GameSpy Dayz News - Standalone before xmas fail?

[orb917@hotmail.com 117]

I hope this is all "out of context mis-understandings." Otherwise my fear is that Rocket is buying into all the hype around his mod. Rushing out a product "before christmas" is clearly giving into the economic pressures of the industry. If not that then it's him trying to "cash in" while he has the chance and risking putting out something....."disappointing". That would be a shame.

i don't think it's giving in to the economic pressure of the industry, but giving into the economic pressure of keeping dayz running period. stop and think about the resources and scale of what dayz has become... the forums, the hive server, the bandwidth cost of keeping the hive server up and able to handle the load asked of it. there's something like 2235 servers running as i speak (according to dayz commander), and 196,793 unique players in the past 24 hours. that's a lot of servers and players demanding synchronization from the hive server on login/logout, even assuming all players only logged in to and out of one server. without getting some money back for the cost of that, he'll probably go bankrupt real fast.

[*=LP=*Cpt.Kawa 57]

i've sunk around 200 hours into dayz. if dayz standalone costs 30 dollars, that means i'll have ultimately spent about 60 dollars (dayz standalone+arma2 oa) on dayz. that is, right now at this point in time $0.30/hr. that is many more hours than i spend on the vast majority of AAA games these days, and a pretty reasonable (hours of fun)/dollar ratio. how many hours of play have the people complaining about having to pay more for a dayz standalone logged? rocket hasn't seen any revenue generated from dayz yet (as far as i know), and has had to maintain a system capable of handling approximately 200k unique players per day. that is a very resource (time and money wise) intensive task. i also do not see arma 2 or 3 engine as a liability to the project. if he gets access to the source code, bug squashing will (in theory) be much more effective. others may disagree, but if you've spent a considerable amount of time playing dayz in its current form, ask yourself if its unreasonable to be asked to pay that potential dollar/hour as payback to the devs for the amount of entertainment you've gotten out of it.

You have even 2 can of beans from me. People are playing this game/mod 100s of hours and now complaining about their 30 bucks for Arma 2 and maybe another 30 bucks for DayZ - wtf guys...If Dayz will follow the minecraft-model, I will be more than glad to pay the money for an unfinished game to support the dev team and give them the chance to make an epic game.

And WarZ has only presented some bullet-points and some drawings, not even screenshots. if you are working on a game for a year and making a press release you do have some ingame stuff to show, but this monkeys have nothing. WarZ my ass.

[Delta Smoke 01 765]

I will never give more money to BI or Rocket for this game.

If Rocket goes standalone... he'll be "standing alone".... amirite? heh :/

No. Your wrong. Game Over.

[fish911503 136]

i don't think it's giving in to the economic pressure of the industry, but giving into the economic pressure of keeping dayz running period. stop and think about the resources and scale of what dayz has become... the forums, the hive server, the bandwidth cost of keeping the hive server up and able to handle the load asked of it. there's something like 2235 servers running as i speak (according to dayz commander), and 196,793 unique players in the past 24 hours. that's a lot of servers and players demanding synchronization from the hive server on login/logout, even assuming all players only logged in to and out of one server. without getting some money back for the cost of that, he'll probably go bankrupt real fast.

This is all true...but I think there are solutions other than rushing out a standalone so quickly. I realize it is a very unpopular idea but i have suggested in the past moving the alpha to closed beta. I realize this would mean hundreds of thousands of pissed off people who rushed out ass first to drop $$$ on ARMAII so they could be testers for this mod but.....moving to closed beta would eleviate soooo much of the pressure. Financial pressure, media pressure and community pressure. The team could then focus...for a however long, in relative peace, on developing a fine standalone product. Yes.....alot of people would have to live without DayZ for a time. I for one am willing.

EDIT: or....like he supposedly said in the interview...stop supporting the mod and focus fully on standalone. But don't rush it. i don't see how he could put out a fully fleshed game in 3 and 1/2 months

Edited July 29, 2012 by playZ

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

Well, you obviously know everything about WarZ's features, items accessible via micro-payment, how people want to play it and who these people who want to play it are.

You're even an expert on economic models and a jaded gamer who knows his shit.

I can't fight that.

Took the pussy way out and alt-f4'd out of our little discussion? Seems somewhat appropriate from a WarZ fan.

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

I don't care for WarZ, I don't even think I'm gonna like it. I'm defending it because it's stupid to criticize a game before testing it.

No need to play the "It's my opinion, respect it!" card, I'll be happy to hear your opinion once you'll have actually played it. ;)

Good job on using my own words against me, I really got told there. ;)

Go test it man. The game they're reskinning is already available. Give it a try for a few weeks. Let me know how that works out for you.

[orb917@hotmail.com 117]

This is all true...but I think there are solutions other than rushing out a standalone so quickly. I realize it is a very unpopular idea but i have suggested in the past moving the alpha to closed beta. I realize this would mean hundreds of thousands of pissed off people who rushed out ass first to drop $$$ on ARMAII so they could be testers for this mod but.....moving to closed beta would eleviate soooo much of the pressure. Financial pressure, media pressure and community pressure. The team could then focus...for a however long, in relative peace, on developing a fine standalone product. Yes.....alot of people would have to live without DayZ for a time. I for one am willing.

EDIT: or....like he supposedly said in the interview...stop supporting the mod and focus fully on standalone. But don't rush it. i don't see how he could put out a fully fleshed game in 3 and 1/2 months

that does sound like a solution (at least to financial pressure). i doubt, after the frenzy the mod has seen, that it would alleviate the community or media pressure though. i don't think it's an ideal solution though, as part of the design philosophy is for the developer to stay connected to the community. closed beta would shrink that community to good degree. like i said before, i've dropped 200 hours on dayz in its current (and previous) states, and i'll gladly pay what he's (i think) asking to continue to have a similar experience even if it is unpolished and frustrating due to things like bugs and hackers.

as for development speed, if it's on the arma 2 engine or the mod is easily portable to the arma 3 engine, it won't have been 3 and 1/2 months of dev time, it'd be more like 7 months or so if its released in september i think. speed would also likely vary based on how familiar with the engine the team is. if it's nothing but BI vets who helped make the engine or arma mod vets working on dayz standalone, it'll likely go much quicker.

[Miked 1]

I've enjoyed the hell out of this mod and would happily pay whatever the dayz cost is. In terms of dollars to enjoyment I've more than gotten my money's worth. I believe I read somewhere that dayz was at 800k+. I'm pretty sure those that don't like/agree with the game or direction won't take away from the success of this game as a stand alone

[Delta Smoke 01 765]

What facts? You got some facts for us about WarZ man? Why you defending it so hard? I dont have to present facts, the goddamn interview on the internet says its going to have quests, special zombies, and a full array or other World Of Warshit mechanics mixed into the zombie genre. My OPINION of the game is that it fuckin sucks, and the facts are in the interview with the developers of WarZ....You just got called out for lacking common sense and assuming my opinion was a fact. Get your facts straight.

Read the interview again or research more of them. The one i read was quite detailed and when asked if it would have traditional mmo gameplay such as quests and level ups he said no. Far from it. Even the skill tree that people are so quick to slam, will be small things, survival skills. Such as how long it takes you to create a fire, or how long it takes you to reload and / or unjam your weapon.

[fish911503 136]

that does sound like a solution (at least to financial pressure). i doubt, after the frenzy the mod has seen, that it would alleviate the community or media pressure though. i don't think it's an ideal solution though, as part of the design philosophy is for the developer to stay connected to the community. closed beta would shrink that community to good degree. like i said before, i've dropped 200 hours on dayz in its current (and previous) states, and i'll gladly pay what he's (i think) asking to continue to have a similar experience even if it is unpolished and frustrating due to things like bugs and hackers.

as for development speed, if it's on the arma 2 engine or the mod is easily portable to the arma 3 engine, it won't have been 3 and 1/2 months of dev time, it'd be more like 7 months or so if its released in september i think. speed would also likely vary based on how familiar with the engine the team is. if it's nothing but BI vets who helped make the engine or arma mod vets working on dayz standalone, it'll likely go much quicker.

I would pay too for a standalone in its current state. But like you say even seven months seems like a short time to me to do what Rocket says he's going to do (integrate base building and get it stable) especially if he is still being involvd with these forums and the community. It pains me to say it but much of the community is dead weight IMO. There should be an IQ test to be able to post in the forums and to test the game. Also as BI "asked" Rocket to work full time on the game I assume they're giving him something financially speaking.

[MastaBlasta 9]

All I was even saying is that war z totally looks like a complete ripoff pos game riding the success of day z and looking like it plays a lot like WoW, which no, I don't like WoW, WoW destroyed blizzard and made them focus more on their financial model than making good games. In the screenshots the only difference in the charachter is that he is wearing bluejeans. The names is only 2 letters different FFS. Maybe it will be good, but as stated I hate games that make you run errand quests, thats why I HATE RAGE, I hate MMOs in general, I hate mainstream trying to jump on cult success and trying to turn a profit on it, and i just really get just pissed off when a game gets hyped to the sun with videos and screenshots and media releases like dead island, and turns out to be a steaming pile of crap like duke nukem. And rocket is going to make LOADS of new content for this game. I have seen mention of all sorts of ideas, mainly base building which will add a whole new aspect to the game. Also anyone who is comparing this game to l4d is comparing apples to watermeelons because they were in the same section at the grocery store, the zombie section. People need to stop doing that.

Edited July 31, 2012 by MastaBlasta