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I had great experiences with DayZ when it was still an Arma mod. The standalone was very disappointing. On the other hand, the dev of the original mod was the lead on the standalone (for a while) so buying it made me feel like I was contributing more directly to him.

Part of the reason I liked the mod so much was because of how unpolished it felt, the ui sort of stapled on top of the Arma ui, everything a little janky and you're plunged into a hostile zombie world. Funny how something unpolished can feel more appropriate.

The UI in the mod was honestly working better and the mod had more features, better working zombies than the standalone game for a long time. The zombie mechanics was mostly a distraction and what the main draw was the long realistic weather and survival mechanics in a vast well simulated world, with realistic weapons / injury mechanics.

Buying early-access is quite different from kickstarter style financing.

I only buy early access if the product is already worth the money at the time I buy it. For example factorio was already a great game when I bought it, but only hit 1.0 several years later.

"avoid buying...at all cost" had me chuckle a bit ;)