DayZ Development progress makes no sense

[RAM-bo4250 213]

I think the main reasons for so much misunderstanding and angst is twofold. First, and foremost, impatience. Second, false expectations.

 

Impatience is self explanatory. But it stems from the fact that $30.00 was laid down. I paid and I want to play.

 

False expectations is a little harder. For one whether this is early alpha, alpha, early beta or beta , when it comes right down to it doesn't matter. We wouldn't have any of these type threads if like most companies, this stage is hidden from the general public. The money laid out is part of this also.

 

Since money was laid out does this justify both negative responses? It would if warnings weren't plastered everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Dean said not to buy in unless you met certain criteria, Steam said not to by it unless you met certain criteria. Even upon entering the game there is a warning. Even if the devs didn't know a damn thing about making a game (which some believe is true) you all went into it with eyes wide open. It's no excuse that you don't understand a sentence or two of text. You said I do and you did.

 

Now, you reap the consequences, good or bad, for that decision. As an intelligent thinking human being I am sure they don't give a damn if you quote Einstein. They are going to build the game their way and in their time.

Edited September 6, 2014 by RAM-bo4250

[RAM-bo4250 213]

Guys,

Fanboys, whiners, complainers, haters, lovers we are all in Chernarus together. We all have to wait until the game is finished. And I have got news. Some of us are going to be unhappy with the game we paid $30.00(50 % discount) for.

 

BTW I am more of a realist than a fanboy.

 

Our conversations here have no iota of hope of changing things. Not one. They are not going to build it faster. They are not going to build it according to our specifications. They may follow some of our suggestions but I don't think anybody has come up with something new in a long time. All the suggestions are in. The work is being implemented and now we test. We have just spawned in. There is a long walk (or run) now to Berenzino.

Edited September 6, 2014 by RAM-bo4250

[stielhandgranate 480]

Some of the crybabies screaming "Shut up and color, I didn't read, this game will be great soon" really need to look at themselves when complaining about irreverent/non productive posts.

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

BTW I am more of a realist than a fanboy.

This is exactly it.  I am a grown adult.  I stopped stomping my feet for anything long before I even hit high school.  90% of this forum is just that, kids stomping their feet and throwing temper tantrums.

[svisketyggeren 662]

Not reading a thing u say. No one cares what you think. The game will be great, be patient.

 

Spot on id say. I would also add that I really dont care what OP found on a wiki page about the definition of alpha or beta gamedevelopement. I couldnt care if a bunch of monkeys had developed the game until now. Dayz is being made, I like the progress...lots of stuff being added, new towns, core features being fixed, devteam is larger...love it.

 

And those that feel the development is too slow..IT IS NOT! Go play some more alphas and betas and get ur expectations right!

Edited September 6, 2014 by svisketyggeren

[Bigbadchuck 97]

The game development makes no sense to YOU. I'm sure it makes perfect sense to actual game devs

[mattr19 24]

The only people who complain about the development of this game are people who do not have real professional jobs. If they did, they would understand that doing anything right takes an incredible amount of work. I am not a programmer, I am a microbiologist, and I know the sheer amount of work it takes to accomplish big projects, and I respect other professionals who work hard in their field despite people berating them constantly. Look at it from their perspective. All i am saying.

 

 

edit: Do you think any of them go to work saying "I do not really care, I'm going to put in no effort?" No, they work hard so that they can get promotions or get into new projects. They put their life into it. You are going to get a great project, just give the professionals time to work.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Ether mR

[fnal 206]

If you have never coded anything before, you won't understand how complex developing a game can be and they have set procedures on how they do it.  You have no idea what is going on at Bohemia, you are just seeing tweets and status reports, you can not make an accurate judgment on the development.  They are in the business of making video games, let them do it.  Just as you wouldn't complain to your doctor because he didn't start your surgery the way you wanted it.

[scriptfactory 620]

The only people who complain about the development of this game are people who do not have real professional jobs. If they did, they would understand that doing anything right takes an incredible amount of work.

I agree and disagree with your post at the same time. Yes, it is hard to make a game. But people with "real professional" jobs are also criticizing DayZ from a more opportunistic viewpoint. They just aren't fans of the game because, let's be honest, it current sucks. There are many awesome things about DayZ but it does not feel like a polished concept.

 

I work as a senior developer at a European game publisher. We often have big projects and those projects take a looong time to complete. That being said, there are many things to genuinely criticize about the DayZ development process. In fact, many industry professionals have made similar remarks to me at this years GDC in Köln after one of the workgroups. After 2.5 million in sales the big dogs in the gaming industry are now looking for ways to capitalize on the permadeath hype because they know they can do it better than "indie developer" BIS. Sony is just the first giant to come out with a clone. More will follow.

[Doomlord52 62]

Wow, the response to this has been quite... interesting. I thank those who welcome the discussion, and actually posted real feed-back. The people with the 'other' comments: yea, thanks.

 

So, let me get a few things out of the way: People seem to dislike the wiki-quotes. That's fine, and yes, it's not an academic source. However, the definition of alpha/beta/rc/release is pretty much set in stone, since it's been just about the same throughout all of software development. If you disagree with the definitions I posted, you're welcome to look them up yourselves from whichever reputable source you choose; however, I am certain that they will all say effectively the same thing. In Alpha you add features, in beta you are feature-complete and begin to debug/optimize/etc.

 

 

Hmmm interesting perspective you have there. 

 

Maybe you could suggest some options on how the dev team could improve their performance and productivity?

I will likely do this when the new renderer comes out. I spent the last ~2 years doing some small game-dev work, mostly related to final render path, so I've got a few useful tools I can put to use. For example, RenderDoc is a great tool for tearing into the draw calls and buffer passes used to create a frame. Hopefully, the new DX10/11 engine is better than ARMA3's, which uses about 7 depth passes, spaced between 4 color passes (why would you do this?). SImply combining the depth passes into one, after an initial color pass, and then using that depth-pass info in a second color pass (for things like SSAO) would cut down on draw time by a massive amount (it would likely double or tripple FPS in gpu-bound situations).

 

 

From what I took from you thread, you built an argument about your belief that dayZ is actually in a pseudo-beta state and by following that logic:

 

"As it stands, the current Steam page is a lie: It states that DayZ is "in alpha" and that you shouldn't buy "unless you want to actively support the development of the game". Neither of these statements are true. As shown above, the devs (somehow) belive that DayZ is in BETA, and they do NOT want people actively supporting the devlopment of the game, short of giving them money. If the statements were true, we would have far fewer guns/shirts/hats and the initial stages of the vehicles available for play."

 

And this is the crux of your argument - this i do not agree with. Up till this point I was could understand  your logic, I think anyone can see that there is a slight blurring of priorities between what needs to be done to advance the game and what needs to be done to keep the angry, spitting maw of the masses pleased. I have also seen post suggesting that the team is too focused on the "alpha" build and should in fact try harder to "re-pioneer their pioneering approach to early access" (not my words) to incorporate more aspects of beta!

 

So while I don't think some of the comments in this thread are helpful, I can completely sympathies with them. Sometime this shit just starts to get to you :( .

Interesting. Care to elaborate on why you don't agree with my statement?

 

 

Quotes the definition of Beta including the phrase "feature complete" then suggests vehicles and other features shouldn't be added until Beta....  Righto.

I don't even mention beta, or moving to beta, in my bit about vehicles. I simply stated that releaseing vehicles in essentially a 'feature complete' stage all in one go is not how one should approach a public alpha.

 

I believe same will happen for DayZ just like for Arma. The game will get features and stuff after v1.0 for a long time. That will make the game look like that it's never finished but really they could just lock the game down and not develop anything more. It's more interesting for me to watch a platform grow but it has its negative effects like a feeling the game is never completed until the next project is already out.

Of course, adding features post-release is a normal thing to do. Often, the community will suggest things the developers never even thought of. However, during the initial release, the developers should set out a 'minimum viable product' goal, which contains all of the major mechanics and systems they wish to have for "1.0" release.

 

hmm let me be the first to justify your logic with a response.

"The first topic is loot distribution and adding "more granular control over the quantity of each type of item that spawns". This isn't a feature, this is feature refinement - balance adjustment. Fine tuning the amount and types of loot that drop isn't a new feature, it's a variation of an existing feature, and a minor one at that."

Here's where you went off a little, in fact dean has stated many many times that vehicles are going to be very rare, having some parts for advanced vehicles like choppers be extremely difficult to procure.

And with the loot system as it is, this is not possible. You would have an item with a certain spawn chance and it would spawn every so often, even after say maybe an advanced vehicle is already built or the parts are well distributed, which is something he has mentioned he doesn't want. Now with the central loot economy the plan is for them to be able to limit the amount of an specific item to a number for the entire hive and so in fact central loot economy is a absolute must have BEFORE vehicles are introduced. 

This is an interesting approach, but is is valid. However, your last sentence brings up essentially what I was talking about in my OP: this isn't a true beta. Worries about a 'loot economy' are not worries which should be looked at during alpha. The mechanics behind it are, such as limiting the number of specific items across the entire hive, but tuning this to the point where food and ammo being too comon, vs. other things being not common enough (on a per-server basis) is a purely beta-related topic. I agree, that if the devs wish to implement vehicle parts before the actual vehicles, a system for cross-hive spawning should be in place first. However, this system is fairly unrelated to loot spawning density on individual servers.

 

Well, the definition of a beta is that it's "feature complete". Since this isn't the case yet with dayz, it can only be an "alpha", simple.

I agree: DayZ is NOT feature complete, and is in Alpha. However, spending development time on 'beta' features such as new 55-gallon drums and re-texturing the AK101 indicates a split in the development team. Changes such as those should all be happening in beta - not alpha.

 

 

I agree and disagree with your post at the same time. Yes, it is hard to make a game. But people with "real professional" jobs are also criticizing DayZ from a more opportunistic viewpoint. They just aren't fans of the game because, let's be honest, it current sucks. There are many awesome things about DayZ but it does not feel like a polished concept.

 

I work as a senior developer at a European game publisher. We often have big projects and those projects take a looong time to complete. That being said, there are many things to genuinely criticize about the DayZ development process. In fact, many industry professionals have made similar remarks to me at this years GDC in Köln after one of the workgroups. After 2.5 million in sales the big dogs in the gaming industry are now looking for ways to capitalize on the permadeath hype because they know they can do it better than "indie developer" BIS. Sony is just the first giant to come out with a clone. More will follow.

 

This exactly. It's good to hear another game dev agree with me on this.

 

 

I hope that clears some stuff up.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Doomlord52

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

 There are many awesome things about DayZ but it does not feel like a polished concept.

Well if it wasn't in "ALPHA"....... :rolleyes:

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

I agree: DayZ is NOT feature complete, and is in Alpha. However, spending development time on 'beta' features such as new 55-gallon drums and re-texturing the AK101 indicates a split in the development team. Changes such as those should all be happening in beta - not alpha.

 

 

 

I hope that clears some stuff up.

ALPHA = Add stuff  <_<

[scriptfactory 620]

Well if it wasn't in "ALPHA"....... :rolleyes:

 

I'm talking about "concept" from a game design perspective.

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

I'm talking about "concept" from a game design perspective.

You mean like how DayZ is still being "designed"

[spartacusrex 88]

Its my understanding that the game is not feature complete, that beta starts at patch .50 and remains a beta until 1.0

 

We're in alpha IMO, not "Pre-Alpha"

 

Also, Wikipedia is more accurate and reliable than the Encylopedia Brittanica. Just try and write "anything you want" and see if your falsehood remains after 24 hours.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Spartacus Rex

[scriptfactory 620]

You mean like how DayZ is still being "designed"

 

That is my point. In a typical alpha the game design concept should have already been finished. All features should have been implemented with at least placeholder functionality. Otherwise there is little point in doing black-box testing since this kind of system would always be in a flux... What is the point of testing something with no point of reference as to its correct functionality? -_-

DayZ is not a typical alpha in the least. It is an Early Access alpha where significant structural changes are being done at the same time as new features are being added. This is why there are so many fucking bugs all of the time. If you build a house on a shaky foundation you end up with a shaky house! :D

Edited September 6, 2014 by scriptfactory

[Doomlord52 62]

ALPHA = Add stuff  <_<

It is important to distinguish between 'stuff' and system features. A new barrel (or AK skin, or jacket #342) is not a feature, it is a new art asset. Art passes are for betas. Vehicles (and the associated mechanics) are a new feature, these get added during alpha.

[hells high 676]

My suggestion to you would be to learn a skill, gather a team, and build a mod. Not like a retexture, like a complete mod, with redesigned systems, scratch done art assets, etc etc. That is literally the only way you can start to comprehend the complexity of development. Its not a wall of lego bricks, where everything just fits on top of one another until you have the full thing.

 

Edit

 

So reading on in the thread I have learned that you do, indeed have a skill and presumably experience. This is good. However I still don't fully agree. Every once in a while when I create an asset it is needed quickly and thus finishing stages like texturing often require placeholders. Colour the metal grey and the wood brown, poof placeholder. Can be built and tested and whatever. Now, maybe I need to create a new asset. Knock that one out. Now I don't, so what do I do? Go back and do the first texture. Fire that off, inserted into the next build and boom, the changelog reads:

 

-retextured *model*

 

As I'm assuming you know various people have various jobs and are assigned to different things, but it can also be quite fluid especially when you have many employees. You can't have 20 programmers all writing the same system, sometimes extra developers set to work on, say vehicles, instead of the new rendering system. Prototyping vehicles clearly fits into the alpha stage, as its definitely not a feature complete. Like you said, ARMA2 already has frameworks for vehicles. What ARMA2 doesn't have is the expanded functionality of those vehicles.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Hells High

[gibonez 3633]

Development isn't slow although having to fix bugs on stable I would imagine slows development substantially.

[scriptfactory 620]

Its not a wall of lego bricks, where everything just fits on top of one another until you have the full thing.

This is pretty much what development in a production environment is like. Before you write your first line of code you should know how you want the wall to look and its dimensions. You know basically what materials you need to build the wall as well as an estimate of the number of bricks that will be needed to complete it. As you finish setting each brick you make sure to add safeguards so the bricks stay in the correct positions and aren't getting bounced out of place. If your safeguards fail you need to figure out WHY and adjust the bricks so they fit the original plan. By the time you are ready to let other people look and and jump on your wall you are fairly sure that it they won't break it by leaning against it. There will definitely be problems with the wall, since not every situation can be tested for by the wall builders ,but zombies won't be able to walk through it.

[RAM-bo4250 213]

 

 

 

I will likely do this when the new renderer comes out. I spent the last ~2 years doing some small game-dev work, mostly related to final render path, so I've got a few useful tools I can put to use. For example, RenderDoc is a great tool for tearing into the draw calls and buffer passes used to create a frame. Hopefully, the new DX10/11 engine is better than ARMA3's, which uses about 7 depth passes, spaced between 4 color passes (why would you do this?). SImply combining the depth passes into one, after an initial color pass, and then using that depth-pass info in a second color pass (for things like SSAO) would cut down on draw time by a massive amount (it would likely double or tripple FPS in gpu-bound situations).

 

 

 

This my friend is what we call stepping on your johnson in my profession.

 

This statement is so arrogant and insulting. To voice a few measly professional words after doing what you say you did. Spending the last couple of years doing some small game-dev work. You are just gonna show them how to do it right ain't yer? I've heard enough right here.

 

arrogant

 

[ar-uh-guh nt] 

1.

making claims or pretensions to superior importance or rights;overbearingly assuming; insolently proud:

an arrogant public official.

2.

characterized by or proceeding from arrogance, or a sense of superiority, self-importance, or entitlement:

arrogant claims.

Edited September 6, 2014 by RAM-bo4250

[hells high 676]

As you finish setting each brick you make sure to add safeguards so the bricks stay in the correct positions and aren't getting bounced out of place. If your safeguards fail you need to figure out WHY and adjust the bricks so they fit the original plan.

 

Oh no another wall builder laid a brick and is conflicting with a brick underneath yours, causing your brick to become unstable. Now you need to fix the interference with your block.

 

I should have been more clear, I meant that it wasn't as straightforward and steady as piling bricks on top of one another, there are hiccups that cause delays, disruptions, and sometimes changes to the building of the wall. You are correct. It was an analogy for complexity that I used in another thread but maybe it doesn't quite apply as well here.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Hells High

[Grimey Rick 3417]

Why is everyone so passionate about DayZ? It's a game. It'll either be really good or really bad. Let's all wait and see.

On the other end of the spectrum, why is everyone so passionate about $30? It's half a tank of fuel in your average vehicle. If you're that concerned about the money, you probably shouldn't have spent it on a video game. That being said, you threw your money at a developer, for better or for worse. No one gives a rat's ass what you think about game development.

We're not shareholders in this. Stop acting like you think we are.

[Doomlord52 62]

My suggestion to you would be to learn a skill, gather a team, and build a mod. Not like a retexture, like a complete mod, with redesigned systems, scratch done art assets, etc etc. That is literally the only way you can start to comprehend the complexity of development. Its not a wall of lego bricks, where everything just fits on top of one another until you have the full thing.

 

Edit

 

So reading on in the thread I have learned that you do, indeed have a skill and presumably experience. This is good. However I still don't fully agree. Every once in a while when I create an asset it is needed quickly and thus finishing stages like texturing often require placeholders. Colour the metal grey and the wood brown, poof placeholder. Can be built and tested and whatever. Now, maybe I need to create a new asset. Knock that one out. Now I don't, so what do I do? Go back and do the first texture. Fire that off, inserted into the next build and boom, the changelog reads:

 

-retextured *model*

 

As I'm assuming you know various people have various jobs and are assigned to different things, but it can also be quite fluid especially when you have many employees. You can't have 20 programmers all writing the same system, sometimes extra developers set to work on, say vehicles, instead of the new rendering system. Prototyping vehicles clearly fits into the alpha stage, as its definitely not a feature complete. Like you said, ARMA2 already has frameworks for vehicles. What ARMA2 doesn't have is the expanded functionality of those vehicles.

2 years professional work, 7 years doing 'mod' work. It's not top-tier "I have my own company and make $200,000 a year" stuff, but I've done enough to know what its like to develop systems, create assets, etc. And also, it is a lot like making a wall of lego bricks, if you're doing it right. Code should be modular, assets should be pretty much interchangable (rigging, scale, etc.). When I do work in CryEngine, I can literally exchange one building (for example) for another (with colliders, lighting, textures, impact sounds, etc.) simply by replacing the mesh WHILE the editor is running. Since the mesh contains the material assignments, it'll pull them from the material/texture library. The materials are pre-set to play the correct impact sounds, lighting will update, and colliders will be set (in CE via materials).

 

You're right about the model re-texture, though. But in this case, it's not from place-holder to final. It's from a texture that looks good to another texture. There's no need - it's not polish or anything, it's just a re-do. The same can be said about the new 55-gallon barrel - why is it needed? The current one is fine. Instead, car parts could be modeled/textured/scripted and added to the spawn system. Right now they would have no purpose, but it would show that vehicles are coming soon, and it would show that the team as a whole is actually focusing on that.

 

Development isn't slow although having to fix bugs on stable I would imagine slows development substantially.

 

I would (as would others) that development has been very slow. The game now is still very, very similar to the one launched back in december, and it's still not even close to what the mod offers, even disregarding the whole vehicles thing.

 

 

 

This my friend is what we call stepping on your johnson in my profession.

 

This statement is so arrogant and insulting. To voice a few measly professional words after doing what you say you did. Spending the last couple of years doing some small game-dev work. You are just gonna show them how to do it right ain't yer? I've heard enough right here.

 

This is what you're supposed to do in a community alpha, and what (as a developer) you want the knowledgable people in the community to do. For example, in Company of Heroes 2, a friend and myself found a rather serious exploit regarding unit veterancy. Instead of just bug reporting it, we wrote a large post covering how it happens, what it affects, and (from what we could tell) exactly why the bug was occuring from a script perspective (in that case, veterancy was being assigned to the wrong entity). We also found another bug regarding the reward of exp from unit kills, where it was simply going to the last unit to do damage, rather than the actual 'killer'. As a result, troop losses to cold (a feature in CoH2) were being attributed to enemy action. Again, we bug reported it in detail, and showed exactly why it was happening. In both cases, the bugs were incredibly obscure, and were really only a rumor up to that point - it was obvious that the developers had no idea they even existed.

 

The developers thanked us, and both bugs were quickly fixed since they didn't need to do any serious investigation.

 

So yes, that's exactly what I'm going to do. I'll look into their render path, see what I can see, and report what I find. Maybe they already know everything there possibly is to know - in that case, I got to do something I enjoy doing: nobody loses anything. But maybe I (or someone else) finds something that slipped by the developers, and the findings actually end up helping the game become better. Is that so bad? No - it's not: everyone wants a better game.

Edited September 6, 2014 by Doomlord52

[trtk 81]

The fact is that this game is not going anywhere. It's been nine months since release. Promised features like vehicles are still not in, we're only just now getting the easily-exploitable 'centralized item hive' that they raved about as one of the main reasons for a standalone game, cheating is rampant, the game is less optimized than ever, gameplay is still 'get your weapon of choice within 2 hours of looking and some ammo, now you're done forever' with no endgame interests at all, just a pointless deathmatch for no gain. There are bugs upon bugs, and new ones every patch. Rather than implement arma 2 or arma 3 guns and vehicles as the players asked at release, giving a huge and instant variety of content at all levels, they chose to work on low-quality remakes of them for no reason whatsoever. These developer resources could have been spent on fixing the enormous mountain of game-destroying problems and bugs.

 

Zombies are poorly implemented crap-piles worse than they were in the mod, every new gun is some clone of a previous one with near-identical ballistic properties rather than being some unique niche-filling weapon, there are basic amateur idiot mistakes like 9mm doing 900 damage while .45 does almost 5000... the game is a joke, and only the most naive among us still believe they have any interest in making is better. They already have everyone's money, and that's all they intended to get. It's much easier these days to make a cheap scammy cash-grab game and hype it than to make a good game that will satisfy your customers. Worse, just be calling the game 'alpha' for years and years you can have people defend it for you, when even on 'release' it will still have less features and polish than a real game's pre-alpha stage.

 

Only the people who play this game <1hr or less per week argue this, because they don't really care what happens to the game and just want to get a 'good feeling' from defending the developers and pretending they're morally superior. The absolute fact is that at this rate, we will never get a full-featured and polished game - it will go on like this, at a snail's pace of 'development' just to keep the poor saps who bought it complacent, then they will quietly abandon it with some excuses about new projects or financial limitations.

Edited September 6, 2014 by trtk