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Development path? A message for the Devs.


Poncho

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I am writing this to try and understand what sort of development path you guys (the devs) will be following. I know everyone really wants to get in and play the game, we all loved the Arma2 mod and we know that this will be even better.

        But one massive problem I (and indeed many others) had with the Arma2 DayZ Epoch mod, was how you updated and developed the game. Constant updates to the mod version, followed by various patches and hotfixes. This made life very difficult for the people (myself included) that were running servers, As players always want the most up-to-date version, both existing and potential. 

 

My hopes are that you won't bow to the pressure of the 'I WANT IT NOW!!!' side of the community, and give us something that is stable and functional, and if you intend to do an initial release with multiple versions to follow, that you don't release small, highly frequent, and insufficiently tested versions that give the community, and those of us that finance and admin servers for them, so much trouble.

 

I am a significant donator, both simply for the truly great experience you have provided us with, and more recently for the nifty looking T-Shirt :p So please don't consider this a rant/rage post. Consider it simply as friendly advice/feedback from a long time supporter and genuine fan. I love ArmA 3 and have been looking forward to this mod as much as I have titles such as 'The Division', 'The Witcher 3', and 'Star Citizen'. I am not sure how you as developers think of the game you have made and are now making, but there are many of us here that put it in the same class as the titles I have mentioned, and we know you won't let us down.

 

Any response from you guys would be great.

 

Good luck and many thanks, 

Poncho.

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My hopes are that you won't bow to the pressure of the 'I WANT IT NOW!!!' side of the community, and give us something that is stable and functional, and if you intend to do an initial release with multiple versions to follow, that you don't release small, highly frequent, and insufficiently tested versions that give the community, and those of us that finance and admin servers for them, so much trouble.

 

Have you considered this option:

 

download the version of Arma 3 epoch and see if it is stable and functional enough. -> If yes, create server, if not wait until next release.

 

Problem solved :)

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Best guess, is that once realease, It will turn into a Githut file. So anyone can work on it and get update-date files. Just like the githut for arma 2 dayz epoch mod.

 

The problem he was touching with that was, if you have custom file edits, whenever a new version comes out the only real option you have is to redo those file edits. This can take some server admins days to do.

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Yea. but its really depends on the tickets made. Like right now, for epoch v1.0.5 It took about 2-3month to release, when It was first set for 1 month. Due to bugs and stuff. Notting new was really added other then 1 new chopper and some custom scripts being intergraded with epoch. But thoses really took a week or so. The updateds depend on weather they have suff to fix. But the avarage file update, i say is about 1 month.

 

Plus if you watch the githut, you will know which files were changed. Best script method i find, is to have them all use the init. or Preprocessfiles, so that that way its a simple "Add line" update. But i know some files require edting games orginal files.

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Have you considered this option:

download the version of Arma 3 epoch and see if it is stable and functional enough. -> If yes, create server, if not wait until next release.

Problem solved :)

Little confused here, are you saying that from a players standpoint, there is an Arma 3 Epoch version that we can download and play right now? Like to test it out?

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Little confused here, are you saying that from a players standpoint, there is an Arma 3 Epoch version that we can download and play right now? Like to test it out?

No there isn't, well there is but only for closed testing atm.

 

Poncho is asking that future release be throughly tested before released, some versions we released and then patched or a hotfix released a few hours later or half finished releases were made for the 'I WANT IT NOW!' brigade.

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No there isn't, well there is but only for closed testing atm.

Poncho is asking that future release be throughly tested before released, some versions we released and then patched or a hotfix released a few hours later or half finished releases were made for the 'I WANT IT NOW!' brigade.

Ok thanks for the clarification. I was searching like mad for some sort of download lmao...can't wait for this, will be truly epic. God Speed, and good luck devs!

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The problem he was touching with that was, if you have custom file edits, whenever a new version comes out the only real option you have is to redo those file edits. This can take some server admins days to do.

see my sig for how to merge files.  Pretty easy actually.

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It is not just about the difficulty for admins and admin updating. Let's be honest. It started out as a mod of a mod, but this has turned into so much more, it is by any standard its own game now. As such personally I believe a stricter development path should be followed. Before, with the AmaA 2 mod, because of competition, they had to keep churning out content to keep people interested.

 

I just don't think that is needed anymore, they have earned our trust and respect. They learnt many lessons from ArmA 2 epoch, they know what they are doing, and how they are doing it. As such they simply don't need to conform to the masses opinions anymore. The rush and pressure of getting frequent content updates out is i'm sure one of the reasons that they held so many problems. Steady, stable and consistent updates are far more valuable than the frequent 'proverbial pacifiers' that where often dished out before for the more... impatient players and community members.

 

 

Even something like what the DayZ standalone is doing right now might be a good idea. The dev team allows for a select and limited number of 'experimental' servers to be run. These servers are used by admins and players closer to the community that are happy to play the new experimental versions, and provide important, structured feedback to the developers. Once that feedback has been acted on and any outstanding issues have been fixed. The stable versions can be rolled out to the rest of the (public run) community to use.

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We are going for the long haul here guys. The A3 Epoch project will likely take a few years before we are at at 100% finished state. Alpha status will last until 1.0 at which point we will enter the beta phase. Beta phase will be mostly feature complete with a slower/larger update cycles.

Closed alpha is likely to last up to version 0.5 and hosting will be done by our own developers and will only allow whitelisted players to join. Open alpha will likely start sometime after 0.5 (50% complete) and at this time we will start to welcome some server hosts to join in the testing. During open alpha we are going to only allow server hosting via an application process with acceptance of specific terms. For GSP's that want to host during the alpha we will ask that customers ability to access server files is limited from making any modifications.

All of this is so that we can get proper feedback on our own work and fix any issues that are from the mod and hopefully make the game we all want to play. 

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When you guys win the Make Arma not War contest (which of course WILL HAPPEN) How will the money help you in your development process? Will you hire more people for the project? Will the entire process of the development be sped up because of said financial resources?

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We are going for the long haul here guys. The A3 Epoch project will likely take a few years before we are at at 100% finished state. Alpha status will last until 1.0 at which point we will enter the beta phase. Beta phase will be mostly feature complete with a slower/larger update cycles.

Closed alpha is likely to last up to version 0.5 and hosting will be done by our own developers and will only allow whitelisted players to join. Open alpha will likely start sometime after 0.5 (50% complete) and at this time we will start to welcome some server hosts to join in the testing. During open alpha we are going to only allow server hosting via an application process with acceptance of specific terms. For GSP's that want to host during the alpha we will ask that customers ability to access server files is limited from making any modifications.

All of this is so that we can get proper feedback on our own work and fix any issues that are from the mod and hopefully make the game we all want to play. 

 

Looks like I hit the mark there then ^_^ This is exactly what I wanted to hear. Thanks for the response vbawol, I already had faith in what you where doing but now it is concrete. Thanks for clearing this up for us all!

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