DayZ Development Blog #2: The integration begins

[danielreid 84]

THE INTEGRATION BEGINS

It has been a long time since we announced the standalone project, and much has happened. In many ways, DayZ is an “accidental project”, which brings about great opportunities for it but also with some real challenges. Most of the planning has to be done as it goes, with much of the project simply reacting to things that have happened. This is not a good way to start a development project.

Much of the effort has been spent establishing the project, getting the right people setup, a new build process, art pipeline working, contracts and agreements made, legal stuff sorted - all the stuff that is necessary to enable the project to work. During this time I completed a very heavy and protracted public relations tour - I could almost make a fulltime job simply out of doing interviews.

Now for a SCRUM style update:

WHAT HAS HAPPENED

We have setup all the required pipelines to best push the project forward. The standalone engine we are using is a branch of Take on Helicopters, which itself is a branch of ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead. We chose this because of its stability, ease of development, very achievable optimization, and the fact that our programmers are the architects of the engine - the very people who built it from the ground up over ten years.

Art has been very, very busy. Chernarus has been revamped, with bug-fixing and a great deal more buildings have been made enter-able with a very high standard of work involved.

For design I have spent much time listening, reading through the posts on the forums and the suggestion thread on Reddit. Some outstanding ideas have been gleamed from there.

WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW

Now the fun stuff begins, all the data from Bohemia projects is up for grabs - so I am going through and collecting the best assets from the projects and mashing the data together to get it loading into DayZ standalone. With this complete, the mod itself will be ported over and integrated. This then gives us a very solid basis for further development.

Our programmers have been reviewing the way forward on the critical issues, such as bugfixing, hacking, and security. These areas are proving straightforward areas for significant development as a standalone, and as a basis in the next few weeks we will have DayZ fully integrated, with all its required data, secured, and packaged. From here we can then test and begin the more exiting things.

Art is continuing with reviewing all the buildings, making them enter-able, and tidying up the interiors to make them look nicer. Once we have this done, they will look at making the environment much more authentic to the scenario (but first we aim for the functionality!). We are now commencing work on the redevelopment of the infected people (zombie) models themselves. This will be an exciting area of work for our artist who is dedicated to this task. Initially we will be producing male and female, I would like to look at the possibility of children infected - but there are technical (required new skeleton and baked animations), possible legal (rating issues), and even moral (shooting children) issues that need to be faced.

WHAT IS BLOCKING US

Probably the biggest stumbling block, is me (rocket). I need to stop doing interviews and focus on making the game. Really, there is very little left to say - now it is up to me and the team to deliver this. Really, in many ways, this is our project to lose. We have great support from the community, developers, and the industry as a whole - it is up to us to deliver for that promise. I think we will, but the next month is going to be really telling for our project.

Beyond that, I simply need to push forward with the integration. Once that is done, I will post some content through on the tumblr so that people can see how the development is progressing.

http://dayzdev.tumbl...egration-begins

I just wanted to make sure this was linked over here, as I don't see any existing links to it. I definitely appreciate the update, and it sounds like they're making some real progress in laying the groundwork for a solid new game! :D

Edited September 30, 2012 by smasht_AU

[samfisherchaos 4]

Thanks for the link m8. Interesting read seems its gonna be quite a while before we get a finished product. Quite happy to wait tho hopefully the hacking will be a lot better in this release.

[XMorTus 15]

Thanks man

[TheMedic 58]

Very happy to hear that:

1. Chernarus will have more enterable buildings!!

2. Rocket is getting his keister back to the game we, the survivors, are clamouring for.

[4Lex 15]

Good news indeed, thx

Edited September 12, 2012 by 4Lex

[danielreid 84]

The comment about improving the quality of the interior of buildings is also very cool. Maybe there will be more than 5-6 building types!!!

[taco241 393]

Thanks for the post. Great info, very much appreciated.

[sturmwaffles 38]

OMG IT'S STILL IN CHERNARUS :DDDDDDDDDDD

[Zombie Jesus 723]

After playing Lingor I would love to see more loot spawns to thin out the player concentration at Cherno, NWAF, and Stary (on a related note why do people go to Electro, if I spawn East of it I might as well head to safer pastures in Berenzino). I am not saying they should have military barracks everywhere like in Lingor, but maybe some checkpoints with some military gear or fire stations in some Northern cities. Give players a reason to actually head to the NEAF or anywhere in the North East because currently you only go there for vehicle spawns and to remain somewhat safe.

It sounds like they are close to a working alpha for the stand alone though, I think it would be reasonable to hope for the end of the year around November for a release. It will not be completely done, but it sounds like it will be a work in progress like the Minecraft model (I know how tired are we of hearing Alpha, mod, and Minecraft model).

[kmach1ne 15]

http://dayzdev.tumblr.com/post/31347010829/the-integration-begins

So look forward to playing or seeing in-game footage relatively soon.

[Beanus 61]

thanks!

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

Nice.

Zombies are important.

[merrfack 90]

Woot thanks for the update Rocket!! Can't wait!

[ThuggleS 45]

Good read, super excited.

Hopefully rocket will be successful in this project, but if he isn't, at least we will have another shot with The War Z.

[waffen-79 32]

Good read, super excited.

Hopefully rocket will be successful in this project, but if he isn't, at least we will have another shot with The War Z.

But will WarZ have the same immersion? FLIR and NV googles? ballistics? I know it has customization, ragdolls and more fluid gameplay

Rocket better start to take pre-orders! and don't forget about

Player Customization

Ragdolls

Melee (directional)

post this as many times guys, so the devs make a better game

[puppetworx 474]

[mdmonnik@deakin.edu.au 139]

Thanks for sharing mate I missed this

[Bizmal 19]

Nice thanks for the info

[the horror 262]

Cool! thanks for the link.

Some interesting info... not too sure how comfortable I would be shooting zombie kids though.

[crockett (DayZ) 41]

Am I the only one that noticed that they said they were using the same engine as "Take on Helicopters"? That means they are using the Real Virtuality 3 engine which is the same base engine that ARMA II uses & not the upcoming ARMA III game engine which is Real Virtuality 4.

The standalone engine we are using is a branch of Take on Helicopters, which itself is a branch of ArmA 2 Operation Arrowhead. We chose this because of its stability, ease of development, very achievable optimization, and the fact that our programmers are the architects of the engine - the very people who built it from the ground up over ten years.

While this might make for a faster development timeline it will be a let down for all those that were expecting all the new bells & whistles from the ARMA III engine.

Edited September 12, 2012 by crockett

[waffen-79 32]

Am I the only one that noticed that they said they were using the same engine as "Take on Helicopters"? That means they are using the Real Virtuality 3 engine which is the same base engine that ARMA II uses & not the upcoming ARMA III game engine which is Real Virtuality 4.

While this might make for a faster development timeline it will be a let down for all those that were expecting all the new bells & whistles from the ARMA III engine.

it's been said before "ArmA 2.5"

I know it's a bummer that's why I keep mentioning that you guys demand these features:

(I know its repetitive, 3 post about it just today, but if these features don't make it into the game I hope Rocket is aiming at a 1.2 million copies sold and a boom of 4 months, because that's all he'll get)

Real Melee (directional)

Ragdolls

Player customization

[danielreid 84]

It sounds like they are close to a working alpha for the stand alone though, I think it would be reasonable to hope for the end of the year around November for a release. It will not be completely done, but it sounds like it will be a work in progress like the Minecraft model (I know how tired are we of hearing Alpha, mod, and Minecraft model).

I'm a big fan of "the minecraft model", personally. It's enjoyable for me to take part in a creative process, something that iterates as I experience it. It has potential to really keep it interesting.

[tet5uo (DayZ) 22]

Does it being on the same engine as Arma2 OA mean that we still have to put up with the terrible lighting system?

I was hoping for some better night-time play with the more advanced lighting of Arma 3 :(

[Wabid Wabit 34]

TY for the update - Great news, enjoy the Beans

[boneboys 7988]

It's on the NEWS page on the Web site front page, for a couple of DayZ already.