Status Report - 25 September 2018

[Baty Alquawen 3688]

It's a crazy time for us here at the office, with the release of the Xbox version and the PC server files behind us we're now moving for the PC BETA! Of course, this is not going to happen over night, Eugen will give you an introduction on this. We also have our Leads from the Gameplay Programming, Animation and Sound departments with us to bring you some more detailed information on what's going on behind the scenes of our road to BETA.

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• Dev Update/Eugen
• Dev Update/Mirek
• Dev Update/Viktor
• Dev Update/Filip
• Dev Update/Baty
• Dev Update/Mirek

 

Dear Survivors, the server files release is now behind us, and I would like to thank all the community members who have patiently waited all the way to this point. We are very happy to see old players coming back to try the new servers popping up. We are aware of the issues currently plaguing the administrators running community servers and your feedback is very much welcomed. We have already deployed a patch with fixes, and there's more coming.

We are looking specifically into issues with zombie spawns, logs, configuration and security. Once ready, you will see updates coming directly to the Experimental branch of the game.

Now that our Experimental content patch is out in the open, I wanted to talk about the next thing.

Some of it has been said previously mentioned in interviews from Gamescom, and I wholeheartedly recommend watching these, as the questions asked by both M1ndr and BarelyInfected have been straight to the point. 

While there have been some serious delays with the delivery of the first content patch, the work on the internal version of the game has not stopped. This basically means one thing: the next patch arriving to the Stress Test branch will be considered an Experimental BETA and will contain new content and features, including vehicles and base building. We will offer a detailed list of the BETA package later on. The list for both features and content is not exactly short, so we'll need to make make sure everything works.

The process for the publishing of this patch will start with Stress Tests focusing on the new content. Currently, we are quite happy about the stability of the internal client and server, and most of the team is focusing on bugfixing. More information on the release will be shared through our official channels, I cant wait for you guys to drive around Chernarus with your friends.

Once this patch hits the Experimental branch of the game, it will again be made available with both server and client, and pushed to Xbox as fast as possible.

That brings me to our players on Xbox. While we may not seem that active now, we are listening to your feedback and concerns, and we're working on necessary changes and bugfixes plaguing the game. There was a smaller game update pushed earlier today, and whenever possible, we'd love to keep updating at least once a week. The current patch focuses on UI fixes (no major inventory changes yet), server messages and VOIP. This also includes any fixes done to the game on PC. More changes are coming alongside the mentioned BETA patch and features.

See you in Chernarus!

- Eugen Harton / Lead Producer

 

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Dev Update/Eugen

I have a very brief overview of the features and bugs we are currently working on. Let's take a look:

 

LODs for the animation system

Currently, when playing any animations, the whole skeleton is evaluated (every single bone), no matter how far away from the camera the other entities are. Our new system will improve the client & server performance significantly - especially server-side. Instead of evaluating almost 200 bones, we now need only about 20 or even less to be evaluated on server-side. The evaluation of the entire skeleton currently takes about 75 percent the of AI's simulation time, so we believe this optimization will help to increase AI numbers significantly.

 

Vehicles - physics

The gearbox (clutch) simulation and tire friction still need some tweaking, because vehicles still have some issues with riding to hills.

 

Vehicles - animations / camera

We improved the 3rd person camera and added more character animations. This includes handling the clutch, brake & thrust pedals.

 

Vehicles - networking

We have reworked the networking logic for 4 wheeled vehicle synchronization (and the same logic will work for future vehicles), the next step is network traffic optimizations.

Input system

We had to rework the input system a bit, due to requirements to simply add new actions (something the modders among you will appreciate!). Currently, the new system is in testing, adding the key binding options will be the next step.

 

AI spawns on servers with offline DB

This is probably one of the last bugs we want to solve on the current Experimental branch. The rest will be fixed within the Experimental BETA update.

A lot of other bug fixes (bugs which we have already fixed on the internal branch) will also be included in the Experimental BETA. This includes fixes for the iron-sights/optics inaccuracy, damage system issues, attachments rendering in inventory and many, many more.

- Miroslav Maněna/ Lead Programmer

 

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Dev Update/Viktor

Last week, we've had a small motion capture session. This was mainly dedicated to a capture of various missing animations for player character or minor fixes to existing animations. Meanwhile, we were also focusing on bugfixing and polishing of the player actions, vehicle related animations, and item poses. The vehicles now have many advanced animations like switching the lights off and on, using pedals, shifting gears and of course steering.

There are many new things and improvements done on the player animation graph side. One example to speak for all, just recently we have reworked aiming with the flashlight, torch and other items. This was always not very convenient to use because the light was not going in the right direction. From now on though, it works just great! The light beam now aims where you are looking, no matter if the character is standing or moving, so flashlight should be your best friend from now on in dark areas. We have also added a small detail in the form of an animation for switching the flashlight off/on.

- Viktor Kostík / Lead Animator

 

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Dev Update/Filip

Hello everyone. The entire audio team is continuing the work on the overall audio appeal of DayZ, and we've created a range of new and updated game sounds. Let's have a look:

• new rain sounds for tarmac, tile and wooden roof surfaces
• updated the rain sounds for trees and bushes
• updated the leave rustling sounds for bushes
• new sounds for the "empty vessel" and "pour liquid" action (pouring water onto the ground or into another vessel)
• sounds for jump and landing animations
• new sounds for various items for pick into hands action
• new sounds for carrying weapons on your shoulder
• infected play different footsteps (bare feet, sneakers, boots) according to what they are wearing
• new sounds for eating fruit, cereals and taking pills

- Filip Čenžák / Sound Designer

 

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Dev Update/Baty

Hey guys, 

we separated the Community Spotlight and released it yesterday and I hope you liked it. If you have anything you want to share with the community, tweet it to me and I am going to check it! You can find the latest Community Spotlight here:

- Baty Alquawen / Community Manager

 

Header image by A1ANNUAKII.

Edited September 26, 2018 by OrLoK
Pretties

[Gobbokirk 546]

I can smell a beta cooking :)

[OliverPlotTwist 458]

1 minute ago, Gobbokirk said:

I can smell a beta cooking :)

And it smells good!

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

Thanks devs, all!

Feels like xmas is coming a little early this year!

Much excite!

[Arkensor 29]

19 minutes ago, OliverPlotTwist said:

And it smells good!

And it tastes even better ;)

[polini 65]

Any one can see the gifs and images? Because i want see the them!

In aother note, the Devs seem very positive now, i like it. 

Edited September 25, 2018 by polini

[LordBlackwolf 656]

27 minutes ago, polini said:

Any one can see the gifs and images? Because i want see the them!

In aother note, the Devs seem very positive now, i like it. 

There's 6 images that don't seem to load in Chrome and when viewed in FIrefox they don't load at all. The new animation for turning the flashlight on and off and also one showing movement with the flashlight showing the light from it being shown correctly are the only 2 that load for me.

Edited September 25, 2018 by LordBlackwolf

[polini 65]

You see more than me    : (  i only can see half  of some images and in firefox. 

Can some caritative dev fix them?

[ColdAtrophy 1850]

I'm not able to load the images either. I'll edit this post if I find a workaround.

[IMT 3190]

Very good SR and very good news! I'm going to be honest, this SR is a big relief for me. I was a bit done with DayZ and there were multiple reasons for that. The thing which hit the nail in the coffin was when I heard that vehicles and tents, etc. would come after 1.0. I was also mad because the Xbox version had things which the PC version didn't have (heli crashes). Combine that with the fact that I find it hard to keep up with the forum and don't even have the motivation for it because of this. Reason being is the fact that the forum is constantly bombarded by new threads by the Xbox version players. Honestly, it still makes me mad, even this topic is burried away already and this one is posted 5 hours ago. Is there a way that I can exclude all the Xbox topics in the Xbox forum?

I was quite bummed out that I was done with DayZ, but after BioHaze mentioned this SR and the good content, I immediately felt better. All is good now and I can't wait for the next big Experimental beta patch and beta itself. :) Keep up the good work!

By the way, I think the images aren't working because I believe data.bistudio.com is down.

Edited September 25, 2018 by IMT

[OliverPlotTwist 458]

1 hour ago, IMT said:

The thing which hit the nail in the coffin was when I heard that vehicles and tents, etc. would come after 1.0. I was also mad because the Xbox version had things which the PC version didn't have (heli crashes).

I don't know where you get your info from but I think you should get a new source. 

[LordBlackwolf 656]

15 minutes ago, OliverPlotTwist said:

I don't know where you get your info from but I think you should get a new source. 

i could be wrong but I believe one of the devs had previously mentioned it in one of their previous videos possibly live streams where they talked about upcoming features.

[IMT 3190]

6 hours ago, OliverPlotTwist said:

I don't know where you get your info from but I think you should get a new source. 

It was talked about in the interview with BarelyInfected. I guess the developers directly isn't good enough for you?

[idie 57]

Great report guys ! Thanks !!

I'm thrilled ! :)

Cannot see the gifZ neither :(

Cya

[Derleth 1357]

3 hours ago, IMT said:

It was talked about in the interview with BarelyInfected. I guess the developers directly isn't good enough for you?

Probably a misunderstanding then. What they have said is that cars and base building would be implemented during or at the beginning of beta. Post 1.0 is the plan for additional vehicles such as more types (specifically such as were never in 0.62 either) of cars and two-wheeled vehicles. Last week they said in the status report that vehicles would be added shortly after the next content patch, now it seems they're content to push it all out at once. Still no ETA though, so we'll see how long we'll have to wait. I want to see that list of beta features first and foremost, I can wait some more if it means we get a smooth release this time.

[polini 65]

No ETA, but the latest Status Reports give me a good taste. They seem very confident after the " massive kicks bug" that took atleast 10 strest tests to find and fix. And obviously cars and tents are welcome and if they think that will be in a good shape when the Beta arrive, must be true. I hope.

Ps: Any news about the Images from the status report? I really want see them and the gifs.

Edited September 26, 2018 by polini

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

14 hours ago, IMT said:

Reason being is the fact that the forum is constantly bombarded by new threads by the Xbox version players. Honestly, it still makes me mad, even this topic is burried away already and this one is posted 5 hours ago. Is there a way that I can exclude all the Xbox topics in the Xbox forum?

I 100% agree.

For the longtime forum regulars who follow the forum sidebar for the more active and relevant threads, the massive influx of repeat threads and whining threads make the forum far less tolerable and far less relevant to the cutting edge of development as they bury any good discussions.

At this point, the only solution I can imagine involves the XBOX forum being on a completely different page/forum of it's own.

[OrLoK 16185]

5 minutes ago, ☣BioHaze☣ said:

I 100% agree.

For the longtime forum regulars who follow the forum sidebar for the more active and relevant threads, the massive influx of repeat threads and whining threads make the forum far less tolerable and far less relevant to the cutting edge of development as they bury any good discussions.

At this point, the only solution I can imagine involves the XBOX forum being on a completely different page/forum of it's own.

On the flip side I have had others complain to me that the forums are not as active as they were in their heyday.

"A beginning is a very delicate time."

Things will find their equilibrium as they did before.

 

Patience is key.

[OrLoK 16185]

31 minutes ago, polini said:

No ETA, but the latest Status Reports let me a good taste. They seem very confident after the " massive kicks bug" that took atleast 10 strest tests to find and fix. And obviously cars and tents are welcome and if they think that will be in a good shape when the Beta arrive, must be true. I hope.

Ps: Any news about the Images from the status report? I really want see them and the gifs.

Ill sort the gif issue today.

done

Edited September 26, 2018 by OrLoK

[Derleth 1357]

16 minutes ago, OrLoK said:

Ill sort the gif issue today.

done

You sure? Gifs still not showing for me :(

(Cleared cache etc, so shouldn't be that)

Edited September 26, 2018 by Beavis3D

[Accolyte 1727]

12 minutes ago, Beavis3D said:

You sure? Gifs still not showing for me :(

(Cleared cache etc, so shouldn't be that)

Theyre working for me fine. Seems like a problem on your end. 

[OrLoK 16185]

odd. i shall ask others to check!

[OrLoK 16185]

hey, as long as we *blues* can see it, thats all thats important :)

[kichilron 8550]

1 minute ago, Accolyte said:

Theyre working for me fine. Seems like a problem on your end. 

 

1 minute ago, OrLoK said:

odd. i shall ask others to check!

 

Working fine for me. Anyone?

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

8 minutes ago, kichilron said:

 

 

Working fine for me. Anyone?

They now work for me as well.