February 24th Devblog Summary

[iBane 381]

For those who haven't seen or don't have time to watch here is a summary of the devblog from Monday, February 24th 2014

 

In Active Development - Soon To Release To Experimental Branch:

 

• Lightening improvements - flashlights and other lighting sources are being improved
• Physics - throwing items (to another player for their use or at another player to harm them) and ragdoll nearly ready for testing. 
• Containers - making static items in the world like refrigerators and filing cabinets available for player interaction.  They will also be able to spawn loot adding complexity to the loot system
• Bow & Arrows - currently in development and dev testing
• Animations - moving to a new system that will allow for much better & precise movements.  Greatest impact will be to make the melee system more intuitive and smooth.  
• Map Updates - new buildings, bug & texture fixes.  Fixing loot spawns in buildings that don't spawn loot currently, but should.
• Weather System - basic system in test on the experimental branch now.  No impact on the player at this time, but the goal is to make weather a viable threat to the player
• Medical System - improved messaging to the player so they understand their actual condition.
• Hunting and Cooking - big focus for the team.  They've hired a special group of new devs who are specifically experienced in making hunting games to do this.  They are also tasked with improving the games overall systems for hit detection and collisions.  Cooking stoves already in game, but camp fires are coming soon as well.  
• Desynch - probably the largest bug fix focus for the team.  They have identified a significant cause of this which relates to server messaging around player inventory items.  Hotfixes are in place, but a long term fix of implementing a "guaranteed messaging system for inventory items" is being developed and should be ready in a few weeks.  
• Zombies - respawning system is an active development project.  Will come with improvements to zombie path-finding, hit-boxes, and collisions from the hunting dev's work.  One of the complexities is how to make the respawning logical.  For example if a player has cleared out a town, zombies shouldn't just respawn back in the middle of the street in front of the player.  They are working on handling these situations in a way that makes sense from a gameplay perspective, but the problems are complex.  
• Loot Respawn System - in development in parallel with zombie respawn system
• Persistent objects - working on making certain storage items persistent (backpacks first) as well as things like barricades and paper.  

Roll-out Plan:

An update to experimental is planned in 2 weeks for one week of testing there before releasing to the stable branch.  (This does not include the update rolled-out on February 25th.)  Many but likely not all of these items will be ready.  Rocket was not specific.  

 

Next Steps:

• Once the things on this list are complete the next focus will be on low-speed vehicles like bicycles and barricading.  
• Faster vehicles like cars would follow the slow vehicles in later updates and will have a complex part system.  Items like spark plugs and car batteries will need to be located to make a car operational.  Cars will also break down and need to be repaired with items like these.  

LINK:

Edited February 25, 2014 by iBane

[Gekkonidae 270]

I personally think that is a hell of a lot of progress that we'll be seeing relatively soon. I really liked the dev blog and the tour of the office videos. Really cool stuff. :)

[bigfrak 116]

is there a link some where to the blog?

[Von_Carnage 37]

Awesome, can't wait

[Disgraced 1123]

http://forums.dayzgame.com/index.php?/topic/176970-we-whined-cried-and-bitched-now-lets-move-on/

[Von_Carnage 37]

is there a link some where to the blog?

DayZ Devblog for 24 Feb 2014. Just a quick look at some of the progress for our next patch. http://t.co/BKtbYnOi3V #DayZDaily

[iBane 381]

Link added to OP.  

[vandal gab 1384]

Eurogamer DayZ interview

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-02-25-dayz-interview-full-release-console-discussions-horses-and-rust

Edited February 25, 2014 by vandal gab

[Igglas Cage 173]

Can't wait to throw rotten kiwis at people.

[Igglas Cage 173]

Eurogamer DayZ interview

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-02-25-dayz-interview-full-release-console-discussions-horses-and-rust

They are using a proper microphone, amazing!

[iBane 381]

Eurogamer DayZ interview

 

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-02-25-dayz-interview-full-release-console-discussions-horses-and-rust

 

This is the studio tour by Eurogamer, not the devblog.  

[bigfrak 116]

thank you

[vandal gab 1384]

This is the studio tour by Eurogamer, not the devblog.  

Yeah it's a studio tour, I thought it was relevant to show the guys working on the game behind the scenes! 

[iBane 381]

Yeah it's a studio tour, I thought it was relevant to show the guys working on the game behind the scenes! 

 

No problem; just clarifying since some had asked for the vid link.  

[Odysseus (DayZ) 43]

Thanks for the run down.

[elf cakes 559]

yay phyics, yay bows and arrows, yay weather system, yay new buildings.

 

what about the biggest part of all, the performance? why are they still adding all this new stuff, to a game that's already running at super duper low frames even for people with great gaming rigs? are they at max performance now? can't they optimize it anymore? i guess they are running it off a similar engine to arma 2, which itself is horrifically unoptimised and the SA itself is also lacking in optimization. why the hell was there no news on this? the forums are rife with people complaining about low fps and i'd defended the devs for all of last year saying that 'the SA will be better' but they're not even talking about it now, and now he's saying that vehicles aren't far away? what the fuck?! leave vehicles until you've fixed the awful performance before they end up making it a million times worse.

[iBane 381]

yay phyics, yay bows and arrows, yay weather system, yay new buildings.

 

what about the biggest part of all, the performance? why are they still adding all this new stuff, to a game that's already running at super duper low frames even for people with great gaming rigs? are they at max performance now? can't they optimize it anymore? i guess they are running it off a similar engine to arma 2, which itself is horrifically unoptimised and the SA itself is also lacking in optimization. why the hell was there no news on this? the forums are rife with people complaining about low fps and i'd defended the devs for all of last year saying that 'the SA will be better' but they're not even talking about it now, and now he's saying that vehicles aren't far away? what the fuck?! leave vehicles until you've fixed the awful performance before they end up making it a million times worse.

 

Optimization is going on all the time, but the focus right now is content creation and implementation...getting the critical content systems, mechanics, and structures in place.  Once the content is mostly in then you focus on optimization.  

[deebz1234 243]

honestly this video should clear up about 70% of complaints on the forum.

 

If all of what he says will hit experimental in the coming weeks, I will be one happy camper.

 

I didnt hear mention of the nvidia/amd tweaks, it would be nice to see this implemented post haste.

 

the hunting sounds amazing, finally getting dedicated teams for these things. Their knowledge coming from hunting games like "the hunter" is very promising. Just think what an outside team could add to things like hit detection and such.

 

amazing video.

 

if he doesnt return, ill flip my lid. but of course still play...hah, sort of how it goes with DayZ..

[WrecklessMEDIC 129]

I really like the idea of zombies spawning in the forests just outside villages and cities then being slowly drawn towards them. Makes way more sense then a random zombie spawning on the street in front of you.

Plus as an added bonus it makes sniping from the tree lines a little more dangerous cuz u never know when a zombie might come up from behind you. :)

[iBane 381]

I really like the idea of zombies spawning in the forests just outside villages and cities then being slowly drawn towards them. Makes way more sense then a random zombie spawning on the street in front of you.

Plus as an added bonus it makes sniping from the tree lines a little more dangerous cuz u never know when a zombie might come up from behind you. :)

 

Agree completely and Rocket did specifically say "something like zombies respawning outside of a town players have taken over."  Not a definitive statement to be sure, but a hint perhaps at what might happen.  

[Rudette 435]

Thanks iBane <3

[TEST_SUBJECT_83 465]

He forgot to mention the new clips for the mosin.