Standalone DayZ’s latest update has been pretty well received so far, bringing persistence back to the backstabbing, murderous online world. We spoke to the game’s lead producer Brian Hicks about the update’s main aims, how he hopes they affect player experience and working towards leaving Early Access.
“A big goal was addressing the issues with item cleanup and respawn so we could turn the server side persistence back on,” said Hicks. “For the users, this meant a huge change to how the game played – what was dropped on the ground stayed on the ground until the system cleaned it up. Server restarts no longer meant an unexpected loss of user progress.”
In addition, the game’s economy was altered in the 0.58 update, changing what items spawned and tweaking their drop rate and location. “Add to this longer server uptime – 12 hours from the previous four – the first iteration of required vehicle components – glow plugs, battery, fuel, tyres – increased server side performance, the first viable build for base building, and the slaying of some long running bugs,” Hicks continued. “All these put together and you have a much more ‘DayZ’ style experience.”
