DayZ is a great game in many ways. People consider it one of the better survival games out there, due to fear of other human players, rather than the lumbering zombies themselves. The game has been made from a mod from Arma 2, yet there is also a standalone version currently available for early access. Neither of these are in a finished, complete state yet. Because of this, there’s been quite the concern from the community.
This thread started up: “has anyone else lost faith in DayZ?” where many of the community’s members voiced dissatisfaction of the state of the game. Brian Hicks, the producer of DayZ dropped into the thread to comment on the state of the game.
“You are not playing DayZ, you are playing development builds. Early development builds.
DayZ is 11 months into principle development, on what should be a 3 year standard development cycle. I can’t force you to be a fan of DayZ, but I can call this out:
Defining or judging what DayZ is by a build so early in its development is much a kin to judging a painting within the first few brush strokes. Hell, even Bob Ross’s paintings didn’t look great for the first few minutes (until you realized what it was he was making).
I can promise you none of your favorite AAA games played, or even resembled the final product that early in their cycles. (Okay, maybe some of the larger titles that push small incremental updates out every 12 months – but we all know those are special snowflakes.)
Take a break, and come back in beta or even the full release. The Early Access period of development will have many peaks and low, low valleys. This is the nature of software development. Yes, it is stressful as heck – for all of us, but you get to be part of shaping the DayZ experience.
I’m always careful with what I say – 3 year standard development cycle, meaning in standard terms this would be a 3 year, closed development cycle. Early Access changes a lot of that, I don’t need to tell you. We are still aiming for end of 2014 to hit our beta phase entry. You can be certain the weekly status reports will keep everyone updated on that.
We’re trying to effectively do a 3 year standard cycle in 2 to 2.5 years. It might be a lofty goal, but as long as I have something to say about it – you will all be kept updated as to what is going on.”
What do you guys think of his reply? I like the analogy between the game and the painting, the game is no-where near finished. “Then why are you selling it?!” I can hear the outcry already. Well, there’s obvious reasons as to why they’re selling it already. To make money and to support the development of the game. Hell, you know fully well what you’re getting yourself into. Check out the Steam page for the game, right there in big capital letters is a warning, telling you to only buy the game if you’re willing to put up with “serious issues” and “interruptions of game functioning”.
Seeing the games popularity already could be a reason for trying to complete the 3 year standard cycle in roughly 2 years instead. In my opinion, those who bought the game have no right to complain. There may be some issues with early access (one being that Steam is absolutely stuffed full of them, some being garbage), but that’s a completely different issue to do with early access itself. Buying an early access game and then losing faith in it (while in it’s early stages) is another issue, one that I believe isn’t justified. There’s an inherent risk in purchasing early access games, once you buy it, that’s it, you know what you’re getting yourself into in buying an unfinished product. So why complain with what you get? I’d like to hear your opinions on this.
If you’d like to hear more about this author, contact him on Twitter @TKazGaming.
