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Please keep on topic otherwise it's entirely useless.

Could be: The game server losing connection to the database (or not being connected at all).A known issue with characters getting overwritten (fixed in the coming build).Aliens (or something else unknown to us now)

So don't? Take a break and/or buy other games. I've heard NEO Scavenger is awesome but not played it. I'd personally recommend Project Zomboid, and The Dead Linger. The new Walking Dead Episode came out for the Telltale games series on steam today, and while I haven't had the chance to play it I've watched some livestream and it is certainly as good as all previous. I've met some of the developers and they're wonderful people and very talented. We've already achieved the sales numbers we would need to keep the project viable in the longer term, so now we just keep doing the plan : new updated and content.

Game developers typically used to get their money from game publishers. In return for the development money, the developers got their costs paid, plus a little bit, and the publisher sold the game and kept the royalties. Generally, most studios would not see royalties. One of the positives of early access is that the studio gets the money directly. I like early access better than preorders because you actually get something for it. I actually think the price is about right, it's discouraging enough for those who would really not enjoy it right now, but low enough that people who are interested in the product don't feel it's too bad. It's also given us some wiggle room to hire more servers.

Roadway LOD issue fixed that caused floating loot for some buildings

Updated build number to 113772

So a bit of a progress report on the day that was. We finished yesterday hopeful but cautious, as the server FPS was just not where we needed it to be realistically. Today was a day of highs and lows. I'll try and explain the difficulty we experience right now in the optimization. The Challenge The system was never designed or conceived to run such a huge amount of dynamic entities, over 11000 currently (in addition to the 2 or 3 million static map objects). So each system we refactor, redevelop or fix we bump into the next bottleneck. I think perhaps it is not unlike fixing traffic congestion, you fix it in one area only to find you have moved it somewhere else. This is what we are doing, trying to adapt and redevelop a system designed to handle perhaps 100 dynamic objects in a local area to one that handles tens of thousands distributed over tens of kilometers. The Progress We achieved some real success. We broke some things in the process, but nothing unworkable. As an example, we were refactoring how the "bot client" (a system that acts as a handling pot for messages sent to connected computers) handles error calculation (figuring out the difference between current and past, to see if it needs to notify clients of updates). Previously it was not only checking everything, all the time, but the engine was also checking with the bot client to see if it had received its messages. This is redundant as they are part of the same application; messages will always be received by the bot client. However in optimizing this system (which involves the calculation of hundreds if not thousands of potentially different state management scenarios) we missed a few things, and this results in weird out of sync errors in inventory between the client and the server. Nothing that stopped many people playing, but an example of the pitfalls and challenges faced with optimizing. Zombie pathing, collision, and tracking is "on par" with the mod for now, and in order to achieve what we want we need to redo the internal engine targeting methods to be more in line with the scripted targeting methods per the mod. This will take some time, so it's been timeboxed to be completed after the release of the alpha. Our new programmer was straight into work, creating a sound system change that allows different footstep sounds to be played for different shoes worn. Awesome! Now if only we had the sounds to fill them in! Our big brother A3 has been loaning us people, including the A3 sound lead, to help set this function up. Some audio changes are already creeping in which is great to see and will be much appreciated for those joining into the alpha. The Result This puts us pretty much in the situation we need to be for server performance, assuming the remaining state calculation errors can be resolved quickly. Our new architecture can support much more, so the future will involve us tearing down the remaining bottlenecks but for now; they seem to offer a good enough structure to push forward on. This is good news. We'll be doing a full review of server performance tomorrow based on tonights metrics and make a decision regarding the server performance. The Status As I said yesterday, there is going to be quite a few bugs and problems - but our aim is to mainly turn off the unfinished features so that the bare-bones system largely just works. I think this gives people a good impression, rather than a bunch of unfinished stuff that simply doesn't work. The real challenge for us now is to figure out what must be fixed versus what can be left until after alpha and redone from scratch properly.

Yup

The current system is temporary, but the spirit of it is not. Servers currently automatically restart every 4 hours. Looking at the metrics, most people are not looking for loot. They are running into rooms and then out. We will be making balance adjustments in the next update, but the "proper" loot system won't appear until later on.

What we actually said there would be 3 firearms at the start of alpha. With regular content coming in daily/weekly patches.

Once we have security locked down more, and the process for hosting is streamlined - we'll be handling the torch onto the community in terms of hosting. We also need to cleanup bandwidth, performance, etc... so that it works better.

We will be supporting passworded servers, but only once we have finalized the way to make characters persistent to only that server. That means when you log in to that community, your character will only be inside that. We are looking at making it possible to restrict to that server, or a subnet of the existing hive that involves many passworded servers. Will take a little time, though.

I think this is a pretty fair assessment of the current situation, and well written. Good reading for anyone considering buying the game at this stage. Many important things to be worked on still.

Our main priority right now is server side performance, once we have that acceptable we will look at client side. Optimizing too early cause lead to big problems in development

When I start the game I get "input not supported"? Most likely relates to monitor maximum refreshrate. Visit http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?s=0b1b6ffa3e8ffb42d195690f8d40d939&p=16263222&postcount=2 for a description of the solution. You need to edit the DayZ.cfg in <user folder>\My Documents\DayZ\DayZ.cfg to be like this file.

Everything you wanted to know about DayZ's Early Access So we're finally here, and the Alpha is out on Steam Early Access, I'll try to cover off on some of the key stuff that will help you survive the process. The first most important thing: Do not buy the game yet! The release of our Alpha is about getting those who want to be involved from the ground up, up and into the process. What we do encourage you to do, is to read reviews, watch livestreams and lets play videos, and talk to your friends. The alpha is going out into large scale testing for the first time, this means many things (mostly bad) will happen such as nasty bugs, connection issues, lost loot, etc... Our aim right now is to present the bare-bone architecture and check that works, getting some feedback on the direction in the process. Why not do a free alpha? Not only does it make the project financially viable, but it means those participating in the alpha are those who have made a financial commitment. It also limits the numbers to those willing to part with their hard earned cash. How will it be developed and updated from here? We will be pushing builds to steam on a regular basis, be it monthly, weekly, or even daily as the need allows. Initially after release things will be quite chaotic, yet another reason to wait for a bit before purchasing to ensure the best experience. Updates will include not just bug fixes but also What is the pricing model? The game will get more expensive as it moves through its development, starting out fairly cheap and rising in price as its matures and more features get added. When you buy it once, you will have access to the whole DayZ Game. No decision or information exists about DLC or anything like that, but we can confirm that DayZ will not feature in-game purchases. How can I run my own server? We want to allow private hosting, which includes passworded servers, but we are finalizing changes to our database that will allow us to run a little data instance just for that server. This gives the best of both having a database and having a private community, without those private communities affecting the main database. Important bugs and issues Zombies * Zombies clipping through floors/walls * Zombies hitting through upper floors from the ground floor * Low zombie numbers * No zombie respawning Zombies are a work in progress they are a very active area of development, we consider the current implementation a base level to commence further testing. Their AI was completely redeveloped, which means we need to come up with new (more efficient) methods of their interaction with the world, such as collision, as the ArmA way is not designed for thousands of AI to operate at once on this scale. This will be one of our most active areas of development. Audio issues * Loud opening of cans of drink * Ambient animals making zombie noises Due to the many changes to architecture, we have not been focused on audio. While some changes have been made we just hired a dedicated audio designer who will be teamed up with an audio programmer to completely revamp the way sounds work. We feel sound is very important for DayZ so we are really committed to this. Map Issues * Fences and objects clipping through buildings * Loot sunk into the ground or floating Pleased bug these up in the feedback tracker with accurate map locations and images. This be difficult without a map but posting images around the forums or other communities might bring others who recognize the location. Loot Distribution * Loot not spawning in every building * Loot not well balanced Balancing the whole world is very difficult. We also plan to centralize distribution of key items so there will be a global economy. For now, you have the basics and while this is not ideal it is enough for testing. We look forward to our exciting features with this! Loot/Action Delays * Loot taking long to take * Splitting piles of loot not working properly * Item out of sync in inventory We heavily optimized the netcode but in some cases, we cut too deep. We will be isolating these as we go, but we already know this can occur (particularly obvious when first spawning in). Game Exploits * Combat logging protection not working Currently many of our features such as queued loading, combat logging timeout, etc... have been disabled as there is the possibility that they will cause additional strain on the central server. Once we know that we can handle the load we will begin implementing these. We do expect this will be a long process, and we'll be working with the community to identify effective ways to deal with this. In the meantime, it is going to be

This week has started off great I'll give some highlights: Realized that a whole bunch of people equate sounds with change so some poor person on the team is going to have to do some extra hours to put placeholder placeholders in. It's a pointless task but if it makes people actually check for different mechanics then fine. Going to put the extra zombie models back in, we just used one for testing because it was the only zombie we'd changed to the new engine simulation tag. Server FPS is stable at the levels we have been testing (40-50 FPS with ~10 to 20 players, 15000 loot items, 1000 zombies). We had a very nasty stability issue relating to massive changes in the way the engine handles it's array of objects. Dynamic objects (anything made after mission start) were all handled in two very large arrays. The only way of checking them was to iterate through them. Simply put, we made a smart way of the arrays with a "dirty" and "clean" array. This removed significant overhead (orders of magnitude) but because it was a radically different approach we had severe instability. Appears this has been done. Pistol is in and usable properly now, although it's just placeholder animation wise because it's borrowing from the rifle animations until subclassing is complete. Client FPS in cities may have a boost due to some changes in the way occlusion culling is used for dynamic objects. Not a focus for now but it was something found along the way. Lots of new content pouring in, such as meat of many different types in cooked, raw, rotten variants. Also lots of new fruit, new orienteering compass, a down jacket, the zombies are using gestures not animations now for attacks (can attack while moving). HTTPS implemented for game server <-> central server communication. Steam integration for the server browser such as friends in the server etc. A favorites tab. A friend on servers tab. Etc... So where are we? I need to go back and focus some on the player flow from menu to ingame as this needs cleaning up as it doesn't really support the release yet. Verifying the instability issues we had. "Dress Rehearsal" needs to occur, which is an all-signing, all dancing test of a server. Much more things as well but I'll try keep everyone posted when I can.

This should be moved to the public section, IMHO The people need to know

I suppose I should balance with, that after each build, things can get very messy including: * inventory not syncing * duplicated characters both running around according to characters controls * invisible bodies (just floating heads) * Many more! So sometimes its good sometimes its not :)

We knew we were getting close the instant those newly added to the testing group stopped saying "when's the next build coming?" and started saying "is the server going to stay up for a while longer?"

The development of the last few weeks really consists of: 1. "Yey! it's finished! I've merged the awesome thing that I was working on for months and will solve everything!" 2. "Why didn't that solve everything?" 3. Lots of scratching of heads, denial, etc... 4. "Conference room everyone, bring the whiteboards" 5. Investigation 6. "Aha!" moment 7. Checkin. Compile. Checkin. Recompile. Checkin. Recompile again 8. Repeat from 1.

Also, I found out today its not quite as simple as me pushing a button to go live (disappointingly and perhaps naively, I literally had an image of me pushing a button). But there are some parameters to be worked within.

Rather than say "it has a shot for a particular date" I hope people are really thinking "it has a shot for a decent state". Because that's what matters most, I think.

The list is not long, but sometimes the simplest sounding problems can present the hardest earned solutions Not for alpha, but it's something we want to do. We have to watch this kind of thing, because it all happens in a large world - the more things going on the more states that need to be tracked - which means more checking and less performance and especially more things to go wrong.

Important note: Unless otherwise stated FPS refers to server FPS. As most will know, we achieved quite a milestone with over 50 players on the server recently. While this is pretty normal for the mod, it's a big deal for the standalone as the architecture is entirely different and so much has been moved onto the server. So what does this mean? The Situation DayZ handles a minimum of 15000 dynamic objects. This is a huge amount of things to synchronize, in a MP environment. We implemented an entire rewrite of how objects are managed, linked with the "network bubble". Our chosen system was to implement an R-Tree approach and we have seen some success with this. Our aim was to reduce the massive FPS burden that all these dynamic objects bought, grinding the server to a halt. The main problem appeared to be scaling, in that the more players the worse it got. Some details about server FPS: Not strictly "frames per second" on a client more akin to "simulation cycles"Max is 50 FPSMax simulation of player is 25 times per secondMax simulation of zombie is 10 times per secondThat means below 10 FPS, zombie behavior could be noticeably affected. The Good news We are no longer player number bound. It appears the server loses about 3 FPS per 40 players. We have only tested to 52 players currently. At that time, it was our first efforts with this number and we immediately found some missed areas of optimization, so with our next mass test we expect better results. The more players we threw at the server, its FPS numbers didn't change. The Not-so-Good news I was initially quite surprised because we still had a very high starting frame usage. 15000 loot items were using 1 FPS, that's right - just 1! But for some reason, 1000 zombies (despite all but 10 being at rest) were using a whopping 35 FPS. It didn't make sense and we've been going through this, optimizing and looking for the reason. The Feedback from those involved Overall, despite the performance concerns, with the server running around 8-12 FPS when under its heaviest load, the server was "reasonably responsive". Some people experienced inventory actions being a little bit slow occasionally, but generally it seemed things went okay. Progress since the test Since the test, we isolated two major crashes (resulting in server soak with constant players with no stability issue, no increase in RAM, and no decrease in FPS). We also optimized some areas. We're also busy hiding some areas and functions that are incomplete, as they either break or cause problems that we don't have the time to resolve before the Alpha's release. Perhaps one of the most serious gameplay issues we have at the moment is a very long time the player spends unconscious. It causes a problem for testing, so it's something we will be fixing before the release of the alpha. Overall, the mood on development is quite upbeat. We're all pretty tired, as it has been very late and long working days. We had a new programmer and new designer start this week, and some assistance from the ArmA3 team to prepare the creation of our own audio team. We're looking forward to getting the Alpha out into Early-Access. 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. We need a little more out of the server in terms of framerate. Just a little bit more, to ensure the inventory stays reasonably responsive. The remaining time will be spent tidying up remaining issues to try and give a more solid experience when we kick into the early access. It really is an Alpha I really can't emphasize enough - this is going to be an early access project on steam. It's a true-blue 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. Buying early will be a recipe for disappointment, it's a chance for those who want to be part of that whole process. For them, the process is as much as part of the game as the whole experience. For many, this is the opposite of what they want. To enable a smooth launch, we really are targeting it at a core audience who want to get deeply involved in a very barebones experience that is a platform for future development.