Something to help clear the air.

[Zed's Dead 67]

There has been a lot of frustration posts about the game lately and it's really making the community divisive.  It's sad because we all bought the game for the same reason of being excited about it which many of us still are.    I feel like I can help explain why it seems we fans continuously keep turning against each other into one of two categories.

 

I for one, am one of the people who don't know anything about how games are developed.  I have no idea how much work, and I'm sure it's a lot, goes into making fps games great.  Which is funny because my cousin is Allen Covert who plays the lead role in Grandma's Boy, but I digress....

 

Here is why many people including myself are confused about the progress and feel free to comment on what I may have right or wrong.......

 

From what I understand, a ton of work is needed to fix the Alpha for a final game.   That much we can agree on.  

 

This leads me to thinking we basically have two versions of the game going..... 1. is the released Alpha that we get to play.    They give us new content to have fun with and of which we do.  So it's understandable to me that since the Alpha has a very broken core, they cannot just simply update one fix at a time to the core because there is not enough time to keep the Alpha playable because if they fix one part of the engine, many other things may break the rest of the Alpha.

 

OK, I get that.     They are rebuilding the core parts of the game on the 2nd version of DayZ.    The game that we can't see yet because they are building it up so much that it's not releasable.    Again, please remember I know nothing about game design so I'm just assuming there is a 2nd version of Dayz that they are working harder on, correct?

 

 

HERE IS WHY WE ARE TURNING AGAINST EACH OTHER AND SKEPTICS ARE RELEASING THEIR FRUSTRATION:

 

 

Why isn't Bohemia releasing short clips of all the core work they are working on?  In other words, why don't they talk about or show us a short video of a silencer working correctly on their new version of the game that runs different audio parameters?   Why can't we see a short clip of exciting rag doll physics that they are working on with some of the zombie or character models?  Why not have spokesperson explain how they will solve the non responsive controls?  Why not at least release some drawings or explanations of how much better the final version of DayZ might be?   Why isn't their public relations department, if they have one, releasing any indication of the new working core?  If they released info like this it would get more people excited and lead to more sales.

 

So what I'm trying to say, is that this is why some people are skeptical about the game being finished.   We have never seen any work or indication of core work.   It would only benefit them to do so.     To us, the idea that zombies might stop going through walls next month, is not any indication that a final version of the game is being worked on.   Zombie collision issues has been a known problems for many, many, many months.    

[EvilTigerAce 131]

Why some people are skeptical about the game being finished. ==> I for one, am one of the people who don't know anything about how games are developed.

 

Fixed it for you. :)

[Zed's Dead 67]

Fixed it for you. :)

 

?    See below.

Edited July 27, 2014 by Zed's Dead

[Zed's Dead 67]

Fixed it for you. :)

 

 

So you didn't read the rest?     If Bohemia released info on how their new core will work with a proper public relations plan, they would generate more sales.

 

So why is Bohemia going out of their way to keep their core work secret and make it look like not much is being done?

[Funkmaster Rick 373]

I've played more than a few games that were being developed as I played them. Alpha, beta, pre-alpha, even a couple of games I wouldn't call more than a proof of concept.

 

If you want to see a game where the developers have given up, take a look at The Stomping Land, or Chivalry. Great concepts, decent games in their own right, but they each had a slow and reasonably obvious spiral where every fix broke five more things. And then the devs walked away onto other projects. Still playable games, but definitely not destined to reach their full potential.

DayZ looks on-track to me. Yeah, it's slow, and the features the majority wants aren't considered high-priority tasks. This is good. There's a difference between building an entertaining game, and trying to directly entertain people. When a developer starts doing the latter, it's at the cost of the former. Things look good. Keep trying to ignore the glitches and exploits, just like we all did back when we played the mod.

[plexico 386]

I've played more than a few games that were being developed as I played them. Alpha, beta, pre-alpha, even a couple of games I wouldn't call more than a proof of concept.

 

If you want to see a game where the developers have given up, take a look at The Stomping Land, or Chivalry. Great concepts, decent games in their own right, but they each had a slow and reasonably obvious spiral where every fix broke five more things. And then the devs walked away onto other projects. Still playable games, but definitely not destined to reach their full potential.

DayZ looks on-track to me. Yeah, it's slow, and the features the majority wants aren't considered high-priority tasks. This is good. There's a difference between building an entertaining game, and trying to directly entertain people. When a developer starts doing the latter, it's at the cost of the former. Things look good. Keep trying to ignore the glitches and exploits, just like we all did back when we played the mod.

Chivalry is a full game with DLCs though.

Edited July 27, 2014 by Plexico

[EvilTigerAce 131]

I've played more than a few games that were being developed as I played them. Alpha, beta, pre-alpha, even a couple of games I wouldn't call more than a proof of concept.

DayZ looks on-track to me. Yeah, it's slow, and the features the majority wants aren't considered high-priority tasks. This is good. There's a difference between building an entertaining game, and trying to directly entertain people. When a developer starts doing the latter, it's at the cost of the former. Things look good. Keep trying to ignore the glitches and exploits, just like we all did back when we played the mod.

 

This. (Yeah I'm really lazy, so I just made that post earlier ;) )

 

Keep in mind that 'the sound of a suppressor' is a lot of work too.

 

It's not only the sound that you are adding, but also how it sounds in the server (distance, reverb in different kinds of environments, etcetera etcetera) and how it gets transferred to different clients.

Edited July 27, 2014 by EvilTigerAce

[Red_Ensign 990]

there's LOTS of finished games that frustrate me more than this alpha.  they could fix nothing here and I'd still be fine with the 30 bucks I spent.

[Zed's Dead 67]

I've played more than a few games that were being developed as I played them. Alpha, beta, pre-alpha, even a couple of games I wouldn't call more than a proof of concept.

 

If you want to see a game where the developers have given up, take a look at The Stomping Land, or Chivalry. Great concepts, decent games in their own right, but they each had a slow and reasonably obvious spiral where every fix broke five more things. And then the devs walked away onto other projects. Still playable games, but definitely not destined to reach their full potential.

DayZ looks on-track to me. Yeah, it's slow, and the features the majority wants aren't considered high-priority tasks. This is good. There's a difference between building an entertaining game, and trying to directly entertain people. When a developer starts doing the latter, it's at the cost of the former. Things look good. Keep trying to ignore the glitches and exploits, just like we all did back when we played the mod.

 

Thanks for your insight.  This is helpful and appreciated.

[Hetstaine 10852]

Dean stated that they are not doing dev blogs anymore, experimental servers are basically what amounts to what you are looking for ..

 

 

Why isn't Bohemia releasing short clips of all the core work they are working on?

[Zed's Dead 67]

Dean stated that they are not doing dev blogs anymore, experimental servers are basically what amounts to what you are looking for ..

 

Yikes, if all of their work on the core has been getting released into each experimental patch, then how can this game be done before 2020?

[dallas 5195]

We all bought the game.

We all bought a game in development.

We all bought a game in the alpha stage.

We all bought a game from developers, who estimated that getting all key features into the game would take more than a year.

 

However we all manage our expectations and patience differently. 

[slippery gypsy 107]

Dean stated that they are not doing dev blogs anymore, experimental servers are basically what amounts to what you are looking for ..

why no dev blogs 

[terminal_boy 860]

why no dev blogs 

 

Because the Dev Team are:

 

1. Too busy fixing the game.

 

Or

 

2. Have trousered the money they got from BIS and are busy snorting lines of coke off hooker's arses.

[dallas 5195]

2. Have trousered the money they got from BIS and are busy snorting lines of coke off hooker's arses.

 

Now there's a dev blog, I'd like to see.

[Hetstaine 10852]

From Rocket on why they don't do dev blogs anymore..

 

If you want to see how the project is going, play the experimental. That is far more current than any devblog ever will be. We can deploy an experimental build much faster than we can deploy a devblog as most of the process of actually generating the build is automated.

 

I'll use this as an example of the (hypothetical) problem's we face making a devblog

ANIMATIONS - We created new animation for drinking.

It could be months before that animation is used an in game. It could never be in game. If we announce it we build anticipation and expectation. As an example, the three new gestures were completed months ago but were waiting on me to add their actions to source. As a low priority task, it took a very long time for them to be added to the game.

GRAPHICS - We worked on implementing new renderer...

We could end up saying the same thing for a month, for six months, even for a year. We tried this, it caused a huge amount of hate. Some people do not appreciate that with many of these tasks it can be a long, slow, and unknown road to completion.
Discussing it in depth can lead to expectations and anticipation that, again, can cause very big issues. This happened with the last devblog I did about the renderer.

SERVER - We managed to run servers on 64bit.

We already cover this kind of information through social media such as the forums, twitter, and of course reddit.

OBJECTS - We created new hat (picture), and new weapon (picture)

As above, the creation of the asset does not mean it is in game. There are still assets completed over a year ago that have not been added or activated in the game. An example is the laser dot. This is waiting programmer time, and all our programmers have many more tasks assigned before this.

GAMEPLAY - We are working on implementing navmesh into game, looking good.

It might be looking good today, what about tomorrow? We DO do devblogs, but only when I am SURE about something. Occasionally we give bad/good progress messages through twitter, but we have to be very careful about building unreasonable expectations and overhyping progress.

MAP - There is new town on the north, with new buildings created. New town looks incredible.

Sure, it looks great! But what if a profile is done of performance and we discover there is too many objects in that area? Way too many... so that nice new town? Well - it's got to go.

From this topic HERE

[Calvin Candie 189]

I have read this whole thing and Rocket's explanations. Btw, I agree with the OP.

My conclusion is that Rocket is not experienced enough to handle the marketing and PR side of this project. He keeps rambling on about how he and others do not have time to do detailed dev blogs and reports to the community. He mentions on several occasions the chaotic and unorganized nature of the development phase. -as in: "The devs made a new item, but I (rocket) don't know if they put it to test so I (rocket) cannot write it in the dev blog"

I do not mean to be harsh and I have complete respect for Dean Hall, BUT,

he and the dev team bear the OBLIGATION and the RESPONSIBILITY, in the spirit of good business ethic, to keep their buyers-investors (the community) informed, in detail and with clear weekly or monthly summary, containing the current state of the project, as well as the future plans.

Sure, he doesn't need to actually feel this obligation himself. But I think he is only hurting himself in the business sense of any future project he will do, as I would personaly not buy the Alpha if I knew the entire team working in the project would neglect the community.

Edited July 28, 2014 by Calvin Candie

[DeatHTaX 1217]

I'm sorry but I really don't understand why it's so difficult to do some kind of weekly or twice a week quick update on what you're doing and how progress is going? I guess making your fanbase go out and SEARCH for what they're doing is one way of keeping them in the loop about what's going on in development...

 

Idk, just seems like a completely lazy and unorthodox way of going about the development, but that's just my opinion

[Cap'n (DayZ) 1827]

I think people really expect too much. You bought a game in development. The developers are going out of their way to remind you, that is indeed, a LONG road until it is a fully finished game. People are not used to the Alpha format, and they simply take it as "Hey, we get the game early!", and not "Hey, let's pay to take part in the development process of a project we see a lot of promise in!". The latter seems to be a lot more attractive process, yet most developers seem to use it as a way to fork cash without having to finish the actual game. Unfortunately, Bohemia has unintentionally made this kind of thing common practice among smaller projects and indie developers through Steam, as a by product of the INSANE popularity behind the mod and hype surrounding the standalone release. They made a cool few million, and now everyone wants that DayZ MoneyZ. Thankfully, it seems the developers aren't scamming us. They've added new assets to the team, are creating a lot of new content, and best of all, AVOIDING answering every single request of the community. Thank god...

 

I hope that the standalone is a great success, and by release, is a fully fleshed out and enveloping experience worthy of my 30 USD, which I've already weened more than 300 hours worth of enjoyment. And Bohemia gets richer in the process, and makes the upcoming ArmA 3 DLC great, and ArmA 4 legendary.

[dallas 5195]

What I find incredible charming about DayZ's development is the complete lack of traditional PR and hype from a marketing specialist.

 

It's nice to be treated like an adult for a change.

[LeeVanSpliff 156]

I have never, ever been on any form of internet forum that didn't at least from time to time turn into a flame-fest (well ... maybe subsim, but that's only 'cause it's full of senior citizens and navy veterans ...). Some people just wanna fight on forums imo. Reason and information won't go far in appeasing them, and I don't think more information from Bohemia will do much.

 

I'm sorry but I really don't understand why it's so difficult to do some kind of weekly or twice a week quick update on what you're doing and how progress is going? I guess making your fanbase go out and SEARCH for what they're doing is one way of keeping them in the loop about what's going on in development...

 

Idk, just seems like a completely lazy and unorthodox way of going about the development, but that's just my opinion

 

Dunno man. That would be eight updates per release to stable, I don't really think that's time well invested.

 

Game development is difficult. Lots of cooks working on cooking the same dish. I'm a programmer myself, and I for one am happy that I don't have to give written, verified, understandable reports of what I'm doing eight times for each one release we do. I'm pretty sure the person who normally writes our patch notes is also happy that she won't have to compile long lists of garbled coder-written commit comments into something reasonable more often than now.

 

I guess Bohemia is focusing on developing and taking info in (bug reports, suggestions, feedback) these days - rather than focusing on delivering info to us. I think that focus is right - they can start feeding people info once the game is actually published. Better use of their time.

[Calvin Candie 189]

What I find incredible charming about DayZ's development is the complete lack of traditional PR and hype from a marketing specialist.

It's nice to be treated like an adult for a change.

What? See,thing is here, you have invested your own 23€ in their unfinished product.

So you are not interested in the details of the progress and if the set DEADLINES are trully being met as well as goals achieved?

You do not care if the game is finished in 2015 or 2017?

I do care, and I do want to know. They got millions and millions of euros of our money.

I know people will say "just let it go man" it is only 23€, let them work without distractions.

But there is the business side to this project. NOT GIVING DETAILED INFORMATION TO BUYERS ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRODUCT THEY PRUCHASED IS UNPROFESSIONAL.

We don't know if they are:

- pissing around the money doing nothing

- cutting costs to increase final profits by not employing more people at the expense of huge decrease in development speed

- ignorant of how to use the resources they have been given

OR MAYBE

- really doing a good job of developing

- making the right choices and correct plans for future steps

- working hard and using our investment with ethics and professional bussines standards in mind.

NOBODY KNOWS the clear answers to the above.

I never seen a clear time table of the development in the next year. Why? Is it a secret? I believe not. Are they afraid to publish it? Yes. Why? Because they do not want to answer to anyone.

Whoever turned DayZ into early access knew the meaning of the phrase: "Take the money and run!"

I hope they change their attitude towards their freaking buyers.

Edited July 28, 2014 by Calvin Candie

[ld-airgrafix 403]

What? See,thing is here, you have invested your own 23€ in their unfinished product.

So you are not interested in the details of the progress and if the set DEADLINES are trully being met as well as goals achieved?

You do not care if the game is finished in 2015 or 2017?

I do care, and I do want to know. They got millions and millions of euros of our money.

I know people will say "just let it go man" it is only 23€, let them work without distractions.

But there is the business side to this project. NOT GIVING DETAILED INFORMATION TO BUYERS ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRODUCT THEY PRUCHASED IS UNPROFESSIONAL.

We don't know if they are:

- pissing around the money doing nothing

- cutting costs to increase final profits by not employing more people at the expense of huge decrease in development speed

- ignorant of how to use the resources they have been given

OR MAYBE

- really doing a good job of developing

- making the right choices and correct plans for future steps

- working hard and using our investment with ethics and professional bussines standards in mind.

NOBODY KNOWS the clear answers to the above.

I never seen a clear time table of the development in the next year. Why? Is it a secret? I believe not. Are they afraid to publish it? Yes. Why? Because they do not want to answer to anyone.

Whoever turned DayZ into early access knew the meaning of the phrase: "Take the money and run!"

I hope they change their attitude towards their freaking buyers.

They are slow, but that was due to a buggy engine, new one is being written and slowly replacing the old. But even though we do not get regular updates as 7d2d does, the game is not dead as the stomping land is.

[DeatHTaX 1217]

I have never, ever been on any form of internet forum that didn't at least from time to time turn into a flame-fest (well ... maybe subsim, but that's only 'cause it's full of senior citizens and navy veterans ...). Some people just wanna fight on forums imo. Reason and information won't go far in appeasing them, and I don't think more information from Bohemia will do much.

 

 

Dunno man. That would be eight updates per release to stable, I don't really think that's time well invested.

 

Game development is difficult. Lots of cooks working on cooking the same dish. I'm a programmer myself, and I for one am happy that I don't have to give written, verified, understandable reports of what I'm doing eight times for each one release we do. I'm pretty sure the person who normally writes our patch notes is also happy that she won't have to compile long lists of garbled coder-written commit comments into something reasonable more often than now.

 

I guess Bohemia is focusing on developing and taking info in (bug reports, suggestions, feedback) these days - rather than focusing on delivering info to us. I think that focus is right - they can start feeding people info once the game is actually published. Better use of their time.

 

But I mean we're talking like a short update on progress...shouldn't whoever is in charge of managing the whole shabang know what's going on with the development? What is so wildly time-consuming about making the occasional update about what the team has been working on...I just really don't get it. 

[dallas 5195]

What? See,thing is here, you have invested your own 23€ in their unfinished product.

So you are not interested in the details of the progress and if the set DEADLINES are trully being met as well as goals achieved?

You do not care if the game is finished in 2015 or 2017?

I do care, and I do want to know. They got millions and millions of euros of our money.

I know people will say "just let it go man" it is only 23€, let them work without distractions.

But there is the business side to this project. NOT GIVING DETAILED INFORMATION TO BUYERS ABOUT THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRODUCT THEY PRUCHASED IS UNPROFESSIONAL.

We don't know if they are:

- pissing around the money doing nothing

- cutting costs to increase final profits by not employing more people at the expense of huge decrease in development speed

- ignorant of how to use the resources they have been given

OR MAYBE

- really doing a good job of developing

- making the right choices and correct plans for future steps

- working hard and using our investment with ethics and professional bussines standards in mind.

NOBODY KNOWS the clear answers to the above.

I never seen a clear time table of the development in the next year. Why? Is it a secret? I believe not. Are they afraid to publish it? Yes. Why? Because they do not want to answer to anyone.

Whoever turned DayZ into early access knew the meaning of the phrase: "Take the money and run!"

I hope they change their attitude towards their freaking buyers.

 

I don't know about you.

 

But when I bought DayZ in December, I did read the entire store page and I did read the part titled "Development roadmap," I believe it said:

 

DayZ is currently in early alpha and we see a lot of work ahead of us in order to make it the true authentic multiplayer experience we want it to be. Current version is including only small subset of game mechanics and serves mostly as test bed with core technology that should serve as basis for future additions and improvements. Currently planned key future features are:

Playable vehicles

Wide variety of native animal life

Player created constructions in the environment

Extensive interactions with the environment and crafting options

Streamlined user actions and interface

Upgraded graphics and physics engine (including ragdoll, etc.)

Control and animations expanded and improved for fluidity

Support of user mods

We estimate that reaching Beta version with all key features present will take more than one year from current stage. All features and plans listed here are subject to change, we may add or remove features as seen fit during development process.

Developers are communicating with customers using various methods.

Twitter for short comments, screenshots and updates.

Reddit for two way communication, feedback and discussion.

Tumblr/youtube for greater blog entries and overall progress.

Bug tracker for the people actually reporting bugs instead of complaining.

Just because you've chose to stay ignorant, both about the basic information on the store page and all the readily available information, which is posted and repeated on these very forums, twitter, reddit, doesn't mean the information isn't out there.

I simply don't think the dev team will ever be able to dedicate enough man hours to please the willingly ignorant and entitled segment of the player base.

 

 

But I mean we're talking like a short update on progress...shouldn't whoever is in charge of managing the whole shabang know what's going on with the development? What is so wildly time-consuming about making the occasional update about what the team has been working on...I just really don't get it. 

 

If you got get it, let me get it for you:

 

http://www.reddit.com/user/rocket2guns

https://twitter.com/Hicks_206

https://twitter.com/ctorchia

https://twitter.com/rocket2guns

http://dayzdev.tumblr.com/

Edited July 28, 2014 by Dallas