Status Report - Week of 29 Sept 14

[SMoss 2101]

 

Over the last week (and throughout the next few) a good deal of work has been done to gauge current server side performance, player and AI limitations, and the immediate steps required to increase the current limits. In tandem with work done with BattlEye, our game server provider partners, and our internal security team we have also continued work addressing immediate security concerns and ways to mitigate them in order to provide an enjoyable player experience.
Players will begin to see these appear in the following ways:

• Experimental Branch will begin operating at 50 players per server
  • With the short term goal of deploying this to stable branch servers as well
• Experimental Branch will deploy and test new forms of detection from BattlEye
• Over the next few months we will use experimental branch to roll out changes to Zombie AI & Sensor functions
• Within weeks you will begin to be able to rent private shards of the central DayZ hive along with your DayZ server instance from your preferred game server provider
• In October and November you will see experimental branch servers rolled out with varying player counts as the team tests optimization measures aimed at server performance and data management

Pairing this work with work currently under way by the design and programming teams to support the upcoming experimental release of both our first vehicle, as well as the first iteration of barricading via locked doors and the methods to break them down will greatly expand the player experiences as we close out 2014. It is important to pay attention to the project status reports, and developer streams as well as participate in discussion on the official forums to maximize your engagement with the development process. - Brian Hicks / Producer

 

Chris / Lead Artist

"I'm happy to say that our programmers are looking into a bug which was preventing us from creating better looking 3D camo so with any luck, I'll be able to show you some in-game pictures of what we came up with in the next couple of weeks.

Planned is to include wearable active camo, and some which you can craft onto your long rifle. I was pleased to see the overwhelmingly positive response received from the first pics of the hermit zombie in last week's report. We have devised a scheme to create a set of zombie 'dolls' which are skinned already and will allow us to rapidly iterate new zombie types by 'dressing the dolls' with new or existing survivor clothing models and baking them to a new texture.

Work continues on vehicle parts, new survivor clothing models, and the new weapon models (Derringer, AUG, AKS74U). The release of the MP133 and Repeater were held up pending creation of sounds as, rightly so, the new door sounds superseded weapon sounds in priority."

Standup Notes for the week of 15 Sept 14
(Note: Standup notes are not a change log - they are a quick high level look at tasks the teams worked on throughout this week)

Art:

• Prototyping procedural color changing for weapons
• Polishing bush rag and 3D camo for weapons
• Rangefinder Optic view
• New fishing related items
• Plants for horticulture
• Craftable vest and coat
• 3/4 length women's pants
• Various car parts
• Medical Scrubs
• Steyr AUG
• Zombie 'paper dolls' for rapid iteration and creation of new zombie types.
• Prison Uniform
• Large military tent
• ​Bugfixing character art and environment models

Animation:

• Player animation graph bugfixing
• Zombie mocap processing
• Unarmed player sprint 
• Lowered one handed Pistol Animations
• Zombie Animations
• Player Pistol Animations

Design:

• Bugfixing
• Configs and scripts for new items (lockpicks, rangefinder)
• Configs and scripts for hermit zombie
• Configs and scripts for MP133, Repeater
• Weather impact on player and carried items
• Vehicles and their parts
• Horticulture
• Barricading
• Animal and zombie AI
• Advanced melee combat string table

Programming:

• Inventory fixes
• Security on player location updates
• Doors locking and destroying
• Zombie phantom sounds
• Performance issues
• Unintentional weapon switching
• Broken door states in navmesh
• Improved persistence saving
• Diagnostics for debugging

[WhiteZero 72]

Over the next few months we will use experimental branch to roll out changes to Zombie AI & Sensor functions

Eugen was talking about Sensors quite a bit on Reddit lately. Exciting stuff:

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/2hwfye/75_player_server_online/ckx8fse

currently there are 400-500 zombies per server, number will get up by a lot when the new sensors are implemented.

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/2hwfye/75_player_server_online/ckxasnt?context=3

Last time we talked about [zombie count], the aim is thousands yes. No promises yet. There is only so much prediction we can make for the new sensors. The problem is most of the modules that we need require 6-12 months development time. A lot of them will be getting merged in next few months.

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/2hwfye/75_player_server_online/ckx0163

Object simply interact with each other in a really resource heavy way. Book looking at screwdriver and them sending information to each other about their status. That old thing takes a loads of time to get ripped out. But we seem to be almost done. Than the amount of dynamic entities will increase by a LOT.

Edited October 1, 2014 by WhiteZero

[St. Jimmy 1631]

Eugen was talking about Sensors quite a bit on Reddit lately. Exciting stuff:

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/2hwfye/75_player_server_online/ckx8fse

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/2hwfye/75_player_server_online/ckxasnt?context=3

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/2hwfye/75_player_server_online/ckx0163

Lol at that screwdriver and book thing. Sounds very promising!

[basinox 300]

The "Paper Doll"s sound cool. would be funny to see them add a hermit zombie wearing a skirt and a tank top.

[Private Evans 1303]

Zombie 'paper dolls' for rapid iteration and creation of new zombie types.

 

yes yes yes...and yes  :)  ...would be cool to see them wearing ruined / rotten and of course bloody versions of existing clothing...

[blackberrygoo 1416]

Did any one pick up on this :

Design:

Advanced melee combat string table

^^ I wonder what this is ?? It's intriguing ! ;) can't wait for horticulture barricades and vehicles ... Also we need to hear about them wolves and bears !! It would make for a lot of people to make use of private shards as well for when that comes for the people who love PVE :0 !

[Conrad_The_Comrade 577]

Oh I'm loving the sound of, well, all of it! Progress is going great I'd say, and I can't wait to see how the new zombie "creation" will turn out, sounds very promising. :D

[Evil Minion 943]

Programming:

• Inventory fixes
• Security on player location updates
• Doors locking and destroying
• Zombie phantom sounds
• Performance issues
• Unintentional weapon switching
• Broken door states in navmesh
• Improved persistence saving
• Diagnostics for debugging

Poor programmers always get the hard work.

[claws4life 99]

fuck yeah!

[claws4life 99]

Pairing this work with work currently under way by the design and programming teams to support the upcoming experimental release of both our first vehicle, as well as the first iteration of barricading via locked doors and the methods to break them down will greatly expand the player experiences as we close out 2014. It is important to pay attention to the project status reports, and developer streams as well as participate in discussion on the official forums to maximize your engagement with the development process. - Brian Hicks / Producer

 

 

inb4 abandoned stable servers :D

[commanderbash 102]

what's the status of the SVD? I've been looking forward to that gun as much as cars!

[Tovervlag 344]

 

"I'm happy to say that our programmers are looking into a bug which was preventing us from creating better looking 3D camo"

What do they mean with this?

[Scarcifer 102]

What do they mean with this?

I'm pretty sure they mean theres a bug in the programming preventing them from creating authentic 3-d camouflage to help  you blend in with the environment 

[Tovervlag 344]

Thanks, I didn't understand it.

[-Greenie- 12]

+SVD

[elf cakes 559]

when do you expect to be able to add more zombies? i'm waiting on that before i get back into dayz, players are all hostile because co-op is not necessary with the current amount of zombies

[SmashT 10907]

when do you expect to be able to add more zombies? i'm waiting on that before i get back into dayz, players are all hostile because co-op is not necessary with the current amount of zombies

 

Currently there are 400-500 zombies per server, number will get up by a lot when the new sensors are implemented. Last time we talked about that, the aim is thousands. No promises yet. There is only so much prediction we can make for the new sensors. The problem is most of the modules that we need require 6-12 months development time. A lot of them will be getting merged in next few months. -Eugen

[elf cakes 559]

 

Currently there are 400-500 zombies per server, number will get up by a lot when the new sensors are implemented. Last time we talked about that, the aim is thousands. No promises yet. There is only so much prediction we can make for the new sensors. The problem is most of the modules that we need require 6-12 months development time. A lot of them will be getting merged in next few months. -Eugen

Fabulous, thanks :)

[Schweinsteiger 107]

I was watching a video of the Dayz Mod and checked out a slow moving (shuffler) Zombie.

 

The zombie looked really awesome. I'd like to see some zombies look like that in DayZ SA. They looked more like Zombies then what we have in game currently. Love the idea of a craftable vest and coat. Good things are coming.

[Schwach 4]

Give cars!

At least one vehicle (let it be buggy as shit, glitching etc) will create a big endgame goal for players.

[Schweinsteiger 107]

Give cars!

At least one vehicle (let it be buggy as shit, glitching etc) will create a big endgame goal for players.

Dude, vehicles are not "end game" material. They are simply something that will make the game better. They shouldn't make vehicles "rare" or too hard to get working.

[Scarcifer 102]

Dude, vehicles are not "end game" material. They are simply something that will make the game better. They shouldn't make vehicles "rare" or too hard to get working.

It would be ludacris for them not to make them rare and hard to get working,This is a survival-horror-post-apocalyptic simulation,right.......don't be ridiculous. Not trying to offend anyone,but that would how would you put it; I Feel that if they were introduced to the game in any other way it would compromise the whole integrity of the  authenticity aspect of the game if not the factor of genre it self(at least the survival and simulation part.Because I know around a post apocalyptic wasteland there will be perfectly working automobiles everywhere....yeah right). I am sure I am not the only player that feels this way. Now if they made a Auto shop Building model, or auto parts store model it would be nice and reasonable and realistic to help acquire some parts that may be needed.

Edited October 8, 2014 by Scarcifer

[Schweinsteiger 107]

It wouldn't be ludicrous by any means. The hardest part would be finding/making fuel. The rest would be a piece of cake. Cars would be literally everywhere man. Take a look outside your window. Most of those cars would run with hardly any work at all (mainly a fresh battery would do the trick). 

[Officer25 54]

Bike. Bike Please. Bike Bike.

[Schweinsteiger 107]

Yeah! Bikes!