What is wrong with Dayz?

[gorvi 189]

ever since snowdrip has been getting more attention then the game using it, lets hate RV engine posts have been rampant.  Its like frostbought engine all over again, and we all know how well that went :/

[AceQuat 63]

whats wrong with it?

 

the standalone doesnt even have the content of the mod, let alone more (except entrerable buildings whoopdeedoo)

 

thats whats wrong with it

[Jex 1104]

I didn't know my post would draw this amount of attention haha. Well honestly switching game engine at this point might actually speed up the updates. With an improved engine they could make changes quicker and easier rather than working around a pre-existing framework for Arma.

 

If Bohemia wont swap engines(which is highly unlikely at this point anyway) then they should focus on improving existing mechanics and giving players what they want secondly. A lot of the mechanics players want are being pushed to the end of the to-do list and pointless buggy features are being pushed into the unstable game engine. 

 

Over the last couple updates i have noticed the original problems of inventory/movement lag making a huge comeback and barely any new features have been implemented. Bohemia should be smart and cater to their fans before they lose too many to bad experiences. This is a major mistake most game development companies make and they lose sales over it. 

 

What makes you want to stand in front of Bohemia and fight their battles for them? Fanboyism? Why even argue the known facts with the "Its only Alpha" line? Maybe it is only alpha but that doesn't mean they are not diminishing their playerbase by their "Alpha" mindset.

 

I have no problem with bohemia but it is our duty as consumers to push the game companies harder. Just as we accept the terms of agreement, they also accept the fact that an "alpha" mindset can destroy their customer satisfaction rather than build it.

 

They can't "swap engines". They should have made a new engine at the start that could handle large view distances and maps but was more suited to the genre but you do realise we wouldn't even be at Alpha release right now right? They're bastardising the Arma engine to make it into a zombie sim. If they started a new engine, they could remove all the unnecessary code and make a dedicated "Virtual Zed Engine 1.0" or something. This would include things like

 

- Dedicated zombie AI (that can handle thousands of zeds). Zombies will chase you, horde you, grab you and drag you down to the floor where your guts will be ripped from your stomach. Zeds AI will evolve as time progresses meaning their habits will change and maybe even have more than one type of zombie.

 

- Evolving game world. When you start playing, don't expect the map to look like it does 6 months later. Moss will start to grow on cars, creepers will hang off poles and houses, plants will start to grow up in parks and animals will get bolder as they expand into the cities.

 

- Story Elements. Scripted AI human events that will crop up randomly on a server and rare. These could be injected into the game and if they happen rarely enough, it will start a rumor mill. This will add to the immersive nature of the game as people tell others of their findings. Will you ever run across one of these rare easter eggs? What will it be - the imagination will drive whatever events fit into the game. Maybe a chopper flies over your head smoking and crashes nearby. Did anyone else see it? When you get there what do you find, a scientist, dying but needs to get to a secret base that the devs put into the game via an update a month ago (or was it always there but nobody ever found it. Does it need a code to the door to get in - are you the first person to know of the location? What's that noise? Fuck! 300 zeds from the nearby town are rushing towards you - do you spend time searching the wreckage? to you fight? Did you put a bullet in the scientists head because he's about to wake up as one of the undead and if ur not paying attention - that one bite on your ankle is going to ruin your whole life.

 

- Huge map, 4 times bigger than Chernarus with rivers!

 

- Optimised and 64 bit only

 

- First person ONLY!!!!  :P

 

- Zombie hookers!  :beans:  :beans:

 

I think you see where I'm going but I don't think BI will ever do this.

[brazorf 46]

This is a major problem that should be addressed quickly before moving on to cramming more lagged features into the unstable game.

 

 

Though these are all looong discussed things, i think you actually got a point here, about development priorities. I'm sure devs are well aware of this, anyway we're all here to talk and share opinions.

 

I would really, really prefer to see 2 things fixed before new contents are added, as they could indirectly solve other issues. Anyway, those things MUST be fixed before beta release: environment collision and z detection. I am aware that they hire a full team to zs AI etc etc etc. What i'm saying is that AI alone won't be enough, till they can pass through walls and float inside floors.

 

Having those fixed would make even the actual zs implementation playable, as you would be able to be stealth and use the environment as your offense and defense. I know roadmaps should take into account teasing features also (crossbows, fireplaces, cooking, etc.), for many reasons, but i really can't see how cooking - with no hunting enabled yet - should be a better addon than environment fixes. I'm using cooking just as an example here.

Edited April 1, 2014 by brazorf

[LaughingJack (DayZ) 767]

They can't "swap engines". They should have made a new engine at the start that could handle large view distances and maps but was more suited to the genre but you do realise we wouldn't even be at Alpha release right now right? They're bastardising the Arma engine to make it into a zombie sim. If they started a new engine, they could remove all the unnecessary code and make a dedicated "Virtual Zed Engine 1.0" or something. This would include things like

 

- Dedicated zombie AI (that can handle thousands of zeds). Zombies will chase you, horde you, grab you and drag you down to the floor where your guts will be ripped from your stomach. Zeds AI will evolve as time progresses meaning their habits will change and maybe even have more than one type of zombie.

 

- Evolving game world. When you start playing, don't expect the map to look like it does 6 months later. Moss will start to grow on cars, creepers will hang off poles and houses, plants will start to grow up in parks and animals will get bolder as they expand into the cities.

 

- Story Elements. Scripted AI human events that will crop up randomly on a server and rare. These could be injected into the game and if they happen rarely enough, it will start a rumor mill. This will add to the immersive nature of the game as people tell others of their findings. Will you ever run across one of these rare easter eggs? What will it be - the imagination will drive whatever events fit into the game. Maybe a chopper flies over your head smoking and crashes nearby. Did anyone else see it? When you get there what do you find, a scientist, dying but needs to get to a secret base that the devs put into the game via an update a month ago (or was it always there but nobody ever found it. Does it need a code to the door to get in - are you the first person to know of the location? What's that noise? Fuck! 300 zeds from the nearby town are rushing towards you - do you spend time searching the wreckage? to you fight? Did you put a bullet in the scientists head because he's about to wake up as one of the undead and if ur not paying attention - that one bite on your ankle is going to ruin your whole life.

 

- Huge map, 4 times bigger than Chernarus with rivers!

 

- Optimised and 64 bit only

 

- First person ONLY!!!!  :P

 

- Zombie hookers!  :beans:  :beans:

 

I think you see where I'm going but I don't think BI will ever do this.

 

In Austria we have a nice saying about that: "Und daun bist afgwocht unds nochtkastl woa schwanger."

 

To elaborate that fine saying: No engine can do such things...or have you seen any engine be able to handle this? Not even in a single player game, or?

 

DayZ is owned by BI. BI HAS an engine of their own. They allowed the DayZ team to rebuild it from scratch to fit their needs but there is a HUGE difference between rebuildign an engine and making a complete new one - there's a reason why the majority of all games use standarized game engines like Unity...it's nothing you can do easy or fast. It's nothing that every dev can (and would) do...but that's a topic that could go veeery deep ;)

 

Please note, I DON'T try to defend the "Arma 2.5 helicopter DayZ version" engine here ;)

 

- Zombie AI: Is not really part of the engine and will change as it was announced. Would be awesome, the way you described it, but I think you expect a little too much from a nonscripted AI...but let's see what "BI Slovakia" can do.

- Evolving game world: Possible. If you want to hire a designteam (and if you want to have the whole map changed within some weeks that would be - rough guess - 30+ people) that works on nothing else and let the people download huge (and I mean huge) patches every week and live with the fact that always bugs will occur because of constant changing of textures and objects. Also not an engine issue.

- Story Elements: Not an engine issue. But it sounds cool. But the devs were against scripted story elements in DayZ, so rather unlikely to happen in the Vanilla. If they were REALLY rare (and fitting, and the gameworld would react properly to them), I'd sure like them. But we'll see what happens when the game is released and modding starts ;)

- Huge map: Well..yes. That's a point for the engine. AND it's somethign that the Arma engine does well, but could do better - the "what is rendered when" also known as "Why the duck has every can ofbeans in a house 500m away behind a wall to be rendered if I look in its direction" with the world containers (fridges etc.) this will change a little bit, but the main issue will remain, so: yes, this *may* be something, that another engine could handle better...maybe.

- Optimised....we'll see. 64 bit compiling already happened - how good it is and how much DayZ can really profit from it? We'll see as well...

[Jex 1104]

In Austria we have a nice saying about that: "Und daun bist afgwocht unds nochtkastl woa schwanger."

 

To elaborate that fine saying: No engine can do such things...or have you seen any engine be able to handle this? Not even in a single player game, or?

 

DayZ is owned by BI. BI HAS an engine of their own. They allowed the DayZ team to rebuild it from scratch to fit their needs but there is a HUGE difference between rebuildign an engine and making a complete new one - there's a reason why the majority of all games use standarized game engines like Unity...it's nothing you can do easy or fast. It's nothing that every dev can (and would) do...but that's a topic that could go veeery deep ;)

 

Please note, I DON'T try to defend the "Arma 2.5 helicopter DayZ version" engine here ;)

 

- Zombie AI: Is not really part of the engine and will change as it was announced. Would be awesome, the way you described it, but I think you expect a little too much from a nonscripted AI...but let's see what "BI Slovakia" can do.

- Evolving game world: Possible. If you want to hire a designteam (and if you want to have the whole map changed within some weeks that would be - rough guess - 30+ people) that works on nothing else and let the people download huge (and I mean huge) patches every week and live with the fact that always bugs will occur because of constant changing of textures and objects. Also not an engine issue.

- Story Elements: Not an engine issue. But it sounds cool. But the devs were against scripted story elements in DayZ, so rather unlikely to happen in the Vanilla. If they were REALLY rare (and fitting, and the gameworld would react properly to them), I'd sure like them. But we'll see what happens when the game is released and modding starts ;)

- Huge map: Well..yes. That's a point for the engine. AND it's somethign that the Arma engine does well, but could do better - the "what is rendered when" also known as "Why the duck has every can ofbeans in a house 500m away behind a wall to be rendered if I look in its direction" with the world containers (fridges etc.) this will change a little bit, but the main issue will remain, so: yes, this *may* be something, that another engine could handle better...maybe.

- Optimised....we'll see. 64 bit compiling already happened - how good it is and how much DayZ can really profit from it? We'll see as well...

 

My Suggestions were optimistic, not realistic ;)

 

My point being that to get a really good zombie game like dayz would need it's own dedicated engine. There must be things in the arma engine that are superfluous to dayz needs. It's never going to happen but it's nice to dream :)

[LaughingJack (DayZ) 767]

My Suggestions were optimistic, not realistic ;)

 

My point being that to get a really good zombie game like dayz would need it's own dedicated engine. There must be things in the arma engine that are superfluous to dayz needs. It's never going to happen but it's nice to dream :)

 

Yes^^ But I just wanted to show (for most things) that they are not engine related :)

...and I also think that you are right when you say that DayZ would have deserved its own engine...but for real: it's FAR better to have Arma 2.5 helicopter DayZ edition, than Unity ;)

Edited April 1, 2014 by LaughingJack

[Jex 1104]

Yes^^ But I just wanted to show (for most things) that they are not engine related :)

...and I also think that you are right when you say that DayZ would have deserved its own engine...but for real: it's FAR better to have Arma 2.5 helicopter DayZ edition, than Unity ;)

 

Oh I'm a massive BIS fan, mainly because they've supported the community over the last 15 years (?) and haven't taken away modding capabilities like Activision did with COD, turning all of that into paid for DLC's and no ability to host ur own server. Look how Codemaster's royally fucked up Operation Flashpoint (using a rally driving game engine). They were convinced it would be all this and that and it came out and it was awful. The Arma series is the only FPS shooter game where I feel like i'm inside the world and have you seen VBS3?

 

 

 

Edit

 

 

Arma 4 anybody?

Edited April 1, 2014 by Jexter

[gorvi 189]

Some of you have no idea what you are talking about.  A lot of you are confusing what a gaming engine can do, and what it is programed to do.  When it comes to scripted AI or events and all that jazz.  The devs are coding all of it into the engine logic, just like AI is hardcoded into A3.  Is the engine the best for dayz?  If it was no developers would strive to make a better one.

 

Everything which would make the CORE of the game is top priority.  Not balance, or items, or zeds.  CORE means player to game world interaction.  Imagine if zeds were perfect, but players couldn't hold items.  Or couldn't holster weapons properly.  Or even punch.  The core of the game was about 50% when given to players.  Netcode takes very close passenger seat to this cause in a reality with in-house alpha testers it would be closer toward end of production.  After most core features are finished and optimized then we will start to see the cool stuff programers can manipulate the engine into doing.  Considering what the programmers have currently done, I think we are in for some very cool features in the future.

 

The dev team has been pretty fair at keeping the game growing in-between core updates.  Physics soon being the next big one with survival, food, guns, melee weapons, bow and arrows, loot respawns, and new culling optimization is a perfect example of this.  More then half of those features are completely unneeded for the short term development, yet the team wants to also keep things interesting for us Alpha testers.  Anytime a player rages and quits cause of their ignorance, they are doing nothing but hindering progress. BI could have received tons of useful data just from that one person playing.

Edited April 1, 2014 by Gorvi