DayZ Could Break Free From ArmA II
- Thread starter Jeremy Wilkinson
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As Yahtzee said, there is a niche in the gaming industry a mile wide for a truly scary horror series. This niche has been created by every single horror franchise starting out with good ideas, but quickly devolving into same old shoot-em-up pap in their sequels.
That Dayz is doing so well speaks too a few things. One, obviously, horror games are still viable IF DONE CORRECTLY.
Two, modding communities turned Arma 2 into a profitable game, when before it was lagging considerably in sales, this should be a big wake up call to developers and console manufacturers that it's time too be more flexible about both modding on the computer, AND to finally allow it on consoles.
Three, it proves that the nay-sayers are wrong, that Zombies are still fresh to the public, and can still be used in all variety of media for possibly years to come before people really start getting sick of them, in my opinion.
That Dayz is doing so well speaks too a few things. One, obviously, horror games are still viable IF DONE CORRECTLY.
Two, modding communities turned Arma 2 into a profitable game, when before it was lagging considerably in sales, this should be a big wake up call to developers and console manufacturers that it's time too be more flexible about both modding on the computer, AND to finally allow it on consoles.
Three, it proves that the nay-sayers are wrong, that Zombies are still fresh to the public, and can still be used in all variety of media for possibly years to come before people really start getting sick of them, in my opinion.
I've watched some "Let's plays" on youtube and have watched a friend play it, and there is no doubt that there is some real potential there. If it comes out as a standalone with a more optimised/efficient interface I'm on it like rot on a zombie skull.
Lagging in sales?Tradjus said:
You'd be surprised to see how many people were playing ArmA II before DayZ. I could go onto the browser at any given night and find servers with 80+ people playing. That is not counting all the other little servers that are public with 20 or 30 people playing.
That is also not counting the number of player hosted servers with 4 to 8 people playing.
ArmA II was always profitable. It has it's niche and exploited that niche well. We drag our feet through the bugs because to us, ArmA II is an awesome game. A game with so many possibilities and endless freedoms.
DayZ is a product of how ArmA II works. I don't thing something like DayZ could have been created on any other engine. Sure, the ArmA II Engine, well to be fair, the Operation Flashpoint engine is incredibly modular. It allows for people to script in their own tools and features. It has limitations sure, it has bugs sure, but the core game play experience is the best you are gonna get, especially from an Indie Dev.
I don't think an ArmA-esk game will ever make it to consoles. It simply requires to much user interaction. Literally every key on my keyboard is used by the game, and that is default key settings. DayZ is no different. Every key serves a function, and to limit that functionality will severely limit the game.
It's good to see DayZ taking off. It seems that ArmA II is getting into the habit of creating spin-offs (Iron Front: Liberation 1944) using the ArmA II engine. I'm perfectly ok with that.
I would love to see Bohemia work with their dedicated modding team on this one. Since they already work for the company anyway, they would benefit from tossing some more resources this way. I haven't touched DayZ yet because I don't want to hassle with the modding software again.
For all of those hating on the ArmA II base game, you don't know what you are missing. It runs just fine on my (rather dated) system. Mil-sims are a niche genre, and not everyone enjoys that kind of gameplay. Their line of mil-sims is the best selling line of mil-sims on the market, and I'm hoping that ArmA III blows their previous records out of the water!
I would love to see Bohemia work with their dedicated modding team on this one. Since they already work for the company anyway, they would benefit from tossing some more resources this way. I haven't touched DayZ yet because I don't want to hassle with the modding software again.
For all of those hating on the ArmA II base game, you don't know what you are missing. It runs just fine on my (rather dated) system. Mil-sims are a niche genre, and not everyone enjoys that kind of gameplay. Their line of mil-sims is the best selling line of mil-sims on the market, and I'm hoping that ArmA III blows their previous records out of the water!
If it means it has a chance to break away from Arma's horrendously bad interface and shabby AI, then this makes me happy. But the mod still needs a lot of work. But if it keeps steady, I believe this may eventually be really, really good.
The Real Virtuality engine is an open ended simulation engine primarily designed for use in the Virtual Battle Space military training software Bohemia Interactive sells and as such is very open to modding.Spartanmk1 said:
I also think you're onto something with DayZ being unlikely to have been created on any other game/engine... except maybe the STALKER games. On any other game/engine we'd probably just have gotten another same-y zombie shooter rather than a zombie survival game where most of the time the main threat is other players.
You DO realize that the game is in the alpha phase, right? Maybe you don't know what that means. Let me put it this way; you know how developers will launch a beta before a game's release so they can try and catch some last-minute bugs? Well, alpha is before the beta phase. So... yeah.CardinalPiggles said:
Don't talk to me like I'm a fucking idiot, why do think I said "at the moment".WhiteTigerShiro said:
God damn DayZ fanboys now!
As much as I like the mod I hate ArmA II. The controls are annoying and overly complex. I'd like the ability to use a xbox controller without dieing all over the place...
The ergonomics of the controls aside they really need to adjust the ability of the Z's to see and turn their speed down a little, I've seen the things do a hundred yard dash like an Olympic sprinter because they saw me lean around corner at the edge of some of a town.
I also wish they could add melee combat. Considering the dedication to realism it doesn't make sense that I'm carrying a hatchet around that can't be used to dispatch a random Zombie in a building without ringing the dinner bell for every Zombie in that part of town.
The ergonomics of the controls aside they really need to adjust the ability of the Z's to see and turn their speed down a little, I've seen the things do a hundred yard dash like an Olympic sprinter because they saw me lean around corner at the edge of some of a town.
I also wish they could add melee combat. Considering the dedication to realism it doesn't make sense that I'm carrying a hatchet around that can't be used to dispatch a random Zombie in a building without ringing the dinner bell for every Zombie in that part of town.
newwiseman said:
Erm... you CAN use the hatchet as a melee weapon.
It's a big... glitchy... to be certain, and I've seen more than one person turned into fractals by a hatchet-wielding bandit... but I assure you that it can be done.
But again, it's an alpha. So that's the sort of thing that'll hopefully get fixed down the pipe.
OT: I, for one, would gladly throw my money at a standalone version of Day Z... but perhaps folks who shelled out cash to get ArmA II to play Day Z wouldn't be left in the dust by this somehow? Perhaps inter-game compatibility of some sort? Or at the very least have simultaneous support for both a standalone game AND the ArmA II mod version?
I don't know exactly, since I'm more in the 'business' fiend than the 'technical expertise' field here... but it just seems like poor form to get 400,000 people to come play your mod... many buying a game they would never have bought otherwise, then asking them to go out and buy ANOTHER game.
I'm sure they'll think all of this through though, as they move forward.
