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.   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   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   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   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   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.