Three new spawning locations have been added to DayZ Standalone with the new patch upgrade of 0.44. These are in Chernaya Polana, Orlovets and near Klen. All three of these locations are found on the east side of the map. They are also more inland than some of the other current spawning locations.



These three new spawning locations have had the effect of pushing people slightly further inland and pulling them away from Berezino. Interestingly though the Orlovets spawn is just south of Berezino and Klen is further north approximately the same distance. What this in effect has done has widened out the area in which initial combat and encounters can happen. The third location in Cheraya Polana is further north, still on the east coast, and is located further inland. This location is also a new town in DayZ Standalone and for this reason has probably been selected so as to increase the awareness of all the players within the game and to try and drag them as far away from the two main cities of Cherno and Elektro as possible.



Using spawn locations to enhance quality of gameplay



By creating three new spawn locations further north and to the east, one of them being in perhaps the furthest removed locations on the map, will enhance quality of gameplay. By having less players gathered in one spot, for example one of the bigger cities, there will be less lag and less items gathered in one location. This will reduce the amount of lag, particularly caused by lots of new in game items. These items are carried naturally by the players.



Increased appreciation of the map



By in a sense forcing people to explore more of the map, by spawning them in new locations, players will become more appreciative and knowledgeable of what the map can offer. By spawning in, for example the new city, they’ll able to see what it has to offer. It also means, because currently there are no vehicles in game, the players have to travel across land and encounter the towns and cities between the new spawning locations and a potential destinations. The result is a more rounded picture of a gaming environment and becomes a great tool for allowing players to develop their characters further.



Different types of encounter



If players are set on moving south, heading to one of the larger cities, this puts them in travelling mode. Whereas if they’re near one of the largest cities and they are looking for immediate conflict, firefights and shootouts, they are immediately in an attacking stance. Whereas if they are travelling down the map players tend to be more cautious, open to suggestions and communication, aware potentially that they may well not find top loot in some parts of the eastern coast and therefore conscious that they will not win fights. This spreading the spawning locations into other regions does create a sense of the need to travel and all the baggage that comes along with that.

New combat zonesInevitably with more spawning locations you will find that certain zones become more aggressive, even if people are travelling away from those areas and potentially heading to zones that they know. There will always be some players who want to immediately engage, a result of this will be new hot spots for fighting, and sniper zones when you could be picked off by bandits. It will also have an effect on cities near spawning locations, obviously because those areas are now more highly populated. This increased number of players, will make those areas more dynamic. Players may well decide to stay in the area or move to the nearest city rather than travelling far south to one of the bigger cities. Expect places like Svetlo and Krasnostav to become more dangerous.The quieter westThe three new spawning locations are all in the east. This will make the west quieter especially seeing that there are more towns and cities in the east, now the map has been more developed. This means if you can get across to the west, to towns like Vybor and Zelenogorsk then the chances are they will be quieter than they were previously. The lure of the new town, near the spawning, and the interaction in the east will likely mean that less people visit further to the west and those that do are likely to be tactical looters and potentially less aggressive players.The lure of the North West airfieldOne of the biggest targets for players, single and in groups, is the North West airfield with players spawning on the east coast players are going to be travelling directly west and inland. This is going to create new corridors of travel. Players will find new routes, new roads, new towns to stop off at and use which will take them to the airfield where potentially you get the best spawn items. This is going to result in some of the smaller towns being more readily visited a long these routes. It also might result in more ambush scenarios and areas where players as fresh spawns fight each other to prevent people getting ahead of them to loot particular areas of the map, which include the airfield.Adding in new spawn locations initially looks like it’s just opening particular parts of the map, and it does, but it is a far more complex story then it first seems. Yet in a sense is a good thing to allow players a reason to understand the gaming environment further, and I suspect we will see further spawning locations, potentially even ones on the west side of the map within DayZ Standalone, especially if the developers decided to add in new towns further west.