So... that's it then?

[rickyriot 1009]

Been a player of the mod and SA for a decade now. During that time DayZ has been good, bad, good, sort of OK, terrible, better and now pretty damned decent. However through all that time I've stuck with it because of the potential. Sadly, with the recent status update, that potential has been killed. Bug fixing is all fine and well but I'm not waiting another 6 months to see how things pan out. I did that (and much longer) during the .6x versions and at the end of it we were still left waiting for tons of content. I'm simply not willing to invest my time in repeating that process.

I am not one for grand gestures, or hyperbolic assumptions. I'm sure the game will gradually improve, I'm sure modding support will grow and I'm sure there will be fun to be had. This is not the end of DayZ as a title, but it is pretty much the end of DayZ being played by me - and that should worry those at BI as I have been a fairly vocal supporter of the game for many years but I just can't bring myself to play the game now, let alone support it. If that is how your "fans" sound when being presented with a roadmap that essentially says "skeletal staff, minimum investment, no further development" just think how the rest of the community feels - and filtering out the trolls and perma-ragers with those that remain it's across the board people are complaining.

Bottom line, DayZ is simply not good enough to survive on PvP alone and at present that is what BI is effectively relying on.

Just to clarify I'm not complaining that I've been ripped off, as I haven't. I paid a pittance for the Arma 2(OA), I paid a pittance for the SA when it was first released, I have more than just recouped that financial outlay with enjoyment. What I'm left with is a feeling of missed opportunity and a slightly bittersweet taste in my mouth.

Sad day, sad day indeed... 😞

[maxon-69 35]

You just don't enjoy the game. I know that the game has a lot of bugs and not enough content. But I am entertaining myself. I set myself goals in the game. Well, for example - to survive on the island as Robinson Crusoe or play the role of a taxi driver. Sometimes I'm a sniper on the roof. Sometimes a mechanic, I repair cars for other players. Try the game is diverse!

[bent.toe 529]

2 hours ago, rickyriot said:

Been a player of the mod and SA for a decade now. During that time DayZ has been good, bad, good, sort of OK, terrible, better and now pretty damned decent. However through all that time I've stuck with it because of the potential. Sadly, with the recent status update, that potential has been killed. Bug fixing is all fine and well but I'm not waiting another 6 months to see how things pan out. I did that (and much longer) during the .6x versions and at the end of it we were still left waiting for tons of content. I'm simply not willing to invest my time in repeating that process.

I am not one for grand gestures, or hyperbolic assumptions. I'm sure the game will gradually improve, I'm sure modding support will grow and I'm sure there will be fun to be had. This is not the end of DayZ as a title, but it is pretty much the end of DayZ being played by me - and that should worry those at BI as I have been a fairly vocal supporter of the game for many years but I just can't bring myself to play the game now, let alone support it. If that is how your "fans" sound when being presented with a roadmap that essentially says "skeletal staff, minimum investment, no further development" just think how the rest of the community feels - and filtering out the trolls and perma-ragers with those that remain it's across the board people are complaining.

Bottom line, DayZ is simply not good enough to survive on PvP alone and at present that is what BI is effectively relying on.

Just to clarify I'm not complaining that I've been ripped off, as I haven't. I paid a pittance for the Arma 2(OA), I paid a pittance for the SA when it was first released, I have more than just recouped that financial outlay with enjoyment. What I'm left with is a feeling of missed opportunity and a slightly bittersweet taste in my mouth.

Sad day, sad day indeed... 😞

Not to rain on your parade but most games have a life cycle of 2 years (tops) and then the developers move on to new projects. 

I will not count the 6 first years but i will start from august 29th 2018 (first release on console) when the big masses got a hold of it. So it's almost a year since then. 

If we instead count from 1.0/gold then it's been 4 months. I guess we got another 20 months of support. 

If you been around since the mod, you been playing a game that has been supporten AND grown for almost a decade.....

[maxon-69 35]

it happens that the game is boring, but it does not take much time and again want to repeat everything. I am now having fun that pursue other players, but do not kill them, and shoot zombies while helping them with loot and try not to be visible. Very funny!

[ImpulZ 2491]

3 hours ago, rickyriot said:

If that is how your "fans" sound when being presented with a roadmap that essentially says "skeletal staff, minimum investment, no further development" just think how the rest of the community feels - and filtering out the trolls and perma-ragers with those that remain it's across the board people are complaining.

Bottom line, DayZ is simply not good enough to survive on PvP alone and at present that is what BI is effectively relying on.

I just want to make sure you have not only read our Status Report, but also our addition to it, as it clarifies certain points such as the interpretation that there would be "no further development", which is false.

Feature development has not stopped, and our team is looking into further improving the game. The missing survival experience (guess that's what you are hinting at) is mostly due to balancing issues (as every new addition can change the entire balancing of the game and we don't want updates to be unplayable), which was mentioned in our Status Report as one of our priorities to focus on.

[rickyriot 1009]

1 hour ago, bent.toe said:

Not to rain on your parade but most games have a life cycle of 2 years (tops) and then the developers move on to new projects. 

I will not count the 6 first years but i will start from august 29th 2018 (first release on console) when the big masses got a hold of it. So it's almost a year since then. 

If we instead count from 1.0/gold then it's been 4 months. I guess we got another 20 months of support. 

If you been around since the mod, you been playing a game that has been supporten AND grown for almost a decade.....

You are not raining on my parade as I have no parade on show. I'm simply making the point that the recent status update has essentially said fuck all is happening to the game when the plans up until that point was for things to be happening in the game.

You also might wish to ignore the first 6 years however I won't. For at least a year we were promised time and again that the new engine will not only make things look and feel better but that we would get the same things in .6x ported over. Only part of that verbal agreement has been honoured - despite many people twiddling their thumbs for nigh on a year waiting for it to drop - and the way BI address it is with a disparraging "we can't make it work so you're out of luck buddy, just ignore all those claims we made" along with the somewhat insuling "you probably don't notice the improvements because you play the game often".

I have no axe to grind at either the developers or BI, for both it's a finance thing. BI aren't supporting this beyond the minimum while telling us to expect nothing new and the devs must see that and are looking for a more secure gig. I get why both those parties have those points of view (if they do, and I think they do). Finance defining a game's development is neither new nor should it be considered necessarily "a bad thing" but they really should have been honest from the start, "1.x will be a different game, it will not match what .6x had and don't expect it to."

I'd say your 2 year cycle is very low imo. Unless you count something like repeating franchises; FIFA, CoD, etc then most games would be looking at a 4 year cycle minimum - if only because it takes roughly that length of time to get a new title from original spark to alpha/beta delivery. Even then, look at things like Skyrim or GTA5, both games released before DayZ standalone and both games still going considerably strong.

 

[rickyriot 1009]

1 minute ago, ImpulZ said:

I just want to make sure you have not only read our Status Report, but also our addition to it, as it clarifies certain points such as the interpretation that there would be "no further development", which is false.

Feature development has not stopped, and our team is looking into further improving the game. The missing survival experience (guess that's what you are hinting at) is mostly due to balancing issues (as every new addition can change the entire balancing of the game and we don't want updates to be unplayable), which was mentioned in our Status Report as one of our priorities to focus on.

Ok, for a start let me re-iterate, I am not on the hate train. I have been on the whole complete supportive of the changes and understood why they were necessary. The game, and I've said this many times, is in a considerably better state than before.

We all know the problem, content, and it was content that we were told was coming; "The new engine will allow us to do this, that and the other. Once we get the animations properly sorted then we will be able to move on to adding the older content back in. etc, etc"

This is the issue, ImpulZ, the fact we were told there would be at least a level of parity, and with the regular patches since 1.0 it looked like that was the plan. Then seemingly out of the blue, BI release a statement (sans addendum) which all but says, "that's the end of the road and you should be happy because what we couldn't make work probably wasn't working in it's last iteration anyway". Whether that was intended to make the community look like fools I'm not sure, but from my perspective it most definitely did. Especially the "I bet you don't even notice it" quip. Whoever does your copyrighting really should be questioning the tone of that particular nugget.

In regard to the addendum, I get that BI are unwilling to provide a road map, but if other games are able to not only do that but to stick to it (at least to an extent), then why does BI have an issue with it?

 

Do I have sympathy for this sort of shit? Of course I do, I've been programming since the early 80s (yes, that fucking old) and been part of multi-million pound projects and fully understand that, as Mike Tyson says, "Everyone has a plan until they are punched in the face", but BI (and/or the dev team) have to accept that when people have been offered steak for months and they are given a plate of beans -  no matter how tasty those beans are it's still not a steak.

[rickyriot 1009]

2 hours ago, maxon-69 said:

You just don't enjoy the game.

Oh, I enjoy the game, in fact it's the one thread that has retained it's "installed" status within my steam account. It's the very nature of my enjoyment that I have been left so flat from the recent update status.

[bent.toe 529]

51 minutes ago, rickyriot said:

You are not raining on my parade as I have no parade on show. I'm simply making the point that the recent status update has essentially said fuck all is happening to the game when the plans up until that point was for things to be happening in the game.

You also might wish to ignore the first 6 years however I won't. For at least a year we were promised time and again that the new engine will not only make things look and feel better but that we would get the same things in .6x ported over. Only part of that verbal agreement has been honoured - despite many people twiddling their thumbs for nigh on a year waiting for it to drop - and the way BI address it is with a disparraging "we can't make it work so you're out of luck buddy, just ignore all those claims we made" along with the somewhat insuling "you probably don't notice the improvements because you play the game often".

I have no axe to grind at either the developers or BI, for both it's a finance thing. BI aren't supporting this beyond the minimum while telling us to expect nothing new and the devs must see that and are looking for a more secure gig. I get why both those parties have those points of view (if they do, and I think they do). Finance defining a game's development is neither new nor should it be considered necessarily "a bad thing" but they really should have been honest from the start, "1.x will be a different game, it will not match what .6x had and don't expect it to."

I'd say your 2 year cycle is very low imo. Unless you count something like repeating franchises; FIFA, CoD, etc then most games would be looking at a 4 year cycle minimum - if only because it takes roughly that length of time to get a new title from original spark to alpha/beta delivery. Even then, look at things like Skyrim or GTA5, both games released before DayZ standalone and both games still going considerably strong.

 

Yes, you are correct with GTA V and Skyrim or even Arma 3. But it's a small percent of games that last beyond 2 years. 

And if i'm counting the first 6 years of dayz and add all the years then you got a lot.. A LOT of value out of your money or am i wrong? 

Also, we don't know what BI will do with dayz and for how long they will support it. Maybe it's to the end of 2019, maybe it's through whole of 2021?

Anyway, sorry to see you leave. Always sad when members leave the community. 

[rickyriot 1009]

17 minutes ago, bent.toe said:

And if i'm counting the first 6 years of dayz and add all the years then you got a lot.. A LOT of value out of your money or am i wrong?

There are a few things I could say about that, but instead I'll just quote from my first post:

4 hours ago, rickyriot said:

Just to clarify I'm not complaining that I've been ripped off, as I haven't. I paid a pittance for the Arma 2(OA), I paid a pittance for the SA when it was first released, I have more than just recouped that financial outlay with enjoyment.

 

[pilgrim* 3514]

9 minutes ago, rickyriot said:

Just to clarify I'm not complaining that I've been ripped off, as I haven't. I paid a pittance for the Arma 2(OA), I paid a pittance for the SA when it was first released, I have more than just recouped that financial outlay with enjoyment.

TOTALLY 100% @rickyriot
NOTHING on the Planet has EVER been better value or cheaper kicks for longer  in MY lifetime..  AND for that one price you get ENDLESS access .. pay down once and you're ON for life, damn game STILL being updated. Don't cost ME a cent. For the last 100 YEARS this has been kif-kif a free to play and I don't think it is EVER going to shut down.

Bottom Line =  in fact I just bought the SA as payback for the fun I had from the Mod.. so from there on in it was and is all TOTALLY free, for my way of looking..  I would have just given them the money anyway as thanx for that MOD

so ..  what the hell  

keep complaining, keep laughing, keep suggesting, keep playing

xxp

[drgullen 596]

3 hours ago, ImpulZ said:

Feature development has not stopped, and our team is looking into further improving the game.

I asked this in your SR thread and didn't receive an answer, so I'll ask it again here.

If feature development is continuing, why not publish a list of features being developed?  Why leave us all to speculate which parity-related things we might still get and which ones have now been scrapped?  In the SR, you posted an image of what appeared to be a character climbing/vaulting a wall.  So, that's great, we'll be getting climbing/vaulting at some point.  Wonderful.  Why can't you simply give us a list of the rest of the things you plan to develop as a feature?

I'm sorry but I agree with @rickyriot 100% about this -- other video game companies are able to provide this information, why can't BI do it?

[zloba 3]

I think this is it. All the important devs have left and the game is now in legacy maintenance mode. It's a sad day. I still remember the day in June 2012 when my coworker told me about this amazing Arma 2 mod. And finding Lee Enfiled on the outskirts of Cherno,  being overwhelmed with excitement and fear , running to find a safe place to log-off. When I moved to a new country thousands of miles away one of the things I put in the old wooden suitcase was the official printed Chernorus map from Bohemia. It's still hanging on the wall above my PC. I can't say it's a bittersweet moment, it's full of anger and disappointment but it's time to say goodbye. 

[maxon-69 35]

Why are you crying like that? It's not over yet. There will be new buns and cookies. Stop crying.

[rickyriot 1009]

On 7/22/2019 at 2:22 PM, maxon-69 said:

Why are you crying like that? It's not over yet. There will be new buns and cookies. Stop crying.

Nobody is "crying", using that sort of language makes you sound like a child, I am (and I am sure I am not alone in this) simply disappointed that (a) things that were implemented haven't been reimplemented and won't be, and (b) it's clear the game has now been put very much on the back burner just when it was finally looking half decent again. The former being an issue of trust, the second one of exasperation.

What's more BI released this information along with comments like "you won't notice the difference because you've been playing the game frequently" and "don't worry we won't put in what we said we would because when we took it out it was broken anyway". If anyone, just anyone, sees that as anything other than plain insulting to the player base then they're wearing very rose tinted sunglasses.

 

Ultimately the decision is BI's, and it's very likely to be purely based on finances, but that doesn't stop people who have invested as much time and effort into the game feeling let down by the decision.

Edited July 24, 2019 by rickyriot

[pilgrim* 3514]

On 7/22/2019 at 1:33 AM, zloba said:

being overwhelmed with excitement and fear

                                       ^
                                   THAT
                                  exactly
                                   THAT

                      Excitement and Fear

take a breath before you log in because there is NO safe place, NO rest, NO security, NO peace  - you are paranoid alert hungry fragile and your life is on a thread  NOW, it can end in the next 4 seconds WHATEVER you do
you will be paranoid scared vicious spooked cunning worried alert ALL the time - you HAVE to be -  and it WILL NOT do you any good

when you die it will be unexpected,  unfair, shocking, sudden & horrible - you will run, swear, scream, bleed, kill, starve, lie, loot, shoot, steal and DIE

It was a mil sim with SURVIVAL built on top of it to show you that SURVIVAL is UNFAIR  - SURVIVAL can NEVER BE FAIR.
the slightest mistake WILL kill you
a tiny lack of attention WILL kill you
experience WILL kill you
a habit WILL kill you
survival is bitterly unfair, it is ruthless and it does not give a DAMN about YOU.  Turn your back and you DIE. Forget and you DIE. Do everything right and you DIE.
a habit, water, a bush, a friend, the cold, a slope, a damn helicopter, the GAME ITSELF - WILL kill you SOON

You are NEVER <a Survivor> - you are ONLY someone TRYING to SURVIVE.. 

You WONT make it - you WILL DIE
You live in excitement and fear until you DIE, and if you don't know ANY part of that for any moment, that is the moment you DIE

No 'endgame'
The average life expectancy today is - 15 minutes -
You want to PLAY?

*

THAT was a game WORTH playing
Excitement and fear
Dead on the road - Flies buzzing around your eyes - blackscreen
You want to PLAY?

xxp

 

[maxon-69 35]

Кickyriot,  i,am sorry. 

This is not an easy game. the project is very difficult. It's hard to model everything. The engine is not the best. Developers are not specific. It's sad, I agree.

And I really hope that they will finish the game. We've been waiting a long time, but look at the game from the other side and compare with other games? better DayZ there is nothing (I so think)!

[ThePugman 280]

@rickyriot

I sympathise with your post but I don’t think we should make assumptions until we know for sure. Nobody can provide any concrete evidence that the development cycle is over. It’s all conjecture and speculation. 

In my opinion, it’s just the way the team decides to communicate now. Too much vitriol over the years because of missed deadlines, etc. If they keep expectations low, they can knock us out of the park when we get a cool update. The whole update cycle feeds into the longevity of this game. They’d be fools to stop that now.

I think it would be sad if you left now, considering how well it is doing. I’d, at the very least, hope you consider a break, instead. 

Edited July 25, 2019 by ThePugman

[drgullen 596]

4 hours ago, ThePugman said:

@rickyriot

I sympathise with your post but I don’t think we should make assumptions until we know for sure. Nobody can provide any concrete evidence that the development cycle is over. It’s all conjecture and speculation. 

In my opinion, it’s just the way the team decides to communicate now. Too much vitriol over the years because of missed deadlines, etc. If they keep expectations low, they can knock us out of the park when we get a cool update. The whole update cycle feeds into the longevity of this game. They’d be fools to stop that now.

I think it would be sad if you left now, considering how well it is doing. I’d, at the very least, hope you consider a break, instead. 

Personally, I'm somewhere in-between your position Pugman and that of @rickyriot

I also believe that the development cycle isn't quite over yet, unless what was said in that last SR was a complete lie, which I don't believe it was.  I think you're also right about all the delays and setbacks they've had over the years making them unwilling to make any further promises.  I do agree with Ricky though that Bohemia is now treating DayZ like that girl you were once so hot for, but after all these years, have kind of brushed aside in favor of the new girl on the block.

What I don't understand is why we can't get a simple list of "things to come".  If development is continuing, they must have some idea of what they plan to develop -- tell us what that is!  There doesn't need to be any dates attached to it, nor even a commitment on their part that they'll actually do it.  I'm talking about just telling us what features that are currently absent that they are intending to work on and introduce to a future patch of DayZ before calling the game "fully developed".

The fact that they don't seem willing to do that makes me agree with Ricky -- that with DayZ out on all platforms now, their focus internally is shifting to the next big project, which I am assuming will be Arma IV.

[ThePugman 280]

@drgullen I agree that one of BI’s main focus will be the new Arma game, (the are already recruiting for an unannounced game) but I think DayZ can cope. 

I’m of the belief that more people working with the Enfusion engine will only HELP DayZ, not hinder it. 

This photo of the Survivor GameZ has been circling, with people focusing on ‘monetisation’

https://trello.com/c/Ii4OQfDO

Personally, my eye is drawn towards ‘heli-flying’ 😍

We know one of their focuses is climbing, and they only told us that because of the outcry, but I’m very positive that they are working on much more.

It’s just gonna take time. If they keep updating as they have been, I’ll be more than happy.

Edited July 25, 2019 by ThePugman

[drgullen 596]

10 minutes ago, ThePugman said:

It’s just gonna take time. If they keep updating as they have been, I’ll be more than happy.

As will I, but some specifics would be nice.  Bows and arrows for example.  A lot of people, myself included, would like to see that put back in.  The SR though said "complete parity is no longer possible".  It's their vagueness with these things I find frustrating.  Do we really have to wait for the patch notes on the day that each patch releases to find out what features have been added?  To me, that seems like a lazy and disingenuous way to go about informing your fans of feature additions.

[ThePugman 280]

@drgullen

I would feel the same if there were long gaps, but right now it’s around 6 weeks between updates. This is not too long a wait, and who doesn’t love a surprise?

“Parity with 0.62 and the DayZ Mod – full parity isn't possible because of the engine specifics. While features from 5 years ago are exciting, we want to remind you: most of the features didn't really work properly back then, and this is why it wasn't a final game.”

I admit, the above quote does not look good, but since I’ve started with the optimism, I may as well continue...😂

It could mean that features won’t be implemented in exactly the same way as the old versions, and because of that, can’t just be ‘ported over’, they have to be rebuilt from the ground up. This could also, potentially, mean that we will get even better features.

It’s definitely vague, which is why there can be many interpretations. I’ve come to quite enjoy digging around for information, though. It’s a whole game in itself!

Edited July 25, 2019 by ThePugman

[drgullen 596]

13 minutes ago, ThePugman said:

who doesn’t love a surprise?

Me.

I'm in my late 40s -- the only surprise I want anymore is making it through the night without having to get up to pee.  😋

[emuthreat 2837]

8 hours ago, drgullen said:

What I don't understand is why we can't get a simple list of "things to come".  If development is continuing, they must have some idea of what they plan to develop -- tell us what that is!  There doesn't need to be any dates attached to it, nor even a commitment on their part that they'll actually do it.  I'm talking about just telling us what features that are currently absent that they are intending to work on and introduce to a future patch of DayZ before calling the game "fully developed".

I think their problem with giving lists of features they are working on comes in two parts.

First, the history of delays and managing expectations and subsequent backlash.  This pretty much speaks for itself at this point.

Secondly to this; it has become apparent with the post 1.0 development cycle, that they don't really have any concrete idea what their engine is capable of with respect to bugs and unforeseen conflicts.  It is entirely new territory.

So when combined, the prospect of publicly stating what they are working on would inevitably lead to uncomfortable situations where they discover that some things are much more difficult to make work, or simply not feasible.  And then everyone who knew about them would be disappointed or even angry.

6 hours ago, ThePugman said:

“Parity with 0.62 and the DayZ Mod – full parity isn't possible because of the engine specifics. While features from 5 years ago are exciting, we want to remind you: most of the features didn't really work properly back then, and this is why it wasn't a final game.”

What still kinda boggles me, is that they presumably designed the new engine around the constraints of making the legacy features function correctly.  To hear that some things from legacy versions simply can't, or perhaps just won't be done, is a little unsettling.
Are we going to get fishing, trapping, writing notes, dyeing, crafting leather clothing, and bows?

Just what the hell happened that they presumably had a new engine purpose-built for this very reason, but may still be unable to make some of these things work?

I really wish they had relied on the experimental branch more heavily, and let stable wait for a truly playable experience.  It worked just fine for the longer patch cycles of the .6x versions.  So many of us were excited to play on experimental for months with seriously broken builds, until they got the issues hammered out.

[ThePugman 280]

@emuthreat

Yes, you’d have thought they’d want to make more use of experimental, especially now it has its own ‘app’. 1.04 was pushed after 5 days, I think (3 working days lol). 

To be fair, it was relatively smooth, but they were still fixing major server-crash issues weeks later.