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#4131172 - 06/09/15 08:47 AM Rockets latest on Dayz and development time.  
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Ajay Offline
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Relevant facts about DayZ:

It has been 1.5 years since the game released. (KSP went 1.0 after 4 years, Undead Labs cancelled MP after ~4 years, Wasteland 2 rights bought 2003, planning starts 2007, kickstarter of early build 2012 - and its not even MP!).

I estimated the game would "succeed" if it sold 300,000 copies in a quarter (3 months).

It sold 1 million copies in one month.

My opinions on gamedev:

Making games is hard, and subject to production delays

This is magnified by moving from ~4 staff to 50 in a twelve months, most new to the company and some even the country.

Making multiplayer games is very hard

Making multiplayer games while they are being played is very very hard.

It is a production miracle that DayZ ever released. My opinion of the development is that it is going well. While I accept it is not going as fast as people desire; you cannot make things go faster than they do without something compromising.

What do you really want? If you want it fast then you will cut quality. I don't want them to cut quality. I hope people that don't want to wait in the long haul for it to be good don't buy it. I tried as much as I could to let people know this.

Rather than faking and fudging roadmaps I would much rather they do what they are, admitting where things are slipping and re-prioritizing based on the best knowledge of the day.

tl;dr:

In the army I got so pissed at senior officers sitting at the CP incredulously wondering why it is taking us so long to move through a swamp, then why our estimates were wrong. We're in the swamp, we're the ones actually going through it. If you don't trust us don't send us in the swamp. And if you do, stop #%&*$# disturbing us and let us get through the #%&*$# swamp. We will radio you the best updates we can. Being a dick about it is not helping.

EDIT: I forgot my comparisons. 1.5 years is nothing in game development. Look at what Undead Labs did to their multiplayer version? Making these games is absolutely, unbelievably hard. In answer to your question. NO, this is not a "normal" progression. It has been far faster than typical game development for an equivalent project. it is just public far earlier.


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#4131183 - 06/09/15 09:00 AM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: Ajay]  
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komemiute Offline
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Cool read. Always liked him...


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#4132874 - 06/12/15 09:16 AM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: Ajay]  
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They took tens millions of dollars off people that signed up for the early access alpha over a year and a half ago. Tens of millions.

Since then and despite all that money thrown at them, Rocket and the devs seem to keep focusing on trivia and changes of direction in what comes across as a completely shambolic development effort. I don't know if we'll even get a finished product. They are screwing about with things like painting weapons when fundamental stuff like zombies isn't working right still.

For me it is frustration they took something very special with the mod and rocket can't get his act together to finish it despite the massive financial help they got from believers including me.

So I read his post as blah, blah, excuses, blah, more excuses and blah.

I think rocket is the problem. He needs to get some focus or he needs to be smart enough to use some of that HUGE wad of cash to hand the project over to more experienced people to get it managed. He could have creative input as long as he can stop the constant scope creep from his brain farts.

I also think the new zone based loot system putting all the good loot at the north west airfield is going to stuff the game.

#4133031 - 06/12/15 02:19 PM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: Ajay]  
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Punisher5555 Offline
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The engine is at a dead stop. They should have just released this long ago and moved to a different engine. All they can do now is stupid little things. Hope someone sues them.


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#4133034 - 06/12/15 02:23 PM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: Ajay]  
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komemiute Offline
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ARMA 3 engine is a dead stop?!

Odd...


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Para_Bellum

"It takes forever +/- 2 weeks for the A-10 to get anywhere significant..."
Ice

"Ha! If it gets him on the deck its a start!"
MigBuster

"What people like and what critics praise are rarely the same thing. 'Critic' is just another one of those unnecessary, overpaid, parasitic jobs that the human race has churned out so that clever slackers won't have to actually get a real job and possibly soil their hands."
Sauron
#4133690 - 06/13/15 11:44 PM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: komemiute]  
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Mpkev Offline
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Originally Posted By: komemiute
ARMA 3 engine is a dead stop?!

Odd...


That would be true if they were useing the arma 3 engine. But they are not. They are useing a modified arma 2 engine.

#4133704 - 06/14/15 12:40 AM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: Ajay]  
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komemiute Offline
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Not just a modified Arma2 engine...


DayZ Standalone utilizes the Take On Helicopter engine, which is a branch of the Arma II Operation Arrowhead engine Real Virtuality.[4] The engine has been heavily modified even including code from ARMA III.

By all means it ain't either- it's a new engine that ends up using part of Arma3 code.

I wasn't 100% right, but still this ain't no dead stop.


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"Himmiherrgottksakramentzefixhallelujah!"
Para_Bellum

"It takes forever +/- 2 weeks for the A-10 to get anywhere significant..."
Ice

"Ha! If it gets him on the deck its a start!"
MigBuster

"What people like and what critics praise are rarely the same thing. 'Critic' is just another one of those unnecessary, overpaid, parasitic jobs that the human race has churned out so that clever slackers won't have to actually get a real job and possibly soil their hands."
Sauron
#4134218 - 06/15/15 03:34 AM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: Thommo]  
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HitchHikingFlatlander Offline
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Originally Posted By: Thommo
They took tens millions of dollars off people that signed up for the early access alpha over a year and a half ago. Tens of millions.

Since then and despite all that money thrown at them, Rocket and the devs seem to keep focusing on trivia and changes of direction in what comes across as a completely shambolic development effort. I don't know if we'll even get a finished product. They are screwing about with things like painting weapons when fundamental stuff like zombies isn't working right still.

For me it is frustration they took something very special with the mod and rocket can't get his act together to finish it despite the massive financial help they got from believers including me.

So I read his post as blah, blah, excuses, blah, more excuses and blah.

I think rocket is the problem. He needs to get some focus or he needs to be smart enough to use some of that HUGE wad of cash to hand the project over to more experienced people to get it managed. He could have creative input as long as he can stop the constant scope creep from his brain farts.

I also think the new zone based loot system putting all the good loot at the north west airfield is going to stuff the game.


Rocket isn't exactly the one to blame as he hasn't been directly involved in development for quite some time now. I wish they'd move faster with the development but we're basically playing a development build that hasn't reached beta yet. So long as it reaches its goal in the end I'll be a happy camper but I do see where the frustration lies to many people, then again everyone was warned before purchase.


I've got a bad feeling about this.....
#4135883 - 06/18/15 09:08 AM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: Ajay]  
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I love it when dev teams which clearly can't focus on core deliverables (yay, a new type of watering can), and get totally sidetracked by small irrelevant features, get annoyed at their fans who want them to deliver the basic game they were promised, on time.

At the same time as they announce delays they announce new pointless features and tell you that these were developed in parallel and don't explain the delays - and I am sure they really believe that. You know the excuse 'we have only one coder who can work on the zombie AI and he can't work any faster, meanwhile our guy who works on the vegetable growing AI routines has been busy so we can now announce new pumpkin animations...'

As anyone who has every managed complex projects knows, nothing is free. That pumpkin guy was taking up salary, management time and focus and here's an idea, how about zero effort on vegetable growing AI and twice the number of people working on zombie AI because hey, it's a zombie game, right?

Do I sound frustrated? Sorry. But I stopped playing DayZ a half year ago when despite multiple patches the zeds were still running through fences and trees, stepping through walls, falling through stairs and you could kill them simply by running in circles around them and hitting them with Teddy Bears. I keep checking in to see what the devs are announcing and I see stuff like this which belongs in a farming sim:

Pumpkins can now be cut into Pumpkin slices
Mixing water and disinfectant now creates a pesticide usable on plants
Combining guts and plant material in a barrel creates fertilizer
A barrel with water is now required to tan pelts into leather
Earthworms can now be obtained by digging the ground with any type of Knife
Fish Net Trap can be crafted using Metal wire and Netting
Fixed: Animations of "making a garden plot" and "digging tile" missing or just glitching
Fixed: Skinning Chickens no longer produces Feathers
Fixed: Pumpkins into hands bug

So my search for a decent zombie game without farming, fishing or mindless crafting continues. Any suggestions?


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#4135981 - 06/18/15 01:50 PM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: HeinKill]  
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I hear you HeinKill. I hear you.


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#4135994 - 06/18/15 01:59 PM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: Ajay]  
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komemiute Offline
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Oh, what about the new project from Rocket? ION.
Guess what a new multiplayer survival game.
Uhm...


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Para_Bellum

"It takes forever +/- 2 weeks for the A-10 to get anywhere significant..."
Ice

"Ha! If it gets him on the deck its a start!"
MigBuster

"What people like and what critics praise are rarely the same thing. 'Critic' is just another one of those unnecessary, overpaid, parasitic jobs that the human race has churned out so that clever slackers won't have to actually get a real job and possibly soil their hands."
Sauron
#4136061 - 06/18/15 03:27 PM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: Ajay]  
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PS I have a simple solution to the whole problem of zombie AI

LET THE PLAYER CHOOSE TO BE A ZOMBIE

All you need are zombie skins and zombie weapons eg enhanced melee damage, enhanced ability to take damage, some rules about poison or infecting human players.

Done.

No more crappy zombie AI or pathfinding. Chernarus would be full of people wanting to play zombies, mobs of zombies hunting players, zombies cooperating to wipe out humanity, zombie clans.

And together, my Zombie army would wipe out all those effing farmers and fishers.

Dear Bohemian, pls pay me in Bitcoin,

Heiny


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#4136317 - 06/19/15 01:58 AM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: Ajay]  
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I'm with you Heinkill.

DayZMod was revolutionary and terrific and all the hopes we had for an improved DayZ and the money spent to help support the development seem to have been a big waste.

All they had to do was improve on the mod by polishing the things that needed improvement: the UI, the Zombie AI, fix the hackers and ghosting and we would all have been overjoyed, but instead the project seems to be poorly managed with a lack of clear goals or focus, and the lead didn't care enough to see it out either, so now the excuses about how difficult this stuff is and how growing the team actually made it harder etc... excuses...

The most annoying part was seeing Rocket during the Microsoft E3 presentation this week pitching ION his new Early Access title that he wants people to support, it's no doubt that he's a talented idea guy, but what lesson would he have learned from this? I'm guessing none, after all the same excuses will apply again, an online space MMO will also be difficult, it will take a big team to develop it, etc...

I'm saying this not because I miss the $30 I wasted on this game but because I really wanted a polished version of what they had in DayZ Mod and it's such a missed opportunity, I wish they would just reduce their scope or whatever and return to that base goal.


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#4136318 - 06/19/15 02:07 AM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: Ajay]  
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Im guessing they are going for DX12, since they are doing an Xbox One *compiled version.


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#4139916 - 06/26/15 05:32 PM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: Ajay]  
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Never mind

Last edited by JG26 vonVampr; 06/26/15 08:13 PM.
#4141562 - 07/01/15 01:43 AM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: Ajay]  
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People should also realize that not everyone can do the same job(s). There's a set of people for each task.

I'm sure most modelers and texturers can't program AI, or even import assets into the game without scripters, coders, etc. If the dev team is +/-50, there's most likely less than a hand full of devs that are actually working on AI and/or the core code of the game.

Arma IS multithreaded; but only the 'AI' thread gets saturated until it bogs the rest of the game down. To improve the AI would mean decreasing performance. I've found that when the game runs slow (usually because of too many AI/scripts), AI become more broken, as I'm sure certain functions in pathfinding and reactions are being dropped to let others thru

Whatever the case, I truly believe that they've hit a road block with the engine, and to improve a lot of those wanted "features", performance will continue to tank (until CPU's can reliably surpass 5 ghz)

Yes, a new engine might be the key, but what if they run into the same problems? Would they be able to distribute the AI load onto other cores/threads (if it's even possible), and still keep it's functionality?

#4142515 - 07/03/15 01:33 PM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: Ajay]  
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Ajay Offline
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I think the AI is and always has been a huge part of the problem with Dayz. I have always noticed my worst desync and stutters is when the zeds are around. It's random and the SA is a lot worse than the mod as in, with the mod you could have 15-30 or more zeds and at least deal with it. In the SA just one zed can f##k your whole game up while you try and deal with it. They feel more like a chore to have to deal with than anything else.

Some sort of optimisation very soon would go a long way towards getting some core fanbase back. I haven't noticed any real improvement in the SA at all regards smooth gameplay excepting from early pre alpha where it was pretty damn atrocious compared to the initial alpha release. In pre Alpha we sometimes had less than 10 fps constantly, especially in a group..but i have seen that low since then as well. The stutters always happen at the worst times, pvp, zeds..any sort of interaction where your chars life depends on it and the game seems to just fall apart, doesn't matter how good your hardware is. It's quite Painful and the main reason why so many are so vocal in a negative way about a mod they used to love.

... i'm only just hanging in there biggrin


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#4142654 - 07/03/15 08:56 PM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: JoeyJoJo]  
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Originally Posted By: JoeyJoJo
I'm sure most modelers and texturers can't program AI, or even import assets into the game without scripters, coders, etc. If the dev team is +/-50, there's most likely less than a hand full of devs that are actually working on AI and/or the core code of the game.


I don't even play DayZ, but I'll chime in on this point because you literally hear this about every other game that has development delay issues.

If you have 50 people and most of them are sitting around working on trivial crap because they can't do AI (or whatever), then that's bad managment. If the major issue is the engine and AI, get rid of some of your gun painters who are adding little to the game and hire more people to work on the engine.

#4143904 - 07/07/15 06:40 PM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: bonchie]  
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HeinKill Offline
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Originally Posted By: bonchie
Originally Posted By: JoeyJoJo
I'm sure most modelers and texturers can't program AI, or even import assets into the game without scripters, coders, etc. If the dev team is +/-50, there's most likely less than a hand full of devs that are actually working on AI and/or the core code of the game.


I don't even play DayZ, but I'll chime in on this point because you literally hear this about every other game that has development delay issues.

If you have 50 people and most of them are sitting around working on trivial crap because they can't do AI (or whatever), then that's bad managment. If the major issue is the engine and AI, get rid of some of your gun painters who are adding little to the game and hire more people to work on the engine.


+1

Every person they have programming vegetables and sheep or writing fishing routines is a headcount that sucks up time, money and management bandwidth.


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#4144021 - 07/08/15 03:06 AM Re: Rockets latest on Dayz and development time. [Re: Ajay]  
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Brit44 'Aldo' Offline
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Oh, U are cruel. Each team member is just trying to make a better life for themselves and there family. Everyone of them deserves at least $15 per hour, 40 hours/week and full bennies. I can't believe you are so selfish to expect them to actualy produce something.


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