In the official DayZ forum, project leader Dean Hall commented on the latest development status of the standalone alpha. He warns about having too high expectations on the game since its current version is just for hardcore fans who actually want to be a part of the development process.
Dean Hall also states that the game is going to be a disappointment for most of the players, as it is in fact just an alpha.
"Massive areas of the engine were entirely reworked, involving a large team of people over the last 12 months. Much of what these achievements will enable won't be seen for many months - so I really plead for anyone who is on the fence to take a skeptical approach - watch streams, read reviews, watch some let's play and form your opinion. You could always come back to the game in three, six months time and buy it then."
However, the project was also able to achieve some successes. For the first time, 50 players were active on one server at the same time, whilst they also managed to fix two major bugs which caused the game to crash. Furthermore, unfinished features have been temporarily deactivated. The DayZ alpha will be available as an Early-Access game on Steam. Hall emphasises:
"I think that while some might be disappointed that this is not some feature-packed, graphically focused, masterpiece - we've been focused on addressing the major architectural issues and it's represented a*massive body of work over the last 12 months."
To provide a solid game experience for players, the remaining time will be used to work on the server performance and other problems that haven't been fixed yet. A date wasn't mentioned, players should expect three up to six months.
Source: dayzgame.com