Modding DayZ

[LukeMurawski 0]

This was actually from another post of mine, but I'll go ahead and create a thread for it.

To the DayZ dev team:

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Main_Page

You see that? That is Valve's Developer wiki. Valve gives you the complete source code to HL2 including a dedicated modding wiki and freedom to customize. They don't choke server administrators with silly rules. Maybe if you gave the admins who spend money to host your mod some more freedom (like Valve does), your mod would become more successful. Valve realized that and became a multibillion dollar company, yet you people fail to realize something so simple.

DayZ itself is an example. As an Arma II mod, DayZ brought the game nearly 10-fold more $$$. Uniqueness and creativity keep players coming. If the rule-makers can't realize such a simple thing, that's a financial fail. Give your admins more freedom, and don't blacklist amazing and fun servers. Learn from Valve.

Also, your forum has image issues. From the looks of the source code, it looks like you are using the php/mysql forum software called MyBB. Fix the postbit_image issue. Thanks :)

[Bunster 7]

Never kno whats planned for future though right

[LukeMurawski 0]

Yeah, but it would be awesome if they let other programmers mod DayZ, just as Arma II was modded to make DayZ. They'll make so much more money. Unfortunately they don't realize that.

[Sephka (DayZ) 51]

Half Life 2 is a fully functioning game that has many mods.

ArmA II is a fully functioning game that has many mods, one of those including DayZ.

DayZ is an Alpha mod, very early in it's development that, through word of mouth, managed to get a rather big crowd.

This suggestion would make more sense if DayZ was a standalone game, but it's not.

[LukeMurawski 0]

Mods = $. Simple as that. HL2's mods made HL2 much more famous, just as Arma 2's mods (e.g. DayZ) made Arma 2 much more famous. There can be mods of mods, and that'll only accelerate DayZ's growth.

FYI, many modern games like Portal 2, L4D2, Counter Strike: Source, etc are all Half Life 2 mods. These mods in their final stages of development turned into separate fully functional games that used the HL2 engine. Common sense dictates that this mod is heading in the same direction. One day, DayZ might be its own game from what started out as a mod. Supporting modding as Valve had done with their games will accelerate this mod's potential.

Counter Strike, Left 4 dead, etc all have mods of their own. That makes them mods of mods. Therefore, my original post makes sense.

[SystemiK 366]

Hell they are still trying the get the backend up to snuff (while still adding new mechanics regularly) and you want them to concurrently develop an open platform for modding an extremely young alpha?

Seems like you would have the developers far in head of themselves, but I guess I dreamer's gonna dream...

[Buzz (DayZ) 1]

Hell they are still trying the get the backend up to snuff (while still adding new mechanics regularly) and you want them to concurrently develop an open platform for modding an extremely young alpha?

Seems like you would have the developers far in head of themselves' date=' but I guess I dreamer's gonna dream...

[/quote']

What gave you the impression it isn't easy to give the server owners the source code the problem is it could be used for hacks.

[LukeMurawski 0]

You guys misunderstood. DayZ currently is being developed with heavy administrator control. That's the wrong way to go about it, and I'm not the one who found that out-- Valve (the multibillion dollar company) did. Modding support needs to be developed concurrently with the mod itself (which doesn't look like it's happening after reading the server admin rules list). Modding is essential to any game's framework, and since DayZ has such a high chance of becoming standalone, it needs to be developed in a way that has some form of SDK or COM support.

[Delta Smoke 01 765]

DayZ isnt ready for that kind of freedom yet. Perhaps in the future they will. But as DayZ is just starting out and is more popular than any other mod before it. I dont blame the developers for holding on to the keys to its success. Plus Rocket did allow a guy (kronkzy i think his name was) to mod dayz into a single player mod. He even gave him direct access to his own personal database. The guy broke the deal he struck with rocket on when his mod of dayz could be released, and had his mod closed down. I dont blame him for doing so either. I mean its like someone walking into ur garden that you spent months making and planting thorn bushes amongst your flowers. You dont want ppl to see that, you want them to see what you did.

[LukeMurawski 0]

Game Engine -> Game Engine Mod -> Stand-Alone game -> Game mods

Just forget it. This thread was directed at the developers, as none of you seem to understand. What made Valve so huge was that its content was always rich thanks to other people who kept the game alive long after Valve stopped work on it. A modding framework needs to be built concurrently with the mod if the mod were to ever go stand-alone. That's all my message was-- a friendly reminder of what other companies did to make them a success.

Currently, DayZ strips every kind of power from the very server admins who pay money to keep DayZ alive (with free servers). That's a very wrong thing to do. Hell, at least Valve realized that.

[SystemiK 366]

Hell they are still trying the get the backend up to snuff (while still adding new mechanics regularly) and you want them to concurrently develop an open platform for modding an extremely young alpha?

Seems like you would have the developers far in head of themselves' date=' but I guess I dreamer's gonna dream...

[/quote']

What gave you the impression it isn't easy to give the server owners the source code the problem is it could be used for hacks.

Well it seems you've kind of answered your own question there haven't you?

[LukeMurawski 0]

In plain English:

Please remove the ropes off of server admins' necks and build the mod with future modding support. Currently, the mod is heading away from future modding probability from the looks of it.

For those of you that fail to understand:

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Building_Mods_with_Valve_Technology

DayZ is an ArmA II mod, obviously, just like Orange Box games (CSS, Team Fortress 2, etc) are HL2 mods. All Valve games (e.g. TF2) support mods. The mods of those mods are basically mods of a HL2 mod. They were built with modding support and server administration freedom from the start, and now these games made Valve billions of dollars.

Can DayZ do that if it were to go standalone? Nope, because they have a rope around every admin's neck, and it's not being built with modding in mind.

EDIT: I understand DayZ is built a little differently due to character persistence across servers. However, why don't you guys allow modded private DB servers? They only make this mod even more famous. Anyway, screw it. I tried. Someone lock this thread.

[Tempered Saint 1]

Valve did not give out source code BEFORE THEY EVEN FINISHED THE GAME!!!! Strict rules are required during developement to ensure a harmonious experience. How are the developers to know if the bug is theirs or from some server admin jacking around.

[Wired 1]

You dawg, I heard you liked mods. So I made you a mod of your mod, so you can mod while you mod.

[TrajanP 0]

holy fuck this MOD is still in fucking alpha.

jumping ahead some????

[SystemiK 366]

Valve did not give out source code BEFORE THEY EVEN FINISHED THE GAME!!!!

Heh, well to be fair, they kind of did...(though not intentionally).

[Electrolyte 4]

I doubt the DayZ and Arma devs are intentionally holding back the success of the mod by ignoring the evolution of Valve, but that's what it appears OP is suggesting.

Hopefully there will be options down the road, but when you have something so new make as big of an impact as DayZ I'd be keen to see what its creators are trying to achieve next and reassess whether it's worth your trouble at beta. I'd love to hear there thoughts on the Valve way though!

[SystemiK 366]

Bottom line. They are not going to fracture the server base and / or hive into seperate gameplay mechanics while they are in the middle of an alpha test. It's not going to happen and they have said as much. Hell, they are not exactly big on the alternative server settings we have now. As far as everything they have said publicly, there are no plans to break out PVP into a seperate style of play. And rightly so, not only is there massively reduced overhead between developing two alphas concurrently, but they can remain focused on the core design which they have set forth.

If at some point in the future they have more time and resources to throw at an easy mode well it would make much more sense then. For all we know, that plan already exists for a later stage of development. What we do know is that they have said no to the idea numerous times.

Here are your two options: Wait and see.

[LukeMurawski 0]

Here are your two options: Wait and see.

Not to sound like an ass, but that's technically only one option ; )

I wonder if I should go about and make my own game.

[Wrath (DayZ) 140]

This is a horrible idea. OP please stop posting about it.

The game is still VERY small, and it is VERY early. Do you really want to fracture the entire community? Because doing what you're suggesting would do just that.

Rocket, don't listen to this idiot. If anything, and as you seem to want to do, mod it into Arma 3 with the view to make it a stand-alone game. This doesn't need mod support.

Thanks.

Edit: Oh OP just left to make his own game. Excellent. Cya OP :)

[LukeMurawski 0]

Alright. We'll see what happens. When that day comes, I will come back here and revive this thread.

Consider this closed, and goodbye. You call me an idiot, but I'm getting all of my information from the big giant of the gaming world (Valve). Who are you to question their talent? You're the idiot here, not Valve, not DayZ dev.

[Wrath (DayZ) 140]

Bye :)

[Venzire 76]

Stop saying valve revolutionized everything that's BULLSHIT. Many other companies shaped communities to what they are now. Don't use valve as an example and throwing shit around saying modding A MOD will make it sooo much better because that is entirely incorrect.

I see what you're at here but it's just physically impossible at the moment as the mod is very early in development as the download button on the homepage says "(Alpha Test)" below "Download DayZ" button.

Understand why the devs don't want Server Admins to have power as quite a few are dickheads that will want to do what they want and craft their own rules that would most definetly ruin the immersion and experience of the mod. Not to mention the amount of QQ'ing there would be if this happened. Some people just don't want this it's still a nice suggestion but point it out later in development or even release.

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We'll see what happens later on then revive the thread and sorry for the rant just had to. :P

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[Psyl3nt 125]

I'd think that given this mod is in alpha, and it's being treated by many as a "full" game it's clearly going to be a fairly "large" release and will have most likely have a staggering user base when it goes full release.

There is another possibility, and that is that this mod will never be a full release and is instead a testing ground for Arma 3, and a gametype that may be included in the full game. Perhaps it will be a "mod" for Arma 3 and not a part of it, it so very early and new it's hard to say what will happen.

To release the information to the user base that enables them to mod the mod would also mean that yes, hackers would have easy access to that which enables them to create better hacks for the mod. Not a good thing, also to create a modding engine / package would require almost as much time and effort as creating the mod itself, and being in alpha means that this effort is best spent completing the mod before anything like that is considered.

my .02c

[LukeMurawski 0]

Well, at least I tried. :dodgy:

Btw, I never said Valve revolutionized everything. 80% of all PC gamers have used Steam (a Valve product), and they have the largest gaming community on the planet. Obviously, they know what they are doing.

Idk how DayZ was modded, but most mods (if they were to support future mods) need to be designed with planned modding support. You can't magically easily integrate a modding platform into a finished product. An alpha or beta stage is essentially when this process should occur, but it's pretty obvious it's not gonna happen. Hey, but I tried.

Hehe, about the hacking thing, that's the point... A mod of a game is essentially a hack (a change of gameplay mechanics). Mods generally tend to make the game better (depending on the mod/genre).

EDIT: So you guys think DayZ might be an official mode for Arma III? I saw a YT video where the interviewer said it probably won't happen since Arma is strictly military based.