***Dayz: Stand Alone Thread***

[Psypher5]

well I for one have been having quite a bit of fun on this. Squadding with 5 mates and just running round being idiots is awesome! Playing the thomas the tank engine theme tune or random music on ingame mic and rounding up hostages etc, looting people and generally piddling around.

We are not taking it like "HER MER GERD SERIOUS GAMING", (except when we spot kitted up folk and go hunting..) its a pre alpha and we treat it like it. Just have some damn fun!

 

[Witcher1979]

well I for one have been having quite a bit of fun on this. Squadding with 5 mates and just running round being idiots is awesome! Playing the thomas the tank engine theme tune or random music on ingame mic and rounding up hostages etc, looting people and generally piddling around.

We are not taking it like "HER MER GERD SERIOUS GAMING", (except when we spot kitted up folk and go hunting..) its a pre alpha and we treat it like it. Just have some damn fun!

m8 I totally understand that I really do, DayZ has been some of the best gaming I have ever done over the past 2 years. But you need to understand that a very old bug exists that was fixed in the mod but is still in SA. People can join with files they delete in the game folder and they see no grass or trees and some no walls on buildings. It is a stupid old bug with a very easy fix but for some reason has not been added. So you think you and your crew are hiding in a bush and these fools see you as if you were in an open field. I have posted on Steam/Twitter/Bug forms, just get ignored about it.

 

[arknor]

you really think not fixing game breaking blatant bugs and exploits that have been around for ages is the best course of action for the game and the community ? the community will be long gone before dayz is in beta at this rate

everyone will move onto the next survival fps before dayz is anywhere near a proper release but rocket won't care because he already sold you your game.

It wouldn't surprise me if 80% of current paid alphas and kickstarters never amount to anything other than a buggy alpha that gets forgotten about as the community goes elsewhere and the games never gets finished.

 

[mike.grayizzle]

I'm quite happy to take a punt on this. After playing a little over Christmas you can definitely see the potential and it has the strengths of the mod which drew a lot of people in.

I will probably try it in a few months once there have been some more updates but when I look at the frequency of updates I'm not sure how much will change.

It seems they have taken a gamble as the social aspect will be hit hard, look at the number of moronic posts in the last 10 pages......folks are arguing over ridiculous things and this will only get in the way of enjoyment. I presume being an alpha tester is akin to studying literature or movies at uni. It may have been an enjoyable 2 hour movie but when you have to break every scene down and consider the subtext the basic enjoyment starts to bleed away.


I would much rather see my money as a risky investment in the hope than this time next year I have a finished zombie sim. Going from the attitudes of the posters here it all seems like too much work to enjoy in the current state.

 

[arknor]

just annoying when you die to a bug which seems to happen a lot until you learn to avoid stuff.

• zombies running through walls.
• zombies hitting you from the ground floor through the ceiling
• loot only spawning at server restarts (I think someone said zombies are the same)
• crawling down a ladder and breaking your leg for no reason.
• people removing part of the games wiles to remove tree , buildings models etc (and likely altering what is there so you can see people/uber items really easily)

probably more I didn't encounter yet since I only played for 4 hours

and melee combat is teribad so starting without a pistol sucks (he said he did it as an experiment to see if people would group together at the early stages during an interview with totalbiscuit) so maybe that's not permanent.

I think I'll stick with rust until some stuff gets fixed here

 

[RedvGreen]

What a freaking frustrating game.

- Game feels jerky and not smooth.
- I'm surprised the game doesn't make you have to breathe, blink, pump the heart and assist peristalsis - the controls are tediously overdone.
- I spent the first 3hrs walking around basically looking for something to drink as my character appears to not swallow water to satiate thirst.
- The sky flickers brightness.
- I saw a zombie facing away from me, by this time I had a screwdriver which I approached and stabbed it. What happened next? Huge sprays of blood appear and my character is bleeding, meanwhile the zombie still has it's back to my character.

Urgh.

 

[uncle_rufus]

Oh boy is it nice to read some posts by some people who actually get what's going on here... I'd love to pick it all apart but I don't have time, so here's a few bits

I said the game, not the game engine. They aren't the same thing. You can make a game from scratch using an existing engine, developers do it on a regular basis with the Unreal engine.

I didn't fail, we all know it uses the Arma engine.

But countless times Rocket tried to justify and hype up the standalone specifically referencing the fact that there were fundamental engrained problems with the way the Arma engine worked which just made certain things he wanted to do with the game either impossible or prone to serious issues. Melee weapons are a case in point - the engine will likely never handle them properly. My number one surprise when I found out the standalone was on early access was "Huh? It's the Arma engine again?!"... Did Rocket just decide he was cool with all those problems he previously tried to paint himself as the champion of taking the game standalone to overcome, or did he just forget? Or was it more profitable for him to not bother researching a more suitable engine to use?

just because something is alpha does not mean people should make excuses for simple bugs and stuff, especially long term ones or ones that got fixed in the mod already ages ago

yea in a proper testing alpha sure...

for an alpha you buy it's different and the devs should have different priorities.

...

things missing is not an issue constantly adding more and more without fixing what you have is just going to end up as one massive headache

if it's not broken don't fix it.
if everything is broken fix what you have.

the biggest priority imo should be getting the game stable , fixing the animations/movement and horrible game breaking bugs.

This... finally someone else in here speaks my language. This product in its current state represents something closer to what would be called a "technical alpha" rather than the "release alpha" it's been sold as. And this is exactly why I said Rocket + Co. should be testing it in-house at this point because the issues are so deep-seeded in the core of the game that starting play-testing on an 800,000+ install base is a complete waste of everyone's time and resources (under the assumption that the goal is to end up with a decent product - not just make 800,000*£20 of cash)

everyone will move onto the next survival fps before dayz is anywhere near a proper release but rocket won't care because he already sold you your game.

Exactly... I don't want that to be the case but alarm bells are certainly ringing, and I am struggling to identify with the optimism going around for DayZ at this point. I'd be interested to know who posting here actually works in software-development as a career - perhaps that's the dividing line? Based on my own experience the developers here are certainly looking to be making every mistake in the book.

 

[Antony101]

DayZ standalone will be dead long before it's actually playable. He's gave access too early and people will just get sick of it Alpha or not. But why would Dean care, he's already made millions. Part of being a good developer is knowing when to sell your game. Yeah, it's in Alpha, but he is selling it and giving people access to a game that is literally unplayable.

Should have kept it in house. At least until respawning loot/zombies was fixed and zombies didn't run through buildings.

The games gotten worse in the space of a years development. There is clearly no roadmap as for some reason adding a .357 was higher priority than fixing major bugs.

 

[[TFU] Thegoon84]

DayZ standalone will be dead long before it's actually playable. He's gave access too early and people will just get sick of it Alpha or not. But why would Dean care, he's already made millions. Part of being a good developer is knowing when to sell your game. Yeah, it's in Alpha, but he is selling it and giving people access to a game that is literally unplayable.

Should have kept it in house. At least until respawning loot/zombies was fixed and zombies didn't run through buildings.

The games gotten worse in the space of a years development. There is clearly no roadmap as for some reason adding a .357 was higher priority than fixing major bugs.

Its not unplayable.. Its far from that.

A friend of mine who I got into dayz is refusing to buy it… His reason, “Its got 2 primary weapons and 2 hand guns…. No thanks”. Fair point, kind of hit home when he said that!

I’m beginning to come around to the fact that this game is going to be a long long long time in development. Even if they introduced cars it’s still going to be dull and bland. I think people could put up with various bugs, but they need some end game stuff:

* Cars
* Constructible/lockable bases
* More guns
* Trade cities
* Good buy/sell markets
* Rare items
* XP and character development

I think it is best they just hand the files out to the community and leave them mod it aka do his work for him. This way he can work on sorting game breaking bugs and add new items and buildings.

At this point ive not got £19.99 worth of game play out of it…. However I’m not gutted I’ve bought it as I’m interested in seeing what he can do with this.

Anyways, I’m outta here. Will come back in 12months…. Epoch here I come!

 

[WiZZyWiGG]

Having got this over the holidays I have tried giving it a go but it all seems a little floaty? Hard to describe but it feels quite hard to play, like some odd smoothing is going on.

Don't remember having this problem when I tried the mod version with ARMA 2.

 

[uncle_rufus]

I think people could put up with various bugs, but they need some end game stuff:

* Cars
* Constructible/lockable bases
* More guns
* Trade cities
* Good buy/sell markets
* Rare items
* XP and character development

Oh god no ... Those things would be great but given how many bugs there already are in the bare basics like character + zombie movement can you even begin to imagine how many even a single one of those new features would add? I don't even want to think about it!!!

 

[spoffle]

Oh boy is it nice to read some posts by some people who actually get what's going on here... I'd love to pick it all apart but I don't have time, so here's a few bits



But countless times Rocket tried to justify and hype up the standalone specifically referencing the fact that there were fundamental engrained problems with the way the Arma engine worked which just made certain things he wanted to do with the game either impossible or prone to serious issues. Melee weapons are a case in point - the engine will likely never handle them properly. My number one surprise when I found out the standalone was on early access was "Huh? It's the Arma engine again?!"... Did Rocket just decide he was cool with all those problems he previously tried to paint himself as the champion of taking the game standalone to overcome, or did he just forget? Or was it more profitable for him to not bother researching a more suitable engine to use?



This... finally someone else in here speaks my language. This product in its current state represents something closer to what would be called a "technical alpha" rather than the "release alpha" it's been sold as. And this is exactly why I said Rocket + Co. should be testing it in-house at this point because the issues are so deep-seeded in the core of the game that starting play-testing on an 800,000+ install base is a complete waste of everyone's time and resources (under the assumption that the goal is to end up with a decent product - not just make 800,000*£20 of cash)



Exactly... I don't want that to be the case but alarm bells are certainly ringing, and I am struggling to identify with the optimism going around for DayZ at this point. I'd be interested to know who posting here actually works in software-development as a career - perhaps that's the dividing line? Based on my own experience the developers here are certainly looking to be making every mistake in the book.

Isn't all that to do with Bohemia effectively taking over/ownership of the project?

With that, having Bohemia on side/owning the project will mean that any engine issues should in theory be able to be worked on directly due to the source code being available, rather than hacks to work around issues having to be used, so I don't think the engine itself is going to be an issue in the way it otherwise would be in the usual circumstances.

Also, it's clear that it IS being tested in-house too, but it also makes sense for why they've decided to do a pre-order bonus in the form of alpha access too, as they have a pool of people to test how the game works in terms of servers and so on.

Basically, I can understand why they've chosen to do it the way they have done, as opposed to "the way they've done it is the best way and they are above criticism" as people seem to be suggesting I've said.

 

[Renton]

I dont get why people say this is "unplayable"?

OK there is a lot less content than the mod and it can be a bit cluncky and buggy but I still find it fun, On Friday there was a group of 12 of us playing for 4 hours with no problems what so ever. Rather embaracingly we actually got our backsides handed to us by a group of 3 or 4 people and I was the second from last to get killed and I was nearly having a heart attack I was bricking it so much...was awsome just that night of playing was worth £20 to me even though we are quite clearly rubbish survivors

 

[[TW]Sponge]

It will never be as good as the mod. The only difference with SA is that people are buying it because they now know it exists. For example my mate who had never heard of it before, bought it and started playing. I told him to try the A2 mod, and he now plays that rather than SA.

Wait until they get onto A2 mod, it will soon die (hopefully).

 

[Fenris]

* XP and character development

This is the only thing on your list I do NOT want to see added to the game, one of the joys of DayZ is that the difference between a new player on a new character and a veteran on a 2 week old character is gear and skill, the former can be attained quickly if you know where to look and the latter comes over time.

Adding XP just means the game will be dominated even more by people who have been playing a long time or simply have more time to play. Everyone should fear every other player equally.

 

[Lobovski]

This is the only thing on your list I do NOT want to see added to the game, one of the joys of DayZ is that the difference between a new player on a new character and a veteran on a 2 week old character is gear and skill, the former can be attained quickly if you know where to look and the latter comes over time.

Adding XP just means the game will be dominated even more by people who have been playing a long time or simply have more time to play. Everyone should fear every other player equally.

Would have to agree with this...xp would wouldn't feel right in Dayz imo.

 

[Witcher1979]

http://www.thedeadlinger.com/roadmap

Will be one to watch out for in 5-6 months, it is a bit of a mess atm.

 

[uncle_rufus]

Isn't all that to do with Bohemia effectively taking over/ownership of the project?

With that, having Bohemia on side/owning the project will mean that any engine issues should in theory be able to be worked on directly due to the source code being available, rather than hacks to work around issues having to be used, so I don't think the engine itself is going to be an issue in the way it otherwise would be in the usual circumstances.

It depends just how fundamental the problems are... To go back to the melee weapon example - I don't know first hand having not played it myself but from what I've heard in the SA it's still basically as if you're firing a bullet from a gun except there is no particle and the range is very short - i.e. no collision detection and just generally very weird... So they've built it in the Arma engine "from scratch" (apparently) and yet this strange workaround is still alive and well... How much effort will it take the devs/Bohemia to modify the engine for this to work - who knows? If enough problems like this stack up then it gets to the point where working around the current engine's limitations will introduce more bugs and require more effort than to pick a better engine to begin with

Also, it's clear that it IS being tested in-house too, but it also makes sense for why they've decided to do a pre-order bonus in the form of alpha access too, as they have a pool of people to test how the game works in terms of servers and so on.

Sure, but we're arguing that the pre-order bonus alpha testing should have come much later than this. When there are basic bugs like stuff glitching around and clipping through walls and things like that it's going to get in the way of really understanding the network performance, and so as I've said before it's just creating colossal amounts of bug-report noise for the developers to try and wade through

Basically, I can understand why they've chosen to do it the way they have done, as opposed to "the way they've done it is the best way and they are above criticism" as people seem to be suggesting I've said.

I hope I didn't give you that impression - of course there are a lot of ways to go about something like this and everyone is going to have an opinion about the right one

 

[Hank_Marvin]

Rufus you have posted so much and now you are saying you haven't actually played standalone???

 

[~>Dg<~]

those thinking arma 2 mod is going to kill this off haha so funny. this has close to 1 million players already that's the peak of the mod at its height !

you will never ever get that for the mod again .

SA is just starting be patient because this will best best game of this there once more stuff is added shortly.