Reinvent the Alpha

[Baker. 1484]

Maybe since DayZ SA has pioneered the early access business model it should re-evaluate the development cycle itself. I propose what defines "Alpha", "Beta", "RC" etc isn't relevant or constructive within said model. Perhaps sticking to the very definitions of these components is whats upsetting a large portion of the player base. 

 

A public (purchasable) alpha would maybe resonate better if it's development priorities were a blend of alpha and beta. 

 

There-in would lie a real contribution to the history of game development: A new way of doing things.....

[grindstone50k 208]

How about we just scrap the whole thing and just have "In development, expect issues" and "finished/released". The nuances of the current model escape too many people.

[JonySK 60]

Maybe since DayZ SA has pioneered the early access business model 

Wat

[scriptfactory 620]

Well, the whole "Early Access" phenomenon has broken the typical alpha, beta, rc, gold release schedule anyway. An alpha used to be feature complete (with at least placeholder content.) A dev team generally progressed through the alpha phase of a project fairly quickly. By the time a game reached gold status it would work. Patches were occasionally required (for PC games) but the game was usually completely playable without them.

Basically right now:

- EA Alpha: totally broken game that the publisher wants to sell, regardless of the implemented features and content.

- EA Beta: pretty broken game that the publisher has been selling, regardless of the implemented features and content.

- EA RC: broken game that is getting bugfixed.
- EA Gold: minimally broken game that is getting bugfixed.

[St. Jimmy 1631]

The game is really in pre-alpha stage if I've understood right what I've read about development.

[freethink 984]

i blame agile

[q.S Sachiel 470]

I say we just reject everyone's keys until release / Open Beta and rebadge it as a pre-order program.

beacuse it seems that being able to experience the development first hand is too much for people to handle.

*waits patiently for a rational and well thought out retort to second line*

Edited September 3, 2014 by q.S Sachiel

[scriptfactory 620]

beacuse it seems that being able to experience the development first hand is too much for people to handle.

 

The Rust devs rewrote their game from scratch and there are rarely complaints about the development process. In fact, people mostly have positive things to say about it. People KNOW it takes a long time to make a game.

 

The DayZ development process is taking an extremely long amount of time because they have to build a working game engine. We all know this. But building a new game engine from (pretty much) scratch is not normal for an Early Access title. If ANY other game engine had been used we would already be nearing the end of the alpha, I believe. Even Unity (like Rust uses). Oh, well.

 

Edit: I know you are super smart, dude. I have seen some of your posts. You can do better than that "too much to handle" comment.

Edited September 3, 2014 by scriptfactory

[q.S Sachiel 470]

It was an off-beat sarcastic remark designed not for the likes of you.

You did quite well to counter the point though.

now i need more virgins to reset the troll trap :(

edit on topic.  Rouse the Mongols.  Wall of text to follow.

I've followed several games from inception to production, but have only really ever participated in open access Beta (unless you count Prison Architect Alpha, which I feel may have run out of puff long ago).  This is very much a fresh experience for me, regarding computer games.

Several of my much loved games have done the crowd-funding model ala Natural Selection 2, while others that I thoroughly enjoyed took many many years to complete (though not entirely sure of their dev cycle)

 

Halflife 2 ('98-2004)

Prey (this one actually almost died multiple times, and though wasn't very well received, and ended up being built on Doom3 engine (think it started off as Q2 engine and they messed around with proprietary before giving up to iD)) ('95-'06) Arguably pioneered the 'portal' technology/gimmick/mechanic

Diablo 2 ('96-2000)

STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl - do you remember when they told people there would be no vehicles? (announced '01, gold '07)

NS2 ('06-'12) messed around with source, then changed to proprietary engine renamed 'Spark' using Lua code

(from wikipedia)

These games all went through the traditional dev steps, with multiple having early leaked source code/resources and 'playable' states (mostly SP games so not as useful for hacking but hits expectations and sales to some degree)

 

To give a sense of scale, and some may not share in my passion for NS2, but I believe the team was quite small (can't confirm numbers, and marketing etc probably larger too) but they sold 144k copies within first week to $1mil+, with reported 300k by 2013 so less than $3mil. in sales pushing that figure forward, with Crowd-funding and the IP owner/dev sourcing investment and pouring his own funds in as well.  This may give an indication as to the scope and ambition of DayZ, though it's easy to see how using this as a single example how easy it is for some people to throw stones at the devs. 

 

That said, those guys had a similar beginning to DayZ in that it started as a (hl1)mod, grew into an IP, they flogged it into a competitive scene which they backed, reportedly to a financial loss, and then even launched a post-production crowd-funding drive, which they marketed as a reward for their community support and free additions/support, and that it would supplement profit to the producers/devs.  I'm going to talk out of my ass because i can't be bothered researching further (lol wiki) but i'll guess they made a profit on that 3mil+ because Flayra the dev/owner of the studio/IP is branching into further game development through the studio that created NS2.  'Goes without saying profit/sales mean nothing without grasp of cost -research at will, so this may be further 'puff'.

 

The internet has changed substatially since some of those games came out, and so have people's expectations (we're as fragmented as ever).

I think the greatest thing DayZ could benefit from would be greater access to information.  There is quite a lot out there in terms of dev milestones and patch notes etc, but it seems that particularly for this forum that the information is overlooked or otherwise unavailable.

Some of the Forum team have expressed that things need to be bleached in neon light to be noticed, and the community is spread across Reddit, these forums and other outlets so this is definitely a PR/Marketing/Logistics challenge

Ultimately, the proof really will be in the pudding.

this is what happens when you stroke my ego and chastise me in a single sentence.

Edited September 3, 2014 by q.S Sachiel

[LeeVanSpliff 156]

Why the hell would switching the terminology to something WITHOUT clear definitions do anyone any good?

Also, DayZ didn't pioneer early access? Wiki mentions minecraft as an early example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_access

 

The game is really in pre-alpha stage if I've understood right what I've read about development.

Nope, wrong.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle#Pre-alpha

 

Pre-alpha

Pre-alpha refers to all activities performed during the software project before testing.

You guys should really read up on stuff before posting your opinions. Opinions not founded in fact are worthless imho. I mean, these are wiki links. Finding each represents 4 seconds with google and internets.

Edited September 3, 2014 by LeeVanSpliff

[kichilron 8550]

Should you buy this game?

 

I see this question asked a lot, so I figured I could answer this from my perspective - and pin it.

In short, during Early Access? No.

*Unless* you are interested in actively being part of the development of the project. Early Access for DayZ is quite literally the creation of the title.

What this means for you is bugs, glitches, and systems that sometimes do not function properly. You might lose a character to a bug, a server might crash and get you killed, or you just might think the way a feature happens to work at the moment is just plain stupid.

On the positive side, when DayZ works - it works like no other experience. Your heart will beat, your palms will sweat, and the time will fly by faster than you realize.

This is the experience we look forward to providing to everyone, and I invite you to join us, but if the above mentioned warning on bugs, glitches, or otherwise concerns you - by all means, I encourage you to wait.. come back during Early Access Beta, or even the full release.

For those of you who are not turned away by these warnings, this is what you can expect for the project major milestones moving forward.

- DayZ Early Access Alpha: Feature development, during which the vast majority of major bugs are created/occur.

- DayZ Early Access Beta: Content development, during which the "meat on the bones" is added to the title, alongside the beginnings of major bug fixing surrounding issues created during the feature development of alpha.

- DayZ Early Access RC (Final Beta stages): Bug Fix, optimization, and balancing. During which the stone is polished, until the DayZ dev team feels the title is ready to go live.

 

 

 

http://steamcommunity.com/app/221100/discussions/0/558755530269707355/

Edited September 3, 2014 by kichilron
Aunt Edit.

[kylesaysthings 44]

I propose what defines "Alpha", "Beta", "RC" etc isn't relevant or constructive within said model. Perhaps sticking to the very definitions of these components is whats upsetting a large portion of the player base.

At least someone out there understands that the current branding is inaccurate.  In my book, once you start selling a product, you can't really use "It's just alpha" as an excuse for slow development.  Especially when you've seen >$50,000,000 in revenue from those sales.  However, just like with all the f2p models you see these days, it creates a situation where white-knights spit out the same old tired, repetitive rhetoric in response to legitimate concerns coming from the customer base.  Saves the DEVs from having to defend their own actions, and attempts to discredit the the people who usually have the games best interest in mind.

[scriptfactory 620]

You guys should really read up on stuff before posting your opinions. Opinions not founded in fact are worthless imho. I mean, these are wiki links. Finding each represents 4 seconds with google and internets.

 

The game is somewhere between a typical alpha and a typical pre-alpha. White-box testing (tests based on intimate knowledge of the system in question) ALWAYS occurs. Black-box testing (e.g. testing without any knowledge of internal systems) usually begins during the pre-alpha/alpha phase. Developers normally create "white-box tests" in a manner that will let them run automatically with every new build, if possible. Black-box tests are usually done, first, by internal QA and then later by a select amount of testers. Most black-box testing will not begin before a game is somewhat stable since there is no reason to test something that is constantly breaking.

So, I don't know where you got your information from but it is wrong.

DayZ is somewhere between a typical alpha and a pre-alpha. You don't usually rewrite your game engine during an alpha.

Edited September 3, 2014 by scriptfactory

[LeeVanSpliff 156]

So, I don't know where you got your information from but it is wrong.

Wiki link's in my post.

[scriptfactory 620]

Wiki link's in my post.

Well, there you go. Don't trust Wikipedia, too much.

From the Wikipedia page: "Moving to black box testing inside the organization is known as alpha release.[2]"

I actually, for shits and giggles, clicked on the link sourced on that page.

 

The first test of newly developed hardware or software in a laboratory setting. When the first round of bugs has been fixed, the product goes into beta test with actual users. For custom software, the customer may be invited into the vendor's facilities for an alpha test to ensure the client's vision has been interpreted properly by the developer. See beta test and testing types.

 

So, yeah...

Edited September 3, 2014 by scriptfactory

[LeeVanSpliff 156]

Well, there you go. Don't trust Wikipedia, too much.

Sigh.

Did a quick google of game development pre alpha. Three of the first four links showing up confirmed what I said. Well knowing it doesn't have to mean fuck, I do work with game development, and I do have an education in game development. Plenty of people are smarter, more experienced and more knowledgeable than me on game development. Very few of them seem to be posting on this forum though.

I know when a cheeseburger tastes good - that doesn't enable me to run a restaurant. I know when I pass a bridge and it doesn't collapse, that doesn't make me a construction engineer. I know when a car is driving, that doesn't make me Henry Ford. Most people feel the same way about these things. However, it doesn't apply to games - if you know what kind of game you like, you're a natural expert on game development. It creates a fearsome density of wrong information or statements based in lack of insight.

Anyhow, I'm back out of here. This forum is a shitnami of experts on game development and there's no way the tide can be stemmed. Always gets me frustrated. Just wanted to see if the wipe had happened and I made the mistake of clicking on a post. My bad.

[Baker. 1484]

Why the hell would switching the terminology to something WITHOUT clear definitions do anyone any good? You misunderstood, sorry for that. What I was trying to say is they should consider breaking the mold when comes to the development cycle and what is considered tradition priorities. Not merely rename the words the they use to describe the exact same process

Also, DayZ didn't pioneer early access? Wiki mentions minecraft as an early example: Minecraft is also an early access pioneer.  But is it foolish to say BIS will not be remembered as an early access pioneer with regards to SA

 

PS love the avatar ;)

Edited September 3, 2014 by Bakermensch

[Baker. 1484]

http://steamcommunity.com/app/221100/discussions/0/558755530269707355/

I'm not arguing this, I agree they are sticking to it. I only propose a re-invention of the process, due to the re-invention of the revenue model. And its all just for healthy debate......

[Mark Darkers 151]

How about we just scrap the whole thing and just have "In development, expect issues" and "finished/released". The nuances of the current model escape too many people.

The biggest reason why they device it into alpha, beta, etc. is because they have to set mile stones, each of the type has within their own milestones too. This is so that there is a clear point the dev team has to work towards, if there was no goal set, development could turn out even slower.

[Death By Crowbar 1213]

Early Access (alpha, beta, whatever you label it is irrelevant for this model) is entirely different than Open Beta or other types of pre-release models / testing that people are familiar with. I think that's what everyone struggles the most with, even I did when I first started. I recall my early rage rants on the forums when I clearly had no understanding of what an Early Access model was, regardless of the "I understand" button I had to hit each time before I could log into the game. It's a new and foreign concept to most people, followed a close second by how new and foreign the concept that DayZ isn't CoD.

[RAM-bo4250 213]

usually have the games best interest in mind.

yeah, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggggggggghhhhhhhhhhttttttttttt!

[kylesaysthings 44]

yeah, riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggggggggghhhhhhhhhhttttttttttt!

So how do players voicing dissatisfaction in the rate of which current bugs are fixed, and the quality of these fixes, not have the games best interest in mind?

 

Sitting around acting like everything is perfect and the game is moving along without a hitch is actually detracting from the development process.  After all, as all the "this is alpha!" heroes say, we're here to assist in testing the game.  More often than not that's going to come down to pointing out flaws in the current build.  Frequently these flaws are bugs that we've seen fixed in past builds, only to show up with the next experimental update, and then get pushed to stable without even being fixed.  Sometimes I feel like folks from this community take any criticism towards this game as a personal insult.

Edited September 3, 2014 by KyleSaysThings

[RAM-bo4250 213]

So how do players voicing dissatisfaction in the rate of which current bugs are fixed, and the quality of these fixes, not have the games best interest in mind? - For the most part, not insinuating you, people don't understand that beating somebody over the head isn't going to make them go any faster. There's a process and it takes as long as it takes to get there. Patience is the key. Go to the "Septembers rant" post and read one of my last posts. You bought an early access to a process. This process is usually hidden.

 

Sitting around acting like everything is perfect and the game is moving along without a hitch is actually detracting from the development process.  Nobody sits around and thinks it's perfect and since when does impatience help.   After all, as all the "this is alpha!" heroes say, we're here to assist in testing the game.  You can assist by pointing out bugs in the tracker and then leave it alone. The devs are professionals and will fix things in their time based on their priorities. Again patience is the key. We all want a great game. More often than not that's going to come down to pointing out flaws in the current build.  Frequently these flaws are bugs that we've seen fixed in past builds, only to show up with the next experimental update, and then get pushed to stable without even being fixed.  Sometimes I feel like folks from this community take any criticism towards this game as a personal insult. It's not the criticism that gets us it's the downright rudeness and the entitlement mentality that emanates from those criticisms.

I havn't said it yet but there are a few posters who are extremely lucky the forum mods are such nice guys. In a lot of other communities they would have been banned as trolls and troublemakers as they usually don't add anything constructive to the community. They are certainly lucky I ain't a moderator.

 

And yes I will butt in anytime I feel rudeness and disrespect is emanating from a poster. No I'm not a moderator, but I am Vice Pres of P.A.B.B. That's people against bad behavior.

[flimsypremise 94]

So how do players voicing dissatisfaction in the rate of which current bugs are fixed, and the quality of these fixes, not have the games best interest in mind?

 

Sitting around acting like everything is perfect and the game is moving along without a hitch is actually detracting from the development process.  After all, as all the "this is alpha!" heroes say, we're here to assist in testing the game.  More often than not that's going to come down to pointing out flaws in the current build.  Frequently these flaws are bugs that we've seen fixed in past builds, only to show up with the next experimental update, and then get pushed to stable without even being fixed.  Sometimes I feel like folks from this community take any criticism towards this game as a personal insult.

 

If you truly had the game's best interest in mind, you'd be creating and maintaining detailed bug reports instead of bitching in this thread. Nothing you post in here is helping anyone do anything.

[svisketyggeren 662]

So how do players voicing dissatisfaction in the rate of which current bugs are fixed, and the quality of these fixes, not have the games best interest in mind?

 

 

 

The problem with this is that u ppl usually bitch and moan on the forum....and dont participate in whats call constructive criticism.

 

Specifically pertaining to rate of bugfixing I dont see why anyone should voice their dissatisfaction just because they feel the rate of fixing is to slow....the devs do their best, that is what u get...notgood enough for u?  Then GTFO...

 

Ive played alphas where I know the devs are working 12 hour days for several weeks...and some players still bitch and moan. There is no point in doing that...stuff wont be fixed faster if u create a post where u tell them how dissatisfied u are.

Edited September 3, 2014 by svisketyggeren