How do you think DayZ Standalone is going?

[Mon The BIFF 5]

Who cares about instant progress? Really?

THATS THE POINT IN AN ALPHA BUILD.

If they where planning on making fast progress on the game (and fuckong it up) they would have realeased it a little later ot in Beta build.

They want to take it slowly. And doing a good job of it. The mojority of other game devs are not a good example of this.

Call of Duty - was good, CoD 1,2, etc.. - Now look at it. They're shovling shit down childrens throats. It's a terrible game, it's impossible to be bad at it. And the people who play it proves that.

DayZ - If you're bad at it. Get off it. Simple as that. Stop fucking about and go play CoD..

This game is all about strategics and role play. If you can't hack that then get frigged.

This game is aimed at people like me. Who will play it how it should be played.

People moan about the bandits and what not, but that IS role play. You ever seen The Walking Dead? Exactly.

The majority of deaths in that show are survivours. Not walkers.

I would put myself in the Hero category. (me and a friend made a group/clan named 'The Guardian Angels' we help people. Never KoS.

But I enjoy bandits. It's realistic. And that sort of realism wasn't created by the devs. It was us. The genuine gamers.

[tenshu 43]

Having been on alpha's before, I have to say this is the slowest progress I have ever seen, which makes me think the final product doesn't have lofty ambitions.

Saying that, they already have a winning formula, if they can fix the actual main bits of the game that keep people playing it will be the best.

By main bits I mean the things that made us play a survival zombie game:

 

1) Zombies: They are still awful, clipping, dodgy running, poor melee combat, to easy to navigate past, and basically a non entity in the game.

2) Survival: I know it's alpha, but I haven't seen any progress in the amount of BS that happens to you in this game, you die from so many things that you aren't meant to

3) Core mechanics: The guns are ultra realistic, the hit detection and the reaction of the zombies to getting hit is laughable, melee is an even bigger joke.

 

I say sort these things out as a priority, rather than concentrating on random things like cooking and hats.

[ahmedakbar 12]

I think it is going quite well so far.

 

Anyone who buys early alpha content should be ready to experience a partial and buggy experience... My favorite one so far is being knocked unconscious by a guy throwing punches into the air 100m from me while I was shooting at him with my pristine M4 ACOG  :D

 

As some people have said before, even with the partial and buggy content we have in this early alpha stage, the game is already quite addictive and fun. I can only imagine that when hunting, vehicles and tents/basebuilding get implemented it will be quite a good step forward from the game, especially if they manage to optimize the netcode in order to host 100 players and more of zeds...

[Zedertone 378]

Having been on alpha's before, I have to say this is the slowest progress I have ever seen, which makes me think the final product doesn't have lofty ambitions.

Saying that, they already have a winning formula, if they can fix the actual main bits of the game that keep people playing it will be the best.

By main bits I mean the things that made us play a survival zombie game:

 

1) Zombies: They are still awful, clipping, dodgy running, poor melee combat, to easy to navigate past, and basically a non entity in the game.

2) Survival: I know it's alpha, but I haven't seen any progress in the amount of BS that happens to you in this game, you die from so many things that you aren't meant to

3) Core mechanics: The guns are ultra realistic, the hit detection and the reaction of the zombies to getting hit is laughable, melee is an even bigger joke.

 

I say sort these things out as a priority, rather than concentrating on random things like cooking and hats.

Zombies are pretty bad, glitching through walls and stuff. 

Every wednesday they perform small maintnences, and add little things that you might not know about, because there isn't a forum post made in the Announcements section.

I think the hit detection is fine, and melee is pretty easy imo. But yeah, I agree with you on sorting things like these out before misc. stuff, but you have to remember that they have different teams working on different things, so the hunting team might be getting good progress, while the people who are designed to fix the bugs are having issues/going slow. So I wouldn't put the whole bug issues on the whole DayZ group, because some have nothing to do with it.

Edited April 10, 2014 by Zedertone

[Zedertone 378]

I think it is going quite well so far.

 

Anyone who buys early alpha content should be ready to experience a partial and buggy experience... My favorite one so far is being knocked unconscious by a guy throwing punches into the air 100m from me while I was shooting at him with my pristine M4 ACOG  :D

 

As some people have said before, even with the partial and buggy content we have in this early alpha stage, the game is already quite addictive and fun. I can only imagine that when hunting, vehicles and tents/basebuilding get implemented it will be quite a good step forward from the game, especially if they manage to optimize the netcode in order to host 100 players and more of zeds...

Definitely, I find it pretty addictive, being so little content in the game.

I think that's a good sign, if you're getting addicted by very little content. I cannot wait until more stuff starts getting added.

[alsmir 255]

I don't get it. Pople say it's addictive but it really doesn't offer anything new compared to the mod. Whether you like PvP, survival, human interaction, gathering gear, building bases you would be better off playing the mod. Is it that new people are under false impression that SA is more advanced than the mod? 

 

The only reason to play SA instead is to test it and find bugs but how is dealing with bugs addictive?

[agentneo 337]

I don't get it. Pople say it's addictive but it really doesn't offer anything new compared to the mod. Whether you like PvP, survival, human interaction, gathering gear, building bases you would be better off playing the mod. Is it that new people are under false impression that SA is more advanced than the mod? 

 

The only reason to play SA instead is to test it and find bugs but how is dealing with bugs addictive?

I think the main reason it is better is it is more balanced most mods spawn people with bs gear and make it too easy. Epoch for example you will have a car,gold, and guns in about an hour.

It also has a fantastic inventory, character customisation and clothing / medical system is vastly improved. you might say it is all the behind the scenes things that make for an overall much more professional realistic and enjoyable experience.

However, personally i feel progress WAY TOO SLOW!!!!

Developers aren't even posting clearly what is going on on experimental;/stable..

Look at updates threads, no new posts since 20 March. Its 10 April and things in game have changed and only been announced un-officially and on twitter and things Please keep Forum up to date day Z.

i would have expected to see basic vechicles by now; i mean push bike and motorcycle minimum. really i heard everything rocket says/wants to do about customisable vechicles but we dont really need that for a push bicycle! Chuck them in to give us something to do., and then add to them/edit later.

 

Also most the updates are an extra weapon hear and there , like new guns and stuff. Would rather have more PVE orientated updates to begin with, and then add guns last. So I would put frying pan, cooker, lamp, tent etc before Guns. I would also keep adding melee weapons before they add more guns/ammo.

 

Would have expected the zombie update from a few weeks ago to be tweaked by now. Obviously with the pathfinding this bad they shouldnt be left at this speed and respawning 10m from player. Experiment is good but how about doing 1 week with the super zombies, week 2 with zombies that spawn over 50m away, week 3 with another variation, and then take results and opinions about what is best. Seems we get lumped with this shitty system until the pathfinding and AI is redone, which could be what 3 months?

So yeah overall, i feel it is a slow progress and it has discouraged me and my friends.

Edited April 10, 2014 by AgentNe0

[agentneo 337]

you probably missed the presentation from Rezzed, right? it also has the famed roadmap so you know -when- actually to expect some of the features -  i'll repost because reasons:

Unfortunately all the juicy stuff is a long way off according to that! nothing to get excited about for April/ May / June really?

When will loot respawn be? I think they should get all that detailed into dates and so on (i hear what he said about quarters, they should definetly start planning dates and scheduling it, seems to slide on forever waiting for this update for persistant backpacks and ragdoll items for about 5 weeks?!)

 

Dont mean to sound harsh but we need to speak up and put some pressure on, they have an extra team , millions of dollars and we are stuck with the same glitches from years ago while they figure it out. Yes i signed the alpha :P

Edited April 10, 2014 by AgentNe0

[Zedertone 378]

Unfortunately all the juicy stuff is a long way off according to that! nothing to get excited about for April/ May / June really?

When will loot respawn be? I think they should get all that detailed into dates and so on (i hear what he said about quarters, they should definetly start planning dates and scheduling it, seems to slide on forever waiting for this update for persistant backpacks and ragdoll items for about 5 weeks?!)

 

Dont mean to sound harsh but we need to speak up and put some pressure on, they have an extra team , millions of dollars and we are stuck with the same glitches from years ago while they figure it out. Yes i signed the alpha :P

It'll all be here eventually, time will tell.!

[Zedertone 378]

I don't get it. Pople say it's addictive but it really doesn't offer anything new compared to the mod. Whether you like PvP, survival, human interaction, gathering gear, building bases you would be better off playing the mod. Is it that new people are under false impression that SA is more advanced than the mod? 

 

The only reason to play SA instead is to test it and find bugs but how is dealing with bugs addictive?

It has a bit more of a survival feel to me so far. Also another big factor that played in it, was the fact that it was fresh, and DayZ Mod kinda burnt out after around 6 months.

[crazyandlazy 376]

I just went and bought the Mod cause it was on sale. I think I will be playing that for the next four or so months since nothing excites me for the current quarter. I agree that they have fixed some game mechanics but not adding anything remotely exciting is getting boring.

 

My qualms

 

+focusing on dumb stuff like painting axes and turning on flashlights in the day time

+terrible proofchecking of bugs. They made the same mistake of mosin being one chambered bullet when painting when it came to SKS painting.

+taking away the spawns in electro and kamy instead of thinking of another way to make game more interesting

 

I could go on but yeah I am not going to wait 3 weeks for a patch filled with boring stuff. If they keep this pace up, I doubt the game will be finished by the end of this year.

[xX_fr0st-w0lf_Xx (DayZ) 343]

I took a long break from SA and went back in today only to be dissapointed. I see little improvement where it counts. I still have horrible text bubbles saying im hungry, the zombies are just as bad if not worse then when I left, and any content worth raising an eyebrow for is months away. But I am glad I can spray pain axes. That kinda makes up for everything... 

 

Now dayz is not bad, but I expected so much more. Going to take another break from it.  

[alsmir 255]

One more thing. When you claim that SA has more survival aspects than the mod, what mod are you talking about? The regular one on default settings?

Sure, the majority of servers are herpaderpa Epochs spawning with guns and stuff, but there are also mods and servers that focus on survival aspect.

 

I even know a server (not very popular unfortunatelly) with working stamina system, weapon attachements, can openers (you can also use a knife for that), milking cows and goats + a ton of other survival-oriented features. Playing there, I had situations when I was once again crawling between zeds or shooting them in the middle of nowhere since running with them on your back was too risky.

[andrej.parteli@gmail.com 1]

Well i played the DayZ mod for quite a bit and i just recently started playing DayZ StandAlone.

My impressions as well as my first impressions are as follows :

 

First i was a little surprised at the graphics. To me it looked like an improvement on the mod for sure. Almost every aspect of the game looked better than the mod and just gorgeous which was a nice first impression. The downside of course is the affect it has on the gameplay and preformance.For me it's not a big deal because i have a fairly decent setup and i don't really need to worry and if i do have a problem there's the in game settings which are nice but for a regular playerbase which may not have the best setups this COULD pose a serious problem.The game can and will become unplayable to some people and i think that really.. for no reason.. showes away the playerbase which COULD be playing the game.

 

The next thing i noticed was that there's plenty more houses you can enter, changed map, and different and added loot. Again i realize this is an alpha stage of the game so i won't go on about how there's 3 biker helmets in the same barn and how silly it is to be hungry every 10 minutes or how retarded it looks when you fall for 1m and die in horrible pain lol. But the problem is that players need to have a better chance to find basic items SOONER. I spent at least an hour finding an OK gun and armor and stuff like this and that is only because i know where to look from experience by playing the mod. I really liked the added feature of pants and helmets and holsters all having extra slots for you to carry your gear in. I loved that! It's such a great idea!

Also. In addition. I hated the fact there is no health bar or a counter to tell you for example : how many zombies i've killed, how many people, how much health i got left, how much blood i lost, SPECIFICS! debug monitor at least please! Or at least some slides and bars would be nice with the option to turn them off and such. Dayz is in dire need of those things, please add them!

 

So much for my experience SO FAR.

[TheFarm 158]

Needs more bacon

[thesodesa 99]

Well i played the DayZ mod for quite a bit and i just recently started playing DayZ StandAlone.

My impressions as well as my first impressions are as follows :

 

First i was a little surprised at the graphics. To me it looked like an improvement on the mod for sure. Almost every aspect of the game looked better than the mod and just gorgeous which was a nice first impression. The downside of course is the affect it has on the gameplay and preformance.For me it's not a big deal because i have a fairly decent setup and i don't really need to worry and if i do have a problem there's the in game settings which are nice but for a regular playerbase which may not have the best setups this COULD pose a serious problem.The game can and will become unplayable to some people and i think that really.. for no reason.. showes away the playerbase which COULD be playing the game.

 

The next thing i noticed was that there's plenty more houses you can enter, changed map, and different and added loot. Again i realize this is an alpha stage of the game so i won't go on about how there's 3 biker helmets in the same barn and how silly it is to be hungry every 10 minutes or how retarded it looks when you fall for 1m and die in horrible pain lol. But the problem is that players need to have a better chance to find basic items SOONER. I spent at least an hour finding an OK gun and armor and stuff like this and that is only because i know where to look from experience by playing the mod. I really liked the added feature of pants and helmets and holsters all having extra slots for you to carry your gear in. I loved that! It's such a great idea!

Also. In addition. I hated the fact there is no health bar or a counter to tell you for example : how many zombies i've killed, how many people, how much health i got left, how much blood i lost, SPECIFICS! debug monitor at least please! Or at least some slides and bars would be nice with the option to turn them off and such. Dayz is in dire need of those things, please add them!

 

So much for my experience SO FAR.

 

I've found, that in addition to myself, most of the DayZ community I've engaged with really don't like the idea of putting ANY visible statistics or numbers into the game. This is to avoid it becoming an arcady shooter, where the main point is increasing those numbers, instead of steering it in the direction of a  survival simulator, where the main aspect of the game is engaging with people in a realistic survival situation (be it violent or cooperative interactions). The uncertainty that comes with not knowing exactly how much you have of everything, blood included, is a central part of an experience like that. Plus, it's unrealistic. In real life people can't, for example, tell exactly how fatigued or dehydrated they are, or how low their blood sugar levels have dropped, until the effects of excess fatigue/dehydration or low blood sugar hit them in the face in the form of increased aggression on their part (a typical symptom of an oncoming insulin shock by the way, for any of you who might have to deal with diabetic people in the future).

 

When it comes to games, I have an obsession with numbers and collectibles, so i know for a fact that if counters like that were put into the game, I couldn't stop myself from just grinding those numbers up, which is stressful by the way, and captures my attention for hours on end. I'd just like to be able for once to play an open world game where those damn stressful but oh so alluring numbers aren't staring at me from every friggin' direction, urging me to waste my time grinding for stats or collecting flags (I'm looking at you, assassin's creed).

 

As for loot, it would be nice to see the game shift the focus from looting, to crafting items (like tools and clothing) from materilals you've either gathered from nature or salvaged from buildings/loot piles. This includes crafting weapons yourself. Guns and bullets should be a rare luxury item. I mean, how long would the ammunition supplies and the guns themselves last in an apocalypse, where there was no-one to manufacture ammo or spare parts for the guns.

 

When it comes to game graphics, the game runs on directx 9, which means it doesn't have any of those new and fancy particle- and lighting effects and shadows and megatextures, that would bog an older computer down. The reason the game is so laggy is because the server software the game is ran on isn't finished and optimized yet. All your computer is doing is sending keystrokes to the server, and delivering the game image from the server to your screen. The server does all the heavy processing, so in theory once they sort the server software out, even older computers shouldn't have a huge issue running the game. Rocket has said in the past that the game would require similar specifications from computers as arma 2 does. It might actually run better than arma 2, they just need to optimize it for modern processors, with multiple cores, because right now the game engine can only utilize a single core, both on the client and server side. Offloading most of the processing from the CPU, that is currently doing almost all of the work, to the graphics card would also do wonders for performance. What I'm saying is, it can only get better and things are being worked on.

Edited April 11, 2014 by TheSodesa

[Highlander007 249]

amateurs

[BrainlessZombie 190]

To me is going a too slow, one patch in ~1month or more... Not cool.

Edited April 11, 2014 by BrainlessZombie

[Thadius (DayZ) 40]

However, personally i feel progress WAY TOO SLOW!!!!

Developers aren't even posting clearly what is going on on experimental;/stable..

This. I tried creating a thread earlier today for people theorizing on why progress is going so slow, and I postulated it might be because of a small staff due to an unwillingness to spend money to expand said staff.

 

My thread got locked by a mod faster then Marlon Brando eating a Mars bar, for about as solid reasons as gaseous vapor on the Moon.

 

Also, yes. The Developers are... quite lax in giving updates and interacting with the public. I have been around quite a few alphas (and actual alpha game productions) to know this is not being handled well at all.

Edited April 11, 2014 by Thadius

[Zedertone 378]

This. I tried creating a thread earlier today for people theorizing on why progress is going so slow, and I postulated it might be because of a small staff due to an unwillingness to spend money to expand said staff.

 

My thread got locked by a mod faster then Marlon Brando eating a Mars bar, for about as solid reasons as gaseous vapor on the Moon.

 

Also, yes. The Developers are... quite lax in giving updates and interacting with the public. I have been around quite a few alphas (and actual alpha game productions) to know this is not being handled well at all.

The devs are quite busy with the game, this game is hard to update, it's still on an old engine.

A lot of the stuff they want to do is very hard on this old engine, therefore taking longer, and making people who don't know anything about coding or the engine that they're slow and aren't trying.

[agentneo 337]

would be nice to see the patch updates everytime in announcements and news. We are trying to keep track of all the changes for several communities who play the game. For example I tried putting experiment build on the other day. there were only 4 servers available for experimental, all with time modifications, I have heard about upto 64x time speed up but can't see it in the latest patch notes.

[Zedertone 378]

would be nice to see the patch updates everytime in announcements and news. We are trying to keep track of all the changes for several communities who play the game. For example I tried putting experiment build on the other day. there were only 4 servers available for experimental, all with time modifications, I have heard about upto 64x time speed up but can't see it in the latest patch notes.

Meh, I don't really mind that. I usually find out down through people anyway,

[Gekkonidae 270]

Well I don't mean to be a downer, I love how things are working out and coming out, each update makes the game better and better. The only thing is that they tend to keep alot of things to them self and that sucks for testers that are eager to try out the new things and report the bugs to the team. lets also get the people from goat simulator to fix ladders :P

 

I kind of feel this way sometimes, but the upside to that is that if they keep sprinkling in little things like this, it will take a long time to figure every single thing out, making new (even if they are small) things to discover, ultimately making it not get boring so fast.

 

I think the alpha is going well. I like that they are taking their time and implementing everything correctly. This only ensures that in the future we won't have disastrous bugs and crashing. I know that some of these things exist right now, but if you've ever alpha tested any game or software, you're going to have this kind of stuff. It's all part of the process. 

 

I know some people are worried about SOE's title and you have people complaining about how 'slow' it's going. Again, looking at the whole picture, i'd rather have it done right than to watch it be rushed and end up a shitty final product. I know there are a lot of impatient doomsayers out there that would argue anything i've said until they're blue in the face, but those are their opinions and I don't really give a shit about them. I think it will be a great game by the end of the year. 

 

I agree with chris t. on the whole SOE title competing with what we have here: "iron sharpens iron" I don't see anything particulary bad coming from this for DayZ. They will be completely different games at the end of it. I suspect that SOE's title will have to cater to a wider audience, which comes with a lot of 'carebear' bullshit, making it ultimately a 'fisher-price my first survival zombie simulator' when compared to the final product of DayZ. I can't really see another way around this for Sony if they expect to maximize on profit. They will have to cater to too many audiences. I think DayZ has bigger balls behind its vision in sticking with a more brutal and unforgiving basis to it. I think things are sailing along just fine Dayz, and they are making the game they want it to be :) 

 

I'm really excited for the end of the year and what we'll have in the game. I haven't played in about a month, but I will be jumping back in when this next patch comes out. 

[Thadius (DayZ) 40]

The devs are quite busy with the game, this game is hard to update, it's still on an old engine.

A lot of the stuff they want to do is very hard on this old engine, therefore taking longer, and making people who don't know anything about coding or the engine that they're slow and aren't trying.

 

But they are slow. And the only sensible reason I can figure, is that they are understaffed.

Consider that they have over a million sales on an alpha game.

This makes the slow pace of the game quite the mystery. They money is there the pace is not. 

Their unwillingness to expand their staff (so they can more efficiently work with the "old and hard" engine) is a bit befuddling.

 

My highly personal, and totally speculative, theory is that they have concluded that investing alpha sales money into faster/better/bigger development just is not profitable and have opted to stay with a small team for bigger profits.

 

I could be horrible wrong though!

Edited April 11, 2014 by Thadius

[andrej.parteli@gmail.com 1]

It's true they could have picked up the pace a little. If it keeps going at this rate the game won't even be in a beta state before the end of 2014 and as lots already know many other titles will come up by then and totally leave DayZ in the water. Fact is without some proper tenacity the game will be hanging on and then fade into the dirt.