Testing or Placeholders?

[jukaga 271]

So it's pretty accepted by most that we are 'testing' the DayZ alpha. Fair enough. I was just thinking about the zombies, and how their current state and numbers can be described as a 'placeholder' in my opinion. We keep getting told that they are no where near their final state, again, fair enough. What I mean by placeholder is that they are in the game to patch over a huge gaping hole in gameplay; if they weren't in game, even in the pitiful numbers they are there would literally be nothing to do at all other than mindless pvp.

 

Anyways to avoid getting too long winded what I'm saying is that we aren't really testing anything when it comes to the zombies yet, they are just sorta there. So my question is why not add placeholder vehicles to the game? The mod had a system that more or less worked. I assume the eventual system we're going to get will be somewhat different than the mod but I bet the player base would appreciate having another placeholder feature to keep us busy and entertained.

 

Just some random thoughts.

[stinkenheim 249]

We are testing out parts of their programming like the path finding and awareness which will then be used in the new generation of zombies when they are implimented. It's like the engine updates, it'll be done in bits rather than a huge overhaul in one go

As for vehicles, they couldn't be implemented until persistence was out in otherwise every four hours you'd lose your vehicle.

Edited October 29, 2014 by stinkenheim

[svisketyggeren 662]

............even in the pitiful numbers they are there would literally be nothing to do at all other than mindless pvp.

Mindless pvp?

 

If anything is mindless, its killing zombies...not players. Not getting killed by players actually takes skills.

 

If it wasnt for other players I wouldnt even need a gun...a shovel will do the job quite nicely, and I really hope that changes in the future!

Edited October 29, 2014 by svisketyggeren

[Steak and Potatoes 13480]

In my mind what it ultimately comes down to is you are testing they're creation not them testing yours.  Rushing to satisfy a quick fix will only create more troubles and setbacks down the road.  Placement of ingame items according to a schedule keeps everyone working in the project on point and ready to resolve issues that arise.  Tortoise vs the hare is usually the best route with RV.

 

Steak. 

[Death By Crowbar 1213]

Anyone using an alpha anything is testing it by definition. DayZ is a zombie survival game, not a survival vehicle game. Thus it makes sense to have zombies in some incarnation present and beginning to refine them little by little (navmesh collision update, added variety such as hoppers, respawn changes, etc). As I understand or imagine it must be - for vehicles there's things that are more important or that must come first, such as persistence, engine updates, etc. I'm as excited to fly around on a bicycle as much as the next guy, but it's going to be ready when it's ready. Back in May and also from a roadmap discussed by Dean at Rezzed I thought I heard/saw vehicles slated for Q3, but I've not been keeping up and don't know if that's still on track of behind. My guess is that it's slipped. I always interpret those plans as rough and subject to change depending on a lot of factors.

[IkaikaKekai 1957]

Concerning Vehicles:  If they were to import Arma2 vehicles that would just be lazy and take away work from the real system.  They'ed also be completely scraped once the new system comes into place.  That'd be the Arma 2 Fuel, Parts, Models and behavior that'd just be tossed out after being ported over.  With zombies, they're not just using the old models and AI from DayZ mod, they have new models and skeletons in place.  The AI and pathfinding can be swapped out with the working versions.

I'd also have to say persistence would be an issue as well.  It'd take hours if not days of scavenging in the mod to get a vehicle up and running.  The same people that demand that they add in the old vehicles will bitch to high heaven when the Skoda they just spent 3 hours hunting down parts and refueling resets on the restart that happens 5 mins after they get it running.

[Grundlesmuggler 41]

They are a little bit of both.  You have to be understanding to the dev team, they are creating an expansive world from scratch.  We are testing the placeholder zombies for them while they are trying to also figure out how many guns/clothes are gonna be in the game.  What types of buildings should be added.  What color everything should be....the list goes on.  Just throwing in vehicles for the heck of it could create more problems than it would solve and lets be honest, people are going to play with or without vehicles.  The only thing they would be good for right now is travel time being cut down.  With persistence not working properly, the map not really being populated the way it should be, and the limitations on the game state in Alpha they probably think that putting in vehicles would solve the forrest gumpZ issue, but create several new issues/bugs/crashes who knows.

 

That being said I wish they would dedicate people towards making sure a bicycle would not hurt development and put that in for us. 

[yazar8 584]

Actually let's say they implement cars, this game will eventually get harder one day and when that happens restrictions to the vehicles will come aswell, players will start complaining because they are used to find more vehicles, the community will fireback and the apocalypse at DayZ will be real.

[ChainReactor 922]

That being said I wish they would dedicate people towards making sure a bicycle would not hurt development and put that in for us. 

 

 

To be fair, they did and an actual bicycle would only be a cosmetic change since they gave us like 30 kph sprinting speed with no fatigue.

[Grundlesmuggler 41]

To be fair, they did and an actual bicycle would only be a cosmetic change since they gave us like 30 kph sprinting speed with no fatigue.

Which is being fixed in .50 with show degradation and increased starving/dehydration.  Which is more realistic than reducing run speed and keeping the normal food/drink rates.  So a bike would still go a long way in bringing people back to the game. 

[IkaikaKekai 1957]

To be fair, they did and an actual bicycle would only be a cosmetic change since they gave us like 30 kph sprinting speed with no fatigue.

When they add vehicles that will more than likely go away.

[jukaga 271]

In the mod you could haul ass on the mountain bike, it felt like at least 60kmh cross country at top speed.

[NinjaTurkey 255]

So it's pretty "accepted by most" that we are 'testing' the DayZ alpha. Fair enough. I was just thinking about the zombies, and how their current state and numbers can be described as a 'placeholder' in my opinion. We keep getting told that they are no where near their final state, again, fair enough. What I mean by placeholder is that they are in the game to patch over a huge gaping hole in gameplay; if they weren't in game, even in the pitiful numbers they are there would literally be nothing to do at all other than mindless pvp.

 

Anyways to avoid getting too long winded what I'm saying is that we aren't really testing anything when it comes to the zombies yet, they are just sorta there. So my question is why not add placeholder vehicles to the game? The mod had a system that more or less worked. I assume the eventual system we're going to get will be somewhat different than the mod but I bet the player base would appreciate having another placeholder feature to keep us busy and entertained.

 

Just some random thoughts.

 

Love the part where you say accepted by most. Most people dont understand the term alpha and get annoyed when you try to explain. Its quite frustrating to deal with it to be honest.

 

Anyway as for your point, i can kinda see where your coming from. If zombies are placeholder why not add vehicles. Honest answer, iv no idea. I mean it doesnt seem like it would cause problems but you never know. 

[Judopunch 523]

Actually people have a grandiouse idea of what we are actually 'testing'.

 

What we are actually testing is if their new code breaks under load. If the server can maintain FPS in the real world. And a whole slue of other things that you will never see.

 

We arn't 'testing' zombies or pathfinder, so much as allowing the developers to test their programming in a more real-world scenario, something usually reserved for betas.

 

We do provide a lot of player feed back, good or bad, but I cant help but think how tainted it must be because so many of the systems that the game will revolve on; such as zombies survival and loot respawn, are only weak placeholders and serving to increase the general signal to noise ratio.