Why the dayz formula will ultimately fail

[Solopopo 330]

EDIT: I mean the formula of the game itself will fail, not fail in terms of sales/business sucess. Dayz will always be a colt classic and a trend within itself

 

When i would play dayz standalone i noticed that there were only a handful of spawn locations alongside the coast.. WelI I noticed something very odd.. At the few spawns further away from cherno or elektro, i would constantly find dead bodies of new players in the same exact spots. Then i realized why.. They are all simply  looking for the nearest place to suicide so they can get a better spawn closer to one of the three hotspots. The places i usually find the suicided players are right at the bottom of areas high enough to jump off and die from. Most players simply do not wish to run for hours on end just to get to one of the  good loot areas.. and i can't blame them.. I wouldn't want to to do that either.

 

So in a nutshell, there are only two locations that people travel to and only one location that is a primary weapon spawn location.. Which sucks.

 

When people first purchase dayz they spend hours looting regular town homes and sheds and quickly discover that those houses and townhomes are a huge waste of time.. So now instead of scavenging and survival, we are stuck with a game where players first priority is to find the nearest location to kill themselves to get a better spawn location. When thats the case, something isn't working.

 

The WORST possible thing to do in a survival game is arrange loot in pre-set locations..  Thats not survival.. Thats a footrace. Survival should be all about scavenging, chance and luck.. There is WAY too little of that in dayz.. Sure you can stumble across a shotgun in a home if you look long enough, but its impractical to think that players will actually do that when they know that they can just find ten m4's under bunkbeds or in tents at balota military camp.. Sure i know there will be comments of people saying "but i play like a realll survivor and i search every house and bunkbedddd mehh" YES thats good for you and all, but lets get real here.. The average dayz player is well aware that those townhouses and sheds are not worth their time. And thats sad. There should be hope of loot in even the most unlikely places just like in real life.

 

Fun in a survival game should be about PERSISTENCE, SCAVENGING, and LUCK. It's more fun to find loot unexpectedly in an unlikely location than to simply just race all 30 other players to balota..The players who should come out on top are the ones with the most persistence and dedication to search the world of chernarus.

 

Oh yeah and ironically, in a real life apocalypse, city areas like cherno and elektro, and a military camp like balato would be looted first.. So realistically it would actually be the complete opposite.. Those three areas should have NO loot and the only real loot would reside in townhouses/ small villages deep in the mountainside. But in dayz logic does not exist.. If it were up to me i would put rifles and handguns and magnums in townhouses deep in the mountainside and have guns hangign above the fireplaces in many homes.

 

So to make a long story short.. whats the point of all this circled area even being in the game?

 

 

if you travel a mile into the "uncharted land" the devs don't even bother putting loot in those houses or buildings.. So its like whats the point?

That circled area you have there is a work in progress. The entire game is a work in progress. To say that the entire thing is going to fail because of the way loot currently spawns, which could be fixed with a single patch, is just silly. They are already implementing high population servers in the experimental test branch. If you play on any of those servers you must travel inland to find loot. At the moment, I enjoy that the action is for the most part centralized around elektro/cherno. I always know where to go to PvP. By the time the rest of the game is implemented, I will have a lot more PvP experience than the wave of new players that will join the community. Enjoy it while it lasts. Who knows where the action will be centralized when the game is finished, if it is centralized anywhere at all. It is likely that elektro/cherno will always be hot spots, because they are well known playgrounds for PvP, but that it not necessarily a bad thing. When there is more incentive to survive, elektro/cherno might lose their appeal for many players, particularly players that didn't master elektro/cherno PvP while they had the chance. 

Edited February 18, 2014 by Solopopo

[deepfried 95]

 

So to make a long story short.. whats the point of all this circled area even being in the game?

 

if you travel a mile into the "uncharted land" the devs don't even bother putting loot in those houses or buildings.. So its like whats the point?

 

The huge map is *the* point, its what lends the game authenticity as a survival simulator, its a sizable chunk of life like terrain which is the entire basis for an authentic experience (note  I fully realise the mechanics aren't in yet to make that a reality), take that away and you're looking at a large and somewhat janky Cod map.  Its going to be hard to appreciate this point until the game is more finished, with bases, vehicles, hunting/camping, properly spawning loot in all the loot locations, large number of zombies etc etc...

[djporternz 644]

How the hell is a game supposed to get better when you guys just strike down anyone who points out a flaw? If you guys just defend every single problem/bug and pretend its perfectly fine and dandy.. than how the hell are they going to know what to fix? Arent we alpha testers to identify the structural weaknesses and point them out?

The only weakness in DayZ that I'm repeatedly seeing, is the gross failure of imagination on the part of the players including yourself. And to be fair, you aren't just pointing out a flaw. You seem to have some sort of axe to grind, hence the comments about 'shity code' and all the other bagging out of the ArmA engine in general.

 

If I'm not reading your OP incorrectly, what you want is for the large map to go away, have players spawn in or near these so-called 'Hot Spots', and near on fully equipped with the mil gear that you seem to think are the only thing of value in this game. Sorry, I didn't sign up to play CoD or BF for a reason. DayZ should never go down the road of even trying to look anything or play anything like those pieces of ....

 

This game is still directionless.  Too easy to survive, loots are too predictable, no incentive to actually survive, etc.  I honestly think if Rocket wants this game to be anything worthwhile in the end, it's going to take an other 2 or 3 years of development.  I don't think anyone can argue that this game so far, considering it was supposed to be out in 2012, is nowhere close to where we'd like it.  I would have really thought Rocket had a better idea of what he wanted to do with this game before this widespread alpha release.  Sadly, I really don't know that he or his team knows where this game is headed or what we should expect.    

As above, failure of imagination! No incentive to survive? Why are you playing a survival game if you can find no reason to survive? Honestly, WTF!

 

Yes ATM it is reasonably easy to survive. What of it? We're in Alpha and things will change as we progress.

 

Loot is too predictable. Yes it is. But it is in RL as well. You want food, you go to a supermarket. You want meds, you go to a doctor or a hospital. You want a gun, you hit up a military base or barracks (or just about anywhere if you are unfortunate enough to live in the US!). It's logical. Put the gear where it's more likely to have been in the first place. Once the loot respawn is implemented and server stability is enough to alleviate the need for constant reboots, the problem will be less significant than it is now.

 

As to the game not being where you would like it to be, that's definately not an opinion I share. The game is progressing fast. Experimental branch has seen another patch for testing, and we are reliably getting these pushed out at a rate of one per week for the last month. That rate seem to be about right given the current rate of extra features and bug fixes that are being applied. Hot fixes are being made available for game-breaking bugs as soon as humanly possible on stable branch.

 

As to the technology of the RV engine, innovations being developed by the DayZ team are being forward propergated into the ArmA 3 engine because they are that good. I don't care if you're claiming to be a Pro Programmer or not, the ArmA engine is a tried and true platform for the types of simulation that is the core of DayZ. The code is solid and robust and stands as a good framework to hang off all the items and interaction that are likely to be needed.

 

TL;DR: I'm not seeing any indication of any sort of failure within the DayZ game or the direction of development. I am seeing a lot of fail on the part of a vocal minority of players who either don't understand the idea of an Alpha release or whose expectations for DayZ are better served by other existing games on seperate platforms.

[randalmcdaniels 62]

From a business standpoint, all the people who ever planned on buying dayz have already spent the $30 for the standalone.. Dayz isn't one of those games that you just find out about by accident and than decide to buy later down the road.. PC gamers know dayz and its a pretty clean cut decision of who will purchase it or not. So like i said, the bulk majority of money has already been made. So from a business standpoint dean hall will realize that there is no logical reason to spend any more time and money working on dayz. I know that sounds messed up, but i wouldnt be surprised if this is how it turns out. I am speaking from experience of the cold world of business. Thats just how things work.

 

Plus lets look at dean halls track record..as a dayz fan who had super high expectations i obsessively searched up daily news on ANY news websites or blogs dealing with the anything to do with dayz and progress on the standalone. I did this almost daily/weekly for an entire year and a half trying to get the scoop on dayz.. What i found was constant bad news and i initially didnt think dayz would ever come out based on the things i read. First lets start out with the multiple articles about dean hall throwing in the towel several times during development and quitting, Luckily he came back each time but there are also numerous reports of dean hall saying things in interviews like "I am just so sick of zombies" and talking about how he wants to go on to other things.. Not to mention reports of the few people he worked with flat out saying how rocket is very childish and difficult to work with.

 

So would i be surprised if dayz standalone gets quickly labeled as beta than final than abandoned forever? NOT AT ALL.. And why you ask? Because of the fact that throughout all of dayz standalones sucess, he STILL has decided AGAINST starting his own gaming company or opening a studio.

 

Anyone with half a brain knows it takes hundreds of people to make a video game. You can't sucessfully finish a game with the scale of dayz with two developers (his friends who do all the work are basicaly just modders as well)..  But the fact that he is still choosing not to expand despite the millions he has made.. Thats just borderline insulting to all the supporters. He just selfishly puts the money in his pocket and says "yeah give us a year or two" meanwhile putting all the stress on the TWO people who activeley develop dayz

Edited February 19, 2014 by randalmcdaniels

[Super_Duty 466]

I don't have time for this... But for the sake of the arguement, I would dare say that Zuckerberg found himself in a similar situation at one point.

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

So would i be surprised if dayz standalone gets quickly labeled as beta than final than abandoned forever? NOT AT ALL.. And why you ask? Because of the fact that throughout all of dayz standalones sucess, he STILL has decided AGAINST starting his own gaming company or opening a studio.

You sir are a complete idiot.  If Mr. Hall decided to do this with his own company this game would not even be in development.  His game engine would be in development. I think this thread has had enough face-palms for you so I won't even grave you with another.

[djporternz 644]

From a business standpoint, all the people who ever planned on buying dayz have already spent the $30 for the standalone.. Dayz isn't one of those games that you just find out about by accident and than decide to buy later down the road. PC gamers know dayz and its a pretty clean cut decision of who will purchase it or not. So like i said, the bulk majority of money has already been made. So from a business standpoint dean hall will realize that there is no logical reason to spend any more time and money working on dayz. I know that sounds messed up, but i wouldnt be surprised if this is how it turns out. I am speaking from experience of the cold world of business. Thats just how things work.

Yeah, they made some money. But as money goes in the games industry, it's not all that much. It covered some expenses that had been paid forward during the time when they were working on the SA and had no revenue from it for how ever long it was. Watching the ticker over at DayZgame.com there seems to be a steady stream of on-going sales. Currently sitting at 1.45 mil as I write this.

 

As to Dean having no logical reason to continue with DayZ SA. What has logic to do with it? He had no logical reason to start the Mod in the first place. He had no logical reason to update the Mod as he did. And that was when he was doing it all for FREE and in his OWN TIME while contracted to work on other BI projects to pay his bills.

 

Plus lets look at dean halls track record..as a dayz fan who had super high expectations i obsessively searched up daily news on ANY news websites or blogs dealing with the anything to do with dayz and progress on the standalone. I did this almost daily/weekly for an entire year and a half trying to get the scoop on dayz.. What i found was constant bad news and i initially didnt think dayz would ever come out based on the things i read. First lets start out with the multiple articles about dean hall throwing in the towel several times during development and quitting, Luckily he came back each time but there are also numerous reports of dean hall saying things in interviews like "I am just so sick of zombies" and talking about how he wants to go on to other things. Not to mention reports of the few people he worked with flat out saying how rocket is very childish and difficult to work with.

Track record, my arse! most of those are from before he started working on the SA and before cent one had been committed to the project from any source. Who cares. For most of that time there wasn't a credible SA. The Mod was hitting up against hard limits in the ArmA 2 RV engine and the scripted alternative routes were eating up all the server cycles and making the whole system run like a dog. Hell, I'd wake up sick of Zombies, too, if I was being held responsible for that mess.

 

As to being childish and difficult to work with. Who cares. BI must have been able to work with him, or he wouldn't still be working for them.

 

 

So would i be surprised if dayz standalone gets quickly labeled as beta than final than abandoned forever? NOT AT ALL.. And why you ask? Because of the fact that throughout all of dayz standalones sucess, he STILL has decided AGAINST starting his own gaming company or opening a studio.

And why should he start his own company? He probably wouldn't get to take his current team with him, as they are contracted to BI not to him. He definately wouldn't have access to the RV engine, as BI do not license out that particular piece of IP (as far as I'm aware). So he'd be starting from scratch with absolutely nothing and have to develop a completely new engine before adding a single Zombie onto any map. He's better off where he is as he can leverage all of that stuff into his project, and where he has already the approval of BI behind him.

 

 

Anyone with half a brain knows it takes hundreds of people to make a video game. You can't sucessfully finish a game with the scale of dayz with two developers (his friends who do all the work are basicaly just modders as well).  But the fact that he is still choosing not to expand despite the millions he has made. Thats just borderline insulting to all the supporters. He just selfishly puts the money in his pocket and says "yeah give us a year or two" meanwhile putting all the stress on the TWO people who activeley develop dayz.

Hundreds of people! I guess that's why Minecraft did so badly with just one, then. And also to money earnt, Minecraft is still way ahead. Also, Notch didn't take the money and run, neither did he take the money and immediately hire on hundreds of developers to push the project forward. It is the perfect antithesis to what you would seem to imply is the ONLY reasonable way forward for such a project.

 

So no, you don't need hundreds of people to make a video game. You just need people who know what they are doing, have a decent road map and a desire and the financial backing to see it through. All of which the DayZ TEAM now have at their disposal.

 

The only people placing stress on the developers are stupid players with their unreasonable demands for haste above all else who have zero knowledge of how this process is going to unfold, and who don't understand the business realities of small independent software houses.

 

No reason to continue DayZ through to completion? How about the fact that if Dean screws up this project, it is the ONLY thing he'll be remembered for! He might be able to slink back into the bowels of BI and continue to work quietly in the background, but every time his head appears above the windowsill, it will always be about the failure of DayZ SA. That right there is some pretty big incentive not to fuck this up!

 

TL;DR: DayZ will be completed. It will hit it's major milestones, not necessarily on the dates expected, and we will eventually get something in our hands which may or may not be similar to the DayZ we deserve. It will have features that will please some people and that others will hate. Who cares, we'll just mod the hell out of it later to make it the game we've always wanted. Thanks Dean!

 

Sorry All. This somehow turned into 'War & Peace'.

 

ASIDE: I don't know where you got your Pro Programmer degree or your MBA, but you should seriously consider asking for your money back and maybe start legal proceedings against whatever institution gave them to you!

Edited February 19, 2014 by DJPorterNZ

[knight210 2]

"Colt classic" 

[naraga 45]

Maby im retarded, but aren't all you people posting ITT about how you went up North and founds towns filled with enough loot to deck out an entire army simply proving OP's point? Those towns are so filled with loot because nobody but you gave a rats ass about traveling that far into the map when you can get everything you want in the area OP did not circle. It also gives legitimacy to OP's claim that loot is too abundant and doesn't give that "scavenging/surviving feel.

 

And yes this is an alpha, but that does not mean you cannot make any suggestions/bring up design flaws. Besides OP's poorly chosen thread title and "stance" the topic itself is pretty legitimate.

Edited February 19, 2014 by naraga

[soulfirez 901]

Maby im retarded, but aren't all you people posting ITT about how you went up North and founds towns filled with enough loot to deck out an entire army simply proving OP's point? Those towns are so filled with loot because nobody but you gave a rats ass about traveling that far into the map when you can get everything you want in the area OP did not circle. It also gives legitimacy to OP's claim that loot is too abundant and doesn't give that "scavenging/surviving feel.

 

And yes this is an alpha, but that does not mean you cannot make any suggestions/bring up design flaws. Besides OP's poorly chosen thread title and "stance" the topic itself is pretty legitimate.

Those arent design flaws there flaws in the metality of the players there is no loot i always get KOSed this sucks.... There is loot up north there is a chance to find your feet before rushing head first into battle.. But it sucks up north why would i want to go there and the circle goes round and around.It fits the very definition of insanity  doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result..

 

Head north get your loot if you then want head to coast for battle but hang on if you head north and more people start doing it you might get battles there to WOW what a concept.....

 

Edit at the risk of sounding rude ill break it down in more simple terms and i dont mean to flame but if you want to play COD with a larger map and some cool things added in then try Battlefield its simple play a game that resembles what you want out of it..Its purely insane to play a game that doesnt fit what you want and complain that it isnt and try to change it so it is.....  There has always been a fair clarity to what Dayz is if the style doesnt suit then say so with your wallet and dont buy it... or you  have already damn bad luck its only 30 bucks i waste more going to the movies with the missus so not to hard to walk away and try something else...

Edited February 19, 2014 by SoulFirez

[gungza 29]

you know that guns spawn in houses, looting certain houses is hardly a waste of time,you can find even an m4 without going to the airbase, you can even find mags for it in a construction site and sometimes wharehouses, damn there is also a small chance to find military clothes in towns if you know where to look.   People suiciding to get a spawn in Elektro is not a design fault of the game it is just pure laziness and stupidity, you notice the same people spawning there and complaining about how they get kos'd the whole time, but the first thing they do when they spawn is run for Elektro/Cherno/Balota...

[McGarnagle 94]

if you travel a mile into the "uncharted land" the devs don't even bother putting loot in those houses or buildings.. So its like whats the point?

 

What? Sorry...what!?

[k0pkaas 4]

This was such BS that I couldn't even summon up the patience to read the other responses before yelling at you. There are weapon spawn locations ALL OVER the map. I have found rifles, pistols, and m4's in almost every larger town/city in Dayz. I actually tend to stay completely clear of Elektro and Cherno unless I'm looking to find other armed players to PvP against. I've found M4's in school, Mosins and SKS's in houses, Shotguns in barns, Pistols in firehouses, and all of the above in military bases. I've walked into a little store building (not the department stores) and found a mosin, without expecting to actually find anything useful. The entire map is covered in loot, and the further you get away from Cherno/Electro the more potential there is for you to find loot. There is no such thing as a bad spawn in my honest opinion.

[DeatHTaX 1217]

y'know...I never thought about this...

 

but what IS the official "dayz forula" 

[djporternz 644]

y'know... I never thought about this... but what IS the official "dayz forula" 

Good point. The OP doesn't expressly state what it is exactly, just that it's going to fail. In fact I don't think the OP is actually talking about DayZ at all. It appears that he's talking about something more akin to Daley Thompson's Decathlon*. Spawn in and race everyone else to Balota. Don't know why anyone would go there. Nothing good ever goes unpunished there!

 

*And if you have an original version of that game on cassette like I do, then you win big. Real big. And if you are under 40 this link might help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daley_Thompson%27s_Decathlon

Edited February 19, 2014 by DJPorterNZ

[StayAlive (DayZ) 169]

It's waaaaaaaaay to early yet to be making that kind of prediction.

Where people loot will change when larger server is added, functional zombies

and loot spawns are optimized.

Edited February 19, 2014 by StayAlive

[HunterJay 81]

Good point. The OP doesn't expressly state what it is exactly, just that it's going to fail. In fact I don't think the OP is actually talking about DayZ at all. It appears that he's talking about something more akin to Daley Thompson's Decatalon*. Spawn in and race everyone else to Balota. Don't know why anyone would go there. Nothing good ever goes unpunished there!

 

*And if you have an original version of that game on cassette like I do, then you win big. Real big. And if you are under 40 this link might help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daley_Thompson%27s_Decathlon

 

Hes just butthurt hes bad at the game because he doesn't understand it. Should really stop bumping this guys. :(

[blacklabel79 949]

Hes just butthurt hes bad at the game because he doesn't understand it. Should really stop bumping this guys. :(

 

You just did :D

 

Since i dident had the Patience to read through the whole topic i shall reply to OP:   The core of the game is SO MUCH FUN i spend over 200h until now with it. I got far less hours of worse Entertainment for alot more than the asked Alpha Price.

 

so ye...will totaly fail.

[kobeandodom 23]

I don't know why anyone would "suicide" themselves in hopes of getting a better spawn point. It takes only 20 mins tops to get somewhere with some decent loot. You'd spend more time respawning and killing yourself over and over hoping for something better.

 

i have let a zombie kill me twice and both times vastly improved my spawn, so yeah it is an easy way to save 20 minutes and even more so get back to your body faster.

[RedAscendant 33]

sorry OP, but I completely disagree with you

 

waking up in the apocalypse and knowing there is a military camp nearby should attract you there to get your defenses up, its nothing more than the natural way.

 

to be honest i dont really mind the suicides because for me it doesnt actually break immersion,

there are plenty of people who would shoot themselves when day Z happens, because they cant handle it.

Why not suicide off a building then? works as good as a headshot.

[DeatHTaX 1217]

i have let a zombie kill me twice and both times vastly improved my spawn, so yeah it is an easy way to save 20 minutes and even more so get back to your body faster.

But mathematically speaking, due to the variable spawn locations it is more efficient to simply spend the time running to where you need to go than risk spawning even further away multiple times

[LeChat 131]

y'know...I never thought about this...

 

but what IS the official "dayz forula" 

 

2 ounces of gunpowder

3 zombie brains

15 cloves of garlic

a handful of fish eyes

3 crow's feet

8 petals of forget-me-not

the ears of a rabbit

the adrenal glands from a lynx

1 kg of mucus

10 litres of water

1 Dean Hall

3 fl of ammonia

1 glass of tears from a fresh spawn

 

Yes it has to be in different measuring units, otherwise it won't work.

Edit: new and improved formula.

Edited February 19, 2014 by LeChat

[RedAscendant 33]

2 ounces of gunpowder

3 zombie brains

15 cloves of garlic

a handful of fish eyes

3 crow's feet

8 petals of forget-me-not

the ears of a rabbit

the adrenal glands from a lynx

1 kg of mucus

10 litres of water

1 Dean Hall

 

almost!

 

you forgot a glass of tears from a fresh spawn

[Ultra7 5]

I could argue the game can never fail.  I would argue it already has succeeded before release.  It has been on the top of the steam sales list for a number of days.

 

 

 

"War Z" was top of Steam sales list for a number of days...

[LeChat 131]

almost!

 

you forgot a glass of tears from a fresh spawn

 

Oh damnit!

 

I think this could work as well though:  C43H66N12O12S2