Status Report - Week of 06 Oct 14

[SMoss 2101]

 
With the experimental branch updates on 0.50 rolling out this week, Raist and Eugen have worked together to deploy additional data tracking methods that should aid fine tracking and design adjustment related to player movement. Previously the team had focused most of our data tracking methods on loot distribution, spawning, and so forth - as we move closer towards the deployment of vehicles, expansion of existing persistent objects, and the central loot economy we will continue to use experimental branch and official stable branch servers to guide the design of gameplay mechanics via player movement, death, and camp analysis.
 


The above image shows the concentration of player deaths within a 12 hour period on one Experimental Branch 0.50 server. As you can see, the expected large amount of player deaths occur along the player spawn points. However, what is increasingly fascinating is the large spread of unique player deaths across the map. From as far out as Kamenka, to Tulga, Skalisty Island, and Devil's Castle. I like to imagine the lone player death at Green Mountain was an epic last stand gun fight, but we may never know.

In addition to the obvious value to the data above, analyzing data like this will become increasingly valuable for the development of core gameplay systems, as well as Chernarus Plus over the coming days and months.

In addition to the work done on player data tracking, the gameplay programming team has worked hard on increasing server side performance optimization as well as server side security updates related to player position tracking. 0.49 introduced a good deal of server side performance enhancements, and addressed quite a few critical issues with stability. However, with these fixes came several new issues that we hope to see resolved with the stable release at the end of the month. We hope to finish out October with 50 player servers, persistence enabled by standard, and faster server performance across all servers on stable branch. As we progress along our goals in October, the status reports will keep the player base updated on these goals and any potential blockers or delays. - Brian Hicks / Producer
 
Chris / Lead Artist
"Tech:
Work continues on fixing the graphical bug associated with our 3D camo and it has turned out to be more troublesome than originally thought. While the programmers were tinkering around with the shaders in search of a fix, we were able to have an additional channel added to the shader used for most of the loot items which will allow us to procedurally change the color of objects via config. The designers will evaluate how and when to implement such a feature but I am hopeful it will lead to a lot more color customization options on a lot more items than we currently allow. We also got support for a colorize in the grass shader so that we can vary the color of patches of grass in a large field, adding some visual flare to the environment.
 
Character Art:
The first women's clothing item is done: 3/4 length pants. It will be added in the no-so distant future, along with women's shorts and a sweater. The prison uniform, which was paused pending a few high priority tasks, is WIP again. We will have to pause the creation of new zombie types temporarily to work on some tweaks to the skeleton, which were asked for by the programming and animation team, related to new zombie AI/animation triggers.  The team in Bratislava is working on various crafted items from leather which I hope will be interesting to people who like to play in more of a PvE style.
 
Weapons:
The Derringer art is ready and will soon be ready to be passed along the chain: animations, sound, cfg. The AKS74U and AK74M are being polished along with the art assets related to 5.45mm ammo. I have set this as a goal for myself - that by the end of October the AK74 family will debut on experimental. "
 
Viktor / Lead Animator
"After introducing one handed pistol animations many visual bugs had to be fixed to provide smooth and polished experience. Part of that is polishing and replacing some unarmed moves while standing. First of upcoming minor changes is a new unarmed sprint and unarmed run should follow. When we finalize those we can polish other animations like running with binoculars, pistols and other one handed items.

We are still processing the last mocap animations as these should be ready for improved zombie ai. Many new attack for zombies are being created so we can prototype and test different zombie combat situations. We already have a first iteration of tools for new animation system and it looks great. If all goes as planned we would like to introduce zombies on the new system as soon as it will be possible. After all, we already have a deer running around using new system (just internally for now) and it's already visible improvement. But it is still a long way to go until we can use all of the great features of the new animation system."
 
Peter / Lead Designer
"Last week was pretty hectic. We brought a bunch of different assets from our backlog to the game like the leather sewing kit so you can finally repair your leather clothes and shoes, RDG2 tube also known as smoke grenade, sardines - this time alive not canned, welding and firefighter helmet to cover your head, brass knuckles and sledgehammer to crunch some bones. All of these things should spawn in game along with long time awaited MP-133 and R92. 

As well, a good amount of bug fixing tasks were addressed. For example better placement of tents which takes surrounding collisions into account to allow for more intelligent pitching of tents in wild places. Proper placement of wrecks created by dynamic events. Allowing or forbidding of fireplaces to be ignited in some places. Temperature and wetness fixes and tweaks. 

Apart from that we also opened discussion which will help us to outline construction design and it's mechanics. We are analyzing what's possible and where the borders are so we can decide upon crucial things like how they will be placed - freely or grid based? What the granularity of objects will be - down to logs, whole walls or perhaps complete floors? How the crafting of these objects will be done - just a recipe or actually stacking. There are many important things which will define player experience of creating, using and ambushing bases. 
 
Interesting times ahead, probably we will need some dungarees in the future... see you in Chernarus folks! "
 
Standup Notes for the week of 06 Oct 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:

• Multiple crafted leather items
• Women's shorts, sweater.
• Procedural color changing for loot.
• Polishing bush rag and 3D camo for weapons
• Plants for horticulture
• Craftable vest and coat
• Various car parts
• Prison Uniform
• Steyr AUG
• Zombie skeleton tweaks
• Large military tent 

Animation:

• Player Unarmed Sprint
• Player animation graph bugfixing
• Zombie mocap processing
• Lowered one handed Pistol Animations Polishing
• 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:

• Critical inventory fixes
• Unintenional weapon switching
• Issues with animation sychronization
• Server performance issues
• Broken door states in navmesh
• Improved persistance saving
• Server performance issues
• Data/Common Stats tracking
• Loot distribution analysis

[k3malb3y 23]

hodor hodorr

[ibfg 0]

Just teasing us now... 

[StarMan 18]

YEY!

Edited October 9, 2014 by StarMan

[Papanowel (DayZ) 34]

We got nothing? YEY!

 

We have to F5 I guess  :D

[ibfg 0]

Ah - http://dayz.com/blog/status-report-week-of-06-oct-14 

 

just a forum bug. 

[ChainReactor 922]

Nice heatmap, but since 0.50/2 is online for less than a day now, i guess that the heatmap shows the player deaths in 0.50/1, where many players just starved shortly after they spawned in, so it doesn't really suprise me most ppl died before they managed to leave the coast.

[blackberrygoo 1416]

I would really love to know who it was that died at green mountain alone ... Kinda gives you chillZ :) I can't wait for horticulture Lockpicking/ barricading and of course vehicles and bases . This games gonna be so much more epic in the coming months than it is already .

[Guest]

Is the current implementation of reloading for the MP-133 and R92 in experimental final, or will we eventually have a way to reload individual shells and bullets one-at-a-time for those weapons? I could have sworn reading something months ago about that being the plan for at least the MP-133.

[Steak and Potatoes 13480]

Keep up the good work gents, looks great.

[St. Jimmy 1631]

So many deaths in 12h :D

 

We also got support for a colorize in the grass shader so that we can vary the color of patches of grass in a large field, adding some visual flare to the environment.

I'm really waiting for this because the grass is grey/yellowish and not enough rich green IMO just like in the original Chernarus. I would expect to see some real green color on the ground. Currently the grass looks dull.
I know it's based on Fall but even then grass can be green in some places :) that's why I like A2 ACR version of Chernarus more. Edited October 9, 2014 by St. Jimmy

[Twixxer 159]

 

 

The Derringer art is ready and will soon be ready to be passed along the chain: animations, sound

 

This is one thing I'm kinda pissed about. I won't be surprised if the Derringer ends up having M1911's sound, since seems like the sound artist isn't doing anything. Same thing happened with Rossi Lever Action and the new shotgun, they were appearently ''passed over to add sounds'' and ended up having the default sounds of Revolver and double barreled shotgun. Lame.

[tobias winfro 305]

Nice update, still a bit concerned about the weather/elements effects on players and items though. If they do intend to go through with this they need to take into account some guns like the ak variants can be buried in sand for extended periods, dug up and still fire without jams or other malfunctions. Players shouldn't freeze to death after 10 minutes outside or need to be constantly fed when its cold. Those are my only real issues with .50 experimental but the new patch/hotfix yesterday cleared up some of my issues.

Is there a way we can tone down the frequency that character status messages appear? My guy seems to bitch a lot about being hungry/thirsty/cold, it pisses me off to no end when I keep getting spammed with I'm cold, I'm hungry, cooling off etc every 3 to 5 seconds grrr

Edited October 9, 2014 by Tobias Winfro

[Mad Scientist 73]

Leather crafting and leather repair kit - WIN!!!

[robophant 102]

no grid based placing please - i am serious, totally...

[robophant 102]

whatever you do, dont make it grid based!!!

[Super_Duty 466]

Funny to me, I'm red-green color blind and could give a rip.  Not taking issue with your post by any means, color is very important.  I just can't see it... :(

 

I'm really waiting for this because the grass is grey/yellowish and not enough rich green IMO just like in the original Chernarus. I would expect to see some real green color on the ground. Currently the grass looks dull.
I know it's based on Fall but even then grass can be green in some places :) that's why I like A2 ACR version of Chernarus more.

 

[glasscharlie 6]

Nice heatmap, but since 0.50/2 is online for less than a day now, i guess that the heatmap shows the player deaths in 0.50/1, where many players just starved shortly after they spawned in, so it doesn't really suprise me most ppl died before they managed to leave the coast.

 

 

Have the Devs even played .50?? They probably played on their private servers, but do they play on the public ones? If they did they would find out within 3 minutes of playing that the game in unplayble. ZERO loot anywhere. No food, no water, no clothes, no weapons for protection, nada, zilch, nothing. All of those coast spawn are either people dying of starvation, dying from zombies- on purpose, jumping off buildings because there is no food, clothing or any loot in that town, or getting other bambies to kill them in hopes of a better spawn. That one guy at Green Mountain probably got spawn killed by a server hopper looting the jail. Maybe he was AFK while a zombie ate him. :)

 

I don't know if devs read these... I hope to god they do. I know it's experimental, I know there are issues, I know I know I know, but ya'll need to STOP making excuses for yourselves. Items do not respawn, fresh spawns have about a 2% chance at surviving longer than 15 minutes... like.... what the fuck guys? It's not playable. It's not fun. It needs to be addressed, like NOW. Put horticulture on HOLD. Put vehicles on HOLD, put everything that doesn't have to do with server architecture, respawn mechanics, and persistence on fucking HOLD! You want people to test your game in open Alpha and provide feedback right? Well I hope someone is reading this over at Bohemia because I have the solution to your persistence problems; see below.

 

To fix persistence related issues: Make items despawn after 15-30 minutes of being on ground when dropped from inventory. Have CONTAINERS (IE: tents, boxes, vehicles) hold items and have those containers be persistant, NOT items on ground. Have the server wipe ground items upon restart like days of old. If you're worried about server hoppers looting on restarts then HERE is that solution: Make servers spawn with an initial low count of items, then as time continues have more and more items spawn thereby encouraging people to STAY on a server and roam the map looking for gear and other people.

 

A note on Vehicles: I heard rumors about having a "global economy" for DayZ. IE: certain # of guns, vehicle parts, etc. on the hive/server, thus "Promoting player interaction and trading" It won't. It won't. It won't. The ONLY thing that will do in encourage server hopping and remove the immersion factor of the game that ya'll are working so hard to acheive, as well as make it nie impossible to fix a vehicle once you do find it. In the real world we don't server hop. If I got a flat tire and didnt have a spare then I'm walking my happy little ass to the next town ahead to find one, I'm not crossing dimenssional planes of existence to repair my vehicle in real life and I shouldn't have to do it in a game who's MAIN focus is on survival and immersion to simulate an APOCALYPSE. "I don't like this apocalypse... let's go to that one with all our stuff instead, it's called Pineback Mountain"

 

A note on Chernarus: Stop adding cities. Stop adding new towns. Stop adding clutter to the map. I LOVED the empty wild expanse of the north in the Mod, now I hate it. I can't run 5 minutes without seeing a new city. This mapwas supposed to be a RUAL area, but with all these new cities and shit it's taking away from that and making it feel more like a neo-subarban-esque mini country. With a vehicle you would drive through 3-5 small towns within 5 minutes of driving... I don't know what "rural" areas ya'll have been visiting or basing your ideas off of but I don't fear the map anymore like I used to. Leaving a city used to mean "Are you prepped? Cause there's no garuntee we're gonna make it the 3 kilometers to the next city... you better be fucking ready man." And now it's "WEEEE RUn run city city, OHHH there's another lil city! NEATO, better check it out!"     Please leave the south alone... Don't add any more towns or cities down there. Make the current ones better yes of course, but PLEASE don't take away the country side. It's so pretty and the cities are so laggy and not attractive right now.

 

 

 

It's really interesting to see that Devs are collecting data on players and various things of that nature, I just hope they use them for good and not for evil. Why, yes it is fascinating that there is a large spread of "unique" deaths across the west and north west. Who would think that people would go out there? Who would think that someone would kill that random guy at Kamenka Base? Who plays DayZ? Sorry, just had to :P   This data though would give some very important feedback as to what areas are highly trafficked, where to place loot, where to place vehicles, where to provide pre-existing farms (keep the bambies alive if cities are completely empty) etc :)                         I still stay hopefull for DayZ and anticipate great things. A few of my friends have given up hope, and I would be wrong to say their reasons were unjustified, but... I beleib.

 

 

Nice update, still a bit concerned about the weather/elements effects on players and items though. If they do intend to go through with this they need to take into account some guns like the ak variants can be buried in sand for extended periods, dug up and still fire without jams or other malfunctions. Players shouldn't freeze to death after 10 minutes outside or need to be constantly fed when its cold. Those are my only real issues with .50 experimental but the new patch/hotfix yesterday cleared up some of my issues.

Is there a way we can tone down the frequency that character status messages appear? My guy seems to bitch a lot about being hungry/thirsty/cold, it pisses me off to no end when I keep getting spammed with I'm cold, I'm hungry, cooling off etc every 3 to 5 seconds grrr

 

I second this. Starvation takes DAYS. Dehydration takes DAYS. Bleeding out sometimes takes DAYS. Hypothermia CAN happen in minutes (Like in the game) but only if exposed to sub-zero temperatures with no protection.  Not saying make them take days, but how about an hour or two or three? Have our character only say something every 5 minutes or so. Maybe add sound effects instead of text :D Stomach grumbles with the animation of hand on stomach, coughing sounds and covering mouth is sick, panting or dry sounding breathing when thirsty, etc etc. I'm sure it will be implemented, or something to that end will be. I would hate to see blocks upon blocks of text when the final release comes.

Edited October 10, 2014 by Rcharlie

[DemonGroover 8836]

I played on a server today and noticed zero loot anywhere on the coast. I ran inland for 10 minutes though and found unlootd towns everywhere. No ammo though.

[a_ruttle 199]

That Green mountain death was quite possibly my doing, would love to know the time period and server that the heatmaps were taken from.

[Cap'n (DayZ) 1827]

 

So many deaths in 12h :D

 

 

 

I'm really waiting for this because the grass is grey/yellowish and not enough rich green IMO just like in the original Chernarus. I would expect to see some real green color on the ground. Currently the grass looks dull.

I know it's based on Fall but even then grass can be green in some places :) that's why I like A2 ACR version of Chernarus more.

 

 

Bukovina looks horrible.

 

Besides, Chernarus was designed for the harvest season (aka; Harvest Red, if y'know what I mean ;)). I think it'd be far better to link the grass color to season change instead of making all the grass look bright shitty-green in the middle of winter. Makes zero sense otherwise.

[leviski 2152]

we can make a one handed pistol animation, but we cant make hoods that go up and down?

 

pssh

[Steak and Potatoes 13480]

we can make a one handed pistol animation, but we cant make hoods that go up and down?

 

pssh

 

This ain't East LA levi, its Chernarus.

[Scarcifer 102]

This ain't East LA levi, its Chernarus.

You do have to admit though. If they did implement that option let's say on the raincoat. To prevent your hat from getting wet would be a neat feature. Or to help admit to contribute against getting cold if the hood was up on a hoodie. Plus it would lead to other options lets say raise the visor up and down on the welding helmet.etc...

Edited October 10, 2014 by Scarcifer

[FlexYSRB 0]

Look, i really loved to play this game and i was enjoying it...but in last update you insert Coldness...which is bugged because there is no such a jacket that you will not be cold in it...and if you are a cold in about 10minutes you die of Hipotermic!? Just tell me is that realistic? :/ Before update i played this game in about 3-4 hours per day..now im not playing at all...I will start playing when you fix that...for now..you lost one player.