Interviews

[pershainovitsh]

Jan 17, 2013 17:07:14 GMT 1 swfwebmaster said:

- Weapons will have durability and there will be weapon cleaning.
- They want to allow modding later on, once the game is stable/secure.
- Cars/vehicles will be phase two priority, Rocket wants to redo them completely so you can change parts, engines, build, mix and match Mad Max style.
- Rocket hopes to be able to "Mad Max style" build cars, interchanging parts and engines etc.
- More blood gore, not cheesy though
- Individual bone fractures will exist in a few months, it's not complete but the engine architecture is done.

Awesome stuff. I like Mad Max style.

Jan 17, 2013 17:07:14 GMT 1 swfwebmaster said:

- DayZ will likely be ported to xbox if sales are over 1 million.

Not even talking about system requirements, but how in the name of some religious figure could they ever fit even a quarter of the Arma 2 controls into a console controller? It does have 17 buttons (plus "start" button, probably behaves like "esc" on a PC) and two thumbsticks that can both be pressed.

I fear that the PC version would be dumbed down to the level of the Xbox version. We could lose half of our beloved features and controls, get the size of the map reduced and the complexity treshold lowered if all goes wrong. Hopefully it doesn't.

Still there are some problems in my mind. One of the least realistic things in Day Z is the spawning equipment. Of course it's reasonable to believe that you can find food in a store, but once it's been looted a few times, why would you find more of it there? I don't know what would be a suitable solution though.

[swfwebmaster]

mp1st
DayZ Creator Comments on April Release Date, DayZ Sequels, and The War Z Scandal
17 JAN 2013
by David Veselka

The Standalone version of DayZ is on track for an April release, according to creator Dean “Rocket” Hall.

“Yes, I think so, but anything could happen and usually does,” he answered in a recent AMA on Reddit in response to questions from fans wondering whether or not the standalone version would release before April. Hall added, “we’ll know more when the results of the tech test are out. Any dates before then would be pure speculation, and my last speculation didn’t work out so good,” referring to a recent delay announcement for DayZ Standalone.

The tech test, which was originally stated to be released imminently, still has no solid release schedule, but Hall did mention that the team is “down to the last few things to fix before the first test servers pop online and we run the first full servers. Slowly we’ll hand out the first keys and get a few servers running. Then we will reassess. It could go really well and we open up quickly, or it could go badly.”

He urges fans to keeps hopes at a modest level during the testing period, saying fans shouldn’t “expect the tech test to be fun, or very pretty. It’s a tech test, any game design that makes it into that will be a bonus.”
Hall was also asked how long the test would stay invite-only, before opening up to the public. He simply responded, “as long as it takes to smooth out the architectural issues.”

On the subject of sequels, Hall revealed that a DayZ sequel would be of interest to him, provided it was done right: “…sequels are really just a numbers game. If the idea is still fresh, I hope the harsh approach of DayZ spawns a sequel, so long as that sequel tried something new and fresh (but with the same flavor) on, say, the PS4 and/or the Steambox. I mean, why not? But I’m not sure how involved I would be with that.”

When asked, Hall also provided his own insight in regards to The War Z’s very shaky and extremely controversial “foundation” launch on Valve’s Steam store, writing, “I am angry about The War Z. I’m very angry.” He continued, “I’m quite hurt personally because anyone can see how similar the words are, and while the average gamer knows the difference individual people don’t. I’ve had family members/close friends mistake the difference and confront me about what they believed was unethical behavior they thought I was making. I really don’t think anyone can understand just quite how exasperated that can make you feel when you’ve gambled everything on something, put your whole self and reputation on the line. So it hasn’t made my life very pleasant and I disagree entirely with the conduct and how consumers have been treated.”

On a more positive note, Hall mentions that fans can expect some “unannounced surprises” for “the next 12 months at least, probably beyond that,” when DayZ Standalone launches later this year.

[sfscriv]

Reddit
Q&A with Rocket on Reddit - Jan 2013
16 JAN 2013

Some more questions answered on Reddit by Rocket.

Q: How long is the closed technical test going to last?
A: As long as it takes to smooth out the architectural issues.

Q: Can we expect any new guns/gear upon foundation release?
A: Yes, lots.

Q: Have you made any improvements in terms of sound?
A: Sound isn't something we've played with a lot yet. It's something we can easily improve - we want the freedom now to innovate, which means not getting locked down because we created certain content. The pace of our innovation is insane at the moment and is entirely changing the landscape of the future content changes.

Q: Will the standalone bring an FPS improvement?
A: Yes, but I follow the usual pessimistic thought that whatever FPS increases we see will likely be taken up with new things added to DayZ. A staggering amount of code that was unused by DayZ has been removed, and is ongoing. This includes UI code and object related code, everything. This provides some benefits. There has been a huge amount of art asset optimization, again helping. Overall, I would say DayZ standalone will offer a smoother experience but not necessarily an FPS increase. I.e if you run it on High now, you won't be running it on Very High but you should get a much smoother experience.

Q: Any plans for Minecon-style DayZ events in the future?
A: Probably, no plans as yet. I would say by June we have a good picture on the success of DayZ as a whole and sometime around then we'll have a good think about the future.

Q: What are your plans for end game content?
A: Firstly, once we have DayZ stabilized into something reasonable - we will look at some advanced vehicle stuff. I.e. sort of vehicle construction, adding different parts to vehicles etc...
Then towards the end of the year, probably, looking at base construction as an entirely new game mode.

Q: What about vehicle customization?
A: Not initially, vehicles will remain very, very basic. But later we will add great depth to the parts mechanic something like a "vehicle construction" system. This will be our first foray into "endgame" type content, after we have stabilized the build.

Q: Has Marek Spanel (CEO at Bohemia Interactive Studio for those who don't know) played the mod/sa and given any feedback on it?
A: Marek has been extremely involved since very early in DayZ (since shortly after it's release really). He continues to be a key contributing member of the team both at a management/steering level and also with design.

Q: What about the price?
A: Cheap for a start, rising in price during development. I'm just going to come right out and say it, so that people start to stop with this whole "competition is good" thing. Competition can be good, under the right circumstances. Personally, the WarZ scandal and the price people have been paying has made me think, personally, that we've been undervaluing the project in terms of price. If one company releases a product, that doesn't perform well and is at a high price, and succeeds - what example does that set for other companies? People need to behave like rational consumers and not just instantly buy everything they see - otherwise all they will end up with is crap. The moment gamers start organizing and rewarding developers that meet what the consumers want - is the moment the publishers will be forced to value their developers more (and pay them more). Regardless, it's never going to be at a full retail price.

Q: How often will updates come out?
A: Daily/weekly. Pushed through steam as delta updates (<3 you steam!)

Q: Will there be some kind of report system in case of hackers?
A: TBC, likely something we will have to work on improving for the entire life of the product.

Q: To what extent will customization go, e.g clothing, character
A: Clothing, full range of selections: Head, eyes, torso, pants, feet, gloves, vest, backpack.

Q: What about player numbers, 60 seems low currently but obviously that will depend on the map design and new areas etc, what do you think is an ideal number?
A: This has been a key focus for redevelopment of Chernarus. I think about 150 is a good number, from our testing in terms of design.

Q: I've been quite impressed by Seattle map in TOH. Would it be possible to rework the map to make it playable in DayZ
A: It's very impressive map, but the issue is more it was designed for something specific (helicopters). DayZ needs interiors, they're really important. I think DayZ needs a new map, BI made, that features a western city... let's just say I have plans.

Q: Will there be other animals in the woods such as wolfs, bears, a horde of zombies? Will there be caves, etc?
A: One of the artists is working on a deer, and I believe a rat has been done. The main issue is animations, they have to be generated (often by hand, although once a horse was mocap'd here in the studio for another game!).

Q: Has a chainsaw been added yet?
A: Nope, not yet. We've only really started on item art asset development recently, as we just confirmed all our desired item architectural changes are possible.

Q: Are you aware of the issues with rendering vegetation, obscuring items, tents and players at close range while they remain visible at long range?
A: It is important, we're aware of it - but we haven't got it planned to be addressed yet. We're still on these major, sweeping, architectural changes.

Q: How do you deal with the stress of the game? When you get overloaded with Questions and the difficulties with the development etc. What's your method of keeping things together?
A: Bizzarely enough, aside from running or one of my hobbies like mountaineering or wakeboarding (which I can rarely do here) - the greatest stress relief comes from modding someone elses game.
I love KSP and love modding for it, and I am really in love with Space Station 13 at the moment, and loving making new maps and editing/modding it. There is something inherently beautiful about modding that I just love. I probably was having a slow-moving nervous breakdown towards the end of last year, really. But this year has been great, the progress has been outstanding and all the huge gambles we took architecturally last year have started paying off.

Q: How do you plan on making lone-wolfing more interesting as well as player interaction?
A: I really want to increase the amount of activity in the game, such as hunting and just general surviving/traveling. I hope this makes the lone-wolf play more interesting, which in turn will add more value to any human interaction.

Q: How does the whole humanity thing work?
A: My first thought was "not well". Then I realized I made it, and I just felt bad for myself I think we can do better with the standalone with some good experimentation and innovation.

Q: Is the idea of making security systems for underground structures still in?
A: I'm playing a lot of Space Station 13 at the moment and it is giving me some tremendous inspiration for ideas for base construction. But expect this more towards the end of this year. We have much ground to cover first.

Q: Will the ragdoll system be initially available in the SA or will you implement it later?
A: No ragdoll currently, it is a significant amount of work and one we haven't done yet. We looked at it, even tried some, but it was just going to cause far too much delay.

Q: When ArmA 3 comes out, are you going to mod DayZ into it or let the community do it?
A: My real hope, is that the next "DayZ" comes out and get's it's big break in ArmA3. I made a space mod for ArmA2 that I never released, maybe I might make that for ArmA3! I guess someone will mod DayZ for ArmA3 and it will probably be great for it, that's the awesome thing about this community.

Q: Can we expect some unannounced surprises in the standalone release?
A: Absolutely. For the next 12 months at least, probably beyond that.

Q: Are you still looking for SA testers?
A: I am not handling the SA technology test tester list, Matt handles that. I'd probably implode with all the queries I'd get with it (my twitter/facebook/email is full now already).

Q: Will private hives on the SA allow for admin controlled starting gear?
A: Private Hives still haven't been thought out much. For a start, we're going to issue the architecture to some of the big hosters initially until we can secure it and lock it down more for general release. So initially, you'll either need to connect centrally to the main DayZ hive when running a server or you'll need to connect to one run by a commercial hoster. But we still haven't decided this fully yet.

Q: Are you still considering underground bases? It was mentioned early on but not so much since.
A: Once we have things really stable and solid, like a really good experience (I estimate loosely on my return from Everest in June), I think we will start with base construction. I've been playing A LOT of space station 13 and it has given me some great ideas.

Q: Will there still be a 'dot' system and will it potentially still allow ESP hacks (which are hard to detect)?
A: I want to remove the crosshair but I suspect we will have it configurable by servers. Same with 3rd person, but no firm decision is made yet we need to test everything out with you guys first. Hacking is something we will have to work on for the life of the product. I.e. forever. We just have to try this new architecture and continually innovate, adapt to the change of pace. That's just the reality of the world.

Q: Are we going to be able to hide from zombies in trees and bushes? *Here comes a swarm of zombies, I'll just sit in this bush until they give up.*
A: Yes. Although for a few months expect these new mechanics to spontaneously break and hilarity ensue

Q: Do you have anything in the works for more obtainable skins like the hero and bandit skins?
A: You can cloth yourself in custom items for each body part. So effectively, you create your own skin. We're still looking at options for humanity and we aren't tied down to a system yet.

Q: What's after DayZ? Can we expect a DayZ 2?
A: I've got two "ultimate game ideas" that I have wanted to make for many years, and I'm hoping this is my ticket to fund and develop them completely myself and make them the way I want, with no marketing department input. So I'd probably be more interested personally in pursuing these once DayZ is 1.0. But sequels are really just a numbers game. If the idea is still fresh, I hope the harsh approach of DayZ spawns a sequel, so long as that sequel tried something new and fresh (but with the same flavor) on, say, the PS4 and/or the Steambox. I mean, why not? But I'm not sure how involved I would be with that.

Q: Did you play The WarZ at all? Anything from that game that you liked/disliked?
A: Yes, both me and Matt did. It's rather hard to compare because it just wasn't the kind of game that I would want to play. I am not a good barometer for what is a good game or not (the games I played most last year were OpenTTD and KSP..., and this year it is SS13). My taste in games is very "out there". So to say it wasn't my kind of game is putting it in company with the new XCOM and many other well received games. Their out of game UI was very polished and overall gave a much better impression about the product from the word go compared to DayZ. The DayZ standalone, probably will not ever match that either mainly because I'd rather have that artist working on assets for the game rather than a menu or some out of game screen. But that level of polish was really good. Connecting was simple and straightforward, and quick. The melee was "better", although with some caveats. I mean, the bar is pretty low, the melee I mod'ed into ArmA2 is probably as basic as it gets. Continued...

Q: Any possible date or time frame for the closed technical test?
A: We're down to the last few things to fix before the first test servers pop online and we run the first full servers. Slowly we'll hand out the first keys and get a few servers running. Then we will reassess. It could go really well and we open up quickly, or it could go badly. Don't expect the tech test to be fun, or very pretty. It's a tech test, any game design that makes it into that will be a bonus.

Q: Do you think SA will come before April?
A: Yes I think so, but anything could happen and usually does. We'll know more when the results of the tech test are out. Any dates before then would be pure speculation, and my last speculation didn't work out so good.

Q: Any plans to implement a sewage/drainage system in the major cities?
A: I really want too. We'd need to do some magic though (or instancing... but only I am really happy with instancing as a solution at the moment! the programmers want to do it properly).

Q: Will the mechanics of inventory management be changed to something like ARMA 3's, where you have tabs for your person/backpack as well as drag+drop capability?
A: Drag and drop... confirmed. Like ArmA3's... no. The aim's a different. DayZ needs a viseral feedback of what you have. Your inventory is everything in DayZ. I see it as the mechanics that DayZ needs. Hell, you can take away the zombies and still have a game if the inventory is decent. So when you open your inventory screen, you will get instant feedback on everything, using 3d models and some good drag and drop functions. Let me put it this way, if you liked the original XCOM system, you'll like this one.

Q: Are players going to have to re-learn how to play DayZ with SA? Meaning, has the core gameplay architecture changed so much that things we have learned (repairing vehicles, filling a jerry can, giving a blood transfusion) will have to be re-learned?
A: Yes

Q: Don't you think 150 players is a little high?
A: In our testing during DayZ mod, its clear that the vast majority of people stick to the urban centers, and the carnage ensues. So I think, that with more people, it will make the cities both more lucrative (dead people loot), more scary (more crazy "nononononononono' people), and more risky (more bandits). I think this merges in quite well. At the end of the day, it will be the community that decides what the optimum number will be, because they set the terms of how the servers are. Popular servers will see more similar configurations, less popular ones will not be populated. Darwin would be proud!

Q: Do NVGS or Rangefinders need batteries? Do the Red Dot sights ever run out of power?
A: It's done. That's what "weapons as entities" system has provided us. We can now require any object to use batteries or have components added to it.

Q: Have you thought about implementing a radio system, like ACRE?
A: Ideally approaching the ACRE guys and hiring them to do a radio system would be ideal. But this kind of stuff will be later this year.

Q: What about side chat? It's useful for building a community instead of server hopping constantly.
A: Yes agreed, but I'd love to see the option of an "Out of Character" chat that can be enabled/disabled by admins on the fly. Yes just like in SS13 I shamelessly got the idea from there! It works really well there, at the end of the round or when problem is experienced - admins can enable the OOC chat and talk about it. If folks dont want their immersion broken they can hide the OOC chat all the time.
Each attachment will require an engine supported proxy object and we need to get that into the engine ASAP and then start the art pipeline on them.

Q: What are your plans for melee weapons?
A: We discussed it at lunch today. I favour going in depth "mount and blade" style. But this would take quite a long time, it's something we'd consider later. Initially it will be a tidied up version of what we currently have. There are IK anim issues, but they're not insurmountable. But they take quite a long time, we don't have time I would say for the first half of the year. But more and more I am thinking melee is becoming very important in the new standalone.

Q: Will we be able to disassemble weapons?
A: There is a finite limit to just how much we can do and not kill performance. On paper I considered this kind of thing, but it requires a considerable amount of extra art work, textures, and materials. More materials is a really GPU performance killers. More materials = more sections (which means more passes by your GPU before it renders to screen). Already attachments are bad enough, we're lucky that zombies have no weapons, and also have just one material (and just one section!). So the weapon attachment system (confirmed, as of today, it's in full development) is kind of a compromise on this.

Q: Will Heinz, Pepsi, Coca-Cola etc be in the standalone?
A: None of them have returned our calls so I doubt we will see them in game despite our best efforts, unfortunately. We tried pretty hard on this one. It was a tremendous fail, we didn't even get any call backs or replies to emails. I was really hoping we could get something going with Heinz at least.

Q: Can you elaborate on what testing will involve? Will there be focussed testing days, do you want normal bug tracking/reporting done or is it more focussed on stability, performance etc.
A: kju asked me this the other day. Quite literally, it starts with "does it explode?" Then gets more advanced. At the start we're not even looking for bugs we just want to see if it is physically possible to have a full server, etc... etc...

Q: How are zombie spawns going to work?
A: We're probably going to spawn all zombies + loot at the start of the mission on the server to decrease lagspikes and to remove the spawning issues we had. This also allows the potential for the whole "roving zombie" crap people keep harping on to me about (seriously, I get facebooked every day with this one request).

Q: Doesn't that mean all zombies will eventually be killed?
A: The zombies respawn, but it's done at a server level, not client like previously (which was a nightmare).

Q: Where is the closed test, is it delayed?
A: Closed test? Here's the deal, I wasn't happy with the zombie anims or the pathfinding at all. So redoing for the closed test. Honestly we're pretty close to beginning the closed testing. Today though, I felt the architecture was looking good enough that I increased by optimism about what we could actually test with the closed test, so I figured that I would make the zombie changes part of that milestone. That reflects some serious progress on the part of our programmers, considering in December I was biting my nails with nothing to show for it. It's going to be a "slow and steady" progression from the first online tests outside of the company to everyone around the world playing it. It's not really fair to say it's delayed, it's more that I wasn't happy with the zombie pathing/anims to the point of saying that it would form part of the closed test.

Q: Will there be zombie children?
A: Looked seriously into this. Aside from the PR nightmare, the killer of the idea was that we would have to make: A new model (not a big deal), a new skeleton (reasonably big deal), new animations for every animation, on the new skeleton (a MAJOR deal. Vast months of work) So the idea just wasn't really feasible.

Q: Can we expect underground construction?
A: Playing games like SS13 have made me see the real potential of an underground construction instance. So yes, this is something I want to see. Both underground in Cherno and some kind of base building. But we are talking Q4 2013 at best here.

Q: Have you considered a whisper type chat for very close range?
A: Interesting, I'll include this on the list of our chat revisions. Currently the whiteboard in my office has: Server/OOC chat (clients can hide/server admins can enable/disable live), Direct Chat, Radio Chat (selectable on a frequency e.g. 800 - 1700) and (obviously we leave vehicle chat in) Could maybe look at splitting out Direct Chat. Will investigate.

[sfscriv]

DayZ Development Team
by Rocket
25 JAN 2013


(Looks like the medical camp on the coastal side of the Balota Airfield)

This is the first update when I have sat down and thought “where do I start?” There has been so much going on with the development this month that it is hard to fit it all in a post here. Through the month we have steadily moved from working on our architectural changes, through to preparing for our first public test. The risks and gambles we took last year, are now beginning to pay serious dividends for us.

I’ll be covering the following in this update:
•Lighting and material improvements
•Volumetric Cloud system
•New Server Architecture
•Clothing/Inventory status
•Closed Test Status
•Art/World updates
•Customizing your character
•Customizing your weapon

Lighting and material improvements
One of our Lead Artists, Mario Kurty, has been working with some of the ArmA3 artists to ensure that DayZ Standalone has the best visuals possible. The result is pretty striking when combined with some of the other improvements we have made in the engine. These improvements make the world really come to life, improving the visuals overall.

Volumetric Cloud system
This has now been fully configured for use within DayZ, used to great effect in Bohemia’s previous product Take on Helicopters (and coming in ArmA3 also). There are several pictures of this included in the screenshots for this blog update. Running around the world taking pictures, it was hard to resist really. It adds a real sense of realism when compared with the previous result.

New Server Architecture
Our lead programmer, Ondøej Španìl, continues his work on redeveloping our server architecture. Contrary to some who say DayZ will be releasing with no anti-hack mechanisms, one of the key things we are doing with development is entirely redeveloping how the engine works. I can’t stress enough just how fundamental this change is. DayZ’s game servers will function like servers in other MMO style games, that is the server will control the behavior and the sending of updates. No longer will your machine receive all the updates allowing their analysis by various cheats.

We are exploring spawning all zombies and loot at the start of server initialization, again a huge departure from the previous mechanism. This solves many design and technical issues with the spawning and respawning of equipment, such as being able to metagame by telling whether players are in a village by seeing zombie’s have spawned.

Clothing/Inventory status
This has now been completed to a basic level, you can put on and drop various items of clothing. These items can have diseases on them, and they have durability and other attributes. We need to make some models that represent the clothes when they are on the ground (currently they look as they are when on the ground!) Once this is done, we will be releasing some video outlining what it looks like to change your clothes.

Closed Test Status
We have begun our internal closed testing (yes!) and have been working with Valve to ensure our new server browser system is working (we utilize Steam for this purpose rather than Gamespy as for ArmA2). The Server/Client architecture needs to be fully implemented before we will begin our public testing.

We have not initiated our closed test that includes external people yet (such as streamers).

Art/World updates
A huge quantity of changes are flowing into the world. New areas, a mass of new objects (such as wrecked vehicles, buses, etc…) that are all designed with DayZ in mind - such as having good areas for loot to spawn. It is really impossible to list all the changes here, from bug fixing to redesigning of buildings such as the general store, and onto entirely new buildings and areas. One of our texture artists has been going through existing work and making them look more damaged and used.

Customizing your Character
The design has now really ramped up. This is really the entire focus of our efforts for the next few months, prior to starting on vehicle customization and finally on base building at the end of the year. The obvious starting point for us is to allow players to select the gender and race of their character. Beyond this, allowing ways for your character to become your own are key for us; from getting tattoo’s to finding unique clothing items, trying to deal with your own health aliments, etc…

This is an area of very active development, we’re exploring all sorts of ways to make your character change in the world as you play. When you first create your character, the options will be simple. As you go along in the world, your character will change as a result of their interactions with the environment and the decisions you make, through items such as clothing choices.

Social aspects are extremely important to us, and we’ve taken a number of idea’s and participated in the discussions on reddit and the forums about what we can do in this area. Expect more on these area’s in the next tumblr update. We want to support the organic development and operation of groups within the game, through the development of their own symbology in game (tattoo’s, markings on the world, on weapons, etc…). We feel that these redeveloped social experiences told through the game will be a compelling part of the standalone.

Customizing your weapon
Weapon attachments are a great bi-product of our entire redesign of every aspect of the inventory system. Nothing is available to show on this yet, currently the only attachment we have fully configured in the game is the magazine. You must load the magazine with ammunition and then it is considered an attachment to the weapon. The quantity and condition of your magazines will be particularly important in the standalone. Look after them!

When is it releasing?
We don’t know. We’re going to take our time. I feel fantastic about the situation, more than ever I feel like we’re doing something really interesting with this development. Now is not the time to rush things, but we do need to ensure our pace is kept up. Our development blog and getting players in and testing as soon as possible will be key in ensuring we succeed in making this a great game.

Concluding words
At no point in development, have I been as excited as I am right now. The risks we took with the direction have paid off. The engine and approach of the game is now entirely DayZ’s own, it is striking out into it’s own territory as a project. This is very exciting for all the team.

I do need to caution though, it is a bad idea to overhype the project. We know that there are many challenges that we will face from deciding to effectively write a new engine tailored to DayZ. But we are now entirely confident, that this decision will prove to have been the best decision we could make. Now we will be able to make the game that we’ve all always wanted.

[mcguirk2]

I'm really looking forward to this. On a different note, when do you ship out? I was thinking of organizing a clan event around you before you take off.

[sfscriv]

From the DayZ Development Team
5 FEB 2013

Let’s see some DayZ video! A quiet start for us with a video blog, we’re only detailing a few areas of progress in this weeks update. We show a peek at the new UI, some detail on the new clothing functions available in the engine, and take a tour round a few of the many new areas inside the updated Chernarus map.

We’ve edited out our use of the Inventory system, which we’re keeping under wraps for the moment (covered out with hilarious images photoshopped by forum members on the official DayZ forums at dayzmod.com!)

So where are we at?

Development is continuing to progress in extremely positive ways for us. The architectural decisions we have taken are providing continued dividends with the development of our disease mechanics, and in the ability to create notes in the world.

Inventory is fully synchronizing with the central database, including inventory inside clothing items. Essentially your clothing is like many little backpacks.

We’re getting plenty of bugs coming in from our closed internal testing, and we haven’t moved to our closed external testing just yet. There is still no timeframe for when this will happen, but we’re committed to continuing with these development updates and blog posts.

What is next?

We’re working very hard on the inventory system even more, and it looks like the crafting system is close in next in our development. It would be fair to say that inventory and crafting are the key development objective currently, second only to the client/server architecture (makes DayZ more like an MMO), and new zombie AI mechanics (an ongoing task).

We look forward to giving even more information, new exciting areas, features, functions, and updates in the coming blogs! We’re all confident it won’t be too long before you’ll be able to join in the development yourself.

East of Komarovo


Komarovo


Bonus Island 1 (Distant Island is NEW)


Bonus Island 2 (Same island)


Bonus Island 3 (Same island)


Loot Spawn

[Lambourne]

It looks so good, I cannot wait until I can play it

[pershainovitsh]

I like how the loot is now much more realistic. Instead of being found in piles, it's found in places it should be found; behind objects, inside vehicles etc.

[sfscriv]

DayZ Development Team
15 FEB 2013



Project Team Expansion
One of the biggest changes in the last week has been the expansion of the project, both in scale and scope as well as with personnel. We’ve been getting more and more people involved, both locally and externally. Many of these people are from within the community. We hope that these people will be able to assist us in really pushing the game to its limits.

Multiplayer Testing
Our internal closed testing has been continuing, and then pausing, as we identify and fix crashes and other issues. The vast amount of changes we have made require meticulous testing. We’re hoping to begin our first large-scale capacity testing next week (assuming we have a stable enough build). This will involve us working the server over with around 50 people initially, then working up to 150 and beyond to obtain metrics as to what limitations we will have.

Architecture Developments
Our lead programmer has been continuing the revision of the entire engine multiplayer to operate under the server-client MMO model. The results have been outstanding, and it is going to radically change the product. As these changes are made we are filter them onto the approach taken at other levels, ensuring everything is moved from being done at a client level to being done at a server level.

We have been experimenting with some novel approaches such as not having loot spawned at the server level, but having it spawned at the database level - therefore negating the ease with which loot tables could be produced and allowing us to conduct a form of economic regulation to item spawns dynamically. I think the end result, however, will be a mixture of the two approaches due to performance requirements.

Character Development
This is the absolute core of our current design efforts. There are new ethnic heads available for female characters. We want to allow characters to be fully customized and reflect the players story as they are going along. This has included some fantastic ideas inspired by the community. Until initial release, the vast majority of our efforts will be with expanding options for developing and customizing your character.

Inventory system
Based on feedback and development, changes continue with this area. It’s starting to operate really well. Our programmer here, Jirka, will eventually move onto the crafting system. He has been wanting to move onto this for some time, as it is a personal area of interest for him.

As part of the inventory system, we have started detailed work on the attachment system. Like the customization of characters, we want to allow maximum ability for the customization and development of a players weapons. As part of this, all weapons being introduced into DayZ are being redeveloped from scratch at extremely high detail. The work being produced so far is outstanding! This means that, on release, there will be less weapons in the standalone - but it allows us the ability to continue each week to release content updates with new weapons and items.

World development
Massive areas are changing here. Ivan Buchta having returned from his time in the Greek Prison has been a huge asset to the team, working with our world designer SenChi (designer of the Ironfront worlds) to redevelop Chernarus. I have included some low-detail screenshots (sfscriv note: one of the images is at the top of this post. I think the image above is of the road coming north of Cherno just to the northwest of Vysota hill) taken by SenChi showing some of his developments.

Art development
New clothing, items, weapons, buildings, “special areas” are all the foci of art development. We are greatly expanding our team of artists, as we have hundreds of new items we want to include in the world.

This week’s blog is pretty light on detail and excitement, but the pace is such that pausing to write about it is taking too much time! Overall, each week is proving to be more exciting for us than the last.

#AskDayZ
Part of a regular feature we will be doing is to take peoples questions on twitter (hastag: #AskDayZ) and facebook - Matt will select a few and we will answer them.

Q: Will we be able to host private (hive) servers? (Christian Haschek)
A: Private servers will be supported. The issue of private hives (central servers) is still an open question. Initially the answer is definitely no, as we need to concentrate the database centrally so we can continue development and change it regularly. There is a wider issue of regulating both the economy of DayZ, in terms of controlling item spawn, and ensuring a balanced approach. I think it comes down to a question of timing, much like with the mod.

Q: There be any new features in the first version of the standalone or it will be the classic DayZ (Martin Rangelovwill)
A: The experience will be entirely new. There is virtually nothing that has been directly ported from the mod, everything has been redone. This wasn’t our original intention (hence the December deadline) - but it has evolved this way. We’re all glad it has!

Q: End Game content - Other than the mad max mods to cars, what other endgame solution is there other than everyone becoming bandits, the forums have made mentions and suggestions of random events like raiding a c130 crash site or setting ambush to NPC convoys, What do the dev’s have in store for us? (Rhys Fiander )
A: Endgame is an open question, and is something we will look at later once we have got the basics where we want them (player customization, controls, animations, zombies, loot spawn, attachments, disease, hacking, etc…). I’m personally not a fan of NPC’s but we have been keeping this available as an option for development. I kind of think using NPC’s is cheating in this context. I am sure we can come up with a more creative way of doing these kinds of events, working directly with the community.

Q: Dean: will you being adding other food and drink types (Ross J MacGregor)
A: The list of planned items is huge. A reasonably small functional set will be available initially, then new items and weapons during weekly updates.

Q: Are you working on other ways to indicate hunger, thirst, temperature to achieve a more minimalistic HUD or getting rid of it completely and instead use sounds and such ? (Jesper von Hundhufvud)
A: The current situation is “no HUD” and we hope to keep it this way, demonstrating through the use of sounds and animations. We do need to add options for those with hearing impairments and we will look at those options too.

Q: Did Dean get a date in the end or was it a romantic evening for one? WHY DID HE NOT TELL HER HOW MANY LAMBORGHINIS HE WILL HAVE?! (Regan Bamfield)
A: It was a very romantic evening for me cleaning my sneaker collection (I’m a total sneakerhead), so no - I did not get my date in the end! No matter how many Lamborghini’s I promised!

Q: What will be the pricing on standalone? (Dylan Panda Belisle)
A: It is still to-be-confirmed. However, to put it in perspective, I want a higher price than nearly everyone else in the company. So we’re not talking an expensive product. Released now, I am confident people are getting more than required value from the product.

Q: Will you continue pursuing/developing the humanity system? have you made/felt the need to make any changes? (Daniel Yacoubian)
A: I think this will continue to be developed throughout the life of the product, it will be a very subtle art to get it right.

Q: Will the number of zombies be increased, or should we expect a similar amount? (Kyle O’Dowd)
A: Yes, expect the numbers to increase as they are controlled directly on the server independent of player locations.

Q: @lirik - Will there be character slots or will it be limited to one survivor?
A: Initially, just one live character for each player account. We store a huge amount of data for each character, so we need to limit it.

Q: @biddaman - From what we know about next gen consoles so far, would Dayz be possible to run on those machines?
A: Personally, yes I believe it would be technically possible. Some of the consoles will be easier than others. There are some issues with requirements for publishers which are really annoying, and I have been frustrated in the past with some of the rules required that force some weird design changes in games (I don’t like tutorials!).

Q: @zsc0pe - Will there be changes with the chat? I would like to be able to type or talk to friends in game without the whole server knowing
A: We’ve started development of a basic radio system. If you’ve played Space Station 13, you’ll recognize this system. More to follow on that. And love the songs by the way!

Q: @jerry_hopper - Will the squadXML be overhauled,2 achieve more interaction ‘outside’ the gameserver? or will there be some API which taps in dayz?
A: API is something we, longterm, want to look at for nearly everything - considering the outstanding creativity within the community. In particular I think it is best to allow the community to develop its own player profile statistic sites. But this is something that will come much later in the year.

Q: @ray23estray - If there will be any further map releases for DayZ in the future,will they be released as DLC content for money?
A: We are starting our planning process for this, but we don’t have any idea how we would monetize it. There are issues with the DLC model we would want to avoid. We’re hoping we will be so successful in sales, that we can just release as a free content update.

Q: @thebeehawk - What kind of vehicle customisation [sic] is planned?
A: I have only basic ideas on this currently, essentially functioning similar to the weapon attachment system we have designed. If your car has a missing or damaged door, take the door off another car. But of course, if they are different colors, you’ll see that. Each part also has various damage states, so we end up with GTA-esque damage visuals.

Q: @chernoeb Will there be different servers with different weapons. Example: One server has DMR’s while another server has no DMR’s
A: Not initially. Either loot will be entirely controlled centrally by the central server, or it will spawn based on loot probability tables, or (most likely) a combination of the two.

Q: @poopthought - Do you have any malls, hotels, prisons or bigger hospitals planned for the standalone?
A: Yes!

Q: @evanlutes1999 - Will there be the old weapons from the mod, new weapons, or a mix of both?
A: New weapons, based on the old weapons.

Q: IAsh - How many clothing varieties should we expect?
A: Once released, expect new content every week. We are planning hundreds and hundreds of clothing varieties.

[sfscriv]

DayZ Development Team
9 MAR 2013

We’ve gone for a reasonably quick and dirty video blog this week, mainly because things have been very busy for us.

Inventory System
One of the biggest improvement areas has been the inventory system, now almost ready for a public display. This new inventory system supports crafting, interchangeable clothing, degradation, tracking, weapon customization, and much more. It’s really a revolutionary system for us and we’re extremely proud of the results that Jirka (our programmer assigned to this) has achieved.

Crafting
Not touched on in the video, but what we will be showing soon is the basics of how users can interact with items in the world - this is the next step in development of our inventory system beyond where it is now. This is not a traditional crafting system, but one that encourages layers to explore the ways in which items can be crafted.

Zombie pathfinding
In the video, towards the end, some before and after footage of work on the zombie AI pathfinding. Not only has this changed the role, threat, and speed of the zombies - but it has also yielded performance improvements. The increased accuracy of the zombies movement allows their movement to be slowed down to more sensible values, in line with those of the players themselves. We still have some other avenues to explore in this regard, but we’re very pleased with the results so far.

Mass zombie spawning server side
Now all zombies are spawned directly on the server and their movement is governed directly on the server itself. This has allowed us to provide increased security and hack prevention mechanisms by disabling functionality at the client level. It also means that zombies no longer “pop” in and out of the world, previously used as a mechanism to tell if someone was in the area. It also paves the way for us to allow migrating zombies and zombies traversing open areas in search for their next meal.

We still have some way to go in performance, the initial tests of 4000 zombies spawned reduced the server FPS to 4. After performance optimizations, this increased up to 21. We’re now confident we can have the server FPS back up to 30+ with maximum numbers of zombies in the near future.

Expanding health system
Health is extending far beyond just blood, into a system that incorporates health, blood, and consciousness level. How these are all interrelating will be touched on in its own devblog in future. Some of the exciting developments coming include longterm play effects such as poor diet affecting your long term health levels. All this translates into the importance of a longterm plan for survival of your character, and we’re sure the role of medical specialists will become very important - hopefully emphasizing social interaction opportunities.

Chernarus Expansion
This continues at a huge pace. The two new villages in expand Cherno and provide it a true city feeling. Also expanding is the top (north) map area and the continued development of our large-scale features being added to the map. More to follow on this! (we can’t wait to show some more of this!)

Loot spawning
Finding loot now involves scavenging inside of vehicles, looking for items stuck between furniture, prying open car boots, or strewn in the wasteland itself. Consuming your bounty now results in rubbish, such as empty cans after consuming your beans. This is no mere gimick, because your trash can be used to track you.

Conclusion
There is a great deal more that can be covered, but we’re really deeply in the thick of development at the moment and we just wanted to get something quick and dirty to all those waiting for standalone. We know that you want it released, and we know you want to know when this will be - but we’re 100% committed to making this a great game, and that means we are making sure to do things properly. We’re happy and confident about the progress, so it’s one foot after another and soon we’ll be at the finish line.

[sfscriv]

[sfscriv]

PAX East 2013 - A look at the DayZ Standalone Inventory system.



Internal Review in June to determine when the Alpha will be released.
Crafting development is what is holding up the Alpha release.



There will be radios. Discussion of health system. You will be able to punch. Vehicles will not be int he initial release. August/September the vehicles will be released. Rocket wants them to be customizable. Commited to 12 months of development after the release of the Alpha. A better camera mode to support video making.

[mcguirk2]

Combing these posts to see if there is any release date mentioned. Now it looks like they won't set a date for the alpha until June! I hope its worth all the wait.

[sfscriv]

PAX East 2013

Tour of Chernarus

















Questions & Answers continued...



Discussion of barricading

[sfscriv]

East PAX 2013 continued



Changed zombie annimation and path finding