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[The Mechanical Man]

If you're not playing a game to enjoy it then I don't know what the..?!

I mean it's cool that it's an alpha, but the tradeoff for people testing his game for him, and the huge popularity and success it's brought him is that people aren't doing all this out of the goodness of their hearts to make sure his game is bug free. It's because they want to play a fun zombie game. They aren't going and buying arma2 combined ops because they have some secret desire to play buggy unfinished stuff, it's because so many others have said "hey this game is really cool right now, come play it!"

I'm not trying to directly pick at you, but I see this arguement a lot and it's a bit disenguous to suggest that the only reason we're allowed to play this game/ should want to play this game, is out of some selfless charitable free software tester desire. That's not to mention that if it was really about fixing all the bugs, then shouldn't that be the focus, and not adding in new gamebreaking-bug riddled gameplay mechanics handfulls at a time?

It's the same sentiment people use when an MMO gives you beta access if you purchase the game: "Oh you're supposed to be beta testing so you can't get mad about anything, they're doing you a favour letting you play it so be gratefull!" No. It's a two way street and both parties (dev and player) get something out of it. DayZ is a game, and people can get upset about broken things in the game however or whyever they chose, just like with any other game.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing stopping people from playing the mod out of enjoyment. It's just that that isn't the actual goal, from a development point of view. This could easily have been a closed alpha instead with only a select group of people testing the game, and then the rest of us would all be sitting around saying "wow I can't wait to play that, looks good". The game isn't available to the public so that they can enjoy it, is what I'm saying. It's so that bugs can be found quickly and easily because thousands of people are testing it rather than a few. And I'm not saying that you should still play when you're not enjoying it, because that's a waste. But I am saying it isn't fair to complain that it's buggy and unfinished, because you should have known better when you downloaded an alpha mod. You shouldn't get mad when some weird bug pops up and removes your weapon. You say "oh, that's a bug, I'll go report it" and then you're on your way. You lost your weapon, big deal. I simply don't like how people play this alpha, expect it to run and feel like a finished and polished game, and then complain when it turns out it isn't.

As far as the additional content in patches goes: Alpha is both adding content and fixing bugs. Beta is doing some final tweaking of content but is mostly about fixing remaining bugs. So the developers are doing nothing wrong here by throwing in additional content with bug fixes, even if that content ends up breaking stuff. I for one value any extra content. The content flow stops when it goes to the beta phase, usually.

[fenrif]

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing stopping people from playing the mod out of enjoyment. It's just that that isn't the actual goal, from a development point of view. This could easily have been a closed alpha instead with only a select group of people testing the game, and then the rest of us would all be sitting around saying "wow I can't wait to play that, looks good". The game isn't available to the public so that they can enjoy it, is what I'm saying. It's so that bugs can be found quickly and easily because thousands of people are testing it rather than a few. And I'm not saying that you should still play when you're not enjoying it, because that's a waste. But I am saying it isn't fair to complain that it's buggy and unfinished, because you should have known better when you downloaded an alpha mod. You shouldn't get mad when some weird bug pops up and removes your weapon. You say "oh, that's a bug, I'll go report it" and then you're on your way. You lost your weapon, big deal. I simply don't like how people play this alpha, expect it to run and feel like a finished and polished game, and then complain when it turns out it isn't.

As far as the additional content in patches goes: Alpha is both adding content and fixing bugs. Beta is doing some final tweaking of content but is mostly about fixing remaining bugs. So the developers are doing nothing wrong here by throwing in additional content with bug fixes, even if that content ends up breaking stuff. I for one value any extra content. The content flow stops when it goes to the beta phase, usually.

The game isn't available to the public so they can test it. I mean how many people do you think actually report bugs? The game is probobly available to the public for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to: advertising, improving rocket's personal career prospects, fun. I can't find the link at the moment because RPS search function is being tempremental, but there's an article where Rocket talks about how dayz has something like 500,000 players? I can't remember the exact number, but he basically says "today we have 470,000. Tommorow we'll have 480,000, it just keeps growing."

99% of those people aren't playing to test bugs, and noone ever asked them to. It's perfectly valid to complain about bugs or broken features, just like with any other game. Especially when thing's are pushed out with like literally no testing. When an update is released that has the same thought put into it as a monkey just flipping switches in a nuclear power plant to see what happens, people are going to complain. When RPS or GiantBomb or whoever writes an article, or interviews Rockets, or generally promotes the game the message isn't "hop on and pitch in helping rocket test bugs!" it's "play this awesome game!" I don't think I've seen an article or interview anywhere where Rocket even mentions people finding bugs and reporting them.

I think a lot of the reasons people get upset about the changes with each patch is that the game did feel like a finished (albiet buggy) game a few versions ago. I know when I first started playing I was enamoured with it. But each new update made it worse and worse. Though that might just be me.

@Fefnir: I think you got some points wrong.

1) Killing in the debug forest its considered exploiting a glitch/bug, anyone with more than 1 month in gaming knows thats bad, you can get banned, but you get banned FROM THE SERVER, you still can play ARMA 2, its not like you are putting your CDKey in danger.
2) People runing scripts to blab la bla: Thats plain and simple cheating, same as anyother game, break the rules pay the price.
3) In a persistent game doing things like that is obviously not permited, i dont think i have to explain why, specially when your character carries over another servers. You also enumerated all the wrong reasons to have a server. Want to do that? Go to regular arma, hop on a choper and spawn zombies with your friends.

I don't know why you didn't spell my name right? I mean it's written right there 3 posts above yours, and you don't seem to have any other problems spelling. :S

1) I've played video games all my life. Like 25+ years of video gaming experience. I don't see how this is supposed to be a self evident exploiting of a glitch/bug, or why it even mattered. Also you can't ban people from servers AFAIK. You can get blacklisted for banning people willy nilly. And the forum post I was referring to specifically mentioned BattleEye bans, which are CD key bans. And there are more than a few people who swear up and down that they've been banned and this is the only thing they could've possibly done to deserve it (usually finding out after the fact taht this is a bannable offense)
2)It's not breaking any rules of the game though? It's not like they're hacking... They're literally just using ARMA 2's scripting engine and the way the game is designed to be completely trusting of all clients connected to the server. If this is deserving of a CD-Key ban then why isn't killing the in debug forest? Why are either of them. Surely in an alpha experiment test people SHOULD be finding the exploits and bugs that are possible? I mean isn't that one of the points of an alpha? Find all the ways to break the game so the developer can fix them?
3)If you're paying for a server it doesn't matter what the reasons you have for it are. It's your server. And I find it kind of hillarious that on one hand "it's a persistant game so of course things aren't permitted" but on the other hand "lol you lost your character? It's an alpha!"

This is the problem I'm having here, the game is persistant untill someone says "but my entire character was wiped because someone on the server put on a ghillie suit and everyones inventories were wiped. Then all of a sudden it's an experimental alpha and you can't expect persistance from that. But your CD key is still able to be banned. But it's all malleable and changes every day so none of it matters anyway. You should be playing to test the game for Rocket, but when Rocket changes something and huge amounts of people say "that was a bad decision" Rocket's response is "it's my game and I'll do what I want." Depending on what you're talking about it changes from being a game, to an experiment designed to not be a game.

It's all double talk and marketing speak designed to cover its own ass in any situation. Problem with the game? it's an alpha who cares! You got CD-key banned and don't know why? Well it's persistance is the most important part! Don't like major gameplay changes? Well it's not supposed to be fun! Etc. It's like nothing you say about the game matters because anything negative just changes it into something else to avoid any critisism. I'll say this, it's a masterfull PR/advertising campaign.

[Tronak]

The game isn't available to the public so they can test it. I mean how many people do you think actually report bugs? The game is probobly available to the public for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to: advertising, improving rocket's personal career prospects, fun. I can't find the link at the moment because RPS search function is being tempremental, but there's an article where Rocket talks about how dayz has something like 500,000 players? I can't remember the exact number, but he basically says "today we have 470,000. Tommorow we'll have 480,000, it just keeps growing."

I think you are wrong here Fenrif. Rocket's plan was to make an small but open alpha of the mod with Arma community members. Then Arma community started playing massively, then it went "viral", then you have 500.000 players and press interested on it.

On most of the DayZ centered Interviews with Rocket he has stated that the success of the Mod was unexpected (If you want i can dig a pair of links for you), so its hardly possible that DayZ started as an advertisement or as an improvement of Rocket's Career (Prior to DayZ alpha he was already working for BI, in Arma 3 multiplayer section, check it out). Nowadays, with 400K to 500K players, I agree BI is using the mod as advertising for Arma 2 and 3 (with great success, in my opinion).

Being a Mod, and moreso, being and alpha Mod, you can't be serious about complaining about the developing scheme. it is free, he can develop it as bugged as he wants because he doesn't owe anything, it is the greatness of Modding!!! .

[The Mechanical Man]

Fenrif, listen:

Fucking fuck. new update broke game totally, no servers are joinable and the few that does makes me stuck on loading screen. Fuck this shit im not playing anymore...

Was such an awesome game but the devs are retards for releasing unfinished versions.

All I'm arguing about is this (no offense intended to you, DrPoo). All I'm saying is that it is not fair to say something like this when this is an alpha mod. Every version, naturally, is buggy and unfinished. Expecting otherwise is not right. You have the right to complain about bugs as much as you want, but at the same time you should be expecting them and shouldn't be surprised when they appear. There's no need to get angry and upset over a bug. Thinking that you will be able to keep your character through every single update is stupid. You should expect to lose items, to lose progress, to lose your character to some strange bug. That's the risk that you take when you decide to play a mod in it's alpha stage.

This is the problem I'm having here, the game is persistant untill someone says "but my entire character was wiped because someone on the server put on a ghillie suit and everyones inventories were wiped. Then all of a sudden it's an experimental alpha and you can't expect persistance from that."

Well, it's supposed to be persistent. That's the end goal, at least. Bugs might come up that prevent that persistence. Everyone should be ready to have their inventories wiped at some point. I think people are going into this with the wrong expectation- that is, the expectation that things will work 100%. Of course things won't. And people have a right to complain about that, but that doesn't mean I agree with that. It'll get fixed eventually, that's all I can say and therefore I see no reason to complain further.

People just don't go about things in a smart manner. If a person read the update threads, they'd be able to see people say "X is broken" probably a dozen times. It's their decision then whether or not they will download the update and possibly risk running into this bug. In the meantime, it doesn't matter if 50 more people say that "X is broken" if Rocket already knows that. They'll just have to wait for him to fix it and there's really nothing else to do. In this way, I don't see any point in complaining more when it will effectively do nothing.


EDIT: By the way, I believe this is the post about debug forest killing:

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/6931-notice-killing-in-debug-forest/page__hl__%2Bdebug+%2Bforest

"Using this exploit will earn you a min. of a one week ban, once your week ban is lifted and you continue to do this, a more permanent ban will be put in place."

[fenrif]

I'm not saying that he started work on it with the express purpose of "this will make me internet famous and the CEO of the company I'm working for will love it and my career will grow in leaps and bounds." But are you willing to concede that the original intentions for things can change, especially when thrust into unexpected success and popularity?

I mean, if he wanted it to be this experimental alpha test, he could've just not allowed people to host servers for it, and kept it going with the ShackTac group that he was originally using for testing (which AFAIK is like 100-200 players? I don't really know) But you don't need 500,000 players to alpha test a mod of this kind.

Saying you cant complain about it always strikes me as odd, because if it's this experimental alpha thing then shouldn't all the criticisms be valid? And at least considered? or is it just negative thing's that aren't allowed? "You can have an opinion, but only if it stokes my ego!" If criticisms aren't valid then neither are compliments, but Rocket (or his fanbase) doesn't seem to have a problem with them.

And yeah, he can develop it however he wants. Tommorow he could add in code that spawns everyone dead, and never allows you to do anything but lie there as a corpse and that would be perfectly valid. But it's equally valid for everyone to say "this is bullshit, what the fuck?!" Noone's making demands for him to change, just expressing opinions that what he's doing is shortsighted and counter productive to his stated goals.

Fenrif, listen:

Fucking fuck. new update broke game totally, no servers are joinable and the few that does makes me stuck on loading screen. Fuck this shit im not playing anymore...

Was such an awesome game but the devs are retards for releasing unfinished versions.

All I'm arguing about is this (no offense intended to you, DrPoo). All I'm saying is that it is not fair to say something like this when this is an alpha mod. Every version, naturally, is buggy and unfinished. Expecting otherwise is not right. You have the right to complain about bugs as much as you want, but at the same time you should be expecting them and shouldn't be surprised when they appear. There's no need to get angry and upset over a bug. Thinking that you will be able to keep your character through every single update is stupid. You should expect to lose items, to lose progress, to lose your character to some strange bug. That's the risk that you take when you decide to play a mod in it's alpha stage.

This is the problem I'm having here, the game is persistant untill someone says "but my entire character was wiped because someone on the server put on a ghillie suit and everyones inventories were wiped. Then all of a sudden it's an experimental alpha and you can't expect persistance from that."

Well, it's supposed to be persistent. That's the end goal, at least. Bugs might come up that prevent that persistence. Everyone should be ready to have their inventories wiped at some point. I think people are going into this with the wrong expectation- that is, the expectation that things will work 100%. Of course things won't. And people have a right to complain about that, but that doesn't mean I agree with that. It'll get fixed eventually, that's all I can say and therefore I see no reason to complain further.

People just don't go about things in a smart manner. If a person read the update threads, they'd be able to see people say "X is broken" probably a dozen times. It's their decision then whether or not they will download the update and possibly risk running into this bug. In the meantime, it doesn't matter if 50 more people say that "X is broken" if Rocket already knows that. They'll just have to wait for him to fix it and there's really nothing else to do. In this way, I don't see any point in complaining more when it will effectively do nothing.

There's a difference between buggy and unfinished, and just untested broken stuff pushed out as an update which then forces everyone to rollback and makes getting the game running a huge pile of stress for everyone.

"[11:49:37 AM] Rocket Hall: so here is the situation
sickboy has loaded 1.7.2.2 while he was at the airport
but 1.7.2.2 is completely fucked, zombies don't agro etc....
so now we need to roll it back, but we cant
in 1.7.2.2 zombies don't agro and people couldnt load "

From the SA thread on DayZ, supposedly taken from and IRC chat? I don't find this too hard to believe.

[The Mechanical Man]

"[11:49:37 AM] Rocket Hall: so here is the situation
sickboy has loaded 1.7.2.2 while he was at the airport
but 1.7.2.2 is completely fucked, zombies don't agro etc....
so now we need to roll it back, but we cant
in 1.7.2.2 zombies don't agro and people couldnt load "

From the SA thread on DayZ, supposedly taken from and IRC chat? I don't find this too hard to believe.

First, may I direct everyone to this post:

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/12351-rockets-facts-of-life/

Specifically:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The build is fucked

Yes, we know. The build is always fucked. If it is not fucked, then I haven't pushed hard enough in this update. If I fuck a build in Beta then you can rage all you want, but if you rage now and tell me I burned your $30 I'm just going to roll my eyes and google for meme's. This is what hotfixes are for, I do the hotfixes until the build is where I wanted it to be. Then we test it. If we like it, we keep it, if not, we revert. That's how it has worked and that is why we are here where we are.

What you say matters

I get a lot of inspiration from the forums. Huge amounts. I dedicate about 6 hours a day to reading not just these forums, but neogaf, facepunch, project reality, 4chan, reddit, tkc, unknowncheats, you name it. I read because I want to engage with you and get a feeling of the emotions running through people and how they see things, rightly or wrongly.

There is only one vision

Having said that, I'm mindful that there is only one compass which can help me keep track of the direction - and that is my own internal one. So while my inspiration comes from you guys, the decisions come from me. Some of the best elements of the mod so far, have been ones that every single person I talked to told me was a bad idea. Please keep that in mind. Have a little faith in the process.

Now about that 1.7.2.2 error, I recall him saying that he accidently sent the wrong code or something, and by the time he realized it he couldn't get it fixed. So then he had 1.7.2.3 released quickly. I'm working on finding the specific post.

EDIT: Here we are...

The fault of 1.7.2.2 was noone else but mine. I provided Sickboy the incorrect files. He was at the airport and he did me a favor by putting the files out, I realized too late there was an issue and then there was a delay pulling the files.

So Six didn't hurt anyone, it was my fault. I'm really sorry about that, it was one of those silly little mistakes that shouldnt happen but does.

[Tronak]

I'm not saying that he started work on it with the express purpose of "this will make me internet famous and the CEO of the company I'm working for will love it and my career will grow in leaps and bounds." But are you willing to concede that the original intentions for things can change, especially when thrust into unexpected success and popularity?

I mean, if he wanted it to be this experimental alpha test, he could've just not allowed people to host servers for it, and kept it going with the ShackTac group that he was originally using for testing (which AFAIK is like 100-200 players? I don't really know) But you don't need 500,000 players to alpha test a mod of this kind.

Saying you cant complain about it always strikes me as odd, because if it's this experimental alpha thing then shouldn't all the criticisms be valid? And at least considered? or is it just negative thing's that aren't allowed? "You can have an opinion, but only if it stokes my ego!" If criticisms aren't valid then neither are compliments, but Rocket (or his fanbase) doesn't seem to have a problem with them.

And yeah, he can develop it however he wants. Tommorow he could add in code that spawns everyone dead, and never allows you to do anything but lie there as a corpse and that would be perfectly valid. But it's equally valid for everyone to say "this is bullshit, what the fuck?!" Noone's making demands for him to change, just expressing opinions that what he's doing is shortsighted and counter productive to his stated goals.

(sorry if something sounds messed up, I struggle with english syntax in such complex phrases)

Yes, I agree that the intentions for things can change easily, but not that the original intentions for things can change, mainly because you can't change anything in the past. When he gave it open (for whatever reason), he didn't know about its future success, probably he intended to develop it calmly, Arma style. Lots of people publish their missions that way, its seriously one more, just one with 400K people (nowadays) or more playing it. When you publish a mission for Arma 2 you are lucky if 2 servers run it 

On the other issue, I think there's a difference between criticisms and complaining.
Criticisms, as pointing the flaws of something and how it can be improved is a necessary thing, its also good to express your opinion.
Complaining, in my opinion, is to criticize something because it is'nt what it should be, and asking it corrected because you are entitled to it.

In my opinion, if it is free, you can perfectly express your opinion on the Mod and point out its flaws, but you can't complaint (you cant ask for anything) about it, because you are entitled to nothing. Maybe its semantics  .

Im sorry to bother you with this things, but I just think you are being a bit unfair with the developer. I also think he should do it slower, but the point is, we can't demand anything from a free product!.

[fenrif]

Complaining doesn't mean what you think it means though. For example you can't have a criticism without a complaint, since a complaint is just an expression of dissatisfaction and a criticism is basically an expression of dissatisfaction about something specific. And noone's asking for things to be changed or corrected to their own personal whims (if they are, they're in the minority, and I've not seen much of it in this thread anyway.)

And Mechanical Man, do you see what I mean with the doublespeak with that quote? "What you say matters... But I don't care what anyone says this is mine and mine alone." I dunno, just strikes me as funny.

Yeah he sent the wrong code out, that was kind of my point. That is a perfectly valid thing to have an opinion about, posetive or negative. It's also worth pointing out he didn't say "Oh I sent the wrong code out, so what? It's an alpha so noone's allowed to care." He apologised and said it wouldn't happen again. I mean your example of what you're arguing against is, as far as I can see, someone complaining about this exact situation. Which Rocket has said wasn't OK, and shouldn't have happened. How is that not something valid to be upset about?

[Urist McScoopbeard]

hey why dont we all just shut the fuck up? no one really cares, im pretty sure we just want to play DayZ here.

[miauw62]

Nah, semi-flamewars with long and complicated posts that nobody (well, i dont) takes the time to read are fun.

[/not-very-obvious-sarcasm]

[ukulele]

Cmon this is miles away from a flame war, we are discusing this topic until a new one arrives.

@fenrif: Sorry for the misspell too much mech warrior i guess.

[The Mechanical Man]

We're just having a discussion. I don't see any flames. But I do agree it's gone on long enough, so this will be my last post on this particular issue.

And Mechanical Man, do you see what I mean with the doublespeak with that quote? "What you say matters... But I don't care what anyone says this is mine and mine alone." I dunno, just strikes me as funny.

Yeah he sent the wrong code out, that was kind of my point. That is a perfectly valid thing to have an opinion about, posetive or negative. It's also worth pointing out he didn't say "Oh I sent the wrong code out, so what? It's an alpha so noone's allowed to care." He apologised and said it wouldn't happen again. I mean your example of what you're arguing against is, as far as I can see, someone complaining about this exact situation. Which Rocket has said wasn't OK, and shouldn't have happened. How is that not something valid to be upset about?

I thought he was saying "I get inspiration from you guys, but it is ultimately still my decision whether something in the mod is changed/added or not". I don't see anything particularly wrong with that. But interpret his words in any way you wish. Make what you will of them.

About the 1.7.2.2 quote, I think both of us misunderstood each other. When you brought it up, I thought you were using that as an example of how Rocket just throws out buggy code and doesn't bother testing it. As you said just before you brought it up:

There's a difference between buggy and unfinished, and just untested broken stuff pushed out as an update which then forces everyone to rollback and makes getting the game running a huge pile of stress for everyone.

I responded to reply that 1.7.2.2 wasn't "untested broken stuff" but that it didn't work as a result of simply having the incorrect files. It didn't have anything to do with Rocket not testing his code. Had he sent the correct files, this incident would not have occurred. It had nothing to do with the quality of the code. That's all I'm saying.

[mcguinty]

Does anybody know of a good group for DayZ. I've been playing for a month or so and I'm getting tired of going solo. I play with someone I know but they're not on all that often. I'll be looking through this thread for groups but it would be nice if someone could point me in the right direction.

Wait there's a search function... I found Bay12 Survivors group. I'll see you folks in game.

[Nega]

Sorry if this is a necropost, but I wanted to get this up because I accomplished something.

I got back into the game after a 4-week break. I found myself at a 3-intersecting path. I chose the west-path, leading me to a small building with zombies all around. For once during my entire time of playing, I managed to actually go into the town and check around for loot without suddenly psyching myself out of doing it for fear of getting caught. I was rewarded with nothing, so I decided to continue along the road. Suddenly, ratatatatata! I was being fired at from an unknown direction. I was killed during the panic. Cue me finding myself respawning in Krutoy Cap, running into a freeway. I know that to the left side of the road, it leads to a town, so I start running/sneaking towards the direction of the town. I notice that now, you don't spawn with anything other than a flashlight and some other things. I saw at least four people. two of which snuck up from behind me, thankfully also weaponless. One of them decided to stay next to me, whose name was Mark. He starts sneaking towards the town, deciding to look ahead. He noticed at least 15 zombies inside, and decided we should go looking around for another place. We start running past the town, getting up to the hills to look for a deer stand to loot, when the game suddenly decides to teleport me back to the place where we met. With him led astray, and me back to the beach, I decided to sit down and watch the waves before logging off.

[Mono124]

Small necropost, but I have a couple of questions. I have a crappy dell laptop with a nondescript 2 core processor and a 128mb laptop gpu with 2gig of ram, and the game runs lag free for me at 640x480 interface and 3d with settings on high and anything disable-able disabled. My friend has better computer than mine, quad core AMD phenom and a 512mb graphics card and 4gig of ram, and he can only run the game lag free at 640x480 interface and 3d at 320x240 with all settings verylow/low and disabled. A side effect is extreme blurriness, and the game seeming almost nighttime despite the fact that it is full daytime. Is there anything I can do? I had him add -maxmem=2048 and later -maxmem=4096, and I also had him add -vram=128 -cpucount=4 (later 2) -exthreads=7 and no effect. Help?