onky 0 Posted May 24, 2012 .*** SPOILER WARNING ***The information below may drastically affect your perception of the game mechanics.You may want or stop reading now and go elsewhere. Thank you.***********************Last night, I decided not to upgrade my installation of DayZ from 1.5.8.2 to 1.5.8.4 just out of pure laziness and went in to see whether there were any servers left running the previous version of the mod. Sure enough, I found some here and there, all of them nearly empty. I joined one that had 1 or 2 players out of allowed 60. When I logged in, I noticed that the number of zombies was 9, which then jumped to 16 or 17 within a minute. Great, I thought, having the territory of 200+ sq km will allow me to move around freely, as chances to meet a single zombie would be next to nothing. To my great surprise I immediately noticed 5 or 6 of them roaming about the nearby barn, right where I did not see anything just a few seconds before. WTF?? How was that possible?It appears that the population is controlled in a different way from what I expected. In a typical MMO game, all baddies are spawned independently from players, with no regards to where the players currently are or how many of them are logged in. DayZ, it appears, handles that differently. It literally brings zombies to wherever the active players are located, assuming they are currently in areas subject to population, such as towns, etc. So, next time you see the number of zombies fluctuate noticeably, that would not necessarily indicate a massive shootout somewhere in a hot spot, but more likely something that is caused by players logging in and out or just moving between settlements and wilderness areas. Hey, you can even affect the population yourself by simply running around and doing nothing else.I’m also wondering what the loot generation mechanics are and whether they are any similar to the above. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pack.wolf 0 Posted May 24, 2012 Afaik both Zs and loot spawn as soon as you get close to a spawning location. I don't know if they despawn after you leave, but I don't think so. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gator (DayZ) 22 Posted May 24, 2012 no, they dont despawn, thats why zombie numbers go up. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
daedrick 90 Posted May 24, 2012 All Im sure of is that zombies are CLIENT side. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
onky 0 Posted May 24, 2012 no' date=' they dont despawn, thats why zombie numbers go up.[/quote']Then how would you explain occasional significant drops, even when the player activity is low? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
gator (DayZ) 22 Posted May 24, 2012 no' date=' they dont despawn, thats why zombie numbers go up.[/quote']Then how would you explain occasional significant drops, even when the player activity is low?The server "sweeps" when it needs to delete things for performance. This includes dead bodies and other crap. Maybe zombies also despawn in these sweeps. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
daedrick 90 Posted May 24, 2012 Server cleaning system got improve, and zombies have to despawn one way or another, otherwise there would be a lot more than the mere 1334 I have seen on day. I mean, with the amount of player and the number of buildings all over the place there would be a lot more if they never got to disapear... even if players kill them.Anyway, respawns rate are so high most likely a server thing and not influanced by zombie kills. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
