Day Z: a realistic open-world zombie mod for Arma 2 with PvP and persistent death

Started playing DayZ with my friends again yesterday. My character that has been alive for months with a bunch of kills finally died today after starving, getting knocked out and ate by a zombie. My friends couldn't bandage me in time :(

Looking forward to standalone. The new inventory will hopefully be a lot less clunky and easier to understand. If they make improvements to the players interaction with the environment (mainly buildings) then it'll be awesome.
 
mH3gzjz.gif

http://dayzdev.tumblr.com/post/41444643504/this-is-the-first-update-when-i-have-sat-down-and
 
Wooaah, new area.
Edit: Actually, it looks like it might be an expanded Berezino military camp. You can see the air field across the road on the right. Seems like the coast would be visible on the left, perhaps the geography of that area was changed significantly?

EBrat1J.jpg



That post is really exciting. Good to know he's so enthusiastic and things are going well.
 
It does look really great, and I'm excited, but the things he is talking about and the time frames he is giving leads me to believe this game isn't going to be actually finished by the end of the year. Which kind of sucks.
 
That GIF is so stupid, hahaha. Looks like they're doing some great work, though.
 
You might want something a little better than the 570, but it's still a pretty darn good card.
 
Ye the card isn't really a sure thing yet. Since Arma 3 is so far away I'd probably hold out on buying most of this stuff, but this is the current build.
 
You don't understand, you're going to need a computer from the future to save yourself from the godawful optimization Bohemia graces us with
 
BabyHeadCrab said:
You don't understand, you're going to need a computer from the future to save yourself from the godawful optimization Bohemia graces us with
Click to expand...
Would you give it a rest already? You've said this at least 30 times in this thread already. And you certainly don't know how well optimized two games that haven't come out yet are, and you also have no basis to make the claim of how well optimized a game like Arma should be. We get it, you can't run arma 2 well on a machine that can run other games very well.
 
I was on youtube and saw this video. Imagine if Day Z looked like this... (modded Crysis (original) engine)

 
Funny, foliage still looks pretty shit upon close inspection. Also motion blur is so, so dumb. I do enjoy those sunshafts too. mmm (sun)shafts

I was in this odd meditative serine peaceful trance before the video turned violent. dammit.
 
The sun looks really nice. But yeah, the blurring on every camera movement is kind of annoying. Hard to tell though how it would be if I was actually controlling the player. It was disorienting to watch. And something about the post processing was really an eyestrain. Too much contrast or something.
 
Cryengine has this weird phony look sometimes. It lacks clarity because the games that use it overuse the shit out of post-processing. Even without those effects flipped on cryengine gives me an odd disconnect that I never feel with Source or Unreal.
 
Come to think of it, Frostbite similarly gives me this sort of discomfort. Something seems not quite right about it.
 
Another development update, this time in the form of their first video devblog



They really ramble on about things so it's not an exciting watch except for a few moments. The first half is showing off the new clothing/wearable system, though still no view of what the actual UI is like for it. What we do know, though, is that each wearable item is capable of holding other items, which is very neat.

8:07 - Showing off the new swamp area in the map. This looks really cool; I love the footbridges.
9:20 - They've added the Utes island as an island in Chernarus, south of Skalisty island (odd place to put it, but could be interesting)
10:30 - Showing the new way in which loot spawns, where instead of having a few locations per building where piles of loot appear, this time individual items can appear scattered around the place, and you actually can spend time looking behind things to find loot someone else may have missed. An obvious criticism of this is that it might be frustrating or seem like a chore given the clunky movement/stances in the Arma engine, but we'll just have to see how it turns out on release.
14:25 - Loot may also appear in vehicle wrecks on the road
 
So no word on a possible overhaul of the interface and controls at all? Pretty cool upgrades none the less.
 
What do you mean by interface, exactly? He definitely does intend to overhaul (and already has made strides, apparently) the UI. He wants to make things simple and easy. I gather that will include the controls to a degree. As for actual movement and stuff beyond gear management and such, there's no word of that. As an arma player, I really don't have much concern about that.
 
Well, see, I'm a filthy casual who is used to baby controls. But that isn't exactly pertinent, I still expect to grapple with simulation based, alternative control mechanisms. I just would like strides in ease of use. In other words, I'd like the game to allow actions which, even in real life, would go more seamlessly than they do in the game/sim. Does that sound right? I can elaborate more if you can explain to me if you have any grievances.

What do you want changed in terms of inventory, controls and maneuvering?

Keep in mind, this is a day 1 purchase for me, as is DayZ standalone. I don't regret buying CO at all anymore, I'm just genuinely curious.
 
BabyHeadCrab said:
Well, see, I'm a filthy casual who is used to baby controls. But that isn't exactly pertinent, I still expect to grapple with simulation based, alternative control mechanisms. I just would like strides in ease of use. In other words, I'd like the game to allow actions which, even in real life, would go more seamlessly than they do in the game/sim. Does that sound right? I can elaborate more if you can explain to me if you have any grievances.
Click to expand...
I assume you're talking mostly about how difficult it is to pick up, drop, equip, and generally manage your gear. This is exactly what Rocket intends to overhaul, both in form and function. Similar things are being done in Arma 3.

BabyHeadCrab said:
Keep in mind, this is a day 1 purchase for me, as is DayZ standalone.
Click to expand...
Er, but we're talking about DayZ Standalone! What were you talking about?
 
11:05

That fridge and oven are ridiculously, ridiculously badly scaled. The oven is like, knee high.
 
The oven I agree, but there are fridges like that you know. We're talking about a third world country here.
 
Jeez, they could at least splurge a bit for an Electrolux. How barbaric.
 
vt.net arma chat: shipping containers yes, kitchen appliances no.
 
Another devblog update

Not much meat but a lot of feature confirmation. Here's a list I compiled:
  • Virtually nothing from the mod has been directly ported over; it is all redone
  • More personnel have been brought in
  • Internal testing is still in progress
  • Multiplayer engine is being revised to operate in a server-client MMO model (nearly everything runs on the server)
  • Experimenting with having a form of 'economic regulation' to determine what loot spawns (affected by all servers in the hive), instead of just using hard statistics in a loot table for every server
  • Asian women
  • Inventory system still being programmed, crafting system will be approached soon
  • Weapon customization is confirmed, and all weapons are being completely redone in high detail.
  • There will be less weapons on release, but content will be released weekly (for free)
  • More changes to Chernarus are under way, especially with Ivan back
  • Expanding art team is bringing tons of new clothing, items, weapons, buildings to the list of things they want to add
  • The goal is to try and keep the game hud-free, using sounds and animation to convey statuses
  • More zombies than there ever were, due to the advantages of having them be server controlled
  • There will be a radio system similar to the one in Space Station 13
  • Vehicle customization is planned to be pretty in-depth. Each part has various damage states. If you take a door off another car and put it on yours, the color of the door may not match your car and you'll see that.
  • As said before about the weapons, new clothing will be released each week after launch (for free)
 
Server side zombies and such is probably going to make it hard to play with people in different countries because not everyone is going to have a good connection with the server, and that means people getting killed when it looks to them like the zombie is 15 feet away.
 
Krynn72 said:
Server side zombies and such is probably going to make it hard to play with people in different countries because not everyone is going to have a good connection with the server, and that means people getting killed when it looks to them like the zombie is 15 feet away.
Click to expand...
I don't think they would have made any kind of move in the opposite direction as far as performance. Actually, I don't think he was talking about zombies on a micro scale, but the actual spawning itself, which used to be local. You have to believe that whatever changes they're making to the multiplayer architecture are going to be for the better.

And actually, I think you're getting things confused. If zombies were 100% controlled by the server, then there would only be as much lag as the player's connection. Unless zombies can travel 15 feet in 300ms, I don't think you'd see that situation. The reason you saw it in DayZ was because zombies were controlled by clients, and the AI was doing 2 different things on 2 different people's computers before syncing up again.

So in other words, client controlled zombies in the DayZ mod are what was causing the massive zombie desync. Server controlled means it's entirely consistent, and only with a slight delay which depends on the user's ping.

Client-controlled AI worked fine in regular Arma because the AI was more predictable and didn't move around as much, with such speed. So what the client's computer showed was nearly always consistent with what the server calculated.
 
So this game hasn't been in the spotlight for us very much since the A3 Alpha started, but things are looking quite promising now, after watching the first couple minutes of this conference thing

The biggest part of what made us lose interest in DayZ Standalone once we got a taste of Arma 3 was how much better the controls were. We really did not want to go back to the clunky Arma 2 controls. But now that's all different, because Rocket got some of the Arma 3 guys to work on the controls for his DayZ version of the Arma 2 engine, and now the controls look as good as Arma 3's, with some possible differences to account for the difference in type of game (milsim vs. survival). He's still playing with options as far as whether to include things like tactical pace and the like, but the important part is that we're not going to have to regress into the comparatively awful movement and aiming of Arma 2.

I'm watching as I edit this post, and he's showing the new gear/inventory, and despite the temporary graphical UI, the usability looks very good. You can actually put stuff into containers (shirts, backpacks, etc) that are on the ground without picking them up and wearing them first. This looks easier to use than Arma 3's, and it really should be since inventory is a huge part of DayZ and they've put a lot of work into it.

The radio system sounds totally awesome. You can actually do something like turning off the radio speaker, setting it on the ground, and it will pick up anyone who is talking nearby and transmit it to anyone listening on that channel who is in range.
 
the early access build is up on Steam and probably an absolute chore to play

discuss as Bohemia oils up and swims through money
 
Going to stick with ArmA3: Breaking Point until some reports roll in. I wonder if the physics have been changed at all, I know they added ragdolls, but I don't know if I can go back to that engine
 
Hmm.

Some things are better. The inventory is quite an improvement over ARMA2 and the new items open up a lot of possibilities. I like that most of the buildings are open now, and the map itself has a far greater number of locations and details. The zombies are a little less jerky in their movements, but the melee combat still feels rubbish.

The movement physics are mostly unchanged, aside from new animations for the flashlight and melee weapons. Things do feel very stiff and clumsy after playing ARMA3 for so long, I really don't notice any difference in the running and aiming compared to the mod version. Also it is hard to ignore how sluggish the older engine feels compared to the relative smoothness of ARMA3.

Overall I would say the biggest improvement is the item distribution and functionality. There are far less guns and ammo lying around in every barn, meaning that there is very little shooting happening along the coastline (Though that is likely to change when people figure out all the spawn points). There are a vast array of new food items along with medical items to cure the inevitable poisoning they give you. The clothing and backpack stuff works really well in practice too.

As much as I love the time I spent in the mod and how much I adore the premise, I can't help but think that the standalone is bringing too little too late for me. I will give it some time to grow on me though, maybe my gripes are just the shock of revisiting the game after time away playing other things.
 
Part of the charm of DayZ was that, in itself, it was a modification - with communities who made their own servers, rules, scripts and maps. The very idea of a standalone in the first place had a mixed reception in my head, and still does.

I think Dean Hall really created something visionary, I'm just in no way interested in a more "purist" experience. For those who don't know, Hall is obsessed with survival elements. He's very into the survival simulation aspects that remain in his own project... but is still relying on the 2.0 build of their technology. It's all quite bizarre.

Thanks for the writeup, Lobster. Keep me posted... I'd hate to see this turn out amazing and end up paying double after early access ends.
 
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