Status Report - Week of 05 Jan 15

[SMoss 2101]

 

2015

We live in the future people. 
2015 looks to be a pretty awesome year for DayZ, I'd like to kick off this months Status Reports by talking a bit about how the team has settled in during our first week back, as well as some awesome points of inspiration for us.

First off, I was forwarded a link to Eternum Pictures DayZ fan film - which has some outstanding emotional points about friendship, and loss. The loss that the main character in this fan film experiences is something that resonates with me. I can recall how it felt to meet, befriend, and then lose a stranger in my early DayZ mod days. As the option to instantly respawn after death somewhat limits this experience, it brought to the discussion table some server options that we've had on the drawing board for awhile. Speaking of servers...

Over the next few months we'll be rolling out some expanded server options to extend support for administrators, and introduce more customization options for private shards.

- Admin Logs, covering: Connections/Disconnections, Chat, Player Deaths (Env & PvP)
- Hardcore Mode: Initially we'll only support this on Private Shards, while we see how the mechanics impact gameplay - However the intent is to offer server operators the choice to restrict how long since a players last death they can respawn. Eg: A hardcore server could conceptually restrict players from respawning until 12 hours after their last death. We'll gauge how much impact this has on the design, and decide if it stays restricted to private shards, or we open this up to all public (consumer rented) hive servers. 

Now that the team have returned back to the office we've begun going over data compiled from stable branch since Christmas, and looking at what is left to do for the 0.53 release at the end of January. We've got some awesome stuff on the table for 0.53 and 0.54, and as always we'll be pushing to experimental to test things out as development on the update progresses.

Speaking of the end of January, PAX South in San Antonio is coming up and we have some awesome things in store for the first Penny Arcade Expo in the great state of Texas. We'll be sending out information on that via our twitter and facebook channels next week. In addition, the finishing touches are being put on the DayZ website - as we look to centralize where you all get the latest news on DayZ development, and interact with the DayZ Dev team.
Over on the Official DayZ forums the team leads have begun using their new sub forums to interact directly with you, the Survivors of Chernarus. Head over and take a peak, we'll start to use these more and more - giving you guys a direct line to the people that guide the vision that is DayZ.

forums.dayzgame.com

I look forward to increasing visibility into DayZ development in 2015, and evolving what it means to survive in Chernarus as we march forward to DayZ 1.0.

Chocolate Milk Bath, do it.
- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer


Peter / Lead Game Designer

"Welcome to the first devblog of the 2015, I hope you enjoyed the holidays and spent some quality time with your families, friends and DayZ!

I will keep it really short. We all know that this year will be very important for DayZ. With all these big ongoing and upcoming changes it will be quite tough but the outcome will be splendid.

Currently we are focused mainly on new controls/interactions. We would like to use them before we start switching character to the new animation system so we can identify possible issues with the old one and address them. Apart from that we are looking forward to the new scripting language which should be ready as soon as possible so we can start rewriting currently used scripts with it, optimize and polish them which also bring some performance boost (server side, yay!). Design for manual transmission for vehicles is ready for the review and when we settle down on last little things after discuss it with programmers its implementation will begin. We are also making a prototype for non intrusive group identification so that you can easily identify your companions.

Have an amazing new year and don't forget... see you in Chernarus folks!"


Chris / Lead Artist

"Character Art:

We're still working on new character clothing and new zombie templates.

This is ongoing, long term work that occurs during luls when the art team isn't needed to support new features being added by design. We've finished the quilted jacket and a new batch of zombie templates. An M65 Field Jacket is also WIP.

Environment:

Work has begun on a school building. Its giving me flashbacks to my days dodging balls in the gym. We're working on desks, chairs, bells, and gym equipment. This is a piece I'm personally excited about.

Weapons:

We're nearly done with a new pump-action .22LR rifle based on the FN Trombone. We've also recently completed a Winchester Model 70 and two new guns I think people will be excited about are currently WIP. In addition, over the last couple of weeks, we've churned out a series of new melee weapons for people to try out.

Community:

Some of you may have noticed that we've introduced a new area on the official forums where it is possible to interact with the team and I've been busy this week visiting and answering questions. I'd encourage you to drop by and check it out."

 

Standup Notes for the week of 05 Jan 15
(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:
• M65 Field Jacket
• FN Trombone 
• Vehicle design standup
• School structure
• Winchester Model 70

Animation:
• Bugfixing
• Hand poses for weapon attachments
• Hand Poses

Design:
• Bugfixing
• V3S Changes
• Cooking
• Diseases
• Independant content of canisters
• New scripting language
• Traps

Programming:
• Security vulnerability fixes
• Vehicle persistency
• Loot distro per building for new system
• Close range weapon sound fixes
• Suicide fixes
• Zombie/Animal AI
• Vehicles - Manual transmission
• Server side logging

[[TAW] GunRunner 53]

We are also making a prototype for non intrusive group identification so that you can easily identify your companions.

 

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:  YES! YES YES YES! YES YES YES YES YES!  :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

That and vehicle persistence are the two biggest things (imo) that I got out of this. Can't wait!!

 

A couple side questions though. Are the Wednesday persistence wipes going to stop soon? Or at least become bi-weekly, monthly, etc? Right now its extremely annoying to have to pick up tents every week and get rid of a ton of good gear. A lot of our people in TAW don't even bother with tents because of this :(

 

And when 0.53 is pushed to stable will there be a hive reset? I know it was said there will be one soon, but we are all wondering how soon it will be. Mostly asking because we are planning a few special events for our clan that require a ton of items and I don't want to waste time collecting them all just to have them wiped before we get to do the events.

[igor-vk 909]

School, finaly! I will make survivors shelter in gym!

[felgi 4]

Even more guns... really? Aren't the tons of automatic weapons and jerks wielding them to just kill everyone on sight instead of using them to defend themselves from Zeds already enough? I'd appreciate you in encouraging ppl to participate in RP instead of being mute hostile dickheads shooting you in the back even when you're freshly spawned and unarmed. But more clothes? Nice! Add a school building? Nice!

[golegor 0]

What about stable persistence?, i usually play in a private server & they cannot activate persistance because is still unstable, i think you should stop developing new guns, & start to fix this stuff.

The game will be better for sure.

[B4GEL 175]

Hardcore mode sounds interesting although I'd rather a longer spawn time was forced on all servers, I doubt there will be many servers that will implement it by choice even though it would almost definitely be good for the game. The proliferation of 24/7 day shows that when given the choice people stick to what they know. 

[blacktwin0 98]

Hardcore sounds the most interesting from this report. Very niche. I think a lot of people are getting hung up on the example of 12 hour spawn times. This was just an example, an extreme example. It would add a lot of tension to your play time on that server. Plus if you find two or three good Hardcore shards you'd be set for a good play session even if you die on all of them. Death by glitch would make this option a bit more frustrating but hopefully there will be enough Hardcore shards to, again, allow you to continue to play.

 

For Hardcore shards, having some king journal or log of your adventures would add even more to this experience. Because if you have a couple favorite Hardcore shards you use then it would be nice to have a helpful reminder of you were on those shards. Maybe something like a character preview of your character on the specific Hardcore shards you've used. 

[skoms 86]

What about stable persistence?, i usually play in a private server & they cannot activate persistance because is still unstable, i think you should stop developing new guns, & start to fix this stuff.

The game will be better for sure.

 

Why would think its a good idea to ask the artist to stop working on new guns until the programmers is finish to work on the game mechanics?

 

Or didn't you know there are different people and different teams with different skills and knowledge working on different aspects of the game?

[ChainReactor 922]

Why would think its a good idea to ask the artist to stop working on new guns until the programmers is finish to work on the game mechanics?

 

If we would only get a Dollar everytime we say that....

 

( Please, Bohemia ? '-' )

[skoms 86]

If we would only get a Dollar everytime we say that....

 

( Please, Bohemia ? '-' )

 

... we could buy a large piece of eastern europe and rename it chernarus. We could hire the locals to be our zombies and beans would be our national food...

[B4GEL 175]

The 'non intrusive group identification' is slightly worrying. I really hope it's not an immersion breaking UI element a la Arma but i can't think of anything else that would be more effective than the current method of having everyone wear the same hat.

[amazed 17]

Glad to hear news about the successor to SQF. I would love to hear more details about this new scripting language. What interests me most though is if you created your own or if you went with something existing. In case of the latter what language are we talking?

[Arky (DayZ) 1]

Any update on fixing the Hackers?

[rickyspanish 158]

The 'non intrusive group identification' is slightly worrying. I really hope it's not an immersion breaking UI element a la Arma but i can't think of anything else that would be more effective than the current method of having everyone wear the same hat.

 

Yea I really don't wan't a UI for this. I'm hoping for more of a shake hand kind of interaction which then adds a red bandanna tied around your friends arm or something. Something that is done ingame and doesn't break immersion, and also keeps a little challenge to identifying team mates, rather than friends having giant hexagons around them like arma 3.

Edited January 10, 2015 by Ricky Spanish

[xCAPx 349]

Yea I really don't wan't a UI for this. I'm hoping for more of a shake hand kind of interaction which then adds a red bandanna tied around your friends arm or something. Something that is done ingame and doesn't break immersion, and also keeps a little challenge to identifying team mates, rather than friends having giant hexagons around them like arma 3.

 

I couldn't have said it any better.

[JayBiggs 16]

 

Chocolate Milk Bath, do it.

- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer

LOL

[Thumper1999 48]

This is really cool

[blackberrygoo 1416]

The 'non intrusive group identification' is slightly worrying. I really hope it's not an immersion breaking UI element a la Arma but i can't think of anything else that would be more effective than the current method of having everyone wear the same hat.

I think what they mean is , they are finally taking us community up on our suggestion. ... Which is to add the ability to spray paint rags to make arm bands or enable us to (what I would like to see) sew custom made (or Pre made and found) patches on certain types of clothing .. Just so you can identify people in your group ... At least this is what I hope for and I have no evidence to back this up but it seems like the only sensible solution for such a realistic game .

[lucianpin 80]

"A hardcore server could conceptually restrict players from respawning until 12 hours after their last death. We'll gauge how much impact this has on the design, and decide if it stays restricted to private shards, or we open this up to all public (consumer rented) hive servers. "

 

This sounds interesting, I try to imagine how the game play would be affected by this 12 hours restriction. Should we expect less PvP? I doubt because there are many scenarios where some player has a clear advantage and will attack with no hesitation.

 

Anyway, DayZ must be very good prepared and stable to add this option. In alpha stage, this option is just to early because death can happen from various bugs.

Edited January 12, 2015 by lucianpin

[B4GEL 175]

I think what they mean is , they are finally taking us community up on our suggestion. ... Which is to add the ability to spray paint rags to make arm bands or enable us to (what I would like to see) sew custom made (or Pre made and found) patches on certain types of clothing .. Just so you can identify people in your group ... At least this is what I hope for and I have no evidence to back this up but it seems like the only sensible solution for such a realistic game .

I just don't think the armband idea would be effective enough to warrant adding it. It will suffer the same drawbacks that wearing the same clothes as your teammates has (that anyone can wear the same clothes), while being even less visible than a hat or or other clothing.

However I do hope it is only something of this sort, unreliable group identification is much better than immersion breaking group identification. 

Edited January 12, 2015 by B4GEL

[JayBiggs 16]

I just don't think the armband idea would be effective enough to warrant adding it. It will suffer the same drawbacks that wearing the same clothes as your teammates has (that anyone can wear the same clothes), while being even less visible than a hat or or other clothing.

However I do hope it is only something of this sort, unreliable group identification is much better than immersion breaking group identification. 

If it was an armband that was only visible to your team mates it could work. So it wouldn't be an actual clothing item, but something that appears on your arm/your friend's arm when you buddy up. You would not see any other squad's arm bands, only your squad's. Other squads would not see yours.

[kumando 199]

Im going to be hammered for this but i dont like this idea of group identification, i think it goes against the realism aspect that defines Dayz, and this coming from the new lead design, i dont know but i think Rocket would never want something like this...

Edited January 13, 2015 by Kumando

[lrp1984 199]

Yea I really don't wan't a UI for this. I'm hoping for more of a shake hand kind of interaction which then adds a red bandanna tied around your friends arm or something. Something that is done ingame and doesn't break immersion, and also keeps a little challenge to identifying team mates, rather than friends having giant hexagons around them like arma 3.

 

Indeed, or perhaps create a customisation process for the character model so we everyone can look a little more unique and we simply have to recognise our friends by their unique face.

[andrewman986 0]

Manual Transmission??? COOL!!!!!

[[TAW] GunRunner 53]

See, I see alot of people complaining about the effect that group identification will have on immersion. I think the BIGGEST effect is the graphical limitations of the game. IRL: I could identify a friend from 200m away having just seen them. I could pick out there size, shape, clothing color, the way they move etc. In game, some things don't render properly and graphics settings alter between players. The character models are limited and all animations are the same. There is a limited number of types of "desired" gear (eg: camoflage, helmets, military boots) so most people wear the same stuff. Those right there are the biggest immersion breakers IMO.

 

If they can compensate for THAT by making differentiating between friendly/enemy players easier, then I personally don't care if friendlies have a glowing green orb above there head. I'm sure there are those of you out there that disagree, which is fine. But also.... if they do decide to implement something UI based don't you think they would give the option to turn it on/off?