Hello Survivors!
This week, we're sharing progress on new melee combat animations from Victor, our Lead Sound Designer Andrej is teasing audio updates in 0.62 and 0.63 and our Community Manager Baty is sharing her experience from a community event that happaned on DayZ Underground this weekend. We also want to inform you about planned website improvements and recent changes on our forums.
Contents This Week
- Dev Update/Hicks
- Dev Update/Viktor
- Dev Update/Andrej
- DayZ Forums News
- Community Spotlight
Dev Update/Hicks
Greetings Survivors,
For this Status Report we're going to take a look through the current tasks and immediate goals for .61 Hotfixes, .62 Development, and the march towards Beta. I'd also like to list out the top 3 issues the QA department is looking for more data on from you all over on the Feedback Tracker.
.61 Stable Branch:
- QA Team is currently investigating reports of unlootable corpses. Repro steps being investigated before gameplay programming team can attempt to address.
- Gameplay Programming team currently working on addressing physics issues with .61 Exp/Unstable build that result in animals sometimes moving below terrain
- QA Team is verifying adjustments to vehicle physics on Exp/Unstable branch that should address vehicles slipping below terrain
- Gameplay Programming team is working on addressing some legacy security issues found on .61 Stable
- QA Team is verifying changes to vehicle persistence and the handling of destroyed vehicles on Exp/Unstable branch that should address problems on stable with destroyed vehicles sticking around.
Over on the .62 Front, Adam and his team continue pushing along - and for those that missed PAX East we will include the cut of slow pan through WIP Broadleaf Forest, and pan through grass with the WIP new grass shader.
.62 Current Tasks:
- Young Conifer Distribution
- Additional Color Adjustments to Tree & Bush Colors
- Chernarus Lighting config changes
- Performance Analysis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip9l1RFPm8g
On the Beta side of the fence, there is a large amount of work ahead of us. I know we've made comparisons before about the extensive changes being compared to a spinal transfusion for DayZ, and that cannot be stated enough. This is a massive undertaking, and it is and will take time. That said, lets take a look at what the team is currently focusing on for their immediate tasks.
Beta Current Goals:
- Rework of User Action System
- Iterating Melee Combat Mechanics
- Inventory Refactorization
- Internal Testing of Knife/Axe Prototype Combat
- Soft Skills Prototype
- Introducing Animations for User Actions that previously used generic
- Creating support for vehicles to functionally have more than 4 wheels (V3S for example)
- Electricity System Prototyping
- Unjamming Anims for New Player
Lastly, I'd like to list the top 3 issues the QA team needs more feedback on from our official Feedback Tracker - If you have any data, repro steps, etc on these issues please feel free to update them with what you have!
- Brian Hicks / Creative Director
Dev Update/Viktor
Today, I would like to talk about our progress on melee combat. At this point, we have implemented animations for unarmed combat, axe, pipe and knife combat. These animations are still work-in-progress but allow us to test basic behavior in-game.
This is very useful: we can now iterate with programmers and designers and adjust every animation accordingly so that it blends better, for instance if you perform continuous attacks. Our plan is to have unique attack animations for fist fight, axe, knife and items like fire extinguisher, pith fork, baseball bat, pipe and many other items in order to achieve a unique look and feel when fighting.
Creating attack animations for this new system is bit more time consuming though. In the old combat, there was one attack animation per item. In the new melee combat, we now have a series of 6 animations per item. These animations blend together, so you can either perform attack and go to idle or you can continue with another attack without interruption.
In upcoming weeks, we are planning to add damage to the player and hit reactions, as well as continue on balancing the entire melee combat system.
- Viktor Kostik / Lead Animator
Dev Update/Andrej
Ahoy survivors!
The audio department is operating at full power, working on both 0.62 and 0.63 updates.
For 0.62, we are preparing a full revamp of ambient sounds. New atmospheres andenvironment sounds in general, but also spatial vegetation or structure sounds. We are utilizing the potential of our new sound system, so it's not just new samples, but a true, complete overhaul: new ambient sounds for forests, coast side, fields but also cities and villages are all in the making.
The infamous, annoying random sounds of fence screeching are gone, and audio will also follow weather dynamically and in more detail, ultimately meaning new wind, thunder and rain sound effects will be added to DayZ. In general, roaming the countryside of Chernarus will be a much more pleasant experience to your ears.
At the same time, part of our audio team is working on the 0.63 update, where we will introduce new user actions sounds, weapon reload sounds and basically all audio connected to the player character. 0.63 will also bring new vehicle sounds through our redesigned audio system, so driving will sound more natural and responsive to engine behavior.
That's all from audio department now, we will share some more before the update drops!
- Andrej Sinkevic / Lead Sound Designer
DayZ Forums News
During the past week, the DayZ forums have gone under a short (but long overdue) maintenance. The new software update to the forums, deployed by our Web Team on Wednesday introduced some neat improvements to the design template, but more importantly, it significantly increased the loading times of the forums and their overall security.
We've also re-introduced the "give beans" feature that all veteran forum users surely remember from past - much to everyone's delight, too, as from what we've seen, the flow of beans has been pretty steady on the forums since the update happened!
We'd like to continue with general improvements to the forums, and eventually also start looking at improvements to the DayZ.com website design and usability. While we're well aware of some critical issues that make the DayZ website less intuitive (and outdated), we'd definitely love to hear what you think would make you interact with our website more often - please share your thoughts with us in the topic linked below!
DayZ website - Post your ideas and suggestions for improvements!
- Martin Čulák / Brand Manager
Community Spotlight
Over the last weekend, me and Creative Director Brian Hicks were participating on an event called "The Hunting Season" organized by DayZ Underground server team. It was a large hunting event and to win you had to be the group with the most pieces of steak and hide. Groups could hunt each other during the event, but human meat did not count towards the victory. You could have met Survivors from all around the world as well as well-known streamers likeM1NDR, MarkstromTV or Moondye7. The entire event was very exciting and hunters wiped out almost every deer in Chernarus. I have never seen more steaks at one place. Brian Hicks and MarkstromTV were the winners, congratulations! There were more competitions at the end - bow shooting and the best dressed participant of the event. We sat by the fire playing musical instruments and roasted meat. Do you know any better way to spend a Saturday night?
Screenshots by DrDeSync
If you are organizing community events on servers, do not be afraid to let us know! We love community events!
Tourettesmexchanic and his friends were showing off their DayZ inspired weapons collection on Reddit. And it is a truly fabulous one! It has almost everything, including camouflaged Mosin, Repeater and accessories like Tactical Bacon or protector case. These Survivors are ready for an apocalypse and nothing will surprise them!
If you experience any bugs on Stable or Experimental servers, don't forget to use our Feedback Tracker to submit bugs, and for the newest info or a place to share your screenshots, follow the official DayZ Development Team Twitter account
Header image by: NotSymmetra
- Baty / Community Manager