As we’ve reported yesterday, lead DayZ developer Dean “Rocket” Hall will be leaving Bohemia Interactive in the future. That being said, he’s not gone yet, and won’t be for the most part of this year. There’s still a lot to work on in DayZ, and Rocket knows he is needed. To dismiss skepticism over how DayZ will evolve without his involvement in the future, Rocket has been kind enough to publish a new (and lengthy) devblog, showing off what the team is currently working on, and taking the time to explain some core features and mechanics.
[promo title=”Lighting and physics”][/promo]
The devblog goes through multiple topics, some of which were already known or suspected to be in the works, while others appear as a novelty. Engine-wise, the DayZ team has been working to increase the light effects in the game, making flashlights more viable and realistic. These changes apply to other items that act as a light-source, and should progressively make night-time play more engaging and viable. Of course, there’s still no indication as to what exactly will be done with the brightness and gamma levels, which turn night-time servers into black and white versions of daytime servers. But, any progress is well received, and the new lighting system is expected to land on experimental soon.
A lesser-known feature that already seems to be working surprisingly well is the physics system. The introduction of physics in the game was not among the core features of the upcoming months, but heck, we’re not ones to complain. Players will be able to throw objects, and these will react realistically upon collision with the environment. The practical use of the system? Well, things like throwing a full clip to your friend in dire times are a good example of what can be done via physics. As it is now, the physics system looks surprisingly polished. The main issue (and the reason it hasn’t been released to experimental yet) with it is that it still needs serious QA work to prevent client or server crashes. The original Arma 2 engine (on which DayZ is built on) wasn’t designed with such mechanics in mind, so implementing them is easier said than done.
[promo title=”Hunting, animations and map design”][/promo]
Moving on, Dean speaks about hunting. Professional hunting game developers were brought on board to make sure that animals feel alive and react in a realistic manner. There will be a great variety of animals to hunt and kill, and cooking will become a core element of the game. The portable gas stove is already in a working condition, and camp fires will soon follow. Cooking various type of meat will be essential to survival, so you’ll need to be able to take down all kinds of game. To help with that, new weapons will be introduced, including the bow and the crossbow. The bow animations are not even close to being ready, but arrows already stick inside targets (such as zombies), and have been built around real life physics, meaning they will bounce off surfaces.
Speaking of animations, the DayZ team has been hard at work to improve animations all around. Motion capture technology is being used to upgrade the current animations (which are sometimes falling short, especially in melee combat) and the new movements look surprisingly good already. It’s work in progress, but it’s definitely an addition that many DayZ players are eagerly anticipating. While there is one team working on animations, another team is working on map design and improvements. Many police stations and clinics have been added all around Chernarus already, and many old locations have been modified and improved upon. There are plans to bring in new structures (such as prisons) too, but Rocket wasn’t too generous on the details, arguing that the development team wants players to explore and discover the new areas and buildings on their own. We can’t argue with that logic. What he did mention though is the fact that ensuring each and every building spawns loot is a priority right now. In this regard, DayZ will be getting a nice addition through the implementation of loot-holding containers (such as drawers or refrigerators), making exploration more dynamic and loot locations more diverse.
[promo title=”Vehicles”][/promo]
Lastly, Dean discussed persistent objects (such as tents and backpacks) that remain on servers even after restarts, as well as touched upon some stability issues that are currently causing desync for some players. These issues are a result of bandwidth problems, which the developers are trying to address as soon as possible. Ending his devblog, he talked about vehicles in DayZ. Everything discussed previously is close to being pushed to experimental servers. Vehicles are the exception, and these won’t be coming until everything mentioned above is working properly on the stable branch. While this sounds disappointing, it’s not exactly news. Estimates for vehicles already foresaw a 6 month development period, and the window seems justified. On the bright side, the devs want to do things right, and make sure that when vehicles are introduced into DayZ, they work well enough. Complex repair systems are being developed (such as spark-plugs malfunctioning) in order to make sure finding, using and driving vehicles is both challenging and fun.
Of course, the devblog speaks about a lot more, and it’s a lot to put into words. To get a clear image of what to expect and when, you can take a look at the full DayZ devblog here. This devblog should put worried fans at ease, proving that Dean Hall isn’t ready to move away from DayZ’s development just yet. We like the direction the development is heading towards, and the rate of progress has definitely improved during the last months. We’ll be keeping a close eye on DayZ and its development, and will be sure to update you on all future changes and updates. In the meantime, here’s the latest change-log planned for release to the DayZ stable branch, currently undergoing testing on experimental servers:
New:
- Actions: Vomiting have associated sound effects
- Actions: Can check pulse on unconscious players
- Actions: Searching for berries will now add berries to your inventory
- Actions: Eat All now supported for consumables
- Animations: New Ruger 10/22 reload animations
- Animations: Player now can sit with gun/weapon
- Environment: New rock textures
- Food: Sambucus berry item added
- Food: Canina berry item added
- Graphics: Adding lights to currently rendered scene changed
- Map: Olsha has been updated
- Map: Khelm has been updated
- Map: New rock formations outside Svetlo have been created
- Map: New Orthodox Chapel has been created
- Map: Police Stations & Medical Centers have been placed across the map
- Map: New villages surrounding Svetlo
- Medical: Players can have a heart attack (declared as “irregular pulse” with pulse checking actions)
- Weather: Rain, Clouds, Wind, calculated on server and distributed to clients
- Weather: Rain now causes items and player to become wet
Fixed:
- Actions: Added ‘inUseItem’ back to action on target function
- Actions: Proper nutritional value will be added when eating near empty food
- Actions: Berry picking script messages to player improved.
- Graphics: SSAO in options saved
- Graphics: Rain effect settings changed
- Graphics: Rain geometry optimized (28bytes vs 12 bytes per vertex)
- Graphics: Spot light culling fixed
- Graphics: Fix of terrain intersections
- Graphics: Fix of geometry trace for flares
- Login: Failure during new character creation could cause player to get stuck as unconscious
- Map: Optimizations for Svetlo performance
- Map: Forests surrounding Svetlo bugfixes
- Medical: Would never actually die from zero health or blood due to medical conditions
- Medical: Epi-pens will now wake anyone (briefly) from unconsciousness even if blood very low
- Medical: Defibrillator used for restarting the heart of players who have a heart attack
- Medical: Unconsciousness had irregular and unpredictable behavior (epi-pens will now always wake an unconscious player, unless they are having a heart attack)
- Medical: Melee damage application system changed to better balance
- Medical: Chance of bleeding from fists reduced significantly
- Medical: Disconnected players avatars did not take shock or blood damage
- Zombies: Zombies aims mostly for chest area now when attacking
