Player Interaction is arguably the cornerstone of what makes DayZ magical. Be it friendly or hostile, direct or at a distance - the interactions between players within Chernarus is what makes the world come alive without a structured narative or reason to be. The drive to stay alive, and survive in itself compels the player to create their own story by way of the journey. You see the stories told through pictures, forum posts, youtube videos, and twitch streams all over the internet. As we move towards our Christmas break, making those experiences be as fluid and enjoyable as possible on a development build is a personal goal for the team. Server performance, and security fixes rank just as high as the remaining content and feature additions on the board for November, and the weeks available in December outside the holidays.
Recently I have taken to spending more time on the newly supported private shards, exploring their communities and observing the playstyle differences between their player bases and the public hive. First person only camera perspective seems to be increasingly popular within the private shard market, and I've personally had some amazing player interaction in those worlds. For those still on the fence when it comes to trying first person only servers, I strongly encourage you to give them a chance. Restricting the perspective to what your character can actually see has a large impact on how people approach the game, and other players.
As we approach the end of 2014 and look back at all the challenges, and accomplishments of the DayZ Early Access I can not help but get excited about the possibilities in the new year. A passionate and active community has allowed us to grow and adapt the design and functionality of the project so much more than the traditional development method does. Being able to deploy, test, and research how systems are utilized, and the impact that they have on the player base rather than the traditional closed method of development and hoping that when your titles hits shelves it has the effect and reception you had hoped, is amazing.
I can't wait to share the work left in 2014 with you all, and hopefully spend my Christmas in Chernarus.
(Not a bandit)
- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer
Standup Notes for the week of 17 Nov 14
(Note: Standup notes are not a change log - they are a quick high level look at tasks the teams worked on throughout this week)
Art:
• Prison Complex
• High fidelity V3S instrument panel
• Military Tent & Ground Model
• Prison-themed zombies
Animation:
• Steyr Aug reload animations
• Player Suicide Animations in Progress
• Vehicle animations
• Animation changes for new controls
• Zombies with new AI
Design:
• Configs and scripts for V3S Praga
• Config and scripts for prion disease
• Vehicles
• Cooking
• Configuration for Military Tent
Programming:
• Critical inventory fixes
• Vehicle settings for physical simulations
• New gamecontrols
• Loot distribution improvements
• Gameplay & Player Statistics
• Client/Server crash triage & bugfixing
• Character connection issues (protecting players from attack while logging in/before being able to move)