It appears shotguns are in going to appear in the near future.

PCGN
by sILENTaSSaSSiN
17 FEB 2014

First off- I asked him seeing as there was a ton of real estate added for Chenarus Plus, how many cities are looking to be added? He answered with 22 total towns and villages with 10 more cities..wow.

Here are some other points worth noting

- DayZ SA is no longer on the Arma II engine, it is it's own engine. It carries more similarities with ARMA 3 than any other existing BS engine, but it is now an untitled "standalone" engine.

- Persistent storage (they are not committed to tents being the medium) is being worked on as we speak, as well as vehicles. All vehicle models are being worked on as well as their independent physics. Hicks did not give a time frame, but that it is a main focus of the team.

- Dean Hall has gotten weather effects to syncronize with character effects, and (dampness, sickness, ect) of which he has won an award for (no clue what award that is). Apparently the next patch will be upping the atmospheric effects.

- Private Shards off of the Hive are currently being worked on as well. Sounds like initially you will not be allowed to change mission parameters or items in game, however. White-listing will be an option.

- They will open game files to the community for modding at some point!

- Survivor Gamez will be hosted this spring for Standalone

- Hunting and campfires are within two months of being implemented

- Police stations and Health Centers are being added throughout the map in cities

- New spawn points will be added to Svetlo, Berezino.

- There will be no ability to "own" something i.e. in Epoch- all vehicles and loot will be "lootable".

Here is our latest Dev blog created on the 24th February 2014.

So what’s in the Dev Blog?

Lighting improvements:
We are working on improving in-game lighting, not just from a visual perspective but also from a game play perspective, to improve playing at night.

We have enabled light sources such as flashlights and pistol torches, to emit light during the day as they previously haven’t done. However we still have to do some HDR tweaks

Physics:
This is an area we have wanted to put in for a while. We have added physics middle-ware, which allows us to add throwing items to the game but it also enables us to look at ragdoll and how the characters move within the world.

This is still fairly early days with physics, but we are getting much closer to having something that we can implement into the experimental branch with stability.

Containers:
We want to add world items that are lootable such as refrigerators that can store items, so they can be looted and the items within them can be interacted with.

Bow and arrows:
One of our programmers has been working on bow and arrows, in the video we show a very early work in progress clip of it. So far progress has been fairly quick with good results, so we are looking forward to seeing how this progresses further.

Animations:
Animations team has been working hard on getting new transitions and new methods of wielding melee weapons. This is still a work in progress.

We have moved away from our old way of how the animations were working which caused left handed swings. This restricts how the melee attacks are performed. As the hit detection is done from the item position this allows player to be able to easier work out where they are going to hit. This is still very much a work in progress but we hopeful and we look forward to your feedback.

New map updates:
Our map team has been working with artists to add new buildings into game and fixing collision issues with buildings. We have added police stations and new health center buildings across the map as well as improving preexisting towns.

We are currently working on ensuring that all buildings spawn loot as this is a big issue at the moment.

Weather:
We want it to be almost like an antagonist, we now have rain and weather is properly synced across all clients so all players experience the same weather conditions. Rain will also currently make your clothes damp and then wet, but at the moment this doesn’t really have much effect but in the long term but we definitely want to expand upon that.

Hunting and cooking:
We have dedicated a whole group of artists programmers and designers with experience with hunting games, that are dedicated to working on animals, their behavior and hunting. To maximise the element of survival, our current sprint is focused on cooking and campfires.

DeSync:
One of the big areas people have been reporting is DeSync, we have been working on this directly this is due to the amount of bandwidth DayZ is using because a lot of the messages to do with the inventory are sent via non-guaranteed messages. So if you or someone nearby you has a large amount inventory items, all these messages will be spammed as the server can’t guarantee the client has received them. We have a couple of hot fixes in place but our long term goal for this is to have a guaranteed message system. So the messages are only sent once and not constantly. This will be an ongoing effort.

Zombies:
Zombies are an area of active development, we want to increase the amount of zombies. Tied with this we also want to improve their collision detection indoors. This will be one of the task of the new team will be the hit detection of zombies. We are also actively working on the zombie respawn mechanics, using some of the optimisations that we used with player respawns.

We want zombies to be a good experience so they don’t spawn directly in front of players, this is what is taking the time, as we want to do it properly.

Persistent objects:
We want to have some objects have persistency throughout server respawns, such as backpacks, paper with written notes one and eventually when we bring barricading in, wood and wooden barricades and keeping it’s exact location in so far.

Vehicles:
Once we have achieved these objectives we can then look at vehicles as implementing vehicles too early could very easily upset the balance and impact other game play areas. When we do implement vehicles we are likely to start with slower vehicles such as bicycles. Then we will look at more complex vehicles, where we can have many more degradable parts such as batteries or spark plugs.

Hunting and general survival features are finally making their way into Standalone Experimental branch



Wildlife, fishing, cooking, and gathering of berries and apples. If you have the right tools you can also gather supplies like firewood and stones, used for crafting fireplaces with. You will be able to dig with a hoe for earthworms to be used as fish bait.





New town:







AKM (AK-47)



Helicopter Crash sites

This devblog will be focused on describing the progress with one of our biggest issues: Zombie Pathfinding.

Development Priorities and Pace

Our major focus has been on establishing the architecture, both in the team and in the game, in order to deliver best in the future. This involved us drastically increasing the size of the team working on the game. This had a severe short-term impact on our progress as our existing team had to devote time and resources to training and planning. The new zombie pathfinding is a good example of this approach beginning to produce results.

Some examples of future major changes coming as a result of this new focus:
•Entirely new rendering system (allowing potential upgrades to DX10 or DX11, ports as well).
•True multithreading / multicore for servers and possibly clients.
•Completely new animal AI that mirrors an actual animals behaviors.
•Redeveloped “action” system, replacing the mouse-wheel scroll action system.
•Complete refactoring of the inventory system. While not a big change for users, possibly allows some more advanced systems to be implemented and better performance and less bugs.

Background

Zombies have proven to be one of the most difficult to develop components of the game. When we were developing the game we realized that in the time we had, we would need to work within the parameters of the AI already in the engine. In the engine, AI is calculated on a “per agent” basis, with some caching for things like targets (shared target info, etc…). In the mod, this was dropped in favor of calculating visibility and target info on a “per player” approach. This meant that zombies in the mod were simply pawns, activated by players moving around.

In addition to behavior problems we also experienced problems with pathfinding and collision for the AI. We were getting the engine to do things that it was never designed to do, especially regarding interiors of buildings. We attempted to refactor these solutions to accommodate our changes but, as can be seen by playing the current build, they fell short of our expectations. In the end we decided it would be easier to develop a new approach from scratch.

The Challenge

There are many exciting solutions available for pathfinding, it’s fairly standard fare in the video gaming industry. Our problem was not unique, but our situation was: our world is very big yet it requires the same precision as a small one.

The team devoted to solving this decided to use navigation meshes. The serious problem it presented, though, was how to generate these meshes, with nearly 2 million objects on the map doing it by hand would not be an option. So a method was devised to split the world up into grids, and then raycast at a precise interval and generate chunks of navmesh. This is all done during the packing process and “baked” out into data that can be read by the server and client. This uses the wonderful approaches outlined in the open source navmesh project Recast and Detour.

The Results

I spoke to Martin Slavkov, programmer behind the solution, to help me outline the result with some screenshots.

Generating the Navmesh (view Imgur Gallery of generation)

A small program was developed to read through the world, load all the objects, and then work its way through tracing billions of lines to calculate the ability to move. This then works out not only where outside you can walk, but inside as well. It gives great precision while still working for a very large scale world both indoor and outdoor. Having a unified solution for pathfinding makes implementation much easier.

The engine is then able to load the chunks in as it needs. It does use some memory (around 600mb extra, maximum), but it only loads the chunks it needs. However as we are moving to 64-bit on the server side, this reduces any potential issues with memory.

Performance optimizations can be very significant. Currently the team are working on parallelizing the AI pathfinding function so it can operate on a separate core. With all new functionality we are developing in this way, unfortunately that means that it can take longer for us to develop but the results for performance can be massive.

Previously two different systems were used for navigating AI. The exterior one handled navigation around static and dynamic objects, and an internal “path” system was used for building interiors. This involved artists defining paths that AI could follow. We had to drop this interior method because of the massive performance issues with large numbers of agents.

In the screenshot above, you can see a path between two red points. Because the system is now unified it means that more efficient (and more natural) pathfinding solutions are available to the AI, at a fraction of the performance cost as before.

I’m happy to report on the loads of content which will soon hit experimental servers. Recently the Prague and Bratislava studios had our first meet and greet so I was able to get a first hand look at all of the ongoing work by the artists and animators on our new animals. We have a basic implementation of prototype animals that will be swapped out by our Bratislava artist’s work which is looking incredible!

Improvised fishing tackle and a carp were created, which players will be able to catch in ponds. We have also created some filet models which you will eventually be able to cook. This will all add up to be a literal game-changer. Speaking of animals - we also met Big - the office pet tortoise in Bratislava. Hm, that gives me an idea…

Our character artist is further expanding with the addition of a new large-capacity police vest to go along with our ОMON-inspired Орёл uniform. We have also started working on EMT, Firefighter, and finalizing the Gorka uniforms.

Fireplaces, Hunting, And being a lumberjack!

We pulled fireplaces and hunting from the previous update in their state at the time, we felt they would hinder gameplay not enhance it. The extra time has been spent improving gameplay aspects and also identifying how we can better support it.

The build to experimental will show the basic structure of how this will work. Chopping wood from trees now gives logs, and after a certain time, the trees will be “expended” and fall over. Tree cutting is done by holding an axe in your hands, and using the mouse-wheel action menu. This is a prime example of why we want to remove the mouse-wheel action system. Instead of this, we envision you simply hitting the tree with the axe and being rewarded with wood - but that is for the future.

Fireplaces can be upgraded with stones, which are recovered from the ground around rocky areas or by hitting rocks with a pick-axe. Fireplaces can be crafted by making a “fireplace kit” out of items such as rags and kindling. Kindling is recovered by searching the forest floor for sticks. All these scavenging aspects need more refinement as part of a new action system, but they’re exciting changes that will pave the way for more complex systems such as horticulture.

Our current targets have us putting out builds to stable once a month, a huge inspiration for approach we aspire to is Prison Architect who do this very well. We have no set timeframe for experimental releases, these are done to assist us with preparing for stable releases.

Above all else, it’s vital that people appreciate several things:
•Different tasks take different amounts of time
•Priorities for tasks are built around what is needed based on dependencies, not what is most needed to satisfy the game design
•Scheduled builds are targets, not absolutes. We will delay and postpone builds where we are not confident in their status.
•Devblogs are no longer scheduled weekly, and are done as often as we can to provide background for our progress.

The Final Word

This is an extremely exciting time for us all as we come out of two months of very aggressive growth. We’ve expanded the team a great deal, taking a huge risk in doing so. That risk is paying off, and we’re excited to see the massive impact that the pathfinding and collision changes will have on the DayZ experience.

DayZ Developer's blog
14 AUG 2014

Over the last week the team has been working on finishing the final tasks for 0.49. Included in this work was an extensive code merge from the team in Bratislava, focused on navigation mesh, animal AI, horticulture, and animation system changes. Due to this merge, we’ve decided to push the 0.49 update out by one week (to allow for a strong QA pass before the update)
0.49 represents a large amount of work that will not be immediately visible on the user side, but allows us to start tracking statistics on player data and item spawns, as well as the mentioned work on animal AI, horticulture, melee system redesigns, and the central loot economy.

Experimental branch will be updated this week as we look to expand testing on 0.49 before the stable branch update. Additionally, BattlEye will begin broadcasting a message every hour warning users of the upcoming stable hive reset that comes with the 0.49 update.
As 0.49 will bring persistent storage to all stable branch servers it is important that those who rent DayZ server instances make sure to check out the backup policies of their respective game server providers to ensure an easy recovery in the event of any unforseen issues with your instance.

Starting in September, several new initiatives to increase transparency and accessibility into the development process will be rolled out, including the dev team twitch stream schedule located on devhub.dayz.com. (twitch.tv/dayz)

Peter / Lead Designer
"As I mentioned last week, the initial implementation of horticulture is prepared but using placeholder assets and it will need some attention from the programming team. I personally feel this system can have a lasting change on how many people will approach Chernarus. Imagine being independent of inhabited places with your own grown crops, meat and clothing from hunted animals.

Expanding on that vision there was a lot of talk recently about craftable leather clothing across the dev team and it seems it will became large part of the fashion in DayZ. Possibilities will be broad from crafting plenty of unique items from different hides or to produce tanned leather for more generic looking clothes with optional dyeing them to different colors.

What recently got so much love and I’m very happy with the outcome of that effort is the melee system which was refactored from the base by our programmers. You will be pleased especially with cursor and swing hit detection which are so robust that there’s no way to miss your target unless you are too far away or have something with eyes. We will do our best to plug in the swing detection back as soon as possible so you can finally enjoy melee as it should be. We hope to have this included in the 0.49 update next week.

Also worth mentioning is the advanced weather impact on player character which is very close to be released and has made some great progress on utilizing possibilities of our environment.

So don’t forget to keep yourself warm and dry… see you in Chernarus folks!”

Mirek / Lead Gameplay Programmer
"Our core focus this week has been on server optimizations and improving melee combat hit detection. Both of these issues are currently in internal testing and if everything checks out, we will deploy it on experimental servers this week. We’re also continuing on our new doors system (interacting with doors in a way that makes sense, rather than proximity to the door) and new game controls, but it will take some time to complete both of these changes. I can safely say however that for example interaction with doors is definitely improved. It is now impossible to open doors from higher/lower floors, you now interact with doors by looking directly at them.

A major update came in from the Bratislava team (thanks to Marek Zeman) for pathfinding, so a good amount of issues with zombies clipping through doors have been addressed.”

Chris / Lead Artist
"The Lists of Lists:

Last week, Peter and I met many times to discuss some long-term plans related to many aspects of the game and what art assets would be needed.

I’m getting pretty excited now since we’ve planned out concepts for new zombies, settled on DayZ 1.0’s weapon list (melee and firearms), created a preliminary list of assets needed as vehicle attachments and parts, and began to discuss with Chernarus legend, Ivan Buchta, how we might improve the visuals on the map.

We also had the pleasure of spending a couple of days at the studio’s office in Brno where we met with members of our team in Bratislava to solidify plans for craftable clothing and defined the set input resources, crafting object, and crafting outputs which the art team will be required to make.

As well, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Take on Mars project lead, Martin Melicharek, who gave me a tour of the Enforce engine’s graphics, particle FX, map tools, and art pipelines so that I can understand a bit better what to expect when we switch to the new renderer as well as give us the opportunity to request some improvements or additional features for Enfusion. Its pretty fantastic for this old-school ArmA modder to see.

Character Art
The MASKA-1Sch helmet, balaclava, and firefighter uniform are now done and have been passed to the design team for configing into the game. I would expect they will end up in experimental next week. Work continues on a firefighter helmet and a SPOSN Tortilla-inspired backpack to complete the Eastern-block SPECOPS uniform. It looks great with the SMERSH vest/backpack combo.

Environment
Work continues on the new civilian airport hangar and building models and we have begun to plan out with our map designers, which other types of new buildings and objects we should make a priority.

Weapons
The Rossi R92 is being animated and should be out soon and I received word that the MP133 is also ready to be passed down the assembly line of anims, sounds, and cfg. I realize that the release of new guns is perceived to be quite slow but this is because we generally assign them lower priority compared to other, more important tasks being performed by the multi-disciplinary team required to finalize one.

We’ve also created a few more melee weapons as well as the first art assets related to non-lethal weaponry given to the designers to play with. ”

Standup notes for the week of 25 August 2014

Programming
Reintroduce network optimizations
New melee combat mechanics and fixes
Door reimplementation
New game controls
Central economy
64bit server optimizations
Navmesh update
Code cleaning and optimizations
New basic zombie behavior
Better sound over network

Design
Advanced weather impact on player character
Plugging in new implementation of melee system
Config and scripts for new items/gear
Config and scripts for new animals
Craftable clothing design
Central economy setup
General bug fix

Animation
Throwing animations
Zombie run variations
Player restrained animation extension
Zombie AI/combat/animation design
Digging animations

Art
Balaclava mask
MASKA Helmet
Firefighter Uniform
MP133
Rossi R92
Crafted Clothing art design proposals
Vehicle parts/attachments models
Non-lethal weapons
New Zombie concepts
Firefighter Helmet
SPOSN Backpack