Status Report - 27 February 2018

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

 

@Espa

1.) Information on Snow And/Or Radiation Effects (Still WIP?)

*They have stated multiple times that there will be NO snow. "Radiation effects", may possibly be part of what was called contaminated zones but nothing specifically regarding radiation has ever been discussed (that I can remember), and contaminated zones themselves have not been referenced officially in a long time.

2.) Information on Map Easter-Eggs and Scenic Views (Crashed Boat, Plane Crash in Cherno, mass graves about.) -- Basically, can we expect to see any new Posters or even Evacuation Notices?

*This is a confused question to begin with. You say one thing in the first sentence and state something else in the second. Something like a "map easter egg" wouldn't stay an easter egg in DayZ for much than a day. Everyone goes everywhere, all the time. There may be additions that match this description but even if they had plans for such things, I highly doubt they would spoil it here. I do like the idea of evacuation notices, though it's not functional, it adds some more atmosphere. I like the cholera warnings in the hospitals....

3.) What kind of new movements and gestures will Infected (Zombies) be getting?

*The primary goal is to make the infected feel better on every level you can imagine. May it be more clever use of sensors to strengthen stealth, luring and aggro, adding search behaviour around the last known position of their target, or simply much improved readability of infected AI, utilising transitions like lost interest, target confirmed or target lost between their states. There are some significant changes coming to their melee combat as well, with jumping attacks making a comeback. 

4.) Will players be getting the ability to vault over high fences, like Infected do?

*Well, they have been discussing character jumping and climbing mechanics, so I guess this isn't too far fetched but I would think this fast and extremely strength intensive movement should be restricted by weight. Trying to quickly vault a high fence with a 50lb backpack on should NOT be a thing.

5.) Last Question: Without naming dates, is there a Quarter we can expect to get our hands on BETA? Perhaps Q3? 

*They absolutely positively will NOT give you such an approximation for release further than "soon". You really should stop asking (no offense).

Last Note!: For the Infected, super excited to see what you guys can muster up for them. Something I would really love to see is this Stealth that has been mentioned for 2 years or so. Like, would it mean that they would be quiet and be on the 'hunt' for players instead of lazily droning about? That would be very interesting. - Also, still not sure just how Undead these Infected 'Zombies' are. Is it possible that we see more gestures of them, depicting their natures? Sick = Coughing and sounding raving mad?

*Since a lot of the work on the player is getting done, our Lead Programmer Mirek is heavily focusing on a refactor of the infected, both in terms of stealth and combat. We don't want to promise anything, but we should hopefully be seeing the results soon, and build advanced features for the infected in quick succession after the basics of that work are merged in and working reliably.

*They are not "undead" at all. These are living humans with a rage virus, possibly similar to a 28 Days Later type of infection. I personally hope they give the infected as much audio personality as they give them varying visual personality, but we have heard very little about the nature of the infected sounds except for a few teaser sound files dropped a long while back. I made an in-depth suggestion post on this subject some time ago where I expressed hopes that the infected would possibly have snippits of speech left in their infection addled brains and other leftover affectations from before they were infected. Some very limited Czech speech would add some creepiness to their presence, similar to how ganados in RE4 would speak Spanish. There's something particularly unsettling about being pursued by assailants speaking an unknown language.

I hope this was helpful! :)

 

 

[idie 57]

This report was dope, I just can't wait, I'm literally a child with a 3 years old brain right now.

Keep Rockin' GuyZ

Love ya

 

[odin_lowe 3686]

Great status report! Glad to hear those new ambient sounds. The new lighting seem a bit too bright for my taste, but it's still a WIP so I'm not too worried. 

 

 

[exacomvm 101]

42 minutes ago, odin_lowe said:

The new lighting seem a bit too bright for my taste, but it's still a WIP so I'm not too worried. 

 

 

Are you nocturnal? Living only at night and sleeping at day? Cause it's not about your/our liking but about realism. I think the adjustements in DayZ is spot on, could be bit brighter ( especially brighter highlights from sun ), atleast on my "perfectly calibrated" IPS LED screen it still looks slightly on the dark side.

Edited February 28, 2018 by exacomvm

[Baker. 1484]

Keep up the good work folks. 

[The Ghost of Hoik 92]

Also... Namalsk... so good... that plus beta, I think things will explode around here :)

[Dancing.Russian.Man 1631]

Holy heck, I didn't even know about how "player hitboxes" were handled until now. It seems like kind of a weird concept especially in combination of the geometry collision check for melee, and I'm glad you guys moved on to something much better. Peter's entire section was an awesome read to me in general.

Speaking of melee, how is that handled now on a technical level? What determines where a punch (or whack) lands with the lock-on?

Another thing -- Since there's definitely a way to detect if a character is standing in the rain and in cover, is there a plan for a more muffled rain sound for being sheltered? It would not only be more immersive, but functional in letting you know that you are definitely safe from the rain wherever you're standing.

Edited February 28, 2018 by Dancing.Russian.Man

[Sumrak 313]

21 hours ago, OliverPlotTwist said:

Are those "before after" pictures the wrong way round? Because the before ones look so much better.

No they are not. It never really made any sense to have the world such poorly lit under clear sky while having sun high enough. We've had some problems with getting this change ready for 62, otherwise you would see it in 62 already.

I have been reading several comments about the fact this change removes the atmosphere, looks less post-apo etc., but frankly, civilisation may fell apart, but the nature and the laws of physics stay the same, why shouldn't clear sky full noon look like its supposed to? I like the diversity our game world offers - lighting config is tied to the overcast value of weather system and trust me, it can get really bleak when its supposed to. It did not really made any sense to show this brightness change on such weather as there have been little to no changes there (so all pics are basically clear sky - I should prob note that in SR).

As mentioned in SR, this is still pretty much work-in-progress and we will continue tweaking it until we find the best values. It may be a bit darker than what you see on the pictures, but overall, we definitely do not plan to return to the 62 state of lighting.

 

20 hours ago, DannyDog said:

I think this is the case. The before image of night has a much clearer night sky which was what they were aiming for.

It is perhaps a bit hard to see in the small before-after window, full res pics here and here. The goal is to make the night sky easier to read and use to navigation - as you can see in the "after" image, major stars are easier to see (ultimately, its best to see it in the game). 

 

[GaryWalnuts 1680]

24 minutes ago, Sumrak said:

It is perhaps a bit hard to see in the small before-after window, full res pics here and here. The goal is to make the night sky easier to read and use to navigation - as you can see in the "after" image, major stars are easier to see (ultimately, its best to see it in the game). 

 

Oh snap.  I see it now, that's the Orion constellation right over the road it's much clearer as a constellation.   This will absolutely help with navigation.

[Gobbokirk 546]

28 minutes ago, GaryWalnuts said:

Oh snap.  I see it now, that's the Orion constellation right over the road it's much clearer as a constellation.   This will absolutely help with navigation.

Was about to say the same, looks a lot better in the full res version.
Best way to judge will ofc be to see it in game, still never really do the game justice.

[DannyDog 532]

Ah hes entirely right. Just thought that because we got the recent color changes to the world that it got reverted. Im all for a brighter and more live environment. In fact I was one of the advocates for it instead of trying to make it feel more post apoc. I think the only thing bothering me is the lack of dark contrasting shadows to the bright environment. Hopefully its something they can do in the near future?

[green_mtn_grandbob 594]

2 hours ago, Sumrak said:

No they are not. It never really made any sense to have the world such poorly lit under clear sky while having sun high enough. We've had some problems with getting this change ready for 62, otherwise you would see it in 62 already.

I have been reading several comments about the fact this change removes the atmosphere, looks less post-apo etc., but frankly, civilisation may fell apart, but the nature and the laws of physics stay the same, why shouldn't clear sky full noon look like its supposed to? I like the diversity our game world offers - lighting config is tied to the overcast value of weather system and trust me, it can get really bleak when its supposed to. It did not really made any sense to show this brightness change on such weather as there have been little to no changes there (so all pics are basically clear sky - I should prob note that in SR).

As mentioned in SR, this is still pretty much work-in-progress and we will continue tweaking it until we find the best values. It may be a bit darker than what you see on the pictures, but overall, we definitely do not plan to return to the 62 state of lighting.

 

It is perhaps a bit hard to see in the small before-after window, full res pics here and here. The goal is to make the night sky easier to read and use to navigation - as you can see in the "after" image, major stars are easier to see (ultimately, its best to see it in the game). 

 

i think you guys should make dayz the way you want it to be, and not the way some players want it to be.

[gorvi 189]

2 hours ago, Sumrak said:

The goal is to make the night sky easier to read and use to navigation

Nights need to be dark unless its a clear night and a bright moon.  There is no room for complaint from players considering light sources are readily available.

[philbur 476]

3 hours ago, Sumrak said:

It is perhaps a bit hard to see in the small before-after window, full res pics here and here. The goal is to make the night sky easier to read and use to navigation - as you can see in the "after" image, major stars are easier to see (ultimately, its best to see it in the game). 

POW! :-)

[philbur 476]

1 hour ago, DannyDog said:

the only thing bothering me is the lack of dark contrasting shadows to the bright environment. Hopefully its something they can do in the near future?

My first effort will be to see if adjusting the "Shadows" option in the menu will help with this. It's probably going to be fine with stuff like this because of the slight tweaking we can all do through the video settings....( I hope).

[DannyDog 532]

15 minutes ago, philbur said:

My first effort will be to see if adjusting the "Shadows" option in the menu will help with this. It's probably going to be fine with stuff like this because of the slight tweaking we can all do through the video settings....( I hope).

I think this will actually be more of a rendering engine solution. As it seems that it doesn't know how dark certain areas covered in shadows should be as i've noticed every single world shadow has the same light value regardless of how much "light" it is actually exposed to. I mean you would expect interiors or underground areas to be quite dark now wouldn't you? At the moment it's all sorta the same brightness. 

[exwoll 255]

2 hours ago, Sumrak said:

No they are not. It never really made any sense to have the world such poorly lit under clear sky while having sun high enough. We've had some problems with getting this change ready for 62, otherwise you would see it in 62 already.

I have been reading several comments about the fact this change removes the atmosphere, looks less post-apo etc., but frankly, civilisation may fell apart, but the nature and the laws of physics stay the same, why shouldn't clear sky full noon look like its supposed to? I like the diversity our game world offers - lighting config is tied to the overcast value of weather system and trust me, it can get really bleak when its supposed to. It did not really made any sense to show this brightness change on such weather as there have been little to no changes there (so all pics are basically clear sky - I should prob note that in SR).

As mentioned in SR, this is still pretty much work-in-progress and we will continue tweaking it until we find the best values. It may be a bit darker than what you see on the pictures, but overall, we definitely do not plan to return to the 62 state of lighting.

 

It is perhaps a bit hard to see in the small before-after window, full res pics here and here. The goal is to make the night sky easier to read and use to navigation - as you can see in the "after" image, major stars are easier to see (ultimately, its best to see it in the game). 

 

I agree with the realism as long as the implemented changes and the perceived loss of the atmospheric value of 0.62 will allow for more diversity and gives the dark moments a really spooky effect that can be truly enjoyed. 

However being myself a hardcore player that had been always pushing towards the realistic side of things, I still believe that the subtle tweaks to environmental values (being them colors, textures, shaders, etc) that give a hint of the overall setting of the game are necessary for an immersive and genuine experience.

We are indeed playing a realistic game that tries to achieve the most close experiences it can offer to real life, but in the other side of things, there is a "theme" for all, which is the "zombie/infected" post-apocalyptic variable. And while a player goes through the experience offered by the game he will not be able to really feel or catch the mood of that theme/setting and the suspended disbelief will not kick in as quickly/strong (if it ever does) because of the differences that exist between the situation of his character and his own psychological state. 

Imagine you're in a happy day of your life, you join the game and you find a zombie. There are 2 scenarios:

1)You spawn in a field of flowers with birds singing, the sun high above the earth, everything shinning in its happiness, and in the middle, the zombie is standing.

2)You spawn in the same field, with all the same but a slight difference. The colors are somehow "weird" (be it by the lack of saturation of brown hues, etc), the sounds seem a little bit weird, or everything goes quiet, and being there feeling like something is off, you see a zombie.

The first variable will not touch your mood, or even will cheer you up, and the appearance of a zombie will not affect it at all, and will not be seen as a threat, since the disbelief will be there and you will probably just laugh at him. 

The second variable slowly sets a mood of discomfort that ready up your senses and put them in alert, if the zombie appears there, it will have a lot more of effect and will be considered a threat just by its presence (which for example happens with all those moody survival horror games that do an awesome job manipulating your mind so the simple threat is seen as a much dangerous one.

The environmental manipulation is a really powerful tool that, when done well, can deliver amazing experiences. And in Dayz we already said NO to music, which is one powerful element of the set, and now are saying NO to color, which is the second element by its power to affect us.

What are we being left which? The environmental dangers aren't a threat at all to somehow affect the player, the infected at this point are just a minor annoyance, which CAN be perceived as more dangerous with the right environmental setting.  If the desire is to completely go realistic, and make players fear other players, why not throw away the infected completely and just remove the Z from the game title? It will be just a normal open world simulator where people can hunt, experience cold and hunger,  and be killed by other players. Why even bothering with the zombies and the ideal setting for them?

I'm somehow worried about the neglecting these things are being victim of and kinda wish they were taken in count to avoid wasting such an atmospheric potential. 

[The Ghost of Hoik 92]

1 hour ago, exwoll said:

1)You spawn in a field of flowers with birds singing, the sun high above the earth, everything shinning in its happiness, and in the middle, the zombie is standing.

The first variable will not touch your mood, or even will cheer you up, and the appearance of a zombie will not affect it at all, and will not be seen as a threat, since the disbelief will be there and you will probably just laugh at him. 

The zombie, alerted by your incredulous laughter, crosses the field and in an instant is upon you! The birds sing in the trees as it chows down on your well illuminated corps :P . Joking aside, I see your point exwoll. But from what I understand from Sumrak's post is that the lighting and atmosphere will change according to the weather/time of day. (Also, in the mod, the very first thing I turned off was the music...).

[Lexman61 78]

9 hours ago, green_mtn_grandbob said:

i think you guys should make dayz the way you want it to be, and not the way some players want it to be.

Maybe that's the reason why so few people still play DayZ?!

I wonder.....

[Blafirelli 39]

6 hours ago, exwoll said:

1)You spawn in a field of flowers with birds singing, the sun high above the earth, everything shinning in its happiness, and in the middle, the zombie is standing.

I actually like such contrast, it makes the situation more believable and therefore scary for me. Imho the dark/creepy stylization is a kitsch.

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

8 minutes ago, Lexman61 said:

Maybe that's the reason why so few people still play DayZ?!

I wonder.....

How could that possibly be the reason? There's no logic to what you've said...

People are tired of and frustrated by Alpha.

No one has played beta, which will be drastically different from alpha. So how could their direction for the game in beta, that no one has tried, possibly have ANY impact on current players?? What a thoughtless statement.

[Lexman61 78]

1 minute ago, ☣BioHaze☣ said:

How could that possibly be the reason? There's no logic to what you've said...

People are tired of and frustrated by Alpha.

No one has played beta, which will be drastically different from alpha. So how could their direction for the game in beta, that no one has tried, possibly have ANY impact on current players?? What a thoughtless statement.

Many left not only due to never ending development times and the novelty wearing off but also because the changes made to the game play over the course of time and the subsequent results hereof. Loot distribution, weapon availability, half empty servers, too much time spent gathering supplies and too little action (just to name a few)

We've had this discussion before. DayZ has become a niche survival game for niche group of very dedicated players (which is in line with what the developers always had in mind), at the cost of having a larger player base which would have been better in the long run.

This is obviously fine for the die hard survivalists who still play today, but don't fool yourself into thinking that, when the game will be finally ready millions of former and new players will join the ranks of DayZ.

http://steamcharts.com/app/221100

The official numbers aren't exactly promising and although sometimes miracles can happen I wouldn't count on it.

But in any case, no offense to the passionate DayZ old-timers, a happy few I guess.

Regards

 

[Deranged Pineapple 8]

On 2/28/2018 at 11:12 PM, Sumrak said:

No they are not. It never really made any sense to have the world such poorly lit under clear sky while having sun high enough. We've had some problems with getting this change ready for 62, otherwise you would see it in 62 already.

I have been reading several comments about the fact this change removes the atmosphere, looks less post-apo etc., but frankly, civilisation may fell apart, but the nature and the laws of physics stay the same, why shouldn't clear sky full noon look like its supposed to? I like the diversity our game world offers - lighting config is tied to the overcast value of weather system and trust me, it can get really bleak when its supposed to. It did not really made any sense to show this brightness change on such weather as there have been little to no changes there (so all pics are basically clear sky - I should prob note that in SR).

As mentioned in SR, this is still pretty much work-in-progress and we will continue tweaking it until we find the best values. It may be a bit darker than what you see on the pictures, but overall, we definitely do not plan to return to the 62 state of lighting.

 

It is perhaps a bit hard to see in the small before-after window, full res pics here and here. The goal is to make the night sky easier to read and use to navigation - as you can see in the "after" image, major stars are easier to see (ultimately, its best to see it in the game). 

 

For me in after image it's really hard to see major stars at all compared to before image. Can't really say if it's because I'm looking the images from Dell laptop with 4k ips screen (not calibrated) but in the before image it's very easy to spot major stars.

Edited March 7, 2018 by Deranged Pineapple

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

2 hours ago, Lexman61 said:

This is obviously fine for the die hard survivalists who still play today, but don't fool yourself into thinking that, when the game will be finally ready millions of former and new players will join the ranks of DayZ

Quoting steam charts supports nothing you've said imo and is another empty echo chamber jab that detractors use as proof of loss of interest.

I absolutely believe an enormous amount of interest still exists and will grow from old and new players. People who have paid for this, will try it again. The game is in their library already. Why wouldn't curiosity spur them to give beta a try? Experimental beta servers are going to get mega slammed. Just like every other major update.

You also seem to always forget that modding will produce versions suited to the mass of players who want a pubg clone with DayZ skin. Vanilla isn't meant for you, or them, obviously.

We all can't have a vanilla standalone that matches our expectations. Some folks, for many reasons, will be disappointed. You can't make all the people happy all the time, right? You also can't shoehorn your ideas over half a decade of design and discussion after walking into the conversation halfway through. If you can't accept the direction of the game and only spend time commiserating with like minded players repeating Reddit critics like they are gospel, you will only ever understand one perspective.

I have faith that vanilla will not merely be for a small niche group of players and for those that don't like it, make a mod, or there's the door. Tons of other games to play without making yourself sad about things you can't change.

Edited March 1, 2018 by ☣BioHaze☣

[vegeta897 3]

2 hours ago, Lexman61 said:

We've had this discussion before. DayZ has become a niche survival game for niche group of very dedicated players (which is in line with what the developers always had in mind), at the cost of having a larger player base which would have been better in the long run.

This is obviously fine for the die hard survivalists who still play today, but don't fool yourself into thinking that, when the game will be finally ready millions of former and new players will join the ranks of DayZ.

http://steamcharts.com/app/221100

The official numbers aren't exactly promising and although sometimes miracles can happen I wouldn't count on it.

 

DayZ has very clearly shown its intent to be a hardcore survival game from the very first dev blogs. Millions bought it with that premise. I'm not sure why you think the only people who want the hardcore experience are also the only ones still playing? Allow me to introduce myself and the uncountable others who are waiting for the promised DayZ experience and have not played the game in months or years. I'm not sure why you seem to ignore this group, since it's in all likelihood the most common scenario. Lots of people bought DayZ, lots of people were underwhelmed or got bored of development time, lots of people will come back to make good on their money already spent when the game delivers what they bought. This is Occam's razor, no miracles required.