DayZ weekly update: bear trap controversy, hacker attacks, and boar vaulting

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“I just moved everything to Prague,” says DayZ creator Dean 'Rocket' Hall on the mod's official forums . “The 1.7.2 update has been ongoing, inbetween the drama that occurs when you're trying to move in a country which you don't speak the language.” So, that explains the delay. Rocket is obviously moving to Arma 2 creator Bohemia Interactive's HQ, who are based in the Czech capital. In his absence – and because of the delayed update – the forums have exploded with misguided anger and flaming.

Latest game updates

There haven't been any patches or hotfixes since our last weekly update . Expect the next version of the game, 1.7.2 , to be a significant upgrade.

Rocket had this to say: “1.7.2 has some really fundamental changes in the way it is constructed, mainly geared towards performance and security. As such, this really needs to be tested very thoroughly even before it is released to everyone here [on the DayZ forums]. I'm digesting as much as I can from the thread about what people want to see in it, but 1.7.2 will probably mainly focus on the architecture."

In the community

It was revealed that bear traps will be added in the next patch. “It would be funny to lay them down in sniper hotspots.” says DayZ forum user Paniohitus. “Barbed wire in buildings wasn't bad enough? Now we have god damn BEAR TRAPS?” says Gutbuster, who is less impressed with the new feature. “In theory, cool. A new item to enrich gameplay! In reality, bear traps all over the good loot buildings.” Says ArrThePirate. In response, Rocket says: “Where's your sense of adventure?”

DayZ forum user Kurozael asked Rocket whether he could make the zombies slower. “Fancy slowing down the animations of the zeds a bit? They're so fast that it appears jittery. Also making them run directly at you in a straight line instead of zig-zagging would be cool.” Rocket responds: “This will be happening, possibly along with infected running inside buildings. This all needs huge amounts of testing and I'm reluctant to fuck it up, given the current build is pretty stable.”

On July 2, the DayZ central servers – where character data is stored – went down. “Experiencing a sustained network issue with our central sever that appears to be a major DdoS attack,” it said on the official DayZ development Twitter feed . “Most users will not be able to connect.” In a thread on Reddit , rumours were flying that the attack was by a Russian clan in response to a recent speight of perma-banning. “You gotta laugh,” says Redditor _K0kane_. “Hackers buy the game, buy the hack tools, FAIL at the game, FAIL at the hacking, get banned, then pay more for a botnet to DDoS the servers."

The week's best videos

A DayZ themed cover of Johnny Cash's 'Folsom Prison Blues' by GriefingGamersTV

A new way to pass the time in DayZ by Alixbox1723

The fabled trampoline zombie, spotted by ThePhaseZero

An atmospheric fan trailer by icemotoboy

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If it’s set in space, Andy will probably write about it. He loves sci-fi, adventure games, taking screenshots, Twin Peaks, weird sims, Alien: Isolation, and anything with a good story.