Just bought DAYZ SA

Yikes. $30 for an early-access game? Considering it currently has two weapons, no vehicles and (probably) minor bugs galore, that's...yeesh.
 
Tempting...

I think I'll wait for reports on how SLI works before jumping in. I do own two copies of ARMA 2 because of the mod version already, but I'd be willing to support the development process if the standalone shows promise.

EDIT: I bought it. Someone has to fund this guy climbing mountains.
 
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Well fuck it seems like it's been forever that this has been in development. Weren't they supposed to release it last year? Haven't kept up with it, obviously
 
I wonder if they will do this like ARMA 3 where it got more expensive as it got closer to release. I might grab it sometimes in January after my budget has recovered if it is still $30.
 
cageymaru said:
I wonder if they will do this like ARMA 3 where it got more expensive as it got closer to release. I might grab it sometimes in January after my budget has recovered if it is still $30.
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I just don't know why they would, though. The standalone sounds like it has virtually identical features to the mod
 
The Steam discussions page for the game is a treasure trove of entertaining idiocy...and some useful information. But mostly idiocy.
 
wonderfield said:
The Steam discussions page for the game is a treasure trove of entertaining idiocy...and some useful information. But mostly idiocy.
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Isn't that what Steam's forums are for? A place where teen-angst can be broadcast across the interwebs, where they spend their parents hard-earned money and end up feeling "ripped off" due to the fact that didn't take :36 seconds to investigate their purchase?
 
wonderfield said:
The Steam discussions page for the game is a treasure trove of entertaining idiocy...and some useful information. But mostly idiocy.
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Yeah, because it's a Steam discussions page?

Edit: I've never seen this on a Steam page before hahaha

WARNING: THIS GAME IS EARLY ACCESS ALPHA. PLEASE DO NOT PURCHASE IT UNLESS YOU WANT TO ACTIVELY SUPPORT DEVELOPMENT OF THE GAME AND ARE PREPARED TO HANDLE WITH SERIOUS ISSUES AND POSSIBLE INTERRUPTIONS OF GAME FUNCTIONING.
 
I know I can't be the only one who read the title as "DayZ San Andreas."

I don't think i'll buy it yet. I've been waiting a year for it. I think I can wait a little longer for a more polished game.
 
Boshingtang said:
I think I can wait a little longer for a more polished game.
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I have a sneaky suspicion that you and I will be waiting a VERY long time for that. People seem to think that Alpha generally still means Alpha. Nowadays, in most cases, and especially in this case (I am already calling it), it just means "Beta - Phase I." And significant changes before release are not introduced in betas.
 
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Dion said:
Valve really needs to stop selling Early Access games.
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It is a good concept. Some developers put their games up to help get funds to finish the game that would otherwise have to shelf the title or release it full of bugs. And, those that want to help with the beta access can.

If that does not appeal to you then don't buy it until it is released.

I think the retail version will be $50 or so.
 
I love all the whiners complaining about this gaming being in Alpha form being solid on an early access part of Steam gaming program.

We get it , you don't like testing games but this is an "EARLY ACCESS" game. You don't have any reason to complain. They are upfront about the state of the game. No one is forcing you to buy it right now.

I wish some of the big publishers would be this honest about their game states. Battlefield 4 is what I would consider an Alpha game at release and it was sold under as a full retail game which was an total lie.

I bought the stand alone DayZ today. Happily paid $30 knowing I got to mess around and considering its in Alpha I won't mind the bugs.
 
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my problem whit early access is the price a game on ea should be way cheaper then when the game is finished.
 
tunatime said:
my problem whit early access is the price a game on ea should be way cheaper then when the game is finished.
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Why? I see this all the time on Early Access game discussions. You're preordering the game, but with the added benefit of having access to whatever the latest version is. Some games at this point are cheaper, and will go up when the final stage is ready. Not all games follow this, and it's up to the developer. Regardless of how some choose to spin it, you're not paying someone else to beta test their product. If anyone feels that way, they should just ignore the game until it's released.
 
castun said:
Why? I see this all the time on Early Access game discussions. You're preordering the game, but with the added benefit of having access to whatever the latest version is. Some games at this point are cheaper, and will go up when the final stage is ready. Not all games follow this, and it's up to the developer. Regardless of how some choose to spin it, you're not paying someone else to beta test their product. If anyone feels that way, they should just ignore the game until it's released.
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because most of the time its and indie game form a company that hasn't put out any or very few games
 
I would personally say the hype died down a lot...or are there still people actually hyped about this?

In any case, that graphic is awesome. :D
 
jmilcher said:
Must not be seeing what I'm seeing on twitch.

Absolutely just a money grab for $30. Maybe when its $5 I'll pick it up.
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Looks better to me. Zombies animate better. More stuff to pickup. Looked like they really wanted to immerse the player in the game world. I was kinda expecting it to play like DayZ when I started watching the streams, so when it did I wasn't disappointed.

As far as Early Access gaming goes, you have to be willing to NOT be able to play the product for weeks or months at a time unless you can relay to the developer technical reason why your configuration of hardware is failing to load the game. Are you willing to FRAPS the rock that when you approach it at a 55 degree angle crashes your game? Does your game crashing and possibly taking down your system bother you? Do you mind black screens and stuck audio?

I'm playing the heck out of Project Cars which has been in an alpha state for the past 2 years, and I've had to help troubleshoot for the developers many times. I've gotten damn good at explaining what I'm seeing when I go around a curve and what textures are dropping my frame rate from 80 to 5. I can tell them why my XBOX controller doesn't seem to relay bumps in the road that I can comprehend so they can fix it and make the game more engrossing.

I mean that's what Early Access is about. Getting a bunch of people playing your game to test it for you. In turn you supply them a steady stream of updates that sometimes breath new life into the game and make it "brand new". This breathes new life into your game and gets them to test harder for you. It's about asking them what aspects are fun and what should be scrapped in favor of something else. It's NOT about delete the whole thing and start over again. It's help me refine this and add in new systems to make it shine.

So the warning that they put on the front page explains it all. You didn't really think the game testers for large corporations like EA had fun crashing the game on the same rock for 8 hours straight to get enough crash data to figure out why the game is crashing did you? Are you willing to pay to test bugs in exchange for getting your ideas possibly added to the game if you can persuade the developer to toss it in?

:)
 
Yeah but the mod is a frustrating hack fest, I hope the sa will offer better douche protection
 
So I watched this on twitch for a while. At first I couldn't tell it was the SA version. Not until I saw that the zombies had a slightly better run animation did I realize it was the SA. Other then few new locations and what not. assets/buildings/models are almost a port from the old engine into the new. What he should of done is offered the game next to free for everyone that paid for Arma2/Dayz. But for pretty much the same game with a few tweaks.. Not worth the $30 for me.
 
rivacom said:
So I watched this on twitch for a while. At first I couldn't tell it was the SA version. Not until I saw that the zombies had a slightly better run animation did I realize it was the SA. Other then few new locations and what not. assets/buildings/models are almost a port from the old engine into the new. What he should of done is offered the game next to free for everyone that paid for Arma2/Dayz. But for pretty much the same game with a few tweaks.. Not worth the $30 for me.
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See you're a smart consumer. You did your research, checked out how the game is at this point, saw the bugs and decided that it wasn't for you. So more than likely you will check it out in a year or two when it is closer to release. You completely understood what Early Access stood for, and didn't rush in to blow $30 on a product you weren't comfortable with.

:cool:
 
I played for around 45 minutes last night. The most glaring issue seems to be the zombie count. I spent a good deal of time in Elektro and saw only three of them. Three. Zombie density should go up when they can get server performance up, but it doesn't really appear to be a zombie survival game at the moment. More of a survival game with an occasional zombie.

Apart from that, picking is still extremely iffy (you get traces when you don't have your cursor on an item), performance in cities is still dreadful (visibility determination, anyone?), and loot availability is very sparse. Additionally, there seems to be a voice chat bug whereby players are sometimes audible in global chat even if they're in direct (the only option at this time). On the plus side, there are dramatically more enterable buildings, those buildings are very fleshed-out, performance in wooded areas is up quite a bit, the inventory system is significantly improved and characters do look and move quite a bit better this time around. The game isn't quite at Arma 3 level visually, but it's close enough to not really matter.

It's a foundational release the same as Arma 3 early access was a foundational release. In that respect, it seems like it's in a relatively okay state at the moment. If people gave Arma 3 a pass for launching in the state it did, I'd argue that DayZ should probably be afforded the same pass.
 
So is it still a rampant deathmatch? That, and the shitty zombie movement are what drove me away from the mod in the first place.
 
MavericK96 said:
So is it still a rampant deathmatch? That, and the shitty zombie movement are what drove me away from the mod in the first place.
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Played some last night and it seems most of the guns spawn further north so the starting areas aren't that bad. Well except the random guy running around hacking people with an axe. I for one beat two people to death with my fists. It was really fun :). Only saw one pistol in 3 hours of playing but haven't been to far north yet. The zombies look a lot better in the SA.
 
I have a feeling that the stand alone team is very small. Maybe only a handful of developers. Since you guys don't know how many people are working on it, isn't it unfair to complain about it? Amra is their main project and where they make their money.

Look at developers that make BG:EE. They take a lot of shit for it and have many people say "the free mods are just as good". Don't you think that Day Z stand alone may have the same problem? They can't dump tons of money into a project that may never take off because you can "get it for free" as a mod.
 
bigdogchris said:
I have a feeling that the stand alone team is very small. Maybe only a handful of developers. Since you guys don't know how many people are working on it, isn't it unfair to complain about it? Amra is their main project and where they make their money.
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ArmA 3 was $30 in early access as well, so...not really.
 
bigdogchris said:
Since you guys don't know how many people are working on it, isn't it unfair to complain about it? Amra is their main project and where they make their money.

Look at developers that make BG:EE. They take a lot of shit for it and have many people say "the free mods are just as good". Don't you think that Day Z stand alone may have the same problem? They can't dump tons of money into a project that may never take off because you can "get it for free" as a mod.
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You actually summarized exactly why we have the right to complain. Now, do they have the obligation to listen to us? No (and it is probably too late now anyway), because we are not customers. But as (former?) fans, we do not have the right to give our opinion.

1) That was their choice to use a small team. Bohemia is not as small as it once was - I would have a really hard time believing they could not obtain the resources necessary to put together a large enough team to deliver an high-quality game built from scratch - if they were willing.

2) If it was that small of a team, they should have been honest upfront about what they potentially could and would do, right from the beginning. Take a look at my graph - they were not.

3) The value of BG:EE is rightfully questioned for the exact reasons you mentioned. Why should anyone feel the obligation to pay for something they have already bought before? If they really wanted interest in BG:EE, they should have gone all in and developed a true HD-remake of the game. Maybe that was not financially viable though - in which case, the whole project in its entirety is questionable. Not to mention that the game was and/or is riddled with NEW problems created by their own changes.

As someone who had never played BG before, I was looking forward to paying $20 for an HD-remake of BG:EE - then when it was released, I was really disappointed to read the reviews talking about how most of the game was not really remade into HD due to financial limitations, and with tons of additional bugs and problems added on top of the original.

4) Exactly. DayZ standalone does have that problem. And why does it have that problem? Because this is a cash grab trying to sell the same old stuff - as you just admitted. Exactly what we are complaining about. All of us were ready and willing to patiently wait for and eventually pay "full price" for a game designed and developed on its own merits, beyond anything that could have been done as a mod on the Arma Engine. Instead, ALL indications are that by the point of full release, this "standalone" game will overall be no better than the mod, and yet it looks like they plan to charge $50 at that point. Even the early access $30 is too much for what they are going to deliver.

Quite frankly, from listening to the interviews with Rocket, I think half of the problem is actually him. I do not think he is all that interested and/or capable of designing a good DayZ game from scratch. He had a great initial concept and was able to technically implement it, but beyond that I do not think he is capable of doing much else with DayZ. I am sure he is talented - just not in game design, or at least not in the aspects of game design relevant to DayZ. The other half of the problem is probably Bohemia Interactive's usual poor decision making - not capable or willing to do what is necessary to go for a "big hit."

Rocket and Bohemia should have made some kind of deal where Rocket would reap financial rewards for the idea and initial implementation, but with someone else outside of the company being given the project, someone who was committed and capable of redesigning it from the ground up (with the same core concepts intact). They should have gathered the resources/team more than adequate to build it and then set an initial release date for probably 2015, with every intention of charging $50 for it while delivering a product to match that price.
 
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