DayZ $29.99

It is completely in context. He is saying DayZ is fundamentally flawed - which means in order for it not to be fundamentally flawed it needs a complete redesign from the ground-up. Although an Alpha (and that's even if this can still be called an Alpha) will technically have many missing features, it's core, fundamental design is already in place. As that graph points out specifically, for almost 1.5 years now Dean and Bohemia have been hyping a "fundamentally flawed concept" that they have no intention to develop into a "fundamentally sound concept," and they never have had that intention.

They have/are/will be developing it just enough to maximize their sales without investing too much into it, commonly referred to as a cash grab, and that's it. The past words/actions (as shown on the graph) all points to this, and when he made that statement, it confirms everything else. The rest of his words in that interview is an attempt to take this latest action (leaving DayZ development) out of context with the rest of the actions/words of Dean/Bohemia.

Of course, maybe Dean wanted to do something big with it but Bohemia never supported him (surprise, surprise, considering the state of Arma 3), but there is so far no evidence/claims of that.
 
GearChoices said:
It is completely in context. He is saying DayZ is fundamentally flawed - which means in order for it not to be fundamentally flawed it needs a complete redesign from the ground-up. Although an Alpha (and that's even if this can still be called an Alpha) will technically have many missing features, it's core, fundamental design is already in place. As that graph points out specifically, for almost 1.5 years now Dean and Bohemia have been hyping a "fundamentally flawed concept" that they have no intention to develop into a "fundamentally sound concept," and they never have had that intention.

They have/are/will be developing it just enough to maximize their sales without investing too much into it, commonly referred to as a cash grab, and that's it. The past words/actions (as shown on the graph) all points to this, and when he made that statement, it confirms everything else. The rest of his words in that interview is an attempt to take this latest action (leaving DayZ development) out of context with the rest of the actions/words of Dean/Bohemia.

Of course, maybe Dean wanted to do something big with it but Bohemia never supported him (surprise, surprise, considering the state of Arma 3), but there is so far no evidence/claims of that.
Click to expand...
Very much how I feel.

It was a good concept that got screwed when Rocket started getting money and sipping the kool aid.

Hall leaving... yup I called this months ago literally.

So glad everyone else but me bought into the hype. Suckers.
 
It's really difficult to comprehend what he's talking about when he says that it's "fundamentally flawed". If he's referring to players' propensity for banditry, then there is no way to fix the game: the flaw exists because players can be bandits and so they, in very large numbers, choose to be. If he's referring to some other key aspect being flawed, I don't really know to what he's referring. They have a solid foundation, and he's said as much. If there's some "fundamental flaw", I'm not sure what that could be.

This is one of those times where Hall gets in trouble because of his penchant for rambling in no particular order. You can't tell exactly what he's trying to say because he just bounces between one topic and another.
 
I can tell you two of the fundamental flaws of the game (whether Dean actually realizes these specific ones or not):

1. There is no reward for playing anything but "Bandit." By succeeding as a non-bandit, you gain no reward beyond what a successful bandit gets. Yet, despite getting no additional reward as a successful non-bandit, you are punished with an enormous amount of additional risk. The game is fundamentally flawed in that the less risk you take, the greater your potential reward. Backwards game design. But let's face it, DayZ is not a "designed" game - there essentially is no "game design" because all they did was convert a random experimental mod (with no structured design) into a standalone application and called it a "full game." And if this game was specifically designed so that nothing else matters but surviving to camp somewhere and shoot random people, well there are games/mods that do that better: Arma 2, Arma 3, and their mods.

2. Huge "down time" with no reward. There is no purpose in anything you do - zero long-term consequences on the world or people around you. When you die, it means nothing. You just start over, and you have lost no progress because you were progressing towards nothing. Yet is even the journey actually enjoyable? Except for people that have both particular tastes and have little value or use for their time, the short answer is no. Running around randomly for long periods of time with no point in anything you do is not fun or a valuable use of time for most people. No long-term goals and no enjoyable long-term replay-ability. This is supposed to be a "survival game," yet there is zero point to surviving.
 
DayZ is as much of a sandbox as MineCraft, the only difference being what you build is a survival experience. That experience is based on a realistic and logical system where the first person to shoot will live, and the gear you just spent an hour scavenging can be stolen from you. It's just like the real world, mean and unforgiving.

When I play DayZ I experience all kinds of emotions, most notably anxiety whenever I see any other player. My heart starts racing. That's the survival experience.That's what I paid $30 to feel.

If you want to see if all those people who bought the game feel robbed, look at the players online stats in Steam. Today's peak was 40k. I don't think all those people are playing a game they can't stand.

Is it annoying to have to run for a solid ten minutes to get to a decent weapon spawn? Sure! But I remember running for even longer spans of time in the original everquest. Maybe similar to the original everquest, the survival MMO is a new genre of game and will improve with time.
 
GearChoices said:
By succeeding as a non-bandit, you gain no reward beyond what a successful bandit gets. Yet, despite getting no additional reward as a successful non-bandit, you are punished with an enormous amount of additional risk.
Click to expand...
Why do people tend to enjoy playing single player games at higher difficulty levels? Despite the increased risk of death and frustration, there's rarely any reward for those who play on Hard above and beyond any reward gained for playing the game on Easy. Why, then, do you believe they do it?

A conventional reward structure is one that provides players with discrete in-game awards for pre-defined accomplishments. DayZ lacks that entirely: its reward structure is based on arbitrary player satisfaction. It's why there are groups of people who will, at another random player's request, jump into a server, run or drive to a location and do blood transfusions and fix that player's broken limbs. They don't get special in-game badges or uniquely-skinned weapon variants for doing that. They just get enjoyment from it.

The caveat is that there's opportunity for people to do the exact opposite of that. That's not dissuaded enough with the game mechanics (there are flaws there), but it also drives the way a lot of player interactions happen and provides tension. The zombies don't really provide enough tension on their own, so player conflicts fill that hole.

It's a sandbox game. People make their own experiences from a basic framework of environments and behaviors. That's the point.

GearChoices said:
There is no purpose in anything you do - zero long-term consequences on the world or people around you. When you die, it means nothing. You just start over, and you have lost no progress because you were progressing towards nothing.
Click to expand...
I think you've just indadvertedly described many multiplayer games, in which the end game is little more than an arbitrary round end time or a frag count. No long-term consequences; no meaningful impact on the experiences of other players over time. Those games, too, are primarily driven by players seeking satisfaction from the gameplay experience.
 
GearChoices said:
2. Huge "down time" with no reward. There is no purpose in anything you do - zero long-term consequences on the world or people around you. When you die, it means nothing. You just start over, and you have lost no progress because you were progressing towards nothing.
Click to expand...

Kinda like minecraft. Different games, but similar in that way. Reminds me of a quote: "Music is the space between notes"

I dont understand the appeal of either btw, and I'll get around to install the DayZ mod eventually just to say I tried it, but from gameplay videos DayZ seems at least a little more compelling in that Fallout kind of a way.
 
DPI said:
Kinda like minecraft. Different games, but similar in that way. Reminds me of a quote: "Music is the space between notes"

I dont understand the appeal of either btw, and I'll get around to install the DayZ mod eventually just to say I tried it, but from gameplay videos DayZ seems at least a little more compelling in that Fallout kind of a way.
Click to expand...

Eh, Play it first.

A lot of the people critical of the game and mod are people who have "watched videos". Its a game based on PERSONAL experience. That's why you either love it, or hate it.
 
DayZ / Bohemia Interactive studio tour featuring Dean Hall. The takeaway for me is that if Dean Hall leaves tomorrow or in 10 months that the game development doesn't appear like it would grind to a standstill. There's an entire group working on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWYezI6z6CM
 
Last edited:
Pringle said:
Eh, Play it first.

A lot of the people critical of the game and mod are people who have "watched videos". Its a game based on PERSONAL experience. That's why you either love it, or hate it.
Click to expand...

My experience with the DayZ mod was...eh. And this is coming from someone who regularly plays ArmA 2, so the engine issues didn't bother me at all.

The main problem I had with the game is that there's really no goal, no objectives, no nothing other than just surviving. Which is fine if you enjoy that sort of thing, but to me it has the same problem as State of Decay - you are basically just spending your time collecting resources in order to continue being able to...collect more resources, in order to...well, you get the picture.

I guess you could argue that Minecraft is like that as well, but in Minecraft a mining is really just a means to an end, in that you can eventually get to a point where you can automate a lot of processes and not have to worry about "survival" and can focus on building and being creative. In that same regard, I did get bored of vanilla Minecraft and won't play now without mod packs like FTB, where there is far more automation possible and creating/upgrading the systems to do so is what makes the game fun, as well as increasingly awesome power systems, item crafting, etc.

With DayZ, you really don't have any of that. You basically run around, collect items, and use those items to continue to be able to collect more items, until you get shot and have to start all over again. It is arguably a better experience if you play with friends, but what I'd really like to see are a few things:

1) Zombies that are actually a challenge. Being more a co-op experience against zombies/other creatures would make the game more fulfilling, IMO.

2) Co-op gameplay being rewarded. Right now there is very little, if any reason to not just shoot everyone you see in the face right off the bat. You have everything to lose if you don't. I'd like to see some sort of group mechanic where you get bonuses by working together with other players, and eventually some sort of base building where as you get more friendly players you gain even more advantages, be it resource generation, access to more items, etc.

So really, it has the potential to be really great, but IMO it is just not there yet, and there's no guarantee that it ever will be.
 
MavericK96 said:
and eventually some sort of base building where as you get more friendly players you gain even more advantages, be it resource generation, access to more items, etc.

So really, it has the potential to be really great, but IMO it is just not there yet, and there's no guarantee that it ever will be.
Click to expand...

That'd be friggen cool, but considering how long it's taken them to get to the current point, I'd say what we have is roughly all we'll ever get.
 
I play the game and i actually like it a lot. There is a feeling i cant explain when i loot around homes and keep myself unseen from bandit. I cant wait for more zombies and more stuff to loot. I always play alone since every player i saw in game told me to fuck off.

Its not a game for everyone.
 
This is what, the third engine they've used at this point? I had my fun and got $30 worth with my friends, so I can't complain. Seriously though, they might be the most dysfunctional studio I've ever seen.
 
This is some of the funniest shit i've ever seen. He better be careful because he is on the way to becoming a DNF joke.
 
Amaroth said:
This is some of the funniest shit i've ever seen. He better be careful because he is on the way to becoming a DNF joke.
Click to expand...

Well, its now or never to prove himself. The question is how much more of a delay will this create... :(
 
MavericK96 said:
The main problem I had with the game is that there's really no goal, no objectives, no nothing other than just surviving. Which is fine if you enjoy that sort of thing, but to me it has the same problem as State of Decay - you are basically just spending your time collecting resources in order to continue being able to...collect more resources, in order to...well, you get the picture.
Click to expand...

These are pretty much my sentiments regarding the game as well. At first it's really fun and intense, and kind of scary. The process of getting all of your gear together and stocking up is fun and motivating. After you're all set though, there really is nothing to do but either become a bandit and kill other players, keep scavenging for food/bullets so you can live on, or just do something dumb, die, and start over. Some really funny and cool things have happened to me while playing the DayZ mod, but ultimately when you've gotten stocked up on all the supplies you may need then you've effectively "beaten" the game, and there isn't anything interesting left to do.
 
Is there still a decent community going for DayZ? I stopped playing back in Jan because of the sheer quantity of bugs/rough edges, and the pace of development made it feel as though I shouldn't consider checking back for another year. Have things improved much?
 
Not really, no. They've essentially spent the last seven months fixing networking issues. They've added a fair number of items, but zombie pathfinding is pretty much entirely broken, rendering the game largely unplayable.
 
Choopyplz said:
These are pretty much my sentiments regarding the game as well. At first it's really fun and intense, and kind of scary. The process of getting all of your gear together and stocking up is fun and motivating. After you're all set though, there really is nothing to do but either become a bandit and kill other players, keep scavenging for food/bullets so you can live on, or just do something dumb, die, and start over. Some really funny and cool things have happened to me while playing the DayZ mod, but ultimately when you've gotten stocked up on all the supplies you may need then you've effectively "beaten" the game, and there isn't anything interesting left to do.
Click to expand...

This is where I'm at. I've collected all the best gear, all the attachments for my m4 and all the ammo and clips ill ever need. Now I'm at a loss as to what to do. I haven't seen another player in ages. I really gets boring.
 
There's not supposed to be anything to *do* yet, you realize that right? Its still an alpha getting the engine working (which is currently being overhauled) and adding features like hats before they add some kind of game based objectives.

Were not even at the point of having something to do that we were at with the mod yet, that's how Alpha this really is. Once some form of housing is in and some way to level up a persistent character that will not be wiped, then you can build communities, survive, construct vehicles and steal stuff from other peoples camps. That will put us back where we were with the mod, and I expect other objectives to be added in before or during that time.

Right now its just a glorified buggy tech demo, I don't play it often except when a patch drops to quickly check out new features, and consider my $30 an investment in playing a future game at a discounted price. I suggest people do the same or you'll get "burnt out" on a game before its even a game.
 
VulcaN said:
Once some form of housing is in and some way to level up a persistent character that will not be wiped, then you can build communities, survive, construct vehicles and steal stuff from other peoples camps.
Click to expand...
I'm certainly looking forward to playing the game when these features actually make it in. In 2018.
 
wonderfield said:
I'm certainly looking forward to playing the game when these features actually make it in. In 2018.
Click to expand...

Yeah the development cycle here feels like it has been extremely slow for something that was released in such a painful state. I'm a little disappointed that it hasn't come farther.
 
VulcaN said:
There's not supposed to be anything to *do* yet, you realize that right?
Click to expand...

TBH I still don't see actual content developing too far beyond what you already currently can do within the game. Surviving in a group and stealing stuff from camps isn't that far off from scavenging and killing bandits, but that's just my opinion. I'm not necessarily complaining, I just feel that it's the nature of this kind of game.
 
skittzle said:
This is where I'm at. I've collected all the best gear, all the attachments for my m4 and all the ammo and clips ill ever need. Now I'm at a loss as to what to do. I haven't seen another player in ages. I really gets boring.
Click to expand...

Im in that exact same spot. Hell even have as many protective cases as I can carry ffs. Had a few friends that I would play with regularly back in January, but they haven't played for several months now. Hard to get excited when the dev team gets a nice infusion of cash, grows exponentially, then proceeds to kick out various hats and cosmetic changes while making no real improvement to the game over that period of time. I understand that it takes some time to get everyone working together and that different aspects of the game require different teams working on them, but ffs they banked in on everything in December and here we are just about 7 months later and have pretty much crap to show that's been done in that time period. No hunting, no vehicles, no fire or cooking, zombies behavior is worse now than it was before, no persistent items or storage of any real kind.

The best laugh is that now theyre going to be "moving to a new engine" when they could have just called it a day and started off with the Arma 3 engine and not had to try to reinvent the wheel as they have done with the SA and their modified take on helicopters engine. Mods for Arma 3 have done pretty much everything they've been failing to do on the SA for some time now. Breaking Point is a good example of what can be done from a relatively small team of talented people.
 
Arma 3 engine would have been almost as bad. If they wanted to make a good game worth more than $5, it was clear from the very beginning that they needed to make an entirely new engine from scratch.
 
Good luck making an engine from scratch that is capable of what RV4 is capable of, though.
 
They're not moving to a new engine, they're simply calling it a new engine since they've replaced a lot of it and plan to replace more. They're upgrading the rendering engine to dx10/11 which is the real news from this post.

Development has been pretty slow, but a lot of it has been updates to the engine to get it where they need.
 
tissimo said:
They're not moving to a new engine
Click to expand...
No, but that is almost exactly what Hall said: that they were 'moving' to a 'new engine'. The way he communicates things is occasionally really awful, which leads to a lot of confusion.

As far as I'm concerned, the move to a new renderer is non-news until performance numbers are in. It's not the API that holds DayZ's performance back.
 
I think the BI guys call a heavily modified engine a "new engine" and have been doing so for some time if I am not mistaken.
 
The lack of clarity is intentional, to keep misleading people and keep the sales rolling in. RV4 may have a lot of capabilities other mainstream engines do not, but its capabilities are not beneficial to DayZ Standalone, which needs an entirely different set of capabilities to match it, since, in concept, it is (or SHOULD be) an entirely different game compared to Arma games and any other military-sim.
 
It is a really long time for it to be in alpha.. I want to drive vehicles by now & not have zombies coming through walls. :( I think It's still pretty fun though, a break from other games out there if no one has ever played this game b4 they should give it a try.
 
The fact you say Zombies are still clipping through walls by this time makes me think theky aren't even trying anymore.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top