At PAX East this year, Dean “Rocket” Hall and other members of the DayZ development team held a panel showing off the standalone and answered fan questions. Our very own CJ Melendez was there in person, and was kind enough to record the entire panel for all to see.
The panel is a delight for DayZ fans, as many of the promised standalone updates we’ve have been reading about are shown off on stage and elaborated upon further. For one, Dean explained that the controls are getting a complete overhaul, and that members of Bohemia Interactive’s own Arma 3 team have been helping rework and improve the controls. They’re even considering making it so you’ll have to hold down a key to even fire your weapon, adding a “quick draw” element to encounters.
The new inventory system was showed off much to the crowds pleasure, and it looks like it functions a lot like a drag and drop inventory systems similar to that of traditional western RPGs. Despite the visual interface of the inventory system not being finished, the functionality on display is already leagues better than what’s in the mod version of DayZ.
Dean also expressed that much of the more radical and expansive ideas in the standalone will not be at the launch of the game, only because they’re trying to make sure the core experience and mechanics of DayZ are solid before anything else. Things like base building and vehicles were some of the items Dean said would not be at the launch unfortunately, but they’ll be added by via updates later down the line.
Dean also said they once their client/server structure is down, the team will be doing a review of what they have as a whole by June and afterwards look to get the standalone into players hands. Let’s hope everything comes together and we can get a summer release!