Status Report - 08 Jul 2015

[SMoss 2101]

 

Greetings Survivors,

 

Work continues on Experimental Branch where the team is working on reaching a suitable build candidate for the next Stable update. In this week's Status Report we'll see Lead Producer Brian Hicks commenting on upcoming changes to stable as well as a bit on the future plans for 0.59 on Experimental Branch. We'll also see Lead Designer Peter Nespesny commenting on both the current and upcoming state of the scheduler in charge of character updates.

 

 

Contents This Week

• Development Board Spotlight
• Dev Update/Hicks
• Dev Update/Peter
• RTX 2015
• Community Spotlight: AUS vs UK - Round 1

 

Development Board Spotlight

Back to Contents

 

 

 

Dev Update/Hicks

 

Greetings Survivors,

 

This week I'd like to recap some of the upcoming changes to stable (when 0.58 goes live) for those that are not up to date with Experimental Branch. Once 0.58 goes live, we can start discussing 0.59 plans and intent.

 

 

Guardhouse Buildings:

 

As work is underway on regional control over the central loot economy, in the interim the guardhouse structures spread across the entirety of the map will not be spawning any loot. This is done to preserve the restriction of high end military loot to the military bases and camps inland in Chernarus. The structures themselves remain enter-able, but until regional control is implemented on stable branch - they will remain without spawning loot.

 

 

Land_Mil_House

 

The structure some folks have referred to as the "Camo Building" or the "Jail House" has been problematic for some time. We've issued hotfixes, and addressed several bugs related to it - but the core issue that needs to be addressed is on the player controller. Rather than continue to issue small hotfixes (otherwise known as bandages on a broken leg) the issue needs to be resolved at the cause. To that end, the loot that would normally be spawning within these structures will be redistributed to other military buildings (tents, camps, barracks, etc)

 

"Ghost Sounds"

 

Those who have played DayZ throughout its Early Access development are probably no stranger to the notorious "ghost sounds" bug. Splitting ammo, bandaging, opening soda cans, etc being partially played, and well outside of the range of the actual sound effect. Fortunately, during 0.58 development we were able to get some of the gameplay programmers time to look into this issue, and we are now confident that on 0.58 the issue has been finally slain. So be very aware after the next stable update, if you *hear* a sound effect playing - it IS near you. Be careful out there!

 

 

Wrecks (Non interactive)

 

With work on the central loot economy continuing, and the functionality of how it operates being iterated upon - Non interactive wrecks (tanks, destroyed UAZ's, etc) have been removed from the loot spawning tables, and the environment team will begin using them in their "devastation passes" across Chernarus. As with other structures, items that would normally spawn there will be redistributed across Chernarus. Note: This does NOT include interactive wrecks, such as vehicles you can open the trunks/doors/etc on.
 

 

Animation Glitching

 

The gameplay programming team is currently investigating the cause and symptom behind the notorious animation glitching bug. (Weapon swapping constantly) As well as the issues with dropping your weapon when vaulting. The weapon vaulting fix should be coming to experimental soon, and it is the aim of the team internally to also include a fix toward the weapon swapping animation bug.

 

Photo Credit: DayZTV.com

 

Loot Respawning / Persistence Enabling

 

Persistence itself has been functioning for some time, the cause behind it being manually disabled on 0.57 stable servers is tied to an issue with loot respawning. We're aiming to have this issue resolved before we push 0.58 to stable branch, once we've tested this on experimental and are confident in the fix - players will be able to resume making camps, storing gear, and so on. 

 

Similar issues with dynamic event cleanup and respawn were the cause of static dynamic events - and these issues are currently being investigated, and are marked critical for the 0.58 launch.

 

In addition to these issues, bugs related to severe player position desyncronization are currently being investigated, and flagged as a must fix for 0.59.

I hope this brief list of information pertaining to 0.58 helps update those who may have not kept a close eye on the experimental branch updates.

- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer

 

 

 

Dev Update/Peter

 

With the 0.57 stable version of DayZ many of you experienced weird behaviour on the character side such as freezing core updates for hunger, thirst, bleeding and others which in many cases rendered character temporarily immortal or in worse case killed him instantly after login back to server. Unsurprisingly the root of all these issues was in the scheduler which is handling character updates recently. 
During our in house testing we didn't catch some circumstances leading to not clearing character properly from scheduler's array of active characters. This issue was especially triggered by respawning and in some cases by disconnecting from the server. 
After some time the scheduler array become partially populated by ghosts and newly connected or respawned players were forced to live outside of it. As scheduler wasn't aware of their existence it didn't processed core updates for them. Fortunately now it's fixed, tested and ready to go so I hope you'll don't experience such issues soon.  
 
With proper updates... see you in Chernarus folks!

- Peter Nespesny / Lead Designer

 

 

 

RTX 2015

Lead Producer Brian Hicks will be speaking at RTX 2015 - discussing the plans for apocalyptic Chernarus moving into the end of the year. From expanded base building options, new vehicles, modding support, character soft skills, and upcoming engine changes Brian will discuss and demo some of the upcoming changes to the post apocalyptic survival simulator DayZ. Q&A to follow!

Back to Contents

 

 

 

Community Video: "AUS vs UK - Round 1"

 

This week we have a bit of a team based rumble. Via the Youtube channel TeamLiveAction, I was served a short video depicting the showdown between the "AUS" and "UK" teams. Even though the video only shows a fraction of the event, seeing two large teams like that arranging to have a go at each others was awesome!

 

Now, unfortunately I missed the event, but the reason for highlighting these guys this week is due to initially finding the following video:

 

Yep, it does look like the guys are going at it again for a second round on July 25th 2015 at 10:00 (UTC + 1). I'm definitely looking forward to the event, and if you have the time as well, I'm sure you would enjoy swinging by to see the two teams duking it out in Chernarus.

 

Youtube: TeamLiveAction

 

Twitter: http://twitter.com/TLa_HQ

 

Twitch: There are several streams linked in the descriptions for the YT videos, but this one seems to catch a bunch of them: http://www.multitwitch.tv/ashimprezatv/bwaf_wiidevil/slothuk/ukalliancecallum/gotshadow/boydy73/locosutra/m4loo

 

 

As always, if you have a nice video containing DayZ footage you'd like to share, or if you have come across some DayZ footage from other content creators, just post it in the Gallery section of the DayZ forums and we'll happily have a look.

 

Header image credit: Jack Smith

 

- Michael aka SMoss / Community Manager

 

 

[Rags! 1966]

First. Take that, Hicks. 

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

Similar issues with dynamic event cleanup and respawn were the cause of static dynamic events - and these issues are currently being investigated, and are marked critical for the 0.58 launch.

 

 

Sweeet!

 

Dynamic events are a lot of fun to hunt for when working properly.

 

Thanks for the info!

 

These reports are getting better and better.

 

I especially like some of the discussion RE: critical issues for forthcoming patches.

 

Moar gaem plox!

 

Thanks to all for hard work!

 

Edit: so wish I had ninja'd Rags....  :P  :D

Edited July 8, 2015 by BioHaze

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

Double post for to state:

 

No word on infected AI/numbers in the status report would lead me to believe that they won't be working on those in the public realm until persistence and dynamic events are ironed out first.

 

Maybe we'll get surprised with some kind of extra wonky exp build that features a bunch of not so ready for prime time zombies too... you know, for science?

 

I have so many great games to play but all I really want currently is DayZ with zombies. :D

[ColdAtrophy 1850]

I love hearing that the ghost sounds are fixed and persistence and loot respawning are top priorities for 0.58 Stable. Seriously, I cannot overstate how glad I am to hear those things. But....

 

What about the zombies? A large respawning population of bloodthirsty infected are just as important to me as the ability to build a camp. The infected provide a layer of depth and complexity to the moment to moment gameplay that leaves the experience strangely unsatisfying and hollow without them. Even on a full server, I can go hours without seeing a single player. In 0.55, I couldn't walk for 5 minutes without hitting a patch of them. Some of the most harrowing moments I've ever experienced in DayZ have been a result of my own stupidity and the AI monkey wrench that the infected are eager to provide. 

 

I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir so, I guess I will get to the point. What's the status on zombies?

[blackberrygoo 1416]

I would like to hear of the undead as well ... And what about making the Lockpick mechanic more robust ? With persistence being worked on so heavily and camps are growing more complex I would love to see doors become breakable sooner rather than later to spice up bases and raiding of them '

[igor-vk 909]

What does "devastation passes" means?

[freethink 984]

exp .58 has been fairly low pop in general but given that caveat I can state that I didn't hear phantom sounds once on exp. We'll see what happens on stable high pops but I'm optimistic the most annoying bug in the world is on the way out.

[ColdAtrophy 1850]

What does "devastation passes" means?

 

I'm not a dev, so don't take this as gospel, but I'm pretty sure they mean that the map guys will go through and make the world look a bit less clean and more post apocalyptic. I seem to recall them explaining this in a bit more detail at some point, somewhere on this forum. I know that is super vague and almost no help, but it's hard to pin down what Twitter post, forum post, sub forum, DayZ interview, or article I read about it in. Plus, the search function on this forum is awful.

[Tatanko 5591]

What does "devastation passes" means?

I'm pretty sure they mean that the map guys will go through and make the world look a bit less clean and more post apocalyptic.

You're spot on, ColdAtrophy.

[PaniXx 34]

regarding the zeds: time after time ... instead of providing half-fixes, they rather focus on some specific points right now: fixing Ghost bug, improving CLE to the state how they envision it,fixing the persistence issues, changing the player module, which would provide many fixes, and working on the desync of players (right now one of the biggest issues right now). When most of these are done, they can move on and concentrate on integrating new features and probably fixing the zeds. Remember, the reason for removing the respawning of zeds, was the big desync of players. As long as players are more important than zeds, it is less priority trying to fix the desync of zeds. 

[ColdAtrophy 1850]

regarding the zeds: time after time ... instead of providing half-fixes, they rather focus on some specific points right now: fixing Ghost bug, improving CLE to the state how they envision it,fixing the persistence issues, changing the player module, which would provide many fixes, and working on the desync of players (right now one of the biggest issues right now). When most of these are done, they can move on and concentrate on integrating new features and probably fixing the zeds. Remember, the reason for removing the respawning of zeds, was the big desync of players. As long as players are more important than zeds, it is less priority trying to fix the desync of zeds. 

 

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I'm asking for the status on zombies. I'm not asking them to drop everything and put them back in the game. I want to know where they are at, what they plan to do, what patch they hope to address them in, what is keeping them from being in the game, etc. 

 

Also, I did not think they removed zombies because of player desync. As I understood it, they identified a bug in the AI code causing the infected and animals to overly tax server hardware. While that may have been impacting player desync in certain scenarios, I'm not sure that was the primary issue causing desync. I've played quite a few builds with few to no zombies now on experimental and desync was still an issue. On Stable right now I can hop on a server with 40+ players and still have issues with picking up items or eating and drinking. 

 

I did not mean to imply that the devs have their priorities screwed up. I'm sure they will get to it when they get to it. It's just that they touched on almost every other major component of the game in this Status Report and didn't mention the AI at all.

Edited July 8, 2015 by ColdAtrophy

[tux (DayZ) 325]

Desync fixes and no "ghost sounds" will be nice, but I'm most looking forward to respawning loot and persistence. 

 

Great status report. Can't wait for more changes to 0.58 exp!

[PaniXx 34]

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I'm asking for the status on zombies. I'm not asking them to drop everything and put them back in the game. I want to know where they are at, what they plan to do, what patch they hope to address them in, what is keeping them from being in the game, etc. 

 

Also, I did not think they removed zombies because of player desync. As I understood it, they identified a bug in the AI code causing the infected and animals to overly tax server hardware. While that may have been impacting player desync in certain scenarios, I'm not sure that was the primary issue causing desync. I've played quite a few builds with few to no zombies now on experimental and desync was still an issue. On Stable right now I can hop on a server with 40+ players and still have issues with picking up items or eating and drinking. 

 

I did not mean to imply that the devs have their priorities screwed up. I'm sure they will get to it when they get to it. It's just that they touched on almost every other major component of the game in this Status Report and didn't mention the AI at all.

 

i understand your concerns and your point. Well, the one big bug with the zeds led to a way lower server performance as intended, which caused a bigger desync of everything, especially of the players. The zeds are still there, they just don't spawn. The server performance got way better (compared to .55 or .56 to current builds), which made the game also feel less clunky or feeling the desync way less. But yes, it is still there. This is why it is also a priority. They want to fix the desync for players first and then concentrate on another tasks. How to do it? By increasing further the server performance via changing every module of the game and optimizing or bugfixing some issues. But you are right, we did not hear much regarding the zeds in the past weeks. The last statement (don't remember where.. probably twitter from Eugen or DayZ-dev or Hicks) regarding them was that the one ai bug, causing a way lower server performance, is still not fixed. I am pretty sure the devs are not lazy and it is just really hard to fix it. Or they found an another way how to fix it, but it would require some specific pre-changes of something else before. We have to wait and see. So right now, i would say expect some information regarding them in a month. Hicks will talk nearly 45 mins at RTX (15 mins Q&A), so he will surely get some questions regarding the zeds. Let's see and wait. Also i'm pretty sure when they have reached some smaller goals (mentioned in my previous post or the status report from the past three weeks), there will be surely a big update regarding them. 

 

On reddit i read Hicks idea or goal for zeds amount at the end of EA is about: 100 players to 3000 zeds. 

Edited July 9, 2015 by PaniXx

[Jerrico 3]

It's a shame they're plugging TLA. Unfortunately a few of their members are proven hackers.

 

Granted it was a while ago now, so hopefully they've improved their ways

Edited July 9, 2015 by Jerrico

[pillock 850]

 

During our in house testing we didn't catch some circumstances leading to not clearing character properly from scheduler's array of active characters. This issue was especially triggered by respawning and in some cases by disconnecting from the server. 

After some time the scheduler array become partially populated by ghosts and newly connected or respawned players were forced to live outside of it. As scheduler wasn't aware of their existence it didn't processed core updates for them. Fortunately now it's fixed, tested and ready to go so I hope you'll don't experience such issues soon.   

 

 

Seriously, what does this jumble of random words mean?

 

I don't want to knock anybody's English, but I think for the purposes of public communications, especially high-profile announcements like the Dev reports, somebody ought to proof-read it.

 

That said, I understand "Fortunately it's now fixed", which I guess is the most important bit!

[Tatanko 5591]

During our in house testing we didn't catch some circumstances leading to not clearing character properly from scheduler's array of active characters. This issue was especially triggered by respawning and in some cases by disconnecting from the server. 

After some time the scheduler array become partially populated by ghosts and newly connected or respawned players were forced to live outside of it. As scheduler wasn't aware of their existence it didn't processed core updates for them. Fortunately now it's fixed, tested and ready to go so I hope you'll don't experience such issues soon.

Seriously, what does this jumble of random words mean?

 

I don't want to knock anybody's English, but I think for the purposes of public communications, especially high-profile announcements like the Dev reports, somebody ought to proof-read it.

I'll do my best to translate the dev-speak for you since I have a decent understanding of what's being said:

 

 

"During our in house testing we didn't catch some circumstances leading to not clearing character properly from scheduler's array of active characters. This issue was especially triggered by respawning and in some cases by disconnecting from the server."

 

--What Peter is saying in this section is that (limited) internal testing prior to release was not sufficient, likely in sheer number of players, to make this issue appear. You can only have so many people doing the testing internally, and every once in a while issues require a large number of people in order to rear their ugly head, something that is only possible by releasing to Experimental or even Stable depending on what exactly the issue might be.

 

 

"After some time the scheduler array become partially populated by ghosts and newly connected or respawned players were forced to live outside of it. As scheduler wasn't aware of their existence it didn't processed core updates for them. Fortunately now it's fixed, tested and ready to go so I hope you'll don't experience such issues soon."

 

--I'm taking some liberty in explaining this one, but I'll do my best. Firstly, the "scheduler" (I'm guessing) is a program or script within the game that handles events, player status, and other functions that need to be automated based on a schedule. What he's saying is that, somehow, the scheduler became "full" in the sense that it couldn't handle any more tasks; whenever a player connected to the server or died and respawned, there was no capacity within the scheduler to handle that additional character and their needs. What this means is that the character wasn't being updated because the scheduler has no idea they exist, since it was already at capacity. The reason it was at capacity was because, for whatever reason, it wasn't "dumping" old characters from the scheduler, it just kept filling up with new ones until it had no more room.

 

 

Does that make any sense at all? In trying to explain it, I feel I may have gone overboard and made it just as hard to understand  :|

[chodeofwar 145]

"Ghost Sounds"

 

Those who have played DayZ throughout its Early Access development are probably no stranger to the notorious "ghost sounds" bug. Splitting ammo, bandaging, opening soda cans, etc being partially played, and well outside of the range of the actual sound effect. Fortunately, during 0.58 development we were able to get some of the gameplay programmers time to look into this issue, and we are now confident that on 0.58 the issue has been finally slain. So be very aware after the next stable update, if you *hear* a sound effect playing - it IS near you. Be careful out there!

 

 

Bravo ! Great work guys. Thank you finally fixing one of the most annoying bugs in the game.

 

You have no idea how much more polished it feels now. The ghost sounds somehow made the rest of the game feel more buggy and broken than it actually it was.

 

Keep up the good work.

[Mehdi NT 0]

thanks for the info