Greetings Survivors,

This status report came a bit later than usual as we wanted to include some of the results and findings from this weeks experimental releases, as well as shed a bit of light on the intent of said releases. As we tread on into May, we'll be rolling 0.56 into 0.57 development with the intent of a regularly scheduled end of month release. Ramping up to this, you'll see frequent experimental branch updates and experiments ongoing on that branches servers.

As internally we spent time investigating server side performance, as well as the effect of various systems on production server performance we discovered abnormally high performance cost related to infected AI. As said performance should be lateral at a certain point, we've been fluctuating configurations and builds on the experimental branch to properly replicate the production environment and profile the exact location and behaviour of the source of the performance drop.



On the player side, we've made strong gains performance wise. We're seeing a gain of 4x higher performance per average player count, and this is instantly visible in gameplay. As the programming team moves ahead on investigating infected costs on server side performance, we'll be disabling infected spawning on stable branch servers (post-stable update)to ensure the highest quality of gameplay on that branch. Experimental will proceed with infected performance tests so we can as soon as possible return the infected to Chernarus en masse. 
If you're curious how this work is going, once the end of the month stable update (0.57) releases - keep an eye on experimental branch.



I'm personally excited to see the gains on the player and gameplay side - we've still got a long way to go until feature complete, but I'm excited to chase you all across Chernarus.

Really not a bandit,
- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer

 
(Note: Standup notes are not a change log - they are a quick high level look at tasks the teams worked on throughout this week)

• GAZ Volga
• Civilian Bus
• VZ61 Scorpion
• New Zombie Models
• Civilian Hiking Jacket

• Transfer of skinning to EnScript
• Transfer of traps to EnScript
• Tripwire Traps
• Design of damaged barrel usage
• Bugfixing
• Profiling server performance for existing scripts

• Inventory refactorization bugfixing
• Dynamic Events spawning bugfixing
• Loot Distro bugfixing
• AI Performance Analysis & Bugfixing
• Character Controller
• Login Que Design
• New Damage Sys.
• Server & Client Crash Fixes

 

 

Greetings Survivors,

This status report came a bit later than usual as we wanted to include some of the results and findings from this weeks experimental releases, as well as shed a bit of light on the intent of said releases. As we tread on into May, we'll be rolling 0.56 into 0.57 development with the intent of a regularly scheduled end of month release. Ramping up to this, you'll see frequent experimental branch updates and experiments ongoing on that branches servers.

As internally we spent time investigating server side performance, as well as the effect of various systems on production server performance we discovered abnormally high performance cost related to infected AI. As said performance should be lateral at a certain point, we've been fluctuating configurations and builds on the experimental branch to properly replicate the production environment and profile the exact location and behaviour of the source of the performance drop.



On the player side, we've made strong gains performance wise. We're seeing a gain of 4x higher performance per average player count, and this is instantly visible in gameplay. As the programming team moves ahead on investigating infected costs on server side performance, we'll be disabling infected spawning on stable branch servers (post-stable update)to ensure the highest quality of gameplay on that branch. Experimental will proceed with infected performance tests so we can as soon as possible return the infected to Chernarus en masse. 
If you're curious how this work is going, once the end of the month stable update (0.57) releases - keep an eye on experimental branch.



I'm personally excited to see the gains on the player and gameplay side - we've still got a long way to go until feature complete, but I'm excited to chase you all across Chernarus.

Really not a bandit,
- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer

 
(Note: Standup notes are not a change log - they are a quick high level look at tasks the teams worked on throughout this week)

• GAZ Volga
• Civilian Bus
• VZ61 Scorpion
• New Zombie Models
• Civilian Hiking Jacket

• Transfer of skinning to EnScript
• Transfer of traps to EnScript
• Tripwire Traps
• Design of damaged barrel usage
• Bugfixing
• Profiling server performance for existing scripts

• Inventory refactorization bugfixing
• Dynamic Events spawning bugfixing
• Loot Distro bugfixing
• AI Performance Analysis & Bugfixing
• Character Controller
• Login Que Design
• New Damage Sys.
• Server & Client Crash Fixes

 

 

Greetings Survivors,

We're rapidly approaching the experimental push of 0.56, and we've discussed over the last few weeks some of the things you can expect from this update to the Steam branch. I'd like to recap a few key points though, as we're close to this push:



- Rebalancing of Infected damage threshold
- Redistribution of existing infected spawns to high population areas
- Bugfixing on Per-Item-Quantity control (Central Economy)
- Bugfixing on Infected Alert SFX
- Bugfixing on Infected movement 
- Redesigned Inventory tech (engine side)
- New firearms / long range optics attachment
- Stary Sobor evacuation camp
- Bugfixes on various known duplication vulnerabilities

Tied with the 0.56 update to Stable branch, we'll see a hive wide reset (public/private) - including local storage data (player camps, vehicles)



Development is ongoing with the hive side economy control, in addition to future bug fixing development continues on the functional side, with the next major goal being region control over item spawn types. (removing the restriction of structure types only in certain areas of the map). Internally, the programming and design teams are working hard on analyzing server side performance, player position desync, and other critical issues affecting Early Access gameplay.
In some cases, resolutions to these issues are tied to the implementation of new technology to replace the legacy systems inherited from the start of the project - all of them however will be ongoing goals for the team over the coming months.

The bulk of the workload over the last month was centered around the refactorization of the inventory system. It became clear that the existing tech behind the inventory wasn't going to be able to meet the needs of the project, and carried with it its own vulnerabilities. The redesign stripped large amounts of the system, and redesigned specifically to meet the needs of DayZ and upcoming changes to DayZ's core technology. 

- Support for AI and Vehicle Inventory
- Removing limitation on "in hands" as a virtual slot (still occupying space in container)
- Dynamic changing of cargo capacity - eg: lowering when damaged, raising when repaired
- Manual item rotation
- Support for redesign of Inventory UI
- Support for EnScript (Enfusion Scripting Language)
- And much, much more..

Looking at the Central Economy side of the fence, tracking the metrics on loot spawning provides some interesting details:

- Chernarus + features 8,725 buildings (and wrecks combined)
- 1,742,796 potential item spawn points are spread across the entirety of Chernarus + (Not counting dynamic events)
- Of the 8,725 buildings/wrecks across Chernarus + 410 of them are greenhouses

With the 0.56 iteration of the central economy we gain finer control over item spawn locations, but we still have a ways to go. As each update gets pushed to steam, we'll see finer and finer control over item spawn locations and types, as well as supporting dynamic random spawns - that will ensure unique spawns of valued items across the map. Who knows, maybe someday you'll get really lucky and find an M4A1 in that barn over the hill? 

As you all dive into the experimental push of 0.56 (not yet live) please keep in mind that like many things in the development of DayZ, the new systems and tech are works in progress (much like DayZ itself) and are incomplete, and more than likely contain their fair share of issues. Please make sure to report any issues found on the official feedback tracker at http://feedback.dayzgame.com

See you out there,
- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer

Greetings Survivors,

We're rapidly approaching the experimental push of 0.56, and we've discussed over the last few weeks some of the things you can expect from this update to the Steam branch. I'd like to recap a few key points though, as we're close to this push:



- Rebalancing of Infected damage threshold
- Redistribution of existing infected spawns to high population areas
- Bugfixing on Per-Item-Quantity control (Central Economy)
- Bugfixing on Infected Alert SFX
- Bugfixing on Infected movement 
- Redesigned Inventory tech (engine side)
- New firearms / long range optics attachment
- Stary Sobor evacuation camp
- Bugfixes on various known duplication vulnerabilities

Tied with the 0.56 update to Stable branch, we'll see a hive wide reset (public/private) - including local storage data (player camps, vehicles)



Development is ongoing with the hive side economy control, in addition to future bug fixing development continues on the functional side, with the next major goal being region control over item spawn types. (removing the restriction of structure types only in certain areas of the map). Internally, the programming and design teams are working hard on analyzing server side performance, player position desync, and other critical issues affecting Early Access gameplay.
In some cases, resolutions to these issues are tied to the implementation of new technology to replace the legacy systems inherited from the start of the project - all of them however will be ongoing goals for the team over the coming months.

The bulk of the workload over the last month was centered around the refactorization of the inventory system. It became clear that the existing tech behind the inventory wasn't going to be able to meet the needs of the project, and carried with it its own vulnerabilities. The redesign stripped large amounts of the system, and redesigned specifically to meet the needs of DayZ and upcoming changes to DayZ's core technology. 

- Support for AI and Vehicle Inventory
- Removing limitation on "in hands" as a virtual slot (still occupying space in container)
- Dynamic changing of cargo capacity - eg: lowering when damaged, raising when repaired
- Manual item rotation
- Support for redesign of Inventory UI
- Support for EnScript (Enfusion Scripting Language)
- And much, much more..

Looking at the Central Economy side of the fence, tracking the metrics on loot spawning provides some interesting details:

- Chernarus + features 8,725 buildings (and wrecks combined)
- 1,742,796 potential item spawn points are spread across the entirety of Chernarus + (Not counting dynamic events)
- Of the 8,725 buildings/wrecks across Chernarus + 410 of them are greenhouses

With the 0.56 iteration of the central economy we gain finer control over item spawn locations, but we still have a ways to go. As each update gets pushed to steam, we'll see finer and finer control over item spawn locations and types, as well as supporting dynamic random spawns - that will ensure unique spawns of valued items across the map. Who knows, maybe someday you'll get really lucky and find an M4A1 in that barn over the hill? 

As you all dive into the experimental push of 0.56 (not yet live) please keep in mind that like many things in the development of DayZ, the new systems and tech are works in progress (much like DayZ itself) and are incomplete, and more than likely contain their fair share of issues. Please make sure to report any issues found on the official feedback tracker at http://feedback.dayzgame.com

See you out there,
- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer

Greetings Survivors,

As expected, work continues towards securing a 0.56 build for experimental branch. With the core remaining tasks being focused on closing major bugs with the systems changes core to 0.56 the design, art, and environment teams have also had time to slip some fun and interesting content into the update. 

Coming up next week we're looking at the audio team taking a trip out to capture new sounds for our list of 1.0 land vehicles, and this week Andrej our Audio Designer continues work on the new infected sound effects. As well on the audio front, as we move forward with 2015 - we're looking again at how we approach the volume and impact of gun shot sounds. Our aim and intent by 1.0 is for the audio side of discharging a fire arm to be a psuedo traumatic event. Gun shots should be -loud-, and your concern prior and post firing off a shot ideally would be "Who/What might have heard me?". This will be an ongoing task, but one I'm excited to see evolve.



With 0.56 comes some changes to how long range optics are mounted on our hunting rifles, Assoc. Art Director Chris Torchia posted several renders and screenshots of the current status as well as went into brief detail about what we're looking at. With the original long range optic being phased out in favor of a new 12x hunting optic, with proper mounting to attach to the Winchester M70, Blaze 95, CR 527, and Sporter 22. Moving forward, the Mosin Nagant will support the PU scope only (within the basic attachments).



Our Environment Lead, Senchi has been working on several changes to Chernarus + for 0.57 and on - but looking at 0.56 we'll be seeing the new Village Potraviny (Store) placed across the map, as well as a refactoring of some of the key police station locations along the coastal regions. In addition, time allowing - we will see some small changes to the iconic Stary Sobor barn location as well.



Not too much to report this week as again, the team is focused primarily on prepping 0.56 for the Experimental (Unstable) Branch and later on the Stable (Main) Branch update. 

Stay safe out there folks
- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer

With april coming to a close, we are both happy as well as grateful to see that we received a really nice amount of bugs from you guys. On the Feedback Tracker we can see that Darcion did very nice in terms of filing plenty of bugs, however, quite a bit of those were duplicates, so for this month we'll go with Zyryanoff as the bug hunter for april.

Other than that, it was a good effort Darcion, and we appreciate it!

While Zyryanoff did not necessarily submit the largest amount of bugs to the team, we did receive a good handful of nice bugs that we could add to our database.

Going forwards, we hope that you guys will keep helping us out with testing DayZ as development progresses. As mentioned, players that submit bugs from DayZ will get the chance of appearing in the Special Thanks section of the credits once DayZ goes into full release.

Remember, that all bugs can be filed on the Feedback Tracker and while doing so, please remember to perform a search before filing your bugs so as to avoid duplicate tickets. Thanks again everyone!

- SMoss / Community Manager

 
(Note: Standup notes are not a change log - they are a quick high level look at tasks the teams worked on throughout this week)

• Inventory refactorization
• Dynamic Events
• Vehicle Transmission bugfixing
• Vehicle wheels simulation improvements
• Adv. Loot Distro Bugfixing
• Player Statistics
• Character Controller
• 3rd Person Camera
• Network Desync
• New Damage Sys.
• Crash Fixes

• Mauser Red 9 Anims
• Ladder Animations
• Infected crawling state animations
• Gesture Implementation on new Anim Sys
• 4X4 Hatchback Animations

 

Header photo credit: Raptorz

Greetings Survivors,

As expected, work continues towards securing a 0.56 build for experimental branch. With the core remaining tasks being focused on closing major bugs with the systems changes core to 0.56 the design, art, and environment teams have also had time to slip some fun and interesting content into the update. 

Coming up next week we're looking at the audio team taking a trip out to capture new sounds for our list of 1.0 land vehicles, and this week Andrej our Audio Designer continues work on the new infected sound effects. As well on the audio front, as we move forward with 2015 - we're looking again at how we approach the volume and impact of gun shot sounds. Our aim and intent by 1.0 is for the audio side of discharging a fire arm to be a psuedo traumatic event. Gun shots should be -loud-, and your concern prior and post firing off a shot ideally would be "Who/What might have heard me?". This will be an ongoing task, but one I'm excited to see evolve.



With 0.56 comes some changes to how long range optics are mounted on our hunting rifles, Assoc. Art Director Chris Torchia posted several renders and screenshots of the current status as well as went into brief detail about what we're looking at. With the original long range optic being phased out in favor of a new 12x hunting optic, with proper mounting to attach to the Winchester M70, Blaze 95, CR 527, and Sporter 22. Moving forward, the Mosin Nagant will support the PU scope only (within the basic attachments).



Our Environment Lead, Senchi has been working on several changes to Chernarus + for 0.57 and on - but looking at 0.56 we'll be seeing the new Village Potraviny (Store) placed across the map, as well as a refactoring of some of the key police station locations along the coastal regions. In addition, time allowing - we will see some small changes to the iconic Stary Sobor barn location as well.



Not too much to report this week as again, the team is focused primarily on prepping 0.56 for the Experimental (Unstable) Branch and later on the Stable (Main) Branch update. 

Stay safe out there folks
- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer

With april coming to a close, we are both happy as well as grateful to see that we received a really nice amount of bugs from you guys. On the Feedback Tracker we can see that Darcion did very nice in terms of filing plenty of bugs, however, quite a bit of those were duplicates, so for this month we'll go with Zyryanoff as the bug hunter for april.

Other than that, it was a good effort Darcion, and we appreciate it!

While Zyryanoff did not necessarily submit the largest amount of bugs to the team, we did receive a good handful of nice bugs that we could add to our database.

Going forwards, we hope that you guys will keep helping us out with testing DayZ as development progresses. As mentioned, players that submit bugs from DayZ will get the chance of appearing in the Special Thanks section of the credits once DayZ goes into full release.

Remember, that all bugs can be filed on the Feedback Tracker and while doing so, please remember to perform a search before filing your bugs so as to avoid duplicate tickets. Thanks again everyone!

- SMoss / Community Manager

 
(Note: Standup notes are not a change log - they are a quick high level look at tasks the teams worked on throughout this week)

• Inventory refactorization
• Dynamic Events
• Vehicle Transmission bugfixing
• Vehicle wheels simulation improvements
• Adv. Loot Distro Bugfixing
• Player Statistics
• Character Controller
• 3rd Person Camera
• Network Desync
• New Damage Sys.
• Crash Fixes

• Mauser Red 9 Anims
• Ladder Animations
• Infected crawling state animations
• Gesture Implementation on new Anim Sys
• 4X4 Hatchback Animations

 

Header photo credit: Raptorz

Afternoon survivor chums,

While trawling through Youtube and Twitch streams, I came across Snaftii's channel. It is not one of the channels that has millions of subscribers, but the gameplay and editing in his videos looks really nice.
 

While a lot of players enjoy roving up and down the coast line in search for easy fresh spawn prey, other players enjoy taking on a more friendly role. While having a look through Snaftii's backlog of videos on both Twitch and Youtube, viewers will see many examples of him attempting to interact with players first instead of shooting them down on sight. Unfortunately, in spite of Snaftii's friendly manner, not all players seem to play nice in return (@16:06):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPWJlIGDxVg
 

In Snaftii's Youtube channel, there are plenty of really good gameplay videos with a storyline behind them, and the "Dark Days Ahead" series was quite a good watch. As a lot of content creators show, a little editing goes a long way, and Snaftii makes good use of camera angles as well as some other subtle trickery in order to provide some nice intros to his videos. The intro to the second part of the "Dark Days Ahead" series for example had a nice touch (no spoilers) that tied both episode 1 and episode 2 together:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLbWh7bAOKg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UnzPA998Rc


 

Outside of Snaftii's different DayZ series, I also enjoyed watching videos such as “Story Time” which shows some nice interaction between players. While not exactly action packed throughout, it's oddly captivating to see the randomness that goes on in DayZ (what the hell are you on about Mickey?):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2EgQ7nNybY
 

All in all, Snaftii's content kept me good and entertained for a couple of afternoons, and his channels are definitely worth a visit. As always, if interested in more, please feel free to follow Snaftii via the following social media accounts:

• 
  http://twitter.com/Snaftii
• 
  http://www.youtube.com/user/Snaftii
• 
  http://www.twitch.tv/snaftii
• 
  http://www.facebook.com/Snaftii

 

- Michael aka SMoss / Community Manager

Afternoon survivor chums,

While trawling through Youtube and Twitch streams, I came across Snaftii's channel. It is not one of the channels that has millions of subscribers, but the gameplay and editing in his videos looks really nice.
 

While a lot of players enjoy roving up and down the coast line in search for easy fresh spawn prey, other players enjoy taking on a more friendly role. While having a look through Snaftii's backlog of videos on both Twitch and Youtube, viewers will see many examples of him attempting to interact with players first instead of shooting them down on sight. Unfortunately, in spite of Snaftii's friendly manner, not all players seem to play nice in return (@16:06):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPWJlIGDxVg
 

In Snaftii's Youtube channel, there are plenty of really good gameplay videos with a storyline behind them, and the "Dark Days Ahead" series was quite a good watch. As a lot of content creators show, a little editing goes a long way, and Snaftii makes good use of camera angles as well as some other subtle trickery in order to provide some nice intros to his videos. The intro to the second part of the "Dark Days Ahead" series for example had a nice touch (no spoilers) that tied both episode 1 and episode 2 together:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLbWh7bAOKg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UnzPA998Rc


 

Outside of Snaftii's different DayZ series, I also enjoyed watching videos such as “Story Time” which shows some nice interaction between players. While not exactly action packed throughout, it's oddly captivating to see the randomness that goes on in DayZ (what the hell are you on about Mickey?):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2EgQ7nNybY
 

All in all, Snaftii's content kept me good and entertained for a couple of afternoons, and his channels are definitely worth a visit. As always, if interested in more, please feel free to follow Snaftii via the following social media accounts:

• 
  http://twitter.com/Snaftii
• 
  http://www.youtube.com/user/Snaftii
• 
  http://www.twitch.tv/snaftii
• 
  http://www.facebook.com/Snaftii

 

- Michael aka SMoss / Community Manager

Greetings Survivors,

As expected, work continues on 0.56 stable branch release. This release as mentioned prior will hit in the early weeks of May rather than the standard end-of-the-month update for April. This is mostly due to bugfixing that needs to occur related to the inventory refactorization in order to get the build to a state that can be used by the Early Access audience.  As well, the gameplay programming team are resolving the bugs discovered in the loot spawning system several weeks after the 0.55 stable date.

Given that most of the core work these last few weeks has been on such major systems as the inventory, and central loot economy - I thought I would take the opportunity to discuss a few points people have requested hearing information about. First off, I feel the need to reiterate on Early Access, development builds, and what to expect.
A few status reports ago I mentioned the fact that as we move forward through the development of DayZ, people *will* see more things break, more bugs, and so on. Part of getting access to DayZ as early as weve allowed via the Early Access program means that youre seeing the real ups and downs of game development. Ive seen people over the last few months on forums, twitter, and so on mention the back and forth stability of builds as if this is an anomaly - an oddity in software or game development. 


Photo Credit: DayZIntel

Early Access is as the fictional character James Kirk once referred to the USS Excelsior - "The Great Experiment". DayZ approached this at its truest form, 3 months into our principle development - and as said development has continued, the scope has expanded to include the development of the next game engine from Bohemia Interactive, Enfusion. It should go without saying, that the development of any large scope video game takes years. A multiplayer only title, that also aims to fully support Steam Workshop modding is no short order. Developing said title, the game engine powering it, and maintaining a steady monthly cadence of updates to the consumer is no short order.
So I ask you, the Early Access user - when you encounter a bug that frustrates you - make sure it is listed in the feedback tracker, make sure you read the Status Reports (although, it seems that if you are reading this youve already completed this step), engage with the development team on the DayZ forums. Ive found that when it comes to the Early Access program and your experience with it, we'll all get out of it - what we put into it.

Moving past that, many people have asked about the audio side of the Enfusion engine. Obviously fairly early on into the Early Access program, we realized that the existing audio technology interited from the RV engine wasn't going to suit the needs of the project. Problematic (and annoying) audio bugs began to reveal themselves, and resolving those within the legacy technology clearly demonstrated it would be time lost. Thus, work began on a new audio module to be paired with the in-development Enfusion engine. As with any core engine work, this is not a short form task. Obviously the goal for initial deployment is feature parity with the legacy audio technology, it is my personal hope that once this is achieved - we can look to expand the options for enhancing the audio experience in Chernarus, as I firmly believe audio in DayZ is just as critical as any core technology and part of the immersion into the world.



My personal holy grail throughout the development of DayZ has, and will remain the server side performance. Much of what folks attribute to "lag" or "desync" can be traced back to poor server side performance. 85% of which comes from the performance heavy usage of SQF engine script for many gameplay systems. Mentioned in prior status reports, EnScript (the name for Enfusion's engine scripting language) is leaps and bounds ahead of the legacy SQF in terms of performance. This, the portion of the performance budget currently consumed by SQF usage is the largest roadblock between 50 player servers, and 100+ player servers. Moving the title completely away from legacy engine scripting tech, and onto the new engine scripting language for Enfusion is by no means a small task, and will be an ongoing goal for the team (and in my opinion 100% required for DayZ to reach 1.0)


Sample EnScript - Not actual in-game

Last on my list for this week is some comments I wanted to make in regards to play styles, difficulty, and exactly how to play DayZ. 
Obviously, as DayZ is an open world sandbox title, nearly anything is technically possible (in regards to play styles). As the initial deployment of the new infected A.I., as well as the central economy ramped up the difficulty within Chernarus, there were people vocalizing how they disliked how difficult DayZ was becoming. Now, obviously I've spoken on this before - but I feel the need to reiterate, and clarify a few things.

Surviving in Chernarus is intended to be difficult. I want you to value each bullet, I want discovering a roaming boar in the forest to be a stroke of good luck. However, this does not mean the play styles of "Coastal Chaos" or "Squad play" and so on are not viable playstyles.



You can, and should be able to play DayZ however you want. Be warned however, every choice - every play style should, and will have its own cost. You can choose to spend your time in Elektro, fighting over sniper hill, or pitting your squad against a rival group up at the Northwest Airfield each have their own requirements to maintain, and overall costs (be it in time, health, resources, or life duration). 

Lastly, as the text below calls out - Standup notes are not a change log, they are a list of the things the teams have been working on this week, to give you all transparency into the current task priorities. So try not to get upset if you see a task thats being worked on not be in the latest stable branch update, and so on.

See you guys up north,
- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer
Header image credit: [TDay]Spalte
 

Status Report continued at: dayz.com/blog/status-report-22-apr-15

Greetings Survivors,

As expected, work continues on 0.56 stable branch release. This release as mentioned prior will hit in the early weeks of May rather than the standard end-of-the-month update for April. This is mostly due to bugfixing that needs to occur related to the inventory refactorization in order to get the build to a state that can be used by the Early Access audience.  As well, the gameplay programming team are resolving the bugs discovered in the loot spawning system several weeks after the 0.55 stable date.

Given that most of the core work these last few weeks has been on such major systems as the inventory, and central loot economy - I thought I would take the opportunity to discuss a few points people have requested hearing information about. First off, I feel the need to reiterate on Early Access, development builds, and what to expect.
A few status reports ago I mentioned the fact that as we move forward through the development of DayZ, people *will* see more things break, more bugs, and so on. Part of getting access to DayZ as early as weve allowed via the Early Access program means that youre seeing the real ups and downs of game development. Ive seen people over the last few months on forums, twitter, and so on mention the back and forth stability of builds as if this is an anomaly - an oddity in software or game development. 


Photo Credit: DayZIntel

Early Access is as the fictional character James Kirk once referred to the USS Excelsior - "The Great Experiment". DayZ approached this at its truest form, 3 months into our principle development - and as said development has continued, the scope has expanded to include the development of the next game engine from Bohemia Interactive, Enfusion. It should go without saying, that the development of any large scope video game takes years. A multiplayer only title, that also aims to fully support Steam Workshop modding is no short order. Developing said title, the game engine powering it, and maintaining a steady monthly cadence of updates to the consumer is no short order.
So I ask you, the Early Access user - when you encounter a bug that frustrates you - make sure it is listed in the feedback tracker, make sure you read the Status Reports (although, it seems that if you are reading this youve already completed this step), engage with the development team on the DayZ forums. Ive found that when it comes to the Early Access program and your experience with it, we'll all get out of it - what we put into it.

Moving past that, many people have asked about the audio side of the Enfusion engine. Obviously fairly early on into the Early Access program, we realized that the existing audio technology interited from the RV engine wasn't going to suit the needs of the project. Problematic (and annoying) audio bugs began to reveal themselves, and resolving those within the legacy technology clearly demonstrated it would be time lost. Thus, work began on a new audio module to be paired with the in-development Enfusion engine. As with any core engine work, this is not a short form task. Obviously the goal for initial deployment is feature parity with the legacy audio technology, it is my personal hope that once this is achieved - we can look to expand the options for enhancing the audio experience in Chernarus, as I firmly believe audio in DayZ is just as critical as any core technology and part of the immersion into the world.



My personal holy grail throughout the development of DayZ has, and will remain the server side performance. Much of what folks attribute to "lag" or "desync" can be traced back to poor server side performance. 85% of which comes from the performance heavy usage of SQF engine script for many gameplay systems. Mentioned in prior status reports, EnScript (the name for Enfusion's engine scripting language) is leaps and bounds ahead of the legacy SQF in terms of performance. This, the portion of the performance budget currently consumed by SQF usage is the largest roadblock between 50 player servers, and 100+ player servers. Moving the title completely away from legacy engine scripting tech, and onto the new engine scripting language for Enfusion is by no means a small task, and will be an ongoing goal for the team (and in my opinion 100% required for DayZ to reach 1.0)


Sample EnScript - Not actual in-game

Last on my list for this week is some comments I wanted to make in regards to play styles, difficulty, and exactly how to play DayZ. 
Obviously, as DayZ is an open world sandbox title, nearly anything is technically possible (in regards to play styles). As the initial deployment of the new infected A.I., as well as the central economy ramped up the difficulty within Chernarus, there were people vocalizing how they disliked how difficult DayZ was becoming. Now, obviously I've spoken on this before - but I feel the need to reiterate, and clarify a few things.

Surviving in Chernarus is intended to be difficult. I want you to value each bullet, I want discovering a roaming boar in the forest to be a stroke of good luck. However, this does not mean the play styles of "Coastal Chaos" or "Squad play" and so on are not viable playstyles.



You can, and should be able to play DayZ however you want. Be warned however, every choice - every play style should, and will have its own cost. You can choose to spend your time in Elektro, fighting over sniper hill, or pitting your squad against a rival group up at the Northwest Airfield each have their own requirements to maintain, and overall costs (be it in time, health, resources, or life duration). 

Lastly, as the text below calls out - Standup notes are not a change log, they are a list of the things the teams have been working on this week, to give you all transparency into the current task priorities. So try not to get upset if you see a task thats being worked on not be in the latest stable branch update, and so on.

See you guys up north,
- Brian Hicks / Lead Producer
Header image credit: [TDay]Spalte
 

Status Report continued at: dayz.com/blog/status-report-22-apr-15