Is it worth buying Dayz standalone yet? [With Developer responses]

[Solopopo 330]

I've come to realize that a game like Day Z really needs to be finished and polished for it to deliver the experience it's meant to. The devs are solely concerned with the long term, which makes sense, but it also sort of defeats the purpose of playing alpha to begin with. The devs are not interested in making changes that improve your alpha playing experience. In fact, I had the most fun with the original release. At the moment melee combat is a complete wreck. They broke it a long time ago and never bothered to fix it. Logically it really makes no sense to play Day Z right now. This alpha never should have released. It was a cash grab. If anything it delayed the development of the game because they aren't working towards more profit now. They are just taking their sweet time delivering a product we paid for years ago. I came back recently, after starting and stopping several times, and I can finally say that I don't believe in this product anymore. If I could get a refund now and buy it again when it's ready I would. Day Z needs to earn my respect again because it's a joke right now. 

There are three glaring issues that have existed since the release that they haven't managed to fix, and I now honestly believe they aren't capable of fixing them.

1. When you are sprinting and try to jump over a small fence your character will frequently stop, crouch, and step over the fence slowly in the crouched position. This has existed from day one and has never been addressed. 

2. A lot of the time when you try to take out your weapon with the 1,2,3 hotkeys it won't work. You need to stop and hold the button for it to register. This sucks in combat situations.

3. Ladder deaths and character wipes are still a thing, and I suspect now that they ALWAYS will be. 

4. Combat in general sucks. Watching two players melee fight is like watching two chickens with their heads cut off fight. Hitboxes are broken and your weapons don't swing through where your cross-hair is aiming. 

5. Firearm combat isn't much better. The game is so sluggish and buggy that it pretty much always boils down to who sees who first. Flash bangs and Frag grenades are a joke. You are more likely to hurt yourself with them because they fly one foot in the air, freeze, then explode. 

Most of these issues are server related, and I don't think they will ever be fixed. They may be made slightly better, but we will always face these problems. They are inherent to the game's terrible foundation. Being a fan of Day Z standalone is synonymous with being gullible and stupid. The devs have their money. They don't care. If you can't see that you are both gullible and stupid. 

What the current Day Z experience boils down to: 

You run through a practically barren wasteland with hardly any loot to be found and no players in sight. After 4 hours of holding the w button you manage to get fully geared only to get a random black screen saying you are dead. But how did you die? Did a player shoot you? Did you run too fast? Who knows? This is Day Z. You just spent 4 hours of your life running through a basically empty, yet massive, game world collecting items that are now gone. Either rinse and repeat or play a better game. If you value your time I'd recommend something worth it. 

TL;DR: Playing Day Z is like playing a game that's in the middle of it's development in the worst possible way. All changes that they have implemented over the years have been to set the stage for future changes. None of their changes have actually improved player's experience with the game. But if this is the case, why is the game out at all? They are not concerned with delivering a playable experience. They hide behind their "this is an Alpha" disclaimer and develop their game they already got paid for at a snails pace. It's despicable really, and you shouldn't support them doing it. They are selfish. They don't care about you. They probably even laugh at you. If you watch the developer updates on youtube they have smug, condescending, attitudes. 

Edited September 5, 2016 by Solopopo

[Guy Smiley 534]

This type of topic/question is kind of iffy.  Is it worth it?  Well yes, it is worth it for saving money but people unfortunately don't understand what early access/Alpha means and end up complaining about the game in the worst possible ways without any knowledge of what they are complaining about.  

[Sqeezorz 839]

In 1996 I started playing Quake I the first nal online .... then QII / QIII followed. Each game cost me 49-60 $. These are the only games that have reached more game hours without additional costs Years "free2play" I prefer not to call numbers. $ 30 for a game with test access .. a nothing in contrast to skyrim which I stopped with 380 hours. Everyone can have their own opinion, but crying and hating does not bring the world any further. Even if DayZ is not as I imagine it ... it was worth its money .. at least more than what I have to pay for things from which I have nothing .... thinks times of what life costs what we do Never see what ... how much does your mobile phone cost per month?

[Exorade 214]

On 21.11.2016 at 9:03 PM, switchsl said:

Honest answer, no.   I went to the BI site and saw it's still for sale as an Early Access, but I believe the correct label should be Forgotten Failure.  Or The Neverending LULz.  Or Rocket's Golden Ticket to Something Better Scam.  Yeahhhhh.

It always annoys me to see people post stuff like that about Dayz, especially on the forums, when it's quite clear that the development is still going forward. And you can read all about it on the said forums.

https://forums.dayz.com/forum/134-developer-discussion-status-reports/

[nl 986]

10 minutes ago, Nixon Lennon said:

The development of Dayz SA is really slow. I bought it almost 3 years ago like thousands of other people just to support development.  The game brought millions of dollars which would help to complete the game in next months. And what we see now? After three fucking years? One guy is drawing a model of a radio player for several months. Where are my bases? Where are my vehicles? Where is the beta version? Three years ago I had tend to think that early access is temporary thing and in 2015 we'll see a full game. Okay, 2017. We are halfway to beta. Brilliant!

You blame the developers that you don't understand what game development is and made all kinds of assumptions about a release date, typical.

Just because certain stuff is not available to us yet does not mean it is not being worked on or their state of completion.

And with 2 posts, what did you do to help development?

[zemos (DayZ) 9]

46 minutes ago, Nixon Lennon said:

The development of Dayz SA is really slow. I bought it almost 3 years ago like thousands of other people just to support development.  The game brought millions of dollars which would help to complete the game in next months. And what we see now? After three fucking years? One guy is drawing a model of a radio player for several months. Where are my bases? Where are my vehicles? Where is the beta version? Three years ago I had tend to think that early access is temporary thing and in 2015 we'll see a full game. Okay, 2017. We are halfway to beta. Brilliant!

Slow? In compared to what??

 

All the stuff u listed, they have already put a lot of work into. Even if they havent showed everything yet, we dont know how much we havent seen yet, i think its a lot of work we dont know about, that they have been working on behind closed doors and will be present when its time for it.

Edited November 27, 2016 by zemos (DayZ)

[Nodar Svanidze 0]

There are too many threads, different videos on youtube, some standalone versions some with numerous mods. I cant understand after all, does current DayZ 0.61 Standalone version have following features or not:
1) Driveable vehicles;
2) Base Building (Basic Shelters, or Complex Structures?);
3) Dynamically Changing Weather( rain, wind, tornado etc.);
4) Servers with different rules (Role Play style servers?);

Thanks in advance for answer! 

[Hicks_206 (DayZ) 4297]

1 hour ago, Nodar Svanidze said:

There are too many threads, different videos on youtube, some standalone versions some with numerous mods. I cant understand after all, does current DayZ 0.61 Standalone version have following features or not:
1) Driveable vehicles;
2) Base Building (Basic Shelters, or Complex Structures?);
3) Dynamically Changing Weather( rain, wind, tornado etc.);
4) Servers with different rules (Role Play style servers?);

Thanks in advance for answer! 

1) Yes - Although currently disabled on Stable branch
2) Yes, basic camping style objects. Stone ovens, Camping Tents, Military Tents, Car Tents, Barrels for storage/tanning/fires, garden plots, with more to come in later builds.
3) Yes - no tornados though.
4) Yes, depending on how someone wants to run their privately operated server.

I'd recommend watching content creators like:

https://www.youtube.com/user/BarelyInfected
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheBeavil
 

[ted striker 11]

Is DayZ worth buying? 

I played the ArmA2 Mod heavily back in the day. Countless hours. Had the time of my life. 

Every time I play the Stand Alone, it feels more and more like the mod, but with a level of detail I've never seen in a game. Like the mod... but different... When you interact with other players, get into a fire fight, ect. the old feeling is there. At it's current state in 2017, 3 years after the Alpha released, it is worth playing. Unfortunately it's taken this long to get here and that is the sad part. There have been major setback with development, but right now I could say it's looking much more positive. Are there still bugs? Is it still Glitchy? Well yeah, that's why they're still in alpha, they need to get that shit fixed. And whatever has been going on for the last three years is starting to pay off. If people can't wait another year for the game to finish, and they believe that 4 years is too much, then don't buy the game. For me? I'm good, plenty of other games to play. But I haven't played in a year, and I started playing again last week. I'm hooked again, loving it. 

Edited January 4, 2017 by ted striker

[jazzraill 8]

i just wanted to thank to the devs because being an unhappy player since 0.59 and i stopped playing last year because of work. but now i come back and see many changes and stuatus reports with updates and i decided to give it a go. new zombies are awesome, now you feel youre shooting real zombies, not some buggy minor annoyances. gunplay and melee combat somewhat needs to improve. it feels alot slow paced, and requires little reflexes or talent. new spawn of containers with loot and loot from zombies are some good ideas and pve play of the game is more reliable than before, but needs base building system completely integrated (like epoch mods). but coming after a year, i can say i like where this game is going despite my thoughts earlier, because player interaction was a thing (other than shoot on sight), and i think we will have better dayz when hits beta.

Edited January 18, 2017 by jazzraill

[DeatHTaX 1217]

The development of this game in my opinion is incredibly slow. I wouldn't advise anyone to buy it until it's finished. I wait with eager anticipation to see it complete.

Edited February 2, 2017 by DeatHTaX

[mulllex 0]

I love this game... LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!....   Buuuuuuuuut....  for some reason I get disconnected with error messages like crazy.  from the time the game loads up the server screen...KICKED WITH AN ERROR MESSAGE 0x00000000 could not read memory.  Then I manage to open it again and get past that page... now im connecting to a server...  just as my guy appears and I can hear zombies breathing...  BAM!  another error message,  similar to the first, only this time it has 0x007e0000 or something of the sort (constantly changing)... then, i cant see my mouse cursor, cant even use task manager.  I have to then log out and log back in to control my own machine.  Ive done all sorts of virus scans >nothing found.  My screen resolution shows up as an option although its a wonky one like 1768x992,  got a modern graphics card (gtx 960)  even got the nvidea exerience control panel helping connect the two, but, crash after crash...  like what the BEEP?  Im surprised I still have a screen  to be honest... the frustration this is causing me is pushing me to my breaking point  (and the things i can break are limited).  Im having difficulties finding a way to send error reports IN GAME  so this has lead me here.  Please  save me from the grey hair and cost i may incure due to smashing the B**P out of my B**PING MONITOR....  OR...    I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!!!  

[O_HellFire 33]

1 hour ago, mulllex said:

 

I love this game... LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!....   Buuuuuuuuut....  for some reason I get disconnected with error messages like crazy.  from the time the game loads up the server screen...KICKED WITH AN ERROR MESSAGE 0x00000000 could not read memory.  Then I manage to open it again and get past that page... now im connecting to a server...  just as my guy appears and I can hear zombies breathing...  BAM!  another error message,  similar to the first, only this time it has 0x007e0000 or something of the sort (constantly changing)... then, i cant see my mouse cursor, cant even use task manager.  I have to then log out and log back in to control my own machine

 

Hey Mullex.. try deleting your DayZ folder in your Documents folder, then restart the game.. another step which seems to have helped some people is by going to C:Users/"Your Name as Admin on your PC"/AppData/DayZ/Local and delete the Files there.. can try Deleting files in Roaming folder as well possibly ( Make backups). You will still have crashes but less frequently hopefully.. if you start crashing more often again then repeat the process. Hope this helps and you don't need that refund :)

Edited February 8, 2017 by O_HellFire

[Guy Smiley 534]

If you have any knowledge on game development then yes it's worth buying but if you think that games are made in days, then don't bother wasting time with early access games nor wasting forum space posting about how long it takes.

[Brizzle0705 0]

Do you Devs use the Trello anymore? There hasn't been ANYTHING posted on there in a long time... Is there nothing to post or... did you forget about it?? People like seeing progress on there too. Just a thought. No complaints here, I love the game and development.

[Christoffer.s 13]

At OP, 2013.. 2013...

This is why i haven't bought an alpha since. 

[Mantasisg 172]

At the moment it is not worth it, if you would really try you could stay alive for weeks, but I don't think it is fun. Even if you don't try you can stay alive for a very long time when you learn how to play. But it is not that fun. True fun is interactions, to meet people, make friends, make enemies, get into battles.... countless variety of situations... But it is somehow no going on. 

I'd wait till it is real challenge to stay alive. As now you get bored, or realize that "nothing happened yet, I have to force something" and then start looking for action and you can't find it, you start just randomly search it and then you randomly die, if unlucky. It should be hard to stay away from the trouble, not getting into it.

I'm sure it can work in DayZ.

I'd just wait till price will get risen, it should indicate that it is finally really good. 

Core is pretty good right now, except of bugs, but you expect them in 0.6, but gameplay is quite poor.

[cheesycheesebourne 10]

Hmmm, after only 847 hours game time I don't know if I can answer that question.... give me to 1000 hours and I will let you know if I got my 30 bucks worth....

[Guy Smiley 534]

I'll just leave this here http://overmental.com/content/10-games-that-spent-the-longest-time-in-development-2-672

[t3h_kgb 6]

On 12/18/2013 at 10:25 AM, Blade4777980 said:

Is it worth buying Dayz standalone yet or should i wait for it to mature so it's less buggy and more playable??.

My 2 cents:

Simple answer: Still No...

Complicated answer: DayZ has been in development for like four years... Normally, a company would take something like this and develop to about where we are today within about six months to a year... Don't get me wrong, they're making progress and doing well with the game's direction....... But it feels like the DayZ dev team is just a handful of Bohemia devs getting together in their off time to work on DayZ, like Bohemia keeps their noses to the Arma grindstones, and they aren't allowed to work on DayZ during the work day... Either that, or Bohemia is really like twelve people, and they're desperately trying to produce games on Blizzard's level but absolutely positively refuse to hire any new people...

I know I shouldn't be so critical, especially since the newest big patch just dropped like a month and change ago... But it's been four years and they're still not even to Beta yet...

If I hadn't purchased DayZ (or, if Steam would've given me the refund I initiated a hundred times), I honestly wouldn't be playing it. I feel it was a complete and total waste of 30 bucks, so I'd best get my 30 bucks' worth out of it, etc... I just hope they don't expect us all to purchase the 1.0 version, since we've already fronted all this cash to them for Alpha access. Because I most definitely won't be paying money for DayZ 1.0; at their current rate, it will be 2020 before they're even considering finalizing the Beta, and by that time, there will be better games in this motif...

Is it fun? Yes.
Is it playable? Yes, though it's not without its bugs...
Is it a bucket of laughs? Sometimes...

Is it worth 30 bucks? NO.

15 tops in its current state... 30 bucks is what you pay for games released like a year or two ago, and were COMPLETE... Not four year-old incomplete WIP alpha mods...

Just my 2 cents...

[t3h_kgb 6]

On 9/4/2016 at 7:33 PM, Solopopo said:

What the current Day Z experience boils down to: 

You run through a practically barren wasteland with hardly any loot to be found and no players in sight. After 4 hours of holding the w button you manage to get fully geared only to get a random black screen saying you are dead. But how did you die? Did a player shoot you? Did you run too fast? Who knows? This is Day Z. You just spent 4 hours of your life running through a basically empty, yet massive, game world collecting items that are now gone. Either rinse and repeat or play a better game. If you value your time I'd recommend something worth it.

I'd have to agree with this... This, coupled with b-hole players who just want to kill everyone they meet, coupled with random character wipes, bugs, 3-minute spawn time, the fact that your character is made of glass, et. al. make the game totally not worth 30 bucks the way it sits...

Edited June 22, 2017 by t3h_kgb

[TrojanWarriorFTQ 13]

Would you buy a Ford car? I wouldn't but there are people that will. Do you like chocolate ice-cream? I don't, some people love it. You will never know if it's any good until you try it yourself.

I love DayZ. No other game I have played gives the same physical, visual, oral and mental impact. Spotting a player while you are in a military location after you have survived and carry a week's worth of loot over hundreds of kilometres is quite simply heart stopping. The decision making, the planning, the daily tasks you give yourself, it's like a second life.

I bought the Stand-alone after searching for answers to "GTA5 or DayZ?". After two youtube videos I made my decision. Yes, there are bugs but even the multi-million pound releases from EA have bugs. People gripe about those all the time.

You want some cake? I can only tell you how good it is, you have to eat it yourself.

Edited July 26, 2017 by TrojanFTQ

[rickyriot 1009]

I have been a constant supporter of DayZ, this is not a hatchet job, but an honest reply to the topic's title question.

---

Simple answer is no. After years of waiting and watching an eternal car crash my sympathy for DayZ is now depleted.

There are lots, and I mean LOTS, of games that can give the game experience that DayZ offers. That wasn't the case before, but when I look at games like Miscreated, 7 Days to Die, even things like Plunkbat there is a wealth of titles now which might not match like for like but they perform capably which is something that can never be said for DayZ. Not now, and not even when Dean first released SA.

It's a shame but DayZ is dead. The servers are empty, the people who initially bought the EA up to four years ago are (mostly) p*ssed off they were taken for fools, and the chance to make an impact has long gone. Essentially the devs are swimming against the stream and with every delay, every step back, it just makes people realise what a waste of time it is waiting for DayZ to be worth playing. No amount of Beta, which in itself has already been delayed - after years of  delay - can convince people Bohemia/DayZ are capable of producing a decent play experience.

As it is, buying the game now is (literally) like throwing your money away. Buying it when Beta hits (heh, if it _ever_ does) is a sign of optimistic folly. In fact the ONLY way I could recommend buying the game is when Beta has been released, tested, played, and been found capable of producing a decent gaming experience, and with all the best will in the world, that simply isn't going to happen and that has been shown up by the way the game has been developed so far.

So, not quite a Duke Nukem vapourware, but by God it's not far off it.

 

Sorry people, this is an honest opinion, and if anyone involved in the game are annoyed or insulted by my comments but the bottom line is this is genuinely how I feel.

Edited September 17, 2017 by rickyriot

[[Gen]Adzic 241]

1 hour ago, rickyriot said:

Sorry people, this is an honest opinion, and if anyone involved in the game are annoyed or insulted by my comments but the bottom line is this is genuinely how I feel.

It's a shared opinion of many, you should not apologize for having your own opinion and being honest. If everyone was all honky dory, "love it".. "best game ever" it would affect development negatively and the truth is.. games needs criticism.

[pilgrim* 3514]

 

- did somebody not buy it already?