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DayZ standalone: It’s still coming

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30

Daisy

In June this year, Dean Hall promised  an alpha release of the Zombie-centric ARMA 2 mod DayZ. It’s nearly the end of 2013, and that’s still not happened. Where the hell is DayZ standalone, and why is it taking so long?  In a discussion on Reddit (via Mp1st), Hall explained why it’s taking so long. Mostly, it’s all about bugs.

While all the basic stuff is done and the game is working, it’s jus not working as well as it should.

We think we need a minimum of 15 FPS will 50 players, 2000 zombies, and 25000 loot items. Our latest tests have all shown some runaway systems in the code we have to tidy up. The variable synchronization system that was developed for work with the network bubble, is checking the variables very often. We’re optimizing this. Also, there are many string comparisons. These have been refactored so references are used (lookup numbers) to speed up the process. things like animations etc… are generally recorded as strings – ArmA wasn’t build to handle very large numbers of things so this has been a large area of optimization.

We also have a bug where sounds (which are temporary vehicles) are being queued up and sent to all JIP players. This causes us a steady loss of performance on the server.

The synchronized variables are also checked for each player, this is inefficient and we are refactoring that. It is our biggest obstacle to releasing the alpha right now. We know what needs to be done with it so we’re working on that, then we will again reassess the performance.

Zombies are also just not working properly.

We have now something that provides basic functionality for 10-20 players. The new zombies are in, they provide excellent pathfinding outdoors, and improved pathing indoors. They are capable of breadcrumb navigation or line of sight. At low server FPS they will start to rubberband and glitch through walls much more often. They are very much a work in progress.

I’ve been very interested in giving DayZ a go, but I’ve been waiting for the standalone, mostly because I’m a lazy sod and installing the DayZ mod on top of Arma 2 and the necessary expansions just seems too much like hard work.

Last Updated: November 11, 2013

30 Comments

  1. Umar Moe Moe

    November 11, 2013 at 13:12

    In the mean time , State of Decay will keep me occupied on PC. Holy Mother of Addiction that game is good. Still looking forward to this though.

    Reply

    • Admiral Chief in 1986

      November 11, 2013 at 13:13

      Same here. You enjoying SoD? Keen to try it this side

      Reply

      • Alien Emperor Trevor

        November 11, 2013 at 13:15

        How are you enjoying Deadlight?

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief in 1986

          November 11, 2013 at 13:17

          Only had one day of jamming (got stuck in PS2 again, lovely war that), but so far rather interesting

          Reply

      • Kromas

        November 11, 2013 at 13:16

        It is one of those games you have a hard time putting down. “I just want to move my base.Should not take more than an hour” BOOM! your whole Saturday gone.
        Well worth the price.

        Reply

      • Umar Moe Moe

        November 11, 2013 at 13:49

        Very good, slow start,very slow start but well worth every penny once it opens up!

        Reply

        • Admiral Chief in 1986

          November 11, 2013 at 13:55

          …loaded on wishlist!

          Reply

          • Umar Moe Moe

            November 11, 2013 at 13:56

            just don’t be put off by the boring start

          • Kromas

            November 11, 2013 at 14:10

            Don’t forget to mention perma-death. Every time I go out to to scavenge I pray that I will return.

          • Admiral Chief in 1986

            November 11, 2013 at 14:15

            Wow, that sounds epic!

          • Kromas

            November 11, 2013 at 14:58

            It drives me up the wall. I am finally half way through my second play through (of about 4 restarts :P) and I can say I have not lost a soul.I kinda feel like I could do better than Rick in Walking Dead.

          • Umar Moe Moe

            November 11, 2013 at 14:15

            Ahh yes, true, but I like that fact. Makes it more realistic

    • Rags

      November 11, 2013 at 13:50

      Can you play it offline, SP?

      Reply

      • Umar Moe Moe

        November 11, 2013 at 14:15

        Yebo Gogo, Pure Zombie Survival bliss

        Reply

  2. Admiral Chief in 1986

    November 11, 2013 at 13:12

    HAHAHA, DayZ….

    I see what you did there Mr Tim!

    Reply

  3. RinceandRepeat

    November 11, 2013 at 13:16

    Header win!

    Reply

    • TiMsTeR1033

      November 11, 2013 at 13:34

      You would say that…

      Reply

      • RinceandRepeat

        November 11, 2013 at 13:38

        Eh?

        Reply

        • TiMsTeR1033

          November 11, 2013 at 13:42

          Eh yourself…

          Reply

          • Admiral Chief in 1986

            November 11, 2013 at 13:49

            WTF are you on about?

          • Exalted Overlord Geoffrey Tim

            November 11, 2013 at 13:49

            Monday Blues?

          • Unavengedavo(aka. IceCreamMan)

            November 11, 2013 at 14:21

            Leave Tanya alone… It’s nor her fault that aunt irma came to visit 😛

    • Weanerdog

      November 11, 2013 at 14:22

      The header is pure win, and as it took me a good 5 minutes to get it I laughed the hardest.

      Reply

  4. Kromas

    November 11, 2013 at 13:17

    Current speculation on release date on forums and Reddit is Tomorrow (Tuesday), Friday or next week Tuesday.

    Reply

  5. Devourer of Small Bunnies

    November 11, 2013 at 13:17

    Dat Header #dies

    Reply

  6. Brian Murphy

    November 11, 2013 at 21:59

    Yawn, in the meantime, Arma 3! wooo

    Reply

  7. trueLies

    November 12, 2013 at 08:07

    when is dayz for arma 3 coming out?

    Reply

    • th3SiCn3ss

      November 12, 2013 at 09:56

      It’s already out, goes by the name of “Zoombies” & is buggy as hell, as to be expected. It looks good though……

      Reply

  8. Johan de Wit

    November 13, 2013 at 07:16

    So we are basically getting a huge map made for about 1000 people but the server can only at this stage house 20players max?

    :/
    I didn’t want to say this, but that sucks.
    It might as well be Single player seeing as you will never ever see another player.

    Reply

  9. Alex [SS] PsyChoPanthis

    November 13, 2013 at 08:39

    my excitement for the standalone has dropped daily… at this point ill stick to DayZ Epoch and Overwatch

    Reply

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