It’s been awhile since we’ve seen a DayZ devblog, but it seems that the wait has been worth it. Following the release of a new major build on Stable servers, the Experimental branch received some new things to test. The developers have also revealed a new devblog, showing off what’s in store for the coming weeks. There’s a lot to talk about, and most changes seem to be affecting performance, server stability, graphical optimization, loot respawns and a new major urban area to rival the size of Chero and Elektro. Let’s dig in deeper though.
First of all, those playing on experimental servers might have noticed that rubberbanding became more of an issue. This is a direct result of testing with the loot respawn system, and won’t affect stable branches. The testing phase is meant as a research process for Rocket and his team, and the data so far has highlighted many fixable issues that will be addressed and will mark an important step towards reaching a stable and optimal loot respawn system. While speaking about technicalities, a huge rework of graphical optimization for DayZ is currently under development. Without going too deep into the programming aspects, it seems rubber-banding and latency issues are also being addressed, but expect this to be an on-going process that’s bound to last at least a couple weeks.
Moving on to brighter things, a police uniform is currently in works by the art team. We’re talking riot gear (similar to the one Glenn has in The Walking Dead TV Show) and a GORKA-E uniform in various colors. The development team is now one man extra, with a new character artist working on DayZ. The map is undergoing further tweaks, and we’re seeing more settlements being introduced to the originally barren North. This time, we’re getting some new buildings too, with a new office building and a new municipal building coming together to form a new, huge town, one that’s about as large as Chernogorsk. Atmosphere is also getting some boosting, with graveyards (filled with zombies, obviously) completing an already scary night-time experience.
Last but not least, the first batch of animals will be deployed onto experimental servers soon. To hunt them properly, we’re getting some new weapons too. The long-anticipated AKM is making an appearance, and while the date when it’s officially released to stable is unknown yet, Rocket promises this will happen soon. It will have a wide variety of attachments to go along, including 75 round 7.62mm mags and a PSO magnification scope. Let’s hope this one will prove to be more reliable than the one in the original Arma 2 game. A new pistol is being designed, and it’s called the Longhorn, as it fires .30 cal. rifle cartridges and can be equipped with a scope of its own. Not exactly a Magnum with a scope, but close enough!
Overall, plenty of things to look forward to. Until these changes hit live servers though, you can enjoy the newly added DayZ patch, that has the following changes for the Stable Servers:
Known Issues:
- Binoculars not functioning properly in crouch and prone states.
- Thrown objects moving at a slow frame rate during peak server load
- Crossbow damage higher than desired
- Player breathing in first person is louder than desired
- Ongoing melee balancing has zombies more resilient to body impacts. (Aim for the head)
- Accelerated Time falls out of sync after extended uptime (disabled for this update)
New:
- Actions: Melee attacks added to frying pan and cooking pot
- Actions: Recipe for bow crafting added
- Items: Dexterity of shotguns, pistols and rifles configured
- Items: Tracksuit Jackets and Russian Officer Hat configured and added to loot spawns
- Items: Binoculars configured and added to loot spawns (known issues above with this item)
- Items: Implemented Crossbow + bolts.
- Server: Basic item bullet physics enabled (known issues tied to server performance)
- Server: New guaranteed messaging system for network traffic
- Server: New player spawn locations near Klen, Chernaya Polana, Orlovets
- Server: Accelerated Time implemented for gameservers
- Systems: 1:1 Mouse control / movement
- World: New Ash Tree model
- World: New village “Karmanovka” has been added
Fixed:
- Actions: Crafting with medical items – splints, blood bags, blood testing
- Actions: Removed force feed and force drink from epinephrine and morphine
- Actions: You can no longer turn on flashlight or defibrillator laying on the ground without battery being attached to it
- Actions: You can no longer empty magazines or ammunition boxes laying on the ground (and loose ammo)
- Actions: Burlap sack removes from head properly
- Actions: Apply defibrillator action messages
- Actions: Players loading into server no longer play reloading SFX
- Actions: You can catch rain holding bottle in hand only
- Actions: moved quantity manipulation and item removal directly into action on self
- Actions: added config entries to actions for single use food and drinks
- Actions: Single use food and drink items now adding to player water and energy levels
- Actions: Injection vial cannot be consumed
- Actions: Medical items related actions on other player (proper quantity handling)
- Animations: Player now can wave (F1) when unarmed or holding one-handed item with raised hands.
- Animations: playing correct footstep sounds for 2handed melee raised run, aimed rifle run
- Animations: Removed the jerky motion when sometimes equipping a weapon/item, usually at the start of eating/drinking/bandaging
- Animations: sitting with 2 handed melee should now work properly
- Animations: Fixed an issue where you would first stand up when pressing crouch in unarmed sitting pose
- Animations: Fixed an issue where you couldn’t sit from unarmed prone directly.
- Animations: fixed missing rotation animation for unarmed crouched player
- Animations: Iron sights now use all 3 parameters for min, max and init zoom. Values of these params tweaked.
- Animations: Player’s “naked eye” max zoom level lowered. It allows for the same max zoom as iron sights.
- Gear: Improvised courier bag and taloon backpack shows their damage state in inspect window
- Gear: Green bandage stops bleeding
- Gear: Fruits no longer show 100% label
- Gear: FNX45 red dot sight optics renamed and now requires 9V battery in order to work
- Gear: Resolved chambering issue with 22 related to stack quantity
- Gear: Tablets amount in inventory slot changed from % to pills
- World: Rocks at Ship Wreck location reworked
- Zombies: Melee attack bleed chance nerfed
- Zombies: Damage is dealt to head while kneeling