Status Report - Week of 18 August 14

[SmashT 10907]

 

As mentioned in last weeks status update, work continues in refining persistent storage and ironing out any potential issues related to protecting user storage, and preventing abuse of the system. DayZ version 0.48 was pushed to stable branch during last weeks maintenance with the goal of addressing global voice abuse, camera collision abuse, global item cleanup, and the deployment of the player storage to limited DayZ dev hosted servers.

 

As we progress towards the August milestone goal of 0.49 at the end of the month, we will continue to iterate upon the experimental branch with bug fixes and 0.49 intended features.

Additionally worth mentioning is the intended cleanup of the stable hive to coincide with persistent storage and private shards being offered globally across stable branch.

It is our intent once we have addressed the core issues with abuse of item duping, as well as resolved issues with the protection of player storage and opened game server providers rental of private shards, to wipe the stable branch clean.

This will allow us to ensure a clean start on player storage and camps, as well as remove issues such as:

• Bugged ammo quantity magazines
• Corrupt characters
• Duplicated items and ammunition

Peter / Lead Designer

"Greetings fellow survivors! I’m pleased to see you all enjoying the latest stable update which delivers the long awaited and needed item persistency. 

 

Here in the design team we have had a very hectic week. We’ve focused on general bugfixing and the implementation of several new features - burlap sack/grass camo for Mosin-Nagant, sawed-off version of Mosin-Nagant, big leather sack, crafted arrows and others. These of course are already in game and you are probably asking what's going on now?

 

We have currently extended our medical mechanics with cardiopulmonary resuscitation and they tie in nicely with the addition of the cattle prod, which can cause a player to be unconscious. One more dedicated melee weapon was added, the telescopic baton. We are also making progress also on advanced weather impact on player characters, soon you will be happy to have your raincoat packaged and to have pair of waterproof shoes.

 

Apart from that we focused on vehicle design. Things like how they will work, from what parts they will consist of, which vehicle models we bring in and other crucial questions were raised and answered. I'm sure everybody will be happy when vehicles hits the roads of Chernarus as we will have managed to bring nice mixture of mechanics.

I will keep you informed how vehicles comes along but meanwhile... see you in Chernarus folks!"

 

Standup notes for the week of 18 August 2014

Programming

Centralized loot economy

Centralized economy statistic tracking

Object persistence bugfixing

Network optimization

Melee system redesign and implementation

Inventory bugfixing

Audio system bugfixing

 

Animation

Completion of searching for berries

Completion of fishing animations

New restrained pose for crouched

Restrained crouch walk animations

Two handed throwing animations

Standing/Aim/Run Bow animations

 

Design

Initial implementation of horticulture prototype

Adv. weather player impact design

Cattleprod & Telescoping baton configuration

Vehicle component design

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation design

General bugfixing

 

Art

Balaclava models

Tree/Vegetation models

Horticulture containers

MP133 model

Improvised camouflage experimentation

Vehicle model design & discussion

[ChainReactor 922]

 

It is our intent once we have addressed the core issues with abuse of item duping, as well as resolved issues with the protection of player storage and opened game server providers rental of private shards, to wipe the stable branch clean.

This will allow us to ensure a clean start on player storage and camps, as well as remove issues such as:

• Bugged ammo quantity magazines
• Corrupt characters
• Duplicated items and ammunition

(...)

Centralized loot economy

(...)

Object persistence bugfixing

(...)

Melee system redesign and implementation

(...)

Audio system bugfixing

(...)

Initial implementation of horticulture prototype

Adv. weather player impact design

(...)

Vehicle component design

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation design

 

 

This is a very, very promising status update. Can't wait for 0.49 now. Also, yes, global wipe to get rid of duped items and hacked mags. Just make sure theres no way to bring such stuff back into the game pls.

 

Sounds like good work !

[DemonGroover 8836]

Cattle prod...oh yeah!

[nl 986]

 

It is our intent once we have addressed the core issues with abuse of item duping, as well as resolved issues with the protection of player storage and opened game server providers rental of private shards, to wipe the stable branch clean.

Oh noes, there goes my 6 months old character :(

But I understand it will be necessary to make an even playing field again (and I kenw it would happen one day and probably happen a few times more until the final big wipe before official release.

[DropBearChick 1216]

Character wipe soon guys! Say goodbye to your unicorns and hacked mags!

Also that improvised camo looks cool as.

[quantum2k6 348]

duped items are not the real problem atm.

 

whats about security fixes and cheatprotection?

[nettles 396]

 

Initial implementation of horticulture prototype

Adv. weather player impact design

Cattleprod & Telescoping baton configuration

...

Cardiopulmonary resuscitation design

...

MP133 model

 

 

This is all I could focus on and I truly, truly, could not be more excited about LTL, CPR, and a new shotgun.

[Zarniwoop 1193]

I am waiting for the Centralized Loot Economy to make loot/food/everything finally rare. That is all I want to see the most. 

 

Stick to making the game hardcore and difficult please Devs!  :thumbsup:

[Ultimoses 110]

I just want to say that these weekly status updates are awesome. They really help to see progress! Keep it going!

[ColonelBurton 145]

I am waiting for the Centralized Loot Economy to make loot/food/everything finally rare. That is all I want to see the most. 

 

Stick to making the game hardcore and difficult please Devs!  :thumbsup:

 

Seems there are people who actually think it's going to be fun to run around for three hours to only find a badly damaged Ushanka, a rotten apple and a battery before they die of hunger or are overrun with zombies they can't fight off with their broken fists. That isn't hardcore and difficult, that is simply dumb and unenjoyable and will make the game a straight-up failure. Survival in such  a post-apocalyptic scenario isn't about running around in houses that are devoid of any usable items and even furniture. It's about acting smart. Act smart and you stand a chance of survival. Act like a noob and you'll die quickly. DayZ incorporates that now, if anything there are simply too many firearms and the melee system is a plain embarassment.

 

EDIT: The guy in your signature for example is a fine example for a noob. Standing around in the middle of a playground lot admiring the clouds while there are half a dozen infected roaming the place and insane bandits hiding in the tenament buildings with their guns out. ;o)

Edited August 20, 2014 by ColonelBurton

[bishopomega 30]

Seems there are people who actually think it's going to be fun to run around for three hours to only find a badly damaged Ushanka, a rotten apple and a battery before they die of hunger or are overrun with zombies they can't fight off with their broken fists. That isn't hardcore and difficult, that is simply dumb and unenjoyable and will make the game a straight-up failure. Survival in such  a post-apocalyptic scenario isn't about running around in houses that are devoid of any usable items and even furniture. It's about acting smart. Act smart and you stand a chance of survival. Act like a noob and you'll die quickly. DayZ incorporates that now, if anything there are simply too many firearms and the melee system is a plain embarassment.

 

EDIT: The guy in your signature for example is a fine example for a noob. Standing around in the middle of a playground lot admiring the clouds while there are half a dozen infected roaming the place and insane bandits hiding in the tenament buildings with their guns out. ;o)

Speak for yourself, why do we want a Mod or A2 clone? It's a survival game, I'd like to feel as if each time I log in I need to be careful and quiet less I attract unwanted attention. If there is no time spent on surviving why would it be a survival game?

[Zarniwoop 1193]

Seems there are people who actually think it's going to be fun to run around for three hours to only find a badly damaged Ushanka, a rotten apple and a battery before they die of hunger or are overrun with zombies they can't fight off with their broken fists. That isn't hardcore and difficult, that is simply dumb and unenjoyable and will make the game a straight-up failure. Survival in such  a post-apocalyptic scenario isn't about running around in houses that are devoid of any usable items and even furniture. It's about acting smart. Act smart and you stand a chance of survival. Act like a noob and you'll die quickly. DayZ incorporates that now, if anything there are simply too many firearms and the melee system is a plain embarassment.

 

I'm not exactly sure what your point is. Making the game ultimately hardcore and difficult with a myriad ways of getting you killed, was what DayZ started out to become. I hope that they stand by their game and not give in to the easygoing mass that just wants vehicles "or at least a bicycle" nao.

 

Further down the line stealth for getting past zombies will be added, current survival mechanics will work better, therefore warranting a harder gameplay for fear of making the whole thing a walk in the park. By the end of the year I expect, the game will have to become harder or face many of it's mechanics becoming obsolete. Who will go fishing/hunting if he can just find tons of food in the general store? Who will plant vegetables if he can just hoard tins in his tent? As you say survival is acting smart, but in the game as of now, no smartness is required since you can find mostly everything vital pretty easy. Smartness now in DayZ is just common sense. When it becomes hardcore and difficult that is when real smartness will be vital. 

Edited August 20, 2014 by Zarniwoop

[ColonelBurton 145]

 

We have currently extended our medical mechanics with cardiopulmonary resuscitation and they tie in nicely with the addition of the cattle prod, which can cause a player to be unconscious. One more dedicated melee weapon was added, the telescopic baton. We are also making progress also on advanced weather impact on player characters, soon you will be happy to have your raincoat packaged and to have pair of waterproof shoes.

 

 

I guess this means empty servers with bad weather and crowded servers with sunny weather. How about fixing the inventory system first, since at this point, it is simply devoid of any realism, seeing that a box of matches or a battery takes up as much space as a can of beans in the same way that a packed raincoat takes up the space of four cans of beans. News flash: if you stuff an entire poncho in your backpack it takes up about as much space as a can of beans.

 

You're making it necessary for players to collect stuff to an extent that is simply over the top without giving them the capacity to do so. Persistent storage won't help in this regard at all, and making an extra little slot for combat knives in combat boots isn't the solution either.

[ColonelBurton 145]

I'm not exactly sure what your point is. Making the game ultimately hardcore and difficult with a myriad ways of getting you killed, was what DayZ started out to become. I hope that they stand by their game and not give in to the easygoing mass that just wants vehicles "or at least a bicycle" nao.

 

Further down the line stealth for getting past zombies will be added, current survival mechanics will work better, therefore warranting a harder gameplay for fear of making the whole thing a walk in the park. By the end of the year I expect, the game will have to become harder or face many of it's mechanics becoming obsolete. Who will go fishing/hunting if he can just find food in the general store? Who will plant vegetables if he can just hoard tins in his tent? As you say survival is acting smart, but in the game as of now, no smartness is required since you can find mostly everything vital pretty easy. Smartness now in DayZ is just common sense. When it becomes hardcore and difficult that is when real smartness will be vital. 

 

Maybe I'm not thinking exactly along your lines but when you wrote finding loot/food/everything even more rare, it sounded absolutely stupid, sorry to say! There are plenty of things to find in a post-apocalyptic scenario that you can put to good use, the question is just do you have the smarts to use them. For example plastic bottles, metal scrap, etc. Of course you wouldn't find three cans of food on the shelf in each house, obviously. But believe me that such a world has no shortage of kitchen knives or worn clothes, even in an impoverished ex-soviet state.

 

And I've actually been on a server when I first started DayZ that apparently was looted clean and had nothing but rotten fruit and I seriously almost died of starvation. That can't be the point. And beating even a difficult zombie or two should be doable for a talented player, granted the game has decent melee mechanics (which it doesn't)

 

EDIT: Another example is the ridiculous nature of falling off elevated platforms. It is so far-fetched in this game, it isn't hardcore/difficult it is just ridiculous.

Edited August 20, 2014 by ColonelBurton

[Zarniwoop 1193]

Maybe I'm not thinking exactly along your lines but when you wrote finding loot/food/everything even more rare, it sounded absolutely stupid, sorry to say! There are plenty of things to find in a post-apocalyptic scenario that you can put to good use, the question is just do you have the smarts to use them. For example plastic bottles, metal scrap, etc. Of course you wouldn't find three cans of food on the shelf in each house, obviously. But believe me that such a world has no shortage of kitchen knives or worn clothes, even in an impoverished ex-soviet state.

 

And I've actually been on a server when I first started DayZ that apparently was looted clean and had nothing but rotten fruit and I seriously almost died of starvation. That can't be the point. And beating even a difficult zombie or two should be doable for a talented player, granted the game has decent melee mechanics (which it doesn't)

 

Maybe I didn't make my point very clear. Sorry about that. Of course it's logical to find kitchen knives and clothes. Of course it isn't logical to find tons of food in the each and every house you enter. Cans of food should be scarce and far between especially in large populated areas where it is again logical to have been quickly looted clean by the sheer mass of people living/leaving there. Scarcity of anything logically vital in such a situation (food, clean water, medication and naturally the MilGear) is what will give the game that extra depth, and will make players take different choices in order to survive. 

 

That being said, you start off making pretty good sense here and then make it sound like an outrage because the game is incomplete. Obviously you nearly died of starvation because the game as of "whenever you started" hasn't got it's survival mechanics anywhere near done. I still maintain starvation should play a large role in survival however. Not something that is a myth/outrage when it happens once in a million. 

DayZ will hopefully provide an experience that lets you think for yourself and give you the options and freedom to carry out what you are thinking.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Zarniwoop

[ebrim 998]

Standup notes for the week of 18 August 2014

Programming

Centralized loot economy

Centralized economy statistic tracking

Adv. weather player impact design

 

 

 

Day made.

[Ben_uk 24]

I'm liking these updates. Keeping the community informed really helps stop the negative feelings and it helps to be "kept in the loop", no one wants to feel like they are in the dark about things etc.

[ebrim 998]

I guess this means empty servers with bad weather and crowded servers with sunny weather. How about fixing the inventory system first, since at this point, it is simply devoid of any realism, seeing that a box of matches or a battery takes up as much space as a can of beans in the same way that a packed raincoat takes up the space of four cans of beans. News flash: if you stuff an entire poncho in your backpack it takes up about as much space as a can of beans.

 

 

Some people server hop, that's just what they do, it's sad but some people just can't deal. I also think you're being slightly hyperbolic about the inventory system, for the most part it's fine. If anything, I feel rather that you have too much space to work with already if you begin to max capacity. Consider that maybe you shouldn't have the capacity to be able to specialize for every situation. Sometimes you have to make trade-offs, to use an example I used in another thread. If you're more of an outdoorsy character, maybe you do spare the extra room in your kit for a raincoat and wellies as well as your over-the-shoulder fishing pole and extra hook instead of sidearm with mags and plenty of ammo. If you're just interested in urban warfare or military contests with other players, obviously you're going to prioritize differently. Maybe you'll have to stick to the towns more in bad weather and bunker up in a building.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Ebrim

[flimsypremise 94]

I think the answer to making players search for alternatives to pre-packaged food is not making the supply so scarce that most fresh spawns starve to death. The solution lies in making access to that food a risky proposition.

[pizuicas 82]

I am waiting for the Centralized Loot Economy to make loot/food/everything finally rare. That is all I want to see the most. 

 

Stick to making the game hardcore and difficult please Devs!  :thumbsup:

100% agree!!.....this will add depth to the game..... 

[grihmmys@gmail.com 23]

Am i correct to assume that there is a chance of us getting the private shards option towards the end of august?

[basinox 300]

I just can't wait to make some deep fried Zeds. And finely something ells on the police planks than baseball bats (what are they, gansters?)

[ColonelBurton 145]

Consider that maybe you shouldn't have the capacity to be able to specialize for every situation.

 

I'm not going to go into "trade-offs" happening in the DayZ world since my experience is either you play with friends or alone. 95% of encounters are PvP

 

As concerns my posting, if you were to pack a GOOD bag or even just some camping equipmentyourself, you'd find out pretty soon that you can collect a whole lot of important things in something as small as an Eastpak. Not to mention what you can stuff in a mountain backpack and still keep it way below 40 pounds.... Particularly critical items like cigarette lighters, flintstone, purification tablets, matches, knives, do not take up any space at all. Even a fully loaded handgun doesn't take up the equivalent of 4 ingame inventory slots. I can stuff twice the amount of mags in a real-life assault vest the same way.

 

I maintain that the inventory system is way over the top and the slots need to be quartered and items resized.

[becker44 22]

Are there any thoughts to showing the character's hands animating the opening and closing of doors?

Edited August 20, 2014 by becker44

[ColonelBurton 145]

Are there any thoughts to showing the character's hands animating the opening and closing of doors?

 

 The game needs improvement here, that's for sure, but it has to be dynamic and flexible, not as static as for example drinking from a well.