DayZ Alpha Hits Steam, Full Release Over a Year Away

[Cognimancer]

DayZ Alpha Hits Steam, Full Release Over a Year Away

DayZ has finally sprung to life on Steam Early Access, but be warned - the game might take more than a year just reaching beta functionality.

There's good news and bad news, zombie hunters. The good news is that the long-awaited standalone version of Dean "Rocket" Hall's DayZ is now available on Steam, via Early Access. At this very moment, you can head to its Store page [http://store.steampowered.com/app/221100/] and buy your way into the survivalist phenomenon for an entry price of $30. The bad news is that it's not done yet. In fact, it's got quite a ways to go. Right now it's got the essentials - humans, zombies, guns to get killed by other survivors with - but a number of features are still scheduled to be added over the next year or so.

If you're familiar with the Arma II mod, you know how this works. DayZ (the standalone) drops up to 40 players into a post-soviet state with 230 square kilometers to explore and loot in your quest to not die. You can craft new items and improve old ones, customize weapons, and scavenge for various outfits and armor. What you can't do (yet) is drive vehicles, hunt wildlife, construct player-made structures, utilize all the environment and crafting options, or mod the game. That's all coming, but the development roadmap estimates that the game won't be ready to move into beta for "more than one year from current stage," and full release is even further away than that.

To the developers' credit, the game's description includes multiple up-front warnings about the current state of the game. The "core pillars" are there, they say, but they "strongly advise you not to buy and play the game at this stage unless you clearly understand what Early Access means and are interested in participating in the ongoing development cycle."

Fans are no doubt giddy to have an official build available, but keep in mind that the standalone was originally planned to launch last December, and the mod was complete long before that. It might be too little too late - especially since everybody knows the game is just a rip-off of The War Z [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121574-DayZ-Creator-I-Am-Angry-About-The-War-Z] anyways.

Source: Steam [http://store.steampowered.com/app/221100/]

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[ckam]

Oh, a friend of mine is really interested in this and apparently... Yes, he's playing this right now. In any case, I hope this will get rid of the supposed bad taste of The War Z out of people's mouths, but I'm not very well versed in this. Give it a few more years and maybe it'll become finished like another game that I'm starting to think of right now that has to do with survival and building things...

 

[heroicbob]

This game is such a novel concept I'm surprised The War Z was the only knock off to appear. That said I didn't like the mod very much I spent most of my time playing it crawling on the ground because I broke my leg on nothing.

 

[-Dragmire-]

To the developers' credit, the game's description includes multiple up-front warnings about the current state of the game. The "core pillars" are there, they say, but they "strongly advise you not to buy and play the game at this stage unless you clearly understand what Early Access means and are interested in participating in the ongoing development cycle."

Not really going to help, sadly. From participating in the Starbound early access, people seem to think early access means better than Beta but where you can ask for anything you want and it be implemented.

[small]grumble grumble, really hate the passive aggressive asking for refunds, gumble...[/small]

 

[Racecarlock]

Would it help with full release if she used her tongue a bit more?

Edit: Over a year? But I heard you need to call a doctor if it lasts for more than four hours.

 

[latiasracer]

This game is such a novel concept I'm surprised The War Z was the only knock off to appear. That said I didn't like the mod very much I spent most of my time playing it crawling on the ground because I broke my leg on nothing.

I bought the Alpha as soon as i bought it, and you will be pleasantly surprised! Between two of the major cities is a huge rockface, covered in boulders. Now, Normally stepping on these will be the last mistake you ever made. However, i stumbled on one in the SA, Nothing! I even tried rolling and sprinting onto it from different angles! I suppose now they have a different game engine, They can do away with some of the more 'random' elements of Arma 2's one..


Anyway, I must say that i am loving this. There are hamlets and small towns that you always just ran past, because they either had no enter-able buildings or very few ones. It's added so much more to exploration. Another one of my favorite features is you now Swim, Walk and Jog at reasonable speeds (Meaning, You can now use a torch properly). By the time i got in game last night, all the GB and EU servers where in the depths of night, and it was a genuinely new and fun experience bumbling around in the depths of night only seeing what's in the beam of my torch.


That's not to say it's without issues, They seem to have under estimated the popularity in terms of the zombie spawns (Meaning, on a maxed out server roughly 4-5 zombies per settlement!). However, this isn't neccicarly bad, as it allows you to get used to the fact that the bastards CAN RUN INSIDE!!. Although, Their movement isn't spazzy like in the mod, So you can quite easily deal with them in the street.


There is a whole heap of other stuff i don't have time to mention, But i'd strongly recommend this to anybody that loved the mod. This is an alpha i am very proud to be part of!

 

[Clovus]

This game is such a novel concept I'm surprised The War Z was the only knock off to appear. That said I didn't like the mod very much I spent most of my time playing it crawling on the ground because I broke my leg on nothing.

Buddy, theres Nether, 7 Days to Die, Don't Starve and a bunch of others that spawned from this 'Survival Game' craze. Minecraft started it, though.

Minecraft is FAR from "survival" oriented, sorry to say buddy. The biggest thing that game has going for it is the breadth of creativity others have shown with the game. If anything, the only "craze" it started was the surge of Voxel-based games that are cropping up now more than they used to.

The DayZ mod, however, has been about the harshest game I could think of in terms of its survival mechanics in recent time, and those concepts are now being carried out through 7 Days, Rust and their ilk.

Minecraft's "survival" elements are minimal, but I think Rocket has mentioned Minecraft before (maybe just in terms of the monetization strategy). But, to say that the only "craze" Minecraft started is the "voxel" one is downplaying things a bit. Minecraft kicked off a bigger interest in procedurally generated worlds, true fully-destructable worlds, collaborative building games, retro-3d graphics (of the non-voxel kind), and the similiar-to-"survival" genre of "crafting" games. Minecraft wasn't the first in those categories, but due to the design and popularity, it is extremely influential.

Really, it did kick off the "survival" genre though. The elements in Minecraft were simple, but the basics of it were there enough that people wanted more, so games started appearing to cater to that.

Anyway, the point is that all future games are clearly derived from Infiniminer ...

 

[TheUnbeholden]

There is a whole heap of other stuff i don't have time to mention, But i'd strongly recommend this to anybody that loved the mod. This is an alpha i am very proud to be part of!

Actually I would like to hear about it! I can't find a roadmap for Dayz, rocket said it would be out by the time the Alpha is.. but I can't seem to find it. I want to know what features the game will have before I invest any money into it at this early state of development. Yes the mod was great! But its been a long time since then..

£19.99? What a rip-off. The only other "early access" Alpha that cost £20 and still in very early development is Prison Architect but introversion are basing their sales off a kickstarter knock-off.

I'm really curious as to how much this thing will actually costs, £30? £40? Way too much for a game solely based off a mod...That's even so "free".

Wrong, 7 Days to Die is similar to Dayz (its more like minecraft) and its priced at $35 as an alpha.

 

[latiasracer]

There is a whole heap of other stuff i don't have time to mention, But i'd strongly recommend this to anybody that loved the mod. This is an alpha i am very proud to be part of!

Actually I would like to hear about it! I can't find a roadmap for Dayz, rocket said it would be out by the time the Alpha is.. but I can't seem to find it. I want to know what features the game will have before I invest any money into it at this early state of development. Yes the mod was great! But its been a long time since then..
.

Yeah - i've not seen one either.. However, based on what i've seen from lurking and forums and livestreams and such, Alpha is intended to last roughly 10-12 months, And by that time they want to have added the majority of weapons, and a few cars/aircraft. There's not actually any cars/aircraft in the game at the moment, as they are apparently reworking how these work completely.

In terms of what it has to offer at the moment, this is what i've found anyway :

Dynamic inventory system - This is based on the clothes you wear. For example, If you have some jeans and a t-shirt, your inventory is the pockets of your jeans, and nothing else. You can find better clothes, and even accessories, such as fishing jackets and pistol holsters. Also, Say you have loads of food in your backpack, and i kill you by shooting you in the back, your backpack and it's contents will be heavily damaged, if not destroyed.

Chenarus + - The map has been expanded by alot. Even ignoring all the new towns/villages/apartments/army bases they have added in, Thanks to being able to enter 95% of all buildings looting is a much richer experience, as yes, stuff is harder to find, but there is alot more places to look for it.

Benefits from Arma 3's lighting engine - Nothing more needs to be said!

Animations are much more fluid, and much more natural movement - Same as above

A whole heap of new player interaction tools - Blood transfusions are no longer an easypeasy way of getting full health. Now, every player has a blood type, With deadly consequences to the recipient if the blood type is incompatible.(There is a chart somewhere!) Whilst you can still find blood bags as medical loot, they are insanely rare, and getting one the right blood type would be even harder. So basically, Say you and me are wandering the wilderness together, and you are badly hurt - I can give you some of my blood. OR, I could handcuff you, and steal your blood! Yes, that's right, some players have already established weird human trafficking things where they basically tie up a load of players, take them to their base and steal their blood as and when needed. (It is possible to escape handcuffs though!)

As it is at the moment, it's an evolving experience. The game you play today isn't the same one you play tomorrow, as patches and tweaks are a regular occurrence.