We are so, so happy to announce our official release date - September 25, 2018! We've worked really hard to get here, so now it's time to mark your calendars and tell your friends, Little Bug will be available to play in just two weeks!

We uploaded a new trailer with some brand new gameplay footage, watch it here on Steam or go to: https://youtu.be/iw8KnkPiRw0

Today's Status Report will start off with a small surprise for most of you guys, so definitely check out Eugen's opening announcements. Our Lead Gameplay Programmer Mirek is answering community questions on the recent server issues and our animator Adam demonstrates the return of the surrender and restraint systems. Let's dive into it!

• Dev Update/Eugen
• Dev Update/Mirek
• Dev Update/Oresten
• Community Spotlight

 
Dear Survivors, we have some good news to share. The Content Update has hit the Experimental Branch today, and that means we're also making it available to community server owners currently hosting with one of our Game Server Providers (GSPs). Please expect slight delays as GSPs will cope with the number of switch requests, but I'm happy to see things finally move along to the Experimental phase after most of the critical issues were fixed in our Stress Tests. We have implemented a large number of optimizations in our network code while trying to identify an issue that in the end was caused by specific server hardware problems.

Now I have something that many of you probably don’t expect yet, but we want to see things move along at a faster pace there so we can get feedback: We've decided to release the DayZ 0.63 Server Files before BETA, and currently, we'd like to make them available to all DayZ players within the next week. Everyone will be able to download the Server Files for free on Steam under the tools section, and from that moment, everyone will be able to host a DayZ server on their own. I think that with the release of Server Files, we will see a much broader variety of server setups and community made game modes and while the full modding tool-set won’t be available before BETA, I think you guys have already figured a lot of the stuff out.

Last but not least, our goal with the next Content Update (that we might already call an Experimental BETA patch since we will be stabilizing the internal version of the game on the Stress Test machines) is to have a release in as soon as the next couple of weeks. This update will, again,introduce a variety of new things, with vehicles getting in a bit later after the initial release of this next Content Update. We will announce the new features and content as soon as we release the first Stress Test build. Just to pick one example, the new restraining system that Adam talks about is definitely one of my favourite ones.

The Xbox version of the game will see major game updates getting in soon after they hit the PC Experimental branch. While we won't be Stress Testing as of now on the Xbox platform, we will keep churning out updates with bug fixes and stability fixes to this version as they manifest themselves. Even today, we have pushed a game update with lots of fixes for bugs that we have seen in the PC version, and most importantly, we're fixing some of the specific inventory issues and controller related bugs that will make DayZ a better, more enjoyable experience on Xbox.

- Eugen Harton / Lead Producer


Hello survivors. For the last couple of weeks we were releasing new Stress Test builds almost every day with the goal to improve server performance and to finally solve the BattlEye mass kicking. And we solved it! I'd like to describe here what we were doing and why Stress Tests are so important for us.

Probably the best way how to explain what we were doing in our last Stress Tests is to answer some questions directly from the community. Let's go through the questions that TheMagicTorch asked on Reddit, as they will nicely demonstrate our thought process.

Q: Are you working with BattlEye developers to try and resolve the issues?
A: We do have a direct communication open with BattlEye developers, and the first thing we've made was that we asked them for some input on what could be wrong. In any case, the kicking issue was there even when we disabled BattlEye, so logically, we started looking for an issue on our end.

Q: What do you think is causing the kicking? In technical terms.
So we knew that the issue is on our side, we were sure it must be somewhere in the low level part of our networking - we were thinking that the issue must have something to do with packet ordering or re-sending of lost packets, or even with serial numbers of packets. Now we know it was caused by packet fragmentation - in some rare cases, some packets were dropped and it broke down the entire server.

Q: Why are you finding it particularly difficult to resolve kicks and lag? Are the kicks and lag a result of lots of bugs that you're slowly working through, or are you still trying to identify where problems are?
The source of the kicks was just one mistake in the code, but it was hard to find it, since we weren't able to reproduce it internally. The 0.63 branch was created almost 2 years ago and a lot of changes have been made during this time period. Two weeks ago, we started to revert these changes, because it was probably the fastest way (but not the easiest one) how to find the source of the issue. We have reverted one or two improvements every day, made a build and released it on the Stress Test servers, so basically we went back in time every day (the curiosity here is that this bug has been in the build since May 2016). When we've identified the source of the issue, we started putting the reverted and working stuff back into the branch, and released it in Stress Test #46.

Lags are closely connected to the server performance, so different parts of the code may cause them. We were profiling the servers every day to find out the source of performance drops, or what exactly takes most of the CPU time. Every day, we've made some improvements, which were merged into the Stress Test branch for play-testing. It's important to test these optimizations because optimizations can often break things that were previously working fine. One optimization helped us to find out that there is an issue with the firearm damage sanity check, which caused bad hit registration. This bug was there the whole time, but after the optimization, it happened more often.

Q: Why does performance seem to vary between region?
The deployment team along with Eugen has tracked this issue down to be a problem with a hardware configuration of the servers, and we're now seeing consistently decent server performance across regions.

- Miroslav Maněna/ Lead Programmer


Hey everyone, it's been a while since I wrote something, but boy, have I got goodies today or what?

For the last two weeks, I have been working on looking through optics, surrender and restrained states.

 
The current implementation of looking through a detached optic in the latest public build had a lot of problems with it... The accuracy of mouse-to-screen is sub-par at best, and you can't accurately follow a target without moving your mouse a couple of meters. We discussed various ways to implement a solution, but I was mainly worried about the character not accurately displaying where someone is looking. If we were to ignore the player animation accuracy and just set the camera to be 1:1 with the mouse, other players could think that they haven't been discovered all while the player who's looking through his binoculars could be tracking them.

I solved this by not allowing you to move while looking through binoculars or scopes, and by doing this, I eliminated any external factors that could mess with the accuracy of the animation; because really, what kind of crazy person would be moving while looking through a pair of binoculars? One wrong step and you could lose your target entirely! Here's the animation I cooked up:



As you can see, it's quite damn responsive. Here's how it looks while looking through it:



It's in a really good state so far and accurately displays in and out of the optics exactly where that person would be looking.
Surrender is a highly sought after feature that we have been working on to deliver in the highest possible quality. At first glance, it would look like it's just another gesture; but under the hood it holds a bunch of complexities. You can't access your inventory when you're in surrendering - not something common for gestures. You also have new stance rules where you can only walk while standing and only turn in standing and crouched - also not something gestures can control. Lastly, but not least, it also has a bunch of surrender-specific stance changing animations - also something that gestures cannot control. With these things in mind, we had to approach the surrender mechanic with a bit more caution, as a half-assed approach would probably come back to bite us later down the line.

We have solved it by essentially handling it like a gesture state on the script side, but on the animation side, it would be considered an "item" of sorts. The reason behind this solution is that when a player puts an item in his hands, his character will switch to the corresponding animation set (picking up a rifle will start playing the rifle animations, pistols for pistols, and so on) with all of their specific animations for turning, changing stances, etc. By putting this "ghost item" into the character's hands, the surrender animation set is enabled, and the specific movement rules that that animation set has attached to it. In addition, we have opened up avenues for ourselves where we can have a bunch of surrender-specific animations; such as deaths, gestures, actions, etc, etc. Gestures-in-gestures? Oh boy.

https://i.imgur.com/oHeJShT.gifv

All of those same rules also apply to the restrained state, but this also means we can accurately show what item is currently restraining you; such as in this case with some locked handcuffs:

https://i.imgur.com/HpAcMOM.gifv

Maybe down the line, you'd be able to drink face-first from ponds even while restrained to keep yourself hydrated while running from your captors. Who knows!

Until next time.

- Adam Oresten / Technical Animator

 
Hello guys,

has it really been two weeks already? It passed quickly with all the community feedback from all of you Xbox and Stress Test players! I want to thank you again for the feedback, it is really important, and it helps the dev team quite a bit. 

Let's start with a new merchandise on the Bohemia Store. A lot of you already have our t-shirt but you asked for hoodies too. And here we are:



With this hoodie, you are never going to be hypothermic again!

 

A question time! You can ask our technical animator Adam Oresten any relevant question and he is going to answer them on the Bohemia Developer's blog. Just tweet your question with #MeetTheBohemians and #AskAdam. 



Do you have a problem with orientation in Chernarus? We don't have any in-game map now, but if you need to find where you are or where to go, iZurvive is a solution. It features a 0.63 map and there's also hiking trails, wells, animal locations, and more.

You can use the web map at https://izurvive.com/, or the mobile version for iOS and Android.



I want to introduce you to some nice streamers. 

• The first one is Claire aka ArrianaGaming. She is streaming almost every day and she is a passionate DayZ Survivor. Check out her Twitch channel, Instagram and Twitter and give her a follow
• The second one is RageBruhTV. He is also a very passionate DayZ player and an entertaining streamer.
• Last but not least is BenFruit, a partnered streamer with a cool voice. He is a friendly player who loves interactions. Check him out!

 
I choose four videos from the community today.

• This interview is from Gamescom made by M1NDR. He is talking with our Lead Designer Peter Nespešný about the future of DayZ.

https://youtu.be/j1-7ejPZ7bI

• Another interview from Gamescom by Luzi, this time with our Lead Producer Eugen Harton.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq1koM-YJB0

• This video could be handy for Xbox players. Virtual Flood is introducing a looting guide for beginners. Finding loot is so easy! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9IhI-d2N-U

• Are you stressed? Do you need to relax? I have a nice, calm video for you. Just sit down, put your headphones on and enjoy the sound of DayZ's nature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuQATkjM1tM


The answer to the latest riddle is a house near Gvozdno. And who guessed the right answer this time?

• KainMisterr
• ‏ Leo_A_Santos
• _Canis_Dirus_
• DayzedEmu
• FiveSevenClown
• TheChewyMint
• LottaLottieT

 
And where can you find this location? Send an answer to our Twitter account with the #DayZriddleTime hashtag.



Thank you for your nice content and see you in two weeks!

- Baty / Community Manager

 

Header image by DrDeSync.

Greetings and well met Watchers!

Patch 2.1.0 is now live! There are a ton of new features and fixes in the game, so I'll just leave you with the new stuff. For the complete patch notes, please visit our forums at https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/105656-patch-notes-for-2100034/

• Shroud of the Phantasm - A new community-designed cape, the Shroud of the Phantasm seems to grant the wielder the favor of Wael, though the will of the God of Secrets is all but impossible to discern for certain. Wearers gain the ability to manifest illusory duplicates and are rarely, if the God of Secrets is watching, struck with bolts of understanding capable of turning the tide of battle. You can find this magical item hidden within Berkana's Observatory.
• Ability Tree Preview - Thanks to our programming team, the Class Ability Tree can now be viewed outside of the level up screen! This can be done from the Inventory/Character Sheet UI, or when recruiting a new companion.
• New Magran's Fires Challenges added - New challenges and old favorites have been added for players that want a difficult experience with a twist.  These challenges can be found by clicking the head of Magran at the bottom of the Title Menu.
  
  • Skaen's Challenge
    
    • The Fog of War is greatly reduced around the Player's Character.
    • Torches can help increase the vision area.
  • Abydon's Challenge
    
    • Weapons and Armor now degrade during adventuring.
    • Weapons and Armor can be repaired for a price through the Enchanting Menu.
• Enchanting UI Update
  
  • The Enchanting Menu has received a visual re-work. Enchantment progression paths are now much clearer, and it should be easy to tell if a new enchantment will replace or rework an old enchantment.
• Steam Workshop Mod Support - Mods will now be supported through the Steam Workshop page. Check it out to see what unique changes the community is bringing to the world of Eora!
• Audio Combat Remixing - Our audio team has remastered in-game combat sounds, resolving a suite of bugs and generally improving the game as per community feedback:
  
  • Combat Chatter now provides more critical feedback and is easier to understand during combat.
  • Creatures have been tuned to spam sounds less
  • Ability audio has been tuned to react to other sounds (i.e. gets softer when combat chatter is playing)
  • And much more!
  
  
  Resolved Major Issues
  • FPS degradation over time that was introduced in v2.0.1 no longer occurs.
  • Party companion portraits are now saved after restarting the game.
  • Items are no longer duplicated when using the Quickload feature during item transactions.
  • Modals appear when a weapon is copied into a character's main hand.
  • Pillars of Eternity 1 saves are now recognized across all supported languages.
  • 
    
    • Players now leave Bekarna's Observatory as expected.
    • Players now leave Fort Deadlight as expected.
    • Pre-Ukaizo save data now allows for DLC completion.
    • Players that obtain the submarine can now leave Nekataka via port icon.
    • Players can now read the Harbinger's missive with no issues.
    • Aloth and Konstanten will now appear as intended in Party Management.
    • Players no longer get stuck in combat when boarding the Deck of Many Things while a hostile ship is nearby.

Featuring over 40 tracks from the popular open universe space adventure RPG, these epic songs will leave you excited to explore the galaxy.

With over 40 compositions from renowned composers Mason Fisher (Age of Wonders, Eye of the Beholder III: Assault on Myth Drannor) and Riku Nuottajärvi (Star Control II: The Ur-Quan Masters), the soundtrack features several energetic and emotional songs that encompass the spirit of Star Control: Origins perfectly.

From the cheerful and upbeat theme of the slimy (but friendly) Tywom, all the way to the dark and dangerous undertones of the terrifying Scryve theme, you’ll experience an epic audio journey through the galaxy meeting aliens, exploring planets, fighting life or death battles, and much more.

Check out our sneak peek (sneak listen?) tracks on YouTube right now!
Cold as Ice
A Higher Power

Pre-Order Star Control: Origins today and save off the final price!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/271260

Our team at Lunar Great Wall Studios are very proud of what we have made and shared with you - but our work doesn't end there!



We're constantly listening to feedback from all of you about your experiences with Another Sight and pur team have been taking note and implementing your feedback and tweaking the smallest details!

Our first update for Another Sight has resulted in the following improvements for you all to enjoy.


1) Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented the achievements to be unlocked after you finish the game;

2) Improved Hodge animations and controls, now the Hodge has more inertia and is simpler to control;

3) Fixed the Sewers door that could clip with the crate;

4) Added a new cutscene in Laboratories level that show Kit’s objective to solve the puzzle;

5) Fixed Hodge flying through Laboratories level when jumping on the liftable panel;

6) Added Wall bump for Kit with every suit;

7) Improved presentation of the final level;

8) Now the game correctly pauses when minimized on tray;

9) Fixed a bug that could occur if Kit gets caught while a cutscene is played, causing players to lose input;

10) Fixed a bug occurring only with really low framerate that could block Hodge movements when climbing;

11) Added skip cutscene button for keyboard;

12) Improved feedback particles of the big machine in Sewers;

13) Fixed a guard that sometimes lost his head;

13) Added various footsteps sounds on missing materials;

14) Added bespoke music during credits;

15) Updated credits text;

16) Resolved some minor issues on Kit’s vision bubbles;

17) Fixed the cartstopper that could clip in the cart in the London Underground level;

18) Various minor improvements on level design (Laboratories, The Node and London Underground);

19) Now only Kit can end The Node level;

20) Various tuning on SFX volumes;

21) Fixed subtitles appearance when dialogue volume is set to zero.


Thank you all for tuning in and sharing your passion for Another Sight - as always, stay tuned for more information from the development team and feel free to leave us your suggestions!

Thanks for playing!

-- Team Lunar

Jess has a job for you in this week’s FC5 live event! Take out Judges to earn the shovel launcher and Jacob’s Hunter outfits.

Personal Reward:

• 4 kills: 50 silver bars, 100 XP
  
• 8 kills: Shovel Launcher, 100 XP

See the full event details and track community progress towards the community outfit here: http://farcrygame.com/liveevents

Learn to play 3 hits from the 90s featuring instrumental rock, gothic metal, and alternative metal! “Summer Song” by Joe Satriani, “Christian Woman” by Type O Negative, and “Unsung” by Helmet will be available today on Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Steam. The songs may be posted later for players in territories served by the European PlayStation Store due to differences in publishing times. See the tunings and arrangements below.

https://youtu.be/AZSC_6HAsu8

E Standard – Lead/Rhythm/Bass
https://store.steampowered.com/app/753866/

Custom: B Standard – Lead/Rhythm; E Standard - Bass
https://store.steampowered.com/app/753865/

Drop D – Lead/Rhythm/Bass
https://store.steampowered.com/app/753867/

Click below for a direct link to the 90s Mix Song Pack V with all 3 songs. For individual songs from the pack, click the links above.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/753864/

A Wild PATCH has appeared!
o FIGHT
o ITEM
o RUN
o READ

Hey folks! We're here to present to you a few fixes! And some nice optimization which some of you have been all jazzed about. But the most important thing we have going on is our BRAND NEW ROADMAP!

As a note, the price of the game will increase each time that we complete a Milestone. However, if you own the game you will not need to pay more, and all Milestone features are added to your game free of charge. We thank you folks so much for being with us while we're in Early Access and your feedback has been fantastic!

There are also a few things we got planned that will be like fun little surprises. You can ask us about it but I'll probably be really vague and then panic because I can't keep a secret to save my life.



If you've any questions, comments or suggestions, feel free to yell very loudly at me on our Discord! Otherwise, on to the patch notes

• Death icon that shows player deaths on the minimap (global)

• Reduced Boomstick overall spread to 15° (from 18°) and individual pellet spread to 5° (from 6°)
  
• Removed center entrance player spawn
  
• Moved right entrance player spawn closer to the center entrance
  
• Added item briefcase at the center entrance - Special thanks to メタリア for bringing this to our attention!

• Dodge roll will no longer adjust trajectory if the adjusted trajectory will result in falling out of the level
• Reduced amount of dynamic shadow casters that doesn’t contribute much to overall scene lighting for improved performance
• Reduced SSAO sample count for faster performance
• Disabled screen-space fog to improve performance
• Disabled Minimap background blur to improve performance
• Optimized cloud shader
• Optimized item outline shader
• Optimized screen-space Fog of War shader

• Fixed dodge roll adjusted trajectory not breaking windows
• Fixed wall with missing collider on Hostile Work Environment - Special thanks to コウボキン for finding this bug!

Well! That's all we got for you today folks. I hope you liked this edition of reading a bunch of text and looking and cool photos because I know I did.

Steam検証してくださいをオープンして、ファイルの整合性を

We've just released a small patch for HTC Vive fixing a few issues and adding new hourly bonus game.

List of changes:

New bonus multiplayer game

Each hour you can get free access to multiplayer Jackpot shooting game. Compete against other players, score more points than them and get a prize of 50 coins!
The game is available every hour for all players who’ve done at least 300 spins.

Bugfixes

• Minor bug and balance fixes
  
• Add crash report

Hello crew members, we are back with another update! We prepared a special event that is going to take place from 11th September to 18th September - The Coffee Cup!



During this week we are going to run a special season of Challenge Vault, our game mode that can now also be played for free! In this mode, players can play a new level every day and compete with each other by trying to finish it as fast as possible. To join the event, all you have to do is to get the BLACKHOLE demo version on Steam for free and start playing Challenge Vault. The existing owners of full version can also join, no matter whether they are playing on PC, Mac or Linux.

Besides enabling the Challenge Vault in the demo version, we also updated the singleplayer demo levels, so in case you don’t own the full game yet, you can experience a selection of 6 levels from the main campaign!

We are also going to be streaming our playthough of the game with developer commentary and we might attempt to beat some of the leaderboard times, too! You can watch the stream and check out our schedule on our Twitch channel.

Thanks!
-The Endera Crew