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[Column] DayZ: Trust - Why DayZ is Early Access done Right
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Just over a year ago, in December of 2013, a little game known as DayZ was released to the public on Steam Early Access. Just last week, an anniversary notice, video, and a 2015 roadmap were released to show where the game has been and indicate where it is going. Along with that came an update to the experimental build. Altogether, the game has sold 2,830,000 copies as of December 16th, 2014. With a consistent presence on the Steam charts, frequent updates, a favorite of streamers, and as a platform for friendly and not so friendly trolling, DayZ might just be the best current example of Early Access done right since Steam launched the program. I’ve been thinking about trust in this age of so many ways to pay for games before they’re ever remotely finished.
Read more of Christina Gonzalez's The Social Hub: Trust - Why DayZ is Early Access done Right.
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Comments
The Escapist just reported inquiring UK and Australia consumer watchdogs whether DayZ's recent sale on Steam broke laws: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/138806-DayZ-Price-Rises-15-Has-15-Off-Sale
MMORPG.com follows up with a column of how this is an early access done exceptionally well.
-Really cool concept and 'game' but develpoment seems really slow.
I log in about once in awhile to see whats changed and play for a bit but it needs far more features to be anything I can play for any length of time. I think its going to be fantastic if/when they include base building and more persistant type features but atm its more of a novelty- Not quite action enough to replace a FPS for me and not RPG/MMO enough to replace a persistant world game...Just something fun to log into every now and again.
Im glad they are making sales but they have already made quite a lot and it hasnt really sped development along at all. The Day Z mod is still 1000 times better at this point and thats sad.
-That said, I dont regret my purchase. Its a fun novelty game to kill some time with and IF it comes together right its going to be amazing- If not its still alright.
That is the law in the UK - it seems these guys clearly do not understand our laws.
Dayz is Early access done right? sorry I cant bring myself to read much more of that as I totally disagree, every time I ever watch it on Twitch it has to be on of the most underdeveloped, boring and just plain terrible games I have ever seen.
The guy behind the game has even bailed out - the original vision for this game will not ever be realised - imo this is Early Access done totally wrong.
The steam early access sale hit for DayZ isn't about trust, and its not about doing it right, its about being DayZ, which was a phenomena long before it hit steam early access. During 2012 1.3 million players had played the DayZ mod created for arma2 and because of the mods popularity arma 2 ended up topping steam sale charts 3 years after the games release.
I find that games like Kerbal Space Program and Assetto Corsa has done a far better job at doing steam early access right, the former being fairly close to a finalized version and the latter just got fully released.
Imagine if DayZ was re-made..
With the source engine or whatever engine it is contagion uses. I would be so happy
i still dont see how people can actually develop the same game twice, release it twice, and people actually go and pay for it twice ^^
but hey, it's a free world, you can waste your money on whatever you want i guess
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
I think you are mistaken as this wasnt (and wont be) developed twice.
Day Z started as a Mod for a game and was 100% free (and still is) which is "the Day Z mod"- The limitations inthe engine it was modding had shackled the devs from including features they wanted so they began making the "Day Z standalone" which was built from the ground up and is not a Mod (nor is it free) but its not develpoing and paying for the same game twice.
-The problem is the mod (that is FREE) is better than the game (that costs money) which is sad. BUT if the devs can pull this off they will far surpass what the mod was able to ever do.
Hope that explains things.
But yeah- Nobody is paying for this twice- You may have this confused with another MMO that early released on steam (cannot remember the name) that the devs announced something about the fact they were making that game in order to fund the real game...Something like that- Dont exactly remember.
It is standard practice for games to be X price at early access launch and to become x+a then x+a+b etc... as the development process continues. Speaking of shady business practices, you might have missed the bottom of that article where he hides his correction admitting that he is wrong.
Free to play = content updates for the cash shop. Buy to play = content updates for the cash shop.
Subscription = Actual content updates!
As someone who actively plays DayZ like a loon, and still prefers the mod over the standalone, I'm left puzzled as to whether or not anyone writing for MMORPG.com has spent a fair amount of time comparing the two. If that had been done, I don't understand how anyone could state that the standalone is the way an early access game should be made, or is better than the mod and all of its customization in any way. In case people didn't know, when Rocket shifted his focus to making the standalone, they halted all work on the mod, naturally, and players picked up the slack, making the Overwatch, Epoch, Epochwatch, and about twenty or so more mods for DayzMod that nearly completed Rockets vision for the standalone. Often just a single person. Usually with no resources. Always without money.
How the DayZ standalone is in the shape it's still in today is baffling to me. At this point, I'd much rather they just admit they're done working on it, and hand it over to the players like they did the mod so we can at least get a better functioning, more feature complete game to play.
"This is life! We suffer and slave and expire. That's it!" -Bernard Black (Dylan Moran)
Everyone i know prefers the mod to the stand alone game.
I've been told the most dangerous NPC in the game are ladders go figure lol.
Yeah, mindbogling.
DayZ standalone is borderline scam, the only reason why it got so many sales was due to the hype that the mod version of the game received. Like 80% of the game got copy pasted from mod...
After a year it's still un-optimized, littered with bugs and cheaters. And zombies are still a joke...
edit: actually, the game is a joke, and so is this article
Done right? Is this column serious? If by right you mean making bank on a pisspoor version of a mod, filled with bugs, horrible support, and updates as slow as a snail who smokes weed then you sir are in fact correct. But in the standards of a real person that isn't getting paid to blabber this nonsense on a gaming website in my honest opinion the whole early access pay $30 to be a Tester is absolutely absurd.
Back in the day testers got paid to test now they have somehow warped peoples mind into thinking that the new standard is pay them to test there own product. Absolute bullcrap in my opinion, If your going to do early access and charge for it, ok charge a few bucks but charging for almost a full game when its worse than the mod itself? They just stole $30 from 2,000,000 well done guys well done.
P.S. Didnt the creator of the game quit after banking on the deal and went mountain climbing? nuff said.
So an article almost a month old is "just reported?"
just checking. . .
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Well considering Dean "Rocket" wanted underground base building a'la X-Com and wanted a riding lawn mower you could flip over and then pick up and use as a weapon. Seriously.
The game is better off without him.
There was other stupid shit he wanted to implement that was so fucking stupid people couldnt tell if he was serious or bullshitting. The general consensus was the latter.
What made DayZ a hit was the fact it was a game of survival against nature, survival against the environment, and survival against "monsters", and survival against other players, that and the fear of losing it all.
"I understand that if I hear any more words come pouring out of your **** mouth, Ill have to eat every fucking chicken in this room."
my top MMOs: UO,DAOC,WoW,GW2
most of my posts are just my opinions they are not facts,it is the same for you too.
Early access and done right in one sentence? ROTFL
Ive logged 200 ish hours with dayz, braved the bugs and poor performance as the concept is so good. But considering nothing has really changed in 1 year and they refuse to finish existing systems like Zombie AI (which they break every patch) and move onto other things is just stupid.
I cant help but think DayZ has made more money than they ever thought it would and now the dev team have all bought themselves houses and Rocket has seeded millions into his new NZ studio they have no desire to finish the game and will jsut keep it on life support. Shame but DayZ is NOT early access done right not at all.
I think you misunderstood the article completely:
1) Increasing the price is normal practice. Claiming on Steam that the game is now on 15% sale when they reduced the price about 1% is the illegal part. At least in EU increasing the base price of a product and claiming it's now on sale is not legal.
2) The correction at the bottom of article was because the writer had first calculated that a 15% price decrease and a 15% price increase would cancel each other completely. It doesn't change the point of the article that they don't add to the 15% price decrease currently advertised on Steam
Are we thinking about the same DayZ???
In my opinion the development has been super slow. creating their own engine rather than build off the arma 3 engine was a retarded, corner cutting decision to save them some money and produced a crappy base engine and took forever.
I will say that the game is progressing but i feel like it should have been further than where it is now months ago...
Also, I attribute most of the sales to the potential many saw in the DayZ Arma 2 Mod. It was the hype that sold the copies, not the game in the state that its been for 90% of 2014.
There are much better games that I would nominate for an article about doing it right in Steam Early Access. I swear like every other article on this site makes MMORPG feel less and less creditable.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/At the end of the day Early Access IS a marketing tool to milk money as early as possible.
In that sense, DayZ Early Access was done quite Right...