Namalsk after DayZ Frostline

You have probably seen a lot of info about the next major milestone for DayZ already, DayZ Frostline expansion, and you may have been wondering: what does it mean for Namalsk? Well, wonder no more! In this blog post, I intend to summarize what the release of this expansion means for it.

Since the initial release of Namalsk for DayZ, I have made a promise that I will keep maintaining and updating Namalsk as long as there are any DayZ updates. Oh how I little knew at that point, but my commitment does not change, even if Frostline changes things massively for Namalsk.

First of all, 1.26/Frostline is a massive shake-up for Namalsk and I can tell you Namalsk wont play the same anymore. I understand that for some, change can be a pain, but there have been so many changes that I cant keep it the same anymore.

I would like to also mention that most of the things I will talk about here are actually part of the base game update, not Namalsk stuff, made by me. So credit goes mostly to the DayZ dev team ❤️

Visual stuff

Lets start with some visual changes though. Terrain and object visibility settings are now part of the graphics settings, which means you will be able to see more of Namalsk!

This is around 3.5kms. These settings are only client-side, which means you wont be able to see the players that far unless the server has the default big network bubble of 1km overridden.

Why not more? Well, I give you a hint..

Next major visual change will be without a doubt the new snowfall effect! Together with the massive weather api changes, I was able to not only implement the snowfall phenomenon into the event system, but also the wind phenomena’s, which now allow for a smooth transition from low to high winds and vice versa. Take a look at the following video, where you can see the end of the blizzard event (the event progression is sped-up).

My favourite visual feature of Sakhal has certainly been the material for the frozen lakes and so I could not resist the urge to upgrade the lakes on Namalsk.

And before you ask, no, you cant dig a hole in this ice. While this feature was originally implemented on Namalsk for the two specific lakes in the southern mountains, I had to remove it due to both technical and visual reasons with this change.

Speaking of the ice, I am pretty sure you have seen the boat teaser 👍 and you may be wondering now if those fancy ice shelves coming to Namalsk too? Well, they are not. It would be too much of work reworking the vast ice plains on Namalsk. It would also complicate a lot of things on the gameplay side since unlike Namalsk, Sakhal ice shelves are actual objects (Namalsk ice shelves are built out of the terrain). Still, I am pretty sure the new Sakhal ice shelves will be handy for anyone wanting to create custom locations in the southern half of Namalsk as all of them are spawn-able server-side.

Thanks to Sakhal, I was able to also implement some smaller features such as vehicle tracks in snow, just be careful as the physics properties of snow and ice surfaces have changed for the vehicle simulation!

Another one is a particle of player character running in the snow and sea ice areas:

There are also new wheel particles for for snow, concrete and gravel surfaces:

and last, something for all hidden stash lovers, here is a snow stash variant for Namalsk. Can you find it?

These are pretty much all the environment visual features I was able to implement thanks to the 1.26 game update. Some may ask whether I plan to use Sakhal skybox textures on Namalsk (considering the two are fairly close to each other). I have decided to keep the current Namalsk set as it is fairly unique one already.

One last thing though! Due to shader fixes in 1.26, I had to iterate on the look of un/stable wormholes. Here is a preview of the stable one.

I want to iterate on it more, but that largely depends on how many bugs I will stumble upon while playtesting. If I get more time, you will sure see an update on my Twitter!

Gameplay changes

First of all, yes, the vanilla rubber boats are coming to Namalsk! I have decided to include them into both regular and hardcore setups actually as I think they will work well on both. You will only find the boats on the southern coast:

The reason for this is that I always felt this part of Namalsk is perhaps not so visited by the players. Finding a boat down south also opens up a way back north to pick up a friend or work towards the big adventure goals by travelling to Tara and Phoenix.

Speaking of water, the fishing has seen quite a massive changes with the 1.26 update and Namalsk takes the full advantage of it. The biggest change on Namalsk is that you are now able to dig worms in the grass (similar to Sakhal) so you can fish more effectively (if you use shovel, you even get 3). Alternatively, you can also find the new fishing jig and craft wooden hooks, also added in the 1.26 update.

You will be able to catch the new fish that were introduced with Sakhal, so, say a goodbye to the good old mackarel.

Considering all the lakes were changed to be frozen, you will have to travel to the coast to get some fish. The lack of fishing in the inland areas will hopefully be compensated with the addition of red fox and hare. The red fox will be hiding in the forests and the hare will be running around the fields. Best way to find these is by listening to the noises they make.

Now, lets talk about the cold survival. I have removed a fair amount of the cold survival elements from Namalsk Survival for 1.26 and made it work with the base game systems. This means that you will experience the updated heat buffer, changes to the environmental exposure, calculation of the heat insulation and heat in the players inventory on Namalsk as well. Same goes for the simulation of the temperature on items including the frozen state. The days of spawning a special variant of consumables on Namalsk are gone as the vanilla implementation is much more robust (and temperature-based, unlike legacy Namalsk, which was wetness-based).

You will certainly notice different thawing times (but thawing also happening in the inventory!), higher damage dealt when being extra cold, weather, and the wind in particular, lowering the heat comfort much more. Exterior fireplaces, including gas stoves, being less effective in heating up, making the interior fireplaces a preferred way to warm up.

Major changes comes up also with bears and wolves. Their meat is infected with parasites and it is now a lottery to consume unless you are prepared to deal with the consequences. Unlike Sakhal, I still made sure Namalsk snow is contaminated with cholera (not exactly authentic, but its the closest vanilla disease that I could use) to make sure you get sick if you attempt to directly consume the snow.

If you have read all of this, you may be wondering, what is there left of Namalsk Survival?! Don’t worry, it wont be gone of course. The event system has been updated and the big Namalsk adventure stays as well. When it comes to the cold survival bits of the mod, I was able to reimplement both cold resistance and frostbite into the changed base game systems.

As usual, adding all sorts of new clothes and items that came with the update to Namalsk is a norm at this point. Details will be in the change notes ahead of the release (together with a fairly massive GitHub update for the server-side files). As you can see below, there is a lot this time around!

Given the focus and the size of the 1.26 update, I will actually have to update the mod descriptions to remain truthful about the features that it brings 😅 I hope you enjoyed this read and I will be looking forward seeing your adventures in 1.26 and Frostline soon!

And now, I will go back to playtesting Namalsk – to see if I did not break anything in the process 😇