A very busy couple of weeks for the whole team has just ended. Everyone has been preparing for our next big update, scheduled for sometime this month. Some highlights outlined in this post.

Guaranteed Updates

As previously mentioned we want to move from the current situation where the client and server “spam” messages at each other, hoping that some of the messages get through. Because they can’t be sure, the updates have to be sent again and again. This is believed to be the major restriction from breaking the 100 player limit. We anticipate this will be appearing on experimental servers next week, and then onward into the update for this month.

Fireplaces

We’re ready now for our final implementation next week of fireplaces and the ability to light flammable objects on fire. Many visual updates and changes to the engine have occurred as part of this and we’re now making the mechanisms for players to decide where and how to make fires and how to light items on fire.

Physics and Throwing

We will be deploying this to experimental next week to gain some more feedback on its implementation. Progress on ragdoll has been steady although this is unlikely to be in experimental next week and will be ongoing for some time. A new animation system and animations have been made that allow you to “power” up your throw, the same system is used to allow you to draw your arrow when firing from the bow.

Player Mouse Control

Many players have outlined how much the mouse acceleration/controls need to be modified. Players head (view) will move instantly with raw 1:1 mouse feedback. Weapons may “lag behind” depending on how heavy and cumbersome the weapon is. For example, players with a pistol will be able to turn around and fire much faster than a player with a M4, or a chainsaw.

This represented a great deal of work and the complete replacement of the old system, therefore some bugs and plenty of tweaking are expected.

These will be deployed to experimental next week for more player feedback.

From the Art Team: Chris Torchia, Lead Artist

We’ve got our team working in so many different areas its hard to write a small summary of all the work.

We’re wrapping up our part with archery and have a nice looking improvised bow and crossbow to release soon. Our animators have been spending time in the mocap studio to get accurate drawing, firing, and reloading animations for them and its looking great.

Our new studio in Bratislava has been hard at work making some of the new food items which were shown by Dean at Rezzed as well as create all new wildlife models and we’re hoping the combination of archery, wildlife, and campfires will create a unique survival hunting experience for our players.

As for firearms, the P1 pistol is complete and configured in game. The same is true for the AKM but we need to spend some time polishing some of the rough edges before adding them to the loot tables and pushing to public. We’re finally going to implement stripper clips with the mosin and sweep through and tweek some of the firearm cfg values. As well, a little project I’ve kept under wraps is nearing completion. The first SMG in DayZ game will soon be ready and I hope you all will like it.

For character art our talented artists have created a couple new player heads for more unique looking characters which we’ll add in soon. As well, we’ve made a Soviet-style officer hat and the tracksuit! Next up, we’ll look at police, EMT, and firefighters.

Lastly, our environment art and map teams have continued to create new, interesting buildings and objects, as well as expanding the number of explorable towns, with the addition of Karmanovka – a town containing over 3000 objects!