Community PSA

[Zakificus 10]

Kind of long, but worth a read I think. This isn't meant to be a complaining whiny thread about people on the forums. It's meant to be partially informative, and to hopefully get a few people to take a step back and go "oh, yeah, I guess that is true." Also I like when I see posts by people that aren't freaking out about something, and just want to make sure everyone keeps certain things in mind while playing. It makes everything a little less frustrating when you keep it all in perspective, for me anyways.

* We are playing a mod, that is alpha stages, for free:

I can't understand why everyone bashes the "It's an alpha" argument. Maybe it's just because I'm a software developer, but that is the most valid explanation for the state of this mod possible. We aren't playing a full game, DayZ is just a mod for Arma 2, so it has to fit the rules of the Arma 2 engine. Not one person in the community has paid a single dollar for DayZ. I bought Arma 2 for DayZ, but that doesn't mean I'm entitled to anything beyond the standard Arma 2 feature-set, (which is actually quite a good amount of fun stuff in and of itself). The game isn't anywhere near yet, and unfortunately if you liked build 1.X.X and hate the direction things are going in 1.Y.Y, well sorry maybe this isn't going to be the mod for you. Or maybe more versions down the line you'll love it again. If you play with the foresight to know that things are 100% guaranteed to NOT be the same thing at the end as when you started, it removes a lot of frustration.

* We have more freedom than most (all?) other alpha software tests:

If anything I'm happy how things are. Servers could be wiped every 24 hours with complete character resets and forced updates. That would ensure everyone is testing the most recent builds from the ground up, and make Rocket's job a whole lot easier, minimizing confusion over version numbers. It is worth taking a moment to appreciate that we can even have servers that don't update right away and stay on the 'most stable' version for a while. Also, our characters are being kept persistent. Running the master server and the associated resources cost money, and right now DayZ is free, so I'm happy I don't need a new character every time I play, or have to pay a monthly fee to keep my information up to date. That said, I'm okay with losing all my stuff due to a bug I discovered. That means I can report it, and when the time comes to pay for Day Z, I won't be seeing that bug pop up.

* Losing your shit every patch just others with fuel for their roflcopters:

All the complaints like "I HAET THIS GAME NOW !?!GRATE JOB ROKCET!" and "Let's make Bandits BLEED 10bp/sec FOR EVERY INNOCENT THEY KILL" and "NOT HARDCORE ENOUGH: ADD BUTTONS FOR BREATHING AND BLINKING, THEN IF WE DON'T WE PASS OUT OR OUR EYES DRY UP AND WE GO BLIND!!!!1?!?!!!!one!!!1!!" and it goes on. They aren't productive, hilarious, but ultimately don't help make the game better. Fortunately I see a great number of people that do have sensible responses and don't freak out in all caps every time something changes without them being consulted first. There is a big piece of the community that knows what's going on and isn't up in arms against something every post.

I know, I know, it's the internet, I'm wasting my breath. But it's been a long day and typing on here makes it look like I'm being productive since I finished everything for the day but don't want more to do. Besides if karma exists I will be able to laugh all week from the people replying how I'm a retarded care-bear crying on the forums while they are banging my mom with their giant penises.

TL;DR:

We aren't players, we are testers. The reason we are here, is almost exclusively to find the things that are broken by each update and report them so they can be fixed. Then the process repeats until there is nothing left to experiment with or add. Having fun and guiding development with our opinions is a by-product.

[Nyz 42]

Alrighty then. :huh:

[CrossShade 4]

People are over-using the It's an Alpha argument, the Alpha itself is to get feedback and bug reports, any actual technical information given, regardless of how unbiased or emotionless and just informative it is, is met with, QQ u fucking whiner it's an Alpha go eat a dick while I fuck your mother.

Not even kidding, you literally see responses as hostile as that even when players are only trying to list a bug report, detail some feedback etc.

TL: DR, Alpha is not used in the correct context 95% of the time.

[Slyguy65 499]

You made me comment at the first point...for the majority this game was 15-30 dollars...obviously their decision and should not affect things just saying it wasn't really FREE...

P.S just cause you keep saying something is meant to be crappy will not stop others from pointing out that it is crappy (just cause people KNOW it is alpha will not stop people from complaining and asking for improvement)

Just sayin

[SuperDarly (DayZ) 0]

You made me comment at the first point...for the majority this game was 15-30 dollars...obviously their decision and should not affect things just saying it wasn't really FREE...

People thinking this way are wrong. They paid 15 - 30 dollars for ArmA 2 and ArmA 2: OA. Both are excellent games with almost unlimited replay thanks to the included editor. DayZ is a free mod-in-progress for ArmA 2. I don't understand how people just cannot grasp this concept.

[Bill Murray 5]

You made me comment at the first point...for the majority this game was 15-30 dollars...obviously their decision and should not affect things just saying it wasn't really FREE...

I can play baseball for free. I may need a glove, a bat, and a ball, but baseball is free.

You can play DayZ for free. You will need ArmA II and Operation Arrowhead, but DayZ costs nothing.

Sure, you can't play DayZ without buying ArmA, but you can't play ArmA without buying a PC first. No one with sense is about to add their computer cost into the cost of ArmA because it is irrelevant. The cost of ArmA is irrelevant to the fact that DayZ is free.