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Heads up Survivors - The latest DayZ development information can be found over at devhub.dayz.com and on the official twitter twitter.com/dayzdevteam.

This Tumblr account is not actively maintained as a development information source.

Status Report - 08 Apr 15

Greetings Survivors,

As most of you may know, last week saw 0.55 pushed to stable branch. This build featured the initial implementation of several key systems to DayZ, and in turn their behavior is as expected very early prototype. As the Early Access of DayZ continues, more of the core systems that comprise it will be merged into the main stable branch. It goes without saying that iteration will both be required, and occur as these are merged in. For 0.55 lets take a look at what systems had their initial implementation, and how their behavior is as of this status report:

  • Central Economy: The Central Economy functions as the core control over item type quantity, location, and region spawns. Moving away from the original placeholder system, and implementing this is the first step towards agile, rapid balancing of item spawns within DayZ.
    The initial implementation only defines the location of firearm spawns and types, further iteration will begin to define items past firearms - and later region control across the map.
  • Infected & Animal A.I.: A well known fact for awhile now, the original prototype A.I. that was deployed with the DayZ Early Access was not robust enough to support the design of the title. A complete rewrite from scratch on how the title handled this was required. The most obvious change on stable branch is in the detection, and quantity of the infected. The new system, although clearly in need of iteration and expansion - supports proper stealth mechanics for both A.I., as well as more resource friendly sensors. 
    The design and programming teams will continue to iterate, and balance the infected across the coming months as well as address core functionality issues such as positioning during pathfinding, and proper audio alerts.
  • Per-Instance-Persistence: Part and parcel with the core design of DayZ is the global persistence of items (loot) in the game space. Be it long-life persistent objects such as those used in base building, or more short term such as items dropped on the ground and spawned by the central economy. 0.55 saw this roll out to Public Hive servers, with Private Shard support soon to follow. It is important to understand that this feature, just like all of the Early Access has no guarantee of bug-free behavior. Like anything within the development builds, bugs are both possible, and almost certainly will occur. Equally as important is that those who encounter issues file proper bug reports on the Feedback Tracker (feedback.dayzgame.com)
  • Diseases & Disease Transfer: Another very early implementation that made it to stable branch with 0.55 was the global spread of cholera across Chernarus. Paired with the transfer between players and objects, and thus player to player disease transfer. As iteration upon this system continues you will begin to see a more diverse catalogue of diseases and corresponding symptoms.

Moving past the 0.55 build new system implementations we hit a rather hot button topic as of late, and one I promised to speak on earlier this week.

Just how hard is DayZ supposed to be? What is the targeted experience here? How valuable should items, and thus what I carry be to me as a player?
I like to think we’re pretty up front about exactly what DayZ is and is supposed to be, and as we move closer to 1.0 more and more of this will begin to take shape. 
Once, when asked how valuable tools and resources should be to a player - on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is finding everything you need without issue, and 10 is elation over finding a can of beans (I’m paraphrasing here) Dean was quoted saying an emphatic “10”.

Some folks have expressed concern that the increasing difficulty in surviving and combating the environment would hurt player interaction. To which I say.. Sure, it will hurt player interaction if by player interaction you mean folks wandering up and down the coast, wearing pink dresses and chasing each other with fire extinguishers.
However I firmly believe it will -drive- and foster a different type of player interaction.



Interaction between players making their way across Chernarus, scavenging to survive. Players who enter a village and have to make a hard decision - do I use what little ammunition I have to kill and steal from the survivors already in this town? Do I instead avoid the risk of death from attacking another player, only to potentially risk death by starvation or infected as I make my way around the town? Is the cost of expending my resources in either choice too great?

Make no mistake, DayZ is and always has been intended to be an unforgiving, brutal fight for survival in a harsh post apocalyptic landscape. Obviously we still have a long ways to go to get to that point, but as we move forward more and more systems will be introduced that support that experience. Balancing and adjustment will have to occur, as the intended experience is not to ensure starvation on the coast, but instead foster the ability to spawn, gather the basic supplies required to move inland, and thus begin the real DayZ experience - your story, your struggle for survival.



And the beauty of it all? If this is not the experience you’re exactly looking to have with DayZ - then another core pillar of DayZ’s design will bring you exactly what you seek. Our full support for modding via the Steam Workshop.

It is going to be an exciting year survivors, and I look forward to experiencing it with all of you.

- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer
 

Status Report - 17 Mar 15

Greetings Survivors!

Work is chugging along on 0.55 update for stable branch, and the department leads have been sharing information and images over on the Dev Hub. If you haven’t had a look - head over and you’ll see some awesome work in progress stuff - like the SVD Sniper Rifle, V3S Animations, and new zombie models.



Peter, our Lead Designer will be discussing below in more detail zombies and diseases. This week I’d like to talk about a few in progress updates that I’m looking forward to.

First off, we have the mentioned full randomization of weapon spawn configurations. This ranges from attachment configuration, quantity, type, and condition. When functional, each weapon you find should be as unique as possible per that item type. Be it the chance to spawn with a magazine, potential attachment, overall weapon condition, and so on. This expands upon the uniqueness of each persons kit in-game, and ensures that very few two firearms are exactly the same. Who knows, you might get lucky and find that M1911 Engraved you always wanted, -with- a clip!


 

Moving on to more advanced weapon customization, we’ve done a good deal of discussion on allowing more specific customization per weapon. Adding in rail systems, shoe horn mount scopes, barrel swaps, and so on. Controlling when and where this is done is critical to the flow of gameplay across the map. Creating hot spots, and high traffic areas for players looking to gear up, and create their favorite weapon. At this point, we’re looking at adding in advanced crafting tables into this existing (soon to be enter-able) maintenance structure scattered throughout Chernarus. 
 

Heading into April, we’ll be discussing the tasks and accomplishments of Q1 2015, what the road ahead looks like and the status of long term engine tasks. From the new renderer, to the new player controller, server side performance, and so much more. Keep an eye on the Dev Hub, and the official DayZ forums for the latest news and information on DayZ Early Access.

- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer


“It is clear that former, by purpose simplified infected AI wasn’t a hit by any means and it was frustrating to play and look at. When I was talking about the new infected in the Status Report two weeks ago I had a feeling that it would stir things up a bit. A few days after that I made short video with a horde running after a player and recently we released experimental update with the first implementation of infected AI. There were so many positive reactions on the direction that the new infected are heading, that the entire team was pleased. However there were also some which were calling for changing the DayZ lore and turning the infected into slowly moving beings.  


I appreciate different opinions but I can’t see any reason why we should make infected as stationary as possible, it will just simplify the game too much in such case. It is important to understand that the infected in DayZ are not the undead, and to be honest I don’t want to see DayZ to become a frenzied ‘run and grab all you can’ simulator. I would like to remind you that DayZ isn’t supposed to be easy and straightforward, it’s meant to be hard and unforgiving.  While they are pretty fast right now it is just the perception in comparison with current character movement speed, which is planned to be lowered in general as it was increased intentionally when we had decided to do a complete overhaul on how the engine handles vehicles, and thus they would be absent for some time. As well I’m looking forward to the implementation of a proper stamina system for characters which alone will cut off the constant sprinting across the map and thorough the structures which is just ridiculous. With the agile infected that are able to catch up with you while you are escaping the scene you will think twice about your approach and also the load you are carry as it especially determines how far you will be able to sprint to loose them. To balance things out, the infected have their own stamina and are slowing down during the chase and with the combination of the possibility that they can stumble upon it gives you a some chance to flee if you run into such situations. The infected AI will be continuously worked on, in terms of expanding it further and also balancing it close to the perfection. 


I would like to mention that we are bringing to life the long awaited disease system which in fact was hibernating under the hood for some time, but was never finished due the other needs. Diseases are described by their virulence parameters like transferability, invasivity and toxicity and to determine the potential influence on character, which can vary from carrier to heavy impact, they are compared against his or her current state counting in the levels of health, blood, diet and exposure. Diseases can be transferred in both directions, which means it’s not wise to eat from the same meal after your companion, if you suspect that he may be ill. Physical and chemical resistance parameters of disease determines how it can be treated or their effects eased by medicinal drugs and after the disease passed you are resistant to catch it again for some time. System also have the possibility to be expanded with the use of gloves, niosh masks or other wearables which can obstruct transferring of the diseases by specific actions, like crafting. 


Stay healthy… see you in Chernarus folks!”

- Peter / Lead Designer

 

Standup Notes for the week of 17 Mar 15

(Note: Standup notes are not a change log - they are a quick high level look at tasks the teams worked on throughout this week)

Animation:

  • Support for new player character system
  • Hand poses 
  • Zombie animation bugfixing
  • SVD Reloading Animations
  • V3S Animations

Design:

  • Central Economy
  • Barrel Crafting
  • Infected
  • Diseases
  • Triggers
  • Plant Pests
  • Fireplaces
  • Cooking
  • Vehicle Transmission

Programming:

  • Inventory refactorization
  • Dynamic Events
  • Vehicle Transmission bugfixing
  • Infected/Animal AI
  • New Player Character controller
  • Crash to Desktop Bugfixing
  • Network and Memory Optimizations

 

Status Report - 10 Mar 15

Greetings Survivors,

As the 0.54 hotfix hit stable branch last Wednesday, work has continued on toward 0.55 and beyond. Over the last week with myself at GDC and PAX East, our Lead Designer - Peter Nespesny has shared some of the prototype functionality currently being worked on.

From ongoing work with the infected A.I., to the many crafting options for your survivor base with the multipurpose barrel - the design team has had their plate filled with some pretty interesting stuff over the last week.

Peter spoke briefly on the development board, and the official forums about the intended use of the multipurpose barrel. 



Beyond what Peter spoke of, the potential usage for a multipurpose barrel for player bases is extensive. Ranging from lightly effective cover from incoming fire - to the storing of fluids such as fuel, and my personal favorite - catching rain to increase your water stores - I think when paired with functional persistence and global cleanup, the multipurpose barrel will be a must have for any decent sized player encampment.

Even more exciting, pairing with work from the gameplay programming teams - the design team has been able to get their hands on the early implementation of the new infected A.I. - Peter showcased on the forums a brief video of basic grouping and horde mentality responding to a players gunshot. 



Again - this is very early implementation, however as work progresses into the next week the design team are working on sneaking and stealthy tactics when dealing with this new A.I. system. Moving into the next experimental branch window, we’ll be looking at pushing the early implementation work out to this branch and testing with varied numbers across all servers. 

- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer

 

Status Report - 24 Feb 15

Greetings Survivors,

As we move towards the 0.54 stable branch update, I’d like to cover a few points that you all should know. As with all updates during Early Access, this is a development build and thus has its own issues, bugs, and so on. If you encounter any of this, please open a ticket over at feedback.dayzgame.com.

More specifically, for those who may be experiencing issues seeing servers in the server browser – please make your way over to this thread on the Official DayZ forums for instructions from Community Manager SMoss, and BattlEye developer Bastian.

Part of the 0.54 is the tech required to support the redesign of our user interface. This is just the initial work required to support said changes, not the changes itself. Thus everything will –look- different, but not necessarily how we intend it to look by the time we hit 1.0. The user interface is just one part of the evolving technology coming in from the engine and gameplay programming teams, and will be iterated throughout Early Access.



As well, with 0.54 comes the initial implementation of the new animal A.I., this system is still early on so odd behaviour will be encountered. However even with the system in this early state, this is a strong step in the direction of a more robust, lifelike animal behaviour system. I for one look forward to the hermit-hunter lifestyle the next time I log in on my public hive character.

In addition to a large amount of new content to explore, new enterable structures, villages, redesigned areas and more – 0.54 features continued security enhancements, bug fixes and more.

Over the coming weeks SMoss will also be rolling out some new features over on the community side of DayZ.com, including a weekly Community Focus that showcases user created content, streams, art, and so much more. Head over to the Community hub at DayZ.com and take a look.

As always, developers are on hand to take your suggestions and feedback on the Official DayZ forums at forums.dayzgame.com.

Brian Hicks / Lead Producer

As we are getting closer to the release of the next stable branch update of DayZ with version number 0.54, we are focusing more on tidying up and fixing the most annoying bugs and issues instead of working on new features or expanding existing ones. For example we identified and fixed a long timer related to synchronizing the temperature of objects, which was consuming relatively large chunk of communication between server and client. Fortunately it didn’t happened often or in large scale but it’s really great to have it fixed now with upcoming refactored fireplace which will become more usable with more items thus used by survivors. There was also few issues which was fixed related to the independent liquid types we introduced in last version, one worthy to mention is the issue which completely breaks character stomach, energy and water statuses.  
 
I already mentioned the fireplace which is undergoing a refactoring for some time now and it’s getting seamlessly to the fixing and polishing stage. Now when there is the solid foundation of the system the next step is the cooking process in general. With plenty of the different food available in the game and three distinctive food processing types, to name them - boiling, baking and drying, things can get out of control really quickly. Well at least especially when we want to stretch the possibilities and interactions to the maximum and want to visualize the outcome of the process. What will happen when food is already baked and you start to boiling it? Do you need to pre-process the food before drying? What about moldy food? And plenty of other questions related to that topic which needs to be answered beforehand. After the intended cooking mechanics are in place and the central economy is working as it should, we can finally say good bye to the generous amount of spawned non-perishable food. 
 
Most of you are probably waiting for the enrichment of the vehicles controls - manual transmission. We had some quality time already while trying it on our internal build, but it needs a little bit more time to be tweaked into the state which is safe for public release. Good thing is that with its implementation some of the issues with vehicles behavior were properly addressed so little bit of waiting doesn’t hurt. As far as vehicles parts goes I owe you at least quick update, their functionality is dependent mostly on the new inventory system that is currently being implemented and of course on the support from the extended vehicle simulation itself. 
 
Last but not least we are making steady progress on the new AI for infected which is getting along nicely and I hope you will be able to experience it and its benefits soon on experimental versions before it hits the stable release later on, however animal AI will be released beforehand.
 
Start preparing your nerves for some intense encounters… see you in Chernarus folks! ”

Peter / Lead Designer

 

Standup Notes for the week of 24 Jan 15

(Note: Standup notes are not a change log - they are a quick high level look at tasks the teams worked on throughout this week)

Animation:

  • Trumpet reloading animation
  • Winchester reloading
  • Zombie attack animations
  • V3S Animations
  • MoCap Session

Design:

  • Manual transmission
  • Firearms Damage
  • V3S Cargo
  • Gas cooker refactoring
  • Fireplace Polishing
  • Diseases transfer
  • New script language
  • Central economy
  • Bugfixing

Programming:

  • Inventory refactorization
  • Loot distribution per buildings
  • Zombie/Animal AI
  • Character controller (animations & physics)
  • Vehicles - Manual transmission and bugfixing
  • Flaregun Improvements
  • Security Bugfixes

Status Report - 17 Feb 15

Greetings Survivors,

As some of you may be aware, we’ve been experimenting a bit with the format and release day of the Status Reports coming into 2015. With upcoming changes to DayZ.com as a centralized point of information on the development of DayZ, the Status Reports will be released on Tuesdays from now on. Additionally, we’ll be making an effort to make the Status Reports more visual, for those who do not have the time to read what is new in the world of DayZ development.

Moving onto said development, you’ll soon be seeing the spawning of a different variation on the V3S. This variant will allow for the transportation of larger groups of players. The spawn rate across the world will remain at fifteen vehicles for the time. Initially you will not be able to access the inventory of the vehicle, this will be supported shortly on stable branch. As well, finalized animations, and firing from passenger positions will be supported in later builds on stable branch. The initial intent of spawning vehicles supporting large groups of players is to gauge both the performance, and functionality of large player groups moving together at high speed across Chernarus. Any issues discovered should be reported to feedback.dayzgame.com whenever possible.

In addition, Chernarus should soon also begin to see the roll out of the new animal A.I. system that briefly made an appearance in 0.53 experimental branch. Animal behaviors should be significantly more complex, and add a great deal to the immersion and feel of hunting for your next meal, or resource. Initially this will roll out with the deer, and then progressively expand to support the full list of animals residing in the world of DayZ.

Lastly for me, we’ve been discussing the subject of blood regeneration, transfusion, and all the mechanics surrounding them for awhile. With blood regeneration at the rate it currently is, and the reduced amount of blood gained per blood bag, not many folks use or interact with these mechanics in the current stable build. Given that now is the time to experiment, and alter these mechanics to gauge viability through use on our steam branches we’ll be reducing the blood regeneration rate, and increasing the amount of blood gained through proper blood transfusions.
Personally I cannot wait to see how the survivors of Chernarus adapt to this change.

Mr. Black0ut picked up his Hardcore DayZ Series again, you should all take a look.
Brian Hicks / Lead Producer

 

Mirek / Lead Gameplay Programmer

“I’d like to mention a few brief words about the new character/player controller. The physics part of this controller will be implemented using Bullet physics, so there will be a visible improvement in interactions between static and dynamic objects.
e.g. there shouldn’t any camera clipping issues, it will improve melee combat, movement on stairs, and it will be possible to get over dropped items and dead bodies. It will have also positive impact on performance.
The animation side of this will be using Enfusion’s new animation system and will allow us to have more animation layers on character, so it will be possible to play more animations at once. With this, we can achieve moving during shooting from the bow or adding injured animations.
The character/player controller will be used for players and for AI units. We would like to introduce the physical part on character controller in 0.55 experimental. As for the animation part (which is already used for animals), there is a lot of work with exporting data to the new system and with complete rewriting of current system, but its in progress now and we hope, that we will introduce it in 0.56 (0.57 more likely) experimental build..”

Peter / Lead Designer

“While the new vital parts of the Enfusion engine and the game itself like the renderer, particle effects, UI, animation system, inventory, AI, controls/interactions, vehicles, scripting language, central economy and others are being still worked on by dedicated programmers - we are getting closer to the point where we cannot push the game further in the direction in which we want to with the existing legacy systems. That means as the new technology is merged into the main branch, better, advanced mechanics and enriched gameplay begin to be possible. We still need to wait to start using these systems, which will allow us to do more without hassle.
 
However we can still push the current systems to their limits as we’ve prepared some prototypes of long planned features. I can mention at least some of them. Placing of objects which allows you to precisely visualize where the given object will be placed within the environment and if it’s possible to place it there. This feature will be a great addition for base building in general, fireplaces, traps and similar objects and in the future we will maybe add this feature for placing every item as we understand it can enhance role playing and user generated content. Next we have a prototype ready for continuously usage of items which will be used in new controls/interactions, this means that you are continuously using item in hand by holding mouse button, when you release it use action is stopped. With the new animation system added to the mix it means that also eating and drinking during movement will be possible. The last prototype I would like to mention is the one which was done for the advanced crafting. It’s flexible enough to be used as a field crafting and also table crafting. The point is that you need to put all your items from which you want to craft something new in front of you then equip right tool in your hand and directly interact with the item pool to produce the desired new crafted item. This solution is giving us few important possibilities like adding meaning to the plethora of tools we already have in game, crafting complex items without need of intermediate products which are most of the time useless. As well, turn some of the stationary tables with machinery in houses and industry structures to crafting tables where you will be able to produce crafted rails for scopes, modify weapons and do other advanced processes.
 
Apart from that we started configuring the V3S with a cargo bed as we know you need to carry more passengers around Chernarus. Don’t expect entering/exiting the cargo bed animations nor shooting from it yet. But if everything goes fine we will introduce a different vehicle feature for you to play with - the manual transmission, so you will be able to test your driving skills. Manual transmission is done in style of sequential changing of gears, this means that you can go from lets say 1st gear to 3rd gear only directly through the 2nd gear, there is no way to skip the 2nd gear altogether.
We added the proper weight value to all items. Total weight that character is carrying around will be used later to modify his stamina value. We are getting prepared for use of the new central economy system which will be hopefully be plugged in at least partially. Now every item and structure have tags assigned to them, this categorization combined with minimum and maximum amount of items spawned in the server we finally can start to balance loot amount and its distribution over the map. Later area based distribution will be added to currently tested type distribution which means the same house can spawn different items depending on its location in the world.
 
Crafting and usage of the fireplace is being polished to be more user friendly and straightforward. We decided to ditch the fireplace kit for now, improve the current functionality of it and add some new functionality too. Gas cooker is receiving some attention as well and cooking functionality of this too will be merged. Piece of lard and pile of bones are new items which are expanding resource gathering. As you can guess piece of lard can be used for cooking while pile of bones have wide range of use, we will start with arrows with bone tips. Modular plate carrier vest with attachable pouches and pistol holster is ready to go, same apply to FN Trombone which was waiting for proper reloading animations. Now we are configuring and preparing disposable suppressor crafted from PET bottle and we are looking at possibilities to damage firearms with bullets in bad condition.
 
I’m looking forward to brighter future… see you in Chernarus folks!”

Standup Notes for the week of 17 Feb 15
(Note: Standup notes are not a change log - they are a quick high level look at tasks the teams worked on throughout this week)

Animation:
• Trumpet reloading animation
• Salute + Sitting Gestures
• Zombie attack animations
• Analysis of transition to new system for players / A.I.
• MoCap Session

Design:
• Manual transmission
• Advanced crafting
• Fireplace polishing
• Gas cooker refactoring
• Controls and interactions
• Diseases transfer
• New script language
• Central economy
• Configs and scripts for new items

Programming:
• Inventory refactorization
• Loot distribution per buildings
• Zombie/Animal AI
• Character controller (animations & physics)
• Vehicles - Manual transmission and bugfixing
• Crash fixes
• Security Bugfixes

Greetings Survivors!

As most of you may know by now, 0.53 released to stable branch with build 126384. After daily iterative updates to experimental branch we were able to resolve the branch update preventing bugs, we moved forward with work on the next stable branch update 0.54.

0.53 has some outstanding new content, but for me personally the focus of this months stable update was taking a more aggressive stance on exploiting, and cheating within the development period of DayZ. As I’ve mentioned before, security in competitive multiplayer gaming is an ongoing battle for the industry. Add into this the fact that DayZ is still early in its development, with extensive changes to the engine ongoing, as well as existing vulnerabilities in legacy portions of the technology, and we have an uphill battle to deal with. The positive side of this coin however is very clear. Being vigilant in monitoring, investigating, and preventing exploits and vulnerabilities during DayZ’s development period will make for a stronger game at release.
As our work with BattlEye on 0.53 continues to evolve, there are several fronts we can utilize to increase our awareness and speed at which we can identify and address vulnerabilities with each stable branch update.

  • If you discover any exploit or bug you believe to be unknown - file a bug on the DayZ feedback tracker. feedback.dayzgame.com
    • Follow up to this with an email to security@dayz.com and include the link to your tracker issue in the body of your email.
  • Previously mentioned, integrating our work with BattlEye on a closer level with the Valve Anti-Cheat system and team
  • Providing an in-game option for players to report suspected cheaters
  • Expanding upon the existing internal security team as we grow closer to 1.0

Enough about cheating though, lets talk about a few key points that everyone wants to know about as 2015 kicks off.

Infected/Animal AI: Like many systems that involve large changes to the engine, the development of this system occurs in its own branch, outside the main trunk of DayZ development. This is not just because of limited functionality, development of core systems like this can frequently cause stability issues in the base game as they are worked on. Once their functionality is present at a base level, they are merged into the main game and pushed to stable branch in that months stable update. For those that were able to get a glimpse of this system early on in 0.53 experimental, you saw some outstanding changes to the way the A.I. for animals functioned. Beyond the animal side of the A.I. changes, infected A.I. redesign is aimed at introducing proper stealth gameplay and evasion in order to survive against the infected, and especially within urban environments. 

Renderer: As with the A.I. redesign, work on this is done outside the main trunk of DayZ development. A large part of the core engine teams’ work, detaching the renderer from the engine side simulation is and has been a massive task that takes a significant amount of man hours. As we begin to see the fruits of the work done on this portion of the tech merged over into the stable branch of DayZ in the coming months, this will allow the engine team to start work on bringing newer Direct X support into DayZ. 

Audio: Some of the most irritating and pesky issues affecting gameplay within development builds can be traced to the audio side of our base engine. Redesigning the existing technology into a more robust solution is a must. Work on this, much like the above systems is ongoing, and when ready for the merge into stable branch will allow the team to begin addressing and resolving issues such as global sounds, and the proper messaging of all interaction and engine based sound sources.

Beyond the above mentioned core technology changes, the coming months will have us begin to see changes that update or expand upon existing systems such as animation, loot spawning, persistence, and so much more.



In addition to these, once vehicle inventory support makes its way to stable branch we will begin to be able to see multiple configurations of the V3S, and their potential cargo spawning across Chernarus. Pair these changes with the ever changing face of Chernarus and the experience that is DayZ, and I see 2015 being an exciting year that I cannot wait to share with you all.



See you all in Chernarus, and be careful when visiting the prison. 
Brian Hicks / Lead Producer
 

Status Report - Week of 19 Jan 15

image


Its been a busy week over here in the DayZ development offices. With work pushing forward on 0.53 the team is focused on the last few remaining major issues before the push. As we go into test/fix/regression with 0.53, there are several things every Early Access user should be aware of:

  • We will be analyzing builds daily for a 0.53 stable branch candidate
    • Once we have a build, Stable branch servers will be brought offline for the update
  • The 0.53 update will include a public hive reset.
    • This will not affect private shards

The 0.53 update has a good amount of security fixes, as well as content additions, support for adminlogs, and should roll out with the new BattlEye protection. Over the next few days you will see us roll out incremental updates to experimental branch as we iterate towards a good 0.53 candidate.
For those who operate servers, remember - adminlogs will be accessible on both public, and private shard servers and contain the following info:

  • Connections/Disconnections (With in-game name and Steam 64 ID)
  • Player X (w/Steam 64 ID) killed Player Y (w/Steam 64 ID)
  • Player X (w/Steam 64 ID) damaged Player Y (w/Steam 64 ID)
  • Direct Chat (Text)

In addition to the changes and updates above - 0.53 will include, but is not limited to:

  • Upgrading of fireplaces all the way to the furnace
  • Proper consumption of fuel for fireplaces
  • Crafted leather clothing
  • Anti-duplication fixes
  • Anti-cheating fixes
  • A new island featuring the new prison complex
  • Changes to Skalisty Island
  • Vehicle Persistence
  • And so much more

PAX South was at the end of the week, and DayZ had a strong presence at the show. Integrating with prolific DayZ Storytellers from both Youtube and Twitch, we partnered with Astro Gaming for developer/content creator meet and greets, as well as with Twitch to discuss 0.53, Security and Anti Cheat measures, Steam Workshop, and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVt387lsTHo

As DayZ hits 3,000,000 units sold we look forward to all the possibility that 2015 holds for DayZ. With the project slowly able to reap the rewards of hard work put in by the engine and gameplay programmers over the months prior. I for one cannot wait to begin to roll these changes out to stable branch.

Again, keep an eye on Experimental Branch daily as we iterate towards the 0.53 release. As always I encourage you to head over to the Developer Discussion subforums at the official DayZ forums. Department Leads are always available there to discuss the ongoing development of DayZ with you.

I’m convinced the PAX Pox caused the Chernarusian Outbreak.
Brian Hicks / Lead Producer


Peter / Lead Game Designer

“You folks are amazing, DayZ would mean nothing without you - the diverse group of all types of different players who create such amazing stories that bring almost infinite unique experiences which could never be written in a traditional narrative form. DayZ just hit 3,000,000 sales and your continued interest in being involved in the development process of this game is clear signal and thus commitment for us to bring you the best possible platform to lay down your stories - and this is what we are doing on the daily basis with love and passion.

As we are developing an online multiplayer game it of course means there is and will be a influx of some new content in major updates. We are also working hard on fleshing out new and expanding current features which enriches how the game is played, defining possible interactions and overall experience - and I must say this is my most favorite part.

I would like to mention some new items which are ready and will be introduced in one of the upcoming updates. Melee weapons batch consist from mix of different items like bayonet for AK, broom, mace, paddle, hay hook, steak knife, lead pipe and hatchet. We didn’t omit firearms too and you can await FN Trombone which can be disassembled into the parts to save your inventory space which makes it a perfect firearm for those who wants to carry second rifle directly in theirs inventory and then there is a flare gun which was waiting for some time to be configured as we didn’t have possibility to attach the new light source to the projectiles till now which means that now you are free to lighten up surrounding environment or use it as a signal for others.

We also prepared prototype for the bear trap which is in fact far from desired implementation as there is currently not proper trigger available for us to use it with it and as zombie/animal AI is still in development only players will be caught by it for now - but hey you can hunt animals even without bear trap which can be skinned to get pelts already and now we added process to produce pieces of tanned leather (although a bit simplified for now as a placeholder). You probably can guess that tanned leather have some usability which is the sewing the set of leather clothes included shoes, pants, jacket, vest, hat and bag. In the future preparing the tanned leather and dying leather clothes will be connected to barrels which are currently being prepared by art team. As counterbalance to the recent addition of crafted clothes we have added also brand new quilted jacked and in the future is very possible that down jacket will be pulled down from loot tables as it have plenty of clipping issues due to its mass and will be replaced with quilted jacket. To please those of you who fell in love with cultivating plants we added new plant which yields one of your most loved vegetable - zucchini.

We are also busy with adding new spawn points to the mighty prison castle which was recently finished and sure it will become new attraction for survivors in no time. Also I would like to remind you about withdrawal of our very special Xmas tree and presents which were here just for holidays. But don’t worry you will be able to find that cute teddy bear elsewhere.

We have finished first phase of cooking refactoring in general and things related to it like fireplaces and crafting recipes. The foundation is here now and it will be expanded and polished to desired result in short period of time. You are now able to make also upgraded fireplaces with stones, use tripod to hold pot or turn your fireplace to a stove which let you to cook your food without excess amount of light and smoke produced by normal fireplace. You will be able to put every item directly into fireplace or pot to heat it up so it may be used as an alternative to the heat packs. Eventually you can ruin items if they will be in the fire for some time which can be different for all items. Imagine throwing in some bullets or spray can when you noticed some unwanted visitors that are coming in direction to your fireplace to distract them or endanger them while they are searching thru your camp for possible loot.

Movement restriction of characters by restraining them was expanded to other generic items apart from handcuffs like wire, rope, duct tape and guts. Duration of struggling to break free differ from item to item and they have equivalent to handcuffs keys also like knives or pliers. Last but not least we implemented liquids which are independent now and are not based on specific container types which means you can pour gasoline into the PET bottle or store some fresh and clean water in the jerry can. This feature also brings such actions as emptying canisters for the purpose of filling it with different liquid as we didn’t went down the road of mixing different liquids which can easily turn to the overkill. I’m sure independent liquids which are not tied to specific container will bring unexpected and interesting situations.

Well I almost forgot to mention new group identification which is naturally optional and can be used to form clans, teams or just to stand out from the masses - armbands. They are created thru crafting and comes in few different easily recognizable colors and they are fully visible directly on arm. I’m glad we are pushing customization of characters further down the road and I can assure you that we are not stopping here.

Thank you for your marvellous support so far… see you in Chernarus folks!”

Standup Notes for the week of 19 Jan 15
(Note: Standup notes are not a change log - they are a quick high level look at tasks the teams worked on throughout this week)
 

Design:
• Manual Transmission
• Advanced crafting
• Cooking
• Controls and interactions
• Diseases
• Armbands
• Liquids independent of specific container types
• Traps
• New scripting language
• Barrels
• Bugfixing
 

Programming:
• Support for armbands
• Inventory refactorization
• Security vulnerability hotfixes
• Vehicle persistency
• Per building loot distribution w/ centralized economy
• New Infected/Animal AI
• New player controller prototype
• Support for manual vehicle transmission
• Crash fixes
• New vehicle features
• Research on flexible item type inventory support