What Alpha Is Supposed To Be (A Discussion On Dev Direction And If The Game Will Ever Be Completed)

[dallas 5195]

 

Dean was asked on reddit what one of the most important things he has learned with developing/public interation or something like that, and his response was to never set a date for something unless you are extremely sure it will make it in time. This is likely why he is reluctant to set dates for things like vehicles...

This is a lesson most developers learn at some point.

 

When people are impatiently demanding an ETA, whatever you do, do not give one, because the only thing worse than not knowing an exact ETA is a delayed ETA. Players will go crazy not knowing, when the next release will hit, but if they are then finally promised a date, they'll got batshit insane, if this date is postponed. 

 

Did you work on WarZ and now work on Nether?

Don't ask that question, last time I confronted a forum member, he refused to answer it. 

 

He maintained for a long while, that it was irrelevant and that he could only answer it in private messages. I believe his name was RussianKaliber. When I accused him of being sergei Titov himself, it provoked Titov to create an account and disprove it. Unfortunately this named account was linked to multiple other accounts by the mods and proved that Sergei was very active on the DayZ forums, using multiple accounts. RussianKaliber did finally reveal that he indeed was another lead dev from WarZ, who had also been advertising WarZ here, without disclosing his position at WarZ.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Dallas

[joeymp 27]

Did you work for Terminal Reality?

[DarkwaveDomina 1099]

I believe that one of three things are happening internally with the development of this game.

 

1) Bohemia Interactive is only using this as a publicity stunt and way to generate quick revenue. It was never their intention to allow the dev team to create a finished game. The game will eventually be put on permanent hiatus. (This happens often. It happened on the last would be AAA title that I collaborated on)

 

2) The development team has no clear direction or goals. Essentially there's no clear focused way to their developmental habits which also spells doom for the game.

 

3) The development team was part of a scheme to generate a lot of money for a product that would remain in developmental hell for years before finally being put on permanent hiatus. (Not Likely)

 

I hate to be one of those "I stopped reading right there" people, but I did. They released the standalone (very) early because we were crying out for them to do so for a year, Dean Hall himself has said this. The game is in a state because it's nowhere near finished, they know this and they did not want to release it, but they threw us a solid and I won't complain about them doing such a thing.

[DeatHTaX 1217]

WARNING! Retards active in forum.

 

Thank you for contributing absolutely nothing to the overall conversation

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah and we played hundreds of hours in the DayZ mod and we had a riot playing it through out it's development.

 

BI games are always a work in progress. 

 

This isn't about the end result, this is about the journey. 

 

If you only care about the end station, you got on the wrong train.

 

 

This is probably what I would tell anyone who complains and complains about the game not being done right etc etc.

 

I mean do they even realize that they are a part of what is going to be one of the most badass zombie survival games EVER? It may seem silly to some people, but hey, that's cool to me. I'm a part of something huge and badass and I helped shape its awesomeness along the way.

 

THAT is what is important to me. Not a deadline or completion date

[jovlon 32]

I see and I hope that others see what you guys are trying to yet again do. You're taking a dead talking point... that being that I must want to game to fail and now you're attaching it to this notion that it must because I work for a competitor. We all know that WarZ was garbage. Anybody who read my post about the latest project that I was a part of could easily guess (as others have done in PM) what game I'm talking about. 

 

And I agree with a lot of the people that have PM'd me. Why would I release information about my specific job and specific titles so that you could easily look me up? You'd only attack our work in someway and or make it creepy. 

 

 

Thank you for contributing absolutely nothing to the overall conversation

 

 

 

This is probably what I would tell anyone who complains and complains about the game not being done right etc etc.

 

I mean do they even realize that they are a part of what is going to be one of the most badass zombie survival games EVER? It may seem silly to some people, but hey, that's cool to me. I'm a part of something huge and badass and I helped shape its awesomeness along the way.

 

THAT is what is important to me. Not a deadline or completion date

 

I completely get where you guys are coming from. Part of the allure of the game is being part of the journey. I've stated that this is why I bought the game. I've never complained about the price or anything of that nature. I understand why you'd think I did because so many people have tried to make that a talking point to take this off topic. So I get it. Allow me to frame what I'm saying in another way that I've had the opportunity to frame it in PM and among my friends and such. 

 

We don't accurately know what resources (money, etc) that they had before they released SA but we do know roughly what they netted after the release. To most people it sounds like more than enough right? Only it's not when you're developing a MMO or a sandbox open-world. They're developing both. It's a massive ambitious project. In the media industry (gaming, film, etc.) $30 million isn't that much at all. Again yes I'm sure that they had monetary resources before to add to this pile. 

 

So let me offer a scenario. Let's say that they develop the game and we see tremendous progress from what it is currently. Some major bugs have been fixed, they've added some cool features, they're communicating with the community in a clear precise fashion (I add this because a lot of other people have used as an example of internal mismanagement), and we all see that they're on a clear and focused path. (Though it's not likely the would do this... remember this is just a scenario) But they run out of money and ask the player base for donations. Now in this scenario I'd guess that most of us, me included, would be willing to donate another $30 or however much because we know where this project is headed.

 

Now let's take the same situation. The game is being developed as it is currently and they've run out of money. Would you donate another $30? A lot would say yes because it's only $30 but I'm asking more as a matter of principal. 

 

There are two important things of note that I (again) assumed that everybody would consider.

 

1) Learning on the job, especially with the pressure of working on a multi-million dollar project is really fucking hard. I've been there and anybody who has will tell you how important it is to have strong internal organization. 

 

2) Going from developing with a small group of people or by yourself is completely different than being asked to produce or play a larger role. And often times when you make this transition you lose power. It's like going from being the owner of anything (a sports team or restaurant) to being the coach or manager. When I see a producer who does a live stream and is out of touch with the game mixed with pet projects being allowed in so quickly (I'm talking about adding more types of sodas when we already have sodas) this in my humble opinion looks as if either the producer doesn't have as much power as one would think or the producer (transitioning into it) hasn't quite figured out how to direct in a clear and focused way. 

 

Think of Dean as a film director (and I use this because I'm very familiar with it). He has gone from directing a short where he had to take on so many jobs to directing a big budget film. He doesn't have to be superman anymore (though he could still be) but rather his main job is to direct the rest of his collaborators towards his vision in a clear fashion using the money that they have. 

 

But before I get off topic...

 

I do hope that they find the best way to communicate with their base, that they define roles internally, that the game progresses, that they figure it out soon so that the resources that they've been given can be put to the best use possible to maximize the potential of DayZ. I want for it to be a silly question as to if I'd donate $30 to help them complete development to a point where they feel like it's a realized product. I want to those things because once again I must stress that while $30 million seems like a lot to work with it really isn't in today's world. 

 

I want DayZ to succeed and be great (again we don't compete at all in the same market). I want it to realize and exceed what we thought it's potential is. So I want them and the community to fully understand how hard it is to do what they're attempting to do with the limited resources that they have. And how it becomes (not nearly but very close to it) impossible to do what they're trying to do if they don't have strong internal management and organization. 

[Jumbaliah 113]

Don't be fooled. Just because the OP types a lot of words doesn't mean he's not trolling you. Either that or he also believes Barack Obama listens to all his phone calls.

[jovlon 32]

Let's for a second focus on the things that we all seem to agree on.

 

A) That we feel like for what we've gotten out of it $30 was a fair price

 

B) For the most part we enjoy the game where it is right now enough to understand how great it could be

 

C) There are some long standing issues that we wish would be addressed. 

 

D) That it was easier to follow what they are doing (not that they should release more info). I wish like many that they'd chose a site though I understand that it's likely a strategy to attempt to broaden their audience and reach as many of their base as possible.

 

 

I bring this up again to point out what I meant by listen to the community. We're satisfied at the moment with playing the game as is. So I personally do wish that in some sense there was more of the "traditional" approach as it's been called in this forum with Alpha in that the focus was on pet projects later. As a friend pointed out you must have fun as a developer as well and that's where the Eggs that you find in games and pet projects come from. 

 

But that's the trade off that you make when you go from being a pure gamer to being a developer. You focus on the stuff that others will get to enjoy before you focus on the things that you enjoy. That's an assessment from personal experience not a scathing critique as some will take it. 

 

Lastly we all agree that we want this to be great and succeed and be everything and more than we ever imagined it could be. In the process of this discussion, despite some fanboys and trolls, I did have people who were completely against what I said and made valid points. And I respected them for it and saw their points of view as well as gained a better perspective on if I should be concerned (based off of how the community feels about the game as a whole). I've learned a lot from those that respectfully disagreed with me, understood where I came from instead of creating talking points or taking every little world as the literal instead of the general (as I've taken blame for this I don't understand those that refused to read and or accept that I've owned up to wording my concerns poorly), and presented great points. 

[Rick1633 136]

After the last patch, we got a game breaking " missing file error" that literally stops the entire game every 20 minutes.   This is the worst patch ever released for any game in history.  10 minutes of testing could have prevented that.   

[muddyraccoon 176]

This is on Page 8, soon to pass over to page 9.  I have learned a few things in my time on this forum, and when page numbers get high, it's either a hilarious post (like the one of Dean at the Last Supper, or Matt Lightfoot as Justin Bieber) or it is a discussion that no longer resembles a nice, point/counter-point back and forth.  It becomes a shoving match where lines have been drawn in the sand and people take sides.  I'm not above this, seeing that my second post ever was scolded by Max (you call a guy an idiot one time...).  But this.  What is this?  

 

OP, I understand where your head is/was at when you started this thread.  When you are on the side of failure (no offense, you guys seemed to have been royally screwed over) you start to see the signs in others in the same profession.  I don't know, but I will assume, for optimism's sake, that your heart was in the right place and this was a topic started out of concern for the games future, rather than you being a crazy man holding a sign saying THE END IS NIGH!  I don't care what you say, I just try to read into how your saying it.  Although, after reading your many other posts (you don't have to respond to everyone.  Most of us are idiots.  I mean them!  Most of them) you seem to actually care (since I could quote you saying that)  While I appreciate the concern a bit more than others that have replied, I will beat the dead horse and say a month and a half in to Alpha release is a bit soon to say the ship is sinking.  That is obviously my opinion, and it is based off of what I observe on these forums.  And honestly, that is good enough for me.

 

I have loads of experience with video games, but only as a player.  And up until very recently, only console games (I learned about Steam and haven't looked back.  Though I do wonder what the Occulus Rift combined with the Kinect sensor will do for the future of porn, but that's another topic for another time).  The one thing I have learned about PC games, at least the few I play, is that the community isn't what you experience over Xbox Live (13 year olds trying to justify their use of the N word, then giving up and calling me a faggot).  This forum is the DayZ community and it is strong.  And if anyone hasn't noticed, pretty vocal.  So although I do think this topic is not quite necessary, not yet, it wouldn't hurt to keep it in the back of your minds.  Just in case the day comes where we need to show Bohemia how strong we are.  Ha ha, that wasn't a threat...just don't let DayZ go the way our OP predicted.  

 

Also, jovlon, if you would have led with your last post, that would have been better, methinks.

 

And sorry for the jab at 13 year olds.  It could have been college kids questioning my sexuality.

 

Before I hit post I read through more comments and just saw people defending their sexuality and I think race was brought into it as well.  I am so glad I just spoke highly of us all, ya bunch of honkies.

 

 

 

*FOR THOSE TO LAZY TO READ LONG POSTS START BELOW HERE*

 

The OP is not wrong.  Nor is he right.  He is expressing concern.  A response should be either be to agree, and state reasons why, or to comfort the OP, and tell him(her?) why you think this game will be a smashing success.  If you want to troll or attack, go find the thread that is most likely popping up somewhere about logging in to find a fresh spawn when there should have been a fully geared toon.  Better hurry, or the graveyard will beat you.

 

And oddly enough, repeatedly calling someone a troll is, in fact, trolling.  So, way to be redundant?  Or just clueless.
 

Edited January 31, 2014 by MuddyRaccoon

[muddyraccoon 176]

Also don't listen to me because I believe in free speech more than telling people what to say.  But if you must reply to this over done thread, at least be honest!

 

Its all a scam.

 

Coke and hoes all the way.

 

 

Now follow my orders!

Edited January 31, 2014 by MuddyRaccoon

[evil_this 27]

I'd like to take your post point by point.  My replies will be bold and peach. 

 

TL;DR it's clear you have no idea who Bohemia is, who Rocket is or how DayZ came about.  I also hiiiiiighly doubt you're a developer - at best you're a highly inexperienced developer. 

 

 

As a fellow developer I felt it important to voice my own concerns as well as those of the player base that I've read or personally heard. I have no problem being the voice attacked as long as the conversation remains honest and straightforward. 

 

I believe that one of three things are happening internally with the development of this game.

 

1) Bohemia Interactive is only using this as a publicity stunt and way to generate quick revenue. It was never their intention to allow the dev team to create a finished game. The game will eventually be put on permanent hiatus. (This happens often. It happened on the last would be AAA title that I collaborated on)

 

Do you even know who Bohemia Interactive are?  Clearly, clearly, you don't.  Go look at the types of projects they have done/currently are doing.  Just go fucking look and you'll realize how ridiculous this sounds.

 

2) The development team has no clear direction or goals. Essentially there's no clear focused way to their developmental habits which also spells doom for the game.

 

The development team is still building their clear direction and goals (partly based on the community discussion and suggestions you later in this post say aren't paid attention).  This has been communicated repeatedly by Rocket when he has explained the "development roadmap" that is not yet complete.

 

3) The development team was part of a scheme to generate a lot of money for a product that would remain in developmental hell for years before finally being put on permanent hiatus. (Not Likely)

 

See 1).

 

What Early Access Alpha & Alpha Are Meant To Be

 

Typically when a game already has a large fan base (as this one does from their mod), a developer invites a small group of players from a player pool with different backgrounds to become testers for Early Alpha. These players usually have different levels of experience, different computer makeups, etc. so that the developer can have a wide range of data. 

 

When Alpha is released, typically a developer will open it up to a larger number of players. They give suggestions as to what they'd like to see implemented and bugs that they've found. This is the phase where core gameplay functionality is meant to be implemented. It is also the phase were there should be a strong focus on core and minor bugs. All of the player's vanity features (spray cans, etc) that are not part of the core gameplay functionality are typically (and supposed to be) implemented towards the end of Alpha heading into beta.

 

Speaking as a gamer with 22 years experience, one who has signed more NDAs for Alphas, Betas, and pre-Alpha development builds, I think you're so very wrong.  First and foremost, every Alpha/Beta/development stage is different on every project for every game for every development team for every publisher.  P E R I O D.  

There are certainly several teams working on different aspects based on their experience, ability, and assignment.  It's not the same 5 people building landscapes, building towns, creating 'vanity items' and developing core mechanics.  Further, in the case of DayZ, a large amount of the game's framework was built from previous Bohemia projects and is being modified, not written from scratch.

"Are supposed to be"?  Really?  Why are they "supposed" to be? FFS.

 

The Evidence

 

Releasing An Early Access Alpha To A Wide Public

 

As I've said above, it's unusual for a developer to release an Early Access Alpha to the entire public rather than a small amount of gamers... especially when they already have a devoted player base and a large amount of media coverage. 

 

Bohemia is an unusual publisher and Rocket is an incredibly unusual Dev.

 

To release the Early Access Alpha for $30 USD (remember this is usually an extremely barebones version of the game) is also unusual. Before anybody screams about the popup that you agree to before you start playing (about how the game isn't complete), I chose to buy this as a fellow developer because I had an interest in watching the game develop around the community. 

 

$30 USD.  This isn't really all that unusual, considering AAA titles release at $50-70 USD and generally are riddled with game-breaking faults and bugs.  This has been true since the days of Colecovision and will be true until the day we just plug into the base of our skull to load into a game.

 

Releasing the EAA for $30 isn't in itself suspicious. In fact I thought it a rather smart way to raise money while ensuring the you have an invested community for the product. But when placed besides other evidence/points of interest that I will raise it becomes slightly more suspicious. 

 

The Developers Talk Console

 

I've read a seemingly endless amount of articles that were released before or near the game's release date about how the developers have already had major discussions with Sony & MIcrosoft about porting DayZ. And when reading the quotes by Dean, he makes it seem as if porting DayZ to these consoles is imminent. 

 

It's not that hard to get a game onto either PS4 or XBOX, especially from a publishing house with the experience and the results of Bohemia.  Also, if you ever plan on getting your game onto either platform, you better be having major discussions with them before you even begin to secure funding or look for a publisher (unless you happen to be a milsim legend or something).

 

Anybody that knows anything knows how long and hard it is to port a popular finished PC game to console. This game is nowhere near finished and yet there is extremely ambitious language surrounding this subject (when Dean usually uses the least ambitious language about the game, updates, etc. possible). 

 

You're wrong.  The problem with ports is the opposite way.  It's difficult to port from console to PC, not nearly as much from PC to console.  Porting from PC to console generally requires lower res texture mapping, reducing vertices by x value and reducing loaded polygons by y value.  Little more.

 

This concerns me just because of the timeline that these articles were released. To me (and others developers that I've talked to) it feels like it was meant to both increase media coverage but also bring DayZ to the attention of the average and or console gamer. Why pay $60 or more when you pay $30 now if the developers have had strong conversations about porting this game?

 

Every part of the $30 Alpha pricing screams this.  First of all the development team urged people NOT TO BUY HIS SHITTY GAME CAUSE IT'S INCOMPLETE AND SHITTY (BTW Rocket lied.  It wasn't shitty, it's excellent).  It was made clear that the lowest price DayZ will be at release of Alpha (except for probably Steam Xmas sale 2015, Summer sale 2016).  Period.  Nothing shady about it *as it was communicated clearly and repeatedly*.

 

Updates/Not Listening To The Community

 

Dean states over and over again that they released the Early Access Alpha to the public so that they could listen to the community and implement features that the player base wants. There are two problems that I've already found with this.

 

1) The developers aren't listening to the community. How many features have been implemented or reduced when it's been generally agreed on by the public? How many community suggested gameplay elements have been introduced at all from any of the updates?

 

Are you shitting me?  Are you fucking shitting me, seriously here?  First of all, not many features have been released yet at all.  They're 2 months into this Alpha, and constantly building experimental builds and releasing them for testing.  You know... the way a game's Alpha goes.  Secondly, have you seen the goddamn suggestions here?  I'm glad Bohemia and Rocket are ignoring the nonsense in these forums and on reddit.

However, more to your point, of the handful of actual "features" (new guns aren't features, sawing guns down is.  New clothes is not a feature, layered clothing is) that have been introduced, the majority are *core and basic components of gameplay*.  The basic framework of the game being built around us.

You'd have a much better comprehension of the scope of what they're doing with DayZ's Alpha if you played the DayZ Mod for Arma II.  How about you go hit the Suggestions folder and read it from the beginning through today, and you answer your own question (one posed entirely from ignorance, as is all too frustratingly clear).

 

2) The updates feel like they're meant only to increase the amount of players. Who could honestly say that any of their updates have fixed or even mildly addressed any of the massive glaring holes in gameplay? So what have they introduced?

 

"Massive glaring holes in gameplay".  It's 2 months in.  If there weren't a wide array of massive glaring holes in gameplay right now, I'd be suspicious of the entire concept of this being an Alpha - because in that case it'd be more of a Beta or even a pre-release.   More to the point, again, have updates fixed problems?  Holy shit yes they have.  Falling through floors is mostly fixed, falling off ladders is mostly resolved, glitches when changing stance, climbing on rocks, erroneous textures.  Like my previous answer, go hit the "Bug Reports" and review from the beginning to today, and you'll see the answer to your own ignorant question.

 

They've introduced what I call player's features. Features that players will become excited about for a time. Features that will receive a lot of press and ultimately bring new players. Two examples of the problem are the Shotgun and Spray-Cans.

 

The Shotgun was a main talking point in the media when the update was announced. If I hadn't played the game yet and I'd read those articles I'd have thought that this was a must-have game. While shotguns and guns in general are part of core gameplay, spray-cans are not at all. As with other updates they chose to implement a lot of player's features without addressing any of the issues that he community has requested. 

 

This just demonstrates your lack of vision and scope.  Yes, spray painting a gun to a different color is not a "core mechanic".  However, it's the first time such a thing has been introduced into a Bohemia game.  So they put it in and gave it a very limited capability (for now).  Why do you think that is?  Could it maybe be so they can not only learn this mechanic more thoroughly, but figure out how to get that spray can to work more thoroughly with the enviroment?

If at some point I can spray paint my helmet, face mask, the entrance to my bunker, my car, that building, that bundle of sticks, my buddy Steve because LOL - then I'd say the spray cans in the .. what is it 6th update? .. to the Alpha was a pretty fucking core mechanic and a whole lot more world-changing than the addition of a goddamn shotgun (although sawing them off, now that's a mechanic).

 

Empty Promises/No Timeline

 

After Dean had his public social media discussion, I became convinced that something suspicious is going on internally. Again I've worked on game development teams and I'm speaking based on that.

 

Dean has promised vehicles and a lot of other features that have players foaming at the mouth but given the development of the game and his refusal to set any sort of timeline (other than 6 months) I doubt that they will be able to reach this goal so quickly.

 

You do realize that vehicles and bases are things that Rocket and the Bohemia teams have got *just a little* experience implementing into games right?  Especially games that run on this engine.  You.... you don't know this do you?  FFS, you clearly have no clue.

 

As a dev team project manager you want to set hard dates (even if you have to back off which is what usually happens) because you want to drive home the point that as a team the focus should be on implementing and debugging certain features. Thus far there's been a refusal to do so while offering lofty goals that drive press. 

 

So someone who is a leader in his field doing things differently than the failed "AAA" project manager (who got their engine snatched from them and their game tossed away) you worked under is suspicious?  What's more suspicious to me is something thinking you should repeat the mistakes of failures and call it a standard.

 

As a point that's a bit off topic: With this last update Dean stated something like "Every developer has been forced to go home for the weekend". Anybody who has worked in the industry knows about crunchtime... the time before any update or before the game releases when the dev team works overtime to ensure that everything rolls out as planned. It's unusually and disheartening to me that they've done this and similar things that have raised concern from the player base in the past.

 

I've read many post about how players feel like an action taken by the dev team means that they don't care. A vacation here, refusing to go into crunch time (which is expected when you're a developer) there.

 

You literally take the exact opposite view that I do.  These are *people* man.  Why burn them out working them overtime endlessly on a game that is progressing quickly (entirely due to their hard work) and no one but the dimmest of the dim expects to be completed until *at least* Q4-2014, Q2-2015 more reasonably.  They're clearly on the schedule they've set.  

But you - you're gonna shit on a lead dev who has such tireless and engaged staff that he has to force him to go home for the weekend?  You're gonna complain when they go on year-end holiday for 3 weeks?  Bugger. Off.

 

The very long point that I'm making in all of this is that I no longer expect for this game to ever be completed for one of the three reasons stated. 

 

I'd like to hear your feelings on this. 

 

My feelings are that Bohemia is going to do what they do well - support their best development teams in projects that generate massive amounts of revenue and innovation, while building on their history of excellence.  I'm willing to bet Q3-2014 beta with a price increase to $45, Q4-2014 (right after xmas) or Q1-2015 'release', Q1-2016 on consoles.

 

 

In another post you said:

 

Think of Dean as a film director (and I use this because I'm very familiar with it). He has gone from directing a short where he had to take on so many jobs to directing a big budget film. He doesn't have to be superman anymore (though he could still be) but rather his main job is to direct the rest of his collaborators towards his vision in a clear fashion using the money that they have.

 

You're just ceaselessly showing that you have no clue about anything about the topic of which you speak.  It's not like suddenly Rocket went from being a guy coding on an EA floor somewhere and suddenly he inherited $100M.  The guy has been with the developer he is at doing what he has been doing for a considerable amount of time.  Sure, he probably has more people to oversee and it's got to be weird to have a team of managers reporting to him, but he's still doing what he's been doing for a long time, and with a project that is basically all his.  

 

I honestly don't know why I got so invested in this thread.  I just get worked up when someone is so full of nonsense and wrong on my precious interwebs.

Edited January 31, 2014 by Evil_This

[captain_morgan 6]

Sometimes it seems like some people are paid just to write bullsh*t in forums. The author of this topic lacks any understanding of game development, but at the same time he writes posts long as novels trying to sound reasonable at any price. Such a fail. Does that 9 pages thread help the Dayz community somehow ? NO. Doest it sound like total nonsense ? Yes. Why do you guys need to respond him then, that's the way he wants it. Just ignore that sh*t.

Edited January 31, 2014 by captain_morgan

[muddyraccoon 176]

 

Why do you guys need to respond him then, that's the way he wants it. just ignore that sh*t.

 

I can honestly say in most cases i would agree.  I am always ready to rage in with my alpha argument, In a lot of cases it's true.  but in this case, there were actually enough constructive (or, at the very least civil) responses made that the OP's last post summed up everything swimmingly.  And wrapped it up for that matter.  I know, i know.  9 pages of pure text is a bit daunting.  Imagine how I felt the first time I read Goosebumbs.  But it was concern that was worded to seem overbearing in the first post.  Maybe he just said that to get the hounds called off, but I doubt it.  

 

And as for the helping the community, it may.  They let us know of a lot, by updating us with fixes, new items, new cities, but the concern with some, like, say a developer with the know-how but a different background with a different staff and different community (we are a different breed), he might see that flashy, newfangled items could unintentionally distract us from the fact that serious game issues are being overlooked.

 

But, since I have read too many interviews, Reddit AMAs, and forum posts, I personally assume that this game is on the right track.  I don't see how this could possibly fail.  I have PC gamer friends, and XBox gamer friends.  I made the switch for this game.  And I got 2 more Xbox'rs coming over to the Dark side.  These 2 guys are CoD dicks that only spam lives and watch sportscenter everynight.  And they are building rigs and getting that twinkle in their eyes. DayZ will not fail.  it is something else.  Special.

 

And I lied, I switched to PC to play the Skyrim mods that made every chick naked and you could bang them all over.  And I don't really have any RL friends.

[weedmasta 784]

I'd like to take your post point by point.  My replies will be bold and blue. 

 

TL;DR it's clear you have no idea who Bohemia is, who Rocket is or how DayZ came about.  I also hiiiiiighly doubt you're a developer - at best you're a highly inexperienced developer. 

 

 

 

 

In another post you said:

 

Think of Dean as a film director (and I use this because I'm very familiar with it). He has gone from directing a short where he had to take on so many jobs to directing a big budget film. He doesn't have to be superman anymore (though he could still be) but rather his main job is to direct the rest of his collaborators towards his vision in a clear fashion using the money that they have.

 

You're just ceaselessly showing that you have no clue about anything about the topic of which you speak.  It's not like suddenly Rocket went from being a guy coding on an EA floor somewhere and suddenly he inherited $100M.  The guy has been with the developer he is at doing what he has been doing for a considerable amount of time.  Sure, he probably has more people to oversee and it's got to be weird to have a team of managers reporting to him, but he's still doing what he's been doing for a long time, and with a project that is basically all his.  

 

I honestly don't know why I got so invested in this thread.  I just get worked up when someone is so full of nonsense and wrong on my precious interwebs.

 

You couldn't pick a better color, my eyes were already hurting just by looking at it. Hence as you guessed right, I did not read it.

[LaughingJack (DayZ) 767]

The OP is not wrong.  Nor is he right.  He is expressing concern.  A response should be either be to agree, and state reasons why, or to comfort the OP, and tell him(her?) why you think this game will be a smashing success.  If you want to troll or attack, go find the thread that is most likely popping up somewhere about logging in to find a fresh spawn when there should have been a fully geared toon.  Better hurry, or the graveyard will beat you.

 

 

And muddy you evil bandit, your last post made me laugh out loud while I'm at work *throws beans at you*

 

 

(this one is not to muddy or weedmasta, or anybody else that read most of these discussion) I know, 9 sites, discussion already going in circles again, are hard to read, but at least you should look out for posts from the OP before you run around..so I just leave one quote of myself here (which I wrote at the end of a mean parody of the OP)

 

 I like it when people are using their brain and think critically and question things. But (and this is important) the way you did it was just not correct. Empty words and propaganda, rumors and opinions sold as evidence. I just want you to think critically - something you can obviously do - about your own post and the things you write. - because maybe people believe what they read and in that case you don't want something written in such a wrong way.

Yes, I DO have concerns regarding DayZ and I understand yours. I just can't stand the way you brought them up.

 

 

 

He answers to that here:

 

http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/169233-what-alpha-is-supposed-to-be-a-discussion-on-dev-direction-and-if-the-game-will-ever-be-completed/?p=1722364

 

 

Always remember:  read -> think -> write

 

If you skip one of these steps, your post will most likely be useless. And you don't want to be useless, right?

Edited January 31, 2014 by LaughingJack

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

To the OP: If you decide to open a topic on a forum it's for opening a discussion, people are bound to disagree with you and to tell you why, you can't just throw things as "facts" and expect everyone to suck it up.

Edited January 31, 2014 by Lady Kyrah

[LaughingJack (DayZ) 767]

Thats true, and thats what I told him, and, in fact, thats what he is responding to in the post I linked.

 

So I have to assume you didn't read my comment (because the second part started with "this one is not to muddy or weedmasta, or anybody else that read most of these discussion") but you answered to it, so I have to assume you didn't read the thread or even my comment or the linked post, so I'm gonna say it again, this time in a larger font size:

 

read -> think -> write

 

I did not think, that I would have say that to somebody with 1609 posts in a forum...

 

 

Edit: this post is totally OT of the thread, sry for that.

Edited January 31, 2014 by LaughingJack

[evil_this 27]

You couldn't pick a better color, my eyes were already hurting just by looking at it. Hence as you guessed right, I did not read it.

 

Changed it up.  It was late enough that I couldn't be assed to change it to something better once i realized how bad it is.

 

If it wasn't so difficult in these forums to begin/end quotes out of a block of quotes i'd have replied point by point, but I simply don't have the patience for that *and* ranting at strangers on the internet.

[jovlon 32]

I can honestly say in most cases i would agree.  I am always ready to rage in with my alpha argument, In a lot of cases it's true.  but in this case, there were actually enough constructive (or, at the very least civil) responses made that the OP's last post summed up everything swimmingly.  And wrapped it up for that matter.  I know, i know.  9 pages of pure text is a bit daunting.  Imagine how I felt the first time I read Goosebumbs.  But it was concern that was worded to seem overbearing in the first post.  Maybe he just said that to get the hounds called off, but I doubt it.  

 

And as for the helping the community, it may.  They let us know of a lot, by updating us with fixes, new items, new cities, but the concern with some, like, say a developer with the know-how but a different background with a different staff and different community (we are a different breed), he might see that flashy, newfangled items could unintentionally distract us from the fact that serious game issues are being overlooked.

 

 

I know that LaughingJack has said it. We definitely still disagree but he made valid points. And I admitted my mistakes and apologized for the wording of it. I also tried to explain why I worded it that way and for anybody that cares to educate themselves on that before posting it's there (I know 9 pages is more than I expected).

 

And it's true that through all of this as I said I learned a lot, people made valid points on both sides, and I think that we found things that we could all agree on. 

 

The reason that I quoted this was just to remind people that you're right and I've made this point. I've maintained that I'm coming at it from a perspective... from how I've learned to think and you guys are coming at it from different fresh perspectives and that's when learning takes place. (I didn't want for you to think that the first part was about you).

 

And people are right. And I've said this as well. I started off with a more aggressive perhaps overly pessimistic tone. But that's also because I've discussed this with fellow developers and we see things and think oh man oh no. That was one of the things that I wanted to learn. We see things in this way. As a player with no development background how do you see it and feel about the current state of the game. 

 

@EvilThis

 

Again really. Do you really think that I want for them to listen to every single poster's suggestions and implement all of them. Come on now you must know better than that? 

 

I've explained it before but I will do it one last time. We all agree that in it's current state that the game is both enjoyable and worth $30. 

 

We also agree that whether it's rapid fire updates like the current plan or updates that are released every few months... we just want for the updates to roll out and appear to be tested and be geared more towards core gameplay. So this is what I mean by listening to the community. 

 

I'll make one last post after this one and then request that this thread either be locked or left alone as we've tried to let it die a few times (I know it's ironic that I saw this as I bring it back to life). 

 

The last post will be to address some things that people in PM have asked me to explain in public and etc.

[jovlon 32]

A lot of people in PM have asked me to just make these points because it helped them understand me better.

 

* While I don't work for Terminal Reality I did work on the better Walking Dead title (I know I'm being biased here). 

 

* A lot of people got where I came from after I explained this and a lot said that I should post it in public. 

 

Yes the Alpha game has only been released for about two months now. But contrary to this notion the game didn't just start two months ago. There was pre-production and production long before two months ago. Again I apologize for assuming that people would consider that with any media project be it a game or film there are stages way before it's released in any form.

 

From my indie to (almost) big deal game a lot of the guys dumped so much of their own money into it that they were sleeping in the office or on my floors and couches.I say this because we knew that we were going to have to eventually ask for money and because we had so much community interest we decided to do it through donations. 

 

Even though we'd already defined roles in pre-production and a general plan, once we knew that we were going to ask for other people to trust us with their money we took steps to line our ducks up in a row. 

 

We redefined roles. We used our own money to hire a financial adviser/specialist to help us come up with plans for if we got X amount of dollars what we would focus on. If we got $10 million we would focus on this; $50 million would allow us to focus on this. We wanted to hit the ground running because we too were dealing with an ambitious project that larger teams would more usually take on. The first round of updates wasn't bad by any means but it was still less than what we needed. But we used the plan we had in place and developed and then released the updates to our work. Once they saw how we much we had progressed with what they had given us the donations started flowing in. 

 

DayZ is an ambitious project that we all want to see succeed. Ambitious projects take a lot of time and money. So $30 million plus whatever they had reserved to invest in this project seems like a lot of money but we must at least entertain the notion that it may run out at some point. But because of that possibility you must have your ducks in a row especially when $30 million is from people that are investing in your vision. I'm not saying that it's a lot of money for any of us to lose. It's the principle of it.

 

The developers have essentially said that they're still adjusting and that's understandable. There are things that you adjust to once you release a game and it's not just the developers and friends playing it. But there's also things that could have been done way back in pre-production and before EAA wide-release that could have eased the process... that would have allowed them to hit the ground running. 

 

And again if they were self-funding this game this wouldn't have even been a discussion. If a large (even if it's not the majority) of their funding came from in-house or angel investors or something else I wouldn't have these concerns because they could likely dip into the resources as needed. If they happen to run out of money (which is what I meant by the game may not get to a Formal Release stage with the initial $30 million) I want to be able to invest again without a second thought. I want to say that they ran out but they had their ducks in a row at the times that they should have been and I know that they are moving in a good direction. 

 

Now 9 pages in and I think that we can call this monster of a thread is mostly done. At the end of all this we may not agree and I understand that. But I hope that you can at least see where I'm coming from and why I have that perspective. Where my concerns come from and why they are valid. I certainly see where a lot of you are coming from and you've explained why you have that opinion and perspective and I've appreciated that and learned from it. I want this game to be great like all of you. If I see something that I (usually from experience) believe could enhance it in some way I'm going to voice it because I want this to succeed.

 

Thanks

 

Jovlon

[Crackerblk 1]

Your points were valid in the 90's. Dayz is not the first or only game that has taken on this model.

[louist 163]

Your points were valid in the 90's. Dayz is not the first or only game that has taken on this model.

If you aren't going to read--and it is clear you didn't--don't post.

Laughingjack would ask that you think, as well, but thinking can be so tedious, can't it?

The OP isn't questioning the model, he's questioning the internal management of the team.

Edited January 31, 2014 by louist

[Weedz 1105]

I liked the part where OP claims he is a game developer and has worked on AAA titles yet has absofuckingloutely no idea what the alpha development phase that pretty much every new game has been using since Minecraft is.

 

 

AkA OP is probably a 15 year old punk who's development experience is making a flash game that involved clicking on a button to win ... nope I won't even go that far I doubt he has ever even done one of the fake beta tests AAA games do (like BF3 and 4's "beta" tests [*cough* free game demo *cough*]).

 

 

 

Your points were valid in the 90's. Dayz is not the first or only game that has taken on this model.

Not even then. Maybe if BI was some random unknown upstart company and this was their first game. They have been around since the 90's; when they say they are coming out with a game ... they come out with the game. Remember that Mars rover game they came out with that was never finished and you couldn't even go to Mars ... yeah I don't either.

Edited January 31, 2014 by Weedz

[louist 163]

Sometimes, Weedz... The stuff that comes out of your mouth...

[OrLoK 16185]

Hello there

 

Even if Dean and Matt were busy looking up lolcats all day one has to remember they are still under Bohemia's umbrella.

 

I dont think Bohemia would let chaos take over or things to slide to an irretrievable level.

 

Yes, Bohemia are not perfect and have had production issues in the past, then again so have many "AAA" companies. I've worked for multinational corporations myself which have fubar'd. It happens.

 

Its nice to have some clarification on the OP's game release but personally I would like to have known more about their role rather than the title. I myself have been involved with releases and on some I have had far more input than others but I would not classify myself as a dev. Thats not a dig, just an opinion.

 

Whilst its not impossible that DAYZ would crash and burn, it is highly unlikely.

 

At the moment there are no (imho) reasons to doubt a release. I think one reason folk might falsely believe so is that they are expecting a tidier version of the mod. The full end release should be far more than that. And appropriately will take more time.

 

I myself wouldn't want to be associated with a flawed project and if I felt this was being run by an unscrupulous company or incompetent devs, I would have bailed ages ago.

 

I'm no blind fanboi.

 

Rgds

 

LoK