Update frequency

[lancemich 0]

I've only been playing Day z for about a week now but I was wondering if it does get updated frequently and what peoples opinions are? (E.g if you feel its not frequent enough or if it is) I think it seems a bit odd that the game has been pre alpha for 18 months. That makes me think it doesn't get updated frequently enough. I just wanted to know some other views on the subject.

[DarkwaveDomina 1099]

The game has been in alpha since December, what's so odd about pre-alpha being 18 months? Games take years to develop.

[Forrelist 236]

Historically, AAA Titles have usually taken around 1-2 years to become fully developed and then released. Keep in mind that games such as Skyrim, Call of Duty , Left 4 Dead etc etc never offered a mass-scale Alpha testing 'Early access' period that DayZ offers. This means that you get to play the game in tandem to its development.

 

It's actually a fairly recent trend that many games have started to adopt in the past years, following the Minecraft model. The problem is people buy it and expect to be playing a full game in Alpha stage. I've seen it in Minecraft, Prison architect, Kerbal and Rust - people pay for early access and get themselves disappointed that the game isn't complete as early as they had hoped. My only advice to you, would be to come back in 6month to 1 year and see the game when it is a more content-filled state. Some of us , such as myself, are here to play the Alpha as it comes, do some testing, or just watch development through livestreams and not play until a full release.

 

To answer your question though: We have been kept waiting due to delays, but the updates on DayZ have always had a fair bit of content: the last patch fixed disconnecting issues, added many new weapons and items ingame. I would argue that the quality of the updates is better than the speed to which they are delivered.

 

Hope that helps, It's better than the usual ALPHAA!!!! response

[Etherious 907]

Games take a long time to make, if you want them done right. And it has been in Alpha not Pre-Alpha. ^-^ Also, right now no updates recently. Due to the fact that there are quite a bit of issues right now occurring.

Edited March 29, 2014 by DJ SGTHornet

[lancemich 0]

The game has been in alpha since December, what's so odd about pre-alpha being 18 months? Games take years to develop.

I just thought it was odd because all the games Ive played which had a alpha stage never took that long, never knew it was normal.

[lancemich 0]

Historically, AAA Titles have usually taken around 1-2 years to become fully developed and then released. Keep in mind that games such as Skyrim, Call of Duty , Left 4 Dead etc etc never offered a mass-scale Alpha testing 'Early access' period that DayZ offers. This means that you get to play the game in tandem to its development.

 

It's actually a fairly recent trend that many games have started to adopt in the past years, following the Minecraft model. The problem is people buy it and expect to be playing a full game in Alpha stage. I've seen it in Minecraft, Prison architect, Kerbal and Rust - people pay for early access and get themselves disappointed that the game isn't complete as early as they had hoped. My only advice to you, would be to come back in 6month to 1 year and see the game when it is a more content-filled state. Some of us , such as myself, are here to play the Alpha as it comes, do some testing, or just watch development through livestreams and not play until a full release.

 

To answer your question though: We have been kept waiting due to delays, but the updates on DayZ have always had a fair bit of content: the last patch fixed disconnecting issues, added many new weapons and items ingame. I would argue that the quality of the updates is better than the speed to which they are delivered.

 

Hope that helps, It's better than the usual ALPHAA!!!! response

I just thought it wasn't normal for games to be in alpha for so long, its just because Ive played games which were in alpha for much shorter.

 

I have no problem with playing through development, I understand what it means so I dont expect a finished product. I was merely just wanting to know if progress is quick or slow kind of.

 

I havent played Day Z for long enough to experience these updates but im sure I will experience them.

[lancemich 0]

Games take a long time to make, if you want them done right. And it has been in Alpha not Pre-Alpha. ^-^ Also, right now no updates recently. Due to the fact that there are quite a bit of issues right now occurring.

Sorry, Don't know why I thought it was pre alpha. What are the issues?

[Forrelist 236]

This Article http://www.relyonhorror.com/latest-news/dean-hall-reveals-dayz-2014-roadmap-at-egx-rezzed/ might interest you:

 

 

"For starters, the very next update, which is scheduled to drop in between two weeks to the end of April, will be the survival update. In this update, bows and arrows, crossbows, fireplaces, and network optimization will be found. In the short term (Q2), ragdoll physics for players, revamped AI for zombies and animals, 64-bit servers, 6 animal types, persistent objects, and world containers (cupboards, refrigerators) are scheduled.

For Q3, Bohemia is looking to bring more players and creatures into online servers. Animal behavior will also range from hostile, passive, and companion. Barricading, basic vehicles (bikes, ATV, motorcycles), mod support (with Steam Workshop), Steam achievements, and persistent growing plants such as edible fruit and vegetables are also planned. Currently the game only has wild berries and inedible pumpkins.

In the long term (Q4), the team is aiming to add advanced vehicles (cars, planes, boats), structure creation, faction identification (e.x. bandits), and advanced player trading."

Edited March 30, 2014 by Forrelist

[Etherious 907]

Sorry, Don't know why I thought it was pre alpha. What are the issues?

Rubberbanding, Zombies being gods, and etc... :) Look up on the forum for more answers to your question. :D

Edited March 30, 2014 by DJ SGTHornet

[Zeppa 562]

Also games like COD it takes like year or two just to add new name, few skins and map or two... does people bitch about these on their forums?
Just should think of this when thinking dayz development time and whats been done.
Havent been really a active follower few last month or so but update phase seems really slow atm, last experimental patch was like from month ago. If I remember right they countered some serious bug(s), so could be explaining the update phase.

Edited March 30, 2014 by Zeppa

[Publik 404]

Historically, AAA Titles have usually taken around 1-2 years to become fully developed and then released. Keep in mind that games such as Skyrim, Call of Duty , Left 4 Dead etc etc never offered a mass-scale Alpha testing 'Early access' period that DayZ offers.

 

Also games like COD it takes like year or two just to add new name, few skins and map or two... does people bitch about these on their forums?

Just should think of this when thinking dayz development time and whats been done.

 

Not directed at you, but related.

 

CoD changes a lot between games. The core gameplay and engine is the essentially the same, but the gimmicks are often new and sometimes pretty interesting. Personally I avoid CoD and have since Black Ops, but it's a solid arcade FPS game. Anyone that denies that is either an idiot or narrow minded. A year for what CoD adds in each iteration is pretty damned quick, but it's because they're really good at pushing out games on that kind of schedule. The studios that do CoD are very well-oiled machines and are pretty fucking impressive. Skyrim is similar to CoD: it's built on the Morrowind+ engine and Bethesda knows their tools extremely well since they've been stuck with them for a decade and a half now. Both of these companies have such a quick turnaround and are so used to their development cycle that the alpha testing they do is all internal and is pretty light (more "is it fun" than "does the engine work"). I'd comment on L4D, but it's on the source engine and Valve knows their engine pretty damned well. Beta for large studios really just means "give us your money earlier for an unfinished product". Pros don't release alphas.

 

None of those games do well as a litmus test for smaller production teams. Neither does Minecraft or KSP, as they both offer(ed) very solid products with novel gameplay, which has an easier time keeping fresh than something like DayZ, which is very feature-incomplete and gets stale very quickly because it doesn't offer anything with any longevity. Rust is also a bad example because Rust is actually striding forward very quickly. In Rust you have shit to do, recipes to collect, bases to build, though it still gets stale (just not nearly as quickly as DayZ).

 

A better comparison to DayZ is Hawken. Lots of hype, mediocre release. Not a whole lot of new stuff since then, either (a year almost?). A few mechs, a few guns, some skins and shit, I think a gametype or 2. Stale, repetitive, had seen all it had to offer within a month. Enjoyed that month, but saw the writing on the wall and left. DayZ could've done a lot better by having alpha playtimes only on the weekends, sort of how ESO was. With players only able to play twice a week, they're not going to have enough time to do everything and won't get burned out. With that week in between you can add new whizbangs to keep them happy. Maybe have the first week of every month open for stress testing or whatever.

 

To answer OP, DayZ gets roughly 3 updates a month. One content update, two to patch their mistakes. This latest update is either an irregularity or a sign of things to come. It took 6 weeks to get done and was broken on release. This next patch is expected to take about as long (1-1.5 months). Each update sees a small bump in the player count, but it drops back to pre-patch levels after about a week or so. People coming back, doing the new stuff, and leaving for another few weeks.

 

They really should have two branches on their repo: one for core features (hunting, zombies, big stuff), and one for little things like weapons that don't rely on the core updates. Release a new build once a week with content, and a build with core updates once a month.

Edited March 30, 2014 by Publik

[fig0451 85]

There are on average fairly major patches every 1-3 weeks, which are usually followed by a hotfix, sometimes two, a few days afterward.

Now that we have an actual development map, we can all breathe a sigh of relief as it is apparent that there actually is a working process in motion, and not just a seemingly random addition of whatever content happens to be newly finished.

Edited March 30, 2014 by fig0451

[komadose 190]

This Article http://www.relyonhorror.com/latest-news/dean-hall-reveals-dayz-2014-roadmap-at-egx-rezzed/ might interest you:

 

 

"For starters, the very next update, which is scheduled to drop in between two weeks to the end of April, will be the survival update. In this update, bows and arrows, crossbows, fireplaces, and network optimization will be found. In the short term (Q2), ragdoll physics for players, revamped AI for zombies and animals, 64-bit servers, 6 animal types, persistent objects, and world containers (cupboards, refrigerators) are scheduled.

For Q3, Bohemia is looking to bring more players and creatures into online servers. Animal behavior will also range from hostile, passive, and companion. Barricading, basic vehicles (bikes, ATV, motorcycles), mod support (with Steam Workshop), Steam achievements, and persistent growing plants such as edible fruit and vegetables are also planned. Currently the game only has wild berries and inedible pumpkins.

In the long term (Q4), the team is aiming to add advanced vehicles (cars, planes, boats), structure creation, faction identification (e.x. bandits), and advanced player trading."

holy crap! thanks! haven't seen that yet.

[Publik 404]

There are on average fairly major patches every 1-3 weeks, which are usually followed by a hotfix, sometimes two, a few days afterward.

That's a negatory, brokaka. There are generally patches every 1-3 weeks, but not really major ones. Those happen about once a month.

 

The major patches so far have been 0.32 on Jan 22 (Magnum, Shotgun, Svetlo), 0.33/0.34 on  Feb 05/07 (SKS,  B95, cowboy hats), and 0.42 on Mar 19. That's 2 alright patches a month after release and within 2 weeks of each other, and a 1.5 month break until the third.

 

Red lines are updates, doesn't include 0.43 (Mar 22), which would be at the far right edge. Also doesn't include the Mar 22 revert to from 0.43.116251 to 0.43.116212 that's on Exp.

[victusmortuus 1074]

It's gotten extremely slow of late with only a few hats and coats added, oh and rock textures. The game is stale now sadly.