This week, we are moving to push our first content update to the public Stress Test branch. To start today's report off, Eugen is going to talk us through the remaining issue of the week as well as last weeks challenges for the team. Our leads from animation, sound and map design share a few insights on their past work. We close everything with our beloved Community Spotlight.
- Dev Update/Eugen
- Dev Update/Eugen
- Dev Update/Viktor
- Dev Update/Adam
- Dev Update/Filip
- Community Spotlight
Dev Update/Eugen
Dear Survivors,
it's been quite busy around the office in the last two weeks, and there is a lot to talk about in general. I wanted to cover a couple of topics: the first content update for 0.63, and issues you have been experiencing in the past few days.
Database issues with 0.62
The problem with the legacy 0.62 Stable branch had manifested in two different ways:
a) an infinite spawn timer
b) by loading a wrong character
During the last maintenance, we switched to a temporary database to figure out a solution, making sure the issue does not repeat in the future. Since then we have identified the culprit, fixed it and will be moving back to the Stable hive during our next regular maintenance tomorrow morning. Most of you will be getting your old characters back as the data itself has not been tampered with.
Blue Screen of Death crash issues
This issue was quite rampant - luckily, we managed to get it identified and fixed in a patch released last week. The problem was caused by an interaction of multiple external factors that we have since looked into and found a workaround that will keep us stable going forward.
New content and features for 0.63
I'm happy to say that we no longer track any major gameplay issues with the upcoming 0.63 update there were assigned a priority of blocker/critical. There is a number of issues being tracked, and on schedule to get fixed, but most (if not almost all) of them can be described as visual glitches.
As of now, the patch is scheduled for a large internal playtest tomorrow and if we don't run into any more issues, we will release the update on the Stress Test branch. One thing we're quite excited about is not only the features that we're bringing back but also the huge number of bugs that have been fixed. All this together should bring a more stable and interesting DayZ experience.
As we're seeing the comeback of the unconscious state, as well as everyone's favourites - the M4A1 and Mosin, alongside numerous scopes - we will consider using a specialized mission for testing these, probably switching back and forth from the regular survival gameplay to a more action packed combat scenario.
I'm extremely excited to see those unconscious clutch situations getting back to DayZ, as saving people and playing a hero has always been my thing a lot more than being a bandit :)
I don't want to spoil everything, but I do believe it's going to be tons of fun!
See you in Chernarus! ;)
- Eugen Harton / Lead Producer
Dev Update/Peter
The implementation of the firearms scopes back into 0.63 version is ongoing for some time now. Long range combat has always been a staple of DayZ and you can count on the fact, that it will be in the future as well. The focus is to bring back scopes for firearms currently in the game and those which are coming.
Switching between iron sights/scopes
The new implementation introduced the ability to use iron sights along with scope view. Of course, that’s possible only when a given firearm and scope combination allows it. If you are curious, we are not planning to do slanted sights for now.
Zeroing and accuracy
With upcoming scopes, allowing encounters over long distances, it’s time to utilize zeroing to compensate projectile ballistic trajectory. Similarly, you should be aware of the accuracy of different firearms to choose the best tool for the job. As a side note, barrel dispersion is already back in Experimental 0.63 version for quite some time, however it seems it’s not that noticeable without magnified view of scopes.
While aiming down the scope, projectiles should be fired directly from a barrel of a gun, same as it’s while in iron sights. This will prevent the possibility of some additional angle to be added to the trajectory.
Unfortunately, we found out that there is a divergence between actual projectile trajectory and directional vector of the barrel, which is definitely an issue on longer ranges. We are currently going through all aspects of range combat as we are trying to isolate and fix the underlying problem.
Revision of scopes
Reimplementation of scopes is also a good opportunity for us to revisit individual scope models, as well as their configuration. Especially their camera positions, reticles, magnification levels and zeroing ranges.
For some of them, it’s needed anyways, for example the PSO 1 can be used along iron sights, and it’s being turned into a 3D scope now, instead of just a 2D texture. This change alone requires a removal of the eyepiece to avoid the first person camera clipping, and will allow for a in-scope view as large as possible.
We don’t have a picture in picture rendering, so we're looking into adding some post-processes such as depth of field, sphere distortion and colour tints to make scopes more visually pleasing. I believe that scopes will now be be easier and more fun to use.
Zoom in... see you in Chernarus folks!
- Peter Nespesny / Lead Designer
Dev Update/Viktor
The animation team has been quite busy over the past two weeks, creating some completely new animation and improving existing ones. Let me go over a few of those.
New usage animations for items like a shovel, pickaxe, or hoe
These should provide more variety in animations and a better representation of each item in general.
Improved holding of items emitting light
We have added a new animation instance and a new set of animations (walking, running, holding) for flashlight, torch, and a flare. Players are now able to have the light in better positions.
Animations related to vehicles
We are testing and finding the best way of adding animations for changing gears, starting the engine, and other related actions.
Improvements to existing animations and systems
We created new animations for when the player gets hit and added more unconscious variations for different items and stances. Additionally, we polished attacking animations and fixed bugs related to firearms animations. We've also made a bunch of new holding poses for various items, so your character can now hold items in a visually more pleasing way.
- Viktor Kostík / Lead Animator
Dev Update/Adam Franců
This time around I won't be sharing anything brand new, as I have spent most of past few weeks squashing bugs all over the Chernarus terrain. While the 0.62 update has definitely brought Chernarus up to whole a new level, the vegetation swap also introduced a lot of issues with the object placement.
This trend continued with the update 0.63, which introduced a revamp for rocks, stones and bushes as well as a number of model updates to the environment assets (be it a complete replacement or just smaller changes to the doors and ladders). It has been a long time since a proper bug fixing passed and as the updating of 0.63 is progressing, Chernarus should definitely receive some bug fixing love from us.
Over the past weeks, I have squashed literally thousands of issues (major issues like getting stuck somewhere, problems with swimming, ladders, but also minor ones such as frequent object clipping). I am certainly not done yet and plan to continue this bug bash in the upcoming weeks before returning to the general map updates (for example we have got buildings like the city police station to add to the major towns).
There is one more thing that I would like to mention, as it is kind of tied with the topic bug fixing. Everyone knows (and loves :)) the all-Cyrillic directional and settlements signs (did anyone say KAMYWOBO?). For a very long time, a number of settlements, railway stations and road intersections in the new (non-Arma 2) parts of Chernarus were completely missing these features. As a part of this bug fixing pass, we have re-added them along with fixing many issues with the existing signs. These changes along with the already mentioned bug fixing pass (or at least a part of it) will be available in the Content Patch #1.
I hope that you all have a great time exploring Chernarus, see you there!
- Adam Franců / Map Designer
Dev Update/Filip Čenžák
The last couple of weeks brought a number of updates from the audio department - we don't have any samples for you, but most of the things should make their way into the game soon enough. Let's go over a couple of examples:
- female character voice support has been added
- some new character sounds have been added
- hacking down trees
- cutting bark off of a tree
- digging
- mining for stones
- cooking (boiling, baking, drying)
- thunderstorm sounds were improved to capture the atmosphere of DayZ just right
For the upcoming new features and content for the Experimental branch, we've mostly contributed in terms of weapon sounds:
- a sonic crack of bullets has been improved
- impact sounds of bullets have been improved
- Mosin and M4 sounds have seen some updates
- we have a brand new set of reloading sounds for each weapon
- we've managed to fix a bug with weapon reload sounds while on the move
- Filip Čenžák / Sound Designer
Community Spotlight
Hello guys,
At first, I have a news for you. Our name on social channels has been changed. We were known as DayZDevTeam on our Twitter and Facebook for a long time, but now we are just DayZ. So no more weird tweets like "I am playing @DayZDevTeam right now, come and join me!", I am so proud of Martin, who managed to change it, it is not that easy. Don't forget to tag @dayz next time!
Let's check the community content.
Do you have a Samsung Gear S3 watch? Flip-Gaming.de has an inspiration for you. He made the most perfect Watch face ever and of course it is in DayZ style.
Some of you went to real Chernarus and sent us nice pictures from your trip. Like NiloxCSHO from Reddit, who didn't need a map to travel around this area. He knows Chernarus very well. Check out the gallery here.
I want to show you a talented player, who can make really nice screenshots. His nickname is Sp1kerZ and you can follow his work on Twitter. Keep it up, man.
Streamer Reece McDowall shared a screenshot with us. It is about resolving struggle between players. The king is dead, long live the king!
Love is everywhere, even in Chernarus. WineDaddy captured a picture of two lovers who don't care about the apocalypse. I have no idea how you made it, WineDaddy, but you did it right.
And the last thing from your content is a story made by M1NDR. He infiltrated a group of cannibals and tried to destroy them from the inside…
And we want to congratulate M1NDR because he hit 100 000 subscribers on his YouTube channel today! You are amazing, man and we <3 you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9aWK_9PNtA
You've sent me so many answers to the last riddle, I was really surprised! But only a few were correct. Here is a wall of fame!
- Puddin_TheKrow
- D. E. Parry
- Rustycaddy
- CanisDirus
- Go Up
- Setup
- Jacob_Mango
And here is a next one. Can you guess where is this location? It is not so hard this time! Tweet your answer to our official Twitter channel with a #DayZriddleTime hashtag. Don't forget, our Twitter is changed to @DayZ now.
Thank you for reading today's Status Report till here and see you in two weeks.
- Baty / Community Manager
Header image by CMDR_sunny.