Evening survivors,
For this week's Status Report, Lead Producer Brian Hicks will be informing us on the upcoming plans for the CLE as the team moves closer towards BETA. Additionally, he'll tell us a bit about what will be in focus for 0.59 Experimental once we progress past 0.58 release on Stable branch.
Contents This Week
- Development Board Spotlight
- Dev Update/Hicks
- Community Video: "The Chronicles of 0.58"
Development Board Spotlight
Dev Update/Hicks
Greetings Survivors!
Much like the last Status Report - we've still got the gameplay programming team working on the blocking issues preventing 0.58 to hit stable branch. The primary issues of which were a result of some tests on resolving animation looping, and related problems we are still aiming for 0.59 to address. We've been working hard to resolve these issues so we can provide as compelling a gameplay experience w/ 0.58 as possible while still in development.
Once 0.58 leaves incubation on experimental branch, survivors will notice a sharp difference in how loot is distributed across Chernarus. We're still pretty early on in where we want to be with the central economy by release from Early Access, however we do now have much more precise control over the distribution. The system allows us to dynamically modify quantities, spawning frequencies, spawning priority, and so on without having to push an update to stable branch. We'll be closely monitoring active item concentration across official servers, and adjusting based upon this. Those more stalwart survivors might notice higher quantities of canned food goods than are specifically required - we've found that the best method to acclimate players to having to scavenge for supplies versus the placeholder prototype systems distribution is to slowly dial the quantities incrementally down - until the balance reaches a playable state.
Above you can see the current top 10 distributed items on an example experimental branch server. Non persishable food currently has the highest priority / quantity for entry level items in the respawn system. Primarily to allow folks to acclimate themselves to the need to move *around* Chernarus to continue to find the supplies they need. Ideally, we'll dial these quantities back in increments of 10 until we find a comfortable balance. Past non perishable goods, basic tools have the highest quantity of items spread across Chernarus. Wood Axes, Matches, Burlap Sacks, Water Purification, and so on.
Again, once 0.58 stable hits and has time to settle - with a larger player base than experimental roaming across the environment we'll make changes according to how the distribution looks and performs. Moving past 0.58 and looking at 0.59 experimental - in addition to the new features, content, and so forth - We'll be looking into more QoL improvements for the stable player base. Vehicle position sync optimization (no fun riding around in new vehicles if your passengers want to vomit from desync!), animation state sync between clients, animal herd behaviour, position & projectile synchronization bugfixing, and much more.
As well, with 0.59 experimental we'll be testing the potential effect of players spawning with radios and how it may or may not impact player interaction. The range of the radios should be temporarily (for the duration of the test on Exp 0.59) increased to cover the whole of Chernarus. Once this hits experimental, I encourage you to head over to the official DayZ forums (forums.dayzgame.com) and share your experiences (be it good, or bad) with how this impacts your gameplay!
As mentioned during our RTX panel presentation, longer incubation times on Experimental and dedicating more time to QoL issues on the primary branch may end up costing us some time here or there, but we firmly believe it will present a higher quality player experience during DayZ's development. Of course, there will still be plenty of bugs - but we'll do our best to make sure the experience is still enjoyable.
- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer
Community Video: "The Chronicles of 0.58"
This time around we present you with a series of videos called "The Chronicles of 0.58" created by:
The 5 episode series chronicles a 10 hour session Mr. Blackout completed together with Brian Hicks. During the session, the duo showcase playability in version 0.58 which is available on our Experimental branch servers. While the guys embark on their trek through Chernarus, the guys show their looting, friendly encounters, hostile encounters (where Hicks assists Blackout by soaking bullets like a sponge, hardcore MLG style), and all that good stuff.
http://youtu.be/3t2FrrQmTFc
http://youtu.be/hR4ZNUEMSxQ
http://youtu.be/nrxJmagIexM
http://youtu.be/-zYNKcdqpbc
http://youtu.be/zi15CCaF5Fw
At the end of the series, some 1,5+ hours had passed by without me really noticing, so if you have the time I'd definitely recommend you having a go at the episodes. Quite impressive that Mr. Blackout managed to go through a 10 hour session that included hostile encounters without even dying once.
If you find yourselves hungry for more from Mr. Blackout, you can find tons more content via his Youtube account, you can watch his streams via his Twitch account, and you can contact him via Twitter and Facebook.
As always, if you have a nice video containing DayZ footage you'd like to share, or if you have come across some DayZ footage from other content creators, just post it in the Gallery section of the DayZ forums and we'll happily have a look.
Header image credit: Jack Smith
- Michael aka SMoss / Community Manager