DayZ patch paves the way for more player and zombie numbers, adds new gestures

DayZ has received a new stable patch, although, in the world of early access survival games, the term stable is somewhat relative. The update brings some minor features and bug fixes, but the most important change is the continued improvement of server performance. Thanks to "a significant change to the server variable processing," the game's servers should have received a major performance boost. According to the patch notes , this should result in a smoother game experience and, more significantly, is another step towards the goal of increased player and zombie numbers, as well as the enabling of loot and zombie respawning.

In terms of features, crafting has received some extra usability tweaks, with combat knives and machetes able to open canned food. Also, the game has machetes now. That's not a terrifying thought in the slightest. Elsewhere, military zombies have been made tougher, weapons have been rebalanced, animations have been tweaked, and new gestures have been added. Players are now able to both clap and point. I dread to think of how those two simple interactions will be twisted into something sinister.

You'll find the full patch notes below. For a rundown of DayZ's confirmed upcoming features, head to Dean Hall's community post from last year, where he lists some of the work still to be done.

DAYZ PATCH UPDATE 5 FEBRUARY 2014

Branch: Stable

ETA: Complete

Version: 0.33.114926

Known Issues:

- Spawns: Loot is not spawning in military tents

- Spawns: Some structures in Svetlo currently do not spawn loot

- Server: Servers under load can delay actions from the client

- Graphics: Only 4 dynamic light sources will be rendered at one time currently

- Actions: Looting a dead body may make a ghost clone copy of the inventory

New:

- Actions: chambering SKS round from pile, loading 10 rounds from pile

- Actions: You can uncuff other players with the hacksaw

- Actions: Cannot use an item (e.g. drink/eat) if it is "Ruined"

- Actions: Interactions with items reworked. Drinking/Eating/etc... more robust and user-friendly

- Actions: Restrained players cannot use inventory or action menu

- Animations: Player now can take and hide rifle in crouched run

- Animations: SKS reload animations

- Animations: firing weapon when sprinting will transition player into the aimed run(with some temporary limitations)

- Crafting: FNX45 pistol can be chambered with single round

- Crafting: Opening cans with combat knife added

- Crafting: Opening cans with machete added

- Crafting: Painting Motorbike Helmets to Black and Green

- Crafting: Waterbottles and canteens now allow pouring water between them

- Effects: Magnum revolver ejecting shells when reloading

- Effects: Magnum revolver sounds - gunshots, reloading

- Effects: Mosin ejecting shells when cycling

- Effects: New Mosin sounds - gunshots, cycling, reloading

- Gear: Improvised courier backpack added

- Gear: Machete added

- Gear: Hard hats added in various colors

- Gear: Motorcycle Helmets have black visor variants

- Gear: Small, uncomfortable, and silly (but cute) children's school backpack

- Gestures: Clapping Gesture added, default F5 key

- Gestures: Pointing Gesture added, default F6 key

- Login: Player queuing system introduced. Penalty waiting time added for switching server or disconnecting a server quickly

- Login: Players receive a login timeout when disconnect, increased if disconnect within 30 minutes of joining (max 5 minutes)

- Login: When players logout, their avatar sits on ground for 30 seconds. Players must make sure they logout somewhere safe

- Server: Player spawns now cached by engine directly, increasing performance

- Server: Optimized synchronization and transfer of variables within and outgoing from server (significant performance increase on server, of 5-10 FPS)

- Spawns: Added Bubble goose jackets into the loot spawns

- Spawns: Added SKS rifle, speedloader, ammunition piles and boxes and SKS bayonet into the loot spawns

- Spawns: Healthcare Center now spawns loot

- Spawns: .45acp box of 25rnds added to loot spawns

- Spawns: Police stations now spawn loot

- Systems: Hunger and Thirst slightly modified.

- Systems: Notifications added to UI for hydration and high energy

- Systems: Fractures can now occur due to melee and shot damage, not just environmental

- Systems: Fractures (arms/legs) now saved and loaded correctly from database

- Translations: Added strings for all consumable items (Gas canisters, Batteries etc) and container items (First aid kit etc) for English, with some Spanish and Russian

- Zombies: Different types of Military zombies now have tougher attack values and improved durability

- Zombies: Engine dynamic obstacle checking (zombie, another player)

- Zombies: Svetlojarsk zombie spawns added

Fixed:

- Actions: morphine injection can be used on other player effectively fixing his broken legs and item correctly positioned in hands

- Actions: Keys won't disappear after uncuffing

- Actions: loading ammo works for sprayed Mosin variants

- Actions: Read/Writing notes with paper and pen now works again

- Actions: reviving with epinephrine or defibrillator works also if player blood is below 500 units of blood

- Actions: Actions on another player no longer have an unlimited distance (max 2 meters)

- Art: Bug allowing players to clip through geometry of the police station building.

- Animations: fixed an issue where reload in prone would leave some residue sound clutter at the end of the reload animation

- Animations: Weapon reloading for magazine was not working properly when no magazine fitted

- Animations: Rifle Aimed Walk Updated, diagonal animations fixed

- Animations: Sidestepping through doorway with rifle while crouching should not cause the player to get stuck now

- Animations: knocking down player now possible in prone states, (possibly fixing the issue with frozen characters)

- Animations: changed animation for equipping the compass

- Animations: Proper animation played when taking pistol in run

- Animations: Changing stances is faster now both for armed and unarmed player

- Animations: Skinning problem with armored zombies that caused the model to warp during some animations

- Animations: Standing with aimed weapon now allows for higher angle of tilt/bend

- Animations: Mosin bolt animation after each shot updated to match hand animation

- Animations: Removed footstep sound from pointing animations

- Animations: Pointing gesticulation now possible even when holding 2 handed weapons

- Animations: Clapping now possible to initiate while holding 2 handed weapons

- Config: Berries have more nutrition now

- Crafting: You can no longer saw off sawed off shotgun

- Crafting: Can spraypaint M4 to green or black

- Crafting: Damage is now transferred when items are painted

- Crafting: Improved Backpack creation only possible when Courier Bag is empty (previously items accidentally deleted)

- Crafting: Weapon cleaning kit can't be used when it's "Ruined" and won't reduce condition of a gun

- Crafting: Spraypainting an M4 won't delete your carry handle

- Crafting: Guns are no longer placed on ground while being painted (if not nescessary)

- Crafting: You won't loose attached universal weapon flashlight after M4 painting

- Items won't longer appear on ground after unsuccessful force feeding/drinking/fibrillating/handcuffing and won't loose quantity

- Effects: Dazed effect plays again when a player is hit/damaged/shot

- Effects: Some effects were not active locally when a player was restrained

- Effects: gunshot sound of Magnum reverted to original one

- Fixed: Missing texture error dz\weapons\data\weapons_damage_metal_smdi.paa

- Fixed: Popping up texture error for beret models

- Gear: Spraycans won't deplete after relogging

- Gear: Book, radio, pot, pan, gas canisters, matchbox, paper, firewood and stone can be placed in hands

- Gear: Headlamp beam raised slightly

- Gear: Painted items now retain their previous quantities (i.e. Magazine ammo won't reset)

- Gear: Various item descriptions and notifications fixed for grammar, typos, more detail

- Gear: ZSh-3 Pilot helmet fixed and updated

- Gear: Hoxton and Dallas masks where displayed in center of character, now display on face

- Gear: Splint position in hand was wrong now corrected

- Gestures: Taunt defaults correctly to F4 key

- Graphics: "god rays" could cause overloaded post-processing and graphical corruption

- Graphics: fix of removing shining object from hand (switch off)

- Graphics: Roads have per pixel lights

- Graphics: Dynamic lights should be now defined with "radius" value which is maximum radius of light in meters

- Graphics: Tooltips are now not displayed for quickbar items, as it is a reference to type not specific item

- Login: Respawn button now works correctly

- Login: Various bugs fixed associated with connection errors that could cause a character to be deleted or killed by the server

- Spawns: Lowered chance of Taloon and Mountain backpacks spawning

- Spawns: Drastically lowered chance of backpacks spawning on the construction site

- Spawns: Loot spawn tweaks in some civilian structures

- Weapons: Mosin recoil increased

- Weapons: Sawed-off shotgun can be loaded with ammo (was broken due to changed inheritance)

- Weapons: Sawed-off shotgun: reduced size in inventory, reduced spread

- Weapons: It is no longer possible to attach longrange scope onto SKS

- Weapons: M4 carry handle can now be attached to painted variants of M4

- Weapons - fixed error in config of shotgun snaploader causing low velocitiy and damage

- Zombies: Better filter/check of attack hits directly in engine

- Zombies: Military zombies made tougher

Hotfixed:

- Crash: Irregular crash of server in corpse garbage collector consequence of this is that the bodies will not disappear if other player is in vicinity

- Crash: Creating item using recipe system caused serious server crash when not enough space in inventory

- Crash: Client crash on exit, all systems 100% reproduction

- System: Previous build caused overzealous starvation to occur