Editing Chernarus+

[Editing Chernarus+]

Might it be better to wait for the final version of Chernarus++ to roll out? I'm pretty sure the devs are still making changes, and it would suck to have to update your map every time they update theirs.

[how to reload guns correctly?]

Put the ammunition on your hotbar. Pressing the corresponding number will reload that ammunition. I've not played in a little while, but I know that's how it works with weapons that need a magazine. I assume that a Mosin would work in the same way, though maybe you have to hold the number key down.

[Weird shxt you've encountered whilst playing.]

Was pottering about, forget where exactly, and I spot a town so I decide to check it out with my binoculars. Before long, I spot a dead player next to a police station, so I wait around to see if anybody comes to loot it. Nobody turns up, so I run to the town to loot the body. He was pretty geared, nice vest, MP5, things like that, but there wasn't really any clue as to how he might have died. I bury the body, and with my new-found loot I decide to check out the town. After a little while, I entered a building and found a very familiar body lying on the ground. It was lying in the exact same pose and was wearing the exact same gear, but I couldn't interact with it and it was very low-poly - like it was straight from an early PS2 game or something. 

I couldn't interact with it because it was technically buried, and I think it was low-poly because it was still somehow anchored to the original position where I'd buried it, so the game assumed I was further away from it than I actually was, but I cannot imagine why it was in that building. It's not an issue I've seen before or since, and I've never heard anyone else report it.

[Chernaus Facelift (Chernarus 2020)]

On 10/07/2018 at 6:20 AM, LuxCapere said:

One thing I would love to see some day, either done by the devs or modders, is a complete "fast-forwarding" and setting transplant, of Dayz, from the Cold War era to more modern times.

DayZ is set in like 2015 or something. Everything looks old because Chernarus is a post-Soviet backwater.

Different maps would be nice, though. Namalsk is similar to Chernarus in that it's also got that post-Soviet vibe going, but it'd be interesting if they'd add a new map with a completely different setting like some rural region in the US or western Europe or something - or even further east towards China.

[.63 Combat System]

I think it needs a lot of work, sure, but I think it's an improvement. Most of the issues you've linked to are blatantly bugs or oversights.

However, reducing the viability of hip shooting by, say, removing the aiming reticule would be nice.

[Meeting up with friends SHOULD be more accessible in .63.]

DayZ does have Steam friends integration as evidenced by the server menu telling you if you have friends on a server. It would be nice if the game detected where your friends are and then had a preference for spawns that are closer to their position. People then get to play with their friends and there are no spawn menus or any silly things like that.

[Infected types/instances]

I hate the idea of infected types, but I love the idea of them being in different idle states. Some of them should just be sitting in the street, some wandering around aimlessly, others lying on the floor inside houses, stuff like that. I'm not a fan of them just being scattered randomly outside, just wandering about.

[Thinking about coming back?]

On 06/04/2018 at 2:56 PM, Red_Ensign said:

every game has a finite period when it holds your interest more than other games, and over time that interest wears off.   I'm realizing that the downside of early access is that my interest in a game can wear off before it even hits beta.  I'm starting to feel like early access is cheating me of enjoying the future finished game fully, because by the time it's finished it'll be like a re-release of a game I liked years ago.

maybe game developers shouldn't offer early access until beta.  just a thought.

that said, I will be checking out .63.  maybe it'll grab my attention again.

Since December 2013 (I think that's when I bought it) I've logged about 350 hours, pretty much for the exact reason stated above. I don't want to burn myself out. I've not played for many months now, and I'm very unlikely to play again until 0.63. Last I played DayZ Underground was still going strong. If you fancy a bit of DayZ, it couldn't hurt to play for a few hours - even if only to see the difference between 0.62 and 0.63 when it does finally release.

Early Access is deeply flawed, but then DayZ was among the first EA games (not to be confused with EA Games.) There was a seminar they did a while back about what they've learned from Early Access. I think it's something that can be good, in theory, but becomes a bit of a mess in practice.

[Status Report - 13 April 2018]

46 minutes ago, Nebulae3 said:

I was in London not too long ago; a really beautiful city though concerning design and art, but I understand what you mean @BeefBacon And I think there is room for improvement related to buildings if the houses have been empty for years, and some plants should start to grow on part of the wall sections due to zombie crisis years ago.  

I believe the devs will be doing a "destruction pass" on the map at some point - generally making everything all run down. Assuming this isn't something I've made up in my head, it'll probably include a bit of overgrowth. I think that in the "lore" of DayZ, if such a term is even applicable, it's been a couple of years since the outbreak. As such, I don't think we'll get environments like The Last of Us (where it had been like 20 years or something), but it should still be an improvement.

[Status Report - 13 April 2018]

4 hours ago, Nebulae3 said:

I think part of the house design in this game is really narrow and bad

That's actually a symptom of reality. As anyone who has dabbled in level design will probably know - real life locations feel tiny. I remember making my house using semi-precise measurements years ago, and when I booted it up in-game it felt like a house for spaghetti people. I could barely fit through doorways and corridors. Videogames have to make rooms bigger to make them feel normal. Now you could argue that the devs should be keeping that in mind, but DayZ is grounded in authenticity. And of course Chernarus is some post-Soviet backwater, so cramped houses makes sense. I'm from the UK where we're all forced to live in shoe boxes (houses in the UK are some of the smallest in the developed world, on average) so maybe that's why it doesn't bother me as much.

[Status Report - 13 April 2018]

2 hours ago, philbur said:

But what I DO have, is a 10-year background in resource management in the tech industry...so I always look at the HR side of things first as a source of potential inefficiencies..

But you don't know how the DayZ dev team is composed. Claiming that their system is inefficient without actually knowing what their system is seems foolish to me. Were they to release a report on the details of their workflow, I'm sure your experience would provide valuable insight.

2 hours ago, philbur said:

I just typed and re-typed about 500 words going in to detail qualifying my remarks...but that's not why we're here, right?

It actually probably would have been an interesting read, but you're probably right that this isn't really the place for it.

[Status Report - 13 April 2018]

3 hours ago, philbur said:

it seems

Indeed. Perhaps you ought to wait and see before jumping to conclusions? What you've seen so far is early PC gameplay and console gameplay. It makes perfect sense that the console version would have different weapon handling. If weapon recoil really is too low, I'd much rather discuss the impact on gameplay than the impact on realism. If combat is more enjoyable, it works for me.

As for muzzle flash, I'm not fussed. It is a bit much, but then it was just a showcase of the particle effects and the quality of muzzle flashes. I suspect that they might have cranked up the muzzle flashes to show them off alongside the other effects. If not, I don't think it's something worth getting too worked up over.

And as for the application of their team members, I suspect that you know about as much about the composition of the DayZ dev team and the nuances of game design as I do - that is to say "jack shit." Throwing people at a problem doesn't necessarily fix it faster. You'll probably find that allocating team members to modules that are not immediately required will increase the overall development speed. Imagine you need 10 people to lift something heavy, and 50 people go to help. It's not going to get moved any faster, and there's a lot of other shit to carry that isn't getting moved, but everybody is pissing about trying to carry the same object. What showing off the "fluff" suggests is that said fluff won't be too long behind 0.63.

[Status Report - 13 April 2018]

19 hours ago, Baty Alquawen said:

Currently, we have a simplified placeholder system implemented until the final solution is fully prepared.

[*National Socialism intensifies*]

 

Audio stuff is cool. I don't suppose radios will be able to pick up environment sounds? Gunshots and the like. I'm assuming it'll be restricted to player voices. Also, a bit nitpicky, but I'm not super keen on PA systems randomly being in houses. I've always thought it looked out of place in that orange building, and assumed it was just a placeholder. I feel like it either needs a dedicated building, or room decorations to make it look as though the building it's been placed in isn't just somebody's house. File cabinets and desks and things on the inside would go a long way towards making it look like it belongs, as though the building has been used as some sort of, i don't know, local council building or something.

 

Having seen what you've done with the gunshot effects, I'm really looking forward to seeing what you do with bullet impacts and blood effects. Particle effects and decals have never been Arma's strong suit. Speaking of which, I assume we can expect blood sprays on walls, maybe blood pooling under bodies? Oooh and parallax bullet holes. 

[A new running animation please!]

On 05/04/2018 at 8:22 PM, exacomvm said:

They could make different animations for Female character, like more sexy and more female looking.

I... what? I agree it couldn't hurt to have a slightly different animation set for female characters... but sexy? What, do you want them to sway their hips while they jog down the streets and have them fully bend over when they pick something up off the ground? Reminds me of those Skyrim mods that make female characters strike ultra-feminine poses in their absurdly skimpy bikini plate armour.

[Use of Masks]

4 minutes ago, nickstackhouse said:

These emit vapor or gas which slowly kills you *lowers blood 1 per x seconds exposed*
so a silent killer of sorts...

I suspect they'd probably go the disease route rather than the toxic cloud route. Without proper protective gear the player is more likely to catch a debilitating disease, necessitating the procurement of the appropriate equipment if one wants to explore these contaminated zones. I would assume that a full NBC suit would cut the risk to 0% (provided no piece is ruined) and a partial suit, or just a gasmask, or a face mask and gloves, or whatever would yield varying amounts of protection.

[Add sidechat]

58 minutes ago, scriptfactory said:

Another argument that is not completely opinion-based is that sidechat will encourage KoS callouts. I find this odd as the same thing would happen if radios were actually useful (e.g. if batteryless radio recievers were added, batteries lasted longer in radios, etc.)

Well it might be a bit tricky to use the radio if you're dead, or if you've just respawned. You might be able to make a KoS callout 10 or 20 minutes after respawning once you've picked up a radio, but that's about it.

1 hour ago, scriptfactory said:

One criticism of this argument is that radios aren't used anyway. Discord/TS is used for intra-team communications.

Don't people use Discord anyway? Whenever I join some Arma 3 mod I'm always instructed to join the Discord even though there's a perfectly good side chat. I sure hope we don't see the return of that boom box item that plays music, since we can stick on Spotify in the background. I sure hope no attempt to fix the gamma exploit is made, since we can just use third-party tools to tweak gamma as necessary.

1 hour ago, scriptfactory said:

The arguments against sidechat [literally anything in DayZ] do not conflict with these facts, rather they are based on an ideal of DayZ authenticity that will only hold until modding is added

But it isn't just authenticity, is it? As I said before, everything in DayZ is earned. This is why you don't start with a gun, or food or basic gear... but fuck it. Mods will mean players swill be able to start armed, so I guess the core game should do that too, or something. Even if the only argument against side chat is authenticity or realism... so what? Why should authenticity be abandoned in a game that touts authenticity as one of its core aspects? Adding something because mods are going to add it anyway makes zero sense to me.

1 hour ago, scriptfactory said:

That's how I feel. I hope this is good enough for you to understand my perspective on all this.

I'm glad you took the time to explain it.

[Add sidechat]

8 hours ago, scriptfactory said:

Ah, this old debate with the same people regurgitating the same tired arguments.

This comment is the fucking bane of any discussion.

Suggestion A!

Counterargument A

*6 months later*

Suggestion A

Counterargument A

"StOp MaKing tHe saME TirED ArguMENts!1!!"

How about you explain why the arguments are wrong rather than complaining that the arguments have been made?

 

I'm not interested in a side chat. I'm sure it wouldn't be the end of the world if it was added, but DayZ isn't exactly ruined without it, especially considering the presence of radios. I'm fully in favour of radios and batteries becoming more common, which seems like a good compromise, but I don't think players should spawn with one. It should be something that is earned, like all things in the game.

[Zombie Fix for .63]

I've not played DayZ in a while now since I'm waiting for 0.63, so I don't know what the current state of zombies, infected, whatever currently is. As I understand it, the threat of zombies is only going to increase. They'll be able to break down doors, and there'll be a lot more of them, plus wounded animations will even make just running away from them somewhat more difficult - though players will also be able to climb walls (I think) so that'll also become an option. Whether individual zombies will be a threat I don't know, but the zombie threat as a whole is going to become a whole lot more difficult to deal with.

[0.63 Developer Live Stream - 14th March 2018]

4 hours ago, kopo79 said:

Was there any info about examble how stones work?or is it same lame system that you pick stone,little animation and bam...you have a knife.just asking that is there reason to seek proper knifes or is stoneknife still some miracle item?

I suspect that the stone knife will eventually have some drawbacks. It'll probably have an extremely low durability or something, meaning that it can only be used once or twice before becoming ruined - or it'll be extremely inefficient, yielding less food from canned food and less meat from skinned animals than a proper knife.

[With BETA comes modding]

Oh. Weird. I started writing a comment on this thread months ago, but only got half way through a sentence. Wonder what I was thinking.

Anyway, I'm hoping that vanilla DayZ has time to mature before modding becomes available. I want people to think of DayZ as a survival game and play DayZ as a survival game before they start thinking about modding it. I am looking forward to modding, but I want to see the "right" mods that maintain the hardcore survival angle. I've said it before, but I'd love to see a Stalker-themed mod. Misery in DayZ? Sounds fucking amazing. I'm fully in favour of saving the planet from deadly anomalies, deadly mutants, anarchists and bandits. A Fallout-themed mod would be neat too but, again, I want to maintain that core survival element. I have a feeling that much of the playerbase is going to want to strip that out.

[Humanity in DayZ - Concept Video by "uncuepagamer"]

1 hour ago, kopo79 said:

i like the video....i just wish that dayz could have someting like that.
sleeping in bed or sleeping bag should give some positive effects...
also if you kill someone,dig the grave and put cross on it to prevent maximum minus effect on your mental state.

but reading the status reports,never have been any talk about mental state thingy,so im no waiting for it.


 

I'm sure it can be modded in if that's something the players want. The new script system is supposed to be very robust.

[Humanity in DayZ - Concept Video by "uncuepagamer"]

I actually kind of like this. At the very least the presentation is good, and I like that it focuses more on rewarding the player for good actions rather than punishing them for bad actions. That, I feel, is good game design. Bandits are punished, of course, but they receive small benefits as well so as to not completely ruin a playstyle. I'm not convinced by the bell curve that means that heroes have a smaller morality hit when they kill other player, but I do like the idea of the morality hit being directly impacted by the morality of your victim.

Besides that, I really like the comfort, nutrition and addiction systems outlined here. The nutrition and comfort systems are similar to points that I think I've brought up before, but these are much more fleshed out.

I was very, very skeptical to begin with. I've always opposed morality systems not because they're "too complicated" but because they're unfair. They can't possibly take into account every variable that leads to one player killing another. If you shoot somebody in self defence, you shouldn't be penalised for that. This system doesn't fully account for that sort of scenario, but it's much better than literally every other humanity system I've seen for DayZ. Hell, cut out the humanity impact of killing players and it becomes a system with no obvious gaping flaws. Comfort should absolutely be a thing. Nutrition should absolutely be a thing - players who pursue a healthy diet should have an advantage when compared to players who eat can after can of tactical bacon.

When it comes to complex systems like this, it is always better to reward than to punish. If a player doesn't want to participate in the nutrition system they shouldn't randomly suffer from heart attacks or have massively reduced stamina or anything like that, but players who do want to participate should get some nice bonuses. These ideas add a nice level of nuance and, for the most part, are very well thought out.

[0.63 Experimental Release Check list]

17 minutes ago, ☣BioHaze☣ said:

So much stuff is removed and postponed (indefinitely?), it's confusing to try imagine what will be left in DayZ 1.0.

"Postponed: We decided to move this feature/system to a later 0.63 Experimental build, as it would further stretch the waiting for this first 0.63 Experimental release."

It looks like the November status report outlined what they wanted to add over the course of beta. This new checklist outlines what they'll be adding specifically in 0.63. The other features that aren't mentioned (soft skills for example) will come in updates following 0.63.

[Status Report - 27 February 2018]

14 hours ago, Lexman61 said:

I realize that expectations and hopes run very high among some players regarding .63 and eventually the final version of the game. But I realistically think that too much time has passed to regain a significant amount of former and new players to DayZ.

I disagree. I've not played DayZ in months. I'm one of a large number of players who are waiting for beta. I see this assumption that everyone has "moved on" but to what? H1Z1? One of the dozens of half-baked early access survival games? Escape from Tarkov? None of those does DayZ like DayZ does DayZ. About the closest you're going to get is an Arma 3 mod like Exile but even they are cheap imitations. The fact of the matter is that if you're looking for a game like DayZ, there is nothing else, even after all these years. Even so, DayZ has always appealed to a fairly niche market. I don't expect that it'll be competing with PUBG any time soon. Modding will certainly boost player numbers, though.

[Status Report - 27 February 2018]

4 hours ago, DannyDog said:

Huh, I dunno then. I'm just not overly fond of the brightness of the shadows in the daytime images. The game has lacked some serious shadows in dark areas and GI and it would probably amp up the game's visual quality if they were added.

I prefer the brighter images. High contrast works fine for film, but it's not so great in videogames. I often tweak brightness and gamma settings in DayZ to try and get a flatter image

5 hours ago, philbur said:

why bother now, when there are so many "major" tasks to tick off the list first?this.

I suspect that it's to expedite future development. rather than having to do a bunch of new calculations for similar weapons, they can simply change a few values like barrel length and it'll do the work for them. Plus DayZ was built on a military simulator, so it's nice to see the standalone sticking to its roots in this manner.