DayZ Mod 1.8.0.3 Hotfix.

[vinyljunkie 165]

I even tweeted Rocket asking when he was gonna approve 1.8.1 but I did not get an answer.

 

Maybe more people from the community should/could do the same?

 

Never give up!

[Disgraced 1123]

I even tweeted Rocket asking when he was gonna approve 1.8.1 but I did not get an answer.

 

Maybe more people from the community should/could do the same?

 

Never give up!

So did I.

The mod lives on with the faithful.

As far as the creator goes, he's not worthy of it any more.

I wish he'd leave the standalone now instead of at the end of the year. I honestly think he's just dead PR weight at this point.

[Skydive (DayZ) 71]

If you check his profile here, you will find he has not been on since March 12th.

[seaweeduk 97]

The decline of the DayZ mod has been a travesty to watch, like a semi-unwitting collusion to ensure its demise.  Popularity and player numbers were always going to wane heavily with the arrival of Standalone, but nowhere near as much as with the concerted neglect that has been apparent.

 

Rocket and/or BIS have perpetrated a seemingly palpable obstruction of any further progress, which has helped to ensure abandonment by both players and server providers.  No way have they been or are too busy to simply give 1.8.1 the once-over and the yes or no.

 

According to some server hosting providers, the public hive stopped accepting new server activations a while ago, so providers simply cannot supply any new servers even if they wanted to.  Public hive servers that are shut down irreversibly reduce the remaining pool of surviving servers. 

 

In turn, most providers have dropped public hive DayZ mod, in part owing to player decline from lack of servers, hive support and mod updates ... round and round in a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom.  The only way to get a public hive server is to find a host that still has existing active servers and recycle them ... before they are all killed off.

 

As many have found, Standalone is still very WIP and can be banal entertainment at best in anything more than minimal doses.  A loot farming and barbie clothing simulator has finite appeal.  We all know it will improve, but want something decent ... and resembling the original (not you, over-modified Epoch) to play in the intervening months / years prior to completion of DayZ.

 

Players have been and are returning to the DayZ mod for vehicles, helicopters, stashes and tents ... just variety in a relatively complete game environment if nothing else.  Bored Standalone players have been trying out the mod to find out what the fuss was all about and to get their mitts on vehicles.

 

Unfortunately what they have found is the remnants of the public hive system in festering decay, put there in no small part by the dismissive and short-sighted failure of the BIS developers.  Despite getting what has amounted to a rather long free lunch with volunteer development!

 

 

The DayZ mod could have been a continuing promotional tool in providing alternative entertainment and a cultural springboard for the player base during development of standalone.  And a source of even more ArmA2 sales dare I say.  Or further experimentation upon a willing pool of lab rats ... like we have been for the last couple of years.

 

 

Epic fail.

 

Agree completely, I think the whole "patch approval" process is really what killed the vanilla mod, certainly not gimmicks like epoch. 

 

There have been times where an update was released which in the eyes of most players was severely broken (see 1.7.7 and the total lack of antibiotics, ridiculous zeds and infections). The time it took to see an update which resolved these issues (1.8 was absolutely awesome in most regards) seemed to be severely hampered by the forced release process . Because patches were not released more often it did a large amount of damage to the mod in the eyes of the players which it has never recovered from fully. 

Edited April 30, 2014 by seaweed

[munkie 40]

UK410 is getting more and more players since more and more Public Hive servers are closing.

 

I never plan on turning UK410 off until the day comes that the link to the Hive is severed.

 

Public Hives Till I Die.

 

dM

[kernalpanic 35]

Rocket is a liar, he said the release of SA will not affect the mod but that was obviously a bold face lie. I've lost pretty much all respect for the guy which is sad cause I used to defend the guy over tooth and nail... ah well, such is life. My fault for buying into SA. I should have saved my money for a better game. 

[Skydive (DayZ) 71]

UK410 is getting more and more players since more and more Public Hive servers are closing.

 

I never plan on turning UK410 off until the day comes that the link to the Hive is severed.

 

Public Hives Till I Die.

 

dM

I had planned on keeping my public hive server up until the hive was shut down, but I am in the process of moving so I pulled the plug. If I am able to get a new IP whitelisted once I'm moved, I'll bring it back online.

[seaweeduk 97]

Rocket is a liar, he said the release of SA will not affect the mod but that was obviously a bold face lie. I've lost pretty much all respect for the guy which is sad cause I used to defend the guy over tooth and nail... ah well, such is life. My fault for buying into SA. I should have saved my money for a better game. 

 

Dayz has been far bigger than just rocket for a long time even before it was the standalone, I doubt he has anything to do with the mod approval process and indeed many of the things he is blamed for by people these days. 

[Gugolas 228]

Dayz has been far bigger than just rocket for a long time even before it was the standalone, I doubt he has anything to do with the mod approval process and indeed many of the things he is blamed for by people these days.

We can't know if you are right or wrong, what is certain is that he wanted to be the only face of it, he gave some informations about the mod beeing free to continue...now he is the face he wanted to be, and people blames him (even if maybe somebody else from BI wants this...).

That's quite normal. He is the face in the good and the bad times: not only the good ones.

[r4z0r49 4761]

So i have some good news. As many of you know i spoke with Hicks last week about getting the green light sorted for 1.8.1. basically we have a green light on the dev change log the bad news with the amount of time passed between now and the last update pretty much everything on our side was closed. It's going to take me a few dayz to bring everything back up.

 

Now for future release's we have been asked to just ping Hicks the change log before we release just for license issues. But we pretty much have free rain to do what we need when we need. Hicks is also looking into removing some of the locked systems we have always had to deal with (Hive content locked, only edit 4 pbo's) so news on that will come later.

 

Most of the original team helping me have moved onto other mods/games so i'll be on the hunt for new dev members during the next few weeks. It's going to be a little slow to start with while i try to build a team back up.

 

Thanks.

[kichilron 8550]

Most of the original team helping me have moved onto other mods/games so i'll be on the hunt for new dev members during the next few weeks. It's going to be a little slow to start with while i try to build a team back up.

 

 

Still here, hello!

 

Good news indeed!

[BC_Hawke 276]

So i have some good news. As many of you know i spoke with Hicks last week about getting the green light sorted for 1.8.1. basically we have a green light on the dev change log the bad news with the amount of time passed between now and the last update pretty much everything on our side was closed. It's going to take me a few dayz to bring everything back up.

 

Now for future release's we have been asked to just ping Hicks the change log before we release just for license issues. But we pretty much have free rain to do what we need when we need. Hicks is also looking into removing some of the locked systems we have always had to deal with (Hive content locked, only edit 4 pbo's) so news on that will come later.

 

Most of the original team helping me have moved onto other mods/games so i'll be on the hunt for new dev members during the next few weeks. It's going to be a little slow to start with while i try to build a team back up.

 

Thanks.

FANTASTIC news!  I'd love to see development on the mod continue.

[h3l1x 327]

Finally some -good- news! Keep it up r4z0r.

[TIC 1050]

Great news man. Glad to see the mod still in progress ;)

[OrLoK 16182]

Hello there

 

After a very cruddy morning this news has cheered me up greatly.

 

Good stuff.

 

Rgds

 

LoK

[robot 34]

I might be interested into contributing.

 

Its a shame it can't be found a new home in arma 3, but I understand why not.

 

Will try and catch you on skype R4Z0R49 and see what your plans are.

[kichilron 8550]

I might be interested into contributing.

 

Its a shame it can't be found a new home in arma 3, but I understand why not.

 

Will try and catch you on skype R4Z0R49 and see what your plans are.

 

Weeeeell, see who it is. :D

 

I am looking forward to the development of the mod in the future - even though I personally think ARMA 3 is not necessarily the way to go with the mod.

[a_typical_noob 651]

even though I personally think ARMA 3 is not necessarily the way to go with the mod.

 

Agreed. 

[seaweeduk 97]

I might be interested into contributing.

 

Its a shame it can't be found a new home in arma 3, but I understand why not.

 

Will try and catch you on skype R4Z0R49 and see what your plans are.

 

This is great news! 

[timedance 120]

finally... hope you guys make it better, than standalone... - can´t wait for release YESSSS!! :D

[r4z0r49 4761]

Ok so i think everything we have within the current build is now listed on the changelog looks like we did a good amount before we finally stopped working on the mod. I'll need to look over all the changelog and get something ready for Hicks to do a final check on then i should be able to get a release date out to everyone.

 

Pretty much all the big changes have already been giving the green light anything that's denied from the new list should be pretty simple to remove if needed.

 

http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/149483-rolling-changelog-181/

 

I'm also going to see if i can release a development build a little time before we release a final so i can get some time doing hot-fix's if need (ha -> if needed).

[seaweeduk 97]

Ok so i think everything we have within the current build is now listed on the changelog looks like we did a good amount before we finally stopped working on the mod. I'll need to look over all the changelog and get something ready for Hicks to do a final check on then i should be able to get a release date out to everyone.

 

Pretty much all the big changes have already been giving the green light anything that's denied from the new list should be pretty simple to remove if needed.

 

http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/149483-rolling-changelog-181/

 

I'm also going to see if i can release a development build a little time before we release a final so i can get some time doing hot-fix's if need (ha -> if needed).

 

Thanks thats more good news. 

 

I really think you need to test the patch thoroughly before this release and get some feedback first. The zeds in 1.7.7 and the infection chances didn't seem very well tested at all to me. They were pretty universally hated among all players on their default settings. In 1.8 we had the issue with diag_ticktime and loot spawning which again was avoidable (I reported it to you within an hour of running 1.8 with a populated server) and took time to get fixed. 

 

The loot tables in 1.8.0.3 still leave a lot to be desired, it didn't take too much playtime to see there's waaaaaay too much food and drink (I know this is fixed next patch). 

 

I really liked that you tested 1.8 on the BMRF servers, but then the loot spawn system was changed presumably after that testing, so you never discovered the diag_ticktime bug until after the patches release. This was a bug that was very easy to spot on a server full of players. I also think its important to test with high player counts to see any performance issues that could arise.

 

When releasing a patch you need to make sure basic issues regarding balance are already addressed. Especially if it takes so long between updates. Many people see there is a new dayz patch and try it once, if they don't like it they don't necessarily return a few weeks/months later when its hotfixed. If you are going to make large changes to things like loot, or zeds they will never be perfect first time and require play testing from as large an audience as you can get before you know what to tweak. 

 

If these new patch release rules are going to help speed to process of hotfixing issues up somewhat then its not such a concern but more open testing will always help with finding the issues that the regular testers will miss.

 

I hope I don't seem too negative, every patch has improved the mod and brought some great features to the table, I just want this next patch release to go as smoothly as it can with as few new annoying little bugs or balance issues as possible so we can all enjoy it without server owners feeling like they are forced to change things. 

[r4z0r49 4761]

That's one of the biggest issues we have had to deal with trying to get testers and you already know this. Most testers play for around 20 mins before returning back to there normal servers.

 

But if you ask around every patch was tested and you know this as 1.8 was tested with you. But most of the issues only crop up during big groups. Like the loot tables you only real notice as you start to fill the server + the fact our dev builds are already ahead of the released build doesn't always help. Zed infection was a last minute change that failed stuff like this will always happen no matter who is doing the game from EA to Sony to Dean some patches will fail. The issue we have always been forced with is our free time vs what we are allowed to do.

 

It's ok having a release date on Monday but if no one is free to do the build on Monday due to real live. It isn't going to happen and there is nothing we can do on that Don't forget we are not sat around 8 hours a day working on the mod most of us have real live jobs in my case two.

for example if im free for 4 dayz but the guys doing the steam builds are not due to stuff like bank holidays theirs no release :-(

 

With all the red tape we just cant release stuff every other day it takes time.

 

Alot of the red tape means we cant just release public versions of the dev build due to different parts of the license even now the public license other mods use is different to the license we must follow on this mod its mad.

 

As for testing this is also the responsibility of the community to get involved i'm trying to make this easy to do but that red tape pops up each time. Not to mention having the community groups willing to support it in the correct way.

 

It's just not easy to juggle everything.

[seaweeduk 97]

That's one of the biggest issues we have had to deal with trying to get testers and you already know this. Most testers play for around 20 mins before returning back to there normal servers.

 

But if you ask around every patch was tested and you know this as 1.8 was tested with you. But most of the issues only crop up during big groups. Like the loot tables you only real notice as you start to fill the server + the fact our dev builds are already ahead of the released build doesn't always help. Zed infection was a last minute change that failed stuff like this will always happen no matter who is doing the game from EA to Sony to Dean some patches will fail. The issue we have always been forced with is our free time vs what we are allowed to do.

 

It's ok having a release date on Monday but if no one is free to do the build on Monday due to real live. It isn't going to happen and there is nothing we can do on that Don't forget we are not sat around 8 hours a day working on the mod most of us have real live jobs in my case two.

for example if im free for 4 dayz but the guys doing the steam builds are not due to stuff like bank holidays theirs no release :-(

 

With all the red tape we just cant release stuff every other day it takes time.

 

Alot of the red tape means we cant just release public versions of the dev build due to different parts of the license even now the public license other mods use is different to the license we must follow on this mod its mad.

 

As for testing this is also the responsibility of the community to get involved i'm trying to make this easy to do but that red tape pops up each time. Not to mention having the community groups willing to support it in the correct way.

 

It's just not easy to juggle everything.

 

Yup I understand completely, and I can only offer to help out however I can. Though as you say, and as we saw with the last one closed testing doesn't expose the smaller gameplay related problems. The issue isn't just that we see those bugs, it's the time it takes sometimes to get them patched, because of the hoops you have to jump through just to put a patch out. Which is why its even more important to get as much right first time as possible. 

 

I hope that if there are small issues which require a hotfix the new release rules will mean you are able to get that out faster. Every major patch will always require a fix or two afterwards but I hope we can minimize how many things there are in this one that need those fixes. The zeds and infection issues etc remained a long time between 1.7.7.1 (jun 2013) and 1.8 (september 2013). 

 

If you need test servers let me know, wide scale public testing before a release is definitely the right way to go, annoying restrictions permitting. I have no idea what happened to the testers chat on skype but I'm sure you know I'm happy to help out however I can. I'm not criticizing the team or any of the work you do I just want to help get as polished as release as possible for 1.8.1, or 1.9 as I guess it should be known. 

[kichilron 8550]

If you need test servers let me know, wide scale public testing before a release is definitely the right way to go, annoying restrictions permitting. I have no idea what happened to the testers chat on skype but I'm sure you know I'm happy to help out however I can. I'm not criticizing the team or any of the work you do I just want to help get as polished as release as possible for 1.8.1, or 1.9 as I guess it should be known. 

 

 

Thing about that was, that all prior releases were tested and you would think that a lot of people would want to contribute to the testing of a new version to see what's going to come up, but even in bigger communities we struggled to fill the servers past 10 players.

 

Back when I was with the Trusted Medics we had servers up for that as well as MustyGaming has, but it never really picks up as much as it should have. That's the main reason some things just pass by unnoticed.