Status Report - 15 Jul 2015

[SMoss 2101]

Greetings Survivors,

Yet another week is checked off the calendar as the team moves forward with development of DayZ. In this week's Status Report, Lead Producer Brian Hicks will be filling us in on the challenges the team faces while on the road towards the next Stable branch update. Additionally, Brian will hand out a bit more info/updates in regards to the current state of persistence on 0.58 over on the Experimental branch.

 

Contents This Week

• Development Board Spotlight
• Dev Update/Hicks
• Community Spotlight: Carrot Survivor

Development Board Spotlight

 

 

Dev Update/Hicks

 

Greetings Survivors!

 

As we're in crunch to resolve the last few blocking issues for 0.58 we don't have too much *new news*. That said, we'll use this weeks Status Report to fill you in on the issues we're currently focused on resolving for 0.58, as well as some small changes to Experimental Branch over the last week.

 

Player Position Desync:

This issue has been present in a pretty bad state on 0.57, so obviously we want to do what we can to improve the situation for 0.58. No one enjoys having their character get stuck in one spot, or have someone they're in conflict with bounce all over their screen. While we'll probably not get this issue 100% resolved for this update, our aim is to mitigate it as much as possible and present as enjoyable an experience on stable branch as is possible within a reasonable amount of time for bugfixing. We'll be pushing test updates to experimental branch as work on this moves forward.

 

Degrading Server Performance:

Internally we have noticed severe performance drops on 0.58 experimental, below what we consider to be the acceptable line for a playable dev build. The team has focused on investigating the cause of this issue, and resolving it so as to return the build to a playable state. This, like the issue with player position desync is marked as a blocker for 0.58 stable release.

 

As well, we discussed last week the goal of having the gameplay programmers resolve the issue of animation glitching for 0.58. With the issues listed above, specifically player position desynchronization being a much more critical issue - priority on the animation glitching (weapon swapping, holding an invisible weapon) has been rescheduled for 0.59, in order to give the proper resources to resolving the issues listed above.

 

That said - with 0.58 large strides have been made on the loot respawning, and cleanup issues. Allowing us to look forward to the reintroduction of persistent objects frequently used with the building of player camps.

 

The following functionality is currently present on 0.58 persistence:

- Vehicle Position
- Vehicle Inventory
- Attached Vehicle Parts (W/ Exception to Tires & Fuel Levels)
- Barrel Locations & Inventory
- Horticulture Plots
- Fireplaces & Ovens
- Tents (Camping, Military, Car) Locations & Inventory
- Containers (Ammo Canisters, Backpacks, etc)

 

And of course - the base item persistence is functioning as well. Item cleanup & respawn should ensure that the economy functions at a base enjoyable level. If you encounter or spawn near a small village that seems to be barren, just continue on to the next town. Mapping the concentration of loot over the span of a week on experimental has shown proper saturation across the map, so there is a high chance that the next town will have everything you need!

As well, Lead Designer Peter Nespesny will be discussing our goals for vehicle maintenance (tools, parts, etc) on the Official DayZ forums later today. Make sure to head over, and let your voice be heard!

Lastly, as we look to pushing 0.58 to Stable Branch - We'll be issuing a full reset of the hive (private shard and public shard characters) as well as a full wipe of existing persistence. 

 

We still have a long way to go, but 0.58 should be a fun build to play on - and 0.59 looks to be even better!

 

- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer

 

 

 

Community Spotlight: Carrot Survivor

 

Hey all,

 

So, for this week it is time yet again for one of the DayZ content creators that have a mixed bag of goodies in his library. Without too much fuss; for this week we'll present you a couple of the videos created by: Carrot Survivor

 

 

Ahhh, the sweet sweet randomness when players take off into Chernarus to meet and engage other players sometimes in dialogue, sometimes in firefights. Our small selection of Carrot Survivor's videos depict the following settings:

 

1. An encounter where Carrot Survivor hooks up with two other random players. Eventually the group takes fire, and the guys subsequently have to figure out a way to deal with a pair of less than friendly players situated by the docks in Cherno.

 

2. An unusual encouter where Carrot and a friend engage in a firefight with another player by Veresnik military base. They end up taking the player hostage, yet the encounter ends in a way you might not necessarily expect:

 

3. Yet another hostile encounter where things do not go entirely quite as planned, neither for Carrot Survivor nor for his aggressor (dear god, Carrot's screaming is used liberally in several videos and it cracks me up every single time):

 

As always, if interested in more, please feel free to follow Carrot Survivor via his Twitter and Youtube accounts:

• Twitter

• Youtube

Also, for this month we have an update on the bugfiler(s) for the month of june. As always, Darcion contributed with a load of issues for June, but we'd also like to recognize the efforts of Zyryanoff (again) as well as Impulz. A huge thanks goes out to all of you who took the time to file the bugs you came across in DayZ!

 

Header image credit: Jack Smith

 

- Michael aka SMoss / Community Manager

[igor-vk 909]

What about those 300+ items loot piles all over the map? What is cause of that?

[Hawksachute 9]

thx dev to focus in priority on issues  :) and progress on many fonctionnalities (vehicles...) :beans:

Edited July 15, 2015 by Hawksachute

[nl 986]

Lastly, as we look to pushing 0.58 to Stable Branch - We'll be issuing a full reset of the hive (private shard and public shard characters) as well as a full wipe of existing persistence.

 

So don't be surprised :)

[bingo_fuel 205]

Mapping the concentration of loot over the span of a week on experimental has shown proper saturation across the map, so there is a high chance that the next town will have everything you need!

 

I guess that mapping happened before the loot piles on the police car locations showed up. Or do the piles have the correct items distribution and just the wrong location?

 

Beside the problems with the loot piles I think that .58 is a great version.

[igor-vk 909]

I guess that mapping happened before the loot piles on the police car locations showed up. Or do the piles have the correct items distribution and just the wrong location?

 

Beside the problems with the loot piles I think that .58 is a great version.

Yeah, no major performance drop for me even around those loot piles.

[Damnyourdeadman 1045]

Yeah, no major performance drop for me even around those loot piles.

 

Personally,i really wish if the devs reimplemented the CLE for the majority of the loot to be configured and spawn through global containers.

 

I have a feeling that this would mostly solve the problem with loot explosions,save performance and be an overall more flexible system to manage.

Imo,at the very least it's better than tweaking the loot spawn ratio though "map zones" and have the server render thousands of items in the world.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

Thanks for news and hard work, devs/all!

 

Good luck with those bugs!

 

I wouldn't mind hearing about progress with infected AI, or thoughts on the return of infected respawn, or higher infected numbers for stable or experimental if possible.

[tux (DayZ) 325]

Last I checked, barrel contents weren't persistent in 0.58 EXP. Can anyone who has played in the past couple days confirm?

[Hicks_206 (DayZ) 4297]

Last I checked, barrel contents weren't persistent in 0.58 EXP. Can anyone who has played in the past couple days confirm?

 

Confirmed in Status Report =P

Personally,i really wish if the devs reimplemented the CLE for the majority of the loot to be configured and spawn through global containers.

 

I have a feeling that this would mostly solve the problem with loot explosions,save performance and be an overall more flexible system to manage.

Imo,at the very least it's better than tweaking the loot spawn ratio though "map zones" and have the server render thousands of items in the world.

 

Sorry, we're just not interested in that. There are other titles that do it, and do it well - but Peter and I both agree part of the magic of looting in DayZ is being able to *see* the items - not generic containers.

What about those 300+ items loot piles all over the map? What is cause of that?

 

Been discussed - its just a bug, and one thats already been fixed.

[Zboub le météor 250]

Confirmed in Status Report =P

 

Sorry, we're just not interested in that. There are other titles that do it, and do it well - but Peter and I both agree part of the magic of looting in DayZ is being able to *see* the items - not generic containers.

 

Been discussed - its just a bug, and one thats already been fixed.

i love to see those items, it gives 10x more enjoyement when you see a rare/important item

[Damnyourdeadman 1045]

Sorry, we're just not interested in that. There are other titles that do it, and do it well - but Peter and I both agree part of the magic of looting in DayZ is being able to *see* the items - not generic containers.

 

I'm really curious how's that gonna work out.

You mean like opening a wardrobe or a cupboard and the items will be physically in there?

The same way we open the junked car's trunks and find items laying around?

What is the point for residental world containers then?

 

Whatever your plans,i personaly wouldn't be too quick to underestimate the value of world containers.

You are given an excellent opportunity here,to promote gameplay elements and mechanics.

 

Spawning the majority of items inside containers is way more authentic than having to drag and drop items from the vicinity window to our inventories.

In addition,you could have some of them spawn locked,requiring different tools in order to be breached (screwdriver,pliers,crowbar,etc).

Furthermore they are the cornestone for base building and player controlled storage.

Giving players the option to make them persistant,would make a great incentive for players barricading their position.

 

And these are only a few of ideas from the top of my head.

In the end of the day,you are the one pulling the decisions on the game's scope.

But imho,it would really be a shame if you choose not to utilize them at all.

Edited July 15, 2015 by Damnyourdeadman

[PaniXx 34]

Sorry, we're just not interested in that. There are other titles that do it, and do it well - but Peter and I both agree part of the magic of looting in DayZ is being able to *see* the items - not generic containers.

 

May i ask does it mean completelly not interested or just "yeah, most of the loot will spawn like how it is now/or will be envisioned. However, sometimes you can still find some loot in generic containers (f.e. a pipsi in the refrigerator (i have always to think about nuka cola refrigerator))

 

Thanks for the great status report and your time replying to some comments here etc. Have a nice day, Mr. Hicks! :) 

[Max Planck 7174]

I cannot unsee the googly eyes on that first video.

[joe_mcentire 2074]

-snip-

i agree with your sentiment. but it really depends on the direction they choose to go with this game. how much loot are we going to get and see in its final form. far more, far less than we can see in these current builds? i think there is a magic number where you get a significant gain from the one or the other system.

 

however it confuses me as well a bit: wheren't world containers such as the shown fridge e.g. supposed to get "non-materialized" loot? or was that just jumping to conclusions back then?

[tux (DayZ) 325]

Confirmed in Status Report =P

 

I'll double check tonight, but I believe you  ;)

 

I hope that the intent is lots of barrel spawns everywhere. We already see those blue barrels (in groups of four) everywhere, and even some single barrels lying around in some places, so the interactable barrels shouldn't be uncommon, at least compared to tents.

 

Do you have any thoughts on providing a large capacity container that you can move while filled (aside from vehicle inventories)? A wheelbarrow comes to mind. Maybe even once item weight comes into play, you would be able to carry a barrel with things inside of it, as long as the contents' weight wasn't above the amount you could carry in your arms.

[Tiger205 48]

Oh great. Another wipe. Just great.

[Zyryanoff 227]

Just waiting for the next stable update. Thanks.

[tux (DayZ) 325]

On the subject of barrel contents being persistent in 0.58 EXP:

 

Confirmed in Status Report =P

 

We're seeing otherwise, and have been for some time now.

 

Any way we can get this checked out so we're on the same page?

[Private Evans 1303]

I'm really curious how's that gonna work out.

You mean like opening a wardrobe or a cupboard and the items will be physically in there?

The same way we open the junked car's trunks and find items laying around?

What is the point for residental world containers then?

 

Whatever your plans,i personaly wouldn't be too quick to underestimate the value of world containers.

You are given an excellent opportunity here,to promote gameplay elements and mechanics.

 

Spawning the majority of items inside containers is way more authentic than having to drag and drop items from the vicinity window to our inventories.

In addition,you could have some of them spawn locked,requiring different tools in order to be breached (screwdriver,pliers,crowbar,etc).

Furthermore they are the cornestone for base building and player controlled storage.

Giving players the option to make them persistant,would make a great incentive for players barricading their position.

 

And these are only a few of ideas from the top of my head.

In the end of the day,you are the one pulling the decisions on the game's scope.

But imho,it would really be a shame if you choose not to utilize them at all.

 

 

I am asking for world containers since ages now and I absolutely agree that it would be an absolute waste to ignore them and their possibilities and advantages....I don't think that it will  work well to spawn more than one or two loot items in garbage bins, mail boxes, desks, fridges, rubbish piles, wardrobes etc without having a lot of bugs and clipping issues...beside the time and resources that it will take to make it work this way. I absolutely can not understand why not using already existing stuff  to create containers ( I guess nearly everything could be used)...especially since backpacks, multipurpose barrels, tents and vehicles work the same way...this could even probably help with performance ( not sure about this).

Last but not least even searching world containers could be done in an immersive way....for example it could take a specific amount of time to search a container and make some noise depending on how you search...for example searching in a hurry would make a lot of noise including a chance to miss or even damage some items. Probably this would be more immersive than having one or two pipsis in a fridge and dragging them from the vicinity window into our inventory...

 

just my thoughts

Edited July 17, 2015 by Private Evans

[Damnyourdeadman 1045]

i agree with your sentiment. but it really depends on the direction they choose to go with this game. how much loot are we going to get and see in its final form. far more, far less than we can see in these current builds? i think there is a magic number where you get a significant gain from the one or the other system.

 

however it confuses me as well a bit: wheren't world containers such as the shown fridge e.g. supposed to get "non-materialized" loot? or was that just jumping to conclusions back then?

 

Whatever their final decision,i still feel the need to provide my feedback.

For me personally,world containers was the holy grail of DayZ features that could get people back in the game!

Imo this is an excellent mechanic,that a lot of us were waiting for.

There are so many possibilities,that it would really be a shame to scrap it.

 

In addition i disagree with Hick's point of view on having to physically see items in the world.

That doesn't make the game any more realistic.

Correct me if i'm wrong,but only on very few and rare occasions do people physically point their cursors on an an item to grab it.

Most of us just Tab-away while running around homes,dragging and dropping items in our inventories.

And this is one of the most unrealistic elements currently on DayZ... (i think you were the one that made a topic about it)

 

As to what were their original intentions with world containers,i honestly don't know.

I made the same assumption as you,but maybe Hicks was planning on spawning them empty in the world,for them to function the same way as barrels.

 

I am asking for world containers since ages now and I absolutely agree that it would be an absolute waste to ignore them and their possibilities and advantages....I don't think that it will  work well to spawn more than one or two loot items in garbage bins, mail boxes, desks, fridges, rubbish piles, wardrobes etc without having a lot of bugs and clipping issues...beside the time and resources that it will take to make it work this way. I absolutely can not understand why not using already existing stuff  to create containers ( I guess nearly everything could be used)...especially since backpacks, multipurpose barrels, tents and vehicles work the same way...this could even probably help with performance ( not sure about this).

Last but not least even searching world containers could be done in an immersive way....for example it could take a specific amount of time to search a container and make some noise depending on how you search...for example searching in a hurry would make a lot of noise including a chance to miss or even damage some items. Probably this would be more immersive than having one or two pipsis in a fridge and dragging them from the vicinity window into our inventory...

 

just my thoughts

 

Seeing them making house fireplaces into functioning containers,i think it's safe to assume that converting the rest of the furniture is also viable.

From a realistic scope,looting from world containers is an improvement in every way.

I'm not saying that it's impossible to find loot on the house floor,but the majority would still be stored in their respected containers.

 

I would be in favor of implementing a 5sec search animation.

This would effectively eradicate the current mentality,of bulldozing though homes with the vicinity window open.

[The Riddler (DayZ) 410]

 

I can't help but become very frustrated week after week reading these reports. I have tried for the last hour to write out a well documented and well worded (non-aggressive) reply based on the prior status report's, trying to understand the direction in which development is going with this game. However I simply can't find the words without sounding like a complete asshole and that is not my intent with making this post. I'm just trying to understand so please if you must, take this with a grain of salt; I have a lot of respect for what goes into development having been apart of a software project management team, and understand that things change as software evolves from when the first few lines of code that are written. 

 

 

I don't have the luxury to play all the time, and I certainly don't have enough time to check out the experimental builds vs. stable from patch to patch to compare, but it just seems that development is all over the place from week to week and month to month. Why is that the case with this game? Is there staffing issues and/or turnover within the teams that prevents you all from moving forward on progress of things that have been touched on in the past? Has there ever been an internal discussion with the entire team(s) that maybe you all should stop working on delivering new content and get what you have now working correctly? 

 

 

Please stop hiding behind the curtain of "This game is still alpha" as an excuse for all the bugs/glitches/issues and just make the game more playable. You need a fan base to continue development and I fear you're losing too many of us with the route in which you are currently taking simply based on the performance. I for one am holding on and watching to see where things go. I don't give up on a game just b/c I don't like the development but when the game is not enjoyable due to bad frame rate, glitches, etc etc ..... its hard to continue playing. If after reading all this and you're angry with my opinion,  please read this again and think about players out there who are just starting out and at the same time think of players like myself who have been around since the beginning of standalone. 

[joe_mcentire 2074]

snip

i have a very hard time understanding your issue here. it all sounds very "general" and a bit vague. why are you so frustrated? what is all over the place exactly?

[stinkenheim 249]

snip.

The main issue I have with your 'stop adding content and get it optimised' mini rant is that only a portion of the team will be able to effectively work on the bug fixing/optimisation side of the process. The other departments like art, animation, sound etc would be going what exactly? 6 month holiday??

As an animator myself, I know the programmes I use and can do most things I want in there. Sit me in front of a computer and tell me to recode section x of the engine to increase frame rate and I would likely look confused at you for several minutes before having to ask one of the programmers exactly what I'm meant to be doing or looking for. I'd much rather be working on the animations or textures, the things that I know, than making a hamfisted attempt to 'improve' the games playability by typing in random lines of code that I don't understand.

[eno 1049]

 

-snip

 

Why are you even here? Every time you log into the game you hit a little button that says "I understand" under a rambling explanation of all the things you can expect. 

 

Every. Single. Time. 

 

Tired of it? Walk away... come back when it's further along. I'm sure it'll still be here when you get back- and if you wait long enough you won't need to click "I understand."