EARLY ACCESS - DayZ Critique - Part 10.1 (Patreon)

Whew, blimey. Finally done with the latest video. Sorry for the 6 week editing effort there. This one proved to be quite difficult - https://youtu.be/a8FiLrCdGnI 

So I've finished the first chunk of the 10th segment of the DayZ Critique. Truth be told it's more like part 10 of 12. With parts 10.2 and 10.3 being 11 and 12 if I were counting properly. I didn't expect my research to branch off into three distinctly different topics when I reached this bit. But I think it's important to cover each topic thoroughly to provide a proper analysis of this thing.

So this part is Part 10/12? And I hope you enjoy it. In which I have a look through the development history for the DayZ Standalone to try and provide some opinions through the lens of my own experience in software development.

Could I ask that everyone to keep the video to themselves as it's really not ready for public release yet. I'm hoping to put this live along with the whole series, as it doesn't really work in isolation. For the moment please consider this for-your-eyes-only as one of my backers. And thank you for being so.

I'm also very interested in your feedback insofar as what you think work as what you think doesn't. As it helps to refine my points and perhaps re-do any parts that may be muddled. The earlier videos for example had lots of parts that I went back and tweaked for not being concise enough. And there's certainly some older ones I want to entirely re-voice due to me being too monotone. But that's not such a big problem.

So with this video my objectives were as follows:

To provide an overview of what Agile/Scrum are in software development. Because it's important for an audience to understand what this development actually involved.

An analysis into how a very difficult to modify game engine resulted in a huge backlog of non-trivial bugs. The fixing of which resulted in a major man-hour drain on the project.

An analysis into how other non-engine related developers (art, map design, animations, etc) did not have as serious a set of challenges. Resulting in a flood of "nice to have", but ultimately irrelevant cosmetic additions (clothes, hats, etc).

Which then combined to make a narrative in which Bohemia are incompetent, which is far from the case.

And then an explanation of the corrective actions they're now taking in DayZ 0.63 and how they're actually in a better place than you might suspect.

Furthermore this then sets the groundwork for parts 10.2 and 10.3. The scripts for which have been mostly written already, in which I do the following:

10.2 - Talk about the persistent problem of over-scoping that permeates these dev blogs (i.e how they consistently drill-down to insane levels of complexity with a process that's all about 'bare-bones functionality first, polish later'.

10.3 - Talk about how the aforementioned Agile and Scrum might not have been the best choices for a game with mass-market appeal. And how the strengths of those beliefs/processes could not be utilized here. Along with a talk about the concept of the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) and whether I think they followed it.

For now though I hope you enjoy the video-essay. I shall get onto the next bullshittery as soon as possible. After a weekend to destress :)

Also if you're interested in seeing some of the older draft chapters, there's an older post with some of the touched-up episodes here. I'm afraid some of the oldest ones require some more rework first, my apologies.

A sincere thank you from me everyone. Thank you for being patient with me as I work on my little passion project.