DayZ has come a long way since hitting alpha late last year, and although there have been big jumps in previous updates, none seem to be as significant as what Bohemia introduced with 0.49. Most of that is good, mind you, but unfortunately there has been one major setback. Before we get into that, here is a look at all the shiny new stuff and concepts that 0.49 introduced into the game.
New Items
- Hunting Knife
- Balaclava (different versions)
- Firefighter jacket (different versions)
- Cattle Prod
- Stun Baton
- Telescopic Baton
- MASKA helm
- Medical Thermometer
- RDG-5 Explosive Grenade
- Soviet Officer Hat
- Various spawn table changes
New Game Mechanics
- New melee hit detection
- Player temperature
- Resuscitation
- Fibrillation
- New events (helicopter crashes, vehicle spawns etc.)
- New door implementation
- Players can now run up and down the stairs
- Zombie variations
- First iteration of central economy
- Animal navigation mesh
New Animations
- Digging Animations
- New restrained crouch pose
- New restrained crouch walk
- CPR animations
- New zombie walks, runs, sprints and idle variations
- Ragdoll changes
General Game Bug Fixes
- Duplication techniques removed
- Shotgun pellets in multiplayer are now working
- Player can no longer take an item in hand while handcuffed
- Various gesture related fixes and polishing
- Raised move with bow in Standing stance and rotations with bow
- Minor polishing for different reloads
- Unintended fishing cancellation by player movement should be reduced
- Wearing Raincoats and Gorkas now prevents you from soaking from rain
- Clothes drying revised
- Berry picking, tree and kindling gathering and worms digging can now be cancelled
- Player gets wet even when only partially submerged in water
- Ruined axe warning message
- Balaclava mask can get wet
- Weather client synchronization
- 7.62×39 cartridges have weight
- Rags and sticks are spent when they are in hand before crafting starts
- Allowed swing detection for most melee weapons
- Added sound, music, radio and speech fade in dead state
- Battery licking animation for check battery action
- Various de-synchronization issues
- Various server performance issues
- Player can no longer change weapon when in water
- Player collisions adjusted to reduce clipping through walls in various situations
- Fixed an issue where certain gestures would not get called from raised stance
- Fixed footstep sounds in various moves
- Fixed an issue where the player could fall to the ground after performing “Drink All” action
- Fixed an issue where on occasion, one player restraining another would not result in successful restrained animation on the player being restrained
- Fixed an issue where the player entering water would not get disarmed automatically under certain circumstances
Other Random Issues Addressed
- Persistence (Events do not get loaded properly after server restart)
- Persistence (Server state can become corrupted due to grenades stored in containers)
- Melee (When using rapid left click there is a high chance that melee weapon will get switched)
- Broken shadows in some cases
- Zombies are unable to get into some of the buildings.
- Events (bad positioning on spawn, items might spawn below ground, can be seen on inventory screen)
That is a whole lot of improvement in one update, and we can’t help but wonder if the development process is being sped up by the looming competition from Sony Online Entertainment’s upcoming title, H1Z1. That, of course, is pure speculation on our part.
For all the good that’s been done, however, there is a major (and we mean major) problem that reared its ugly head since 0.49 dropped, and that is frequent server restarts. The problem is so bad that some of the game’s most famous and best ambassadors, Jam Jar, KD Wolf and Mr. Blackout, have had a difficult time streaming it lately. Of course, being the Heroes of Chernarus that they are, they’ve trudged on. Click on each of their names to check out their YouTube channels, and take a few moments to watch this video by KD Wolf himself.
