Please make Dayz standalone CLOSED testing.

[redfield-77 315]

Please let the real testers be the ones that test the standalone alpha for dayz. Too many people dont understand what testing is or how to test. Every other post lately is some self entitled cry baby full of tard rage about the state of dayz saying shit like, "Blah blah 20 dollars for this blah blah" and "Fix the game blah blah". These people dont log bug reports or contribute anything to the project other than lols.

tl;dr

closed alpha > open alpha

[Hydra (DayZ) 472]

Hey buddy, we're all the real testers.

Anyone coming here not knowing this, and buying a game merely for an alpha stage mod is, quite frankly, a fucking idiot.

Edited August 16, 2012 by Hydra

[dcskill 117]

What would closed testing accomplish? Alpha needs a heavy load of zombies and players. It needs people trying exploits. It needs people finding bugs. Without the large player base finding these issues, I'm sure beta stage of the game will be equal or worse to alpha. You catching mah drift, dawg?

[redfield-77 315]

Hey buddy, we're all the real testers.

Anyone coming here not knowing this, and buying a game merely for an alpha stage mod is, quite frankly, a fucking idiot.

What would closed testing accomplish? Alpha needs a heavy load of zombies and players. It needs people trying exploits. It needs people finding bugs. Without the large player base finding these issues, I'm sure beta stage of the game will be equal or worse to alpha. You catching mah drift, dawg?

Yeah I get it guys. There are tons of real testers on these forums. I just mean they should be selective about the alpha testers. open it up for beta because most people understand what a beta is. There are too many people that claim they bought dayz. They just don't understand the alpha process.

The truth is they bought ARMA so they could get into the alpha of dayz and they dont even realize it. They really think they bought dayz and it should be fixed for them NOW.

Edited August 16, 2012 by Redfield

[ODoyleRulez 195]

It is going to follow the same testing strategy as minecraft.

Buy game early, get in from alpha and so forth. Plus it is cheaper for the person to buy it at that time.. so there are going to be MORE people testing so they can save on the purchase price.

[resin_ 97]

The fact is, there will always be people who don't fully understand the concept of open alpha or beta. While I'm not against a closed alpha, it really sucks because then there's no way to tell who your letting in. A lot of good playtesters will always be missed, so lets be happy with our Minecraft route.

[SalamanderAnder (DayZ) 1747]

The truth is they bought ARMA so they could get into the alpha of dayz and they dont even realize it. They really think they bought dayz and it should be fixed for them NOW.

That's why it's such a brilliant development model. Let anyone download it and build up a large player base. Fact of the matter is, full market testing is the best and most vigorous testing there is. Now the devs can track statistics and bugs across a huge sample group, which in turn allows them to make more informed decisions and adjustments. This is especially helpful for what has been for some time, an extremely small development team.

So what, people are being whiny. At least their whiny asses are providing statistical data that can be analyzed. Now the team can foresee the large weaknesses in the game. Not to mention, the game has grown beyond just that. It's become quite the social experiment. There's a lot of interesting stuff we can observe about human nature in this game environment. It will evolve.

[antiskub2.0 17]

I think that if they intend to keep the game in open-alpha or open-beta or whatevs, that maybe they should think about how they can design their forums to utilitize the community more effectively. I thik what the OP is sick of (and I am totally emphathetic here) is the number of people who have knee jerk rage posts without any kind of actual contribution outside of "Hey, I'm angry, and I need attention and this is an easy way for me to get that attention, listen to me!"

I think the spirit of social experimentation inherent in the DayZ mod needs to be carried over to encapsulate the entire community aspect.

Some ways you could do that are (and these are just off the top of my head examples without too much thought put into them)

1. Quality, contemplative and well thought out posts should some how net you more audience and forum status that "LOL, fuck thsi broken game LAWL"

Calculating spelling errors, length of post, and a few other blatant factors into how much "status" you can build would be one way to start.

2. as you invest quality ideas, bug reports, and such and such to the community, earn more posts per day.

3. limiting communication ( I know this sounds stupid, but try and feel me out on this)

-allow new members 4-5 posts a day, as they contribute they get more posts a day, this way if someone just wants to go from topic spewing visceral bullshit, then they can only do it so much.

-this also allows trolling to have a consequence by taking away someones max amount of posts for a while without having to outright ban them.

-can be used to combat spam.

Edited August 16, 2012 by antiskub2.0

[calthehunter 61]

Alpha's when they start packaging the game right? Beta being shipping?

[redfield-77 315]

I only posted this because I know that once people pay for an alpha version of the standalone a lot of them still wont understand what alpha is. The forums will be flooded with self-entitlement, and because at that stage they will have spent money on the game, they will want a perfect game with no bugs, glitches, or hackers.

I also "get" the minecraft model in theory. Unfortunatly Dayz is as far from minecraft as you can get. While minecraft is really cool, the complexity of Dayz goes far beyond what minecraft does.

[phillyjoker 10]

I think having a private board for "serious testers" would be much easier than anything anyone's mentioned here.

To get in there would be a privilege, and if you posted a knee-jerk reaction they could just kick you out.

[AllYoYens 34]

Yeah I agree. We bitch way too much.

[L0G!N (DayZ) 149]

The biggest problem with closed alpha's & beta's these days is that this is actually an industry, so there are actually 'companies' that sell hour based alphaβ testers... now why does that seem to be a problem? Well have you checked the garbage of similar games that come out in recent years? ... in alpha and even in some beta's there are a lot of changes that are made based upon playtesting, and for some reason this leads to the same garbage of games, why ? Atleast in my views... these closed alpha testers have such an influence on the game, while they are such a tiny group, and they will 'suggest' crap that they think the majority of players wants...

So suggesting closed alpha for dayz will likely mean: perks, classes, achievements, weapon unlocks, etc and so on, because the 'popular' other games also have these features. And with a sellect group testing the game, trying to represent the majority of average ... well i think that makes you end up with a lot of similar games ... and NO BODY to voice their alternate opinion!!!

Like, i think every honest person will see that DayZ will eventually need some sort of progression system, because without some serious midgame content there won't be much of a game. What DayZ doesn't need though, are the perks, unlocks, fixed classes etc ... the only thread that (for some reason) hasn't gotten a lot of NOO, go back to WoW, go play CoD/BF reactions, has been 'my' learning-by-doing thread, sure it's got it's critisism, but no where near the reactions i seen to the more standard systems that are around in (every) game around. I'm not saying that the learning-by-doing is the way to go, persee, but in closed alpha with a bunch of testers that nobody truely knows, with absolutely no possibility of feedback from the vocal minority outside of the closed alpha, we could well end up with WoW/CoD/BF-'with infected' DayZ ... and nobody with half a decent clue about what makes DayZ so nice, would let that happen in an open-alpha ... sure it's being suggested (more than often), but the reaction to it are almost always negative, be it as a reaction from 'the guts' or as a well thought out response pointing out how such a system would only take away from DayZ ...

Realy, testing in the open gives a lot of transparancy and 'we' may not like all the features that will eventually end up in DayZ, but we can make damn sure (as a community) that from the features that do go in the alternative is choosen that is furthest away from what we fear most, and stays closest to the spirit of DayZ ... (in a closed alpha, all you can do is hope and prey they don't F' it up!)

Edited August 17, 2012 by L0G!N

[calthehunter 61]

Closed alpha/beta testing is a thing of the past in the industry, have you not noticed that? It's because it doesn't work as well as they thought. The smaller a testing group is (or lack thereof), the less feedback you're going to get. Aside from being able to develop a community prior to actual game release, open alpha/beta testing delivers more feedback and faster results on the detection and correction of bugs. I'd like to say, 1) www.dayzmod.com/forum is a great example of how a community is developed through holding an open alpha phase and 2) look at how far we've come? It was rough playing like 2 months back, and now the main thing we deal with is hackers and a lot of common recurring problems (which will lead to the eventual remedy of said problem)

Edited August 17, 2012 by calthehunter

[FallingSkies 12]

So, Will DayZ Standalone be an open alpha test?

[Riem 164]

While I do not agree with having it limited, as they really need all the stats they can get, whiny, whingy or not, I do agree there should be a closed board for the serious minded suggestions.

For example. I'm betting you all know who apache25 is. And I'm betting you'd like to see a reduction in posts like that.

And people will always cry about something they've paid for. Just look at those who don't want to play fairly paying for hacks, and qq-ing when they're banned and have the general excuse of "Well I paid money for it so it should work for me."

[FallingSkies 12]

Well, Should I get the DayZ Mod or wait until the DayZ game?

[deadlykenny 37]

Well, The least DayZ can cost you is £15.00 (If you get arma 2 free, Personally i like having better res so i got the combined ops which costs £20.00) And the standalone will be something like £5.00 from what ive heard, so really its up to you, do you want to play DayZ now or can you wait for its epicosity?

[FallingSkies 12]

Well, how long is the wait?

[deadlykenny 37]

From what I heard, Its coming out late december

[Michaelvoodoo25 3120]

I will still be playing the mod, SA could be tested by Mensa for all I care nor do I care how long it takes and it is stable upon release!

Edited September 25, 2012 by Michaelvoodoo25

[Quaby 93]

I'm just praying the standalone is more smooth than arma 2 was, because after about 2 hours of that game, i was prepared to shoot myself because of bugs and retarded AI.

[indominator 95]

the inflation is getting bigger and bigger, beans are getting more expensive, i remember that 5 years ago i could buy 4 times more bread than now, so, can the standalone launch cheaply so i can buy more beanz? pleaz?

[MasterZ 90]

Short version: No.

Long version: Fuck no.

Intellectual version: The game concept is out and competition is rising faster than the blood pressure of the average guy when checking out a fine lady.

Spend too much time and potential customers will be lost, there are already about 1 million people that played DayZmod. It's been through a lot of testing already, more isn't really necessary.

It's in Dean's best interest to release an early build of the stand alone as fast as possible to get the most customers possible before they lose their interest and head out for the competition.

Honest version: If I don't get my crack asap I will develop a zombie virus and create my very own DayZ in the real world.

[Gavalin 90]

I really feel the OP here. However they did announce it was a social experiment meaning, the average player is needed. I'm currently testing 3 Alpha/Beta games. All of them have jerk off rage folks. DayZ by far has more numbers though...huge number advantage here.

Plus think of it this way. If you let the average person play test and tweek the game there...all the elitism with testers ( I am guilty here I yell at people all the time in games when they can't admit they are messing up. Nothing burns my ass more then an asstard who -believes- he is good. When it comes to legit people telling me they suck I've sat down for hours and talked players through all kinds of mechanics)

One thing I don't see often, from testing like since the 90's is I never get an email (Seeing as I have to use this to register) that has a sample bug report on it? I small how to on what information people are want.

There is almost always a forum thread, sticky, but never detours to it. Lot of "testers" have no clue they need their system spec's and such. Lot of players don't know their system spec's for that matter.

The point is if you let the average person in now and see their reaction its easier to tweek now as opposed to totally WTF NERF BAT WHOLE GAME later. So I'd say let them come rage, good info or no they are providing something at least to add to the game, sadly we have to put up with it...because we still will when the game goes stand alone.