DayZ. Zombie survival mod for Arma2: CO

[Brunius]

I thought the entire point of this alpha was to be the test group? I doubt he wanted it to go widescale public use when he released his small little minimod which then proceeded to explode overnight.

Even in alpha he should at least do a 30 minute test, since the alpha player base is so large.

Correct.
We are the test group.
He might have a team of 1-3 people that help him with development that MIGHT test it. But we are the testers.

You know he's getting paid to do this, right? 30 minutes of testing could make them look at a lot better than they do.

Shake8:
Believe what? That they didn't find an obvious glitch and should have tested it more before they implemented it?

Rocket:
It's only obvious when exposed to thousands of players. A bug appeared when picking up certian industrial items, it adds a fake magazine to the inventory. This then compounds over time and when the player drops their melee weapon it gets left on the ground. Over time this causes crashes.

There are hundreds of items in game. The interaction of each one is not tested with each build. If not picking up industrial items (such as wire fencing kits) then the bug is not at all noticeable. The bug actually has nothing to do with melee weapons, and everything to do with a very small config class change to accommodate their spawn rate. This had the unintended consequence of causing fake magazines to appear for every industrial item.

That is why the testing is done large scale, to identify issues that cannot be easily seen with 10-15 players. Ten people tested this build for three hours without incident.

Source:http://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/v9l2f/server_crashes_galore_hatchets_bugged_in_1712/c52ju2a?context=3
Note this was in relation to hatchets crashing the server, and I am merely using it to illustrate that they do do internal testing.
Bolding mine.

Not quite entirely untested.

[Nekosan]

found my first ever downed Huey last night, mirin bizon and L85-AWS and then "no message for 40 seconds"... server reboots and huey/guns are gone .

[Drjft]

Not sure if food is still scarce or just my bad luck... cleared the entire nw airfield last night and no food, then i killed 180 zombies before i got a can of pasta.

With 1.7.1.4, loot was rebalanced (as you probably know) as a result, I think food and water became a lot rarer, a lot of people seem to think so over on DayZ forums. So it's likely

I'm glad my friend found two water bottles before we left last night then.

[Scarecrow]

found my first ever downed Huey last night, mirin bizon and L85-AWS and then "no message for 40 seconds"... server reboots and huey/guns are gone .

I've found two of these... both were on 1.6 and loot spawning was bugged. Mate found one today with a box of SVD ammo(the super rare stuff) and server crashed on him.

Not sure if food is still scarce or just my bad luck... cleared the entire nw airfield last night and no food, then i killed 180 zombies before i got a can of pasta.

With 1.7.1.4, loot was rebalanced (as you probably know) as a result, I think food and water became a lot rarer, a lot of people seem to think so over on DayZ forums. So it's likely

I'm glad my friend found two water bottles before we left last night then.

I've been running around 1.7.1.4 finding normal amounts of food :\ seen animals too. Can't kill them due to hatchet not working to cook the meat, but food is now readily available.

[SkenZ]

The latest patch seems to have almost killed the player base overnight. It used to be that the servers were so full that you would be queing for ages to get a spot, but now its straight in to a server wich is sometimes not half full.

I read a lot of posts on their forums saying they won't play until another patch comes out. I just sort of hope that someone at BI sits rocket down and tells him that at the end of the day if you want to have a successfull game the key is to make it both fun and challenging for the players.

From what I can gather now the mod is just marred by the fact installing the Arma II beta is not very clear (yes there are instructions out there but to the lay person its not easy by any means) and the fact that he has probably made the game too hard last patch.

I get that the game is still in Alpha, but then again so was minecraft and Notch made every effort to keep that always fun for the users.

Don't get me wrong I'm still playing, largely because I'm already set up to the point where I can survive, and I do appretiate everything Rocket has done. At the end of the day he has made some errors though and if he wants to enjoy long term success those should be addressed.

[Ball0fire]

1.7.1.5 is already out and has been since overnight, and seems to adress a number of things

not on the server yet tho . just have to wait. also this bring antoher issue

the number of updates is bad for us here ,cos it means the server guys spending too much time on the dayz servers and not on their other jobs

[SkenZ]

Yeah I see the dread every time a new one is out, have you contacted them to update it Ball0fire?

[Freeborne]

Look at getting Six Updater installed on the server, do updates that way, or just get FTP access to ARMA2 folder so you can upload the updates yourself and change config files. If they haven't bothered to automate any of the update tasks yet, no-one to blame but themselves. Rocket stated early on that he would push out several updates a week, sometimes in a single day.

[ShaderX]

I think ball0fire should get ftp access to the server. At least to the arma2 directory.

That way he can push update without hassling the GON Server team.

[Drjft]

From what I can gather now the mod is just marred by the fact installing the Arma II beta is not very clear (yes there are instructions out there but to the lay person its not easy by any means) and the fact that he has probably made the game too hard last patch.

The problem is that Steam was marketed as the easiest way to manage your ArmA 2 install, when in reality, a direct download from Sprocket etc is miles easier.

I have all of the boxed products (Reinforcements, Arrowhead, ArmA 2, and soon ArmA X) and it makes it so much easier, specially when using ArmA II Launcher and just managing my files myself.

[Nekosan]

From what I can gather now the mod is just marred by the fact installing the Arma II beta is not very clear (yes there are instructions out there but to the lay person its not easy by any means) and the fact that he has probably made the game too hard last patch.

The problem is that Steam was marketed as the easiest way to manage your ArmA 2 install, when in reality, a direct download from Sprocket etc is miles easier.

I have all of the boxed products (Reinforcements, Arrowhead, ArmA 2, and soon ArmA X) and it makes it so much easier, specially when using ArmA II Launcher and just managing my files myself.

Everyone keeps saying this buy i don't see how it's easier, here's how hard it is for me to update dayz + arma

* google "arma 2 beta" and click the first link
* click the highlighted beta build then double click the exe (that's arma done)
* torrent the dayz version via the direct download link
* unzip into my addons directory (shortcut on desktop)

It's literally less than 10 mouse clicks and the time it takes is entirely limited by my download speed, I installed sixupdater and it's just 100% bloated rubbish, their updater was better half a decade ago.

[Ball0fire]

thats fine if you ONLY play dayz

but if you play normal arma then that doesnt work cos you then gota fish for the dayz files and take them out of the addons folder or the server (eg: the gon warfare server) doesnt allow the dayz mods or a number of other mods you mighta just thrown in the addons folder.

for it to work properly you need to use the @mod folder system

[LoneRofl]

yeah i have the steam version and dont have a problem with updating. Its not hard if you use the WWS (Western Worlds Shaman) a.k.a Google.. when one person has a problem you're guaranteed that thousands more have had the same.

I do remember when i was a kid and when games didnt work i would just yell at the screen and get all upset. Last night there were 3-4 people playing without sound because they found it too daunting to quit and update their game.

As Skenz said its probably a bit too complicated for the lay person - people that they should be trying to keep interested....

[Brunius]

It can be harder to get the beta working than you think.

For instance, I had a problem where (apparently) you need the ArmA 2 addons folder in your Operation Arrowhead folder. Nowhere did it state this. A google didn't uncover this. It was sheer luck that someone on reddit suggested that fix and it worked.

I do agree with the sound things though. Seriously, a simple reloading of the game is too daunting?

[Nekosan]

I had the same problem at install Brunius, the difference is that when it didn't work in the arma 2 folder i just instinctively moved it to the OA folder, it would be interesting to throw half the Dayz forum users back to 1999 and have them try and get a game working.

The thing that cracks me up is that the sixupdater used to be FANTASTIC to use, now it just seems like over complicated **** and the server browser makes no practical sense at all with the way ARMA works.