Articles

When I’ve got a thing to say

DayZ Standalone: First Thoughts (Review)

Posted by mjoeshine on January 4, 2014
Posted in: Articles, Games. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

So, after dissing the DayZ standalone based solely on the reviews of others, I decided to take the plunge and try it out for myself.

My review is: this is a game worth keeping an eye on.

To be fair, the overall experience was a little glitchy, prone to control issues, and generally substandard when compared to the performance of major projects released by large, AAA studios.  On the other hand, most of this is easily excused by the huge “Early Access Alpha” warning labels plastered all over the materials for the game.

Quick exposition: as I mentioned in my post about the problem with “Early Access”, DayZ began as a mod based on the successful ARMA 2 game released in 2009.  A standalone version (not dependent on the ARMA franchise) was released as a pre-alpha (good god, they’re coming up with terms to forgive even earlier releases…) on December 16, 2013.

I loaded the game, and spent a few minutes playing with the video and rendering settings – i.e. lowering them all – to (hopefully) ensure as few problems as possible.  I’d like to see a few more settings available to players when determining the appearance of their “survivor” beyond gender and skin tone.  I feel like one of the major conversations in gaming right now is an attempt to get developers past thinking of characters in these precise categories.  Granted, if you’re close enough to another DayZ player to be able to see their facial features, they’re either a friend of yours, and so you don’t care, or else one of you is about to be killed by the other, so… ditto.

Joining a server (all servers use the same map of Chernarus – a fictional Soviet region based heavily on the geography and towns of the Czech Republic), the player spawns in with an inventory empty but for a flashlight (and the battery to power it), and wearing nothing but a t-shirt, some pants, and simple shoes.  You have no weapons, no food, no medical supplies, and the knowledge that (almost) every other ambulatory entity in the gameworld is going to try to kill you.  Have fun.

In my first hour or so of gameplay – all I could manage the first night – I got hit by two massive glitches that dramatically effected my ability to properly play the game.  The second issue didn’t kick in at first, so we’ll leave that for a moment.  The first problem actually worked to my advantage.  For some reason, new players were only spawning in to one of two initial locations.  While that could have been infuriating for an experienced player, it allowed me to become familiar with these areas at exactly the time when I needed something familiar to hang on to.

I learned which houses to enter in search of loot – that one has a can of soda, that one has a motorcycle helmet – and which ones to avoid.  I learned where there was a water pump, to satisfy my need to drink (Yes, I know… you’re thirsty.  Now shut up about it for five seconds, ok!?), and where I was likely to find a zombie looking for a victim.

The second major problem was less forgivable.  About an hour into playing the game, I started dying without knowing why – my character grunted in pain, and a pop-up message informed me that I was bleeding all over my clothes.  A short time later (despite running off and bandaging my wounds), I died.  Repeatedly.  It turned out, according to an internet search, and reading through the game’s forums, that a glitch was causing the game’s zombies to spawn invisible.  Wait, what?  Fantastic.  Invisible zombies.  Awesome.

Needless to say, that was the end of my attempt to play DayZ that night.

And yet, I’m optimistic.  I enjoyed myself well enough that DayZ will be one of the first two “Let’s Play” series I’ll attempt once my nascent YouTube channel becomes a reality.  (My hardware has been picked out, and once Amazon comes through with the delivery, we’re good to go – and yes, Kerbal Space Program is the other LP I plan to lovingly devote time to.)  The game is compelling.  The attempt to survive against not only a world-ending zombie plague, but also against the other human survivors, is a riveting experience.  Knowing that both you and another player are both heading towards a gutted house at the edge of a ruined street, zombies on your heels, and that the prize awaiting you is a single can of beans, and maybe a filthy shirt you can tear into improvised bandages… it makes the risk/reward questions gamers put to themselves take on new urgency.

The developers of the ARMA franchise built a wonderful platform.  The DayZ team has built a game that surpasses expectations, and looks to be one of the greats in this generation of hardware.

Assuming, of course, that I don’t keep getting killed by invisible zombies.

Minecraft, Molyneux, and DayZ: The Flaw in Early Access

Posted by mjoeshine on December 21, 2013
Posted in: Articles. Tagged: , . Leave a comment

Midway through 2009, Markus “Notch” Persson released the 1st official version of the insanely successful Minecraft for the PC as a “developmental alpha version.”  The game continued development, and using paying customers as both playtesters and proselytizers, Notch had changed the course of gaming forever – for good and for ill.  If that sounds like hyperbole, jump on Steam and do a quick search for “early access” to see how prevalent the model has become.  I just did a quick test, and found 291 results – even if that includes separate entries for games, developer notes, and the occasional soundtrack, that’s a huge selection of essentially unfinished products on sale to the public.

And not all alphas are created equal.

Notch came to Minecraft with a background in game development, but he didn’t bring a big-name studio along for the ride.  Rather, Mojang was created after Minecraft was already a thing, as if it needed to exist specifically to answer the question of, “what studio is making this crazy game I keep hearing about?”

Contrast that with Godus, a god-game currently in development by the king of god-games, Peter Molyneux.  Yes, Godus is officially being developed by the small studio 22cans.  But while Mojang was created by Persson to support the growth of Minecraft, 22cans was built on Molyneux’s name, and with Molyneux’s money.  With a number of huge hits under his belt, followed by more than one project that fell far short of expectations, it’s easy to see 22cans (and the Kickstarter campaign that helped fund Godus’ early development) as Molyneux striking out on his own to sidestep a normal development cycle that may not be as forgiving as he’d like it to be.

The reactions to the early versions of Minecraft and Godus are dramatically different.  Even when there was nothing more to Minecraft than a buggy sandbox, the reactions were not only overwhelmingly positive, but bordered on awe – this thing was amazing, but also clearly heralded something new.  Godus, since it’s alpha release in September of this year, has been crushed in the press, with generally neutral reviewers going after Molyneux like they had a grudge against him.  Even the most positive comments have an apologetic tone to them, like they don’t want to be caught saying nice things about the project.  Or about Molyneux.

So, what’s the deal?

Is it an expectation of what “early access” has come to mean?  Is it a personal beef with Molyneux?  Is it the Kickstarter thing?

I fell in love with Black and White only to be let down by B&W II.  I was brought back to the Molyneux camp with the Fable series, only to be thoroughly disillusioned by Fable 3 (if the whole point is to make me feel like all my choices have consequences, you’d better not let me see the rails you’ve shoved this plot onto.)

As for the Kickstarter angle, I’ve come to believe I’m in the minority, but I genuinely don’t care.  The prominence of a creator has little to no impact on the success of a Kickstarter campaign, and I do not accept the argument that big-names steal donations from independent creators.  Rather, I bet you’d have a much easier time finding a Kickstarter supporter who came to the site because he or she was a fan of Zach Braff, and while there plunked down a dollar on a small project that looked cool than you would finding a supporter who came to Kickstarter with a dollar in hand and was seduced by the allure of DoubleFine into supporting a project that probably could have found funding elsewhere, and had nothing left for the struggling artist.

I think the problem is us.

The gaming community is no different than any other chunk of nerd-culture: we love to know.  Seriously, we loooooove to know.  We crave it, we need it, we define our adoration by our level of access.  Oh, you just found out who’s playing that part in the upcoming movie adaptation?  How cute.

Believe me, I’m not defending this attitude, but I’m also not going to pretend it’s not true.

So fine, we want to see the progress of a game.  We want to be involved in the development of a project we admire.  But let’s be honest, that means we’re only as pissed at Molyneux as we are because we’re so excited to see what he has in store for us next.

And that’s unfair.  Profoundly so.

Because while Minecraft was released in an alpha form, we didn’t really know what to expect.  Godus, at least, tried to warn us.  Right there on the loading screen is a big 41%.

Image

Molyneux and 22cans aren’t claiming the game is done.  Rather, they’re telling us up front that it’s only 41% complete.

But the next question I’d ask is: which 41%?

Because while it’s great that Molyneux is trying to be up front with us, saying 41% doesn’t really tell us anything useful.  And that get’s into the growing problem I see: we don’t really know what to expect from a game anymore.

Back in the Arma II days of the DayZ mod, the gaming community put up with a lot.  The mod was buggy, it lacked the support players wanted, and was so demonstrably flawed that players were scared off playing it for fear of the terrible experience they foresaw (me included).  Then our dreams were answered: a standalone version was in development.  And lo and behold, (eventually) it arrived!  And it was terrible.  The most common attitude among the reviewers and players I found was: unplayable.  In fact, it was far worse than the incomplete mod had been.  But is that fair?

I’d say no.

Right there on the purchase screen for the new DayZ standalone is the following:

WARNING: THIS GAME IS EARLY ACCESS ALPHA. PLEASE DO NOT PURCHASE IT UNLESS YOU WANT TO ACTIVELY SUPPORT DEVELOPMENT OF THE GAME AND ARE PREPARED TO HANDLE WITH SERIOUS ISSUES AND POSSIBLE INTERRUPTIONS OF GAME FUNCTIONING.

That’s pretty clear to me.  In fact, I’d say that anyone who chooses to blast DayZ (at this point in it’s lifecycle) is doing so more for the sound of their own voice than in an attempt to be helpful.

Even so, I find a flaw in the warning provided.  It still doesn’t tell me what to expect.  What works?  What doesn’t?  How do I know what is a flaw to be ironed out versus a genuine problem with the game?  Is it any better than saying 41%?

I think there’s a solution: tell me what to expect.  If you want me to pay to playtest your game (and history shows you’ll have little trouble getting me to say yes), do me the favor of treating with me honorably.  Give me the lists: this works, that doesn’t.  The gaming industry has adopted a rating system far more detailed than that used by motion pictures.  Give me a development cycle rating.  Ditch terms like “alpha” and come up with a series of labels that actually help me understand what I’m getting in to.  If nothing else, your reviews will probably be much more favorable if I think you’re meeting your mark, and not basing my expectations on how well you craft visions of the game you hope it will someday be (cough, cough, Peter Molyneux, cough).

It’s a weird problem, and one crafted in a joint effort (developers and gamers), but I think it’s a problem with a pretty interesting solution.