Was releasing the Alpha a mistake?

[lipemr 160]

The mod was a huge success, with over a million active players at it's peak - not too bad for a free mod, considering it's better than some MMOs (cought GW2 cough). DayZ also caused a relatively unpopular game - Arma II - to shoot up in the Steam charts all the way to no. 1, undoubtedly introducing many new players to the series and thus affecting Arma III sales.

 

When it was announced that the mod was essentially going to be abandoned in favor of the stand alone, there was a mix of emotions. Some were frustrated that the mod never progressed out of the "Alpha" stage and saw the untapped potential which was then explored by sub-mods, such as DayZero. On the other hand, people were excited for the standalone and couldn't wait to get their hands on the game.

 

Inevitably, as time passed from the initial announcement, players begun putting forth their ideas for the game - some of them really good, other's not so much. What this created however, was unrealistic expectations of the game, especially for one that's only released as the Alpha. Developing a good game takes time, and fixing the core issues with RV was never going to be an easy task. Arma II, while being a great military sim, did not have all the necessary features for a zombie-survival game. For example: melee combat was non existent, neither was melee AI (hence why zombie pathing has been such an issue), vehicle physics was poor too. A lot of people don't seem to understand that fixing these underlining issues isn't something that can be done in a year or two.

 

Though I cannot comment on the development of the game (and neither can you, unless you're working on the game ;) ), what I can say is that the communication between the devs and the community has been and still is woeful. I have made a thread or two about this issue in particular in the past, but people don't seem to care or see a problem with it - the very same people then whine on the forums about why stuff isn't happening quickly enough. 

 

What I would've done differently:

• Kept the game in closed Alpha - with a proper NDA to prevent bullshit
• Provided frequent teasers i.e screenshots, short video clips - keep players interested in the game's progress
• Provide updates regarding different aspects of the development progress - allowing us to see what we can hope to see in the final product.
• Release the game in Beta stage - by this time the game should be pretty much good to go (engine updated, AI fixed), and getting a large number of people to test would allow the developers to fix the most gamebreaking bugs before the launch.

I think that releasing the Alpha was a mistake, and the only conceivable reason for doing so was to capitalize on the hype of the mod before said hype died down, especially with other "similar" games on the horizon.

 

I think that upon release players who've been playing the standalone from launch won't feel as if they're experiencing the game once again, since they've already been playing it throughout all the updates, so they gradually saw the progress from the "updated mod" (essentially) to a final product.

One word describes every reason why they released the alpha:

 

 

money

[Capo 323]

One word describes every reason why they released the alpha:

 

 

money

 

fuck.off.cunt.

 

Warning point given.

[kakysas666 191]

Question should be: was buying alpha a mistake? For me the answer is easy. No. I played hundreds of hours. If people don't like bugs, they shouldn't have payed for buggy software.

[alsmir 255]

What was the mistake?

 

Almost completly abandonning the mod. If the SA needs years to become even remotely playable (not talking about the geniuses that have 100+ hrs played yet they've never touched the mod), just make a small team to further develop the mod while we wait for SA.

 

It wouldn't take much resources. I've seen grat DayZ modifications made by 2 ppl in their spare time.

[kakysas666 191]

Mod is terrible. Forget about it and do not mention it.