DayZ Development progress makes no sense

[Avant-Garde 229]

Are you fucking kidding?  Every item in this game needs to be tested to see if they are working properly.  I could see it now.  "I put all my items in this coat and backpack and they all fucking disappeared!!?!?!  Your game sucks, fuck this shit I want my money back rabble rabble rabble."

I'm not fucking kidding you, ok, lets test the great balaklava and russian helmets for they must have gamebraking bugs right. Maybe the firefighter uniform too, and lets not forget about that new rifle, we already got rifles in game but ok, lets test this new one too and then give b0lonce feedbacks to B.I. while the game is in ALPHA.

 

I'm talking about game mechanics. Clothes are a game mechanic that works and are alredy in game, why we need variations of said clothes in alpha? Are you sure we need to test every fucking hat? Same with guns. Unless its some sort of diferent weapon that has diferent mechanics, like non-lethal shit, or craftable clothes.

Edited September 7, 2014 by Avant-Garde

[chodeofwar 145]

@OP

 

Anyone that takes the time, to write this much about any one topic must obviously care about it and have some feelings towards it.

 

"INDIFFERENCE IS WORSE THAN HATE"

 

So for all you haters out there; we know you love the SA and play it all the time, you just like to vent on the forums before going back for another testing session.

 

Anyone that really didn't like the game and didn't want to play it until it was finished would not waste their time posting on the forums.

 

And just to reinforce this moment of clarity; 

 

"INDIFFERENCE IS WORSE THAN HATE"

[Chaingunfighter 917]

All I can see is that you're unhappy that the development team isn't devoting 100% of their time creating large features, because adding 55 gallon water drums and retexturing models is something that, apparently must come in the beta, while the entire alpha should be spent only getting the very base of features and not adding a single thing more.

 

Do you not understand how development simply cannot work exactly like that in an early-access game? If everything was left bare bones and there were extremely long periods between updates, you lose players very quickly. Is the Rossi R92 or 55 gallon drum or skateboard helmet really going to make a difference? Probably not.

 

But if everyone was still running around with Mosin-Nagants or M4A1s with TTsKO gear, FNX-45s, and motorbike/ballistic helmets, I don't think the game would be too much fun to play. Guns like the CR527, AKM, AK101, and whatnot, are all essentially the same as the Mosin/M4A1 (being bolt-action & 30-round select fire rifles), just with different values. It just wouldn't be fun without the new little things like those.

That wouldn't be important if the development was being done closed until release, they'd have a couple of the weapons shown off and then at one point mid-development they'd add most of the games weapons. You can't keep it interesting if you wait til one point to do that.

 

That, and it's more efficient to do that than just have everyone work on large projects at once. Making a hat doesn't take as long as making an entire car, and you really only need a couple of people to implement the hat, whereas you have to get an entire team of artists, modelers, scripters/coders, animators, and sound-designers just to get one vehicle in the game, and you can't have them all work on it at once, and it still takes a lot longer. That's why it isn't working, as a subjective, "general" statement on Wikipedia says.

[trtk 81]

LOL all I can say atm is..

 

"I GOT MY 30$ WORTH of this game EASY" and am happy to still play as progress is made =)

 

Good for you. You don't speak for anyone else.

[tuthmes 49]

Good for you. You don't speak for anyone else.

If Thirty dollars means that much to you... /shrug

 You prolly should not even play..

 

Did Mommy give it to you? Daddy?

[trtk 81]

If Thirty dollars means that much to you... /shrug

 You prolly should not even play..

 

Did Mommy give it to you? Daddy?

 

If being scammed out of any amount of money, large or small, doesn't bother you, you probably shouldn't be accusing others of not knowing its value.

[Avant-Garde 229]

All I can see is that you're unhappy that the development team isn't devoting 100% of their time creating large features, because adding 55 gallon water drums and retexturing models is something that, apparently must come in the beta, while the entire alpha should be spent only getting the very base of features and not adding a single thing more.

 

Do you not understand how development simply cannot work exactly like that in an early-access game? If everything was left bare bones and there were extremely long periods between updates, you lose players very quickly. Is the Rossi R92 or 55 gallon drum or skateboard helmet really going to make a difference? Probably not.

 

But if everyone was still running around with Mosin-Nagants or M4A1s with TTsKO gear, FNX-45s, and motorbike/ballistic helmets, I don't think the game would be too much fun to play. Guns like the CR527, AKM, AK101, and whatnot, are all essentially the same as the Mosin/M4A1 (being bolt-action & 30-round select fire rifles), just with different values. It just wouldn't be fun without the new little things like those.

That wouldn't be important if the development was being done closed until release, they'd have a couple of the weapons shown off and then at one point mid-development they'd add most of the games weapons. You can't keep it interesting if you wait til one point to do that.

 

That, and it's more efficient to do that than just have everyone work on large projects at once. Making a hat doesn't take as long as making an entire car, and you really only need a couple of people to implement the hat, whereas you have to get an entire team of artists, modelers, scripters/coders, animators, and sound-designers just to get one vehicle in the game, and you can't have them all work on it at once, and it still takes a lot longer. That's why it isn't working, as a subjective, "general" statement on Wikipedia says.

I understand your point and agree to some extent, but aren't alphas expected to be boring? I belive that the fun can aways be found in the game mechanics aswell, like farming and shit.

Edited September 7, 2014 by Avant-Garde

[Chaingunfighter 917]

I understand your point and agree to some extent, but aren't alphas expected to be boring? I belive that the fun can aways be found in the game mechanics aswell, like farming and shit. Plus, such mechanics also require the work of the artists and animators

Well, yes, they can be boring at times, but I think the problem with releasing an alpha and taking the usual development route is that it's a lot more risky (hell, it's risky releasing an early access game in general, but that's besides the point). A lot of times with games like that it's a hit-or-miss type of thing, if a game is released early and found to be boring, typically people will not come back to it, whereas games that are updated regularly and add new stuff tend to at least keep people interested longer.

Yes, it's usually at the cost of slower overall development, but that isn't always the case, and a lot of times people become disinterested or way too hyped for games that take a while to release anyway. I can't say for sure, but completely rebuilding a game with a whole load of new content and improvements while at the same time trying to keep the core feel actually takes a lot longer than developing a brand new game. Black Mesa: Source, for example, took a very long time to finish, and they did quite a good job with it. That was just an HD remake, but the thing is, they were forced to stay within the same boundaries of the original game so that it didn't play much differently while at the same time feeling new, and that's the hard part about re-doing games or creating sequels.

 

Now, I will admit, that DayZ development seems (can't say for sure because we've never had an actual inside look at it) to be a bit unusual, because oftentimes the developers want to have a half-decent (although buggy) version that they're happy with releasing, rather than just releasing what they have when it's ready in the most basic form. Vehicles are taking a while because they want to put a good amount of time into them, and they're not as far off as people think (only a few more big updates presumably).

 

Is it at all perfect? No. The game has it's flaws and I certainly wouldn't run the company exactly the same were I in charge (thank goodness I'm not), but so far I'm liking what I'm seeing. Yes, the waiting and anticipation for the HUGE things really does suck, but seeing how dedicated the devs are to their game, I'm not worried that 1.0 won't be quite the experience

[q.S Sachiel 470]

If being scammed out of any amount of money, large or small, doesn't bother you, you probably shouldn't be accusing others of not knowing its value.

It's not really a scam until you've lost something.

Since the haters say that nothing has changed since 0.001 then you never really had anything to start with did you?

Doors within doors, here we go!

[trtk 81]

It's not really a scam until you've lost something.

Since the haters say that nothing has changed since 0.001 then you never really had anything to start with did you?

Doors within doors, here we go!

 

noun

informal

 

1. 1.

   a dishonest scheme; a fraud.

   "an insurance scam"

   synonyms: fraud, swindle, fraudulent scheme, racket, trick; More

    

    

    

verb

 

1. 1.

   swindle.

   "a guy that scams the elderly out of their savings"

   synonyms: swindle, cheat, deceive, trick, dupe, hoodwink, double-cross, gull;More

[Doomlord52 62]

All I can see is that you're unhappy that the development team isn't devoting 100% of their time creating large features, because adding 55 gallon water drums and retexturing models is something that, apparently must come in the beta, while the entire alpha should be spent only getting the very base of features and not adding a single thing more.

 

Do you not understand how development simply cannot work exactly like that in an early-access game? If everything was left bare bones and there were extremely long periods between updates, you lose players very quickly. Is the Rossi R92 or 55 gallon drum or skateboard helmet really going to make a difference? Probably not.

 

But if everyone was still running around with Mosin-Nagants or M4A1s with TTsKO gear, FNX-45s, and motorbike/ballistic helmets, I don't think the game would be too much fun to play. Guns like the CR527, AKM, AK101, and whatnot, are all essentially the same as the Mosin/M4A1 (being bolt-action & 30-round select fire rifles), just with different values. It just wouldn't be fun without the new little things like those.

That wouldn't be important if the development was being done closed until release, they'd have a couple of the weapons shown off and then at one point mid-development they'd add most of the games weapons. You can't keep it interesting if you wait til one point to do that.

 

That, and it's more efficient to do that than just have everyone work on large projects at once. Making a hat doesn't take as long as making an entire car, and you really only need a couple of people to implement the hat, whereas you have to get an entire team of artists, modelers, scripters/coders, animators, and sound-designers just to get one vehicle in the game, and you can't have them all work on it at once, and it still takes a lot longer. That's why it isn't working, as a subjective, "general" statement on Wikipedia says.

 

That's the problem. DayZ is an 'early access' psedu-alpha game. It's not really an alpha game, and not a single player is really involved in any way with the alpha. So why is it called an alpha, and why do all the devs continue to call it as such?

 

The last alpha I was involved with (where I wasn't part of the dev team) was for Company of Heroes 2, and that alpha was a true alpha. Firstly, the first batch of alpha players were only the extremely elite, who had worked with Relic on CoH1, or had a relationship with them. Basically, they were very trusted individuals. By some luck, I was allowed into the alpha a bit after that, and the alpha was... sketchy. The UI was pretty horrible, the game ran extremely poorly (no optimization at all), the game had bugs, placeholder text, etc. even the game window would show something like "Company of Heroes 2 - Build #XYZ". You were literally playing what Relic had to play.

 

Now look at DayZ, especially with their Steam-page info. "DayZ Early Access is your chance to experience DayZ as it evolves through its development process." Well, that's not true, we get 'patches' after they've gone through QA and all sorts of testing, and only once it's a complete feature. This isn't a development process, this is a commercial game being released to the public. "We strongly advice you do not buy and play the game at this stage unless you clearly understand what Early ACcess means and are interested in participating in the ongoing development cycle". Well yes, I do know what 'Alpha' means, and I would really like to participate in the development cycle. However, giving me QA'd stuff and art passes isn't letting me participate in the development cycle. Once we've been given an update/release, it's pretty much set in stone, and we get to play it AFTER it's done the development cycle. Has anyone seen the full feature list of weapons? What about player gear? What about the near-future development goals? No; no one has, because we're not participating in the development cycle. We're not even 'testing' the game, since bugs that have been reported for nine months (soda can sound, etc.) still haven't been fixed.

 

The point is, an alpha isn't supposed to be fun or even that interesting (gameplay wise) - it's supposed to be barely functional. When I first saw the page, and the giant disclaimer, I thought that we'd finally get a truly open alpha. However, obviously, that's not the case.

[q.S Sachiel 470]

 

*word stuff*

 

Cool

First rule of English language skills is that you don't provide a definition of a word with the same word.  You also produced a synonym in 1.1. 

Second, you imply the act was dishonest.  I then drew attention to others' comments that you (general), in essence, did not purchase the full game (and they profess that since nothing has progressed now since development started when very little/nothing was in the game, then you in a sense bought nothing and handed over your cash for nothing).

I'll assume that you purchased the right to use the alpha, and i'll assume that your contract law falls similar to mine.  I'll also assume you have the capacity to create and execute you own decisions.

You provided consideration for the product by 'showing' your money.  They provided consideration by 'showing their product'.  You exchanged currency for a product that was labelled as such.

if i sell you snake oil as snake oil, that's not a scam.  If i sell you snake oil as paint for your house, then that is a dishonest act/scam.  The government couldn't care what price you paid, or what you're buying for the most part, as long as the description fits the product to varying degrees.  Software purchases are even more debatable as the product can change about it's lifetime, (all this ignoring the fact that you don't actually even 'own' the software).  if i wanted to (and you agreed) i could sell you a single letter of code for whatever price you were willing to part with.

 

I would quote the famous proverb of "the Emperors new clothes" but this analogy may be too difficult for you to see the nuances of application to this thread.

 

But I get the feeling that with your blanket response and poor attempt at rebuttal/conversation - ripping words from a dictionary (or thesaurus as the case may be) - that I'm just exercising my fingers for my own benefit.

selling tear catchers 10$ a pop! step right up step right up.

Edited September 7, 2014 by q.S Sachiel

[trtk 81]

google's definition, not mine, dude

 

are you ok

[q.S Sachiel 470]

yeah little drunk.

I'm about to ride out on my bleached white horse too. ;)

[TheFarm 158]

Well, that's not true, we get 'patches' after they've gone through QA and all sorts of testing, and only once it's a complete feature.

Could you imagine if there were dayz nightly builds like some other early access games have? Look at how populated experimental gets when a new gun is announced. Unless they let players run experimental, or nightly, on their own servers it would be like 200 people playing with new stuff and the rest refreshing their browser to get in.

Also I'm a huge coh fan. Bk mod forever

[Doomlord52 62]

Could you imagine if there were dayz nightly builds like some other early access games have? Look at how populated experimental gets when a new gun is announced. Unless they let players run experimental, or nightly, on their own servers it would be like 200 people playing with new stuff and the rest refreshing their browser to get in.

Also I'm a huge coh fan. Bk mod forever

If it was actually an alpha, the ONLY option available would be nightly.

 

 

Also Bk is great.

[Chaingunfighter 917]

That's the problem. DayZ is an 'early access' psedu-alpha game. It's not really an alpha game, and not a single player is really involved in any way with the alpha. So why is it called an alpha, and why do all the devs continue to call it as such?

 

The last alpha I was involved with (where I wasn't part of the dev team) was for Company of Heroes 2, and that alpha was a true alpha. Firstly, the first batch of alpha players were only the extremely elite, who had worked with Relic on CoH1, or had a relationship with them. Basically, they were very trusted individuals. By some luck, I was allowed into the alpha a bit after that, and the alpha was... sketchy. The UI was pretty horrible, the game ran extremely poorly (no optimization at all), the game had bugs, placeholder text, etc. even the game window would show something like "Company of Heroes 2 - Build #XYZ". You were literally playing what Relic had to play.

 

Now look at DayZ, especially with their Steam-page info. "DayZ Early Access is your chance to experience DayZ as it evolves through its development process." Well, that's not true, we get 'patches' after they've gone through QA and all sorts of testing, and only once it's a complete feature. This isn't a development process, this is a commercial game being released to the public. "We strongly advice you do not buy and play the game at this stage unless you clearly understand what Early ACcess means and are interested in participating in the ongoing development cycle". Well yes, I do know what 'Alpha' means, and I would really like to participate in the development cycle. However, giving me QA'd stuff and art passes isn't letting me participate in the development cycle. Once we've been given an update/release, it's pretty much set in stone, and we get to play it AFTER it's done the development cycle. Has anyone seen the full feature list of weapons? What about player gear? What about the near-future development goals? No; no one has, because we're not participating in the development cycle. We're not even 'testing' the game, since bugs that have been reported for nine months (soda can sound, etc.) still haven't been fixed.

 

The point is, an alpha isn't supposed to be fun or even that interesting (gameplay wise) - it's supposed to be barely functional. When I first saw the page, and the giant disclaimer, I thought that we'd finally get a truly open alpha. However, obviously, that's not the case.

 

If it's not going to be fun - you don't release it. I don't know what you were expecting. If they really wanted to keep a player base, why would they release something that you couldn't enjoy?

 

We don't have a god-given right to control development just because we bought a game that's in a state that the developers call "pre-release". To say that the community and playerbase has had no say in development is simply false, but to say that we need to have direct control and that the developers are obligated to listen to us is wrong. Patches, updates, whatever you want to call them, are newer versions of the game. They feature content that has not yet been added to the regular game. That's the development process. There are very few early access games that truly add everything in the most basic form when it's implemented for developer testing, most of the time you have a semi-refined product added.

The developers have taken plenty of suggestions from the community, but again, they don't have to do everything the (supposed) "majority" wants, and they'll rarely conform to the wants of a specific person, i.e., you. Sure, when the devs decide to add a Rossi R92, you never actually got a hand in whether it should be added, but after it gets added, if people discover that it shoots way too inaccurately for a gun of that type, they'll fix it. The fact that most of the content is decided on doesn't mean you don't get to help, but you can't act like you deserve a huge saying in it.

The fact that bugs have been persistent isn't just a black-and-white issue either, many of them are low priority and some of them are more complicated than you'd think.

 

You can point out bugs that haven't been fixed, but there are many times more bugs that HAVE been fixed.

 

 

"The point is, an alpha isn't supposed to be fun or even that interesting (gameplay wise) - it's supposed to be barely functional. When I first saw the page, and the giant disclaimer, I thought that we'd finally get a truly open alpha. However, obviously, that's not the case."

That's never been set in stone, anywhere, ever. It's a general rule of development that goes through in most alpha-phase stages of products. Early-access alpha is a relatively new concept and developers are experimenting with new ways of delivering said product. One of which is delivering an interesting experience to the users, and that partially stems from the fact that releasing a game that has most of the large stuff, but almost no detail, typically dissuades users and gives the product a lower chance at making sales later on in development, whereas giving people a bunch of new stuff to look forward to actually draws in more and keeps them playing. I mean, the amount of money made has proven that it's worked for at least some people.

 

So yes, you are playing a truly open alpha, just not the one you expected. I, for one, am satisfied, and it seems quite a few others are with that. Your complaints are meaningless.

Edited September 7, 2014 by Chaingunfighter

[boneboys 7988]

Good for you. You don't speak for anyone else.

Nor do you, just remember that.

[trtk 81]

Nor do you, just remember that.

 

Thanks for this completely worthless comment.

[GhostDivision (DayZ) 22]

@Doomlord, I think people would do well to read your insightful posts. I agree with you 100% regarding the fact that we're not really testing anything. The dev team is simply giving us "new toys" to play with.

Great and insightful posts, keep them coming buddy.

[RAM-bo4250 213]

To alleviate this problem entirely, where part of the community thinks that progress is too slow/random/illogical/etc. you could always make the internal change log (i.e. the day-to-day stuff) public (except for security/anti-cheat). That way people like me would know that "hey, the code for vehicle wheel movement is finally in" or "that missing collider has been fixed".

Next, you'll be asking for BI to make their books available so that we can be sure where every penny is going so those complaining about being ripped off will know that hey, "I'm not being ripped off." This request is a little over the top. A weekly blog with team leaders telling of their work and where they are heading is not enough for you? They are leaning over backwards to allay people's fears and expectations.

 

Doomlord, one of these days you are going to have to look yourself in the mirror and say, I am being impatient.

 

Kicking the mule isn't going to make it move.

[RAM-bo4250 213]

Good for you. You don't speak for anyone else.

No but he speaks for a way lot of us.

[WhiteZero 72]

To all this "we're not truly testers" jazz: Yeah, maybe we're not. At least not the front-line testers. You don't release a totally un QA'ed update to over 2.5 million people. If they did, we'd have even more ridiculous "the game is broken" complains in the community. I'm glad they have internal QA to make sure we still have something playable on the Exp/Stable branch. Do you really want to be playing with an unfinished replacement renderer right now? Something that very few players could give the proper technical feedback on to the developers. Not me.

 

Simply reporting issues on the Feedback tracker is "participating in the development cycle," as bug-chasing is part of development, plus all the metrics gathered. They never told you you'd be participating in the design process. However, I've seen several developers respond to suggestions with a "thats a great idea" attitude. At the end of the day, the DayZ team are the actual professional developers and designers, so I'm glad that not every bit of repugnant feedback that comes from the community is actually considered. I think the actual constructive feedback is considered, however.

 

In the Week of August 25th Status Report, Hicks did say that they are planning to be more transparent about the development process with us, which is great. Aside from the occasional Twitter or Reddit post I don't think we get quite enough insight into what they're doing behind the scenes, though the weekly Status Report is a great step forward with that.

[stielhandgranate 480]

This analogy is ridiculous. Can you and Doomlord tell me how much time it should take for BI to finish each and every phase?

 

Not the argument. You assume this is the argument of OP. The Argument is the "Open Alpha" and how the devs are implementing the elements of the game in a haphazard and erratic fashion. For example, spending over 8 months getting the lid on a compass lid to open and shut and not worrying about working zombies, hit detection, a new engine,hacking player caps, map size ect ect

 

Are you in the dev team? If you are, then I'll stop badgering you. Because then you would be in the know.

 

 

Garbage argument. Are you a career politician? No? Then never criticize any politicians.

 

If you can do better, and get a game, the scope of Dayz, out before BI I'll buy it.

 

 

I'm not claiming to be a video game developer. Just like how people can criticize the actions of a police officer when he throws a flash bang in a babies crib without having prior experience in Law Enforcement or the mass beading by extremists without being an extremist or being raised in the third world.

 

How could a professional bring such BS against a fellow professional. You are not fixing bugs right now.

 

 

BIS employees make an aboveliving wage for their work no matter how many mean comments are made on their forums. I Am not fixing bugs in a video game. I just patrol a compound in my current deployment while being informed I will be extended and be away from my wife and family for a longer time than anticipated. Two different backgrounds. Do I blame them for being worse off? No? Do I blame their lackluster development since I departed my home station as for some reason DayZ is the only game in my steam library that I can play on this fisher price tier internet connection with my friends? Yes.

 

You are complaining how long it's taking.

 

 

No, I am complaining about the lack of development and failure to even import the existing AI from the mod as a place holder until they get their shit together or using a game engine that was never intended to run this type of game and several other faults that I can post later.

 

That to me is just utter nonsense coming from a so called professional.

 

 

It doesn't fit because we don't have the exact times and it's a lot more complicated then an inspection. Sorry.

 

 

Devs fuck up? They still get paid and at worst they have to go to bed knowing someone out there wrote a negative comment on the internet about their short comings. I fuck up? Best case I have administrative action taken against me or I am discharged form the military before my contract. Worst case I go to jail because during the failed inspection because several M16A2s and HEDP grenades are missing and I threw the idea of keeping inventory on the back burner or three untrained personnel die because they failed to head space and time an M2 before attempting to fire it during an ambush and the gun failed to operate because I thought they should learn how to drive an MRAP first.

 

The point is I may not be a video game developer, but I am still capable of comparing their action to that of other game developers and find faults then call them out for it. I am also capable of calling out fellow forum members who spammed the beginning of this thread with child like and pathetic posts like "LOL didn't read, I'm going to assume what your argument is and call you dumb, rocket is good fuck off".

Edited September 7, 2014 by Dale Gribble

[RAM-bo4250 213]

If being scammed out of any amount of money, large or small, doesn't bother you, you probably shouldn't be accusing others of not knowing its value.

This is a perfect example of an utterly ignorant and obviously false statement. And GhostDivision, you signed off on it. Before you lay down such a harsh judgement as "scam" you better have a whole lot of evidence to back it up. This isn't just a criticism. It is impugning the integrity of a major software developer as well as their employees. If it actually led to loss of revenue and could be proved you would be opening yourself up to a libel suit. 

 

And because of this outrageous, contemptuous accusation anything you say now or later will fall on deaf ears. Unless of course you have enough stones to realize your error and come clean. Even if said in anger or frustration it was uncalled for and an apology would be in order. If not....