1:00:00-1:32:23
GUS: I, I have been wanting to play some more Burnout Paradise for a while now. At last I have an excuse.
JACK: It’s funny. The last time I played it was a year ago, so..
GAVIN: It’s funny to go back and watch some of those early videos.
JACK: They’re so bad..
GAVIN: It’s kinda funny.
JACK: They are so bad, dude, but anyway, thank you for.. four years of Achievement
Hunter.
GUS: And, uh keep listening. We’ll be talking wi, to Rocket about Day Z, and the future.
BYE!
--CUT TO INTERVIEW--
GUS: Hey everyone! We’re super excited to have, uh a couple of people involved with the, uh creation, or I guess the running of the Da, popular Day Z mod for Arma II with us. We have Matt Lightfoot, and Rocket from, uh do you guys work for Bohemia directly?
ROCKET: Not really. I was working for, um Bohemia, but not right now.
BURNIE: Ok.
GUS: So we’re, uh we’re both huge fans of the Day Z mod, and uh, Burnie’s the one who introduced it to me, actually. I have no idea how you heard about it initially, Burnie.
BURNIE: Well, here’s how I heard about it, so I was uh, talking on the podcast about different types of zombie games, and I was talking a little bit about how Minecraft is essentially a zombie game. Where you have to build your shelter, and then the sun goes down, and out come the zombies and the monsters, and you have to survive all night. It’s kind of changed a little bit, you know? Because I played the PC version, and you know, once you get past that first like, night, or two nights, then you’re kind of safe, and It’s just like you have to stay away from Creepers and things. Anyway, so, so we got to talking, Gus, at one time how it would be great to have a sur, a zombie survival game where your whole goal is just to survive and scavenge, and you know, just stay alive as if it was a real zombie apocalypse. And after we talked about that.. I think it was like three or four months later, all of a sudden I started getting all these tweets, like, like, one at a time at first, then it was like, three or four, of people saying, “Hey. You should really check out Day Z, you should really check out Day Z.” and I was like, OK, I, I’ve heard a lot of people who’ve said this. I’ve got to check it out. So I got on Steam, downloaded Arma II, and then installed the Day Z mod, and immediately jumped in and go, “Ok, this is exactly what we were hoping for.” It’s a zombie
apoca, apocalypse simulator. So, how, how long have you been, have you guys been working on it?
ROCKET: Well, basically, since about December, I guess. Uh so that’s when I started coding on that, sort of, probably. It was sort of using technology that I’d previously developed for another mod, for Arma II. Uh, but only really seriously did I guess uh, since then. Since late December.
GUS: So what, what prompted you to choose to do, you know, create these mods, you know, it sounds like you’ve made more. What prompted you create these mods in the Arma II engine?
ROCKET: Well, I guess I was quite familiar with it, and it’s also a very versatile engine, so there was obviously quite a receptive live community, and the industy itself is quite receptive to mods, and I had used uh, Virtual Battlespace too, with my work in the military, and that’s based on the same engine.
GUS: So, I,I,I,I When I think of uh, you know, zombie survival games, I, I find, you know in my head, I, I wouldn’t imagine there would be much parallel between you know, a military, you know, tactical, you know, very nitty gritty game, but uh, it seems to work well. I you know, are there any things that you wish you had that would make your life, you know, any easier in creating the mod?
ROCKET: Yeah, well, you know, I guess with, with the Arma engine as it currently stands,
there isn’t a huge emphasis on inventory, and things like that. So, that’s something that’s
very useful uhm, that, and it would make a big difference with this mod.
GUS: So you talk about inventory, and one of the big things about Arma, or not about Arma,
about Day Z, is when you spawn, you have nothing. I mean, I feel like there’s obviously been
changes,
BURNIE: Yehah!
GUS: Made, like you used to spawn with a gun, and now when you spawn, you have, I think
you get painkillers, a bandage, and a flashlight, and that’s it. You know, what, was there a
lot of fear on your part when you make a decision like that, like, that’s a really core
decision, to make people who used to spawn in with a gun spawn with no gun. How much,
how much worrying goes into that?
ROCKET: Yeah, well, I guess that a, it’s a very good point that you’ve raised, like uhm, I
think there is a, a pretty big danger whenever those changes happen, and even, even small
changes, like changing the audibility of a weapon, or something like that can have very,
very big effects in the game itself, so with uh decisions like removing the uh like removing
the weapon and things like that, those were pretty difficult decisions to make, uh,
particularly when the player numbers got up there, but they’re an important part of the
experiment, and the vast majority of players out there, they want to see these kinds of
experiments and changes too, to see what works and what doesn’t. And, I guess it’s just a
matter of making that change, and then seeing what happens, and that’s the advantage, I
guess, of being a mod, uh rather than a game, is that you can make those decisions
because you don’t have to worry about whether someone’s going to buy your product.
BURNIE: Yeah, that’s a good point. Hey Rocket, I have to ask. Your accent, I thought..
Bohemia is located where?
ROCKET: uh, it’s located in the Czech Republic.
BURNIE: The Czech Republic, but you obviously don’t have a Czech accent. Are you, are
you from New Zealand?
ROCKET: That’s correct. I am from New Zealand.
BURNIE: Gus. How do you like my ability to spot the New Zealand accent?
ROCKET: You didn’t spot me Australian. It’s quite a moment.
GUS: I was, I,I, I was gonna commend you. That’s uh, that’s uh, that indicates you’ve spent a
bit too much time in Australia and New Zealand.
BURNIE: What to be able to tell the difference between the two accents?
GUS: Umhumm.
BURNIE: So that’s really interesting, so Rocket, where are you located, if I can ask?
ROCKET: uh, at the moment, I’m located in Prague, in the Czech Republic.
BURNIE: Ok. And so did you emigrate from uh New Zealand to Prague?
ROCKET: Yeah, that’s right, so I was working for the army at the time in New Zealand, and
then I headed over to the Czech Republic on a contract to work, uh to do some contract
work on Arma III, which was one of the, uh one of the reasons I, that I did work quite heavily
on the Day Z mod during sort of January, February and that, because I didn’t speak the
language, I was in a small, uh town, in the Czech Republic, so I, I had a lot of free time, and
uhm, at sort of night and that, so it was also a good chance for me to become more familiar
with the engine while I was working on Arma III, so I guess it was sort of a meeting of a
bunch of different, you know, different level things that I focused quite heavily on while I was
there.
BURNIE: And what’s your background with, like, why a zombie survival game? Why did you
choose to make that mod?
ROCKET: Well, I’ve always been pretty interested in, in zombies and infections and things
like that. And, uh, you know, my brother is a virologist, so we would have lots of
discussions, you know, after watching, you know, zombie movies and things like that.
BURNIE: oh, no kidding?! That’s impressive, yeah.
ROCKET: And I think, I think kind of everyone hasn’t, and you were talking about Minecraft,
and I remember the day when I first picked up Minecraft, and that was the thing that really, I
really enjoyed, was the, “Oh, I’m in this hostile world. I’m gonna have to survive.” And, you
know, for better or for worse, Minecraft went in that really awesome direction of creativity,
so you build stuff, and, and all that, and went very heavy in that direction. But I, but I really
wanted to see more of that survival type stuff, and particularly really brutal, like non-stylized
world, um survival. Uhm, so, so then I thought I’d then, I’ll, I’ll see how it goes. It was also a
good chance to do some performance testing on the uhm Arma engine as well. That I tends
towards smaller group play, than it usually, previously.
BURNIE: Yeah, one of the crazy things we really enjoyed about it too is that it’s a zombie
survival game, but just the introduction of other survivors, which are the other human
players, and the way the dynamic of the environment. It just turns the survivors into just as
big of an obstacle as the zombies. Was that something you hoped for, or was that
something that came about that was a little unexpected?
ROCKET: There was definitely hope for it, I mean, that, that freedom to play as who you are
was really important. Because that was another frustrating thing I found was when.. It’s kind
of like in movies when, you know, like in horror films, when a characters do something, and
you’re like, “Why did you do that?” I was seeing a lot of that happening with uh, when I was
playing games. So, I would find that my character was being forced to do something that
didn’t make sense to me. And I really didn’t want that to exist in Day Z. So if you decide that
the first thing you’re going to do is go straight to town, and you’ve got no weapons, you’ve
just got a torch, and that’s fine. The game lets you do that, and that is a really silly move.
That adds quite a gravity to the decisions you make, and to me, that felt like a very
important part of a survival game was, you know, the most important decisions are gonna
be the decisions you make, and the most important decisions you’re gonna make are the
ones you make in the first five minutes. So that adds a whole level of tension to the f,
thinking that you have to make in the game.
GUS: You know, it’s funny you talk about other survival movies, when I would watch.. Before
playing Day Z, when I would watch, I would never understand why some survivors would go
rogue in movies. Like, why wouldn’t they just all work together? It would seem so
counterintuitive. But after playing a healthy amount of Day Z, I’ve realized that survivors are
just problems. Like, It’s just weird. Like when I’m when I encounter anyone in the world, it’s
like, how am I gonna get out of this problem? Do, this person is gonna invariably kill me. I
need to take care of this right away.
BURNiE: Are you saying…
ROCKET: I, I, That’s a good point. I do think there sort of is something missing from Day Z,
and that’s what happens after you survive, so you’ve survived those first few days, but then
there’s not really a lot to do, and I think the only challenging thing is, as you say, is to uh kill
other players because the zombies..
GUS: Deal with them.
ROCKET: the zombies aren’t a huge threat. And, and look. No matter how much time we
spend on, uh, AI routines, and making the zombies more challenging, I don’t think they’re
ever really gonna compete with other players. Who like you said. They develop their own,
uh, their own decisions, there’s deceit, they learn, they don’t learn, they do stupid things, so
I think humans are always gonna have that unpredictable nature in Day Z. But we need to
provide the something else, and I think once the something else is there, I think that will
again be sort of a watershed change for Day Z to give it more of a future other than this
traumatic sort of modeling of the first few days of survival.
GUS: I think what you all do on the Day Z website is fantastic. Where you post the average
lifetime of a, of a survivor. Uh and the last time I looked it was sitting at about 38 minutes,
which is pretty healthy if, for the first time you play.
BURNIE: Oh my gosh!
GUS: I think the first time I played, I don’t think I made it five minutes. Uhm, so you’re talking
about, you know have something else be on the zombies, and be on the survivors. Are you
picturing, you know, down the road, as you put more work into it, like, I don’t want to say an
endgame, but maybe a story you can, you, you’re thinking about implementing into the
game?
ROCKET: Well, I think there’s no problem with calling it endgame. I’ve used that term
myself. While it’s not strictly true, people understand what it means. So there really needs to
be a “so what are you going to do now that you’ve survived”, so that first aspect of Day Z.
Landing on the beach, you know, right? That’s all about those initial, crucial decisions you
make, and then it sort of evolves through. There’s the idea of the gameplay, so it’ll evolve
through to what do you want to do next, and your game will, so what we need to provide the
ability for the players to do a bunch of different things. To support the different game styles,
and one of those is obviously going to be, you know, developing a uh a group, uh
developing what they, where that group wants to live. One thing that I’ve talked about quite
a bit is moving into underground structures, which I think, uh you know, like Eve Online has
it’s capital ships. I think uh underground structures could be the capital, the capital ships of
the Day Z universe. And that would allow, yeah, the more in-game stuff, and it would give
people a reason to group together, cause if they want to develop this properly, then they’re
probably gonna need to team up.
GUS: So, uhm.. Basically like a super fortified player housing, or defensible positions.
ROCKET: Yeah. Exactly right, and, and I think we can really push that in all sorts of
directions. We really want to stay away from a story as such. I think having a narrative, so
like a background to the world is very important, and that can be expanded a lot, so allow
the players to not only explore the terrain, but also explore what happened. But I think that
what happens after the game starts, that should be player controlled, so we’ll provide the
ability for the, uh, for the players to interact with their world and find out about it, but I think
uh it really needs to be completely left up to the players, too. Uh, to alter the world going
forward. Now I think that’s where the real fun will come. You know, you start to see it. You
start to see people doing all these really exciting, cool things that I guess people term
emerging gameplay, but I’m not even entirely sure that, that sort of fits with it, and, and I
think that we just need to provide more tools to people for people to do that.
BURNIE: Yeah. You know, another thing too is that just the nature of the game, you know, if
you just take a zombie apocalypse, the, the way it would start. It’s like you know it would be
a series of events, but it would be one day.. Did you ever read the book World War Z at all?
ROCKET: Yeah I have, yup.
BURNIE: Like there’s that point, there’s that point where, that I buy into, where’s there’s this
critical mass that happens where they hear about the incidents, but all of a sudden it just
takes over, and you realize this is, this is the way things are. So in Day Z, the mod, it’s like
you drop in on the beach, and you’re in this world, and it’s just go. There’s really no tutorial,
so it’s like you have to figure everything out. You have to figure out that zombies can hear
you from a distance, you have to figure out how to manage inventory, you have to do all that,
but I’m assuming as part of the development of a mod, are you gonna build in tutorials for
people to use?
ROCKET: I think that, you’ve, you’ve hit the nail on what I see is a very important part of it.
And that’s, I like to think of it as, as trying to make it as intuitive as possible. Now, it’s
certainly not, there’s a lot of it that isn’t intuitive at the moment, but having things like the
hunger and the thirst, there’s a lot of complex mechanics that go into the calculation of
them. Com, Complex uhm, you know, formulas, and, an, and the way it works, but I think it’s
really important that we don’t say, “This is how it works”, all audibility like if you get within
fifty meters, someone will hear you, and that’s adding a lot of subtlety to things, so the
player has to rely on their own knowledge inside their head. So that’s when you start
thinking, well how, and in fact, it’s even subconscious, how, how would zombies react, and
obviously, they don’t necessarily react as good as we want right at the moment, but there’s
a, there’s a large part of it I think in how I think a player approaches it.
ROCKET: Obviously, they don’t necessarily react as good as we’d want, right at the moment but there’s a- there’s a large part of that I think in how a player approaches it. And because, the, the tutorial I guess is almost going on inside the player’s heads so there querying themselves I think it really personalises the experience. So we want to expand on that more. Make as little of UI as possible. And make a lot more use of sight and sound in game so that it-it becomes a more personal experience. And if we’ve designed something that’s not working then we need to go back and just keep working of that until it’s intuitive.
GUS: It’s an interesting thing what you said about y’know not telling someone
explicitly that, they can be heard 50 meters away because it’s almost like learning in
real life y’know when you’re a child you’re like, you-you’re making noise and you
don’t know at what range it is someone can hear you anymore.
BURNIE: Right.
GUS: Uh..which brings up another interesting thing that I love about DayZ which is
the fact that there’s no longer any Global Chat. Which really adds to… I feel like
the immersion aspect, y’know and again it goes back to what I talked about like;
you spawn with no gun, you can’t communicate with people that aren’t immediately
next to you
BURNIE: Right.
GUS: So it really, y’know when you start you really have that sense of isolation and
y’know the unknown, so, I-I- I dunno I-I- I guess I could-I could sit on the fence
about your tutorial idea as to whether or not, that’s uhh.. that’s something that
would be helpful.
BURNIE: No I was, I was kinda curious coz it goes back to the philosophy of
y’know the overall experience, but then the playability aswell.
GUS: Right.
BURNIE: It’s like you don’t want to alienate players y’know who jump in, you
wanna-you want them to have that first like couple of moments of fun, early on so it
kinda hooks them in. But I get to it’s like this experience is what it is and this is the
kinda game where y’know it comes in and it’s-it’s-it’s essentially a super advanced
simulator.
GUS: Mm hmm
BURNIE: And it’s got, permanent death essentially, I mean you lose your stuff,
your stuff s your character in a-lot of ways because you don’t level up your
character anything like that. And so it’s like you’re asking for a big commitment for
the player from the get-go and, y’know when they get in they should realise that.
GUS: Yeah.
BURNIE: Yeah.
GUS: Yeah I’m-I’m currently in a state with my character where, I’m scared to log
in. Because I-I’ve accumulated so much good stuff , anytime I think about logging
in I’m like, okay is it daylight?-yeah. Is it probably gonna be…-are there gonna
be-is there gonna be anyone friendly in there? Y’know…. I dunno. So I am really
on the fence right now, I’m really-I’m really in a weird position with the game which
I have never experienced before.
BURNIE: Yeah, it’s like-it’s like one of those like, well oh-one of the best examples
I can use is I went out and God I thought…I couldn’t manage the inventory system
when I first started, and that’s basically from the ARMA engine, that it inherits this
inventory system from there But..
GUS: Yeah.
BURNIE: I went online and got the T-maps of like what do the controls do, and I
remember there’s a map button, and I hit the map button and it’s just black, it’s just nothing, there is no explanation of you don’t have a map or anything.
GUS: Yeah.
BURNIE: It’s just-it’s black y’know, you got nothing.
GUS: That’s one of the things I have right now that is keeping me from logging in,
is that I have a map and I am so scared the thing.
BURNIE: Do you have a map and a GPS? Or just a map?
GUS: I have a map…No I do not have a GPS; I have a watch though which is
awesome!
ROCKET: Yeah.
BURNIE: Yeah. I mean it’s one of those things, that’s like little moments that are
basically like you would constantly have these little moments of discovery. And
then you also have things like , you’re like running between towns and then
somebody blows by you in a car or on a bike, or something like that, and you’re
like; What just happened? It’s like where-I it’s like you realise somebody else is
playing a totally different game than you are.
GUS:*Laughing*
BURNIE: It’s like I’m just trying to get to this house, y’know and figure out which
house I can get into, while avoiding the zombies. And somebody else is like, living a
good life from what it looks like.
GUS: *Laughing* Eating Caviar
BURNIE: Ahaha.
GUS: So uhm... What, y’know, what did you guys do to get the word out about
DayZ? Y’know I’m curious to know what the-what the origin of what y’know what
patient 0 for-is for the mod was because it seems like it’s so huge now y’all have I
think 500,000 people playing at the moment?
BURNIE: Well they’re up to 500,000 sales of ARMA II.
GUS: Oh is that what it is?
BURNIE: Yeah it’s like if you read the reports that they’re saying you know it’s
obviously, the popularity of DayZ as it’s growing is driving sales of ARMA II, but
yeah Rocket I’d be curious to hear about y’know the path of-of, of y’know the
growth of this thing as well.
ROCKET: Yeah I-I just looked up umm now, because I have live access to the live
stats so, it last refreshed 20 minutes ago and uhh we got 657,000 umm, players,
unique players at the moment.
BURNIE: Wow Congratulations, wow that’s awesome.
GUS: Yeah that’s great
ROCKET: It’s pretty cool umm, I guess the-the way it started was, and initially
there was just one server, and they, it was the development server run out of New
Zealand curious enough one I rent there. And umm, we had the mod up on that and
basically I’d sit down with uhh Matt and the guys and I do the development, then I
get them in to join, and I’d say what do you think of this? And it would actually be
kind of live development, so literally we’d try something out and the- I would ask
their opinions and uhh we’d talk about it, we’d maybe even argue about it and then
I would, re-upload the mod and we’d just start the mission again. So that would
sort of go on quite a-for y’know-for for 5 or so hours a night, and then we’d
y’know I’d go away develop a bit more and we’d start again the next day. And
what happened was we-we saw a-lot of people who trying to join the server
particularly if we accidently forgot to put a password on it, so I thought we need
more testers for capacity testing, so I added the download link because it was on a
Mediafire at the time, I added the download links to the server name and suddenly
people started joining. And it was just a few, for a start, but then they would join
and then they would tell their friends about it. So that would go on; Facepunch,
Neoget, 4chan was quite big as well and Reddit too very early on and uhh people
started talking about it and, and they posted their stories, and that’s really, it really
just exploded from there. So it was never actually really announced uhh belatedly a
few weeks afterwards I made a forum post on uhh Bohemia forums umm and uhh
but yeah it was basically uh just through adding the download links to the server
name. One server name. And then it just uhh it just sort of grew crazy from there.
BURNIE: What’s-
GUS: So it woul-It would you would say it was a viral zombie outbreak?
BURNIE: No, you don’t have to listen to him, Please don’t.
GUS:*Laughs*
BURNIE: So I am curious, so what is that time frame, what is wh-what would you
say is the moment when it first became people first started joining spontaneously to
then it like it just is- to where we are today, how long ago was that ?
ROCKET: Uhh It was April the, it was April the 13th I think. Umm yeah so three
months so it was April the 13th I remember this because it was Friday the 14th a few
days ago and uhh umm sorr-sorry Friday the 13th a few days ago and it was April
the 13th which was also a Friday the 13th was the umm was the day we started
publicly opening the server.
BURNIE: Wow that’s crazy to think how far it’s come… and the version now is
1.7-
GUS: 1.7.5 I think.
BURNIE: Yeah. So there has been a lot of iterations between now and then.
ROCKET: Yeah uhh there has been a lot of umm and I guess I mean quite early on
uhh that was a big part of uhh development it was very rapid iteration. It became
quite untenable very quickly because I got very frustrating for users when we were
iterating sometimes several times a day… uhh and uhh yeah like uhh yeah just
flashed his fingers up to me before, it was ten, one time we did ten iterations in a
day.
GUS: Wow!
ROCKET: Uhh but so that was kinda stressful and I guess that was the one I
wouldn’t necessarily negative but one of the aspects off uhh the explosion and
popularity was we had to sort of slow that development down uhh quite
significantly.
GUS: Y’know we uhh umm here at roosterteeth we-we we rent four servers that we
run to play DayZ on and there are people y’know it’s constantly full and any time
y’know we have to roll the patch out or an update we definitely hear from them like,
“Oh God you’re taking the servers down” it’s like no no it’s gonna be good y’all
are gonna enjoy this.
BURNIE: *cough*
ROCKET: Yeah during the updates is difficult because they usually do cause a-lot
of problems, and uhh you know it’s easy in hindsight to see what those problems
are but one of the main issues we have is that a-lot of these issues don’t appear until
you have a full server and that server is uh connecting to the central server on the
load. So we’re able to pick up most of the issues uhh y’know that-that little simple
silly stuff. Not necessarily all of them but a-lot of the issues that we end up
experiencing are ones that happen under significant load. So it, that can be quite
difficult to test for and I guess that’s y’know when people start posting this is an
Alpha on the forums and that would, which I am sure some people get tired of
hearing, but…yeah.
BURNIE: So I mean it’s interesting you use the word Alpha because it’s a mod so
is there a plan for release? I dunno if you can talk about that now, is there a plan
that you would potentially bust it out as its own title or anything like that?
ROCKET: Yeah well I’ve made no secret re-r- since very early on that-that I felt it
should be a standalone-standalone game, I guess the awesome thing is that people
have gone out and they-they’ve driven sales of ARMA II to ridiculous heights and it
seems to send a really strong message not just to bohemia but, well to any game
developer out there that, that we want, that we want to see more of these kinds of
games, so that’s awesome, and- and from my perspective I-I think it’s definitely
going to give the opportunity for DayZ to become a standalone game. Uhh there’s
no umm announcement there’s no announcement there’s no err umm I guess uhh
pro-project and sign off that’s happened so once there is we’ll obviously let
everyone know b-but I think it’s a certainty that, that will happen at some stage very
soon.
BURNIE: Well it’s great I-I really hope that happens because I mean if you look at
just another really popular uhh infected or zombie game type or franchise it’s Left 4
dead and it started as I believe a Counterstrike mod internally.
GUS: Right. It was made out by turtle rock.
BURNIE: Right. And uh it was a game they played internally and they just really
enjoyed it and then that evolved into, left 4 dead which is one of my favourite
franchises of all time.
GUS: Mm hmm
BURNIE: And-
ROCKET: Yeah, yeah you’re exactly right I mean and I-I love Left 4 dead I’ve
played a lot when I was in Singapore for a year and umm yea I just played it all the
time.
BURNIE: Rocket’s pretty well travelled
GUS: I… yeah I feel intimidated.
GUS AND BURNIE: *Laughter*
BURNIE: Lives in Singapore, lives in Prague but uh yeah it’s-it’s uh I w-with all due
respect I mean it’s like obviously umm DayZ gets a-lot of things from being based
in the ARMA II engine but one of the comments we had made early on is that
y’know Gus and I both went out and bout ARMA II and we bought the DLC that’s
necessary to run DayZ, what is the DLC pack doing have…broken Arrow…
GUS: Operation Arrowhead.
BURNIE: Operation Arrowhead, thank you, and umm we both bought that and I
don’t think we have played yet a match of ARMA II.
GUS: I was thinking about that when I was driving in today when we were getting
ready to do this podcast and I thought you know last night I was looking for a
game to play because I couldn’t play DayZ coz it was night haha and I thought I-I
have never fired up ARMA II yet.
BURNIE: Yeah it’s interesting, we’ll have to you and I should get in and play some
ARMA II. Not that I-I’ve played operation flashpoint and I had played that
previously.
GUS: Yes, I have.
BURNIE: But I hadn’t played ARMA II so I mean we’re two people who definitely
went out and bought ARMA II based on the fact that this DayZ mod existed.
GUS: Mm hmm
ROCKET: Yeah, and look I mean I think uh y’know ARMA II’s obviously a
fantastic game I’ve devoted a significant portion of my life to developing mods for
flashpoint uh it’s for everybody. And uhh y’know it needs to be approached in a
certain way I think it really comes into its own played in a group, a serious group
environment. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the group shake tag which their
actually quite supportive early on in DayZ’s life with uh CHkillroy’s videos that he
posted which have become almost like a uh I think there up to some kind of ridiculous YouTube account uh early on so a lot of people found out about DayZ
by that and so I think uhh with ARMA II you know it really supports that structured
group play very well and that’s-that’s I think that’s where a majority of the
gameplay comes from, with it and I think if there’s one real point of difference with
between DayZ and maybe ARMA II and other mods put there is that it, I think It
provides a very good robust mechanism for random people to play against each
other not necessarily co-op briefly umm and not also necessarily in a PvP way. So
it-it-it through that umm structured nature I think it just manages to bring people
together and it sort of created the perfect storm with regard to ARMA features.
BURNIE: Well w-well I mean I can tell ya that we’re super excited about it super
excited about the future of the mod and the Idea that it t-become a standalone game
it’s-is great.
GUS: Yeah I’d love to have a y’know for-in the future I’d love to have a standalone
installer and y’know like you said some in-game and uhh all of these features I
can’t wait it’s super exciting to think about all of these things getting patched in
BURNIE: Y’know a mod onto itself can be a barrier for people new players to get
in.
GUS: W-It’s interesting you say that because I was thinking I have been thinking
about DayZ y’know the fact that it’s a mod and the fact that the game can be so
unforgiving to new players it seems like it’s really a gamer’s game. Like I-It’s not
the kinda game that would maybe necessarily have mass appeal y’know it’s
definitely people who are-are really versed in games like people who are looking for
that new experience y’know wh-who- what other FPS do you spawn and you don’t
have a gun y’know.
BURNIE: Right.
ROCKET: Yes.
GUS: It’s really, really interesting.
ROCKET: Yeah look, like I think umm. I think that y’know like I said before it’s an
absolute certainty that it will make it into a “standalone” in quotation and even if we
did nothing with DayZ I’m a hundred percent positive that another studio, I mean
eventually pick up the concept, but I think actually very rapidly DayZ as a mod
could be taking on the ARMA engine and built in to something standalone umm
there is no reason why that couldn’t happen, but I think it’s also very important that
DayZ continues as an experiment uh to the point it needs to so we get a really good
game design out of it. Because if we y’know if we can-if we finished up quite early
and said “okay we’re finished with the mod” w-we’d miss out on that
experimentation time where we can figure our w-what works what doesn’t work
particularly around the player interactions which are things that you can’t just sit
down an do or not design analysis on you really need to throw half a million people
at it and say “well what sticks and what doesn’t?” umm yeah.
BURNIE: Can I ask you do, you feel uh, a little bit of uh race at this point now that
you’ve proven that the model where you can have an apocalypse simulator do you
feel a race against y’know other people that people that you may be inspiring at this
point?
ROCKET: Uhm I don’t think so, so much I think that the advantage of the position
DayZ’s at now is that if it goes forward in the direction kind of that it is and it’s
been getting it now, I think that it’ll be a very rapid thing there’s no reason why we
couldn’t see something significant by the end of the year I think uh because I’ve sat
down and I’ve done this analysis myself I think if-if-if you were gonna go and take,
say start again from scratch you’re talking at least two years, to do something
serious and…
GUS: Right.
ROCKET: So that’s a-a big time and I think it’s also good for- if we could maybe
carve off a little, uhh, niche, or maybe not so niche genre for survival games. Uhh,
and uhh yeah I think a little bit of competition there can only be a good thing.
BURNIE: Right, that’s a good point, yeah and there’s a-lot of different variations to
like Epic just announced fortnight, which seems like kind of a cuter, I don’t want to
use that word…
GUS: Cuter…
BURNIE: It’s kinda it leans more towards mi- more like Minecraft.
GUS: Mm hmm
BURNIE: Than more towards the ARMA II like hyperrealism y’know thing.
GUS: Yeah…
ROCKET: Yeah, I think that, personally I think that casual gaming and I don’t mean that in a bad way, I mean like y’know umm iphone apps an-an-and little games and even Minecraft to an extent uhh has a had a really, y’know good focus, it’s had really good run over the last uh few years and I think serious gaming y’know r-r y’know like sort of ARMA I think it’s due for a little sort of a little bit of attention. Most people say gamers game, I think there’s a little bit of gap there, I think that if DayZ proves anything it’s that uh it’s not necessarily about the zombies, there an easy mechanism for people to understand and people can relate to it and it’s-it’s topical and it’s interesting. And it reflects common fears so I think that, that works
with it but I don’t think it’s necessarily “aww zombies are popular so DayZ is popular” I think it’s uh it’s about survival and it’s about people being able to be part of not just the development but the design and I think that’s going to be the key defining aspect of DayZ going forward is that the world is left to the players to develop, what we’ve got to do in terms of the development team is actually provide the tools and the mechanisms for players to be able to do that. And I think that’s
where we’ll really stand out against other people trying to do that.
GUS: Yeah, I think that all sounds awesome, well I wanna thanks you guys for taking the time to talk to us I know y’all are all over the world, so I don’t wanna keep y’all too much longer uhh but yeah if for people that haven’t tried it you should definitely check it out go to dayzmod.com and if you can purchase the game you can purchase ARMA II and uhh and the mod you need there on steam and uh download the mod, try it out. So thanks guys we really appreciate you joining us.
ROCKET: Awesome, thanks very much.
BURNIE: Nice to meet you Rocket.
ROCKET: Cya.
BURNIE: Bye now.
JACK: It’s funny. The last time I played it was a year ago, so..
GAVIN: It’s funny to go back and watch some of those early videos.
JACK: They’re so bad..
GAVIN: It’s kinda funny.
JACK: They are so bad, dude, but anyway, thank you for.. four years of Achievement
Hunter.
GUS: And, uh keep listening. We’ll be talking wi, to Rocket about Day Z, and the future.
BYE!
--CUT TO INTERVIEW--
GUS: Hey everyone! We’re super excited to have, uh a couple of people involved with the, uh creation, or I guess the running of the Da, popular Day Z mod for Arma II with us. We have Matt Lightfoot, and Rocket from, uh do you guys work for Bohemia directly?
ROCKET: Not really. I was working for, um Bohemia, but not right now.
BURNIE: Ok.
GUS: So we’re, uh we’re both huge fans of the Day Z mod, and uh, Burnie’s the one who introduced it to me, actually. I have no idea how you heard about it initially, Burnie.
BURNIE: Well, here’s how I heard about it, so I was uh, talking on the podcast about different types of zombie games, and I was talking a little bit about how Minecraft is essentially a zombie game. Where you have to build your shelter, and then the sun goes down, and out come the zombies and the monsters, and you have to survive all night. It’s kind of changed a little bit, you know? Because I played the PC version, and you know, once you get past that first like, night, or two nights, then you’re kind of safe, and It’s just like you have to stay away from Creepers and things. Anyway, so, so we got to talking, Gus, at one time how it would be great to have a sur, a zombie survival game where your whole goal is just to survive and scavenge, and you know, just stay alive as if it was a real zombie apocalypse. And after we talked about that.. I think it was like three or four months later, all of a sudden I started getting all these tweets, like, like, one at a time at first, then it was like, three or four, of people saying, “Hey. You should really check out Day Z, you should really check out Day Z.” and I was like, OK, I, I’ve heard a lot of people who’ve said this. I’ve got to check it out. So I got on Steam, downloaded Arma II, and then installed the Day Z mod, and immediately jumped in and go, “Ok, this is exactly what we were hoping for.” It’s a zombie
apoca, apocalypse simulator. So, how, how long have you been, have you guys been working on it?
ROCKET: Well, basically, since about December, I guess. Uh so that’s when I started coding on that, sort of, probably. It was sort of using technology that I’d previously developed for another mod, for Arma II. Uh, but only really seriously did I guess uh, since then. Since late December.
GUS: So what, what prompted you to choose to do, you know, create these mods, you know, it sounds like you’ve made more. What prompted you create these mods in the Arma II engine?
ROCKET: Well, I guess I was quite familiar with it, and it’s also a very versatile engine, so there was obviously quite a receptive live community, and the industy itself is quite receptive to mods, and I had used uh, Virtual Battlespace too, with my work in the military, and that’s based on the same engine.
GUS: So, I,I,I,I When I think of uh, you know, zombie survival games, I, I find, you know in my head, I, I wouldn’t imagine there would be much parallel between you know, a military, you know, tactical, you know, very nitty gritty game, but uh, it seems to work well. I you know, are there any things that you wish you had that would make your life, you know, any easier in creating the mod?
ROCKET: Yeah, well, you know, I guess with, with the Arma engine as it currently stands,
there isn’t a huge emphasis on inventory, and things like that. So, that’s something that’s
very useful uhm, that, and it would make a big difference with this mod.
GUS: So you talk about inventory, and one of the big things about Arma, or not about Arma,
about Day Z, is when you spawn, you have nothing. I mean, I feel like there’s obviously been
changes,
BURNIE: Yehah!
GUS: Made, like you used to spawn with a gun, and now when you spawn, you have, I think
you get painkillers, a bandage, and a flashlight, and that’s it. You know, what, was there a
lot of fear on your part when you make a decision like that, like, that’s a really core
decision, to make people who used to spawn in with a gun spawn with no gun. How much,
how much worrying goes into that?
ROCKET: Yeah, well, I guess that a, it’s a very good point that you’ve raised, like uhm, I
think there is a, a pretty big danger whenever those changes happen, and even, even small
changes, like changing the audibility of a weapon, or something like that can have very,
very big effects in the game itself, so with uh decisions like removing the uh like removing
the weapon and things like that, those were pretty difficult decisions to make, uh,
particularly when the player numbers got up there, but they’re an important part of the
experiment, and the vast majority of players out there, they want to see these kinds of
experiments and changes too, to see what works and what doesn’t. And, I guess it’s just a
matter of making that change, and then seeing what happens, and that’s the advantage, I
guess, of being a mod, uh rather than a game, is that you can make those decisions
because you don’t have to worry about whether someone’s going to buy your product.
BURNIE: Yeah, that’s a good point. Hey Rocket, I have to ask. Your accent, I thought..
Bohemia is located where?
ROCKET: uh, it’s located in the Czech Republic.
BURNIE: The Czech Republic, but you obviously don’t have a Czech accent. Are you, are
you from New Zealand?
ROCKET: That’s correct. I am from New Zealand.
BURNIE: Gus. How do you like my ability to spot the New Zealand accent?
ROCKET: You didn’t spot me Australian. It’s quite a moment.
GUS: I was, I,I, I was gonna commend you. That’s uh, that’s uh, that indicates you’ve spent a
bit too much time in Australia and New Zealand.
BURNIE: What to be able to tell the difference between the two accents?
GUS: Umhumm.
BURNIE: So that’s really interesting, so Rocket, where are you located, if I can ask?
ROCKET: uh, at the moment, I’m located in Prague, in the Czech Republic.
BURNIE: Ok. And so did you emigrate from uh New Zealand to Prague?
ROCKET: Yeah, that’s right, so I was working for the army at the time in New Zealand, and
then I headed over to the Czech Republic on a contract to work, uh to do some contract
work on Arma III, which was one of the, uh one of the reasons I, that I did work quite heavily
on the Day Z mod during sort of January, February and that, because I didn’t speak the
language, I was in a small, uh town, in the Czech Republic, so I, I had a lot of free time, and
uhm, at sort of night and that, so it was also a good chance for me to become more familiar
with the engine while I was working on Arma III, so I guess it was sort of a meeting of a
bunch of different, you know, different level things that I focused quite heavily on while I was
there.
BURNIE: And what’s your background with, like, why a zombie survival game? Why did you
choose to make that mod?
ROCKET: Well, I’ve always been pretty interested in, in zombies and infections and things
like that. And, uh, you know, my brother is a virologist, so we would have lots of
discussions, you know, after watching, you know, zombie movies and things like that.
BURNIE: oh, no kidding?! That’s impressive, yeah.
ROCKET: And I think, I think kind of everyone hasn’t, and you were talking about Minecraft,
and I remember the day when I first picked up Minecraft, and that was the thing that really, I
really enjoyed, was the, “Oh, I’m in this hostile world. I’m gonna have to survive.” And, you
know, for better or for worse, Minecraft went in that really awesome direction of creativity,
so you build stuff, and, and all that, and went very heavy in that direction. But I, but I really
wanted to see more of that survival type stuff, and particularly really brutal, like non-stylized
world, um survival. Uhm, so, so then I thought I’d then, I’ll, I’ll see how it goes. It was also a
good chance to do some performance testing on the uhm Arma engine as well. That I tends
towards smaller group play, than it usually, previously.
BURNIE: Yeah, one of the crazy things we really enjoyed about it too is that it’s a zombie
survival game, but just the introduction of other survivors, which are the other human
players, and the way the dynamic of the environment. It just turns the survivors into just as
big of an obstacle as the zombies. Was that something you hoped for, or was that
something that came about that was a little unexpected?
ROCKET: There was definitely hope for it, I mean, that, that freedom to play as who you are
was really important. Because that was another frustrating thing I found was when.. It’s kind
of like in movies when, you know, like in horror films, when a characters do something, and
you’re like, “Why did you do that?” I was seeing a lot of that happening with uh, when I was
playing games. So, I would find that my character was being forced to do something that
didn’t make sense to me. And I really didn’t want that to exist in Day Z. So if you decide that
the first thing you’re going to do is go straight to town, and you’ve got no weapons, you’ve
just got a torch, and that’s fine. The game lets you do that, and that is a really silly move.
That adds quite a gravity to the decisions you make, and to me, that felt like a very
important part of a survival game was, you know, the most important decisions are gonna
be the decisions you make, and the most important decisions you’re gonna make are the
ones you make in the first five minutes. So that adds a whole level of tension to the f,
thinking that you have to make in the game.
GUS: You know, it’s funny you talk about other survival movies, when I would watch.. Before
playing Day Z, when I would watch, I would never understand why some survivors would go
rogue in movies. Like, why wouldn’t they just all work together? It would seem so
counterintuitive. But after playing a healthy amount of Day Z, I’ve realized that survivors are
just problems. Like, It’s just weird. Like when I’m when I encounter anyone in the world, it’s
like, how am I gonna get out of this problem? Do, this person is gonna invariably kill me. I
need to take care of this right away.
BURNiE: Are you saying…
ROCKET: I, I, That’s a good point. I do think there sort of is something missing from Day Z,
and that’s what happens after you survive, so you’ve survived those first few days, but then
there’s not really a lot to do, and I think the only challenging thing is, as you say, is to uh kill
other players because the zombies..
GUS: Deal with them.
ROCKET: the zombies aren’t a huge threat. And, and look. No matter how much time we
spend on, uh, AI routines, and making the zombies more challenging, I don’t think they’re
ever really gonna compete with other players. Who like you said. They develop their own,
uh, their own decisions, there’s deceit, they learn, they don’t learn, they do stupid things, so
I think humans are always gonna have that unpredictable nature in Day Z. But we need to
provide the something else, and I think once the something else is there, I think that will
again be sort of a watershed change for Day Z to give it more of a future other than this
traumatic sort of modeling of the first few days of survival.
GUS: I think what you all do on the Day Z website is fantastic. Where you post the average
lifetime of a, of a survivor. Uh and the last time I looked it was sitting at about 38 minutes,
which is pretty healthy if, for the first time you play.
BURNIE: Oh my gosh!
GUS: I think the first time I played, I don’t think I made it five minutes. Uhm, so you’re talking
about, you know have something else be on the zombies, and be on the survivors. Are you
picturing, you know, down the road, as you put more work into it, like, I don’t want to say an
endgame, but maybe a story you can, you, you’re thinking about implementing into the
game?
ROCKET: Well, I think there’s no problem with calling it endgame. I’ve used that term
myself. While it’s not strictly true, people understand what it means. So there really needs to
be a “so what are you going to do now that you’ve survived”, so that first aspect of Day Z.
Landing on the beach, you know, right? That’s all about those initial, crucial decisions you
make, and then it sort of evolves through. There’s the idea of the gameplay, so it’ll evolve
through to what do you want to do next, and your game will, so what we need to provide the
ability for the players to do a bunch of different things. To support the different game styles,
and one of those is obviously going to be, you know, developing a uh a group, uh
developing what they, where that group wants to live. One thing that I’ve talked about quite
a bit is moving into underground structures, which I think, uh you know, like Eve Online has
it’s capital ships. I think uh underground structures could be the capital, the capital ships of
the Day Z universe. And that would allow, yeah, the more in-game stuff, and it would give
people a reason to group together, cause if they want to develop this properly, then they’re
probably gonna need to team up.
GUS: So, uhm.. Basically like a super fortified player housing, or defensible positions.
ROCKET: Yeah. Exactly right, and, and I think we can really push that in all sorts of
directions. We really want to stay away from a story as such. I think having a narrative, so
like a background to the world is very important, and that can be expanded a lot, so allow
the players to not only explore the terrain, but also explore what happened. But I think that
what happens after the game starts, that should be player controlled, so we’ll provide the
ability for the, uh, for the players to interact with their world and find out about it, but I think
uh it really needs to be completely left up to the players, too. Uh, to alter the world going
forward. Now I think that’s where the real fun will come. You know, you start to see it. You
start to see people doing all these really exciting, cool things that I guess people term
emerging gameplay, but I’m not even entirely sure that, that sort of fits with it, and, and I
think that we just need to provide more tools to people for people to do that.
BURNIE: Yeah. You know, another thing too is that just the nature of the game, you know, if
you just take a zombie apocalypse, the, the way it would start. It’s like you know it would be
a series of events, but it would be one day.. Did you ever read the book World War Z at all?
ROCKET: Yeah I have, yup.
BURNIE: Like there’s that point, there’s that point where, that I buy into, where’s there’s this
critical mass that happens where they hear about the incidents, but all of a sudden it just
takes over, and you realize this is, this is the way things are. So in Day Z, the mod, it’s like
you drop in on the beach, and you’re in this world, and it’s just go. There’s really no tutorial,
so it’s like you have to figure everything out. You have to figure out that zombies can hear
you from a distance, you have to figure out how to manage inventory, you have to do all that,
but I’m assuming as part of the development of a mod, are you gonna build in tutorials for
people to use?
ROCKET: I think that, you’ve, you’ve hit the nail on what I see is a very important part of it.
And that’s, I like to think of it as, as trying to make it as intuitive as possible. Now, it’s
certainly not, there’s a lot of it that isn’t intuitive at the moment, but having things like the
hunger and the thirst, there’s a lot of complex mechanics that go into the calculation of
them. Com, Complex uhm, you know, formulas, and, an, and the way it works, but I think it’s
really important that we don’t say, “This is how it works”, all audibility like if you get within
fifty meters, someone will hear you, and that’s adding a lot of subtlety to things, so the
player has to rely on their own knowledge inside their head. So that’s when you start
thinking, well how, and in fact, it’s even subconscious, how, how would zombies react, and
obviously, they don’t necessarily react as good as we want right at the moment, but there’s
a, there’s a large part of it I think in how I think a player approaches it.
ROCKET: Obviously, they don’t necessarily react as good as we’d want, right at the moment but there’s a- there’s a large part of that I think in how a player approaches it. And because, the, the tutorial I guess is almost going on inside the player’s heads so there querying themselves I think it really personalises the experience. So we want to expand on that more. Make as little of UI as possible. And make a lot more use of sight and sound in game so that it-it becomes a more personal experience. And if we’ve designed something that’s not working then we need to go back and just keep working of that until it’s intuitive.
GUS: It’s an interesting thing what you said about y’know not telling someone
explicitly that, they can be heard 50 meters away because it’s almost like learning in
real life y’know when you’re a child you’re like, you-you’re making noise and you
don’t know at what range it is someone can hear you anymore.
BURNIE: Right.
GUS: Uh..which brings up another interesting thing that I love about DayZ which is
the fact that there’s no longer any Global Chat. Which really adds to… I feel like
the immersion aspect, y’know and again it goes back to what I talked about like;
you spawn with no gun, you can’t communicate with people that aren’t immediately
next to you
BURNIE: Right.
GUS: So it really, y’know when you start you really have that sense of isolation and
y’know the unknown, so, I-I- I dunno I-I- I guess I could-I could sit on the fence
about your tutorial idea as to whether or not, that’s uhh.. that’s something that
would be helpful.
BURNIE: No I was, I was kinda curious coz it goes back to the philosophy of
y’know the overall experience, but then the playability aswell.
GUS: Right.
BURNIE: It’s like you don’t want to alienate players y’know who jump in, you
wanna-you want them to have that first like couple of moments of fun, early on so it
kinda hooks them in. But I get to it’s like this experience is what it is and this is the
kinda game where y’know it comes in and it’s-it’s-it’s essentially a super advanced
simulator.
GUS: Mm hmm
BURNIE: And it’s got, permanent death essentially, I mean you lose your stuff,
your stuff s your character in a-lot of ways because you don’t level up your
character anything like that. And so it’s like you’re asking for a big commitment for
the player from the get-go and, y’know when they get in they should realise that.
GUS: Yeah.
BURNIE: Yeah.
GUS: Yeah I’m-I’m currently in a state with my character where, I’m scared to log
in. Because I-I’ve accumulated so much good stuff , anytime I think about logging
in I’m like, okay is it daylight?-yeah. Is it probably gonna be…-are there gonna
be-is there gonna be anyone friendly in there? Y’know…. I dunno. So I am really
on the fence right now, I’m really-I’m really in a weird position with the game which
I have never experienced before.
BURNIE: Yeah, it’s like-it’s like one of those like, well oh-one of the best examples
I can use is I went out and God I thought…I couldn’t manage the inventory system
when I first started, and that’s basically from the ARMA engine, that it inherits this
inventory system from there But..
GUS: Yeah.
BURNIE: I went online and got the T-maps of like what do the controls do, and I
remember there’s a map button, and I hit the map button and it’s just black, it’s just nothing, there is no explanation of you don’t have a map or anything.
GUS: Yeah.
BURNIE: It’s just-it’s black y’know, you got nothing.
GUS: That’s one of the things I have right now that is keeping me from logging in,
is that I have a map and I am so scared the thing.
BURNIE: Do you have a map and a GPS? Or just a map?
GUS: I have a map…No I do not have a GPS; I have a watch though which is
awesome!
ROCKET: Yeah.
BURNIE: Yeah. I mean it’s one of those things, that’s like little moments that are
basically like you would constantly have these little moments of discovery. And
then you also have things like , you’re like running between towns and then
somebody blows by you in a car or on a bike, or something like that, and you’re
like; What just happened? It’s like where-I it’s like you realise somebody else is
playing a totally different game than you are.
GUS:*Laughing*
BURNIE: It’s like I’m just trying to get to this house, y’know and figure out which
house I can get into, while avoiding the zombies. And somebody else is like, living a
good life from what it looks like.
GUS: *Laughing* Eating Caviar
BURNIE: Ahaha.
GUS: So uhm... What, y’know, what did you guys do to get the word out about
DayZ? Y’know I’m curious to know what the-what the origin of what y’know what
patient 0 for-is for the mod was because it seems like it’s so huge now y’all have I
think 500,000 people playing at the moment?
BURNIE: Well they’re up to 500,000 sales of ARMA II.
GUS: Oh is that what it is?
BURNIE: Yeah it’s like if you read the reports that they’re saying you know it’s
obviously, the popularity of DayZ as it’s growing is driving sales of ARMA II, but
yeah Rocket I’d be curious to hear about y’know the path of-of, of y’know the
growth of this thing as well.
ROCKET: Yeah I-I just looked up umm now, because I have live access to the live
stats so, it last refreshed 20 minutes ago and uhh we got 657,000 umm, players,
unique players at the moment.
BURNIE: Wow Congratulations, wow that’s awesome.
GUS: Yeah that’s great
ROCKET: It’s pretty cool umm, I guess the-the way it started was, and initially
there was just one server, and they, it was the development server run out of New
Zealand curious enough one I rent there. And umm, we had the mod up on that and
basically I’d sit down with uhh Matt and the guys and I do the development, then I
get them in to join, and I’d say what do you think of this? And it would actually be
kind of live development, so literally we’d try something out and the- I would ask
their opinions and uhh we’d talk about it, we’d maybe even argue about it and then
I would, re-upload the mod and we’d just start the mission again. So that would
sort of go on quite a-for y’know-for for 5 or so hours a night, and then we’d
y’know I’d go away develop a bit more and we’d start again the next day. And
what happened was we-we saw a-lot of people who trying to join the server
particularly if we accidently forgot to put a password on it, so I thought we need
more testers for capacity testing, so I added the download link because it was on a
Mediafire at the time, I added the download links to the server name and suddenly
people started joining. And it was just a few, for a start, but then they would join
and then they would tell their friends about it. So that would go on; Facepunch,
Neoget, 4chan was quite big as well and Reddit too very early on and uhh people
started talking about it and, and they posted their stories, and that’s really, it really
just exploded from there. So it was never actually really announced uhh belatedly a
few weeks afterwards I made a forum post on uhh Bohemia forums umm and uhh
but yeah it was basically uh just through adding the download links to the server
name. One server name. And then it just uhh it just sort of grew crazy from there.
BURNIE: What’s-
GUS: So it woul-It would you would say it was a viral zombie outbreak?
BURNIE: No, you don’t have to listen to him, Please don’t.
GUS:*Laughs*
BURNIE: So I am curious, so what is that time frame, what is wh-what would you
say is the moment when it first became people first started joining spontaneously to
then it like it just is- to where we are today, how long ago was that ?
ROCKET: Uhh It was April the, it was April the 13th I think. Umm yeah so three
months so it was April the 13th I remember this because it was Friday the 14th a few
days ago and uhh umm sorr-sorry Friday the 13th a few days ago and it was April
the 13th which was also a Friday the 13th was the umm was the day we started
publicly opening the server.
BURNIE: Wow that’s crazy to think how far it’s come… and the version now is
1.7-
GUS: 1.7.5 I think.
BURNIE: Yeah. So there has been a lot of iterations between now and then.
ROCKET: Yeah uhh there has been a lot of umm and I guess I mean quite early on
uhh that was a big part of uhh development it was very rapid iteration. It became
quite untenable very quickly because I got very frustrating for users when we were
iterating sometimes several times a day… uhh and uhh yeah like uhh yeah just
flashed his fingers up to me before, it was ten, one time we did ten iterations in a
day.
GUS: Wow!
ROCKET: Uhh but so that was kinda stressful and I guess that was the one I
wouldn’t necessarily negative but one of the aspects off uhh the explosion and
popularity was we had to sort of slow that development down uhh quite
significantly.
GUS: Y’know we uhh umm here at roosterteeth we-we we rent four servers that we
run to play DayZ on and there are people y’know it’s constantly full and any time
y’know we have to roll the patch out or an update we definitely hear from them like,
“Oh God you’re taking the servers down” it’s like no no it’s gonna be good y’all
are gonna enjoy this.
BURNIE: *cough*
ROCKET: Yeah during the updates is difficult because they usually do cause a-lot
of problems, and uhh you know it’s easy in hindsight to see what those problems
are but one of the main issues we have is that a-lot of these issues don’t appear until
you have a full server and that server is uh connecting to the central server on the
load. So we’re able to pick up most of the issues uhh y’know that-that little simple
silly stuff. Not necessarily all of them but a-lot of the issues that we end up
experiencing are ones that happen under significant load. So it, that can be quite
difficult to test for and I guess that’s y’know when people start posting this is an
Alpha on the forums and that would, which I am sure some people get tired of
hearing, but…yeah.
BURNIE: So I mean it’s interesting you use the word Alpha because it’s a mod so
is there a plan for release? I dunno if you can talk about that now, is there a plan
that you would potentially bust it out as its own title or anything like that?
ROCKET: Yeah well I’ve made no secret re-r- since very early on that-that I felt it
should be a standalone-standalone game, I guess the awesome thing is that people
have gone out and they-they’ve driven sales of ARMA II to ridiculous heights and it
seems to send a really strong message not just to bohemia but, well to any game
developer out there that, that we want, that we want to see more of these kinds of
games, so that’s awesome, and- and from my perspective I-I think it’s definitely
going to give the opportunity for DayZ to become a standalone game. Uhh there’s
no umm announcement there’s no announcement there’s no err umm I guess uhh
pro-project and sign off that’s happened so once there is we’ll obviously let
everyone know b-but I think it’s a certainty that, that will happen at some stage very
soon.
BURNIE: Well it’s great I-I really hope that happens because I mean if you look at
just another really popular uhh infected or zombie game type or franchise it’s Left 4
dead and it started as I believe a Counterstrike mod internally.
GUS: Right. It was made out by turtle rock.
BURNIE: Right. And uh it was a game they played internally and they just really
enjoyed it and then that evolved into, left 4 dead which is one of my favourite
franchises of all time.
GUS: Mm hmm
BURNIE: And-
ROCKET: Yeah, yeah you’re exactly right I mean and I-I love Left 4 dead I’ve
played a lot when I was in Singapore for a year and umm yea I just played it all the
time.
BURNIE: Rocket’s pretty well travelled
GUS: I… yeah I feel intimidated.
GUS AND BURNIE: *Laughter*
BURNIE: Lives in Singapore, lives in Prague but uh yeah it’s-it’s uh I w-with all due
respect I mean it’s like obviously umm DayZ gets a-lot of things from being based
in the ARMA II engine but one of the comments we had made early on is that
y’know Gus and I both went out and bout ARMA II and we bought the DLC that’s
necessary to run DayZ, what is the DLC pack doing have…broken Arrow…
GUS: Operation Arrowhead.
BURNIE: Operation Arrowhead, thank you, and umm we both bought that and I
don’t think we have played yet a match of ARMA II.
GUS: I was thinking about that when I was driving in today when we were getting
ready to do this podcast and I thought you know last night I was looking for a
game to play because I couldn’t play DayZ coz it was night haha and I thought I-I
have never fired up ARMA II yet.
BURNIE: Yeah it’s interesting, we’ll have to you and I should get in and play some
ARMA II. Not that I-I’ve played operation flashpoint and I had played that
previously.
GUS: Yes, I have.
BURNIE: But I hadn’t played ARMA II so I mean we’re two people who definitely
went out and bought ARMA II based on the fact that this DayZ mod existed.
GUS: Mm hmm
ROCKET: Yeah, and look I mean I think uh y’know ARMA II’s obviously a
fantastic game I’ve devoted a significant portion of my life to developing mods for
flashpoint uh it’s for everybody. And uhh y’know it needs to be approached in a
certain way I think it really comes into its own played in a group, a serious group
environment. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the group shake tag which their
actually quite supportive early on in DayZ’s life with uh CHkillroy’s videos that he
posted which have become almost like a uh I think there up to some kind of ridiculous YouTube account uh early on so a lot of people found out about DayZ
by that and so I think uhh with ARMA II you know it really supports that structured
group play very well and that’s-that’s I think that’s where a majority of the
gameplay comes from, with it and I think if there’s one real point of difference with
between DayZ and maybe ARMA II and other mods put there is that it, I think It
provides a very good robust mechanism for random people to play against each
other not necessarily co-op briefly umm and not also necessarily in a PvP way. So
it-it-it through that umm structured nature I think it just manages to bring people
together and it sort of created the perfect storm with regard to ARMA features.
BURNIE: Well w-well I mean I can tell ya that we’re super excited about it super
excited about the future of the mod and the Idea that it t-become a standalone game
it’s-is great.
GUS: Yeah I’d love to have a y’know for-in the future I’d love to have a standalone
installer and y’know like you said some in-game and uhh all of these features I
can’t wait it’s super exciting to think about all of these things getting patched in
BURNIE: Y’know a mod onto itself can be a barrier for people new players to get
in.
GUS: W-It’s interesting you say that because I was thinking I have been thinking
about DayZ y’know the fact that it’s a mod and the fact that the game can be so
unforgiving to new players it seems like it’s really a gamer’s game. Like I-It’s not
the kinda game that would maybe necessarily have mass appeal y’know it’s
definitely people who are-are really versed in games like people who are looking for
that new experience y’know wh-who- what other FPS do you spawn and you don’t
have a gun y’know.
BURNIE: Right.
ROCKET: Yes.
GUS: It’s really, really interesting.
ROCKET: Yeah look, like I think umm. I think that y’know like I said before it’s an
absolute certainty that it will make it into a “standalone” in quotation and even if we
did nothing with DayZ I’m a hundred percent positive that another studio, I mean
eventually pick up the concept, but I think actually very rapidly DayZ as a mod
could be taking on the ARMA engine and built in to something standalone umm
there is no reason why that couldn’t happen, but I think it’s also very important that
DayZ continues as an experiment uh to the point it needs to so we get a really good
game design out of it. Because if we y’know if we can-if we finished up quite early
and said “okay we’re finished with the mod” w-we’d miss out on that
experimentation time where we can figure our w-what works what doesn’t work
particularly around the player interactions which are things that you can’t just sit
down an do or not design analysis on you really need to throw half a million people
at it and say “well what sticks and what doesn’t?” umm yeah.
BURNIE: Can I ask you do, you feel uh, a little bit of uh race at this point now that
you’ve proven that the model where you can have an apocalypse simulator do you
feel a race against y’know other people that people that you may be inspiring at this
point?
ROCKET: Uhm I don’t think so, so much I think that the advantage of the position
DayZ’s at now is that if it goes forward in the direction kind of that it is and it’s
been getting it now, I think that it’ll be a very rapid thing there’s no reason why we
couldn’t see something significant by the end of the year I think uh because I’ve sat
down and I’ve done this analysis myself I think if-if-if you were gonna go and take,
say start again from scratch you’re talking at least two years, to do something
serious and…
GUS: Right.
ROCKET: So that’s a-a big time and I think it’s also good for- if we could maybe
carve off a little, uhh, niche, or maybe not so niche genre for survival games. Uhh,
and uhh yeah I think a little bit of competition there can only be a good thing.
BURNIE: Right, that’s a good point, yeah and there’s a-lot of different variations to
like Epic just announced fortnight, which seems like kind of a cuter, I don’t want to
use that word…
GUS: Cuter…
BURNIE: It’s kinda it leans more towards mi- more like Minecraft.
GUS: Mm hmm
BURNIE: Than more towards the ARMA II like hyperrealism y’know thing.
GUS: Yeah…
ROCKET: Yeah, I think that, personally I think that casual gaming and I don’t mean that in a bad way, I mean like y’know umm iphone apps an-an-and little games and even Minecraft to an extent uhh has a had a really, y’know good focus, it’s had really good run over the last uh few years and I think serious gaming y’know r-r y’know like sort of ARMA I think it’s due for a little sort of a little bit of attention. Most people say gamers game, I think there’s a little bit of gap there, I think that if DayZ proves anything it’s that uh it’s not necessarily about the zombies, there an easy mechanism for people to understand and people can relate to it and it’s-it’s topical and it’s interesting. And it reflects common fears so I think that, that works
with it but I don’t think it’s necessarily “aww zombies are popular so DayZ is popular” I think it’s uh it’s about survival and it’s about people being able to be part of not just the development but the design and I think that’s going to be the key defining aspect of DayZ going forward is that the world is left to the players to develop, what we’ve got to do in terms of the development team is actually provide the tools and the mechanisms for players to be able to do that. And I think that’s
where we’ll really stand out against other people trying to do that.
GUS: Yeah, I think that all sounds awesome, well I wanna thanks you guys for taking the time to talk to us I know y’all are all over the world, so I don’t wanna keep y’all too much longer uhh but yeah if for people that haven’t tried it you should definitely check it out go to dayzmod.com and if you can purchase the game you can purchase ARMA II and uhh and the mod you need there on steam and uh download the mod, try it out. So thanks guys we really appreciate you joining us.
ROCKET: Awesome, thanks very much.
BURNIE: Nice to meet you Rocket.
ROCKET: Cya.
BURNIE: Bye now.