persistance

[northofnowhere 39]

I set my items down after packing up my camp last night.  Is persitance turned off and why the hell would you not let us know in advance?  I just lost all of my gear, which is fine, but to completely turn off a feature that is integral to the concept and to not announce it?  Come on dev's, what the hell?

[ruax 32]

Its wipe wednesday.

[pilgrim* 3514]

I set my items down after packing up my camp last night.  Is persitance turned off and why the hell would you not let us know in advance?  I just lost all of my gear, which is fine, but to completely turn off a feature that is integral to the concept and to not announce it?  Come on dev's, what the hell?

 

http://dayz.com/blog/status-report-14-apr-15

[SmashT 10907]

[benji_milo 15]

I set my items down after packing up my camp last night.  Is persitance turned off and why the hell would you not let us know in advance?  I just lost all of my gear, which is fine, but to completely turn off a feature that is integral to the concept and to not announce it?  Come on dev's, what the hell?

 

Yeah I got a little annoyed aswell. After saying all week that there would be no wipe and that persistence is staying PERSISTENT in public stable, they announce it on twitter 14hrs before wipe.

[tux (DayZ) 325]

To all new people. Don't buy Day z unless you're patient. Becuase the Dev Team SUCKS!!! 

 

To all the people who bought into this game for the wrong reasons: The Dev Team does not suck. You bought into the fucking alpha version of a game that is clearly still a work in progress. You clearly didn't read the disclaimer in steam, on their website, OR WHEN YOU LOAD THE GAME ITSELF.

 

You aren't fucking entitled to a playable, or even working game, and you deserve to break your legs and ruin your pants on every single staircase you ever encounter for having this mentality.

 

The DayZ SA development team provides a transparent look into they development process, a hell of a lot more than any other game development company is willing to submit themselves to. No wonder there aren't more dev teams like this; especially after this most recent update with the loot and zombie changes, anyone can see why listening to every fucking kid who refuses to understand what the alpha stage of a game means is a total headache and non-stop complaining every time a change is implemented. 

 

They even said in this most recent status update that the new central loot system is broken, which is probably why they rolled back to the .54 loot system until the next iteration. They also said that even though the loot in .55 was pretty broken, that they still got very valuable information. They even rolled the loot system back, which I assume is because people wouldn't stop complaining.

 

So please, either leave and come back when the game is in beta (or even fully released, because there's sure as hell gonna be things needing to be fixed up until release), stop buying into alpha games if you don't understand that you aren't entitled to a working game, or shut the fuck up and share the wonderful experience of being a part of the development of a game (because if any other developers see the shitshow that has come from allowing people to play the alpha version of a game, there probably won't ever be something like this in the future).

 

/rant

[Hicks_206 (DayZ) 4297]

I set my items down after packing up my camp last night.  Is persitance turned off and why the hell would you not let us know in advance?  I just lost all of my gear, which is fine, but to completely turn off a feature that is integral to the concept and to not announce it?  Come on dev's, what the hell?

Notification went out with yesterdays Status Report, and Battleye broadcast every 10 minutes to all servers for 12 hours prior.

[BCBasher 2465]

I UNDERSTAND, lol.

[S3V3N 1402]

Dayz is pretty good for an Alpha Development and the weekly updates are exemplary. People don't seem to grasp that the only alternative to playing this version would be playing the mod or not playing at all. However, I do find it a  bit odd that announcements always have to be last minute and seem incomplete. The devs simply don't cover all the changes of what to expect in their posts. I would suggest to write a simple form for all future updates and use that form throughout all future iterations. Sure we get a changelog, but we usually get it days later and not in advance.

 

e.g.:

 

---------------------------------------------------

 

Example for a Dayz announcement form

 

Build, N°: xxxxxxx0,1

 

Update: d/m/year

 

Working Features: Persistence Tents/World, Legacy Spawn System, Cooking, Cholera/Sickness + all features known from previous update (e.g. weapon wear/repair)

 

Broken Features: Bow hunting, Fileting Fish, Player shakes without being cold 

 

Bugged Features: Fruit/Veggies Invisible, Veggies turn bad instantly if not harvested, Zombie sounds are not audible, chopper sites respawn @ same location

 

etc.

-----------------------------------------------------

 

This is just a quick mockup. I'm sure something like this could be done in a proper form and maybe as a spreadsheet, so devs can just move around working and not working features and don't have to type them each time. I think it would help greatly to get something like this on Monday after a release, so we at least have 2 days to read and figure out the announcement, in order to know what we have to do about our camps.  On the other hand it's not terrible to go looting again, and usually people carry the good gear with them (what good is an M4 if you just leave it at camp?) I just think that these updates could be done in a fashion that is more satisfactory to people who want to know more, without the devs having to put a whole lot of more effort into it. Surely there are better ways than the current half-baked notifications. 

Edited April 15, 2015 by S3V3N

[tux (DayZ) 325]

Dayz is pretty good for an Alpha Development and the weekly updates are exemplary. People don't seem to grasp that the only alternative to playing this version would be playing the mod or not playing at all. However, I do find it a  bit odd that announcements always have to be last minute and seem incomplete. The devs simply don't cover all the changes of what to expect in their posts. I would suggest to write a simple form for all future updates and use that form throughout all future iterations. Sure we get a changelog, but we usually get it days later and not in advance.

 

If the devs were to give us any more information than they already do, think about what the forums would look like...

 

We would have the usual "WTF game is 2 hard 4 me" posts, and the "WTF game is broke plz fix" posts.

 

We'd also have significantly more people posting shit like "WTF you guys said you would implement features X Y and Z but you only implemented X and Y!!! YOU PROMISED Z!!!"

 

I mean, we already have plenty of posts like this, but I'm sure it's hard enough for the devs to keep up with their internal roadmap, let alone features that they might have mentioned months or years ago that people are still grasping on to for dear life.

 

Granted, there could be more of an official changelog right after each update, but this being alpha, a lot of the time certain features aren't fully implemented, implemented correctly, or have major bugs associated with them, so giving us a set-in-stone changelog with each update might end up backfiring and causing more harm than good.

 

Plus, how much fun is it to start up DayZ after a brand new update and seeing what changes have been made first-hand. This is one of my favorite things about being part of the development of this game; seeing how many new features I can find, then going online and seeing what other people have found and what they think of the most recent update.

[S3V3N 1402]

It's not about fun or no fun, it's about getting reliable information and updates about the upcoming version. These things aren't decided in retrospect, the devs know exactly what will and will not work in the next build. Or at least they have a 99% accurate idea about these things and can definitely name the features that will supposedly work. The lack of such information is mere lack of effort and proper planning. They could easily go into specifics about these things, especially since the reoccurrance of always the same broken features (persistence, survival features...) would make it easy to put them in a table once and re-use on every occasion; it simply hasn't been done yet.

 

And yeah, they might have to deal with criticism if features aren't realised, but how is that different to now. The only difference would be we find out before hand and not after our camps are gone or characters are wiped. Against some things you cannot take measures, but me for one, I wanna know what's going on.  

[Hicks_206 (DayZ) 4297]

It's not about fun or no fun, it's about getting reliable information and updates about the upcoming version. These things aren't decided in retrospect, the devs know exactly what will and will not work in the next build. Or at least they have a 99% accurate idea about these things and can definitely name the features that will supposedly work. The lack of such information is mere lack of effort and proper planning. They could easily go into specifics about these things, especially since the reoccurrance of always the same broken features (persistence, survival features...) would make it easy to put them in a table once and re-use on every occasion; it simply hasn't been done yet.

 

And yeah, they might have to deal with criticism if features aren't realised, but how is that different to now. The only difference would be we find out before hand and not after our camps are gone or characters are wiped. Against some things you cannot take measures, but me for one, I wanna know what's going on.  

We are exceedingly transparent, and the information you receive is the most reliable we can output at the given time without causing confusion. There is no "lack of effort" and I resent the implication.

[tux (DayZ) 325]

These things aren't decided in retrospect, the devs know exactly what will and will not work in the next build. Or at least they have a 99% accurate idea about these things and can definitely name the features that will supposedly work. 

 

I don't think they have 99% accuracy in foreseeing what will work and what won't. For example, with the .55 central loot economy implementation, the small sample of experimental servers and players didn't give insight as to what would go wrong when pushed to stable, hence the change back to the older loot system. Had the devs supplied any information on the loot system working (which they did, all but an official changelog) then they would've been wrong about it working properly. And they know everything has a chance of breaking, that's just the way things go when you're moving any piece of software from a small testing/development platform to a more stable one.

 

The only difference would be we find out before hand and not after our camps are gone or characters are wiped. Against some things you cannot take measures, but me for one, I wanna know what's going on.  

 

They do tell you what's going on...

 

Every single server I've been in, there's a BattleEye notification that weekly maintenance occurs on Wednesdays. I'm not that active in the forums or on reading their twitter announcements, and honestly I've never tried to do anything relying on persistence (as I know it can be broken and I'd lose everything that I had spent time working to stockpile), but even I knew that not only does persistence reset every Wednesday, but that this being alpha, you always have the chance of losing your entire fortune and having to start over again. 

Edited April 15, 2015 by tux

[S3V3N 1402]

We are exceedingly transparent, and the information you receive is the most reliable we can output at the given time without causing confusion. There is no "lack of effort" and I resent the implication.

Yes, you are very transparent and very incomplete. We just ask to know which features will be working in the next version and which won't. Here is an example: server warning tells me that updates occur on Wednesday, however they don't say to pack our tents. But our tents are gone after restarts. In this current and updated version. Why is it impossible to tell us a few days in advance that together with the legacy loot system all kinds of persistence will also be wiped? I didn't read that anywhere, I read of a 1x wipe. Or didn't the devs know our new camps would be wiped after restarts themselves? I sure as hell didn't. 

 

All I ask for is to give a point to your transparency by adding completeness to those updates and messages. If we have to guess when servers come online or which features will work or won't, you might as well not make updates at all. I posted a simple example of how it could be done, so whether or not you resent the implication of being unable to work out a common form for updates does not really interest me. As I said before, hire a PR guy, they do this professionally and they don't cock up or can be fired if they do. Devs shouldn't be the ones doing the updates, they have a real job. 

Edited April 15, 2015 by S3V3N

[Hicks_206 (DayZ) 4297]

Yes, you are very transparent and very incomplete. We just ask to know which features will be working in the next version and which won't. Here is an example: server warning tells me that updates occur on Wednesday, however they don't say to pack our tents. But our tents are gone after restarts. In this current and updated version. Why is it impossible to tell us a few days in advance that together with the legacy loot system all kinds of persistence will also be wiped? I didn't read that anywhere, I read of a 1x wipe. Or didn't the devs know our new camps would be wiped after restarts themselves? I sure as hell didn't. 

 

All I ask for is to give a point to your transparency by adding completeness to those updates and messages. If we have to guess when servers come online or which features will work or won't, you might as well not make updates at all. I posted a simple example of how it could be done, so whether or not you resent the implication of being unable to work out a common form for updates does not really interest me. As I said before, hire a PR guy, they do this professionally and they don't cock up or can be fired if they do. Devs shouldn't be the ones doing the updates, they have a real job. 

 

 

*facepalm*

You've got access to development builds through the Early Access program. Development builds with HEAVY warnings surrounding them, the start of the title, the purchase of the Early Access program on Steam.

Let me make this clear, seeking mastered builds is outside the scope of what this offering is. I call this out clearly in the latest Status Report and I've gone over it so many times on the forums, Steam forums, my twitter and so on that sometimes I forget which topic I'm posting in.

 

The Early Access program provides you with development builds of the project, not access to a feature, or functionally complete game. As this year progresses, more and more parts of the Enfusion engine and its accompanying technology will be merged into the main branch. This means things will break, sometimes things will break -hard-. We utilize the experimental branch to flesh out any catastrophically game breaking issues (think client crashes, server freezes, high repro progression loss, and so on) and at the end of the month the most stable development build gets pushed to Steam for all of you to poke, experiment, and have fun with. Testing is done in three tiers, each tier scaling up in load and volume. Internal, Experimental, Main (Stable) - and make no mistake. All three branches are for testing.  

[[email protected] 15]

We are exceedingly transparent, and the information you receive is the most reliable we can output at the given time without causing confusion. There is no "lack of effort" and I resent the implication.

 

 

I resent the resentment.

 

I don't use twitter, and worked late yesterday. I didn't have time to play. As a result of me assuming the previously made statement:

 

I talked to Eugen, and persistence wipes will no longer be part of regular wednesday maintenance. However, please do keep in mind that persistence is not yet completely pat down, so items can still be lost along the way due to bugs and such.

 

 

was actually true, and since I had tested the tent sustainability, my tent would in fact remain.

 

Now it may be solely my opinion, but wasting 25+ hours of gameplay based on your transparently contradictory statements is what is upsetting. 

 

edited for a better assumption of time wasted.

Edited April 15, 2015 by coltonmeng

[Hicks_206 (DayZ) 4297]

I resent the resentment.

 

I don't use twitter, and worked late yesterday. I didn't have time to play. As a result of me assuming the previously made statement:

 

 

was actually true, and since I had tested the tent sustainability, my tent would in fact remain.

 

Now it may be solely my opinion, but wasting 10-20 hours of gameplay based on your transparently contradictory statements is what is upsetting. 

Users are heavily warned that these are development builds, and serious bugs and interruptions to gameplay can occur. In addition, the notice was given as soon as was possible (yesterdays Status Report - around 12 hours prior to the maintenance). As well, rotating 10 minute interval notifications went out via BattlEye messaging.

Assuming that you missed all of these, and did not read the Status Report prior to maintenance - a good foot to stand on moving forward when dealing with the Early Access / Development period of DayZ is:

- Do not get attached to your character, or your progression with said character.

- Whenever possible we will do our best to maintain player progression on stable branch, but again - these *are* dev builds, not a feature or functionally complete game.

- Serious bugs, interruptions of gameplay / playability, and intermittent resets of both character and camp / base objects *will* occur throughout development. Plan accordingly

- And in short, remember that all three branches are used for testing of the most stable monthly main branch build, at varying levels of load and volume

 

Keep those points in mind, and hopefully you will enjoy the access to the development of DayZ that the Early Access program offers.

[[email protected] 15]

To note: a couple days of lead time would be appreciated. That way, even those of us that don't have time to log in as soon as the music stops can still have a chance to prepare accordingly.

 

"but we are the devs, and this is alpha!"

 

Does it really hurt you that much to give us a little additional lead time when you may be affecting everyone's gameplay / characters? 

 

All I ask for is a little extra time to prepare for your improvements, should they warrant preparing for. I love assisting in testing / getting to play pre-release Alpha. That doesn't mean I should be told one thing only for the opposite to happen.

[Hicks_206 (DayZ) 4297]

To note: a couple days of lead time would be appreciated. That way, even those of us that don't have time to log in as soon as the music stops can still have a chance to prepare accordingly.

 

"but we are the devs, and this is alpha!"

 

Does it really hurt you that much to give us a little additional lead time when you may be affecting everyone's gameplay / characters? 

 

All I ask for is a little extra time to prepare for your improvements, should they warrant preparing for. I love assisting in testing / getting to play pre-release Alpha. That doesn't mean I should be told one thing only for the opposite to happen.

Notification was given as soon as was possible.

As mentioned above, follow those key points when approaching the Early Access and you should (hopefully) have a good time.

[[email protected] 15]

Users are heavily warned that these are development builds, and serious bugs and interruptions to gameplay can occur. In addition, the notice was given as soon as was possible (yesterdays Status Report - around 12 hours prior to the maintenance). As well, rotating 10 minute interval notifications went out via BattlEye messaging.

 

 

Straw man argument. My issue isn't with bugs or gameplay interruptions, it is with communication and mis communication. Just a little more heads up would be very helpful to those of us that can't login / remote in promptly.

 

No worries though. I'll follow your above points.

Edited April 15, 2015 by coltonmeng

[thznutz 112]

i'm not sure how the dev team could be anymore complete or transparent. not so many months ago there were alot less information mediums represented, and for the sake of sharing information the dev's/forum team have made alot of changes...all to facilitate transparency and the dissemination of information in a more complete and concise fashion. i for one congratulate them on what i think should be the standard for all Alpha/Early Access games. i own many Early Access games, and DayZ's methods are by far the best. disagree all you want, but you should really look at what you are disagreeing with? not getting what you were told you would get or because you didnt get what you wanted...? 90% of the issue is people expect things they should not. to temper those expectations, really read and understand the warning you agree to every time you play DayZ and take it to heart...everything would be better if people could do that one simple thing.

 

@S3V3N--you sound like an entitled child that cant understand to just take what you are given, when realistically the dev's owe you nothing more than what they choose to give you. "if you cant do it how i want you might as well not do it at all" mentality has me questioning if you are stomping your feet or rolling around on the floor while/between posts. be part of the solution, not part of the problem ffs..... 

[Hicks_206 (DayZ) 4297]

While I appreciate the support nutz, please please *please* don't resort to name calling or insulting other posters. I really hate seeing the forums degrade down into that.

[tux (DayZ) 325]

While I appreciate the support nutz, please please *please* don't resort to name calling or insulting other posters. I really hate seeing the forums degrade down into that.

 

I agree that a hostile environment shouldn't be encouraged. However, I'm sick and tired of seeing people saying the devs are lazy or not doing their job. Sure, there has to be room for any sort of feedback or suggestions, even if they don't follow the direction that the game is planned to be heading, but a lot of these posts aren't helping anyone, and are just alienating the dev team.

 

For example, a while back, reddit (/r/dayz) used to have a lot of devs constantly replying to posts about the game. Though I rarely participated in discussions there, I always found it awesome that you guys took time out of your schedule to help us understand things that were unclear to us. However, as any sane human being would do, once the negative feedback directly pointed at the dev team became too much, you guys stopped posting anything to that subreddit and I quickly lost interest in reading anything.

 

I recently found these forums, and even more recently started posting, because I'm becoming more active in playing the game and I love the idea of being a part of the development process. I'm just afraid that I'm starting to see the same type of stuff happening here that happened on reddit a while back. I know that you appreciate the support from the minority (or at least the less outspoken) of the players, but no way is that satisfying enough for you to put up with loads and loads of people telling you that you're not doing your job correctly. 

 

Hopefully you and the other devs stick with it and continue to post here and answer questions, because knowing how the game is intended to work (or not work) is extremely valuable, and I think it helps make us better alpha testers, which in turn can only help the development process as a whole.

[Hicks_206 (DayZ) 4297]

If you see someone insulting the dev team, or generally just "shitposting" / "trolling" - use that report button The moderation team will take care of it - no need to get in trouble yourself. :)

[thznutz 112]

While I appreciate the support nutz, please please *please* don't resort to name calling or insulting other posters. I really hate seeing the forums degrade down into that.

my apologies Mr. Hicks_206,

 

as a parent i typically use phrases to generally describe an action or behavior to avoid actually being insulting to my children. IE: "you sound like...", "you are acting like...." as opposed to "you are a/an...", etc. i have tried to use those methods here because.....well....you know better than most i am sure. i was merely trying to convey my interpretation of the attitude of a previous post back to the poster, as i truly think that sometimes they seem to have no idea how their post reads. i will of course concede to your wishes, as this is your house, and as a guest here i must abide by the rules in place (and mostly do). you and the rest of the dev/forum team have always had and will continue to have my support. thanks for the massive time waster...um, i mean...game :thumbsup:  :beans:

 

*oh...and thanks for taking away my at work entertainment (the F**k this game thread). i certainly understand why though, it was a cesspool of ignorance and hate. kinda fun to poke fun at while bored tho :D

Edited April 15, 2015 by thznutz