The Stages of Development

[striker75 3]

Browsing through this forum, I'm amazed at some of the posts people have made. To put it bluntly, some people are just plain stupid!

I'm going to do a rough outline of the development stages a bit further on, but first I'd like to point something out.

YOU DID NOT PAY TO PLAY THIS MOD

You bought Arma 2. As with ANY and EVERY mod, you NEED the game the mod was developed on to play. If you bought Arma 2 only because of this mod then I suggest actually playing the game you bought.

Now that that's out of the way lets move on to the topic of this thread.

THE STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT

This is going to be a very rough explanation. I will be leaving things out, pick it apart if you really want to.

- DEV

- ALPHA

- BETA

- RELEASE

There are things that go between, but no one cares about them anyway.

DEV STAGE

You're starting with a blank slate. This is where you build your game/mod. Base coding, placeholder textures and everything else is worked on here. This stage is usually the longest stage. Since we're talking about a mod specifically, this stage is considerably shorter as it takes less work using things already in-game. (not to say it isn't difficult and long in its own right.)

ALPHA

Since the mod is currently in this stage I'd like to address a few things within the community after a brief explanation.

The Alpha Stage is where the game has reached a playable state. Usually still using placeholder textures, the game is play tested. Initial (game-breaking) bugs are ironed out. New things are still being added, and more often than not this stage is where a developer will decide if they are going to keep going with the project, scrap it, or radically change it (Halo 1 is a great example, bet you didn't know that).

Now, onto my little rant. I'd only like to address one thing in particular that I have read many times. I'm paraphrasing here FYI.

"Why do you release these broken@$% updates? Don't you test your patches before you release them?!"

I can't say for certain (as minecraft did, though they don't do things the usual way and are the only ones I know of that did.), but my guess is NO, they don't. 'But Why' you ask? That's an easy answer, because that is OUR JOB! No, we aren't getting payed, nor should we be. We are being allowed to play this great mod for free before its out. Our opinions and suggestions are the ones helping to move this project in the right direction.

How many of you want to get a job as a "game tester" (btw that isn't the official title, so searching for it usually won't help you)? Well, this is the kind of stuff that happens in that job. Only it's less fun, they assign you specific places to test and you do that all day, every day. Compiling and submitting bug reports. WHOOOO FUN!!... Sorry to rain on your parade.

Now that my rant is over, let's move on shall we.

BETA

The Beta is usually where the developer will 'recruit' outside assistance or 'Players'. This stage is mostly about bug fixes and game balancing. Things are still being added and many textures are still placeholders.

RELEASE

The game is ready to be shipped/sold and played by the millions. Bugs, glitches, and exploits are being found by the massive player base and are being fixed by post-release patches to the game. Any game-breaking bugs that were missed in the ALPHA and BETA stages are fixed with a patch ASAP.

Now that we've all been a bit more educated on what it is we are doing by playing this mod. Let's all go have fun and kill some Zombies (and the occasional player)!

[Wired 1]

Hey, as long as you're complaining about people who complain about new patches they need to test, and not people who post criticisms about the content itself.

Side note: Game tester here. It's fun.

[oshi7 365]

That's all well and good, but DayZ is on a hype train right now and despite it being an alpha and everything you mentioned, players will still bail very fast. The majority of people don' care its an alpha, but can appreciate it and forgive it for the bugs it had. Unfortunately, when major bugs start happening and their experience in the game is ruins because of it... they will bail.

I don't think the hype train will stop, DayZ is a good game, but can you imagine all the people hearing about it and seeing it on youtube playing now? They'll never touch it again, they'll not watch the videos because they were turned off and the growth will slow down.

Unfortunately for Rocket this mod became way too popular way too fast (a problem I bet most mod developers wish they had).

[striker75 3]

Critisism is good, as long as its constructive critisism.

"Starting without a gun blows" Isnt helpful.

"Starting without a gun blows, instead, maybe limit the person to 1 clip" Is helpful.

This isn't about people voicing their opinions. That's all fine and dandy. It's for the ignorant ones that don't know what they signed up to play. :)