DayZ PAX 2016 Summary

Just took some notes of what Hicks was saying during the stream
Stream recording for those who want to watch it themselves: http://www.twitch.tv/astrogaming/v/38446679
Renderer
.60 update end of February but whether it is experimental or stable remains to be seen but intent is first iteration of new renderer. Supports DX 11 so DX9 wont work anymore. Future goal to support DX12. With new renderer looking at dense scenes, seeing upwards of 100+ frames, midrange settings on midrange card. Dense scene meaning an area like Cherno, Novo, Berezino, or areas that are currently low performance. No video on new renderer yet since some things aren’t as smooth as they want them to be.
New UI
Also includes main menu, server browser, dialogue boxes, settings, loading screens. (Hicks gave his designer shit for using comic sans on a UI mockup) Switching through servers will show the character you have stored on that server. Can view multiple characters whether they are dead or alive (Hick's didn't say this but perhaps it will be similar in concept to this UI concept video). Server browser will have 3 tabs (he liked Rust’s server browser on how clear it was whether it was an official server or community) wants to include ways to easily select servers for that vanilla official DayZ experience. Next tab will be community servers. 3rd tab will be modded servers. Inventory screen – a lot of back and forth on the design. Will see dialing in of design on UI over next coming months. Goal is to get it as functional as possible for .60 (knocking all the bugs out). Can turn off any messages in game (direct, battle eye, vehicle chat). New icons (similar to what the mod had for thirst, sound, hunger, etc) can be disabled. Critical vehicle status will be visible (speed, current selected gear).
Vehicles and Maintenance
*Little Bird – Model is all done, matter of configuring physics in multiplayer, singleplayer is done.
*Priority soon for artists – fixed wing aircraft
*Bicycle – Model is done, need to be configured for physics. They wanted to put the time in to properly do the physics.
Central Loot Economy
Trying to find the right balance between ammunition and weapons. Magazines are difficult to find and when you do, they are full. Talking with Peter about randomization of magazine volume quantity. Higher chance of finding empty mags though. They want to increase the quantity of total magazine spawns. Cars are spawning with randomized state of parts. Same system will be used for weapons as well spawning with different attachments. Mags have a chance to spawn on points labeled as ammunition and additional chance of spawning as an attachment for the weapon.
Player Bases/Construction
Peter is finalizing design and functionality for the generator and electric fence. He wants the buildings/bases to look natural. No sky bases or anything crazy.
VOIP / Communication
They aren’t happy with current VOIP and are looking into it. Not anytime soon though. Continuing work on server wide communication. Don’t want to use side chat for quick and easy communication. Mods can turn it back on though. Been working on radio broadcast stations people can use. A control point to control communicaitons across the server. Altar has been chosen as spot for it since it is fairly easy to access and give people a better chance. Just one radio. Still working on megaphones – tech work is finished but design team needs to work on it and test it.
New Radio Station Building
Radio Station Logo
Server Performance
Continuing to work on into and through 1.0
Chernarus Map
*NEAF is redone
*Contaminated Areas- Tisy. All major structures are done up there but need to sit down with designers to actually set up how it will work. Want there to be a slow burn or similar effect on the character if you aren’t equipped with hazmat gear.
Mod Support
*Namalsk – Community map, they don’t have ownership of it. The author though, Adam, is an environmental artist working on Chernarus+. When they roll out modding, Namalsk should be the first mod. Custom items, new buildings, every structure enterable. Completely redone some underground areas.
*Server binaries and hive package (once released) will allow full control of what the devs have now. Will be able to change frequency of spawns, player spawns, parts rarity, dynamic events, frequency and location of infected spawns, etc.
New player controller
Want to talk about it in the upcoming dev video.
New damage system
Won’t see a major gameplay change. Will see less bugs but will change fists from being treated as bullets so they actually behave like fists.
Sound
Still waiting to move sound tech over. Sat down with Arma 3 guys to talk what they can inherit from Arma 3 sound design. Late February early march like to see implementation.
Miscellaneous
*New weapon – Scout from Counter Strike or a NATO type long range weapon confirmed. Plenty of more weapons coming too. Sway and hold breathe will come with balance in beta. The way it operates now is not how they want it.
*PSO scope will spawn on its own again soon.
*New military backpack that slipped through will soon come to spawning
*M4 – Not spawning right now, security issue (Meaning any M4 in game is hacked)
*Feedback tracker is critical to tracking down bugs and strongly encourage it.

SOURCE

Thanks for sharing. Yeah it seems DayZ is going to have a good year here in 2016. I'm hopeful for its future.

ever since dean left and brian took over the development on dayz has picked up 10 fold. question about the m4. if we happen to kill someone with it wether it be a hacker or not, can we keep the m4? cause if so ima do some player hunting

Ved wrote:Thanks for sharing. Yeah it seems DayZ is going to have a good year here in 2016. I'm hopeful for its future.

Yeah next update should be a game changer for DayZ

Canadian Bandit wrote:ever since dean left and brian took over the development on dayz has picked up 10 fold. question about the m4. if we happen to kill someone with it wether it be a hacker or not, can we keep the m4? cause if so ima do some player hunting

Odds are you won't find one on private, but I guess it's possible. It would probably be best not to pick it up since its hacked in, and battleye might flag you (idk better safe then sorry.)

gh0st op wrote:

Odds are you won't find one on private, but I guess it's possible. It would probably be best not to pick it up since its hacked in, and battleye might flag you (idk better safe then sorry.)

yeah you have a point there. did a little bit of pvp at nwaf today. died, but then had a blast down on the coast .