DayZ Interview - Round two at the end of the world

GameArena and DayZ are like chocolate and some website that is a huge fan of chocolate and isn't very good at analogies. Since our last epic interview quite a bit had changed for the zombie apocalypse game - and a very large portion of it was predicted by the game's creator, Dean Hall.

GameArena: So, when we last talked you outlaid the plan and so far the plan is... it's going according to plan. Have there been any curveballs along the way? Have there been any moments where you thought 'Oh **** I'm going to have to change the plan'?

Dean Hall: I guess so - a lot of it comes down to dealing with things like capacity and the problems that are cropping up that are like bugs and actually a lot of it is dealing with finding the right balance between talking about the game - so engaging with the community and doing interviews - and actually making the game. That's the struggle - to find enough time to do everything. And that's kind of forced changes for the plan - like originally we were just going to go solidly into development - just do development - but in hindsight we decided to go to these gaming expos and go to PAX Prime and things like that - that does take out time from development, but it's worthwhile because people want to know about it and it's good for us to engage with people.



GA: Last time we talked the team was very small - has it grown since you announced the stand-alone product?

DH: Yeah, it's definitely 'gone pro' I suppose you could say. So if you're familiar with the ArmA franchise, it started off with Operation Flashpoint. And that was largely built by Marek Španel - the CEO, his brother Ondrej Španel and a couple of other programmers at BIS. So they worked very hard to make that happen. And they haven't really worked a lot on some of the subsequent titles that have come out - they wanted to work on this kind of project, a small, collaborative project that engaged directly with the community. So they're basically three of BIS's best programmers and so they're devoted full time to working on Day Z. So that's really exciting. So there's about six in the core team, in total - but beyond the core team we're kind of doing in-sourcing, so internally in the company we will say 'Ok we need these art assets made' and they go away and they decide how they want to run their side of the project. So it works quite well and very collaborative.

GA: I recall last time we talked about one of the features you were just about to add - the bear trap, which is still hilarious, even if it doesn't quite work as intended as far as I've seen... I deliberately stepped into one and only broke my leg after I logged back in. So I'd been off on a three hour jaunt after stepping on a bear trap and thought everything was good, then I'd logged out and when I logged back in, I'm in the middle of Devil's Castle and my leg breaks. And of course there were people around.

DH: It's interesting, I know exactly why it did that off the top of my head now and that's quite a bug, but I know how to fix it. It's because the bear trap would have been local on someone else's computer and it would have tried to break your legs but it won't have been able to, because only you can break your legs - it's a localisation issue. So this is one of the problems, you have to deal with all of these locality issues.

GA: So despite it not working quite correctly in my case, it's still a great addition - so what's the next "bear trap"?

DH: A lot of these things seem really little and minor but they're really experiments to see what works and what doesn't. So we really want to push ahead with giving the player the chance to change the environment. Because I think one thing that's been proved is that if you allow players the chance to affect the world and basically take over the whole role of storyteller for themselves they really flock to it and they thrive with it. So we just need to add a whole bunch more tools similar to that. There are problems with doing that above ground - the world gets very cluttered and that's why we've talked about possibly doing subterranean construction where we can avoid the crowding issues and performance issues associated with above ground.



GA: So one of the things that I read - I think it was on Rock Paper Shotgun - was that you were thinking about making the underground instanced - is that correct?

DH: The message was a little blurred, because a lot of people were saying 'instancing terrible' but by instancing all we mean is removing you from the main battleground - other people will still be able to come in and battle you and stuff like that. The idea is if we provide a disconnect between your construction world and your battleground world we can set up a new world with new rules and a new focus. So if we did the construction above ground we'd be very limited with what we can do because your scene already has millions of polygons and it's very performance intensive and the network updates are really huge. But if you're below ground you don't need to receive network updates for those above ground. So I think it's a really good mix and the idea is there's no safe zones ever in Day Z - if you want to make a safe zone you'll have to make it yourself.

GA: What will happen if you log out underground and log in to a server that might not have...

DH: Well it's still very much in the design analysis phase but we have kind of two options with the instance - either we can have the instance local to the server, so basically when you go into an underground zone it would just roll up a new virtual and dedicate its resources to that and a lot of the updates might even sync peer-to-peer for those who are inside that instance. The other option is to have that instance across all servers - so if you have established an underground structure at X location on a map, that appears on all maps, or maybe all maps in Europe, or all maps in America. So those are two options - we haven't decided one way or another, I think that's something that needs to be tested for its technical limitations as well.

GA: And weighing up the good and the bad is probably a huge part of it. Have you considered - if someone logs out underground on one server and goes to a server that doesn't have it, they log in buried alive!?

DH: *Laughs*

GA: Lately I've seen some talk from you about the concept of private server hives, and early on it made sense for you to remain completely public - but you seem to be becoming more open to the concept of private hives.

DH: Absolutely - we're going in the complete opposite direction we were and you know, for better or for worse that was the decision - I personally think it was a good decision because it got us to where we are now - stomping hard on single player variants and things like that - it gave a very clear message of what Day Z is about. And I think sometimes gamers have to temper that - yes they want to play something, but sometimes you have to let something go in one direction for long enough that it gets staying power.

GA: The game was an experiment and you were trying to get as much feedback as possible - and private hives would splinter that.

DH: Yes. Now we've reached this point though, we're going the complete opposite direction. So now we're going to release the data structure, we're going to allow people to run private hives, they can password protect their servers, they can modify the mod - they can just take it and run with it and I think that's going to breathe some new life into the mod. Maybe we can make the mod take a slightly different direction to the stand-alone game - and I think that's good, as we can pull good ideas from that and implement them into the stand-alone game.

GA: Obviously a lot of people complain about a lot of ****. But one thing I've seen people complaining about a lot more than anything else was the L85. And I've had phenomenal gun fights with and against the L85 - I think it's a fantastic addition. Do you think there is any weight in the complaints against the weapon - that it doesn't fit atmospherically, that it makes the game too easy, stuff like that?

DH: I think there is, but I think the problem is wider than that - the wider problem is really no design thought's been given to balancing and all of that kind of stuff. People unpacked the data and saw there was a text file with balancing information, but that was just notes that had never been implemented. With the stand-alone, that's when we sit down and we give serious thought based on the data and feedback we get and have a think about it and figure it out in a sensible way. I definitely think that we want to head for a much heavier emphasis on authentic weapons for the scenario - so coming across a military weapon will be exceptionally rare, but maybe in quite a large quantity. So if you're a clan and you do an organised run on a military installation that's very hard to get into - maybe you even have to destroy some doors or drains to get into it - like if you break into a military armoury you're not just finding one L85, you're finding 30 L85s and a lot of ammunition - so that's kind of where I think we are heading. The bread and butter weapons will be your shotguns and we'll just do more variation with that. More variation with the melee weapons and proper melee and stuff like that. So I think that's the direction we want to head with it.

GA: And what about vehicles, are you thinking the same thing with vehicles - keeping it all civilian and having the very rare military vehicle?

DH: Yeah actually. Vehicles are fundamentally broken in the mod and that's kind of why I didn't focus on them. Like I focused enough attention to gather enough data and information on it, but not more. We want to expand on vehicles a bit more - like I love the part finding thing, but I think we need more of a visceral sense of repairing - so maybe you have to find a specific kind of tire for a specific vehicle, maybe even specific engine parts. And maybe we could even fit that into being a more real experience in terms of how you repair the vehicle and stuff like that. Maybe you could almost repair any rig - you find a rig and you just start putting parts into it. So that kind of means that vehicles are more abundant, but you have to find the parts - so it really becomes a scavenging thing. It's not a complete change in direction for vehicles, but I think the vehicle system we have at the moment is very immature and we've got a much better idea now of where we could go to make it more interesting. Because vehicles are kind of in-game content at the moment and I think there's a lot of ways we could have fun with that. I think it would be cool if you're flying around in a helicopter and pieces are getting shot off it and you see what you need to fix. I would actually be happy with less types of vehicles but more intricate natured vehicles - that would be my preference.



GA: More vehicles that you have to put together yourself would be outstanding - especially if you found a wreck in the middle of nowhere.

DH: Exactly, and any wreck that you find in a crash, you have to start putting it together and finding scrap metal to repair the metal and it's almost like Max Max style. We do need to explore that a bit, but compared to subterranean structures that's a much more achievable thing - I'm much more confident to say that that's a direction we're heading. There were always a few systems that we really wanted to fix - like the primary one is the inventory system - and in fact, fix is the wrong word - completely start again from stretch is the way we're approaching the inventory. That's probably almost priority one after bug fixing is done.

GA: So do you think it's (the inventory system) that bad? People have sort of gotten used to it.

DH: It's not bad. There's elements I really like about it. I don't know how much you know about ArmA 3, but ArmA 3's kind of gone in a different direction with inventory and it's gone in a direction it needs to, because inventory's not really key to ArmA - you just want to find your magazine so you can use it. Whereas in Day Z, equipment is everything - that's Day Z's leveling. And maybe that's why it's quite cool because Day Z's leveling isn't a bar that increases, it's what gear that you have to make decisions and choices. I like how when you open it it's very visceral. You see your beans and you feel good. If you're really twinked out and you've got all the stuff, you can see it all. So we want to do that and there's really good examples in Jagged Alliance and stuff like that, of how to get a bit more advanced with it so I think we're going to be able to do good work there. But I do think we need to look at it again, because inventory was never that important with ArmA so not a lot of work was put into the inventory system - so that's kind of a key focus area.

GA: So speaking of beans, now you've gone pro are you going to have to ditch the Heinz labels?

DH: Yeah we are. We're hoping to get in touch with some people, but it's really hard for them - look at it from Heinz or Pepsi's perspective, sure they might like to be associated with this kind of stuff, but what if then we put suicide in, or cannibalism - maybe if they've got a sense of humour they'll be ok with it, but they've got to balance issues as well. So I'm not sure if it will be possible.

GA: Medal of Honor has officially licensed tomahawks, so why couldn't Heinz be the official baked beans of Day Z?

DH: I would love that and if anyone from Heinz ever listens to our interviews that would be great. We had a petition come around for Twinkies that was given to the development team, but we were kind of like 'You know you kind of need to get permission from the Twinkies company.' Certainly we're getting up to numbers now where the bigger companies would be interested - I talked to a science fiction event group in the UK who were sponsored by Mountain Dew, so they were going to talk to Mountain Dew to see if they were interested. We wouldn't necessarily need any money for that, we just want to put it in there because it's kind of a common institution. And maybe they could come up with some kind of contest for players - that to me sounds like a good approach.

GA: I shot a man for his Mountain Dew once.

DH: Yeah and I love how Mountain Dew has become this kind of legend - players say it's unlucky if you don't consume Mountain Dew immediately.

GA: Yeah, it is though. It's all about how you wind up thinking about it - they're self-fulfilling prophecies.

DH: That to me is the most amazing thing about Day Z. Yeah sure, the fact that it was a mod that went to a million players is awesome, but if you actually look at Day Z it's not technically that brilliant. But what is the most exciting thing to me is that you look at big franchises like Battlefield or Star Wars or Star Trek - those licenses are driven by teams of writers who are saying 'this is the direction we want the license to go' but with Day Z it's all about these player legends and stories. And there are actual legends coming out from the players. Like - we're joking about the Mountain Dew, but you said 'oh but actually that's the case' - I don't control that you know? That's controlled by the players who are coming up with this stuff. We have the black widow you know - that girl who lured guys in to the church with her voice saying 'Ahh I'm in trouble' and then killing them for their gear and it becomes this legend. And the legend of Doctor Wasteland and I love it how players are becoming, not celebrities, they're almost like superheroes - they don't necessarily have superpowers but their stories take on massive elements. So we want to support that, I don't know how, through some kind of trans-media strategy like comics, where it's generated by the player. And I don't think there's another license out there, even in movies or that, where the content is generated in the most organic way that this is. There's no mechanic that we've put in that's generating this.

GA: Except the radio right? Is the radio in the game Dean?

*Both laugh*

DH: But you know even like that kind of stuff, I would like to see us put more and more tools for players to create the world, the story, the lore and how it all develops. And then we as developers react to that - when we see that stuff happening we should start feeding it back in so it becomes a permanent part of the universe. And I think as a gamer that to me would be most exciting - so you could become the next Dr Wasteland, or the next Black Widow, or the next creepy killer with the axe that you see on Youtube. That's just fascinating. Day Z's almost developed its own humour - and it was never intended - but because it's so serious in many ways but then these most ridiculous things happen often because of bugs or hackers, it becomes hilarious and I love watching some of those compilation videos on Youtube, where some of the most unbelievable, hilarious things happen. Like the graphical glitches drive me to tears trying to fix them, but then I saw this dubstep video done to 'My first time playing Day Z dubstep' and he goes in and mixed in with the dubstep that is playing on the youtube video is all the graphical glitches and tearing and it just looked really good.

GA: On the subject of player-generated stories I do recall you said you had hoped to inject your own mythos into the game - has that begun yet or are you still focusing on the core title?

DH: Still focusing on the core title. Like the bugs and the hacking - I just can't reiterate enough how much time I spend trying to get rid of them. You know and people get frustrated 'why are dogs being added when the bugs aren't fixed' but we can't fix a lot of the bugs until we go stand alone. So we're not going to stop design work until then. Beyond that, where we're looking in terms of the mythos, it's ok for us to tell the story and the background and setting - and that's where I've been talking to my brother - who is a virologist - about how to get the science right for the virus. And now we can control the way zombies will move and act to do it exactly how we want and not just hacked soldier routines that try to avoid bullets by zig-zagging and stuff. So we can actually get smart about that and start asking 'How do we want this to work' and not 'How do we have to make it.' That's started, but it's taken a backseat to the bugs and the hacking.



GA: So you envisioned the story being just the how we got here - and the players will tell the future?

DH: That's right and like I said, I think we'll take the future the players develop and inject it back in during updates, with the world reacting to what the players do and I think that could make for really interesting mechanics - especially when we get subterranean complexes. I really want to see the day when some massive clan have made a big subterranean complex - because you're only going to be able to guard your complex if you man it - 24 hours - and I don't know how to solve this. So in one interview someone asked 'So what will happen?' - you'll lose your structure. You'll come back to your cave and someone will be in there and I think that's cool - because that presents a real challenge - how will you manage that? We need to give players the tools to do it, but it's up to them. You'll have this massive sprawling underground city that gets invaded by another clan and changes hands maybe over months or years and gets extended more and more and more - and I think that's really exciting.

GA: Well the whole changing hands thing is such a huge part of Day Z already. As I said, the group I play with, we've had a maybe four week long battle over this truck - this single truck - and only recently did we find out that the other people who wanted the truck were like 16 people strong and there were literally four of us with this truck originally. We could never figure out why they were always there - we could never lose them - it's crazy. We could never guard it - we've all got lives and **** - but we treated it like we'd go to sleep and when we got back in it was 'Oh, all our ****'s gone but we're still alive - let's go find the truck.' And I think if people can maintain that sort of mentality of putting their own reality aside for Day Z or vice versa then...

DH: Well what I'm really hoping is all this organic stuff continues - and that's why I'm really into this idea of construction and things like that - because that takes this to another level - instead of fighting over a truck, you'd be fighting over a complex base where you might have built generators and extractor fans and hydroponics labs and maybe even research facilities - over years you'd start to expand and develop this stuff. What that will mean is some people will be out there just being lone wolves with their dogs just hunting, but you other people who might go to form some sort of collective of small groups - like your group might meet another group and say we're having trouble defending our cave or our vehicle - so let's take turns and stuff like that. I think we'll see this really interesting organic stuff happen - it's almost like in that book The Stand by Stephen King, where you have one group going one way and another group going an evil way and I think really interesting stories will emerge from there - like almost meta stories above player stories. I think Eve has that and so I think it would be great to see that develop in Day Z.

GA: Do you ever worry that you've drawn out the evil in a lot of people? Does that keep you up at night? I know you weren't particularly happy with the first time you shot someone - what about the people who just roll around ending everyone?

DH: I think that's kind of part of it. Like, I read The Road and I'm like 'This is terrible, this is awful' but that's part of it - real life is awful. I kind of reject stories that don't have these terrible elements. I'm a co-operative player, I play co-operative games - that's how I play games. I don't really play Counter Strike or games like that. But I want them and the game to make my co-operative experience hard. So I need people like that, even though I don't play with that play-style, I need them.

GA: But if you remove yourself from the game and look at the world you have created, do you not feel bad you have brought out this side in so many people? In competitive games the goal is to shoot everyone right, but in Day Z, while there are moments where shooting another person is the only option, there are also moments where you're sitting on Sniper Hill outside Elektro and you're like 'I'm going to teach this guy a lesson about not going into the school in Elektro - and that's evil. And YOU are the creator of that evil.

DH: I think that's awesome, that's the ultimate achievement for a designer or a director or a writer or anything, is to make something that makes people think and feel stuff. Because yes, you can make something and make a lot of money - you could make a very simple thing like a pen is pretty simple and you could sell it and make a heap of money, but if you make something that makes people think and question things and ask Why did I do that? Why did I shoot that guy? I think that's really special and I think that's why games shouldn't be frightened to deal with complex and difficult emotions. This guy posted on my Facebook that him and his teenaged son were storming a barn or something and his son had gone off and they were going to attack from different angles. His son didn't have a compass though and he came from the wrong direction - and the father shot his son. And I just felt terrible. But then I thought, what a complex, emotional situation - as he was describing it I was like this is exactly what I think games should be dealing with, because a movie can kind of tell a story and a book can kind of tell a story, but a game can make you experience it. And yeah, some of the stuff you experience is bad, but it's a game - at the end of it you just turn it off and we talk about it. So I think my reaction to it is that's just really cool. I don't think you can ask for more as a creator of any content than to make something that makes people think and feel stuff.

GA: When ArmA 4 is coming out - are we going to see a Day Z 2?

DH: I think Day Z now - just the stand alone - is diverging so far from ArmA it's kind of like BBS - you know Bridge Battle Space - so it branched off, now it does pull things in from ArmA and I think Day Z will do the same - and maybe ArmA will pull some things from Day Z, but Day Z is going to go in the direction it needs to. Again it depends whether we get this right. There's always the danger we don't get this right, there's always the danger that people lose interest and I think if we get it wrong then it should just die - there's nothing worse than a license that drags on for longer than it needs to. I hope we get it right of course and we are committed to making sure we get it right and the only way we're going to do that is by fixing the problems we've got now and capitalising on the opportunities we have and developing a good product.

GA: Let's talk clones. How do you feel about the amazing amount of clones that are announcing themselves recently?

DH: Well you know, I don't think you can steal an idea and so I always start with that. And you know, what greater flattery can you have than someone trying to copy your work? And a lot of them are even saying they are and I think that's a huge flattery. And look at me, we've gone out and said we're developing this using the Minecraft model - now we're not copying minecraft per se, but we're definitely saying hey we think what Notch did is amazing and we think that way of developing, as opposed to the normal way, is what we want to do because we think it's fun and that's the way we want to work. I mean obviously I'm not thrilled about people developing pure clones because I'm not going to invite them over to my house and share files and send them thank you cards, but that's just the reality of the industry and I think the challenge is on us to make it awesome. I also think it's pretty hard to compete with where we're going - we're going to have a very low price point. Which brings me to another point - Aussies and New Zealanders pay way too much for games, like twice as much for games - so the fact that we can go digital distribution means we can cut a lot of that out. It really annoyed me when I went to Singapore and I found out games were like $50 there - and Singapore dollar and New Zealand dollar is like 1 cent difference and when I go back to New Zealand the same games are like $112 - and it's for digital distribution.



GA: Oh my god, the digital distribution issue really gets me...

DH: It's just wrong you know, I just want to meet the person who made that decision and just say why did you do that? It's just evil you know? We used a phrase a lot in the Army which was 'Don't take the piss' and that's just taking the piss.

GA: That is taking the piss yeah, wholeheartedly.

DH: I'm ok with people making their buck here and there - and the strategy with Day Z is we just want to sell a lot of copies - so we price it low because we can. We don't need to do a Kickstarter or anything like that - ArmA 2 sales were the Kickstarter and it worked out well. So now we can go out there with something very cheap - it's unfortunate that we can't go out there to the ArmA 2 people and say 'You get it for free' - Day Z has to stand on its own legs. So to answer your question, I'm not thrilled about it, but I also don't think I can really ***** about it - all I can do is just make a really awesome game. So I just have to make sure our game is awesome. I also think - the one gripe I have with gamers and I said this and got quoted on it - I think 'Day Z creator says gamers are buying crap' but what happens is people buy a game and then they complain about it - that's pointless. Just don't buy the game - do the research, talk about it on forums and discuss it and be a rational consumer - don't get so excited about the hype. There's a lot of hype around Day Z - some of it's deserved, some of it's not and there's a lot of games that get a lot of hype. There's a lot of hype around the clones - I think you wait and see, see what the game is and you make an informed decision. That's the only way gamers will change the industry. The minute they realise they totally control the industry with their wallet, they will get the games they want. Until then they will get marketing and hype and they will continually ***** about the games.

GA: Thanks for your time Dean.

DH: Cheers mate.


DayZ has outgrown its humble mod beginnings and will drop as a full-blown game - albeit in alpha - later this year. You'll naturally be able to track its progress here on GameArena - and you'll periodically find more details official site.