A Few Thoughts on.. (Deadlines, Roadmaps, etc)

[Hicks_206 (DayZ) 4297]

Hey guys, I wanted to sit down this evening and go over a few thoughts I was having in regards to publicly viewed roadmaps, developer stated goals, and things along these lines (anything projected release based).

Obviously - everyone involved, be it developer or consumer goes through the experience of gnashing of teeth when things come up that change, or in general push these back. We've tried annual roadmaps, quarterly goal roadmaps, we've tried heavily disclaimered target goals for a build - but in the end, it always ends up with one of us - the community around DayZ's development frustrated.

One of the great opportunities of allowing folks access to the development via Early Access is that we can experiment, see how things work, and change them up. Usually this is restricted to gameplay, and infrastructure - but it can also extend to how we interact with the community and discuss/release information.
Most folks might not know that as we move from one version to another (the two digit value before a build number . eg - 0.59.######) the leads from Prague and Bratislava spend a day and a half meeting, planning, and discussing what are target features and changes are for the next version.

What we're going to do moving forward is take that information, and bring you guys - the players - into our "milestone goals" for the version that happens to be being worked on at the time. So we're looking at the following:

• Compile a master list of our intended major feature set for 1.0
• At the first Status Report after the Leads Meeting include a list of our milestone goals for the next version
• Each subsequent Status Report include a break down of our progress towards completing the milestone
  • Per Major Feature
  • Any major bugs we are tackling at the time
• Once said version (milestone) is moved to Stable branch include a break down of what milestone goals we hit AND what goals were pushed (and why)

We're hoping this will increase visibility into what our immediate goals are, and remove some of the speculation - as well as let you guys understand a bit more about what is going on "under the hood" at DayZ.

[pilgrim* 3513]

BeanZ

[r8gato 46]

Fantastic. Look forward to reading about the success and the failures you guys encounter. As a fellow game dev, I understand failing on the way to getting 'it' right is a big part of the process, so, I appreciate this approach you will be taking.

Edited April 5, 2016 by r8gato
spelling

[WolverineZ 28]

Thanks Hicks, I really appreciate your message, as it helps bridge the Developers and the Players together on this long road ahead. I know it's frustrating for you and the team, but there are those of us who appreciate the time & effort you're putting into fixing many of the bugs currently.

 

[[DGN] Johnny 115]

More transparency is always a credit.

Making a great game, and glad to be around during a time we can play products and watch the development hand in hand.

[XenZone489 13]

I like how you are trying to increase the level of communication with the userbase, but I feel like, from how things are expressed, that you guys feel kind of "under pressure", because of how the consumers react most of the time. Like, you say "We EXPECT it to be [date]" but it gets delayed for whatever reason, and the reactions are "you're lazy" and all that kind of things. I guess it must be frustrating to spend all day working on something, and then you get the negative feedback for things that are blocking you from pushing the updates. I'm really waiting for 0.60, but I know we must wait, because there are only 2 ways this can be done: a) Game looks perfect - People complaining because of the time it took   b) We get it early - People complain for the performance and bugs.

I know how development works, and I know it's not easy as some people think it is, but 0.60 will come when it is ready to come, and I appreciate how you guys are focusing more on the Quality of the product rather than just pushing the update with all the bugs it has.

Keep up the good work guys. See ya!.

[RobCoxxy 52]

10 minutes ago, XenZone489 said:

I like how you are trying to increase the level of communication with the userbase, but I feel like, from how things are expressed, that you guys feel kind of "under pressure", because of how the consumers react most of the time. Like, you say "We EXPECT it to be [date]" but it gets delayed for whatever reason, and the reactions are "you're lazy" and all that kind of things. I guess it must be frustrating to spend all day working on something, and then you get the negative feedback for things that are blocking you from pushing the updates. I'm really waiting for 0.60, but I know we must wait, because there are only 2 ways this can be done: a) Game looks perfect - People complaining because of the time it took   b) We get it early - People complain for the performance and bugs.

I know how development works, and I know it's not easy as some people think it is, but 0.60 will come when it is ready to come, and I appreciate how you guys are focusing more on the Quality of the product rather than just pushing the update with all the bugs it has.

Keep up the good work guys. See ya!.

Glad you've said this, but I'm ashamed that it has to be said.

I feel it's a vocal minority of players that are unhappy whatever the situation, give devs grief and ultimately end up with people like Rocket avoiding social media (or certain forums, cough cough reddit) entirely due to hostility.

While the rest of the playerbase is happy seeing progress when it's good and ready, we understand development hiccups delaying goals - and that's fine with us, we want what the devs want - to see it done at tip top quality, when it's done.

Unfortunately, we're often keeping pretty schtum during development, just letting it happen. The vocal, angry side, however...

All I want to say is, keep up the good work guys, and while there's a lot of negativity in certain places, that's not where the majority is. We're in the background, letting you work!

Look forward to the updates, future status reports, and keep up the good work!

[ImpulZ 2491]

Can only underline the 2 previous comments.

You are trying to inform the community, but maybe 10% is reading it and 5% understanding.

You are extremely transparent about your development, more than most other games I know and I hope you do not sacrifice too much time of the development for talking to a community consisting of many people that do not listen to you anyway.

Good Luck and keep up the good work.

[AnarchyBrownies 1383]

I feel like the issue of complaints about communication and deadlines has slowly degraded to a horrible community environment. I'd like to chalk it up to morons who don't consider the difficulties, challenges, and basic realities of development, but really it's coming from the developer side too. The thing about the morons is you can forget about them. You can just ignore them because those are the people who refuse to look at the situation with any sort of reasonable perspective. The real problem--for you guys--is that the criticism ISN'T just coming from morons, it's coming from people who may have legitimate complaints.

I can't remember the last time I saw someone from the developer side just level with people about delays and progress and admit things have taken longer than they should have. I think it's safe to say that's the case. Just using .60 as an example: I personally DO NOT care when it comes out because I think it will be worth the wait no matter how long it takes. BUT when you say you're aiming for the end of February and it's nowhere close, it's not crazy for the community to be unhappy with how long after that date the release is. Those time frames being "goals" isn't actually the greatest excuse. Basically that means you could say "We're trying to get the build out in the next 30 seconds" and then just say "Well, that was a goal but we had some unexpected blockers." The time frame has to mean something, even if it's not solid (which any reasonable person knows it isn't). Otherwise you could literally say anything, in which case what's even the point of talking about time frames because it becomes meaningless. I think from the developer side of things you guys have to stop altering the language in your favour and admit that the pace is slower than ideal at times. Goals are not deadlines, but let's not act like goals have no meaning. It doesn't develop a good culture of early access development when delays are never a problem and accountability isn't even on the table. Sometimes there's blame to throw around, and people who have put money into the game sometimes deserve explanations in order to understand how things are going to improve in the future.

RELATED to this, I can't believe how generally unfriendly things have become from the developer side as well. The first time I noticed this was actually on the forums when Boneboys was doing a lot of post blocking. Then one day it happened to me, apparently because I was critical and said something that missed the mark on how game development works. I'm completely open to learning and being corrected, but the natural route became censoring undesirable comments. I even put a positive spin on my post at the time if I recall correctly. I honestly couldn't believe it because it just felt so "icky" compared to the mod community that the game started with. Then I actually got blocked by the DayZ Development account on Twitter for saying, "Did you guys seriously just link to a website under maintenance?" It was back during the security breach when there was a status report that was posted. Their tweet basically said "Here's the link, everything should be up and working." The site definitely wasn't up and working and I think it took a few more days after that. My tweet, while not friendly, was really a reference to the general disorganized feeling I get from the developer side. Maybe worthy of ignoring, but of being blocked for all time from the Development account? That's extreme. Sometimes it FEELS as though the left hand doesn't talk to the right hand at the company. The road map for the previous year wasn't even close, every build seemed to have significant delays last year, then there was a security breach on top of that, then the DayZ Dev account doesn't even seem to know when the website is up. That was where my more snotty tweet came from. The next thing I noticed is there is no longer the ability to rate videos or post comments to development videos on YouTube. The whole culture of this community is gross right now, and I think that the people working on DayZ have become far too criticism-averse.

After delays and a lot of waiting for this game to get to where it needs to, I'm still confident about its progress. I have faith it will get there and I tell fellow friends and gamers that all the time. And I truly don't care about delays or long waits, however you want to put it. The delays only get annoying when it gets thrown back in the community's face that any anticipation or impatience is their fault for expecting anything. But I think my relationship to the community, which had the developers embedded right into it, will never be the same. It's become far too sensitive about how it is perceived. Any standards for accountability have been removed, and missteps, even ones that seem mild, can result in censorship. It's too weird of an environment for me personally but I doubt I'm the only one that feels this way.

My advice (which I realize doesn't matter at all because you guys can do whatever you want) is to open up all channels of communication fully, bear the responsibility of having more patience than the average moron (even from tweets like mine), give yourself permission to just ignore critical people who lack far too much knowledge, and give more of a sense of the emotional tone of the development team. Is it truly that you guys don't care about missing goals and just accept it's a part of development (which it is), or is it that you guys are sometimes fairly disappointed you missed the mark by a certain amount of time, even considering the inevitable blockers that come up? I would find it very surprising if every delay and setback we've seen in the last year+ was no big deal but that seems to be the general tone that is publicly pushed: "Oh well. Stay patient."

No hard feelings, just some real talk. As always, if I'm way off base anywhere, I'm open to being called on it. 

Edited April 5, 2016 by AnarchyBrownies

[PSYMAN 0]

great talks from different points about my favorite game, dudes, hehe ;)
And as a normal player, i just wish to play in more complex simulator without any bugs as soon as possible. Preferably - Now! please;)
i strongly believe, Bohemia just need to take help from community, hehe ;)
as looks like many would provide some, with coding ;)))

[DaveB 194]

That sounds like a great idea Brian, I like it a lot. Pretty sure a lot of people will like to have a glimpse at develoment progression. Also, I'm glad you guys started lately sharing more thoughts like this on the forums.

Like the saying 'haters gonna hate' There is always people to cry and whine. But remember we are a bunch around those forums that appreciate the game and are in for the long run. I'm glad you guys stays meticulous and aiming for perfection instead of rushing content and caving in to some very vocal haters.

[PSYMAN 0]

hehe, people just hoping for Dayz, just not to become ' Iphone ' like progression :))

[guxlar 0]

Maybe the DevTeam should also have some sort of feedback tool from we - the players. Not only the bug reporting tool but some polls (or something alike) about specific topics. For instance, do you guys (players) want more guns, animations or crafting stuff ? Just my 2 cents.

[NonovUrbizniz (DayZ) 137]

4 hours ago, Hicks_206 (DayZ) said:

Hey guys, I wanted to sit down this evening and go over a few thoughts I was having in regards to publicly viewed roadmaps, developer stated goals, and things along these lines (anything projected release based).

Obviously - everyone involved, be it developer or consumer goes through the experience of gnashing of teeth when things come up that change, or in general push these back. We've tried annual roadmaps, quarterly goal roadmaps, we've tried heavily disclaimered target goals for a build - but in the end, it always ends up with one of us - the community around DayZ's development frustrated.

One of the great opportunities of allowing folks access to the development via Early Access is that we can experiment, see how things work, and change them up. Usually this is restricted to gameplay, and infrastructure - but it can also extend to how we interact with the community and discuss/release information.
Most folks might not know that as we move from one version to another (the two digit value before a build number . eg - 0.59.######) the leads from Prague and Bratislava spend a day and a half meeting, planning, and discussing what are target features and changes are for the next version.

What we're going to do moving forward is take that information, and bring you guys - the players - into our "milestone goals" for the version that happens to be being worked on at the time. So we're looking at the following:

• Compile a master list of our intended major feature set for 1.0
• At the first Status Report after the Leads Meeting include a list of our milestone goals for the next version
• Each subsequent Status Report include a break down of our progress towards completing the milestone
  • Per Major Feature
  • Any major bugs we are tackling at the time
• Once said version (milestone) is moved to Stable branch include a break down of what milestone goals we hit AND what goals were pushed (and why)

We're hoping this will increase visibility into what our immediate goals are, and remove some of the speculation - as well as let you guys understand a bit more about what is going on "under the hood" at DayZ.

I think that's a solid plan. To date, communication of plans has not been the problem, it's the fact that they haven't been updated in real time regularly, and then after 6-8 months, it makes more sense to release a new timeline than to update the last one, which leaves the people who are following closely a bit confused or upset.

Obviously, the project has gone through some VERY major revisions to it's goals, which were very tough decisions. The decision to create an engine eco system designed around the needs of DayZ was a brave, and needed decision, and IMO it will pay off in spades in the long term. But there is no denying it's one that was not made early enough, and, it having been made AFTER release of the Alpha is questionable at best, and left a LOT of people with a fairly sour taste.

Ideally, I think the best route is to stop locking targets to version numbers, and release regular updates of whatever updates you can. This way there is no appearance of stagnation. There are plenty of folks who would be more than happy to continue seeing content updates regardless of whether or not some arbitrary internal goal has been met or not.

Surely there is at least some stockpile of finished vehicles, weapons, buildings, and while configuring them for 2 systems may globally be a "waste" of resources, satiating an eager community has it's own value. Not to mention there are object placement errors on the terrain that have persisted through 2-3 updates... those could be addressed, or the new map location additions could be released prior to the renderer. ANY update would be a welcome one... people like to see fresh content.

I personally am not surprised or disappointed by the time it's taking for development, but that largely has to do with the fact that I've said since 2012/2013 that it will take 3-5 years to be a fully developed retail game with modding support.

I would really love to see BI spend just a bit more effort to keep the community engaged, even if it's "fluff" or "marketing"...

I think the community at large has already accepted that "it'll be done when it's done"... but would like to see it kept interesting while we're waiting.. You mention directly "one of the great things about early access is you can experiment"... well? Start experimenting, it seems to me like it's been a fairly boring ride to date... Heli Crashes, loot distribution, spawn locations, day/night cycle, basically nothing has changed since the mod... I get there is a vision for the end product... but as stated.. we're no where near being at the end.. so why not have some fun on the ride?

[igor-vk 909]

Quote :

"What we're going to do moving forward is take that information, and bring you guys - the players - into our "milestone goals" for the version that happens to be being worked on at the time. So we're looking at the following:

Compile a master list of our intended major feature set for 1.0

At the first Status Report after the Leads Meeting include a list of our milestone goals for the next version

Each subsequent Status Report include a break down of our progress towards completing the milestone

Per Major Feature

Any major bugs we are tackling at the time.

We're hoping this will increase visibility into what our immediate goals are, and remove some of the speculation - as well as let you guys understand a bit more about what is going on "under the hood" at DayZ."

 

- Why did this took you so long to decide to do this ? Community asked for this for so long!  I welcome this. Only thing more frustrating than waiting for updates is lack of informations and transparency. 

[igor-vk 909]

off topic: there are much things anounced in status reports and trello that we never saw in game. Those things are on "stand by" and waiting for implementation of "new" engine. Is 0.60 that triger that will release all those things in game? Will updates be more frequent again? I mean, you have core mechanics for weapons, vehicles, AI. Are you at that point in development when you just change visual/art part of features/items? Example: we have Volga Sedan and V3S, just change aperance and you have Lada sedan and Ural truck that handle same and use same parts but externaly look different. Or if you have M4A1, can we get M16 that has 60% same parts and same animations. 

These are things we still dont know. And were never mentioned.

[Noctoras 409]

10 hours ago, naz666 said:

Can only underline the 2 previous comments.

You are trying to inform the community, but maybe 10% is reading it and 5% understanding.

You are extremely transparent about your development, more than most other games I know and I hope you do not sacrifice too much time of the development for talking to a community consisting of many people that do not listen to you anyway.

Good Luck and keep up the good work.

and because you do not understand a terror network's operating structure, people should not inform you of terrorist dangers? Your logic is ... queer, sorry. Your flower puffing might sit well with the devs, but I think communication IS important, no matter if 100% of the target audience understands. So I for one appreciate the announced move.

[themightylc 56]

EDIT: I just realized I could have written this all in a more positive, upbeat way like "hey, wouldn't it be good to do this" instead of insinuating that "you are doing it wrong". I meant it in the first way. Please, read it like that <3 :o*

Okay it has come to the point that I feel pressured to make a disclaimer at the start of my posts as to how much I love DayZ and how much empathy I have towards the devs, being a developer myself. But maybe I'll put this in my signature some time (don't count on it I'm lazy)

12 hours ago, Hicks_206 (DayZ) said:

One of the great opportunities of allowing folks access to the development via Early Access is that we can experiment, see how things work, and change them up. Usually this is restricted to gameplay, and infrastructure

I feel DayZ - the actual game in development - has never really fully profited from EA in this way. It's always been this pressure to have a playable game all the time - the "stable branch" - and... well... something else, "the experimental branch".

I get the idea behind it, or maybe the intention, but i really think it is executed and handled suboptimally.

First of all, there are so few EXP-Servers, that i doubt the value of information that can be pulled off of them. Secondly, update intervals have almost become identical to the point that experimental has ceased to justify it's existence.

IMHO "stable" should always have been experimental. And "experimental" should have been WAY closer to the internal builds. Somehow the devs seen to feel pressured to supply BOTH as a "playable, enjoyable experience". My assumption being, that they are in fear that the reputation and future sales (though after 3.000.000 copies sold i cannot see this as a threat) of the game are too closely connected to the playability (NOT the quality) of the Steam branches. Hicks keeps advertising EA as an opportunity to change things up, but we're getting those changes in frustratingly long intervals. I would LOVE to play completely broken builds. Reset shit every 2 days I don't care, but how can i contribute to the development, playing old-as-shit builds with legacy systems that won't have an impact on the development at all anymore?

On the other hand, the "enjoyable experience" on "stable" is hindered by miniscule things, that could be fixed in an instant. Let me give an example: DayZ has a detailed nightsky with star systems that help me orientate myself which I can't even fucking look at anymore, because my character is obviously wearing some kind of neck collar, that prevents him from looking up more that a few degrees. This change is pissing me off so much and I know for a fact (I promise to grab my leg and rip myself apart if this isn't true) that changing it (back) would be as much work as changing a single line of code, maybe even just update a config file. No new clothes, animations, weapons, long overdue zombie fixes would be nessecary, but these little changes are not being made to "stable" because "stable" has to be "stable" and god forbid they break something EVEN MORE....

So "stable" is by far not the experience it could be. "experimental" has by far not the value it could have. We should at least be able to play "weekly builds" on it. I understand pushing and merging builds does by no means not involve some work. But heck, even "monthly builds" would mean a lot within the current world-of-goo. The goals, the bugs, even the BLOCKERS should at least be possible to be experienced and evaluated by a part of the community. Actually, the BLOCKERS should be the frontmost experience, so that they can be tackled. Even if it means that I can't reload a single wepon in the "exp" branch for a week? What does it matter? I'm playing an UNFINISHED product. I can either TEST other things or maybe even provide information and help to fix it. Be it actively by reporting or passively through server-logs.

But this current system - sorry - it just doesn't make any sense to me. DayZ user numbers currently PEAK at 0.3% of the buyers. Thinning out the herd even more by BREAKING THE STEAM BUILDS EVEN MORE could be a good thing. Trying to keep them happy by stabilizing builds for months and months on end does not seem to accomplish anything.

Edited April 6, 2016 by themightylc

[[Gen]Adzic 241]

What is an anagram of Brian?

 

Yep.. Brain, and you are using it :)

[deluxegamer 0]

Im super lazy, i copy pasted this into google translate to have somebody read it to me..... :P

[c4p 30]

@themightylc I understand your point and I know the devs COULD do it as you said. You know "Take on Mars", it's a Bohemia game, also in EA.

There are: the main branch(=stable), developers branch(exp), test branch(pre-exp?), and legacy brach(older stable version). Maybe this is not possible in Dayz development while they are coding new engine parts...idk.

But I would like to see more builds to test, too :-)

[Coheed_IV 381]

18 hours ago, Hicks_206 (DayZ) said:

One of the great opportunities of allowing folks access to the development via Early Access is that we can experiment, see how things work, and change them up. Usually this is restricted to gameplay, and infrastructure - but it can also extend to how we interact with the community and discuss/release information.

It is a great opportunity, but has it been cashed in on? Seems to make most sense with local functions like the third person camera, remember that, but what's the point before the new player controller is in. There just hasn't been much iteration with so much that matters yet.

Much of this opportunity seems to still be waiting on major tech changes too. If this is cashed in on, then where? Here, on this dead forum? The recent dev interaction is appreciated though, this can get built back up.

 

[BeefBacon 1185]

DayZ gets a lot of bad press, which is a shame. I work with game developers, so I know that a game takes a very long time to develop - or if you're doing it right it does. Most people hear about a game a few months, maybe a year or two, before it's released. In the case of DayZ, we've been able to see it develop pretty much from the start, but people still expect it to be released after a few months. It probably doesn't help that a lot - most, probably - of DayZ's development is under the hood, so to speak. I suppose people aren't impressed by progress that they can't see, even if it lays the foundations for the game itself. I think it's best to avoid things like roadmaps and ETAs, because when you don't meet them that provides ammunition for naysayers. Shit happens that sets things back. I think that showing us what you're working on now, and giving us some idea of what you will be working on in the near future, is the best way to go about it. No deadlines or anything like that because, as you say, it's disappointing and frustrating for everyone when those goals aren't met. Hell, I'm the sort of person who only really plays DayZ when the big updates come about, and I get that development times can be long and all that sort of thing, but I'll admit that even I was disappointed when .60 wasn't released last month. I get it, and I'm glad that you're working on making sure .60 is fabulous - I'd much rather get .60 'late' than receive it as a buggy mess - but I did feel a little let down. Despite that, I'm unwavering in my looking-forward-to-ness of .60.

[scriptfactory 620]

You could just create a development roadmap page/microsite. As long as you keep it updated I think everyone would be happy enough.

Like this: http://shardsonline.com/development-roadmap/

Or this: https://lifeisfeudal.com/billing/roadmap.php

Weekly experimental builds would also keep the majority of people quiet. Regardless of how broken they were...

Edited April 6, 2016 by scriptfactory

[Coheed_IV 381]

One more thought. I really don't mind any delay or break in builds, in my opinion, it almost could have a benefit. I for one, along with many have taken a break from playing Dayz, its not a bad thing.

But, as DayZ  gets its major tech implemented over the coming.....aaaaa....year, many will be coming back and checking it out. It's important that these players have a place to get proper info and understand what the plan is, can voice themselves, and develop strong lines of communication by beta. Kind of a re-release of sorts. I don't think it has mattered that DayZ has lost it player base over the last couple years, but it is going to be important, that they come back and stay back once these engine changes are in.  

All my frustration can be boiled down not to delays, but there not being many infected, this is my overall disappointment, I cant play the game when it's so easy. I enjoyed the experimental when no items spawned, I actually had to survive.

 

Edited April 6, 2016 by Coheed_IV
more