Status Report - Week of 19 Jan 15

[SMoss 2101]

 
Its been a busy week over here in the DayZ development offices. With work pushing forward on 0.53 the team is focused on the last few remaining major issues before the push. As we go into test/fix/regression with 0.53, there are several things every Early Access user should be aware of:

• We will be analyzing builds daily for a 0.53 stable branch candidate
  • Once we have a build, Stable branch servers will be brought offline for the update
• The 0.53 update will include a public hive reset.
  • This will not affect private shards

The 0.53 update has a good amount of security fixes, as well as content additions, support for adminlogs, and should roll out with the new BattlEye protection. Over the next few days you will see us roll out incremental updates to experimental branch as we iterate towards a good 0.53 candidate.
For those who operate servers, remember - adminlogs will be accessible on both public, and private shard servers and contain the following info:

• Connections/Disconnections (With in-game name and Steam 64 ID)
• Player X (w/Steam 64 ID) killed Player Y (w/Steam 64 ID)
• Player X (w/Steam 64 ID) damaged Player Y (w/Steam 64 ID)
• Direct Chat (Text)

In addition to the changes and updates above - 0.53 will include, but is not limited to:

• Upgrading of fireplaces all the way to the furnace
• Proper consumption of fuel for fireplaces
• Crafted leather clothing
• Anti-duplication fixes
• Anti-cheating fixes
• A new island featuring the new prison complex
• Changes to Skalisty Island
• Vehicle Persistence
• And so much more

PAX South was at the end of the week, and DayZ had a strong presence at the show. Integrating with prolific DayZ Storytellers from both Youtube and Twitch, we partnered with Astro Gaming for developer/content creator meet and greets, as well as with Twitch to discuss 0.53, Security and Anti Cheat measures, Steam Workshop, and more.
 

 
As DayZ hits 3,000,000 units sold we look forward to all the possibility that 2015 holds for DayZ. With the project slowly able to reap the rewards of hard work put in by the engine and gameplay programmers over the months prior. I for one cannot wait to begin to roll these changes out to stable branch.

Again, keep an eye on Experimental Branch daily as we iterate towards the 0.53 release. As always I encourage you to head over to the Developer Discussion subforums at the official DayZ forums. Department Leads are always available there to discuss the ongoing development of DayZ with you.

I'm convinced the PAX Pox caused the Chernarusian Outbreak.
- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer


Peter / Lead Game Designer
"You folks are amazing, DayZ would mean nothing without you - the diverse group of all types of different players who create such amazing stories that bring almost infinite unique experiences which could never be written in a traditional narrative form. DayZ just hit 3,000,000 sales and your continued interest in being involved in the development process of this game is clear signal and thus commitment for us to bring you the best possible platform to lay down your stories - and this is what we are doing on the daily basis with love and passion.
 
As we are developing an online multiplayer game it of course means there is and will be a influx of some new content in major updates. We are also working hard on fleshing out new and expanding current features which enriches how the game is played, defining possible interactions and overall experience - and I must say this is my most favorite part.
 
I would like to mention some new items which are ready and will be introduced in one of the upcoming updates. Melee weapons batch consist from mix of different items like bayonet for AK, broom, mace, paddle, hay hook, steak knife, lead pipe and hatchet. We didn't omit firearms too and you can await FN Trombone which can be disassembled into the parts to save your inventory space which makes it a perfect firearm for those who wants to carry second rifle directly in theirs inventory and then there is a flare gun which was waiting for some time to be configured as we didn't have possibility to attach the new light source to the projectiles till now which means that now you are free to lighten up surrounding environment or use it as a signal for others.
 
We also prepared prototype for the bear trap which is in fact far from desired implementation as there is currently not proper trigger available for us to use it with it and as zombie/animal AI is still in development only players will be caught by it for now - but hey you can hunt animals even without bear trap which can be skinned to get pelts already and now we added process to produce pieces of tanned leather (although a bit simplified for now as a placeholder). You probably can guess that tanned leather have some usability which is the sewing the set of leather clothes included shoes, pants, jacket, vest, hat and bag. In the future preparing the tanned leather and dying leather clothes will be connected to barrels which are currently being prepared by art team. As counterbalance to the recent addition of crafted clothes we have added also brand new quilted jacked and in the future is very possible that down jacket will be pulled down from loot tables as it have plenty of clipping issues due to its mass and will be replaced with quilted jacket. To please those of you who fell in love with cultivating plants we added new plant which yields one of your most loved vegetable - zucchini.

We are also busy with adding new spawn points to the mighty prison castle which was recently finished and sure it will become new attraction for survivors in no time. Also I would like to remind you about withdrawal of our very special Xmas tree and presents which were here just for holidays. But don't worry you will be able to find that cute teddy bear elsewhere.

We have finished first phase of cooking refactoring in general and things related to it like fireplaces and crafting recipes. The foundation is here now and it will be expanded and polished to desired result in short period of time. You are now able to make also upgraded fireplaces with stones, use tripod to hold pot or turn your fireplace to a stove which let you to cook your food without excess amount of light and smoke produced by normal fireplace. You will be able to put every item directly into fireplace or pot to heat it up so it may be used as an alternative to the heat packs. Eventually you can ruin items if they will be in the fire for some time which can be different for all items. Imagine throwing in some bullets or spray can when you noticed some unwanted visitors that are coming in direction to your fireplace to distract them or endanger them while they are searching thru your camp for possible loot.
 
Movement restriction of characters by restraining them was expanded to other generic items apart from handcuffs like wire, rope, duct tape and guts. Duration of struggling to break free differ from item to item and they have equivalent to handcuffs keys also like knives or pliers. Last but not least we implemented liquids which are independent now and are not based on specific container types which means you can pour gasoline into the PET bottle or store some fresh and clean water in the jerry can. This feature also brings such actions as emptying canisters for the purpose of filling it with different liquid as we didn't went down the road of mixing different liquids which can easily turn to the overkill. I'm sure independent liquids which are not tied to specific container will bring unexpected and interesting situations.

Well I almost forgot to mention new group identification which is naturally optional and can be used to form clans, teams or just to stand out from the masses - armbands. They are created thru crafting and comes in few different easily recognizable colors and they are fully visible directly on arm. I'm glad we are pushing customization of characters further down the road and I can assure you that we are not stopping here.

Thank you for your marvellous support so far... see you in Chernarus folks!"
 
Standup Notes for the week of 19 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)
 
Design:
• Manual Transmission
• Advanced crafting
• Cooking
• Controls and interactions
• Diseases
• Armbands
• Liquids independent of specific container types
• Traps
• New scripting language
• Barrels
• Bugfixing
 
Programming:
• Support for armbands
• Inventory refactorization
• Security vulnerability hotfixes
• Vehicle persistency
• Per building loot distribution w/ centralized economy
• New Infected/Animal AI
• New player controller prototype
• Support for manual vehicle transmission
• Crash fixes
• New vehicle features
• Research on flexible item type inventory support

[SmashT 10907]

Awesome. Can't wait to check out the prison island.

[Tatanko 5591]

Awesome. Can't wait to check out the prison island.

Edited:

 

WHATTTTT? And they're making changes to my beloved Skalisty? Be still my beating heart  :wub:

Edited January 28, 2015 by Tatanko

[ChainReactor 922]

Edited:

 

WHATTTTT? And they're making changes to my beloved Skalisty? Be still my beating heart  :wub:

 

They put a statue of yourself on top of the hill and renamed it "Tatanko Island" :D

[Tatanko 5591]

They put a statue of yourself on top of the hill and renamed it "Tatanko Island" :D

As they should :p

 

I'm really hoping this means that Skalisty will have animals of some sort now (even if it's just rabbits able to be trapped). The island is missing a lot of things that we take for granted elsewhere on the map: no ponds, no animals, no Ashwood trees, no Canina bushes (red berries), no apple trees, etc. This limits what you're able to do there significantly (without outside resources, obviously). The little village there could stand some sprucing up as well.

[Valdenburg 200]

• We will be analyzing builds daily for a 0.53 stable branch candidate
  • Once we have a build, Stable branch servers will be brought offline for the update

 

Hope that means they will update even after the maintenance on wednesday (today) - when it´s ready ;)

[chompster 171]

With all this talk about other islands, i hope boats or even rafts are things that aren't too far off the horizon. 

[ChainReactor 922]

With all this talk about other islands, i hope boats or even rafts are things that aren't too far off the horizon. 

 

With all this talk about other islands, i hope people remember not to go for a swim with a backpack and a gun on their back :)

[Tatanko 5591]

With all this talk about other islands, i hope people remember not to go for a swim with a backpack and a gun on their back :)

That's actually become less of an issue. With my frequent back-and-forth to Skalisty, I've noticed (at least as of 0.52, maybe not 0.53) that once those two items fall off you are able to put them back on and keep swimming as you were. I've never seen them fall off a second time, either. Not sure if this is intentional behavior or not, but that's how it currently is. I actually lost a Longhorn that I had stashed in my jacket as well, even though the jacket stayed on -- so it's not just weapons on your back necessarily.

[ChainReactor 922]

That's actually become less of an issue. With my frequent back-and-forth to Skalisty, I've noticed (at least as of 0.52, maybe not 0.53) that once those two items fall off you are able to put them back on and keep swimming as you were. I've never seen them fall off a second time, either. Not sure if this is intentional behavior or not, but that's how it currently is. I actually lost a Longhorn that I had stashed in my jacket as well, even though the jacket stayed on -- so it's not just weapons on your back necessarily.

 

Thanks for the info. Seems Brian lost some stuff himself in the past...

 

[Tatanko 5591]

Thanks for the info. Seems Brian lost some stuff himself in the past...

Haha. I imagine that in the process of internally testing out these map changes for 0.53 they probably had to do a good bit of swimming. I'm happy to know that it isn't intentional. Perhaps, with the right heating, there is yet a chance I might make a return voyage to Debug Island someday :)

Edited January 28, 2015 by Tatanko

[SMoss 2101]

Thanks for the info. Seems Brian lost some stuff himself in the past...

 

 

Heh, we probably all have

[blackberrygoo 1416]

Hoe-lee.... Shit ... Vehicle persistence , new anti cheat / anti hack, new BE , admin logs , AND new island with a prison on it ?! I'm in fucking dayz heaven :).. Can't wait to play experimental these next few days , here's to hoping it's up by tonight , and here's to calling out from work over the next few days when it does :) !

[xCAPx 349]

really nice, guys!

I can't decide with is my favorite thing, they are all awesome :D can't wait...

[Tatanko 5591]

really nice, guys!

I can't decide with is my favorite thing, they are all awesome :D can't wait...

0.52 was a lot of stuff, and 0.53 is shaping up to be equally huge. Worth waiting a little longer between updates methinks.

[Valdenburg 200]

Hoe-lee.... Shit ... Vehicle persistence , new anti cheat / anti hack, new BE , admin logs , AND new island with a prison on it ?! I'm in fucking dayz heaven :).. Can't wait to play experimental these next few days , here's to hoping it's up by tonight , and here's to calling out from work over the next few days when it does :) !

We all can´t wait either - mostly its that we want to deliver a no KOS server for all our members - everything besides the kill logs is just the icing on the cake :D

[CornProducts 315]

I like the armband idea. I was afraid that grouping would require a much more intrusive method.

 

I am however, not looking forward to when my armband group runs into another group with the same color. :(

[Thumper1999 48]

come on steam start the download. :P

[Tatanko 5591]

come on steam start the download. :P

You might be waiting a little while ;)

[Thumper1999 48]

what are the controls to manual transmission

Edited January 28, 2015 by Thumper1999

[hevath 1]

 

The 0.53 update will include a public hive reset.

 

So does this mean a character wipe? or just persistent loot? Thanks in advance!

[polini 65]

So does this mean a character wipe? or just persistent loot? Thanks in advance!

 

I think Character wipe, because persistent loot is cleared one time at week on Wednesday anyway. Maybe im wrong.

[The Riddler (DayZ) 410]

So does this mean a character wipe? or just persistent loot? Thanks in advance!

 

Yes, the entire public hive will be reset so everybody will start as a new spawn. 

 

Its awesome to hear discussion about cheaters and hackers in detail. As a server co-owner/admin I am very excited to have logs and have more control over the server when it comes to dealing with cheaters. Of course I understand we won't always be free of cheaters and hackers but its very nice to know the security team has been hard at work.  :beans:

[hevath 1]

I think Character wipe, because persistent loot is cleared one time at week on Wednesday anyway. Maybe im wrong.

Makes sense to me, oh well... goodbye Sword, goodbye M4... it was fun while it lasted lol

[Ben_uk 24]

Any word on the new renderer?