August 4, 2014

Horticulture

This new feature will serve to compliment hunting and scavenging. If you’re looking to survive the unsavory environment of Chernarus, green thumbs are going to be a requirement.

Not only will you be able to till your personalized gardens, but you will also be able to plants seeds, care for your crops, harvest the crops, as well as implement some of the byproducts for crafting.

I’m sure we will see farmer colonies popping up overnight once horticulture is implemented.

Loot Lifetime

I know colonists have been making inquiries about how global persistance will work. I have been wondeirng about this as well.

“One of the difficulties dealing with huge maps populated by thousands of items, is that players literally sooner or later find it all, collect it all, and leave the streets littered with trash again and again.”

-Raist, Senior Programmer for DayZ

Ever found a gun or an item of high value during a loot run and decided to drop it off in the woods far away from the looter to come after you? This issue is being addressed and part of the reasoning behind loot lifetime.

The way this cleanup system works is rather simple. All player owned and dropped items now have what’s called a lifetime. This lifetime is observed by the server and once the item reaches the lifetime cap, it is deleted and brand new loot is respawned somewhere in the map.

“This affects only loot already manipulated by players, items you drop or throw on the ground. Important containers like tents and the content persists (is protected from item lifetime).”

Ultimately, the goal is to implement systems that will reflect the item state (pristine, worn, etc) as well as a probability of disappearance (discarded meat will dissolve sooner than a can of beans).

Players will not have the opportunity to observe the removal of the item itself. Once this system is complete, items will become part of the central loot economy which will be dynamically tweaked on demand by data they will get during analysis-phase.

Basically, if you don’t want to lose your shit, put it inside a tent.

Melee Systems

Since the 0.47 update the melee systems; to put it kindly, have been rather lacking.

The problems can be divided into two seperate issues:

• Collision Shapes
• Hit Detection

“Until recently the melee system was prototyped in script and it introduced a nice hit detection mechanic during the swing where a trace is cast directly from the weapon, however this solution is suffering from desync and lags in the multiplayer environment.

Now the melee system is being redone within the engine itself so we will expand upon it and hopefully find the most ideal solution on how to retain hit detection during swing in game but the task will take some time.”

-Peter, Lead Designer for DayZ

Until the new system is ready, they have turned off swing hit detection and implemented straightforward cursor detection.

Coupled with adjusted collision shapes, the result is a usable melee system. Alas, you will not be able to block your firefighter axe swing on a wall, but you will at least be able to hit what you are aiming for.

New Towns

The northern expansion is continiously being developed. There are now two small villages west of NWAF, Vavilovo and Sinystok.

 

They are complete and will be released in the near future. Locations east of these villages are still under development.

 

“Work has also begun in the center large town “Severograd”. Some unique content for this town is being discussed as to stand out from the other large towns.”

-Mark, World Designer for DayZ

If you have noticed the food stands that were implemented in the newer towns, there are plans to add more of these to the smaller hamlets where loot is rare.

Animations

At this time, the current throwing animations in-game are just placeholders. Giving them a proper animation is a priority for the team. Below we have some information on current animations.

“We have successfully finished all rifle aimed moves. There is now a new animation when sprinting (Shift+W) with gun raised. This should better indicate to other players (and player itself) if the character is in lowered or raised stance. As well there is a new way of running for restrained player. The restrained players could only walk until now, but we have added faster animations so now you can use Shift+W and try to run away. We will continue on the restrained player for the next week.”

-Viktor, Lead Animator for DayZ

Private Shard

Last but not least, we have intel on what is called the Private Shard. Apparently, the Private Shard is very different than what was known as the Private Hive from the Arma 2 Mod.

Below is what CAN be achieved on the Private Shard:

• Password protect the server
• Operate a white list (using BEC)
• Ban/Kick trouble makers
• Define and enforce server gameplay rules (eg: DayZRP, PvE only, etc)

Below is what CAN NOT be achieved on the Private Shard:

• Access or modify the base game configuration (amount of loot, amount of dynamic server events, vehicles (when they are implemented), etc)
• Violate the naming convention declared in the hosting rules (these will be updated to reflect the new private shard capabilities)
• Have access to the database itself
• Operate any 3rd party “Admin tools” aside from the approved BEC (BattlEye Extended Controls)
• Access debug logs (currently these are unavailable for both user privacy, and performance)
• Exceed current maximum player limits per instance (40, as of the time of the writing of this status report)

The developers believe this “will empower strong DayZ communities to grow and strengthen their groups.”  I strongly disagree. To be blunt, this idea is a load of shit…there I said it.

Why waste time with a private shart that puts ZERO POWER in the hands of those developing private servers? We want protection from hackers, we want the ability to script, we want the 3d editor, we want control to make our own end-game.

Dean Hall is completely against PvE, now all of a sudden this is a viable option to sell a private shard at out-of-this-world prices?

Whitelisting is something positively needed as well as banning players.  Hardly mega-features that stand alone from what is missing.

No mention of dropping the astronomical pricing on servers. If they don’t address this asap, nobody is going to rent. Servers are falling off left and right because renters are running out of arms and legs. For the first time I have to say it, the developers are going in the wrong direction on this one.