Lets talk persistence.

[Irish. 4886]

Why in the name of all that is Dean, did they implement persistence?

 

It seems like its rather game breaking right now, with how it eventually forces servers to crash. And its not like it offers us anything in its current state other than one hell of a good way to hoard loot. So I ask, why so soon? Why implement it when its really not even close to working properly? Now I know its Alpha, all that.. but thats my point.. shouldnt they wait, or pull back on persistence until its actually working to some degree, rather than releasing it in mass when it so clearly breaks the game after enough time passes. The devs themselves said servers may become unstable after 6-7 days and will need to be reset, so why do this to us when it could be tested internally and released once its more polished? Why send it out to stable at all right now?

 

Anyhow.. Im sure this will turn into a discussion rather than someone giving me a clear answer that seems logical as to why they would release something like this, after doing a lot of testing and gathering statistics.. why not just work on it more before pushing to stable?

 

Because you know.. this happens a lot now:

 

 

 

[fluxley 2228]

I guess they feel that internal testing wouldn't get the same data that testing across the public hive would. 

[Irish. 4886]

I guess they feel that internal testing wouldn't get the same data that testing across the public hive would. 

 

Oh agreed, and I understand that.. sort of on my point too: why after testing like they did via the exp builds, and knowing its not stable.. push it to stable? 

 

I mean if they need more testing, fine.. but shouldn't that happen in exp builds? 

 

I feel like the ONLY reason they released it was people complaining about timeframes and things being released. Like.. the ONLY reason. 

[klesh 2423]

Sandbag barricading is in, did you bring a shovel?!

[fluxley 2228]

Oh agreed, and I understand that.. sort of on my point too: why after testing like they did via the exp builds, and knowing its not stable.. push it to stable? 

 

I mean if they need more testing, fine.. but shouldn't that happen in exp builds? 

 

I feel like the ONLY reason they released it was people complaining about timeframes and things being released. Like.. the ONLY reason. 

 

Even exp doesn't really compare to the full hive for testing, especially for something like persistence which is all about getting a database to work over thousands of servers.

 

Saying that, Wouldn't surprise if it pressure from the players had some influence on the decision to go ahead with, seeing as the patch was already delayed.

 

Also, and this may be a bit far fetched, but all those extra items spawning in will be giving the servers one hell of a stress test right now, though i'm sure there's better ways they could achieve that.  

[Irish. 4886]

Even exp doesn't really compare to the full hive for testing, especially for something like persistence which is all about getting a database to work over thousands of servers.

 

Saying that, Wouldn't surprise if it pressure from the players had some influence on the decision to go ahead with, seeing as the patch was already delayed.

 

Also, and this may be a bit far fetched, but all those extra items spawning in will be giving the servers one hell of a stress test right now, though i'm sure there's better ways they could achieve that.  

 

My thoughts exactly..  :)

[Zing Freelancer 58]

I was asking myself the same question earlier.

Why do this when the basic game play mechanics are still in shambles?

I guess they have "reasons".

[Irish. 4886]

I was asking myself the same question earlier.

Why do this when the basic game play mechanics are still in shambles?

I guess they have "reasons".

 

Pacification.  B)

[Bororm 1156]

Stable is still alpha, it's still testing.  IMO they should push shit onto stable faster than they are, because they usually try to get things working on experimental for a month before throwing it on stable just to have it break again.  I think the devs already make a huge mistake in not treating stable as a real testing ground, and trying too hard to make things "nice" before putting it on there and I think as a result players have adopted a bad attitude of expecting things to work once on stable.

 

It's a completely different beast.

 

I know it gets thrown around all over to the point of not carrying any weight.  But this is what the alpha is for.  It's not like they didn't do what you're suggesting.  They tested it internally, they tested it on experimental and now it's being tested on stable.

 

 

 

 

I was asking myself the same question earlier.

Why do this when the basic game play mechanics are still in shambles?

I guess they have "reasons".

 

Because they have to do it sooner or later, it's going to break things regardless of when they do it.  Why not do it now, when persistence is such an integral part of the experience.  Barricading and vehicles are reliant on persistence to be meaningful in any fashion.  Loot economy is also heavily affected.  They should have had persistence in even sooner honestly.

 

Alpha is for throwing systems in, later they refine them.  Those basic game play mechanics (I assume you mean stuff like zombies/melee and all those sorts of "little" things) can all be tweaked down the line.  A lot are also heavily influenced by server performance.  What's the point of optimizing systems around server performance just to throw the entire thing heavily out of wack with the introduction of persistence at an even later date?

 

It hurts, but it has to be done.  Get the hard shit over with now, not later.

Edited November 9, 2014 by Bororm

[Zing Freelancer 58]

Because they have to do it sooner or later, it's going to break things regardless of when they do it.  Why not do it now, when persistence is such an integral part of the experience.  Barricading and vehicles are reliant on persistence to be meaningful in any fashion.  Loot economy is also heavily affected.  They should have had persistence in even sooner honestly.

 

Alpha is for throwing systems in, later they refine them.  Those basic game play mechanics (I assume you mean stuff like zombies/melee and all those sorts of "little" things) can all be tweaked down the line.  A lot are also heavily influenced by server performance.  What's the point of optimizing systems around server performance just to throw the entire thing heavily out of wack with the introduction of persistence at an even later date?

 

It hurts, but it has to be done.  Get the hard shit over with now, not later.

Well actually I were talking about everything that is already in the game and is broken in some way or does not have a clear purpose.

 

Medicaments like Vitamins, pain killers, charcoal tablets, cooking stove, radio (which they broke) are all items intended to server some game mechanic. Zombies should have been in the game from the start and they should have been working. Character animation has been a problem from day 1, everybody hates it when your feet are glues to the ground because your character is moving his hands.

Small things such as these makes me feel like they don't really have a clear design document they are working from and just spontaneously picks an idea from the box and makes it a theme for the next six month. How could they go ahead and create a completely new rig and new animations without solving these animation problems in the process?

 

The more of these little things they gather over time, the harder it becomes to fix them later on because of all the systems built around them. I know that as I have programmed enough to code myself into a corner where I had a bunch of bits of code hanging barely together. As a result I had to throw all the code out and begin from scratch, planning every function of the program to fit in the correct class and be as flexible as possible.

I just prey they have a genius, experienced programmer on board who have foreseen these problems, otherwise we will never see dayz come out before h1z1.

Sloppy, just sloppy I say!

Edited November 9, 2014 by Zing Freelancer

[odin_lowe 3686]

Why persistence so soon?

 

I think the main reason is that people keep whining they wanted it. (I remember back in December, the alpha had just been released, and the forums was flooded with "Where are vehicles? Where are the tents?" etc, and the first answer was "Were gonna try and make backpacks persistence first, then add tents, fridges, etc."

 

The good side is that they can get data from this and balance the system.

 

The bad side is the bugs/crashes it provokes.

 

Personally I don't mind at all. They can do whatever they want to make DayZ better.

 

It's sad that we're living in the era we're in, cause I wish we could go back to the age people didn't have access to unfinished games. I love having a chance to see the progression and various stages of development, I always did. But it just slows down development process as they make a playable version of their software too early. The world wasn't prepared for that. Thus the 80% of the community whining about anything and everything.

 

My humble opinion.

[ChainReactor 922]

Medicaments like Vitamins, pain killers, charcoal tablets, cooking stove, radio (which they broke) are all items intended to server some game mechanic

 

 

And until 0.50, duct tape was one of these items, and now look at it. They keep those items ingame though, so i'm sure they have a future use in the pipeline. Also i think they keep useless items ingame to keep it in the loot economy as well. Also, charcoal tablets dont fit here, as they have an actual ingame use already.

 

 

Zombies should have been in the game from the start and they should have been working.

 

That's your first major flaw imo. It would be more enjoyable, sure, but i wouldn't have expected them to be fully working from day one. Of course, the game is advertised as zombie survival sim, but the alpha disclaimer tells you more than often that this is not the game right now.

 

The main issues with players having wrong expectations about zombies are two things in my eyes:

 

1st: They dont get the size of this project in the game. They don't get that working zombies are like one of the biggest task the programmers have to do and thus, take really much time.

2nd: They dont get that the devs changed the plans they had with the SA after the initial release. Redeveloping many parts of the engine ( much of that does influence the zombie development ) was one of the major changes to the roadmap after initial release.

 

Add that to the fact that the majority of players only count it as progress if they see it ingame, and a good portion of the alpha population doesnt even take the effort to keep up with the development and you get the mood that is quite common in this community as of today.

 

 

Character animation has been a problem from day 1, everybody hates it when your feet are glues to the ground because your character is moving his hands.

 

Yeah, and that is one reason why a complete re-write of the animation system within the engine is one of those re-developments i just spoke about. They want to get rid of the limitation to full body animations the RV engine offers to them, so they develop their own animation system. Again, this is low level work, takes much time and testing, and isn't visible ingame until they implement the first animation which uses the new animation system.

 

I once compared it like this: The devs wanna break down a wall but they only have a small hammer. So they take their time and develop a sledgehammer. Once this is finished and they can use it, the progress and the effect will be much bigger. They simply redevelop their tools to achieve what they have in mind for the game.

 

 

Small things such as these

 

Do you get my point? Maybe items aside, but you didnt mention any small thing. You actually mentioned very big things. They only might look small when you look from a player only perspective.

 

 

I know that as I have programmed enough to code myself into a corner where I had a bunch of bits of code hanging barely together. As a result I had to throw all the code out and begin from scratch, planning every function of the program to fit in the correct class and be as flexible as possible.

 

Good, your example is very close to perfect. What they started with was actually the bunch of bits of code hanging barely together, the RV engine from ArmA2. I exaggereted this to match your example of course, but the engine has it's limitations in terms of what they wanted to achieve. Then the Early access had such a huge success and suddendly, they had the resources to get rid of this limitations by redeveloping the engine. So they threw much of the code out and began major parts from scratch, planning every function of the engine to fit in the correct class and be as flexible as possible.

Edited November 9, 2014 by ChainReactor

[Irish. 4886]

Yeah.. but Im not whining.

 

Im questioning things, in an area that devs frequent, in the hopes that one of them reads this and thinks to themselves, "yeah, why are we fucking catering to the community?" 

 

Because I know that is why persistence is in stable. I want them to stop this whole line of communication thing.. its stupid. Just do work, and let us play. Separate the "Church and State" if you know what I mean.. 

 

But Im just pointing things out here, because in all honesty we all have options and we do not HAVE to play on persistence nor do we HAVE to even play DayZ. I am fully aware of the scope of where we are now and where this game is going.. but I am also aware of the fact that if they keep doing what they are doing, this game wont come out in its final state for a LONG TIME. But if they just focus on making the game, and releasing things for testing once they are actually ready.. not do: internal testing, its broke, fix it, do more internal, still broke, push to exp. build for further testing, still broke, push to stable, still broke, add in more items, push to beta, still broke, push to bug fix for the next 3 years because you have so many damned bugs in a game that is so complex that you realize how bad it is now that you have to fix all of those bugs at once rather than not implementing them until they work to a degree that is logical. 

 

I mean here is an example of what an Alpha is.. Im going to blow some minds here because everyone confuses Alpha with FIrst Playable or Early Alpha.. which is what we are in now:

 

"Alpha is the stage when key gameplay functionality is implemented, and assets are partially finished. A game in alpha is feature complete, that is, game is playable and contains all the major features.  These features may be further revised based on testing and feedback. Additional small, new features may be added, similarly planned, but unimplemented features may be dropped. Programmers focus mainly on finishing the codebase, rather than implementing additions. Alpha occurs eight to ten months before code release."

[ChainReactor 922]

"Alpha is the stage when key gameplay functionality is implemented, and assets are partially finished. A game in alpha is feature complete, that is, game is playable and contains all the major features.  These features may be further revised based on testing and feedback. Additional small, new features may be added, similarly planned, but unimplemented features may be dropped. Programmers focus mainly on finishing the codebase, rather than implementing additions. Alpha occurs eight to ten months before code release."

 

Actually, that is the exact definition of a Beta. At least the one i know.

Edited November 9, 2014 by ChainReactor

[Irish. 4886]

Actually, that is the exact definition of a Beta. At least the one i know.

 

That is the point I made.. Everyone thinks that. The real truth is it varies from Dev to Dev, but there is a general guideline that the industry has followed since the beginning, and that is what I detailed above. 

 

In reality, right now, we are in Early Alpha or First playable version. The next step should be Alpha, or Feature Complete, yet they are talking about going to Beta soon.. that is my point. I know what everyone is told and assumes Alpha means, but look it up.. Plenty of literature on it (not wiki or simple internet definitions) that has been written both currently and decades ago, all stating the same thing. 

[ChainReactor 922]

That is the point I made.. Everyone thinks that. The real truth is it varies from Dev to Dev, but there is a general guideline that the industry has followed since the beginning, and that is what I detailed above. 

 

In reality, right now, we are in Early Alpha or First playable version. The next step should be Alpha, or Feature Complete, yet they are talking about going to Beta soon.. that is my point. I know what everyone is told and assumes Alpha means, but look it up.. Plenty of literature on it (not wiki or simple internet definitions) that has been written both currently and decades ago, all stating the same thing. 

 

Yeah i get your point, and i have to admit the entire early-access thing ( not exclusively DayZ ) is kinda breaking with the standart definitions about software development and life cycle ( as most literature says that its inacceptable to release feature incomplete builds to the public and that internal testers have to be picked very carefully to bring the general development forward ). To be honest, you can even tell from DayZ's example why this has been a rule set in stone, as it reveals all the flaws of public development build testing ( casual players simply are no good testers, and DayZ has over 2 millions to much of it ).

 

However, i think we agree that early access isnt really a development- but rather a crowd funding concept. DayZ is one of the first titles to prove if this will work out or not.

 

In the end we should not argue about how accurate the words and stages of development are used. The devs have been quite open about the stage of development. So everyone shall name it as he pleases, we are still where we are at now, nevermind the naming.

Edited November 9, 2014 by ChainReactor

[Irish. 4886]

Spot on.. :)

 

I was just trying to define what I meant with clarity, more than argue, for the record. 

[Zing Freelancer 58]

The main issues with players having wrong expectations about zombies are two things in my eyes:

 

1st: They dont get the size of this project in the game. They don't get that working zombies are like one of the biggest task the programmers have to do and thus, take really much time.

2nd: They dont get that the devs changed the plans they had with the SA after the initial release. Redeveloping many parts of the engine ( much of that does influence the zombie development ) was one of the major changes to the roadmap after initial release.

 

Add that to the fact that the majority of players only count it as progress if they see it ingame, and a good portion of the alpha population doesnt even take the effort to keep up with the development and you get the mood that is quite common in this community as of today.

 

 

Yeah, and that is one reason why a complete re-write of the animation system within the engine is one of those re-developments i just spoke about. They want to get rid of the limitation to full body animations the RV engine offers to them, so they develop their own animation system. Again, this is low level work, takes much time and testing, and isn't visible ingame until they implement the first animation which uses the new animation system.

 

I once compared it like this: The devs wanna break down a wall but they only have a small hammer. So they take their time and develop a sledgehammer. Once this is finished and they can use it, the progress and the effect will be much bigger. They simply redevelop their tools to achieve what they have in mind for the game.

 

 

Good, your example is very close to perfect. What they started with was actually the bunch of bits of code hanging barely together, the RV engine from ArmA2. I exaggereted this to match your example of course, but the engine has it's limitations in terms of what they wanted to achieve. Then the Early access had such a huge success and suddendly, they had the resources to get rid of this limitations by redeveloping the engine. So they threw much of the code out and began major parts from scratch, planning every function of the engine to fit in the correct class and be as flexible as possible.

Well, everything is a bit subjective and depends largely on personal experience. I believe if had DayZ team had more experience they would have seen the problems ahead of time and taken action to solve them first. Had they had a clear vision and goals for DayZ, they would have understood that their current technology is obsolete, enforcing unnecessary limitations and makes it difficult to create a game they want. Thus we would hopefully avoid having to rewrite rendering and animation parts of the engine 2 years after development.

Ah, I get so frustrated thinking about it I want to bang my head on the table.

 

First you design and plan for all the features you want to implement.

Then you look at the technology you have at hand.

Make a choice, do you cut features or create new technology.

 

This is how you should work and what have they done instead?

"Oh we will just take everything from the mod and put it in its own game separate from Arma 2, brush up on anti-cheat protection and release it, will only take something like 3 month".

Later on they tell us that "We had some difficulties and decided to rewrite the whole engine to make a better game".

Even further down the road "We've rewritten the net-code part of the game and added new server architecture, but we completely broke our server performance".

Now we get stuff like "We must rewrite the rendering system bla bla bla".

 

Two words, just two words to describe this... production method: Lack of planning.

 

 

And until 0.50, duct tape was one of these items, and now look at it. They keep those items ingame though, so i'm sure they have a future use in the pipeline. Also i think they keep useless items ingame to keep it in the loot economy as well. Also, charcoal tablets dont fit here, as they have an actual ingame use already.

Junk items are useless, they are garbage, they populate the game, they populate the database and we don't need junk to eat up server performance.

 

Of course they will probably have a future use, wrenches are going to be needed for vehicle repair. Screw driver can be used to open cans at the moment and will probably be used for other things too. But look, we have disinfectant in the game that does nothing except make people sick. Why not tie it up to a survivor function like when you use a machete to kill a zombie, it becomes dirty and requires to be disinfected before you open cans or cut meat with it. Bam, game play value.

 

To be honest, I know charcoal tablets server some kind of game mechanic, but am unsure what. All I remember that when you eaten rotten fruit you would get sick, charcoal tablets supposed to make you better but they didn't. In fact, before when you used to eat them, you actually would get sick.

 

 

That's your first major flaw imo. It would be more enjoyable, sure, but i wouldn't have expected them to be fully working from day one. Of course, the game is advertised as zombie survival sim, but the alpha disclaimer tells you more than often that this is not the game right now.

I was not surprised that zombies did not work at the release of the game, but I do feel unsettled when after two years of development zombies are still not working. They are a core element of the game play! Please go read post mortem of Diablo 2 as they explain that they strived to get a working version of monsters into the game as soon as possible.

 

 

Do you get my point? Maybe items aside, but you didnt mention any small thing. You actually mentioned very big things. They only might look small when you look from a player only perspective.

Well the devil is in the details, isn't he? I called these things small because I consider base building, vehicles and persistence much bigger tasks than getting core concepts in working order.

I do get your point and I feel really dirty for "ranting" about DayZ progression, but hopefully you understand that I am really passionate about DayZ and hate reading in the news how some second rate competitor (ala WarZ ala Infestation: Survivor Stories) makes money on someone else's original idea. Now we have h1z1, which I shamefully have to admin, looks more polished than DayZ.

 

I mean, looking at the current loot iteration, I bet they don't even have a clue on how to make it work. Deans talk about hive based loot tables and restrictions makes me feel like he is fluttering somewhere in the skies believing he is making an MMO with two million subscribers. They need to take a page or two out of original mod and its version, and remember what made the game so good.

Then plan ahead, plan for everything, even their backup plan has to have a backup plan.

Edited November 9, 2014 by Zing Freelancer

[ChainReactor 922]

Spot on.. :)

 

I was just trying to define what I meant with clarity, more than argue, for the record. 

 

No worries, me stupid german used "argue" because i didnt know how to express it better. :)

Edited November 9, 2014 by ChainReactor

[Bororm 1156]

Yeah.. but Im not whining.

 

Im questioning things, in an area that devs frequent, in the hopes that one of them reads this and thinks to themselves, "yeah, why are we fucking catering to the community?" 

 

Because I know that is why persistence is in stable. I want them to stop this whole line of communication thing.. its stupid. Just do work, and let us play. Separate the "Church and State" if you know what I mean.. 

 

But Im just pointing things out here, because in all honesty we all have options and we do not HAVE to play on persistence nor do we HAVE to even play DayZ. I am fully aware of the scope of where we are now and where this game is going.. but I am also aware of the fact that if they keep doing what they are doing, this game wont come out in its final state for a LONG TIME. But if they just focus on making the game, and releasing things for testing once they are actually ready.. not do: internal testing, its broke, fix it, do more internal, still broke, push to exp. build for further testing, still broke, push to stable, still broke, add in more items, push to beta, still broke, push to bug fix for the next 3 years because you have so many damned bugs in a game that is so complex that you realize how bad it is now that you have to fix all of those bugs at once rather than not implementing them until they work to a degree that is logical. 

 

I mean here is an example of what an Alpha is.. Im going to blow some minds here because everyone confuses Alpha with FIrst Playable or Early Alpha.. which is what we are in now:

 

"Alpha is the stage when key gameplay functionality is implemented, and assets are partially finished. A game in alpha is feature complete, that is, game is playable and contains all the major features.  These features may be further revised based on testing and feedback. Additional small, new features may be added, similarly planned, but unimplemented features may be dropped. Programmers focus mainly on finishing the codebase, rather than implementing additions. Alpha occurs eight to ten months before code release."

 

I think the mistake you're making is assuming they are only pushing persistence to appease people.  I don't really know where you're getting that from.  Almost every single thing is affected by persistence, it's something that needs to go in.  Again, vehicles and barricading, two major aspects of the game are largely depended on it.  Even things like weather and as a result sickness/medical systems, farming are all going to be affected by it.  Not to mention again performance.

 

I mean you're sorta contradicting yourself, you're saying they should stop listening to the community but then complaining yourself that they are doing this too soon.  Why is it too soon?  Because it's crashy/buggy?  That's unavoidable.  There is no amount of internal testing they can do to prepare this sort of thing for a stable release, the scale is just completely different.  There's too many variables.

 

Stable is testing, stable is alpha.  Why spend tons of time trying to perfect something on 3 different scales?  Why try to perfect it internally, to have it break again on experimental, to perfect it on experimental to have it break yet again on stable?  I mean to an extent, yes, you get it working and that's exactly what they have done/are doing but you don't try to make it perfect.  It's going to be quicker in the long run to get it on stable as soon as possible to find all the problems than trying to completely perfect the thing multiple times first.

 

It doesn't matter what they call the alpha or what definition they're going by, this game is in development and it's extremely early.  We're not even half way through to release.  

[Irish. 4886]

I think the mistake you're making is assuming they are only pushing persistence to appease people. I think the mistake your making is not opening your mind, to the point that you think its justified to tell me I am incorrect or making a mistake. 

 

 I don't really know where you're getting that from. Logic. That is where. I read what the devs say, and talk about. And logically it makes no sense that they pushed persistence to stable other than to meet a milestone for their publisher and community. 

 

The rest is so full of holes I wont even go there.. 

 

:|

 

 

Stop arguing. We get it, you disagree. 

Edited November 9, 2014 by lrish

[Bororm 1156]

:|

 

 

Stop arguing. We get it, you disagree. 

 

I'm not trying to argue, you said you wanted to discuss so I'm discussing.  You said you aren't complaining, but all you're saying is "stop catering to the community."  I'm pointing out reasons why this isn't just that, why there's multiple valid reasons for them to implement persistence right now.  You are not providing any evidence to the contrary.

[ChainReactor 922]

 

First you design and plan for all the features you want to implement.

Then you look at the technology you have at hand.

Make a choice, do you cut features or create new technology.

 

 

First, you have a team of 10 people and a budget of XX.XXX $

So you design and plan for all the features you want to implement.

Then you look at the techonolgy you have at hand. You realize you have to cut down your vision of the game to the limitations given by the tech you have available.

So you start development and release the first publicly available build.

Within weeks, you have a budget of X.XXX.XXX $ and realise you can improve both your team and your technology to get rid of limitations and do something much closer to the vision you had from the very beginning.

 

What would you do ? Keep in mind, by that time, the game was already available, heavily hyped and sold like hotcakes.

 

 

But look, we have disinfectant in the game that does nothing except make people sick.

 

Just a sidenote: No. You can disinfect bandages, which is actually the actual intention of the item. The further development of diseases will make it even more important.

 

 

I was not surprised that zombies did not work at the release of the game, but I do feel unsettled when after two years of development zombies are still not working.

 

You are free to feel unsettled. I know the patience i bring up is above average and my excitement to see this game develop along with my interest in game development in general are nothing you can ask from everyone. But i read news from the devs everywhere and everytime i can, so i think i have a basic understanding why we are here right now instead of there.

 

I mean, the last big thing they added about zombies was the navmesh. This however works server side, and server perfomance is an ongoing issue currently planned to be improved during the remainder of this year. But server performance not only affects the navmesh, it affects actually everything ingame. So they can't polish AI navigation without disturbing other systems. Same for animations, that also are not AI exclusive. Or physics. Same for persistence, which influences item storage, decay, loot economy and eventually server performance again.

 

So its all about really big systems that all interact with each others. Its not "solve problem x, move on to problem y". It's developing and fixing here, then there, look what it did here, fix stuff there and so on. Its a time intensive task.

 

That is also why everytime i read someone demands the devs to fix the zombies, I want to shoot my head.

 

 

Well the devil is in the details, isn't he? I called these things small because I consider base building, vehicles and persistence much bigger tasks than getting core concepts in working order.

 

Speaking about zombies as the mentioned core feature? They consist of AI behaviour, AI sensors, netcode, animations, navigation, hit detection. Most of this is again low level engine work, takes months and is being redeveloped since they got the opportunity to do so. You might check Eugen's post on reddit explaining this. Also, either Hicks or Eugen once mentioned they started to effectively work on the new plans with the new team in august. ( meaining they work on the game 100% without wasting time and manpower for training periods and such ) Growing and synchronising a team that just increased in employees by the number of 5 also takes some time.

 

Lastly, beans to you, i totally forgot about the autosave feature of the forum :) thanks a lot.

Edited November 9, 2014 by ChainReactor

[Zing Freelancer 58]

First, you have a team of 10 people and a budget of XX.XXX $

So you design and plan for all the features you want to implement.

Then you look at the techonolgy you have at hand. You realize you have to cut down your vision of the game to the limitations giving by the tech you have available.

So you start development and release the first publicly available build.

Within weeks, you have a budget of X.XXX.XXX $ and realise you can improve both your team and your technology to get rid of limitations and do something much closer to the vision you had from the very beginning.

 

What would you do ? Keep in mind, by that time, the game was already available, heavily hyped and sold like hotcakes.

Hmm, yeah, you are correct, thanks for explaining it in such polite matter :)

Last time I checked, they grossed in something like 35 million euro on early access alone. On top of that BI made a lot of money on extra Arma 2 sales due to DayZ Mod popularity.

I can only imagine the struggle DayZ team went through in order to try to meet their costumers expectations.

What I would do?

Sit back, reassert my situation and draft a new fighting plan.

Then expand, add more talent to the team.

You can take a look at Rust, they pretty much decided to remake the whole game from scratch in a new engine after they hit jackpot and these guys did not have the luxury of having DayZ name in the back.

 

 

Just a sidenote: No. You can disinfect bandages, which is actually the actual intention of the item. The further development of diseases will make it even more important.

But does it do anything at the moment? I don't think so, please correct me if am wrong. You can also disinfect your clothing and pretty much every item. I think it might be something they will do in the future expansion of item status. Maybe like making item being dirty or infected, maybe.

I like the idea of having to clean my knife before opening a can of beans or cutting up that boar. Its like in Walking Dead, it always bothered me how Daryl just uses his arrows to kill walkers, pull them out, reload, and then kills some wild animal with it. This is why I would like to see more "Player vs Environment" features implemented, features which would make survival more meaningful.

 

You are free to feel unsettled. I know the patience i bring up is above average and my excitement to see this game develop along with my interest in game development in general are nothing you can ask from everyone. But i read news from the devs everywhere and everytime i can, so i think i have a basic understanding why we are here right now instead of there.

 

I mean, the last big thing they added about zombies was the navmesh. This however works server side, and server perfomance is an ongoing issue currently planned to be improved during the remainder of this year. But server performance not only affects the navmesh, it affects actually everything ingame. So they can't polish AI navigation without disturbing other systems. Same for animations, that also are not AI exclusive. Or physics. Same for persistence, which influences item storage, decay, loot economy and eventually server performance again.

 

So its all about really big systems that all interact with each others. Its not "solve problem x, move on to problem y". It's developing and fixing here, then there, look what it did here, fix stuff there and so on. Its a time intensive task.

 

That is also why everytime i read someone demands the devs to fix the zombies, I want to shoot my head.

 

 

Speaking about zombies as the mentioned core feature? They consist of AI behaviour, AI sensors, netcode, animations, navigation, hit detection. Most of this is again low level engine work, takes months and is being redeveloped since they got the opportunity to do so. You might check Eugen's post on reddit explaining this. Also, either Hicks or Eugen once mentioned they started to effectively work on the new plans with the new team in august. ( meaining they work on the game 100% without wasting time and manpower for training periods and such ) Growing and synchronising a team that just increased in employees by the number of 5 also takes some time.

Having more "player vs environment" features such as zombie hordes, better zombie AI would most certainly affect how people experience game and address many aspects of KoS. Because fighting against a lone zombie is easy, even 3-4 are manageable with a fire fighter axe. Now going up against a hoard of say 8+ zombies can be done with a gun, but when gun fire attracts even more zombies, now suddenly you wish you had a friend with you.

I hope that all of the above would snowball into reducing KoS and encouraging player cooperation without having to mess around with loot tables. Limiting gun spawns in hopes of artificially reducing how often people kill each other, is the next best thing they can do.

 

I believe that I have pretty good understanding of the situation now (partly due to your help) as I skipped on some dev blogs during my absence from games. Still makes me wish they had planned and anticipated that DayZ could become a huge success. It's kinda difficult to explain, but when Dean announced his plans to use Arma 2 engine instead of Arma 3 engine, I understood his reasoning. But still thought to myself that his decision will come back and bite them in the ass later on. That it would be more beneficial to build DayZ on more advanced engine like Arma 3 engine. Even if they had to do a lot of adjustments to nett code, renderer and controller, the engine was still more advanced than its predecessor. The next thing I read on the dev blog is they got programmers from Bohemia Interactive upgrading DayZ engine, because you know, "reasons".

 

I was watching one of the earlier dev blogs with Dean showing and talking about zombie path finding (something like a year ago) and it was clear from the video that they were struggling with it. I know how hard it is to make good AI, I tried it myself using RAIN AI plugin for Unity engine. It's really complicated to account for all the states AI can be in, path finding and obstacle avoidance. Not to mention they want all AI calculation to happen server side and I don't believe they will be able to do so.

I don't want to sound like a guy who does not have faith in their skills, am just saying that I am expecting a half-half solution. Some basic calculations will happen on the server, while some calculations will happen on client side and then they synchronize, if client data is not matching server expectations there need to be systems in place to double check it, maybe even resend lost packages or de-sync/kick player from server.

Might be a good idea is to contact Turtle Rock Studio and get some advice on how they solved their zombie problem. While they are at it, maybe talk to some engineers at Unity to get advice on renderer, as unity can have dozens of simultaneous animations without causing huge performance drop. Well, am sure they have more then enough talent to draw from Bohemia Interactive :)

 

 

I also understand what they are actually doing with alpha, at least I hope I understand. They are putting features in, testing them, checking how they work, discovering complications and creating solutions. It's a pretty new process for us players, who is used to get a working game right away and then complain about Y and X, and balance, and bugs. Now we are part of the process and get to experience both the good and the ugly side of development, I bet this experience is even more "unique" to DayZ team than us. I can only imagine how trilled and conflicted they might be feeling right now, at one hand they have all this interaction with community and desire from people to play their game. On the other hand they see problems and experience constant delays while wishing to deliver the best game possible.

 

 

Still, even knowing all of that I can't help but get upset because of the constant delays and lack of progression. Especially when there is some nonamemoneygrabbingaholecompany that earn loads of money by making a cheap DayZ knock off. I want them to succeed, I want DayZ to be the best zombie survivor game there is, I want all the future zombie survivor games look at DayZ for inspiration for years to come! I want next "The art of Game Design 2.0" to contain quotes from Dean "Rocket" Hall and DayZ team.

Well I guess it's a bit of Bohemia Interactive fault, they acquired DayZ IP because it was a logical choice both financially and PR wise, but they choose not to commit more resources to development of a proper DayZ game then they thought was necessary.

Anyway, I am writing myself in a corner now and need to get off, get some sleep, Monday tomorrow, sigh!

 

 

Lastly, beans to you, i totally forgot about the autosave feature of the forum  :) thanks a lot.

Your very welcome.

[kermo50 31]

How does persistance function at the moment? If you drop loot in a random place how long will it stay there for? Does this mean more and more loot will be available on a server?