Evening Survivors,
In this week's Status Report, Lead Producer Brian Hicks will be addressing upcoming features such as contaminated terrain, aerial vehicles, and character lifespan. Also, he will be serving a quick recap on ongoing work for 0.59 experimental.
Contents This Week
- Development Board Spotlight
- Dev Update/Hicks
- Igromir Expo
- Community Video: Hard Work
Development Board Spotlight
Dev Update/Hicks
Greetings Survivors!
So last weekend we were fortunate enough to be invited onto the TwitchCon stage to talk about a few upcoming things to DayZ. For those that weren't able to catch the broadcast, we're going to recap what was covered in this week’s Status Report.
Before we do that - a quick recap on pending 0.59 experimental.
- Improvements on passenger perspective vehicle sync are still in progress
- Server/Client crash issues are being worked on
- Network Traffic Profiling tools will be pushed to certain Exp servers when the push goes out
- Infected Resource costs are still being worked on
- Bugfixing and iteration work is being done upon applying lifetime to items when they are created (initial item spawn)
Contaminated Terrain
When we looked at testing out the impact of terrain that requires specific equipment to safely navigate, naturally the opportunity presented itself with the upcoming Tisy Military Base, and the need to make acquiring the first Helicopter a high risk situation. Personally, I found the meeting rather exciting due to the fact that the art assets required can be added to the library used by the Environment Design team on their destruction passes aimed at making Chernarus look more post-disaster.
In the above concept art we have an example of the mass graves you would see in a last-stand military / relief hybrid camp. With the base, we're hoping to have new civilian agency hospital tents, barricades, and general signs of the last stand of the UN and CDF forces as they tried to hold off their pending death. The installation itself was originally a Surface to Air Missile & Radar base originally built by the occupying Soviets. The elevated platform you see within the frame of coursed originally used for mobile radar installations.
Entering and navigating the installation should (hopefully) require using protective gear, be it the gas masks or a future hazmat suit. Else you risk a potentially fatal illness, or spreading such illness to your friends and fellow survivors.
Obviously parts to support an operational helicopter will be completely separate from operational fluids and parts required to repair and maintain say.. a bus. So finding that helicopter up at Tisy definitely won't be a quick spot and grab!
Aerial Vehicles
http://youtu.be/evYX3WedekE
Speaking of helicopters - we spoke briefly about the first aerial vehicle in DayZ at TwitchCon. The Littlebird is a model inherited from the Take On Helicopters team, and updated to meet DayZ's quality requirements. The below video is very - very rough implementation, purely keyboard controls (because I'm just that good). We'll be expanding the aerial vehicles past the Littlebird of course - current plans include expanding to fixed wing aircraft as well. (Stay tuned for that!)
For those curious, as I've mentioned several times prior - One of the mechanics we're just not satisfied with from DayZ Mod is the "Universal Parts" system. You could take a tire off of a bicycle and slap it on a URAL. The motor from a small fishing boat could be used in a tractor, and so on. With the introduction of new land vehicles into 0.59 we're expanding the operational parts past "Truck Battery" and "Glow Plug" - and Aerial Vehicles will see that expand as well. Specialized parts, and fuel will be required, and hopefully also see the importance of areas that naturally would contain those items be reintroduced.
Character Lifespan
Lastly, while at TwitchCon we had the opportunity to discuss some of the methods of character growth and progression we're working on. Specifically for TwitchCon we discussed methods of character aging, and the visual impact on the appearance of the character. Obviously females won't be growing beards, and we discussed briefly how this effect can expand past just facial hair and into scars, and dirty faces. The principle idea being allowing people to opt out of the system, and pose as someone freshly spawned. However - for those who want to go for the grizzled look, facial hair - blood, dirt, and grime can all give the appearance of a character who has seen it all.
Scars obviously however cannot just be "washed off" - and as we look to see how viable scars are, and if they fit within the scope of 1.0 we'll be discussing this in future status reports. Additionally, prototypes are currently being worked on for the previously described "soft skills" - keep your eye on future status reports for that ;)
- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer
Igromir Expo
Российские Фанаты DayZ ! Старший дизайнер Чернаруси , Арсений "SenChi" Смирнов , будет присутствовать на геймшоу Игромир в Москве , в эти выходные!
Если вам интересно , следите за новостями нашего официального Твиттер аккаунта DayZ Dev Team там вы узнаете где вы сможете встретить разработчиков DayZ. Мы с удовольствием обсудим со всеми вами DayZ , Чернарусь, и планы на будущее. Оставайтесь на связи !
Russian Survivors! Chernarus Designer Senchi will be at Igromir 2015 this weekend in Moscow! If you're attending, keep an eye on the official DayZ Dev Team Twitter account for times and locations to meet up. We'd love to talk DayZ, and all things Chernarus with you all.
Community Video: Hard Work
So, time to take a break from the massive amounts of PvP videos and show something different. In this video, our protagonist farmer prepares a small plot, plants his tomato seeds, waters them, and peacefully awaits the moment when he can reap the sweet benefits of his back breaking work.
http://youtu.be/zdpmZpTqTAk
Oh, come on!!! Just let the man keep his tomato patch!!! Poor guy...
Thanks for sharing haknslash. You did what you could.
Keep that content coming everyone! There's plenty of room over at the Gallery.
Header image credit: fairtae
- Michael aka SMoss / Community Manager