In Its Current State DayZ Is Both Pointless And Insulting To Its Fans
Usually I would prefix this article with some combination of words to best prepare mindless fan boys for what's to come in an effort to reduce the chances that trolls set me ablaze but when it comes to DayZ, I really don't care. Grab your pitch forks, accuse me of whatever you please, in its current state DayZ is not only a complete waste of time but it's an actual insult to those that supported the mod and standalone development for so long. That is where most of the idiots would have stopped reading before heading to the comments below with some variation of "OH EM GEE It's ALPHA YO". So now that they're out the way and wasting their time let's get to actually looking at the issues surrounding DayZ today and why it's a disappointment to the members of its community that actually followed its development cycle. I'll take you back to September of 2012. The development had already been underway for some time and Dean "Rocket" Hall was attending the EuroGamer event in London, in which he hosted a discussion panel with fans and members of the media. During that event he specifically stated "DayZ will definitely be released before Christmas" as the developers "Could not afford another delay". However only a month previous was he quoted as saying "We don't need to sell that many copies to break-even. We want to be a hardcore game and I think if we make a good game people will come back.". So there was no financial pressure in regards to rushing a release, a point we'll come to a little later. A short while after that event and after missing a deadline which they just couldn't afford to miss, Dean Hall was interviewed by EuroGamer and said "DayZ Standalone isn't here because we had the chance to go from making a game that was just the mod improved slightly, packaged simply and sold, to actually making the game the way we all dreamed it could be,". A few more months down the line in November and another pitiful excuse arose for the delay as Hall stated to Examiner that optimization issues were the main culprit of the delay, "The new zombies are still a work in progress as they glitch through walls often at low frames per second" Okay so now that I've shown you what people that followed the game were exposed to, what's my point? Well when the mod finally did launch, after a delay of over a year when he originally said they couldn't afford a delay, it was overpriced for an alpha when compared to practically any other game available on Steam. Why was such a large price necessary when even he stated the game had very little financial pressure and the mod alone netted Bohemia thousands upon thousands of additional ARMA II purchases. How many people do you know that have played the DayZ mod but have never actually bothered with ARMA II? The zombies, and other optimization problems that caused another of the delays, were still more than present in the game. Invisible zombies, poor frames in certain locations, zombies moving through walls, these were all apparent are release. This is now where the people that will mindlessly defend DayZ regardless of the flood of misinformation will quote Dean Hall's very honest selling of his alpha client:I really can't emphasize enough - this is going to be an early access project on steam. It's a true-blue alpha. Massive areas of the engine were entirely reworked, involving a large team of people over the last 12 months. Much of what these achievements will enable won't be seen for many months - so I really plead for anyone who is on the fence to take a skeptical approach - watch streams, read reviews, watch some let's play and form your opinion. You could always come back to the game in three, six months time and buy it then.Great. Spend two years telling me all the awesome features that will be in your game and then release something that has none of them prefixed by a quote that millions will use to save you reputation on internet boards across the gaming space. Was I expecting a game filled with exciting features and genre defining mechanics? No, it's an alpha. Was I expecting something a little more than a hiking simulator with potential PvP opportunities? Yes. There are MASSIVE problems riddled throughout the DayZ experience that far too many people are defending with the "It's an alpha" argument.
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