Status Report - 16 Aug 2016

[SMoss 2101]

 

This week a lot of the guys are off for GamesCom, so our Creative Director gives us some good info on subjects such as upcoming updates for audio, dynamic shadows, desync, as well as an update on the 0.61 milestone goals.

 

Contents This Week

• Dev Update/Hicks
• Community Spotlight

 

Dev Update/Hicks

Greetings Survivors,

We don't have too much new and exciting or flashy news for this Status Report, and most of the usual SR participants are either attending Gamescom or on holiday. However, we do have updates on the progress of development towards .61 experimental, and thus Stable. In addition I'll go over the recent .61 Dev Log video that hit our Youtube channel yesterday, talk a bit about some of what was featured in it - and close with a few comments on the economy (of course - its not a Status Report without talking about the CLE).

0.61 Milestone Goals:

• Server Login Queue
  • Functional testing is complete internally - just waiting to push it to experimental and see if it breaks!
• Merge of New Audio Technology from Arma 3 Eden Update.
  • Technology successfully merged into DayZ branch. Ready for further testing on experimental branch.
• Update of Weapon Sounds for New Audio Technology.
  • Down to three firearms left to be configured and mastered - effectively ready for larger testing pool on experimental branch.
• Dynamic Spawning of Infected.
  • Bulk spawning in areas defined through the zone generation tool is done. As demonstrated at the end of the last Dev Log video for .61. Work is still continuing on plugging in animal spawning to this system as well. Per-player infected spawning configuration (eg: 1 player entering a village can spawn X number, additional players spawn more) and support is being worked on by gameplay programming team.
• Predators (Wolves)
  • Some strong progress has been made in regards to making wolves sync and move better in multiplayer - there are still several glaring issues with animation, and position syncronization up close that just don't make them very rewarding in their current state. That said, the programmers responsible for this area have several potential positive areas they are working on to improve this. As it sits right now, they are not functionally ready for a larger testing base. That said - we will be looking very seriously at the possibility of branching all the other main milestone goals off for testing on experimental branch while work continues on wolves. We'll keep people up to date on this via the official forums as this moves forward.

Past the stated milestone goals for .61 - several other fantastic improvements have been made internally during the development of .61 build. As you may have seen in the latest Dev Log video - dynamic shadows coming from point source lights are finally a thing for us. We're currently tracking down several issues with this new functionality, but just having it functioning at a base level has been a huge source of excitement in the office. Bohemia Interactive engines have always had amazing strengths, but like any technology - they have their short comings. The dreaded "light going through walls" is one of the oldest, and for DayZ players (Flashlights going through buildings and telling everyone where you are at night!) one of the most irritating.

In addition to this - Our gameplay programming team, led by Mirek Manena has made some strong improvements tackling desync of player position within DayZ. Now, keep in mind poor network conditions, and poor server performance can still cause bad behavior here - but addressing more fluid handling of this at a server level has been something that has been worked on, iterated on, and thought about a lot internally here. We're excited to see how the latest changes will shape up when under heavy player load - as a smooth experience and removing those pesky random leg breaks and inability to pick up items at times is pretty dang important for us.

As mentioned, we recently uploaded a new .61 Dev Log video to the official DayZ Dev Team youtube channel. In it we show some work in progress examples of assault rifles, and some pistols using the new audio technology DayZ now has thanks to cooperation from the fantastic Arma dev team. As well as some examples of general group dynamic infected spawning in both Vybor, and Elektro. Now, our intended functionality with dynamic spawning of infected is to allow each player entering the area to cause more, and more infected to spawn - thus potentially creating a very large threat in the presence of a large amount of players. (Think of the infected mentality as always moving towards something that gets their attention.) In addition to allowing for a "restock" or "respawn" timer - giving players the ability to potentially temporarily clean an area out and make it safe. Currently, we're not quite there - but we do have general dynamic spawning of infected when any player enters an area.

Lastly - in regards to the Central Economy. I've kept an eye on forum posts, youtube videos, and livestreams and I've noticed some folks starting to question the availability of food. The slow reduction of non-perishable food is entirely intended. Peter and myself have been working with the design team to slowly reduce the amount of available non-perishable food every two or three days to a level that we're somewhat comfortable with.
Keep in mind, finding supplies like that shouldn't be too easy - players need to be at a position where considering picking berries and apples, killing animals, planting crops, or harvesting meat through... other methods.. is viable. Rest assured however, given that the economy is entirely dynamic - if things get too hard they can be easily changed without any update required to servers and clients.

- Brian Hicks / Creative Director

 

Community Spotlight

This time around we'll try and go with something slightly different. The team is blessed in having loads of support from loads of players in many different countries, and on that note, it would be nice to highlight some of the communities out there that are not necessarily of the english speaking player base. So, if you're looking for a french speaking community, there might just be something interesting for you over at Team ONU. Team ONU does events from time to time (there's an event calendar on their website), and by looking at the teasers from a couple of their previous ones, there should be a good chance of having some fun by participating!

Have a look here:

This next one is from before 0.60, but still worth showing since it looks like Team ONU puts a lot of effort into their events (big thanks to Joe for helping out with the language/dialogue!):

Excellent travail, tout le monde!

Again, if you're interested in finding a french speaking community, then have a look at their website and see if it might be something for you: http://www.team-onu.com

- SMoss / Community Manager

[Luftpancake 94]

This is awesome! I hope that last bit of the video turns into the new startup screen, that would be great!

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

1 hour ago, SMoss said:

That said - we will be looking very seriously at the possibility of branching all the other main milestone goals off for testing on experimental branch while work continues on wolves. We'll keep people up to date on this via the official forums as this moves forward.

 

Yeah, no problem, what wolves!?

Feel free to release the .61, hounds free.

Some of us found .60 stable to be rather short lived and we've been twisting in the breeze for many weeks now.

Having significant infected in the game would mean I could entertain myself with solo missions criss crossing Chernarus for many hours without end.

Yup, the day I can enjoy DayZ the way I used to enjoy the mod, playing in a fashion similar to an open world Resident Evil title, is the day DayZ replay value really returns to the way it should be (for me).

I'm excited for the day when DayZ is not regarded as just some rinse and repeat shooter full of trolls.

Thanks for all the hard work devs/all!

 

[odin_lowe 3686]

Very nice!! Glad to see that the light going through walls is finally a thing of the past!! Great work fellas! Can't wait to test out experimental 0.61!!   Cheers!!

[philbur 476]

The updated audio is going to help our immersion...big time....can't wait to find out if suppressors are more realistic as well!

The final clip showing the survivors in the middle of that Infected Cluster F#@k was brilliant...and I can imagine watching that from a window and pissing myself laughing.

Looks like the devs really nailed the ultimate goal of risk/reward in making noise. This is going in the right direction, IMHO.

BEANZ, Guys!

[koffeekage 322]

does anyone know how the sound engine for SA is different from A3? SA sounds alot better in my opinion but that may just be fantasy.

[emuthreat 2837]

Hooray for progress!!!  Can't wait to post up behind a door in a windowless room and wait to make someone soil their pants when they open the door to be blinded by a flashlight.  Now all we need is a way to put curtains over windows to further insulate from light spillage.

Any word on how many weeks we should expect to wait for .61 exp?

[piggycraftingz 1]

what about the gun snaps are they still in or ?

and since there are more zombies coming in big city's will you be able to walk trough dead zombie bodies or cut them because its annoying to get stuck in a building for 10min.

Edited August 17, 2016 by piggycraftingz
new question :D

[Tigermonk 140]

' I've kept an eye on forum posts, youtube videos, and livestreams and I've noticed some folks starting to question the availability of food. The slow reduction of non-perishable food is entirely intended. Peter and myself have been working with the design team to slowly reduce the amount of available non-perishable food every two or three days to a level that we're somewhat comfortable with.' 

thats all fine man... but for god sake.. FIX the wildlife first before you pull out other resources.. otherwise the 12 yo kids that can't spot a chicken on the road will all die within minutes.. we wouldn't want that now would we?


on a realistic note... lets just see where this takes us as players.. 
as survival and REAL danger finally become a thing.. maybe tone down the ridiculous spawn rates of M4's all across chopper crashes and mil bases..
we have to take into account (coming from my experience of about 600 hours of RPing on servers) that this 'infection' has been going on a rampage for the last what? 3 years?

there shouldn't be enough M4's to make everyone go from 'I sold bikes before the outbreak and fixed the occasional lada'

to: hi my name is John J Rambo.. I was the creme of the crop back in 1965..  blasting vietcongs with my trusted M4 with 5000 rounds of ammo and full mil gear..

because yes that happens on mostly every server I play on.. some kid RUNS towards a mil base.. comes back GEARED to the teeth... 
forgets he's actually playing a civilian.. suffering from PTSD, because his friend got shot in the face while he was robbed.
thats got stranded in an unknown country.. and knows about as much about guns/mil tactics as a mouse knows how to cook a 5 star dinner.. 

so please take some of the spawn rate of high grade mil guns out of the picture.. seeing people with M4's and SVD's within 15 min. is about as 'thrilling' as that 1 zed in bumflucks gorka you can outrun with broken fingers on a keyboard and being half a sleep on morphine
 

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

7 hours ago, Tigermonk said:

' -snip-

because yes that happens on mostly every server I play on.. some kid RUNS towards a mil base.. comes back GEARED to the teeth... 
forgets he's actually playing a civilian.. suffering from PTSD, because his friend got shot in the face while he was robbed.
thats got stranded in an unknown country.. and knows about as much about guns/mil tactics as a mouse knows how to cook a 5 star dinner.. 

-snip-
 

^YES, this.

Let's also keep in mind that balancing will truly begin in earnest in Beta and will likely continue up to and after 1.0.

[Arthur Dubrovka 376]

Daynmic fucking shadows HELL YEAH!!! Im so happy... this and in addition to the dynamic infected spawn plus new audio tech will give immersion of DayZ a big boost especially in nighttime and if envoirnement sound are merged and configured right with the audio tech this will be amazing shit! Hope it gets released without wolves... they can come at us later :)

[koffeekage 322]

Will the new sound enigine integration include the updated ambient sounds or is it only updating the way sounds get processed?

[Arthur Dubrovka 376]

For now it's just the tech plus gunsounds. But I think later the ambient sounds will get overhauled. I think wobo made a vid what the new tech is available to do.

 

[igor-vk 909]

Will this dynamic shadow thing work other way around? What I mean is: buildings are always lightened inside, even if there only few windows or doors where light can get trough. It should be dark inside most of buildings, especially if all doors are closed. Imagine you go in building, dark inside,and you stumble into 3 zeds that start screaming at same time and hitting you. That would be "ooooh shiiiit!!!" factor we lack in this game.

[MrAerospace 87]

Legitimate question: If infected spawn numbers are tied to the number of players in a zone, won't that lead to the exact same meta gaming problem that existed in the mod, except instead of aggro zombies, it's just overall numbers that indicate other players present?

Edited August 18, 2016 by MrAerospace

[Private Evans 1303]

30 minutes ago, MrAerospace said:

Legitimate question: If infected spawn numbers are tied to the number of players in a zone, won't that lead to the exact same meta gaming problem that existed in the mod, except instead of aggro zombies, it's just overall numbers that indicate other players present?

I would suggest to add a small chance of spawning a hoard even with a few players around but also a chance to spawn no zeds at all even with a lot of players around.Also will zed spawning be effected by niose ( gunfire) ? I mean 10 sneaky players should not spwan more zeds than 2 players doing a drive by :)

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

2 hours ago, MrAerospace said:

Legitimate question: If infected spawn numbers are tied to the number of players in a zone, won't that lead to the exact same meta gaming problem that existed in the mod, except instead of aggro zombies, it's just overall numbers that indicate other players present?

I may be wrong but I think there will still be a base number of infected spawned at server start in most major areas.

So, imagine a city like Cherno could have nearly the same amount of infected as we have now except when a player enters the server will begin to spawn more infected in the surrounding areas, as if their presence drew more in either by the commotion you make moving about or some kind of esp/horde awareness.

Again, I may be wrong but I think hordes in DayZ form organically when larger numbers of infected become aggro'd in a small area and they begin acting with hive mind characteristics.

[Tigermonk 140]

On 17-8-2016 at 6:24 PM, ☣BioHaze☣ said:

^YES, this.

Let's also keep in mind that balancing will truly begin in earnest in Beta and will likely continue up to and after 1.0.

'lets hope so' thats all we can do..

balancing should be on the top of the list imo.. why add more guns/vehicles (motorized) aircraft?! when half the stuff they have now.. barely works (ever tried to get a v3s up a hill thats 5%? goodluck)
its the point of 'when' will we see progress what bugs me.. lets not forget people.. its almost the END of august.. when was this thing supposed to be 'in beta' januari of next year-ish?
goodluck getting that in order.. 0.61 isn't even a thing.. 

and judging by the post hicks is making about the wolves being broken in more ways then an octopus on meth..
that'll get pushed to somewhere around 0.62-0.63 if you don't mind me saying folks.. and don't say it won't because nobody wants a PACK of wolves that behave like glitched zeds..
that'll be death incarnate the minute they spot you.. no matter if you have a akm with drum mag or an M4 with a 60 clip. xD

Edited August 19, 2016 by Tigermonk

[blackberrygoo 1416]

Oh please Jebus , make the vehicles actually persist properly next update , these vehicle bugs really ruined .60 for me ! Haven't played in over a month ! Otherwise looks good , I hope they don't cut wolves from .61 seeing we are already incredibly far behind but oh well do what you gotta do .