Devblog update: Where is the Standalone?

[ow1 30]

Alright.. let's leave this Marketplace / Microtransaction-Discussion.

What are your thought on "Take On Helicopters" being implemented?

As I said before, I absolutely love it. I just recently downloaded the demo and tried the helicopters.

There's an essential startup/shutdown-sequences that I just think adds both realism and great fairness to the helicopters.

One should not be able to just find a choppah' and fly off like if you already knew everything, yet the startup/shutdown-sequences are fairly easy to remember, give the demo a go and train yourself!

I can already feel how newbies takes on the choppers and probaly damages them because they don't really know how to start one up.

I have not payed Take on helicopers but from a review I watched I think it is going from one extream to the other, people should indeed not be able to jump in and fly off no problem (Although trust me when I tell you alot of people playing DayZ right now are unable to fly a chopper), and it should indeed be made harder. That said on the review it pretty much says by the time your good at flying you may as well have gone and got your pilot licence in real life and I kinda understand how someone buying a flight sim would want that but I dont think its a right for a FPS/MMO.

So harder yes, heli sim no.

I did consider buying the sim to learn for when the SA comes out but changed my mind after reading up on it. I'll take your advice and try the demo.

[DemonGroover 8836]

I wouldn't go far as to turn it into a full blown heli sim, but flying needs to be a lot harder and i think the addition of the TOH concepts will do that.

And i disagree about DayZ and Arma just being FPS's.

Edited January 9, 2013 by DemonGroover

[distx 18]

I have not payed Take on helicopers but from a review I watched I think it is going from one extream to the other, people should indeed not be able to jump in and fly off no problem (Although trust me when I tell you alot of people playing DayZ right now are unable to fly a chopper), and it should indeed be made harder. That said on the review it pretty much says by the time your good at flying you may as well have gone and got your pilot licence in real life and I kinda understand how someone buying a flight sim would want that but I dont think its a right for a FPS/MMO.

So harder yes, heli sim no.

I did consider buying the sim to learn for when the SA comes out but changed my mind after reading up on it. I'll take your advice and try the demo.

Edit: Never mind. Flying got to get harder, which the implement of TOH gives.

I've said 'nuff about my opinions. I want to hear yours.

Edited January 10, 2013 by Distinction

[ow1 30]

Well if "Flying got to get harder, which the implement of TOH gives." is "Nuff said" you shouldnt ask people for their opinions on it.

[distx 18]

Well if "Flying got to get harder, which the implement of TOH gives." is "Nuff said" you shouldnt ask people for their opinions on it.

Post editted to show what I really meant. Excuse me for that one.

Edited January 10, 2013 by Distinction

[Guest]

I have a question. How hard would it be for the SA team to implement the "SMK Animations" as it is a mod?

They would have to ask permission? Or being a mod of a mod gives them power over the code?

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

I can fly the choppers now without killing everyone on board (assuming I'm but flying 10 meters off the ground like I enjoy) but I'd rather not be able to. Anything that makes the game harder and brings more gameplay is welcome in my book. I want it to be challenging and rewarding to be the squad pilot.

[dallas 5195]

I have a question. How hard would it be for the SA team to implement the "SMK Animations" as it is a mod?

They would have to ask permission? Or being a mod of a mod gives them power over the code?

I think the dude got hired by BI to do urban tactical animations for ArmA 3. Could be as easy as turning their head slightly and yell through the office or giving him a call. But those animations are also high-speed-low-drag-tactical-ninja-advanced-operator moves, so I don't know how well they fit in to the narrative of the player being some average dumbass waking up at the beach.

[Guest]

But those animations are also high-speed-low-drag-tactical-ninja-advanced-operator moves, so I don't know how well they fit in to the narrative of the player being some average dumbass waking up at the beach.

Lol!

You have a strong argument, sir!

[dallas 5195]

But a few new sexy animations probably wouldn't harm nobody :)

[Bat (DayZ) 230]

I think the dude got hired by BI to do urban tactical animations for ArmA 3. Could be as easy as turning their head slightly and yell through the office or giving him a call. But those animations are also high-speed-low-drag-tactical-ninja-advanced-operator moves, so I don't know how well they fit in to the narrative of the player being some average dumbass waking up at the beach.

Yeah and remember animations are being worked on for standalone, which can only leads to better stuff ! I think Bohemia won't implement sub par animations : they'll make sure anims are of a high quality standard (ArmA 3 quality). Same with clothing models : from the screenshots the models actually look more ArmA 3 quality than ArmA II quality, which is awesome

EDIT : Some bad english in there not sure if very clear... gettin late here :)

Edited January 10, 2013 by Bat

[Casperdmnz 8]

I for one wouldn't mind paying for new maps so an additional team could be taken on to create them as mentioned in the interview. I don't see why you couldn't gain info from it like you would be able to with Chenarus + and it would give a new environment to test the addition or modification of features which could be beneficial for development so the addition of maps shouldn't be mutually exclusive to development.

I wouldn't expect them to be available on the SA's release but at the same time I think new maps should be a priority and that their development shouldn't take place after adding and modifying features as that would mean starting their development imo too far down the line.

[daze23 549]

they actually blew the whole animation budget mo-capping pooping :P

Edited January 10, 2013 by daze23

[Bat (DayZ) 230]

Regarding a new map, I say : Bring SeattlePlus !

"just" have to make ground level, some interiors et voila hehe :)

Seriously though, it would be awesome. The sense of scale when walking from the suburb area to downtown is pretty mind blowing... even gta 5 would look cheap compared to that.

Edited January 10, 2013 by Bat

[Bat (DayZ) 230]

they actually blew the whole animation budget mo-capping pooping :P

They did. There's also some rumor according to which they had bought Hammerpoint Interactive studio for developing all poo related art assets

[Abexuro 17]

I have not payed Take on helicopers but from a review I watched I think it is going from one extream to the other, people should indeed not be able to jump in and fly off no problem (Although trust me when I tell you alot of people playing DayZ right now are unable to fly a chopper), and it should indeed be made harder. That said on the review it pretty much says by the time your good at flying you may as well have gone and got your pilot licence in real life and I kinda understand how someone buying a flight sim would want that but I dont think its a right for a FPS/MMO.

So harder yes, heli sim no.

I did consider buying the sim to learn for when the SA comes out but changed my mind after reading up on it. I'll take your advice and try the demo.

Relax, Take on Helicopters isn't super hard. You might need to know the startup sequence, but the actual flying isn't that much different from ArmA. The only mayor difference is the throttle control.

[kingochaos 131]

I think the dude got hired by BI to do urban tactical animations for ArmA 3. Could be as easy as turning their head slightly and yell through the office or giving him a call. But those animations are also high-speed-low-drag-tactical-ninja-advanced-operator moves, so I don't know how well they fit in to the narrative of the player being some average dumbass waking up at the beach.

All the joe blogs are either zombies or Zombie lunches... thats how evolution works... survival of the fittest... so the average joes are all dead at this stage o the apocalypse ;) (i suppose if theyve been in a coma floating on their backs in the ocean for the last three weeks ... with their mouths open being rehydrate by passing squalls, an average joe may still be alive... but he will run around screaming friendly over voice... and subsequentially be shot in the face one street into cherno... so no average joes)

And yeah.. take on helicopters aint that hard to fly

Edited January 10, 2013 by KingOchaos

[Katana67 2907]

I think the dude got hired by BI to do urban tactical animations for ArmA 3. Could be as easy as turning their head slightly and yell through the office or giving him a call. But those animations are also high-speed-low-drag-tactical-ninja-advanced-operator moves, so I don't know how well they fit in to the narrative of the player being some average dumbass waking up at the beach.

They are pretty high-speed-low-drag slay bodies goodtogo. But still, any person is capable of -doing- them.

[beastoverlord 574]

Rocket can you please say this in a camera and post it here to stop people asking about market place?

There will be no microtransactions or updates/content that needs paying for, it is a one off purchase

Look through the thread man... he already answered this way earlier.

I do have a question....Will we have to worry about Microtransactions in the SA...

No. Absolutely not.

And yes, I just spent 5 minutes so people stop posting about it.

Edited January 10, 2013 by BeastOverlord

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

They did. There's also some rumor according to which they had bought Hammerpoint Interactive studio for developing all poo related art assets

Great, a pooping animation that looks like the character is swimming!

[SmashT 10907]

A few more questions answered on Reddit by Rocket.

Q: What about server hosting?

One of the reasons I think DayZ mod works is because responsibility (and reward) is divided, and "survival of the fittest" is alive and well.

We aren't in the business of managing servers. We don't have the skills or the background in the studio for that. We don't feel we need to own the revenue stream for everything, it is in the best interest for us - for there to be competition for hosting and providing the best, most economic, responsive, and active server's out there.

Q: Does the MMO architecture of the improved ArmA2 engine for standalone decrease the need for so much bandwidth when hosting a server? Hive and Player communication requires at least 2TB of bandwidth a month, from what I have seen?

The servers have been greatly optimized with an entirely new executable that runs on a light version of the game data (reduced up to 99% in some cases, drops all kinds of data the server doesn't need like textures). This means the server file is much smaller, reducing reading times for pbos, the optimization benefits are too numerous to detail here. This work is already done, and working, in the standalone.

Q: Will configuration of server settings be more simple?

There will be more options, and enforcing many settings will be done from servers. In some ways, it will be more simpler because there is no mission file. Also, you don't need a special mission file to support 50 or 150 or 200 players - just change the config value and go.

Q: Will hardware requirements for servers be significantly different?

The same or less, for greater number of players, is what we currently estimate and is absolutely our goal. But we need to see how it goes in the technology test - that's why we're doing this small scale test to find our left and right arcs.

Q: Will there be NZ servers at release?

I will personally be funding some NZ servers if OpenHost don't shit all over me again like they did with my USEC server (after 10 years as a customer, paying about $2000 a year)...

Q: Ability to use callExtension on *nix would be nice.

Everything is integrated into the executable now, no need for callExtension.

We want to have Linux as our preferred dedicated server executable, for obvious reasons.

Q: How are you going to prevent admins using admins tools to their advantage?

A: We have to start again from scratch with the implementation of these kinds of issues, with the standalone. But we have the lessons from the DayZ mod hacking problems. It is something that will continue to evolve and the reason for a staged release (and a delayed one for that matter).

Q: Is the humanity system going to be changed?

A: Standalone is changing so many elements of the game, it's best to stick with something "similar" for the initial release and then commit to experimenting and changing it until we find something awesome and it works. We are committed to doing things properly, instead of taking things that were written around the engine (often involving many workarounds and much complexity using arma's invented SQF language) - we are saying "what result do we want?" and then giving that to the programmers, and getting them to come up with the best solution. We'll take the lessons from DayZ Mod regarding these features, and code around them at the engine level. It is going to mean it takes longer, and needs more experimentation - but make no mistake, that will mean the difference between DayZ being a mediocre game and being something really special for the history books.

Q: What about character customization?

A: Well, you'll be customizing your skin as you scavenge - with different items of clothing. So skins are now a collection of may different clothing parts, greatly increasing diversity among characters.

Q: On stats (referencing shizweak.com server stats)

A: very cool. We always wanted to do this for the mod. Makes me more than ever want to not do this at the development level, instead we build a good API and let you folks do what you do best.... innovate.

Q: Have the zombie mechanics/behaviour improved?

A: For the development we decided to start with the riskiest prospects - i.e. the major sweeping architectural changes such as an entirely new inventory and object interaction system, an entirely new multiplayer framework (server/client). It is true, currently we haven't really looked at the zombie mechanics at all aside from:

1. Improving the animations

2. Redoing the models for performance improvements (quite drastic improvement on low-end cards)

Why?!?!? Because we know we can make the zombie AI better. We want to get all the tough things out of the way first. Will report back on this further when we have started the rework on the zombie AI.

To manage expectations further... it is probably going to take many months of patching and experimentation to get the zombies something at the acceptable point. Acceptable being "zombies are a serious threat to players". For the sake of example, Ondrej Spanel (lead BIS programmer) and others have still been patching ArmA2:OA AI in recent weeks, many years after the product was released. The AI will be revamped for this release, but then patched again and again to improve further. Zombie behavior is the weakest part of standalone right now, but it's also the least risk for us - because it's been done before in the engine in other projects.

Edited January 10, 2013 by smasht_AU

[beastoverlord 574]

Awesome updates! Thanks! Is there anyway that all of these little Q&A info tidbits can be either posted or linked on the front page?

[finkone 320]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the Heli controls potentially being ported in from TOH yet, I thought many would find that controversial because it'll make life much harder in terms of flying. I love the idea though. Thoughts?

I got you covered - awhile ago.

[Nithren 10]

I got you covered - awhile ago.

Doesn't seem too much harder to actually fly. Landing is a biznatch though...

Thought about this a bit more, never had a heli in DayZ soooooo can't really say...more TOH practice tonight :D

Edited January 10, 2013 by Nithren

[finkone 320]

Doesn't seem too much harder to actually fly. Landing is a biznatch though...

Thought about this a bit more, never had a heli in DayZ soooooo can't really say...more TOH practice tonight :D

Pick the hardest mode - and check out some of them cross-winds, its sweet when ya' have to crab walk the helicopter just to keep your bearing because of crosswinds. Using the foot pedals and making minor corrects are the keys to flying in ToH as it is IRL. I have a ten fold easier time flying around in DayZ as compared to ToH.

DayZ = arcade fell in regards to helicopters.

ToH = even landing in a slightly windy condition, exciting... and thats not even with my DayZ gear at risk.. I could only imagine... :D