Stop fixing minor issues or call it 'BETA' !

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

after reading the patch notes 1.7.2.5 again, i knew it was something there, i wanted to add a few things!

- I do understand that bug can be annoying, i have to deal with them myself everytime i play, but i have been in beta's that were much worse in regards to bugs than this mod. So my threshhold may be a bit higher for these kinds of things, and i also never said to leave them in there ;)

- I realy wanted to mention to Rocket that he should start experimenting again, and care a bit less about how it is received, or the bugs it creates, the FUN for 'him' likely came at the start of the project when he was trying things out. So If the mod can't handle more, than just SCRAPE all the working stuff and Go make and test other stuff! ... Redo the inventory with a sadistic mindset to vent some of your frustration! Test the limit of the loot tables by adding a shit ton of currently useless stuff (just comming up with the things to add will likely inspire you to new things) or stuff that may be usefull at some time. This will presure the loot tables and will make it harder for people to find stuff ... we realy need 'stamina' testing for running from zombies, they can be a bit slower if it wasn't so easy to run from them, and having two knobs to twist will make tweaking zombie/player interaction a lot more subtle and easy... The temperature gage is broken, but it sure is taking up resources in the game, STRIP IT OUT! and use the space to test something else ... what about removing the Eye and Ear icon, surely we don't need them, we will find out ourselves when zeds spot us or hear us... more space in the mod ... Come to think of it, it may well be a lot of fun to vent some frustration by just RIPPING THE MOD APPART! strip it off all you think is useless, half broken, or not even needed! ... Then *sigh* ahhhhh, room for something new ... but wait! Now check for things that work great, but could be replaced by something else entirely, broken bones/bleeding? they work fine, but they can be replaced by 'infection' and broken arms? or perhaps something else entirely ... Free up the MOD to have space to Test! and go do what you like doing, building a new mod/game !! :) ... THIS IS ALPHA!! <insert sparta meme here> ... So with the bare essentials for us to play, you have a lot of room to experiment other features that you may currently not have room for in the mod, which i think will greatly enhance your spirit, as you will see the game move forward again, and give you some comfort knowing that you already have a bunch of features 'in the kitty' ;)

===original post starting:

I have been playing for about a month now, what was supposed to be an alpha mod. In this month i think i seen the true alpha development of: 'addition of a beartrap' ... that was it realy ... no other alpha developement was seen over this whole month ! (yeah, cuz i joined just after the addition of the hatched)

For the rest of the month i have seen BETA fixes to serve whiney entitled consumers that have no clue what an alpha is, and only follow some hype in social media. For somebody that was interested in seeing the game grow during alpha developement this has been a somewhat disappointing experience (don't get me wrong the game is great), mainly because i think: anything that doesn't turn up a fully black screen or instantly reboots my computer OR makes the game play <10fps is NOT something that needs fixing in an alpha!!

Bugs, exploits, hacks, glitches are realy just poo that happens to drift around in the premordial soup that is this game. it's great they are being identified, but if they don't break servers, the engine or computers, then they can drift in there as much as they want! By the time BETA comes the big ironing will straigthen these things out, eliminate them one by one. And some of the poo may have already been removed as the presure on the game itself (by adding more and more stuff to it) has pressed this game into what we are all after, that gloriously shining diamond of a game.

So please Devteam, stop doing Beta stuff while we are in alpha, start adding stuff and break the game, break it by adding more and more to it untill it collapses under it's own weight. We shouldn't care, and we will tell every whiner that: THIS IS ALPHA!! <insert meme of sparta>

Unless ofcourse this is it, then PLEASE call it BETA so any time spend on clearing out minor issues, and pollishing the game further, can atleast be understood by somebody that thought he was joining an Alpha !

Tnx for reading, i just realy needed to get this off my chest, and i hope we can soon see some actual alpha work done on the mod. We all want this game to move forward and realy all these little things are NOT alpha concerns. Sure they may ruin your fun a bit at times, but 'fun' is not the reason for an alpha game, in alpha 'we' test features & the engine (or in this case how the mod works together with the already excisting game) and we try to add to it as much we can to see where it breaks, so we can either fix it or remove it... Unlimited ammo? swammo! Beta stuff... gfx glitch? itch! Beta stuff ... Hackers? Smackers! Beta stuff ... Server Jumpers? humpers! Beta stuff ...

lol, ok well this apparently sits rather high with me, ill hit post now...

======================

!!!! After reading this thread: http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/54319-petition-to-actually-do-something-about-hackersscripters/ and running into my first hacker today, i must change my stance on one things... Up untill now i have always considdered 'hackers' to be of the minor cheating code injectors, but apparently they take over whole servers and the whole game. That is a major issue, so actually my stance isn't changed, my perception of hacking in this game has been changed, where it falls under the catagory, it breaks the game to such an extend that it prevents the game from running. Which as decribed in my OP is a thing that truely NEEDS fixing!

Edited August 1, 2012 by L0GIN

[Atanar 31]

To clarify:

Alpha is the first stable product

Beta is basically playable but has still a few minor issues for some people

with the arma 2 engine and it's major bugs it will never be something that a game develloper can call Beta without shame. What you call it does not depend on what is being fixed right now.

[A Bush killed me 189]

This mod will never reach Beta status let alone being able to go to standalone.

[CLewis 31]

A lot of the fixes being done, are performance related. New stuff can only be added, when the performance have been improved. I'm pretty sure I heard that somewhere.

Stop telling people what to do, to cater to your needs.

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

Every product basically goes through the following steps (sometimes even multiple times as itterations are being made):

1. Concept/Idea - usually on paper or just in the mind

2. Design/Mockup - sometimes on paper sometimes just a clay model or wood or w/e

3. ProtoType - either a very detailed 'mockup' (basically the first product) or a 'working' state proof of concept (demo or alpha game)

4. Zero Series - proof of production, may turn up minor issues sometimes even major (Beta)

5. Production - Finished product.

And this game has passed the concept stage, passed the design phaze. So now it depends on whether it's an alpha being build aka the prototype that has all the functionality the end result must have, or if it is not. IF it is, then all the kinks that show up are good for being identified but fixing is not a real concern, esp. if large parts of the ProtoType haven't even been build. And all sorts of things may still influence eachother (f/e glitchy zeds due to animations belonging to slower zombies, which they may well turn into IF f/e Weight/Stamina gets a added to the game) ... So all that i seen fixed and being fixed over the last month have been 'beta' things, atleast in my views!

@CLewis, a bunch may have been, and I realy liked the unlimited infected test (even though i had family over so i couldn't participate :( ) ... but server hoppers, unlimited ammo, hackers, gfx glitches etc. Who cares realy! We all know they will be dealt with in due time, and in my views Alpha is not that time. And i am not catering to my needs, i am catering to the game, it's being stalled by minor issue fixing while it is ghasping for more stuff to be added. Because all bugs/etc aside, after you learn to deal with the minor survival aspect there is not much there, it needs less stuff to start with (character), and more stuff added (so loot tables are pressured) so people take longer to get to the empty part, and esp. in mid-game there should be more survival to deal with. So i am NOT even talking about underground base building as end game, I'm talking about filling up midgame first ... and all the minor issues can be indentified and solved sometime down the road, when likely they can be dealt with even better, IF indeed the game goes standalone, but by that time the Devs should have tested what they want in there, so they won't have to when they are dealing with the stand alone programming. Heck if they do it right a lot of stuff may well be 'copy/paste' ...

Edited July 31, 2012 by L0GIN

[DemonGroover 8836]

I agree. Adding more content until the mod almost falls over should be the aim here. Once Rocket gets the content he wants in game then the bugs should be addressed.

Whiny arses who are just concerned with their "stuff'" need not reply.

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

Added a couple of things to the OP in regards to the 1.7.2.5 patch note concerns!

[cyanyde 165]

tl;dr

lol just kidding.

I agree with a lot of what the OP said, but not everything.

The way that Rocket is testing this is a little hard for us to understand, but that's not what matters, as long as he understands what he's doing, then we're good. He seems to have a clear idea of what he wants to achieve, and he definitely has the tester base to make it happen, as long as he doesn't listen to the people who are just here to play a zombie infested death match on an un-finished mod.

I actually said something in another thread that's somewhat relevant here..

I hate to quote myself, but it's appropriate in this discussion:

The cool thing about this mod is that one may choose to play it however they want.

That said, instead of testing an alpha build of a potential framework for a standalone game, some people play it as if it was already the standalone game that we all want to play.

I'm pretty sick of people complaining that "this mod is dying" when it hasn't even really started to "live" yet.

Cool thing is, I don't think Rocket really cares about how big the player base is, because he knows that no matter what he does to make the mod more difficult to survive in, or how hard he makes it for new players to get involved with, or even how hard it is to install, he knows that he will still have a highly passionate and dedicated group of players who *do* understand how it's meant to be *tested*, and will provide him with the feedback he needs to properly improve the basis that he has.

The thing is, the players who quit now are the ones that we really don't need quite yet anyway. The only major mistake that Rocket has made so far was to give it such a cool and catchy name. Some of the people who try it now and hate it because it's not finished, will avoid it like the plague when it's finally been released as a retail game, because they played it before it was really meant to be played in the way that they want to play it.

here's the context, if anyone cares to read it: http://dayzmod.com/f...180#entry508804

Anyway, that said, I disagree about calling this a beta.. as mentioned before, I doubt that this particular instance of the mod will ever reach a finished state. It will most likely be a continuous testing ground for new features in the finished version, but that will be the standalone game, and that *will* be because of the efforts put into testing this alpha.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Cyanyde

[Kar98 27]

I don't think the OP understands the software development process. There are several ways of going about it and rocket has chosen this model, which seems to be interative methodology. He rolls out features, listens to feedback, fixes the issues in the latest features, then moves onto the next feature. You can't keep releasing new features constantly because you need to perform regression testing to ensure you haven't broken anything else. Even when fixing bugs you have to regression test because the standard is for every 3 bugs you fix, 1 new one is created

[Killlg 5]

I must say that I agree. At least for the most part. I think even you can appreciate that DayZ may have become more popular than Rocket intended or envisioned. It was supposed to be for the ArmA 2 community and now the whole industry has taken a look at it. I for one wouldn't be here if it weren't for word of mouth and I'm glad I am. While I can deal with all the bugs and instability that could possibly happen I think the DevTeam (read: Rocket) may be concerned with the fallout were the game to become too unstable. He can't test it if everyone stops playing it for a week waiting for the next patch to fix everything the last patch broke. Of course there's the whiners and the moaners and right now I feel there's a healthy dose of them in the community. What I would fear if the game became too unstable is a mass exodus of players/testers.

I'm sure all the recent bug fixes have mostly been for performane, for instance we likely wouldn't have the helicopter back in the game (legitly) were it not for performance fixes. I'm looking forward to more clothes, as I understand it there will be more and they'll hopefully be a little easier to find and of great variety and use. The dogs they're working on also look interesting even though their function doesn't really suit my playstyle. I'm sure there're plenty of other features that are in Rocket's head that he just hasn't spoke of because he siimply hasn't had time. I suspect by October we'll have quite few new bells and whistles and possibly see the game go standalone as it enters beta.

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

@Kar98, don't you worry about what i know of game/software development :) ... all i am saying is, why care about bugs that don't entirely break the game, when you are in the process of building the features, if it doesn't break anything in a huge manner, it can be dealt with lateron ... it may be somewhat unconventional for the tought software dev's, but the base of the game works (because that is arma), the mod also works, zed's spawn, see/hear/run/fight, loot drops/picks-up/works ... but it's clear that can't be the entire game, so there needs to be more added (and not underground end-game base building), the survival aspect has to be stretched into midgame, gearing up has to be stretched over a longer period, there have to be more things to die from, there need to be more inconveniences, and also more alternatives (like splints f/e) ... those things are more important to the game than stopping Server hoppers or hackers, things you may well be able to fix in beta or standalone ...

So it all comes down to what you conceive as 'broken' and seeing i can play with all the stuff i mentioned (i do so everyday) there is nothing broken YET !

@Killlg, yeah i do understand why the emphasis has been on the 'bugs', and with nearly 1million :o players it sure must be hard to try new stuff that may or may not be half finished. Or cause some stuff that has people revolt on the forums, but he will have to if he wants to move forward, i think the addition i made is actually a realy good one, he should just strip out a lot of stuff and replace it with other stuff, just to test ... and put an 'OK' on some features somewhere on the forum, so players can be told that those have been deamed OK and will be in the game ... if Rocket is getting tired of bugfixing and the room in the mod is to small to test stuff, then he can't move forward till he either goes stand alone, OR, he just cuts stuff out and makes something else to replace it ... so i may have used a bit of a provoking title and my frustration on progress was vented in all honesty, but please do not get me wrong, i fully understand the various issues he needs to deal with, that doesn't mean though that i have to agree with the choices he makes ^_^ ... but as you can read in the opening part, all i want is for him and DayZ to move forward !

Edited July 31, 2012 by L0GIN

[Kar98 27]

@Kar98, don't you worry about what i know of game/software development :) ... all i am saying is, why care about bugs that don't entirely break the game, when you are in the process of building the features, if it doesn't break anything in a huge manner, it can be dealt with lateron ... it may be somewhat unconventional for the tought software dev's, but the base of the game works (because that is arma), the mod also works, zed's spawn, see/hear/run/fight, loot drops/picks-up/works ... but it's clear that can't be the entire game, so there needs to be more added (and not underground end-game base building), the survival aspect has to be stretched into midgame, gearing up has to be stretched over a longer period, there have to be more things to die from, there need to be more inconveniences, and also more alternatives (like splints f/e) ... those things are more important to the game than stopping Server hoppers or hackers, things you may well be able to fix in beta or standalone ...

So it all comes down to what you conceive as 'broken' and seeing i can play with all the stuff i mentioned (i do so everyday) there is nothing broken YET !

There are features being developed, these things take time. All that talk about rocket saying he wants to have underground bunkers or player built structures takes time to implement. For all we know rocket could be building the framework for this while fixing minor bugs. He isn't some machine that codes on one thing the whole time, you'd start to get bored quickely which is why you see devs work on different modules. He works on quick incremental releases to ensure that the stuff he is building now is working so he can then (I'm assuming) put more time towards the big features.

Leaving all the current bugs now and start to work on a big features + bug fixes is a testing disaster. Things are going to be broken and badly

[gizm0 96]

Every product basically goes through the following steps (sometimes even multiple times as itterations are being made):

1. Concept/Idea - usually on paper or just in the mind

2. Design/Mockup - sometimes on paper sometimes just a clay model or wood or w/e

3. ProtoType - either a very detailed 'mockup' (basically the first product) or a 'working' state proof of concept (demo or alpha game)

4. Zero Series - proof of production, may turn up minor issues sometimes even major (Beta)

5. Production - Finished product.

And this game has passed the concept stage, passed the design phaze. So now it depends on whether it's an alpha being build aka the prototype that has all the functionality the end result must have, or if it is not. IF it is, then all the kinks that show up are good for being identified but fixing is not a real concern, esp. if large parts of the ProtoType haven't even been build. And all sorts of things may still influence eachother (f/e glitchy zeds due to animations belonging to slower zombies, which they may well turn into IF f/e Weight/Stamina gets a added to the game) ... So all that i seen fixed and being fixed over the last month have been 'beta' things, atleast in my views!

@CLewis, a bunch may have been, and I realy liked the unlimited infected test (even though i had family over so i couldn't participate :( ) ... but server hoppers, unlimited ammo, hackers, gfx glitches etc. Who cares realy! We all know they will be dealt with in due time, and in my views Alpha is not that time. And i am not catering to my needs, i am catering to the game, it's being stalled by minor issue fixing while it is ghasping for more stuff to be added. Because all bugs/etc aside, after you learn to deal with the minor survival aspect there is not much there, it needs less stuff to start with (character), and more stuff added (so loot tables are pressured) so people take longer to get to the empty part, and esp. in mid-game there should be more survival to deal with. So i am NOT even talking about underground base building as end game, I'm talking about filling up midgame first ... and all the minor issues can be indentified and solved sometime down the road, when likely they can be dealt with even better, IF indeed the game goes standalone, but by that time the Devs should have tested what they want in there, so they won't have to when they are dealing with the stand alone programming. Heck if they do it right a lot of stuff may well be 'copy/paste' ...

Its kinda of a proof of concept as it shows that a game of this genre is possible as well as there is a large market for it. I mean the idea isn't new, and really a concept version can be a coded version. I know I've done at least 5 game concepts in python (text).

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

@kar, i am not realy talking about big features like building bases, i am talking about fairly simple things like removing inventory/toolbelt spaces, adding in 'broken backpacks' which are just a different version of the same asset, i am talking about spawning us with just a bandage (so that finding ANY backpack becomes a real joy), i am talking about adding small simple items like cookies, candybars etc. that take the modeler and artist a bit of work, and a bit of coding. As putting more stuff on the loottables will effect the spawns of ALL items for that spawnpoint. Likely the biggest thing that i would like to see tested is Stamina for running, as that has a big impact on what zombies 'have to do' as well, i would love to see weight influence it as well if possible (this could be a lot of work, OR, it could be copy/pasting a few pages of ACE code) ... experimenting and adding things doesn't have to be realy huge features, it can also be expanding/changing whats already there, because these things WILL have impacts too.

@Orthus, while i generally dislike the discussion about deffinitions/symantics, as i am not a native english speaker. But if you make a game'concept' in python in text version, that isn't the concept phaze... while you may correctly call it a 'concept game', what it is, is a design/mockup of the actual game you intend to make. Sure it may be the first thing you put on paper, but the concept was likely already in your head, the moment you did any more than writing down the concept/idea on paper in words, you are already designing, mocking up ... even though the word used for the result is a 'concept' game ...

[gizm0 96]

Well the thing is that dayz doesn't have all the mechanics, that are currently planned for it. I mean look at minecraft, it was getting new features throughout its dev cycle. Also Rocket has also stated that he doesn't plan on fixing anything that can be more easily resolved in a stand-alone version.

[ZedsDeadBaby 2287]

The confusion and frustration arises from the fact that the mod is not actually an Alpha.

It is a prototype or proof of concept.

You cannot rightly call it an Alpha until it is a playable stand-alone build and rocket has access to the source code of the engine. Until then, his hands are completely tied by what the mod is capable of changing and what is "set in stone" by the ARMA 2 engine. He cannot engage in "Alpha like" development because he simply doesn't have the power to make any major additions or systemic changes because the bulk of the source is a locked-up black box to which he has no access.

Once DayZ becomes stand-alone, a proper Alpha phase can begin and we will see a ton of major, sweeping changes.

Until then rocket is simply juggling priorities. He needs to keep the game stable and playable so it can continue to grow in popularity while at the same time doing what small things he can with the mod to experiment with new ideas and mechanics.

From us he needs three things: data, bug reports and an extreme amount of patience.

[Justice357 12]

I like how the second post comes in all bitter and his name is a bush killed me like he made this account when a bush killed him so he could just complain. Heh.

Anyway TC. He's adding german shepards soon. Change enough for ya?

[Sticker704 121]

The amount of people who think they know exactly what the game needs and think that they can do better than Rocket makes me chuckle :)

For the record:

Alpha

Alpha is the stage when key gameplay functionality is implemented, and assets are partially finished. A game in alpha is feature complete, that is, game is playable and contains all the major features.These features may be further revised based on testing and feedback. Additional small, new features may be added, similarly planned, but unimplemented features may be dropped.

Edited July 31, 2012 by Sticker704

[xximrtwoixx 104]

I think you have to also considered that we are testing actual game play/balance as much as we are testing for bugs/glitches. Because there are basically no games that have the combination of hardcore features, perma death, open pvp, open world, realistic damage, etc I think everything is being looked at. Add to this the huge player base and Rocket has the ability to test for various responses when is to hard to hard basically. I also think the large player base has influenced what has been addressed, thus we have so many updates focusing on infrastructure and performance. Size and scope is something that needs to be tested though so its not necessarily a bad thing to establish the parameters you will need to work within early in a project, I just think if the true intention is to go standalone with your own source you will basically throw the mod parameters out the window.

@OP a lot of the content you seem to want added seems superfluous to me, at this stage one or two examples of any given type of item are all that are needed for testing. Also expanding "Mid-game" would make playing the mod at this stage better, but I doubt the "Mid-game" content in standalone would be the same as it is in the 4 month old proof of concept. I do agree that there should be more of a focus on adding than fixing at this stage though.

I think a major focus has been to keep the internet sensation ball rolling as the more exposure the mod gets the better it is for the mod. There is also a significant opportunity to establish brand loyalty for DayZ that will hopefully make it easier to weather the storm of inevitable copycat products.

Edited July 31, 2012 by xXI Mr Two IXx

[sunnz 24]

I hope he would try to deal with DCs, that shit it out of control.

Followed by zombie behaviour.

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

I like how the second post comes in all bitter and his name is a bush killed me like he made this account when a bush killed him so he could just complain. Heh.

Anyway TC. He's adding german shepards soon. Change enough for ya?

Check the amount of posts and the link in my sig... and i been playing for a month, it's actually in the OP, so no i did not make an account just to complain and a quick check of my vital signs could have shown this. The 2nd part is bitter because i felt the need to vent my frustration in an honest way, even though i held back a bit as to not insult a certain part of the player base. The first part was added afterward because i felt the post alone may be a tad misleading asto how i feel in general and what the actual point is of the post ... aka. make Rocket acknowledge that there are also quite a lot of people that do not care about the bugs, hackers, exploits, glitches etc. because they can all be adressed at a later stage. You may want to read on to the next quote in regards to 'alpha state' ...

About the shepard, as far as i know it's been scraped because it couldn't climb hills (i may be misinformed), and NO that is not enough change, if you read the various things i am thinking off in replies i made, the things i want added are actually fairly minor, but they can have great implications on the mod. While a shepard is just something possibly nice to have, but not at all gamedefining... in regards to the things added you might also want to read the 3rd quote...

The amount of people who think they know exactly what the game needs and think that they can do better than Rocket makes me chuckle :)

For the record: Alpha

Alpha is the stage when key gameplay functionality is implemented, and assets are partially finished. A game in alpha is feature complete, that is, game is playable and contains all the major features.These features may be further revised based on testing and feedback. Additional small, new features may be added, similarly planned, but unimplemented features may be dropped.

The amount of people that don't understand the implications of what they post makes ME faceplant. Because if you read the description of the Alpha, and then look at the Mod, you can clearly see this game isn't even IN alpha yet, based upon your own description that is, so if i'm saying that Rocket should get cracking on those features, i am absolutely right ! and your deffinition of alpha clearly shows I am!

I think you have to also considered that we are testing actual game play/balance as much as we are testing for bugs/glitches. Because there are basically no games that have the combination of hardcore features, perma death, open pvp, open world, realistic damage, etc I think everything is being looked at. Add to this the huge player base and Rocket has the ability to test for various responses when is to hard to hard basically. I also think the large player base has influenced what has been addressed, thus we have so many updates focusing on infrastructure and performance. Size and scope is something that needs to be tested though so its not necessarily a bad thing to establish the parameters you will need to work within early in a project, I just think if the true intention is to go standalone with your own source you will basically throw the mod parameters out the window.

@OP a lot of the content you seem to want added seems superfluous to me, at this stage one or two examples of any given type of item are all that are needed for testing. Also expanding "Mid-game" would make playing the mod at this stage better, but I doubt the "Mid-game" content in standalone would be the same as it is in the 4 month old proof of concept. I do agree that there should be more of a focus on adding than fixing at this stage though.

I think a major focus has been to keep the internet sensation ball rolling as the more exposure the mod gets the better it is for the mod. There is also a significant opportunity to establish brand loyalty for DayZ that will hopefully make it easier to weather the storm of inevitable copycat products.

While i agree that testing the actual classes & instances that are created to make certain items work can be fairly limited for a proof of concept (the melee weapons clearly show that melee can be done and that melee can be scaled in damage f/e) ... the reason why i propose the things i did, is because they change certain game-mechanics in other ways than directly tweaking things that are already there... explinations:

- Adding a ton more stuff to spawn: chances are always based upon 100% , this means that reducing the spawn chance of ONE item, means some other needs to INCREASE. Rocket can try and balance these loot chances till the zombie apocolypse comes, and it will all be worthless because in the next incarnation there will be a ton more items anyways. What these extra items on loot tables will do though, is reduce the overall chances of other items spawning, or reducing one by alot and giving the free chance space to the extra item. I personally call this 'presuring loot tables' because the more items that are on the list the more 'presure' is created on their chance to spawn. Which in turn makes it harder to find the things a player may want, but it doesn't need to entirely screw the chance on what the player needs, the items are actually trivial for now, but why not make some simple items that can be easy to make & implement. And that may well add some minor functionality to the game (rags for splints, different food items, brokenbags with less slots, torn-map-pieces, notes, etc). These are all little effort items that do what i wrote here, and they will give every player the feeling the game is moving forward content wise.

- Reducing inventory space (& toolbelt) + spawning with just bandage : The biggest 'petpeeve' on this forum seems to be KOs & bandits, this in part comes from the partial lack of needing other players, to do anything in the game. Now Rocket could try and implement underground base building stuff, true it's one part of the puzzle. THe other part is quite simple, reduce what a player can do on his own, so he will feel the need for a partner (or two), so tasks and extra items can be devided amoungst the 'team'. This fix is simple easy and can be ready for 1.7.2.6 ... now it may or may not reduce player killing, and it may or may not get people to play together, but we won't know untill trying it, and seeing it seems fairly simple, just do it!

- Implement Weight &/or Stamina /copy-paste ACE inventory code : the whole interaction between zeds and player largely depends on ONE thing, the chances the player has to outrun them, and this chance is currently 100%. The moment players can be limited in their speed or their distance the whole interaction changes, Rocket will also have 2 knobs to turn, the player speed/distance and the Zedspeed, instead of just the current situation where it's just zedspeed. But there is more to the game than just outrunning zeds, the game also needs you to travel large distances, so there should likely be a 'jog' mode in there that lets you jog for 15-20 miles at a reasonable pace. This pace should be lower than the zed runspeed, while the sprinting ability should just be 100m or so, which should be faster than zeds.

If this could be linked to weight as well, something interesting happens, as newly spawned players will be able to run faster/longer when they are most vulnerable, while the game gets more intense as you get more stuff, now you have more to loose but are also better equiped to deal with zeds. So such a system would not just add more authenticity it also changes the interaction with the zeds, and it needs certain functionality to deal with the game.

*!* All these things together will likely lengthen the aquicition of items phaze, and add hightened tensions as the player gathers more things, which also improves the mid-game experience. And besides the Weight/Stamina system, implementation is fairly simple ...

[LuCiDiTy (DayZ) 14]

My question is if the game goes standalone what happens to us people who brought arma 2 just for dayz, will they take away the hive server and just leave us in the trash if we refuse to switch to the standalone. I myself might not buy the standalone because I'm already getting the enjoyment I want from the current mod of arma 2.

[ken@thekab.com 37]

The confusion and frustration arises from the fact that the mod is not actually an Alpha.

It is a prototype or proof of concept.

You cannot rightly call it an Alpha until it is a playable stand-alone build and rocket has access to the source code of the engine. Until then, his hands are completely tied by what the mod is capable of changing and what is "set in stone" by the ARMA 2 engine. He cannot engage in "Alpha like" development because he simply doesn't have the power to make any major additions or systemic changes because the bulk of the source is a locked-up black box to which he has no access.

Once DayZ becomes stand-alone, a proper Alpha phase can begin and we will see a ton of major, sweeping changes.

Until then rocket is simply juggling priorities. He needs to keep the game stable and playable so it can continue to grow in popularity while at the same time doing what small things he can with the mod to experiment with new ideas and mechanics.

From us he needs three things: data, bug reports and an extreme amount of patience.

He works for the developer of ARMA2 and in the last four months he's probably sold more copies of the game than they've sold in their entire history and you're telling me you don't think they're going to let him do what is needed to keep selling?

Bullshit.

If that's true, BIS gets what they deserve, which isn't much at all.

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

@LuCiDiTy

That's only something Rocket and teh Dev team can answer, but hearing Rocket speak at various interviews and presentations i think he is well aware of the badblood such an action would cause. If i were him i would likely try and make the mod so that it offers the best player experience the mod can give, and just keep that running. The stand alone will give him the option to expand on the game with added features and content, that just can't be realized in the mod. To then offer this at a fairly reasonable price. Say the standalone costs around 17$, add to that the 18$ or so already paid for Arma2, that will mean that if you buy them both you spend 35$ on DayZ, which is a reasonable price for a complete game, plus you have Arma2 as well ... I think such a thing would be fair to all parties concerned, and would give all those that participated in the Mod and paid for arma the final mod. While those that buy DayZ and just bought arma2 for dayZ a reasonable price for the whole game (including the gametime already spend in the mod)

Edited July 31, 2012 by L0GIN

[Sticker704 121]

The amount of people that don't understand the implications of what they post makes ME faceplant. Because if you read the description of the Alpha, and then look at the Mod, you can clearly see this game isn't even IN alpha yet, based upon your own description that is, so if i'm saying that Rocket should get cracking on those features, i am absolutely right ! and your deffinition of alpha clearly shows I am!

Like I said, the amount of people who think they know exactly what direction this game needs to take and believe that they are better than Rocket makes me laugh. It really does. As for it being in alpha, it certainly is. Core functionalities and features are down. Zombies. Water. Food. Weapons. Tools. Loot. Hive servers. Players. All of these are in the game and are more or less stable.