I thought I couldn't be disappointed again by DayZ. I really didn't. I figured I was over it. I played the beta... it disappointed me. There's literally no difference between the last release and this one, where it really matters. It's still an alpha product. Not even close to ready to for beta. (And I'm a certified professional software quality assurance engineer, so don't give me that "you don't know about development" crap..) So to call this the beta is just insulting to those of us that have been patiently waiting. I realize that 5 years is a decent turnaround. I know that. That's the not the point. I'd wait another 5 years for a polished DayZ. But calling this the beta, the 1.0 release, is a signal. They're basically saying "the game is feature complete, it just needs fine tuning." Essentially: "This is almost as good as it's going to get."
The saddest part is, the ONE thing that this game really needs to get it off the ground, is the ONE thing that the game is about.... Zombies. You hardly ever see zombies. And when you do see Zombies they aren't a threat. They can barely hit you, and when they do they don't do any damage. And worse, you can barely hit them because of the weird animations and lag. The game is literally about a zombie apocalypse, and the zombies are utterly inconsequential to the game. They might as well not even be there.
Give me the game, as it is today... exactly as it is except change one thing: the zombies. Give us hordes of zombies. Make them manageable in small doses and absolutely deadly in large groups. Make their attack animations fluid, make them hit where they look like they should, and make it so that when the player hits or shoots them, it actually does what you expect it to do.
That's it. That's literally all the game needs. Everything else is icing on the cake, sure. But this one thing is the single most important thing to this game, and they've seemingly ignored it. The zombies are horrible in this zombie game.
