bans and Forum Rules.

Also , you have not understood the role of the Dev's or staff (or Moderators for that matter).

The Dev's develop and the Mods Moderate and the Staff look after everything that cannot be seen, this is the way it is and a good and wise direction to take.

A Moderator that participates in a discussion with unacceptable propositions will be called out soon enough.

A Moderator that participates in a discussion with unbiased and honest "chat" can only be a good thing for the Forums and more importantly the community.

There is a vast difference between the DayZ Forums, the BIS Forums and just for the occasion the WarZ Forums.

What you are asking for is a mix of the two latter,,, sorry, not gonna happen, ever !

Carry on.

All I'm asking for is what you said below:

"The Dev's develop and the Mods Moderate and the Staff look after everything that cannot be seen, this is the way it is and a good and wise direction to take."

I wholly disagree with your comment below:

"A Moderator that participates in a discussion with unbiased and honest "chat" can only be a good thing for the Forums and more importantly the community."

A moderator thinking that they're providing unbiased and honest "chat" is wholly subjective. It's pretty obvious that a post from a Moderator will be construed as more offical than that of a normal user and will therefore carry more weight and give more bias to their point of view.

Basically by allowing a moderator full use of their moderator account for personal views, you're giving them a soap box unavailable to normal users. This is WRONG and totally unprofessional. Equally, by not allowing a moderator a personal account but still limiting what they can say on their moderator account you're actually being unfair to them. Either way it's wrong.

[Private Evans 1303]

You are blinded by the hyper fangirlsm, wake up dudes.

Bohemia only cares what corporations care about: Money. (are you surprised?)

Which includes playing you little DayZ cheerleaders to the bank. (Kickstarter perks bros! get em while their hot!)

I am an adult person playing and modding computer games since the Amiga 500 and the Atari ST came out ...I don't think I need You to tell me that the earth is not flat...

off topic, south Germany is horrible too (the beer is nice though)

[joe_mcentire 2074]

off topic, south Germany is horrible too (the beer is nice though)

well i don't think so!

[herbster 34]

off topic, south Germany is horrible too (the beer is nice though)

Amongst other things.........

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

Wow, as I've always said, Germany has much to offer the world.

[OrLoK 16185]

Hello there

Firstly, @Rhinocrunch. I offered you a chance to have a chat about what you thought was wrong, but that was ignored. That's a shame, but I think you have your mind made up and I dont think we'll be able to alter your views. The offer remains open though.

@Herbster I understand your point completely but do not agree. Once one becomes a mod, in my opinion, one has to watch what one says and how one behaves on the forum compared to being an average user as we are representing the board and as you pointed out because of our station our opinions can be taken as fact/gospel truth.

On the whole we do a fine job, sometimes standards will slip, as we are human and are indeed just volunteers.

If I were paid to do this full time you would see a major shift towards "professionalism" in my hours on the board and attitude. This would be good in some ways and a loss in others.

We do have quite a few mods who sit in the background and dont engage alot on the forums and others who like to wade in and almost act like community liasion officers, I like a good mix of the two, it makes the community feel involved and gives them a conduit to the devs.

Whilst we do try to be good, we do make mistakes and can always be contacted by PM, or indeed one could "report" us or contact Griff/Boney or even Matt in a pinch to report less than stellar conduct.

I believe the majority of users would prefer mods who engage with them than a completely anonymous police force who just rule the boards.

Lastly, I think we "public" mods add some character to the boards and targets for people to love and hate. For example, I know there's lots of folk who cant stand me, both here and on reddit, *hugs* to you all, but I also know there's folk who find me tolerable and I find that sweet. *pokes in the eyes* for you lot. I think that if we as mods are generating debate without doing anything outlandish or controversial then that's also good for the boards.

Also, dont think we are all fanbois either, I love critical debate and I think that's an important reason for the boards existence. I've been vocal for and against some issues of the mod/SA. As long as we do it in a mature and intelligent way then its all good.

I'd prefer to be an active part of the community and I personally would miss it if it were any other way.

Rgds

LoK

I've just thought of a perfect analogy : Bar staff. Would you prefer folk who just serve you beer like a macDonalds lackey, or someone you can chat to?

They still have to behave to fit in with their surrounds but can essentially be themselves. It's the same with us.

Edited April 4, 2013 by orlok

[Private Evans 1303]

well i don't think so!

ok ok...the landscape is nice also ...and by this I don't mean hills and valleys as shown by herbster :P

@ Fraggle BAVARIA IS NOT GERMANY :D

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

Err, sorry. Soz I wasn't reading properly.

[herbster 34]

There's nothing to say that moderators couldn't be active members of discussions on the boards as normal members, only putting on their capes and Y-Fronts when people overstep the mark.

I think you moderators have some of the best input on the site but that's not because you're a moderator, it's in spite of being a moderator.

Remember that you should be loved or hated for the content of your posts, not the highlighted colourful name/title.

EDIT: You also highlighted a real element of ambiguity regarding being a conduit to the devs. Something I've suggested is having a dedicated liason 'officer' (for want of a better word) to focus on getting feedback from the community on elements of development, be that big fixes, new features or just plain updates. It's enough that developers perform this role (which they (as in the majority of developers in existance) are notoriously bad at doing) without the hat being worn by moderators was well.

Edited April 4, 2013 by herbster

[OrLoK 16185]

Remember that you should be loved or hated for the content of your posts, not the highlighted colourful name/title.

I agree with this part whole heartedly.

[OrLoK 16185]

EDIT: You also highlighted a real element of ambiguity regarding being a conduit to the devs. Something I've suggested is having a dedicated liason 'officer' (for want of a better word) to focus on getting feedback from the community on elements of development, be that big fixes, new features or just plain updates. It's enough that developers perform this role (which they (as in the majority of developers in existance) are notoriously bad at doing) without the hat being worn by moderators was well.

Here again you have pointed something that I have grizzled about. I don't think a dedicated role is needed but it should be part of *someones* job descriptor to spend 10/15 mins once a week writing a mini post to the forums (which can then be diluted down to twitter/reddit/snail mail etc.) detail a rough description of what the team's been up too. Nothing in detail, just a paragraph or two on what folk have been working on, even if its work on AI elephants that's now binned or that the network was down, so the week was spent brainstorming at the local cafe.

Not a dev blog, but a general quick update. That would enhance the feeling that stuff is happening and would give some insight into the workings of a small dev team like this.

See? I can be critical too :)

L

[Blondedash 403]

Here again you have pointed something that I have grizzled about. I don't think a dedicated role is needed but it should be part of *someones* job descriptor to spend 10/15 mins once a week writing a mini post to the forums (which can then be diluted down to twitter/reddit/snail mail etc.) detail a rough description of what the team's been up too. Nothing in detail, just a paragraph or two on what folk have been working on, even if its work on AI elephants that's now binned or that the network was down, so the week was spent brainstorming at the local cafe.

Not a dev blog, but a general quick update. That would enhance the feeling that stuff is happening and would give some insight into the workings of a small dev team like this.

See? I can be critical too :)

L

one company does streams every Friday.

[OrLoK 16185]

In smaller teams where things can be very fluid, it's tough to nail down a set time and especially things like streams, whereas a post can be made from a laptop/phone/pad etc at that person's convenience.

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

There's nothing to say that moderators couldn't be active members of discussions on the boards as normal members, only putting on their capes and Y-Fronts when people overstep the mark.

I think you moderators have some of the best input on the site but that's not because you're a moderator, it's in spite of being a moderator.

Remember that you should be loved or hated for the content of your posts, not the highlighted colourful name/title.

EDIT: You also highlighted a real element of ambiguity regarding being a conduit to the devs. Something I've suggested is having a dedicated liason 'officer' (for want of a better word) to focus on getting feedback from the community on elements of development, be that big fixes, new features or just plain updates. It's enough that developers perform this role (which they (as in the majority of developers in existance) are notoriously bad at doing) without the hat being worn by moderators was well.

I agree with you about a proper role being assigned to someone in an official capacity to communicate more efficiently with the community. Most of the problems, in fact almost every major problem I can think of that the devs have faced have been because of bad communication or just plain lack of communication (last Xmas for example). I seem to spend a majority of my time clearing up (or trying to) mis-information.

The fact that we have to go to other sites to get links and quotes for the official site via third parties is something that annoyed me for months TBH.

Edited April 4, 2013 by Fraggle

[St. Jimmy 1631]

Bohemia only cares what corporations care about: Money. (are you surprised?)

Which includes playing you little DayZ cheerleaders to the bank. (Kickstarter perks bros! get em while their hot!)

Removed that annoying color.

So the Kickstarter is the thing why you sound so mad? I don't know much about it but I agree that it doesn't sound good. The thing is rocket just have considered it as an option that I hope he doesn't use. If it isn't Kickstarter that you're mad about then what makes you mad if Bohemia wants to get profit?

I don't see the point because they haven't ever been cash crabbers like many other companies. Is it because DayZ isn't moddable at least at first? It is sold as an alpha first? Too pricey at first? DayZ is done in consoles also after the PC version is really finished and it might be that rocket doesn't even attend to it? DayZ isn't released yet and Arma 2 is doing nice sales under DayZ? Something other?

Can someone say what Kickstarter really does so I could analyze more.

/Thanks Fraggle! So the journals are fucking the things up.

Edited April 4, 2013 by St. Jimmy

[Fraggle (DayZ) 15720]

Removed that annoying font and color.

So the Kickstarter is the thing why you sound so mad? I don't know much about it but I agree that it doesn't sound good. The thing is rocket just have considered it as an option that I hope he doesn't use. If it isn't Kickstarter that you're mad about then what makes you mad if Bohemia wants to get profit? I don't see the point because they haven't ever been cash crabbers like many other companies. Is it because DayZ isn't moddable at least at first? It is sold as an alpha first? Too pricey at first? DayZ is done in consoles also after the PC version is really finished and it might be that rocket doesn't even attend to it? Any other?

Can someone say what Kickstarter really does so I could analyze more.

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/129419-dayz-alpha-wont-launch-until-at-least-june/page__st__340#entry1271254

[purepassion 383]

You are blinded by the hyper fangirlsm, wake up dudes.

Bohemia only cares what corporations care about: Money. (are you surprised?)

Which includes playing you little DayZ cheerleaders to the bank. (Kickstarter perks bros! get em while their hot!)

Accusations for a collective of people are never a good idea ;)

Sure, there are people who get overly attached to the games they are playing and while it's a normal process concerning brands in general (brand loyalty etc), it shouldn't be normal to be ignorant or blind to faulty actions but even though I took a small break from the forums, I still think that the number of people here, the "community" consists of many people that are only residing to rational thoughts. I find this forum often to be a place where compassion rules and creativity can prosper for the good of everyone. People gift games to those not being able to afford it and problems are discussed throughoutly. As I said, it's not fair to generalize so that does of course not apply to everyone.

Speaking about Bohemia Interactive, I can't really understand your criticism.

Why do you think BIS would only be interested in money, in such a negatice connotation that is?

Looking at the pure facts, I don't see any methods indicating greed or anything for that matter.

BIS is independent.

Ever since OFP and Arma, there has been full mod support. Some companies/publishers believe this is harmful to their own content-release roadmap.

DLC's were released alongside free Lite versions that contain the playable content so you can play MP with your friends who bought them even when you did not pay anything.

They did not simplify or dumbed down game mechanics only because that would mean more people would potentially able to succeed in the game faster/pay more.

Arma 3 is getting sold for 24.99€.

Dean is given complete freedom for development on the DayZ standalone.

In conclusion, it looks like what they really care about, is good content. Ironically, this philosophy has turned out to be extremely succesfull and undertaking the above risks did pay out.

What really surprised me is that there were people who were throughoutly convinced that the SA is being held back on purpose. Excuse my french but that's utter trash.

Some were so even convinced that the standalone would be released after the steam Arma 2:CO sale...

You only see a game that's needed for a mod being sold really well and an other game not being released yet. But you don't look far enough.

You see, the mod had been released on the 18.04.2012.

It was merely just a small proof of concept with some nice ideas but it was very restricted as the game it was built in was not meant to do many of the things DayZ did. (Melee etc)

Just eight months ago, DayZ was announced to be developed as a standalone game. That's only eight months! Since the beginning, development has been very courageous with fundamental changes to a newly developed engine. It is not Arma 2 assets in the Arma 3 engine and anyone who did some reading on the matter can tell you why. We're talking about truly fundamental changes such as a completely new multiplayer structure etc.

The initial release date was a result of the imminent concurrence of The WarZ which only consisted of promises back then. But those promises were a real concurrence and thus, a release had to happen asap. Fortunately, WarZ turned out to absolutely crash and thus, the imminent concurrence was gone. This gave the developers more freedom and the ability to be as courageous as I described it.

The first release of the DayZ Alpha will be very crucial, perhaps more crucial than some suspect as it is the first look at the DayZ game even though the "real" DayZ isn't even finished yet. The devs are aware of that and consequently, it has to be as polished as possible.

Though this process takes time. A lot of time and effort. Eight months is not a long time.

You see, it's not about still letting people buy Arma 2:CO for the DayZ mod but simply about the development. There is no leading the" little DayZ cheerleaders to the bank" but there is a game in development that is just not quite done yet. It's not marketing talk when Marek says the potential of DayZ has priority. If it would, they would have released a polished mod and threw it right in the concurrence with The WarZ. But they did not and that's a very good sign :)

I don't understand your kickstarter perks reference as there have been no talks about any kickstarter related to DayZ at all.