Day Z, The Road with Zombies

[spork]

Is there much/any hacking still going on? Or have the kiddies got bored of that?

[Fox]

It's a surprise now when it happens, rather than being something that you're always expecting to happen sooner rather than later. Whitelisting and global ban lists have cleaned it up a lot in my recent experience.

[spork]

Nearly a whole month without a post in here!

Tweets:

"Just played the latest build. What can I say? Crafting is AMAZING! Def my fav new thing"

"Just reviewed the entirely new player animations on the entirely new player skeleton. Verdict: AMAZING"

"So many new items. IV Starter kits, Bags of Saline, mess tins, rice, radios..."

"Dammit. Zombies now moving so fast they can't negotiate steep terrain... they just launch themselves off and die! Hilarious though #lemmingZ"

"Zombie Attack animation while running? YES PLEASE!"

Reddit posts:

How was Everest?

Good to have gone, great to be back

When will SA be released?

When I'm comfortable that people will be getting something for their money. Tomorrow I'll confirm details of the server/client success or failure and that will give us the timeframe we need to be more concrete about future milestones. It marks the end of our last major exploratory work. Only thing required for release is server/client architecture. Rest will be in if its done. Some state of medical system will be in during the pending alpha

Where is the Dev Blog?

I need to focus on working. Twitter updates I can do while I am compiling, but devblogs and images and videos take more time. We don't have long till E3 and we ALL want to do the alpha ASAP. So I'd dead focused on these.

How is the server architecture performing?

I haven't said anything yet, because I haven't talked to our lead programmer as he was away today. Tomorrow he is back and I'll report then. But essentially, I've been told is "effectively complete". If this is the case, then it needs testing and much of my work needs to be modified to fit with it. But that would be very good news.

Following up on the twitter comment about zombies attacking while running..

Just showed matt how this looks, it's actually working really well. Kind of crazy but in a good way, the zombies run at you attacking directly. They will be dangerous in large numbers. They are much more likely to hit you in standalone but the effect is less marked. I.e. they are like a person running after you and hitting you.

Can you still exploit the zombie behavior (running up hills for example)

I think that as a result of playing any game for a length of time, you figure out how to "game the system" a bit. My aim is to make zombies more of a fluid part of the game, more "authentic" in the sense of how they move and react. Along the way want to reduce exploits, but I am sure there will still be some.

Rice? Cooking as a part of crafting? Can we prepare sushi?

Cooking yes. Food can be prepared which is safer and more nutritious.

So bandages evolved into IV Starter kits?

Bandages (military), dressings (civilian), and the IV kits are broken down into several parts which you craft together. The starter kit + what you are inserting. E.g. painkiller drugs, saline, transfusion, etc. Nearly everyone now believes crafting will be the cornerstone of the game really

Is the ability to poop still going to be in the standalone?

It's not a priority but it's an open question. We want to try it and if it's not good we'll remove it

Where do you place standalone compared to the mod both in terms of content and on the optimization/technical side?

They are on different planet's. They are entirely different and almost impossible to compare

Rockets posts on Liriks twitch stream:

Are player animations improved?

God the new player animations are SO much better than the mod's

Are the radios in?

Radio talking is working, which is REALLY cool. SS13 style radios and streaming radios in game from internet sites.

What about vehicles?

Vehicles are priority for alpha, we want to entirely redo vechiles, might leave some in but they'll be ripped out

Any news on a release date?

I would say it is very close. Tomorrow we will say how close. I'm pretty confident you will all be streaming standalone tests VERY soon.

Are you going to be at E3

Yes, we have a booth there.

http://dayzmod.com/forum/index.php?/topic/135668-dayz-double-developer-blog-14th-may-2013/page__st__280#entry1339477

[Mammas_Boy]

I see the Clusterfuck clan coming back together very soon.

[roskelld]

There was a survivor games over the weekend, I didn't manage to catch it live.

Like last time, it's probably cool to watch a few of the feeds to get a full idea of how things played out.

[Padaxes]

Im sure the Hunger Games are great fun to play but I find the videos so tedious. Maybe if someone got everyones recordings and edited them into a proper clip it would be better.

The Dev news sounds promising.

[Cheeko]

I guess not everyone who plays wants to be recording or streaming, or has a rig that can handle it. I enjoyed watching his run and would like to see how the rest of it panned out though for other players.

[Cheeko]

Watched a couple more videos, for the first team both players got hit early on due to desync/ lag issues, one of them was inside a building when they got shot from outside. The second team one guy got run over by his team mate because of some weird lag when he was getting into a vehicle, and then the other team mate survives 2 gunfights and then goes to crawl to get the loot and the tree kills him.

DayZ man, jesus christ.

[Cheeko]

Journal and crafting screen work in progress shots:-

Rest are here http://imgur.com/a/nUkzL#0

[Padaxes]

Looks great ! I love crafting!

[snowbind]

Just fucking release it already. All these new features are amazing, but I want to plaaaaaaaay!

[user removed]

Just gone through the concept journal artwork, it looks fucking great. I'm getting hyped for the stand alone, might have to update the mod and get involved, freshen up etc.

[Cheeko]

I love the idea that you kill a guy, go up to his body and open his journal to see:-

You instantly know he was a messed up asshole and deserved to die.

[spork]

Someone who has a rubbish computer and who can't hold a camera straight has leaked some stand alone footage!

[BrerLappin]

I loved DayZ in the first few weeks or so when it was all new and people didnt know what to do and if you encountered another player it was a ridiculously tense encounter. Hated seeing it basically turn from a game about survival and trust into battelfield zombies, but ill keep an eye on the standalone.

[spork]

I think that was also partly down to the zombies becoming less of a threat as changes kept being made to how the work on the development side. That along with how when it first started we'd all be running around with Lee Enfields, Winchesters and CZ sniper rifles. Once everyone started running around with guns with thermal scopes and everyone has GPS and night vision a lot of the charm was lost.

[BrerLappin]

Yeah, pretty much. I remember the sheer thrill of finding an AK47 and thinking id hit the absolute fucking jackpot compared to the old winchesters. Last time i played it, you could lose the zombies just by breaking line of sight, which wasnt difficult at all. I remember at first having to literally crawl EVERYWHERE cause they were so dangerous. And the panic/joy caused by finding a crashed helicopter, holy shit. It was amazing, but yeah, now everyone is tooled up like fucking rambo it just doesnt feel like surviving in a zombie holocaust, which it did at first. It really felt like you were alone and vulnerable and there was an entire town of undead cannibals between you and a tin of beans. I remember the days when people wouldn't shoot on sight and..

[roskelld]

It still is that game to me, as I've played it from first release, but only occasionally and for the most part solo and mostly attempting to avoid others, happily watching them, but only engaging if really needed. Death to me still means death in a big way, I don't treat the game like Mario with 99 lives.

I can see why it has progressed the way it has, many people complain about the grind of starting with no weapon and having to go through the motions of getting back to a comfortable level, over and over. So servers started upping the content count, being more generous with spawn items to help alleviate that repetitive grind, but in doing so allowed more people access to bigger and badder shit, much more quickly.

How do you create an experience that doesn't progress down that road? The world and content are going to become familiar over time, crash sites and the thrill of finding your first sniper will soften as the newness wears off.

I fear that some of the things that might make it more interesting for some, will piss others off too much. Increasing the survivability of the game thanks to the wear and tear aspect of the stand alone, increasing the random spawn places so that the game doesn't become a memory test of where all the loot appears. To me that's going to make things more attractive. I'd like to see the scope of certain content pushed further out. I remember when the game first started and Neogaf (or was it Something Awful?) managed to repair a vehicle; the idea of driving a vehicle back then was a dream only obtainable by the most organised and kitted out. Now vehicles are more of an expectation. Same with the higher grade weapons, people seem to be expecting those finds really quickly.

The game still gives me a huge thrill when I play it, and I think that's thanks to the fact that I've played it in short bursts since release, never getting too comfortable with the content, map or system, so that the illusion and magic is still very much there.

[spork]

[roskelld]

Update to Origins sounds interesting.

http://www.gamersplatoon.com/forums/showthread.php?10291-Origins-1-7-5-Release-Notes

[Cheeko]

Yeah that origins mod looks good.

[Cheeko]

Looking at that I just have visions in my head of entering into a gun battle, getting hit, then crying 'I haven't got any bandages, I left them in my other trousers!'

[Mammas_Boy]

Ahhh, time to reminisce about the good old Dayz.

The team work, the old zombie screams, the frantic behaviour, strangers coming together.

[Padaxes]

Part of what made Dayz so amazing was the uncertainty. As usual when players have explored all the possibilities and worked out the game mechanics they ruin it all on their own.

[Fox]

- Zombies got too easy. For me they've become an annoyance when I'm trying to do my thang without getting shot by some dick with a sniper rifle.

- Every other server now seems to be called "Server name - OMG 250 HELIS, START WEAPON, MAX VEHICLES". I want minimum stuff. I want to start with fuck all, and be terrified. And since people got fed up of being sniped at Stary or meeting at least 5 hostile players at the NW airfield, admins started adding military spawns all over the place.

- Everyone turned side chat back on. It's so difficult to immerse yourself when you're scouting a precious crashed heli when you suddenly see "PaRiS_HiLtOnS_FlApZ: hey guys, there's a crashed heli south of Gorka. I took a ghillie suit but left some guns" broadcast to the whole server. Fucking fuck off.

- The feeling of entitlement and wanting to get tooled up asap ahead of any other objective, coupled with the ease of doing so, means that 99% of people shoot you on sight. I reached the point where I'll leave a fully-working vehicle I find if I have decent stuff, because I KNOW someone will shoot the shit out of me on sight rather than ask for a lift.

I still play it though

[user removed]

Yeah played a bit on the weekend, Origins included. The vast majority of the 7000 odd servers out there are mainly 500 VEHICLES, AS50 START GEAR, MILITARY PATROLS, LOL GRAVITY. Or some shit, which completely betrays the core interesting aspects of the mod to start with. I'm really looking forward to the standalone, mainly for the clearer pure vision of zombie survival horror.

Origins introduced some nice ideas which hopefully the SA takes on board.

[BrerLappin]

Part of what made Dayz so amazing was the uncertainty. As usual when players have explored all the possibilities and worked out the game mechanics they ruin it all on their own.

Pretty much sums it up. I like the idea of totally randomized loot. As after a while everyone knew where to camp for good loot and they jsut became PVP warzones.

Also, the standalone has leaked, seen people posting screenshots from it on 4chans v board

[user removed]

I'm looking forward to properly dangerous roaming herds of walkers and the huge reduction / removal of military hardware from the game.

[Mammas_Boy]

I don't mind a few military items in the game but shit the bed, make them super super rare, give some incentive.

[Fox]

Yeah, as fun as it can be running around with a SAW in your hand and DMR in your pack, I want to be excited when I find a rickety old Lee Enfield. And I want my brain to melt when I find a piece of military gear.

I want to find an old hunting rifle under a bed in a cabin. I don't want to find an American assault rifle with scope and underslung grenade launcher in the middle of the floor in a firestation.