Status Report - 19 mar 15

[Ken Bean 175]

I don't mean to attack you, but you're forgetting that DayZ thrives on its multiplayer aspect and that makes it impossible to separate and neglect the need for a good marketing plan. It has to have a certain critical mass of popularity to thrive. You wouldn't play this game if nobody would like to play with you, but I guess by that time there wouldn't be even any servers to play on.

 

You'd be surprised how many revolutionary projects (not just in the game industry) of huge potential I witnessed slowly roll down the hill and get abandoned just because the author couldn't supply it with enough attention.

 

 

No worries. There probably would be at least one server and there's a limit of player you can play with anyway, even right at the moment. So if the server has a limit of 50 player, you wont be able to play with more either way. I also don't really see that coming. And if so, fine, why should I care about the population of servers I don't play on? Don't get me wrong, maybe your concerns are valid and maybe it strangely does something good if you voice them. So everyone now is aware. Does this make development faster? Maybe. (More likely not) Or do you think they shoulkd think about marketing and just call it finished right now? Instead they have some goals set, which they want to reach, in the near or long future. In my eyes thats a good thing. Isn't it?

 

I would be concerned, if they start to abandon their goals because of marketing and getting the game just finished.

 

 

In case you are not aware, you are just requesting to abandon goals. Just imagine you would need to write an elaborated article which would take two weeks and someone comes and demands the article to be done now and gives you half an hour to accomplish. The article is just halfway done by now --- so what are you doing? Making a quick research? Just writing faster? Hiring 500 writers for quicker typeing? Or maybe just abandon some content?

Edited March 20, 2015 by Ken Bean

[smoq2 221]

No worries. There probably would be at least one server and there's a limit of player you can play with anyway, even right at the moment. So if the server has a limit of 50 player, you wont be able to play with more either way. I also don't really see that coming. And if so, fine, why should I care about the population of servers I don't play on? Don't get me wrong, maybe your concerns are valid and maybe it strangely does something good if you voice them. So everyone now is aware. Does this make development faster? Maybe. (More likely not) Or do you think they shoulkd think about marketing and just call it finished right now? Instead they have some goals set, which they want to reach, in the near or long future. In my eyes thats a good thing. Isn't it?

 

I would be concerned, if they start to abandon their goals because of marketing and getting the game just finished.

 

 

In case you are not aware, you are just requesting to abandon goals. Just imagine you would need to write an elaborated article which would take two weeks and someone comes and demands the article to be done now and gives you half an hour to accomplish. The article is just halfway done by now --- so what are you doing? Making a quick research? Just writing faster? Hiring 500 writers for quicker typeing? Or maybe just abandon some content?

 

Oh no, I'm not requesting or asking for anything, I'm not that "entitled". :) I'd also hate to see them putting too much effort to marketing - the side point was just to stress it cannot be neglected, but that was rather an off topic issue. Although, I would advice taking a few PR bullet-courses for some of the DayZ team members, as their announcements sometimes tend to be confusing. ;) No offence here guys, you're doing a great job in the field anyway!

 

My original point was to bring up the issue that there is a limited time frame when a product can be delivered - something you won't hear from any company, yet every company is (or at least should be) aware of it. By writing my first post in this thread, I was just trying and hoping to shift their attention to it (if its not focused on the issue already, which I can't know) or at least get a creative discussion flowing, which I think happened

 

I also don't believe I've written anything harmful for the development process. I'm discussing potential future outcomes basing on current facts. Anyway, it's all "food for thought" after all. :)

Edited March 20, 2015 by retro19

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

retro19, many games have spent many more years in development without much publicity or any crowd funding and still were a success.

 

The mod alone was a big success for Bohemia.

 

The SA has capitalized on that success and has shown waves of interest as features are added.

 

IF for every 100 people that purchased DayZ only 1 stayed on to play for more than a year (and the money from the other 99 still helped development) that would be a pretty decent measure of success (if you then consider games tend to offer 40-80 hours of play time for a single 60$ game).

 

Let's flash forward about 20 odd months from now to a hypothetical 1.0 release.

 

A massive trove of craft-able and modify-able gear to find on a huge map, many vehicles, land, sea, and probably air, many zombie models with improved AI, ind-epth health and medical systems, base building, and more!!

 

All of the above things (done well of course) will spur more and more people to take interest in DayZ.

 

And then there's the PS4 release.

 

The money to make this game as it should be is already there and the modest 3 year dev time line for the 1.0 release is well within a reasonable length of time for a large game such as this to be built.

 

Currently DayZ is mostly PvP.

 

I also believe this will change or the nature of the PvP will change.

 

I think a lot of people will leave DayZ when it becomes more difficult to survive and get high end loot.

 

I think a lot of people will join DayZ when it becomes more difficult to survive and get high end loot.

 

Trading one group of short term instant gratification fans for long term, invested, DayZ fans who will create a wide range of stories beyond the *bang bang pew bang pow* of the PvP set.

[Ken Bean 175]

Oh no, I'm not requesting or asking for anything, I'm not that "entitled". :) I'd also hate to see them putting too much effort to marketing - the side point was just to stress it cannot be neglected, but that was rather an off topic issue. Although, I would advice taking a few PR bullet-courses for some of the DayZ team members, as their announcements sometimes tend to be confusing. ;) No offence here guys, you're doing a great job in the field anyway!

 

My original point was to bring up the issue that there is a limited time frame when a product can be delivered - something you won't hear from any company, yet every company is (or at least should be) aware of it. By writing my first post in this thread, I was just trying and hoping to shift their attention to it (if its not focused on the issue already, which I can't know) or at least get a creative discussion flowing, which I think happened

 

I also don't believe I've written anything harmful for the development process. I'm discussing potential future outcomes basing on current facts. Anyway, it's all "food for thought" after all. :)

 

Ah, okay, maybe I misread sth or interpreted to much into it. However I think BI has a long stance in the industries by now and assume that they know what they are doing. From a developers side you sure want to nail a program down but that's not a thing that can be precisely timed in advance.

 

Many things are new lands in almost every new game that wants to be developed. Things may take longer than thought.

 

Basically you have two or three options: Taking that time you need, cutting the feature out or abandon the entire development.

This basically is the potential future outcome of every game or software project.

(You wont believe how much software goes the abandon road.)

 

http://calleam.com/WTPF/?page_id=1445

 

So marketing certainly is sth important, but at least well known territory.

 

I cant see how stressing the time topic, how voicing concerns about server population and so on can help development.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Ken Bean

[Steak and Potatoes 13480]

Ump looks amazing.

[Coheed_IV 381]

My original point was to bring up the issue that there is a limited time frame when a product can be delivered - something you won't hear from any company, yet every company is (or at least should be) aware of it. By writing my first post in this thread, I was just trying and hoping to shift their attention to it (if its not focused on the issue already, which I can't know) or at least get a creative discussion flowing, which I think happened

 

I also don't believe I've written anything harmful for the development process. I'm discussing potential future outcomes basing on current facts. Anyway, it's all "food for thought" after all. :)

Well, I think they do talk about it, and everyone is aware of it, duh. Here dwarden talks about the EOL http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?183674-13€-DLC-hefty-price-for-2-choppers&p=2819446&viewfull=1#post2819446.

 

BI was put into a position that they didn't expect to be in when standalone sold so many copies at alpha release. They have already said they wish that they had stared out with a higher price and less overall sales. The long term plans of standalone where shifted, they doubled down and I like it. But, it remains to be seen if this was smart and if doing so will increase the already 3mil. player base. In the next year we will see the fruits of their labor as the new engine slowly gets implemented. If things go to plans the 3mill will spread word of the improvements and they can continue on like minecraft development chunking it full of features while building a platform for community content.

Edited March 20, 2015 by Coheed_IV

[elaintahra 4]

Interesting news as always! I like the zombie tweaks and looking forward to that. But has there been any mention about the zombies being able to pass thru doors and walls? When will that be looked upon? I'm sure it will but I don't remember seeing anything about that in the dev blogs. Has anyone any idea?