Status Report - Week of 15 Sept 14

Security.

This is the topic of this week’s status report. As we move forward with development on DayZ past 0.49 and into 0.50 this is one of our primary focuses. Throughout our Alpha and Beta phases the core engine that powers DayZ is created. During this process new engine functions are introduced, deprecated functions are removed, and the general nature of how a great deal of systems operate can completely change. Within normal closed development this would not be an issue, however developing DayZ in the open and updating the primary branch with any reliable frequency can leave us vulnerable at times.

Individuals focused on identifying, and exploiting vulnerabilities during the development process -will- find holes. No amount of closed testing within a time scale that allows us to update the primary branch with reliable frequency, and keep to our target of a two to three year development cycle will stop this. However, Early Access does offer us an unparalleled opportunity to identify, and address potential vulnerabilities with how DayZ functions prior to the 1.0 that traditionally we would never have. Vigilance as these vulnerabilities are identified, and addressing them is critical to the stability of DayZ 1.0, and will serve to make the final product that much more of an enjoyable experience.

That said, over the next month these are our security goals.

Purge of the stable branch hive
- The intent here is to purge existing large volume magazines and legacy items from the economy
Working with BattlEye to deploy a new, more comprehensive method of detection
Closer collaboration between our internal hacks/exploit team and VAC
Addressing at an engine level current methods of rapid player position updates
Rolling out private shards for player rented servers with our game server provider partners
- Private shard servers will offer the additional protection of server administrator level bans, password protection for private shard servers, and whitelist support

As 0.49 rolls out to stable branch today, the most obvious change with this update (aside from the stable hive purge) is the move of the initial persistence feature for rented DayZ servers to an opt-in selection with each game server provider. Given that consumer data, and player storage is such a valuable and key feature to DayZ, and still very early we want to ensure that the system is a physical choice each game server administrator makes. While this system is refined, each game server provider operates a last known good fail-safe for servers opting in to persistence that will restore the storage from the last successful startup in the event of any unforeseen failure. Moving forward into 0.50, we intend to move persistence from this opt in system to all stable branch servers.
- Brian Hicks / Producer

Chris / Lead Artist
“Character Art:

Since my last report, we wrapped up on bugfixing some of the character art (for now anyways) and began working on medical scrubs, a prison uniform, and some new women’s clothing. Yes, soon you will be able to don a skirt as you mow down zombies, fulfilling that weird fantasy we all have. Work continues on the new civilian zombie and so far it’s looking quite nice. I’m looking forward to getting some feedback from the fans about him.

Vehicles:

The base vehicle model will be finished this week and we have begun working on the various parts which players will need to find in order to repair and maintain a working vehicle.

Weapons:

We’re polishing up the AKS74U and the SVD of old, since we’re closing in on a centralized economy to regulate the number of them on the map. The MP133 and Lever action are waiting on sounds. A new weapon you can expect in the not-to-distant future is a Steyr AUG. One of my favorites.”