DayZ, Arma2, Arma3

Admittedly I'm a little disappointed with what they've accomplished, given how long its been since they first announced they were working on this. I know its alpha, but honestly it seems like they just renamed "Arma 2" to "DayZ," made a few cosmetic changes (clothes, inventory, etc.), and said "I HAVE DONE AN ALPHA." I really, really wish they had used the ARMA 3 engine.

Explosivo_sl said:

Admittedly I'm a little disappointed with what they've accomplished, given how long its been since they first announced they were working on this. I know its alpha, but honestly it seems like they just renamed "Arma 2" to "DayZ," made a few cosmetic changes (clothes, inventory, etc.), and said "I HAVE DONE AN ALPHA." I really, really wish they had used the ARMA 3 engine.

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I would say I agree with this. It's not a bad thing completely however, because the game is indeed fun.

here's my take as someone who played a ton of the original DayZ:

The engine is AMAZINGLY improved. Like, this is a huge deal on its own. DayZ ran like such dogshit that it was unplayable for a large chunk of my gaming group, be it performance issues, artifacting (as in, cannot see anything past the gigantic triangle shapes on your screen), terrain not rendering, you name it. That is 100% gone in the standalone. It performs very well, but is still on the demanding side for hardware. Graphics are improved all around, lighting is better etc. Nothing but good things to say here.

Melee combat still feels a lot like the mod does, and that isn't really a good thing. There's a pretty big disconnect between axe/baseball/shovel attack animations and it actually registering hits/damage. Obviously still an alpha and will likely improve, but it's definitely a thing still.

Shooting feels identical to the mod, with the exception of gun condition/damage being a thing now (a bit more on this later).

Zombies overall have improved a lot. They are no longer the badly animated spaz-all-over-the-screen teleporting wankers that they once were. They actually move like zombies and act a lot more like zombies. Aside from the visuals though, there isn't much there, and I mean literally. Zombie count is a mere fraction of what it was in the mod, and the few that are around are mostly harmless and can be easily dodged or meleed to death without issue if you've found a weapon. You can seriously just strafe in a circle swinging your weapon and you'll never get hit, for example.

The new looting system is better, but it's a bit tedious. I know they wanted to get away from the old system of all the items just spawning in piles on the floor, but after you've searched your 10th house checking every nook and cranny for the TINY item models of cans/tools/equipment it gets pretty old. They could double the size of the models for most of the canned goods and almost all of the tools (wrenches, can openers, etc) and they would STILL be hard to see. God help you if it's dark out, or you're searching a shed/barn where you can't actually see items through the grass.

Inventory system is neat at first, but ultimately feels a touch pointless to me. It's just a whored-up version of bigger backpacks, only now you need to find several different pieces of clothing to maximize your backpack space (in addition to a backpack). They've said there is going to be more to it than just carry space, but as of now that's all there is.

There is some sort of item durability system for nearly everything in the game. I'm not quite sure where they are going with this, or if it's even finished yet, but I never once had item condition actually mean anything. The only exception to this is weapon optics/scopes, as anything less than "pristine" condition there means it's almost unusable due to cracks/damage to the thing. Durability in general seems an odd thing to include, as if the mod as any indication, you won't be living long enough for it to really be much of a factor in anything.

Overall it's fun for now, but isn't very deep. Gun spawns are DRAMATICALLY lowered, and you probably won't even be able to find any type of firearm until you run to an airfield someplace. This means it's a lot more peaceful in general, and combined with the super low zombie count does make it a bit dull. That said, if you can manage to leg it to a military base and actually load up on some hardware, then you really do get to become a terror once you make it back to civilization, as you or your group are pretty likely to be the only armed people there, much less with anything automatic.

Ultimately I think the gun system, as it exists, is kind of stupid. At least in other Dayz variants, guns could be spread out a bit so there was at least a chance you could grab something to protect yourself from players. Now if they super concentrate everything, that means those areas became even worse campfests than the current airfields in Dayz.

The biggest change with gun spawns seems to be military grade stuff. They removed most (if not all?) of the small military tents that spawn in towns like cherno and berezino. The fire stations still seem to be psuedo-military, but I've yet to see anything automatic in them (mostly better bags and tactical clothing). You can still get rifles/shotguns in the usual places, but no more finding m4s/aks in medical tents in cities.

Well it sounds like it's worth picking up to me, I just hope it's as funny as the old one.

I wouldn't say it's worth picking up right now. Itemization is nearly non-existent and zombies don't really work. At this point it's pretty much just an adventure/exploration game. Standalone alpha means something entirely different than the mod's version of alpha, which was really more of a beta. This is a true alpha right now, and it's not really playable.

3 of the 4 (excludes me) man crew I played dayz with picked it up when it came released. It was hilarious listening to them complain about everything from the time they logged in. I grew to hate dayz due to the amount of bugs. No way am I buying this before it's in a better state.

Its Alpha , its suppose to be like this . Pretty sure Rocket kept expressing/warning ppl , that this was not finished by any means . That expectations should be low . They released it to make money to keep funding up and get it tested by a ton of ppl . They had 150,000 + sold in the first 24 hours , that's a boatload of money . I have faith in them to get it right within the next year .

Servers got wiped. Always looking for a group of people to play with gRIPa is my game name.

I'm waiting on this one until the zombie count improves. If they had the pathing improvements combined with the blood damage/bleed chance/aggro range/infection chance of vanilla zombies, combined with a higher number of zombies, that alone would dramatically improve the standalone experience. Agreed with what was said above though. They need to either a.) place more firestations around the map with low grade weapons/ammo (or alternatively, deer stands), or b.) dramatically reduce the military spawns at airfield to where you don't have the issue of a single group of players being able to dominate an entire server because of a monopoly on weapons.

But first and foremost they MUST spawn in more zombies. This is ridiculous. I'd honestly prefer the mod spawn system with better pathing as opposed to this junk, even though it would result in a performance drop. Is it just the stress that's placed on servers that is forcing the standalone to spawn in so few?

having bicyles or something would b nice

Also, why the fuck hasn't Rocket enlisted the help of the creators of Epoch, Origins, Panthera, Taviana, etc? As it is, the mods of the mod are 10x more advanced that the standalone will likely be in over a year. FFS, standalone can barely spawn zombies, no vehicle, no NPC's, no basebuilding, and no worthwhile crafting to speak of. There's absolutely no reason to play standalone until there are massive changes in those areas. I remember it being mentioned that they might try an instanced underground shelter type of base unique to each player, but it's a total cop-out. Epoch and origins showed just how well some truly groundbreaking improvements can be made to DayZ, and they were all done for free by volunteers who simply enjoyed the game. Hacking has largely been stamped out, which was the reason standalone was so attractive at first, but that's really no longer much of an issue.

I broke down and bought into alpha after watching my buddy stream for a while, if only to give it a shot and my first thought was "man, I would really rather play epoch or vanilla, or really anything else." The standalone is so far behind the progress DayZ has made since release that it's laughable. As I see it, SA only offers performance increases, a dubious new inventory system, and better pathing. But all of that means nothing in an unpopulated, bland, and boring worldspace. One of the biggest problems with DayZ was the fact that there was absolutely nothing to do except PvP after getting basic loot, and when there's one zombie per square mile, the problem is exasperated 10x over. I know it's an alpha and it's early, but jesus christ what the fuck have they been doing all this time? Clothing system and inventory management? Marginal performance increases at the cost of the entire premise of a zombie survival game?

I really want to believe in this thing, but considering they still call original DayZ an alpha after all this time really makes me wonder if Rocket will ever stop using alpha as an excuse not to release a finished product. Hire a goddamned decent team to work on it better than you have now, because basically as the average player experiences it, not and shit has happened to truly improve the player experience.

/rant off

Off to play some Epoch on Panthera.

Wrathcaster_sl said:

Also, why the fuck hasn't Rocket enlisted the help of the creators of Epoch, Origins, Panthera, Taviana, etc? As it is, the mods of the mod are 10x more advanced that the standalone will likely be in over a year. FFS, standalone can barely spawn zombies, no vehicle, no NPC's, no basebuilding, and no worthwhile crafting to speak of. There's absolutely no reason to play standalone until there are massive changes in those areas. I remember it being mentioned that they might try an instanced underground shelter type of base unique to each player, but it's a total cop-out. Epoch and origins showed just how well some truly groundbreaking improvements can be made to DayZ, and they were all done for free by volunteers who simply enjoyed the game. Hacking has largely been stamped out, which was the reason standalone was so attractive at first, but that's really no longer much of an issue.

I broke down and bought into alpha after watching my buddy stream for a while, if only to give it a shot and my first thought was "man, I would really rather play epoch or vanilla, or really anything else." The standalone is so far behind the progress DayZ has made since release that it's laughable. As I see it, SA only offers performance increases, a dubious new inventory system, and better pathing. But all of that means nothing in an unpopulated, bland, and boring worldspace. One of the biggest problems with DayZ was the fact that there was absolutely nothing to do except PvP after getting basic loot, and when there's one zombie per square mile, the problem is exasperated 10x over. I know it's an alpha and it's early, but jesus christ what the fuck have they been doing all this time? Clothing system and inventory management? Marginal performance increases at the cost of the entire premise of a zombie survival game?

I really want to believe in this thing, but considering they still call original DayZ an alpha after all this time really makes me wonder if Rocket will ever stop using alpha as an excuse not to release a finished product. Hire a goddamned decent team to work on it better than you have now, because basically as the average player experiences it, not and shit has happened to truly improve the player experience.

/rant off

Off to play some Epoch on Panthera.

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I'd like to imagine you have some sort of game development experience. I'd also like to imagine that you truly understand the time sinks involved when creating a game from the ground up with the amount of tediousness involved such as DayZSA. But honestly I don't think you understand. Did you at all do your homework? Did you even read the many warnings and messages stating that this was a bare bones alpha? Did you even read where Rocket told people NOT to buy the game? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say no, no you didn't. I have played DayZ:Mod and it's many incarnations. I enjoy the standalone because it brings back the true nature of the beast. This isn't Battlefield. This isn't CoD. This is a SURVIVAL game. Come back to the Standalone in 6 months. See where it's at then. Then make your judgment. I'm willing to bet you'll be eating this post with some Pipsi to drink.

I'm loling pretty hard at "hacking has largely been stamped out". That's is so staggeringly far from the truth. Public servers are as much of a shitfest as they ever were, and private servers are nothing but a constant game of doubt and hacker accusations.

Epoch is a strange thing. I can't really get behind it because well, it just feels like I should be playing Arma2 or something at that point. It's so far removed from DayZ and it's nothing but a big PVP map where people and their faggy clans go talk about how much they just owned each other.

Pironin_sl said:

I'd like to imagine you have some sort of game development experience. I'd also like to imagine that you truly understand the time sinks involved when creating a game from the ground up with the amount of tediousness involved such as DayZSA. But honestly I don't think you understand. Did you at all do your homework? Did you even read the many warnings and messages stating that this was a bare bones alpha? Did you even read where Rocket told people NOT to buy the game? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say no, no you didn't. I have played DayZ:Mod and it's many incarnations. I enjoy the standalone because it brings back the true nature of the beast. This isn't Battlefield. This isn't CoD. This is a SURVIVAL game. Come back to the Standalone in 6 months. See where it's at then. Then make your judgment. I'm willing to bet you'll be eating this post with some Pipsi to drink.

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I've been following the Devblog and every piece of standalone news since there has been standalone news. I understood perfectly what Rocket said and respect him immensely for being up front with people, I really do. But I would've preferred a little more disclosure about exactly what was going on with the alpha, at least some of the really staggering things going on with it. No zombies in a zombie survival game is a pretty huge deal, and from what I'd read in the devblogs and interviews made no mention that there'd be, you know, hardly any zombies in DayZ. I understand the bugs, I was prepared for bugs. Teleporting zombies is fine, I've been dealing with that shit since release. Leg crunching piles of debris and rocks that murder you are par for the course. Looting and inventory being bizarre and deleting shit? Understandable. Fuck, I'd be fine with Zelenogorsk not even rendering as an alpha bug.

But the scarcity of zombies? Isn't that a huge thing to allow people to test your game? Aren't the behavior and nature of zombies in the mod one of the main gripes about the mod as it is? I still respect Rocket and think he'll support his product, but "don't buy the alpha" to me read "alpha is going to be buggy as shit and cause crashes, and a lot of the shit isn't going to work." But the fact that the standalone is having trouble spawning in the antagonists that distinguish it from being a giant Arma 2 TDM is a huge deal to me and really concerns me. Perhaps I should have been more clear in my original post, but I was a bit heated after putting hours into the standalone. DayZ is arguably my favorite gaming experience, so even with the buggy alpha I did have certain expectations.

Ronne_sl said:

I'm loling pretty hard at "hacking has largely been stamped out". That's is so staggeringly far from the truth. Public servers are as much of a shitfest as they ever were, and private servers are nothing but a constant game of doubt and hacker accusations.

Epoch is a strange thing. I can't really get behind it because well, it just feels like I should be playing Arma2 or something at that point. It's so far removed from DayZ and it's nothing but a big PVP map where people and their faggy clans go talk about how much they just owned each other.

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You may be right, so I'm willing to admit I'm wrong if that's the case. I just know the pubs I've played on have been dramatically better than they were. US 3480, for example. One of the oldest, most successful, and populated servers that are around. Haven't seen a blatant hack there in at least two months. Same with 1994, a lot of the UK servers, and most of the DE and SE servers I play on in the odd hours. Maybe I've just had good luck.

As far as private hives go, I'm convinced 99% of it is people bitching because they got ganked and can't accept it was legit. I get hacker accusations at least 2-3 times every time I play on a sever and I'm PvPing, god mode and wall hacks because people can't believe they're shitty shots using 3000 blood damage assault rifles and like to think that because they're behind a window they can't be shot. If your experience is different and you're seeing lots of the hacks that plagued the servers for so long, then I'll concede the point.

And yes, Epoch is essentially not a survival game. It's a base building loot driven PvP game with some zombies thrown in for good measure. The point was just how many advances Epoch, Origins, and their ilk have made for DayZ itself. AFAIK there's way more Epoch servers than vanilla servers at this point. It just illustrates how far the standalone has to go, and while I understand it can't have such huge features implemented at such an early stage, it also illustrates just how far it has to go and how little progress has been made in the time the dev team for DayZ had since the decision was made to release a standalone.

Yes, standalone is an alpha. Yes, it's early. Yes, we were warned. Yes, it'll change and it'll get better. But what we've got, and what they've been able to produce in all the time they had is disappointing in that it barely manages to get the crucial basics right. And sorry to harp on it again, but I do mean zombies. They fix that, I'll be a happier camper and STFU.

And no, it won't be a survival game until then. Even with the tiny loot and scarcity of weapons, the challenge of survival simply isn't there in standalone. Maybe it's just me.

Perhaps I've been too harsh, I'm willing to admit that, but if I am it's because I love the shit out of this game and have been dying to get my hands on standalone. I always got the impression Rocket was being at least a bit modest in regards to the alpha, but I didn't realize what he meant by "you probably shouldn't buy it" was "it's not a zombie survival game yet because, you know, there's not any of them about."