• Dev Update/Hicks
  
• Community Spotlight

Greetings Survivors,

We don't have too much new and exciting or flashy news for this Status Report, and most of the usual SR participants are either attending Gamescom or on holiday. However, we do have updates on the progress of development towards .61 experimental, and thus Stable. In addition I'll go over the recent .61 Dev Log video that hit our Youtube channel yesterday, talk a bit about some of what was featured in it - and close with a few comments on the economy (of course - its not a Status Report without talking about the CLE).

0.61 Milestone Goals:

• Server Login Queue
  
  • Functional testing is complete internally - just waiting to push it to experimental and see if it breaks!
    
• Merge of New Audio Technology from Arma 3 Eden Update.
  
  • Technology successfully merged into DayZ branch. Ready for further testing on experimental branch.
    
• Update of Weapon Sounds for New Audio Technology.
  
  • Down to three firearms left to be configured and mastered - effectively ready for larger testing pool on experimental branch.
    
• Dynamic Spawning of Infected.
  
  • Bulk spawning in areas defined through the zone generation tool is done. As demonstrated at the end of the last Dev Log video for .61. Work is still continuing on plugging in animal spawning to this system as well. Per-player infected spawning configuration (eg: 1 player entering a village can spawn X number, additional players spawn more) and support is being worked on by gameplay programming team.
    
• Predators (Wolves)
  
  • Some strong progress has been made in regards to making wolves sync and move better in multiplayer - there are still several glaring issues with animation, and position syncronization up close that just don't make them very rewarding in their current state. That said, the programmers responsible for this area have several potential positive areas they are working on to improve this. As it sits right now, they are not functionally ready for a larger testing base. That said - we will be looking very seriously at the possibility of branching all the other main milestone goals off for testing on experimental branch while work continues on wolves. We'll keep people up to date on this via the official forums as this moves forward.
    

Past the stated milestone goals for .61 - several other fantastic improvements have been made internally during the development of .61 build. As you may have seen in the latest Dev Log video - dynamic shadows coming from point source lights are finally a thing for us. We're currently tracking down several issues with this new functionality, but just having it functioning at a base level has been a huge source of excitement in the office. Bohemia Interactive engines have always had amazing strengths, but like any technology - they have their short comings. The dreaded "light going through walls" is one of the oldest, and for DayZ players (Flashlights going through buildings and telling everyone where you are at night!) one of the most irritating.



In addition to this - Our gameplay programming team, led by Mirek Manena has made some strong improvements tackling desync of player position within DayZ. Now, keep in mind poor network conditions, and poor server performance can still cause bad behavior here - but addressing more fluid handling of this at a server level has been something that has been worked on, iterated on, and thought about a lot internally here. We're excited to see how the latest changes will shape up when under heavy player load - as a smooth experience and removing those pesky random leg breaks and inability to pick up items at times is pretty dang important for us.

As mentioned, we recently uploaded a new .61 Dev Log video to the official DayZ Dev Team youtube channel. In it we show some work in progress examples of assault rifles, and some pistols using the new audio technology DayZ now has thanks to cooperation from the fantastic Arma dev team. As well as some examples of general group dynamic infected spawning in both Vybor, and Elektro. Now, our intended functionality with dynamic spawning of infected is to allow each player entering the area to cause more, and more infected to spawn - thus potentially creating a very large threat in the presence of a large amount of players. (Think of the infected mentality as always moving towards something that gets their attention.) In addition to allowing for a "restock" or "respawn" timer - giving players the ability to potentially temporarily clean an area out and make it safe. Currently, we're not quite there - but we do have general dynamic spawning of infected when any player enters an area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvgBoBVRKA8

Lastly - in regards to the Central Economy. I've kept an eye on forum posts, youtube videos, and livestreams and I've noticed some folks starting to question the availability of food. The slow reduction of non-perishable food is entirely intended. Peter and myself have been working with the design team to slowly reduce the amount of available non-perishable food every two or three days to a level that we're somewhat comfortable with.
Keep in mind, finding supplies like that shouldn't be too easy - players need to be at a position where considering picking berries and apples, killing animals, planting crops, or harvesting meat through... other methods.. is viable. Rest assured however, given that the economy is entirely dynamic - if things get too hard they can be easily changed without any update required to servers and clients.

- Brian Hicks / Creative Director



This time around we'll try and go with something slightly different. The team is blessed in having loads of support from loads of players in many different countries, and on that note, it would be nice to highlight some of the communities out there that are not necessarily of the english speaking player base. So, if you're looking for a french speaking community, there might just be something interesting for you over at Team ONU[www.team-onu.com]. Team ONU does events from time to time (there's an event calendar on their website), and by looking at the teasers from a couple of their previous ones, there should be a good chance of having some fun by participating!

Have a look here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Am_OztEOBs

This next one is from before 0.60, but still worth showing since it looks like Team ONU puts a lot of effort into their events (big thanks to Joe for helping out with the language/dialogue!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCp7X5yTbOw

Excellent travail, tout le monde!

Again, if you're interested in finding a french speaking community, then have a look at their website and see if it might be something for you: http://www.team-onu.com

- SMoss / Community Manager

• Dev Update/Hicks
  
• Dev Update/Peter
  
• Dev Update/Viktor
  
• Community Spotlight

Greetings Survivors,

Since the last Status Report we've been mostly focused on .61 - and getting it ready for experimental. That said, there are a few things I'd like to cover before we talk about the current status of each of the .61 milestone goals.

Over the last two weeks, Peter and I have spent a good amount of time discussing two areas of DayZ. Dynamic changes to the economy, and the external DayZ launcher. Peter will be talking about the launcher in his portion of this status report, so I'll talk a bit about the dynamic changes to the economy.
The current iteration of the central loot economy allows for dynamic (no patch required) updating of every item that spawns in DayZ. This means it includes:

• The minimum, and nominal operating values of each item.
  
• The frequency it can respawn.
  
• The region of Chernarus it can spawn in.
  
• In the case of items such as magazines, and piles of ammo - it can dictate the minimum and maximum ranges for how much of that items capacity it spawns with.

The reason I bring this up is because the design team routinely will adjust these levels based upon data and behaviour observed on stable branch, and these changes can be effective within an hour of the change occurring. Over the last few weeks quite a few adjustments have been made on everything from the availability of certain ammo types, to the available quantity of non perishable canned goods. Thus, it makes it even more valuable for those observing bugs or general issues with this system to be specific in their reports on the feedback tracker. Make sure to detail exactly what you observed, when you observed it, and most important - what server it occurred on.

To give you an example of exactly how important this data is, we've been trying internally to track down behaviour in regards to certain items spawning in piles (specifically in this case firearms) despite the fact that the restock timer should prevent such behaviour. It has been a nasty issue that has seemed to occur on the stable branch significantly easier than we have been able to reproduce it internally. That said, thanks to several dedicated feedback tracker users - we were able to isolate the issue on stable branch - and have identified the cause of it. (Much to the satisfaction of both Peter and I) We'll now be able to resolve the issue discovered with .61.

In addition to this, today the design team will be introducing changes to firearm and ammunition tiering and nominal values. Like all things, we'll need to wait and observe over the coming week to see the impact as existing availability within the economy (on players, in camps) can and will impact how this behaves. As these changes become effective in the stable branch wide economy, it is vital that if you notice an issue, you file a feedback tracker issue with as much information as possible.

Enough about the economy though - lets take a look at where we are with .61 development goals:

0.61 Milestone Goals:

• Server Login Queue:
  
  • Feature implemented, system under review with internal QA teams.
    

• Merge of New Audio Technology from Arma 3 Eden Update:
  
  • Tech implemented fully into DayZ. Existing sounds and configs from legacy system functioning properly. (Backwards compatibility with legacy sound technology).
    

• Update of Weapon Sounds for New Audio Technology:
  
  • 21 weapons ready, work continues on remaining firearms. Youtube channel dev log preview upcoming!
    
  • SKS
    
  • Sporter
    
  • Trumpet
    
  • Repeater
    
  • AKM
    
  • Steyr
    
  • FAL
    
  • SVD
    
  • MP5K
    
  • 1911
    
  • CR75
    
  • Derringer
    
  • Flaregun
    
  • FNX
    
  • Glock 19
    
  • Longhorn
    
  • Magnum
    
  • Amphibia
    
  • P1
    
  • Makarov
    
  • Red 9
    

• Dynamic Spawning of Infected:
  
  • Feature implemented into internal branch. QA teams are doing initial passes and providing programmers with initial issues.
    

• Predators (Wolves)
  
  • The team are currently working on several key issues with predators (wolves). Specifically being addressed currently are:
    
    • Issues with navigation in urban / dense areas.
      
    • Overall physics related issues.
      
    • Damage application against non player targets.
      
    • AI Targeting priority.
      

It's no secret that as far as DayZ and .61 goals go, predator AI is a big addition to gameplay, and clearly the largest at risk area for milestone goal slippage. That said, we're still very confident in our progress on the feature and the pace at which it is moving forward. We'll continue to update you all as to the status of this milestone goal with Status Reports.

- Brian Hicks / Creative Director

For the full status report, please use the following link: http://forums.dayz.com/topic/234802-status-report-02-aug-2016

Haven't had a chance to check out the latest .60 update to Stable Branch?

Take a look at some of the latest!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNR6w43sLSg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4BaJFzBBD4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r-SJbWwh-w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvTKi00XNgY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQpdGuAjB90

• Dev Update/Hicks
  
• Dev Update/Peter
  
• Community Spotlight

Greetings Survivors,

This week the Status Report might seem a little thin for those who follow development closely, as not much new has occurred between Friday when the presentation was held, and today. Focus is on recapping the stuff shown at RTX 2016 covering .61 and what we can expect for it - but aside from that we have some updates on current Stable Branch hotfix, some new renders of work in progress animations for the first of our predator animals, wolves, and Peter talks to us about body temperature and how it impacts DayZ gameplay.

Current Stable Branch Hotfix goals are:

• Known Server Crashes
  
• Item Duplication Methods
  
• Animation State Issues
  
• Tent Lifetime Refresh
  
• Spatial Orientation for Vehicles

A couple key things to note on the above list: Tent Lifetime Refresh is currently not functioning as intended on stable branch, meaning you are only able to refresh the lifetime of placed tents by packing and unpacking them. Intended functionality on these is to match the current behavior of containers such as barrels, and backpacks - which refresh their lifetime whenever an item is moved inside the inventory of the container. In regards to Spatial Orientation for Vehicles - the hotfix we're working on here should resolve complaints of vehicles not persisting. As current stable branch behavior does not properly save the directional orientation of the vehicle on server restart, in some cases this can cause the vehicle to be destroyed and cleaned up.

In addition, we've uploaded some animated gifs of .. oddly enough.. animations of the upcoming wolves to our Trello board[trello.com]. If you're into that sort of thing, go check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzn7UIKivNY

- Brian Hicks / Creative Director



With the release of DayZ 0.60 stable version there was a bit of misunderstanding regarding the body temperature mechanic and considering it currently as bugged since characters can reach hyperthermia state in a very short time which wasn't the case in the 0.59 version. I would like to point out to those who aren't aware of it, that the engine which DayZ runs upon is capable of marvelous things that aren't obvious at first sight. Trajectories of sun and moon (even it's phases), star positions, tide heights, complex weather forecasts with air temperature, wind, newly added fog and other game world subsystems directly depends on the time of the day, date and geographic coordinates configuration.

While geographic coordinates is tied to the map itself and cannot be easily changed, date and time is exposed in the server configuration so admins can change it freely. Unfortunately, date and time is not separated in the configuration file and the easiest way is to set it to the system date and time of the server itself especially to get more variety in time of day across the servers, and as most servers aren't running in the past or in the future, that's where things like the body temperature mechanic which is connected to those settings can seem off, even if it behaves correctly - I bet most of you will be overheating and sweating while sprinting hundreds of meters in full gear, long clothes and with gloves, masks, vests and helmets on top of it all in summer weather with air temperature around 30°C. As DayZ is visually set in eternal autumn it makes sense that this mechanic is balanced to that time of year, where nights are actually cold and days can be anywhere from a bit warmer to quite chilly depending on the forecast, not to mention plenty of foggy and rainy days. Of course, it could be hard-balanced without taking weather and air temperature into consideration, however, it would be a step backwards considering that DayZ will be open to modding and there being possibilities for us to expect maps in different times of the year and geographic coordinates - jungles, deserts, mountains anyone? To allow more control over it we are going to tear apart date and time in the server config so the date is not affected when the system time is used by admins. In the meantime, there was an offset applied in the calculation of body temperature for the experimental version so it behaves more according to the visuals of an autumn environment instead of an actual summer date set in the server config file.

Now is a good time to unveil a bit more regarding the temperature feature, even if it's obviously quite low on the priority list now. Many of you noticed there is heating up and cooling down of item temperatures already present in game. This can be used to affect the body temperature of your survivor as heat packs, and even improvised ones like cans heated up in fireplace embers, will raise the body temperature while cold items will lower it. We are going to add more purpose to handling temperatures by making food perishable, especially raw meat alongside with blood bags. With plenty of refrigerators in houses or at junkyards you will be able to store food and blood bags safely to keep their expiration under control after you connect the fridges to an electricity system. The addition of cooling box containers will help you to carry food and blood bags around in fresh condition and ready to use. Considering food as one of the most crucial things for survival and with lowering of the amount of non-perishable food in the world towards the end, it will lead to promoting interesting approaches to gameplay for both lone wolfs and groups alike, as it will offer short time solutions of immediate consumption balanced against long term solutions with incorporating electricity usage at barricaded houses, camps, and bases during the times of need.

Stay cool... see you in Chernarus folks!

- Peter Nespesny / Lead Designer



Another couple of weeks have passed, and we have again received a good amount of bugs via the Feedback Tracker. Regularly, we still see quite a few reports on player characters having lost their gear, and we do have a set of repro steps for this bug:

1. Join a server.
2. Go to any M4 handguard laying on the ground.
3. Take M4 to your hands.
4. Swap handguards on your M4 with handguard on the ground via action menu or by drag-and-drop.
5. Relog.
6. Notice that the character is missing all the gear except for the M4.

If you experience loss of gear in any way different than with the repro steps above, please do let us know: http://feedback.bistudio.com/

Of course, we also have a video to highlight. This time around it's a video made by: PolishedGuy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4BaJFzBBD4

Also, in case you tend to find yourself a bit on your lonesome when roaming around Chernarus, BarelyInfected has a meeting event coming up on July 16 at 22:00 CEST. Have a look here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ahs_ORUi29c

If you also have an event coming up in the future, just let us know via our DayZ Forums[forums.dayz.com] and we'll help spread the word.

Header image kindly provided by: wstdsgn.

Thanks as always for all your help and support!

- SMoss / Community Manager

Evening all,

Version 0.60 containing the new renderer has been released on Stable branch, and the team keeps pushing towards Beta. In this status report we have Brian, Viktor, and Andrej commenting on subjects such as the milestone goals going towards 0.61, the new audio module, and of course more of those sweet animations that are coming up.

Contents This Week

• Dev Update/Hicks
  
• Dev Update/Viktor
  
• Dev Update/Andrej
  
• Community Spotlight

Greetings Survivors,

As I'm sure most of you already know - 0.60 build was moved to Stable branch last week during E3. It is but one step towards 1.0, but one that we were all excited to get into your hands. While the build has been enjoyed by over 400,000 people since hitting stable branch, we've been keeping our eye on issues present on the build - and have been working towards a hotfix for the most critical issues, while also moving forward on 0.61. Current top issues for a hotfix are:

- AI Related Server Crash
- Container Lifetime Refresh Issue
- Known Duplication Methods
- Vehicle Location/Position Persistence

With those being worked on - the milestone goals for 0.60 have been achieved, and we can look forward towards our goals for 0.61.

0.60 Build Milestone Goals:

- New Renderer: Implemented
- Randomized Attachments & ItemsRandom: Implemented
- New Reload Mechanics: Implemented
- 60 Player-per-instance: Implemented

0.61 Milestone Goals:

- Server Login Queue
- Merge of New Audio Technology from Arma 3 Eden Update
- Update of Weapon Sounds for New Audio Technology
- Dynamic Spawning of Infected
- Predators (Wolves)

I'll be at RTX in Austin, Texas early next month to talk about 0.61 and show some early representations of some of the systems, as well as recap 0.60 and what was achieved there. For those not attending the show, we'll be recording the audio off the sound board - and will match it with the presentation media and upload to our Youtube channel.
Lastly, we'll be experimenting with uploads to our DayZDevTeam YouTube channel at 4k on the new nVidia GTX 1080 card, so for those eager to see how that performs on 0.60 - keep an eye out for that.

A massive thanks from all of us at the DayZ Dev Team to those participating in the Early Access period and especially to the 415,000 who have joined us in testing 0.60 over the last two weeks.

​- Brian Hicks / Creative Director


For the full Status Report, please use the following link: http://dayz.com/blog/status-report-21-jun-2016