January Staff Meeting Summary

Jari

6 years ago

Modding, Server Tweaks, Merch and More

In addition to our constant internal communication, the DayzUnderground team holds regular TeamSpeak meetings that cover a wide range of topics and projects. It’s fun to get as many of us as possible together and spend an evening discussing and planning. Sometimes we get drunk but more often than not, we manage to stay productive and go through the entire agenda.

With the 1.0 release of DayZ, we sat down to discuss what changes were in store for our community and server. While most of these topics have been discussed in the past already, with the release of modding tools and our new self-hosted server, we are finally able to bring some of them to fruition.

Here is a summary of what we discussed in our January staff meeting, what we plan on implementing in the near future and some of the things we are currently working on.

Server Tweaks & Modding

  • As of now, we have implemented the “Classic Names and Descriptions” mod key to our main server, which reverts the names and descriptions of weapons and other objects to be more realistic and fixes some of the $UNT$ description placeholder bugs.
    This mod is an “opt-in”, meaning it is not required to subscribe to it to continue to play on DUG.
  • We will be testing WeaponRedux on our test server  and we discussed other mods we are interested in testing, such as: VanillaPlusPlusMap, Destruction Rebalance, and Zombie Health Rebalance, to name a few.
  • The central loot economy numbers were tweaked server-side so that suppressors will be able to spawn, even if the majority of them are hidden in camps. In addition, we are lowering the spawn rate for the night vision optics, to make them more of a high-end loot item. We tweaked zombies to drop less food and tools.

Over the past weeks, we have examined and tested multiple mods and deployed some on our test server or already used them during one of our regular community events. We think that mods can offer a much needed variety for the lack of content the 1.0 update and engine migration have brought to DayZ. We are aiming for a unique and custom DayzUnderground modpack. While implementing mods, our main concern is being able to continually provide a stable and reliable environment for our players and staying faithful to our dedication to an engaging and fun hardcore DayZ experience that doesn’t deviate from DayZ’s core vision as  an unpredictable, authentic and unforgiving sandbox. Unfortunately, modding support is still limited and many modders had to make compromises that result in various server issues.

Bohemia has to prioritize support for smooth installing and loading of mods!

Before we implement mods, we will consider their impact on the CLE and overall gameplay experience (will we have to wipe players and persistence when updates release? What happens when server/client versions are mismatched?) We strive for a smooth process of installing, loading and keeping the correct mods updated.

We petition BI to prioritize work on a smooth server browser that lets players automatically find, install/update and load the right mods for any given server.

The current mod launching support is still a mess. While 3rd party tools such as the DZSALauncher try to help, there is no reliable way for people in the server browser to even find the correct mod versions required.

We do not want short term solutions to cause long-term problems for our players, such as persistence loss, invisible weapons, server kicks, server crashes or character wipes.

  • Based on a poll given to our community members, we have opted to change our server to a 4h day and 1h night cycle during open hours.
    This new cycle also allows players who usually play at consistent times to experience a new slice of the cycle every day  During the scheduled whitelisted time, the cycle will remain 2h/1h between day and night.
We have implemented our first mods and tweaks on the DUG server. Is there an improved server browser on the horizon to make the experience smooth for players?

We have implemented our first mods and tweaks on the DUG server. Is there an improved server browser on the horizon to make the experience smooth for players?

Shiny New Stuff

  • We recently updated our  private forum and website with new artwork from our team member and game capture artist DrDeSync and they turned out beautifully! We will implement more changes to the forum, such as custom CSS for our Wiki where lots of information is archived.
  • DUG Merch! We will open a store for custom DUG T-shirts, along with other merch ideas. Any profits will go entirely towards community/server funds. We will work with our community to make your favorite designs a reality!
  • We are coming up with a list of cosmetic in-game perks to reward factions for their contributions. Although nothing has been finalized yet and we will be looking for community member feedback to implement the best ideas.
  • Do you shop on Amazon.com ? All US players can now contribute to keeping the server with its 100+ USD monthly bill running just by shopping on Amazon. We got approved for the Amazon Affiliate Program!
    Make the following link, that contains our unique partner ID, your Amazon bookmark and click through it when you order something. Everything you buy within 24 hours after clicking, gives the community a small comission between 1-10%, paid for by Amazon itself, without any additional cost or inconvenience for you. We don’t see nor get any personal data and can’t tell who buys what.
    100% of the profits go towards community/server costs. For now, it only applies to the US market, but we’re working on enabling the same for the EU Amazon markets and will keep you updated!
  • Here is our Amazon.com affiliate link to bookmark: https://amzn.to/2FVGRfX

Handling Our Growth

  • We have implemented a new application form for getting whitelisted and joining the community!The new application flow changes some of our previous questions, removed others and in general makes it easier to go through. We have also included the option for applicants to submit their e-mails so that we may send out application status messages and provide brief reasons if an application was denied. We’re happy that everyone who applies can finally receive an answer!
  • In addition to our forum, we have created a dedicated channel called “submit-content” in the DayzUnderground Discord where everyone, non-members included, can directly submit their DUG content to have it published by our media team.
    To handle the huge amount of content our community produces, we will be looking for more additions to our media team. More on that later!
  • To process appeals quicker, we will assign an additional staff member to our Ban Appeal team. We have also slightly revised our ban appeal form.

We thank you very much for looking through our meeting summary.  The time following DayZ’s 1.0 release has been very busy so far, with many new people joining DUG, new groups forming and new adventures being experienced on the server. We are very thankful to have such an engaged community!

The DayzUnderground Team