I'm looking for Proponents and Opponents of the DAYZ mod.

[Max Power]

From what I've seen, most of the griping is because of some of the kinds of players that DayZ has attracted. The problem isn't jealousy over the fact that DayZ is popular, more popular, MAYBE, than ArmA. The problem is that you have newcoming, DayZ players saying that ArmA is crap without DayZ. That it is DayZ that has made ArmA good, and that it wasn't any good before. Basically, comments like that are an insult to BIS, to the amazing games that BIS has made, games that make DayZ possible, and it's an insult to the existing ArmA community, who enjoy ArmA's "boring, lame, not good" gameplay. That's what annoys me at least. The fact that it has attracted players who don't care at all about ArmA. Because, when you have players like that, and game article writers like that, who only see DayZ, then, when there are articles about ArmA3 that always bring up DayZ, it does take away attention from ArmA3. ArmA3 is slighted, it's "specialness" diminished, when articles mention DayZ without mentioning that ArmA2's realistic sandbox-oriented gameplay and extensive moddability is what makes DayZ possible. And I've seen a whole lot of articles about DayZ that don't highlight that.

The main issue is with DayZ players, not with the mod itself. One, that there are players who have the audacity to think that DayZ makes ArmA, not the other way around. Two, that the mod feeds off of a general obsession with zombies, and that this primarily is what makes DayZ popular; that, considering all of the zombie games that have been announced, just creates a kind of sense that DayZ is an opportunist mod that is trying cashing in on zombies because others are doing so.

That last one is kind of what I've seen people complain about, mostly on Youtube (because that's where the vocal debates are, mostly). Because, the sense is like DayZ is getting all this undue praise. The general animosity towards it is that DayZ is a good mod, but it's not like the best thing in gaming, but that seems to be the level of praise it's getting. And, what a lot of anti-DayZ people have said is that DayZ isnt the best thing for ArmA [I]just because it's popular[./I] For me, I recognize that DayZ is a good mod, a popular mod, but I don't think it deserves praise more than ArmA does. I'd say what DayZ is to other zombie-themed games and mods, ArmA is to the shooter genre as a whole, if not more so. But ArmA doesn't get that kind of praise. Why? Because it doesn't cash in on a popular fetish so to speak. I honestly haven't seen a whole lot of difference in ArmA2 from before DayZ came out to afterwards. I haven't seen anything revolutionary that has migrated from DayZ to ArmA2.

Popularity isn't necessarily a sign of ultimate success. Nor is popularity or fun an indicator of the direction ArmA should go in. Twitch shooters are also extremely successful, popular, and fun for a lot of people. Just given the example of DayZ servers that have turned into shoot-fests, I think it's clear that DayZ itself does not automatically engender a desire to play "more methodical[ly]". The rest of the industry doesn't have much to take notice of. The only thing it has to take notice of is that they need to always be doing something "different" to draw even more players than the many they already have. Yes, it's good that DayZ is designed around survival, and slow-paced, thought out gameplay. So is ArmA. But that doesn't mean you're forced to play it that way. Modern Warfare is designed to be a fast-paced, arcade shooter, but there are "hardcore, tactical" players who setup crouch-only, friendly fire, increased weapon damage, no hud servers.

Ultimately, I don't think you're right that people gripe over DayZ's popularity, or the number of DayZ players, as if non-DayZ players are jealous of or feel intimidated by DayZ players. If ACE2 were as popular as DayZ, and resulted in large numbers of sales for ArmA2, you wouldn't have community members being against the mod or the players it brought in. Why not? Because the ACE mod builds on the kind of game ArmA2 is. And it attracts players who recognize what ArmA is and what makes it unique, and who have a general sense that the mod they are playing is meant to make ArmA better (and you judge what's better by what kind of game ArmA is designed to be and what it's marketed as, a realistic, highly moddable military sandbox game). Where as there are DayZ players who don't share that view. And there's not a direct, apparent, obvious correlation between DayZ and improvement for ArmA. There's speculative hypotheticals of what DayZ could mean for ArmA. There's the renewed interest in releasing MP improvement patches, but that's spurred on by the renewed community focus on MP and that DayZ is an MP game, not by the kind of mod DayZ is. And I'm using the term ArmA to refer to the series as a whole, not ArmA1.

That last last statement is not what I'm talking about at all. The popularity of DayZ is bringing in good players, bad players, and different players. But I think the intimidation factor is something you have all wrong. All I read is about players who are afraid that BI is going to neglect the milsim elements of ArmA for fixes or development related to DayZ and its zombie survival game. They say that it brings in the wrong players, and inspires the wrong patches, and dominates all servers. I don't know how you can separate these statements from an intimidation- or at least an inconvenience- of DayZ's popularity.

[DayGlow]

Dont know why people complain influx of new players into mp and how they are bringing down the gameplay.

I've never know public servers to be all that great. That's life, just like if I go to the Y for a pickup game it's going to be a mixed bag. Unless you know who you are playing with you will always get a mix of skill.

[maturin]

I've never know public servers to be all that great. That's life, just like if I go to the Y for a pickup game it's going to be a mixed bag. Unless you know who you are playing with you will always get a mix of skill.

This is what everyone seems to be forget

[4 IN 1]

I usually handle those DayZ playing ARMA haters the same way scientists handle a conspiracy theorist

[Redjevel]

I played dayz for zome time, and even other previous zombie mods on arma oa.
I would say its nothing special, but the good thing about dayz that there is much hype about it, so bohemia will get some more money, and maybe some good players, not mentioning that there will be more and more noobs destroying the game on normall servers.

[n7snk]

when server filter "NOT" will be implemented i would not give a dam about dayz. but untill then i will be stay slightly mad

[Das Attorney]

The presentation hall for DayZ was packed out. I didn't get any audio or video, but here's a summary of what Dean talked about in the presentation. Please bear in mind that this is my recollection of the presentation, but I hope to be unbiased in my scribblings. Please also note that he was very courteous in his answers and didn't belittle anyones questions.

Firstly, Dean introduced himself and gave us a bit of personal background. He went over time spent in the NZ air force, army and then previous jobs with other xbox software companies. He mentioned he hated most of the games he was involved with and wanted to camp outside stores on the release dates and put people off buying them! (That got a few laughs)

He then gave us an overview of the mod (presumably for people not familiar with DayZ), and then opened the floor up to questions. The questions have been abbreviated here and are may not be listed here in the correct order they were asked..

__________________________________________________ _________

Q - The banditry mechanic (humanity) has been removed. How are you intending to replace this in future iterations of DayZ?

A - Dean explained he will support banditry and will not be removing it as a feature of the mod. The KSK skin mechanic wasn't working and he pulled it because players were being skinned as bandits when they fired in self defence. He said that currently, he's experimenting with the heartbeat and also wanted to look into possibly changing facial features, to make players scowl if they have low humanity. It's a WIP so he might add a system, let the players test it and then pull it or modify it if it's not working out.

__________________________________________________ _________

Q - Will you stick with the Arma 2 (RV) engine or look at other engines for DayZ?

A - Dean said that the Arma 2 engine provides the flexibility he needs to make DayZ work. He said that ultimately he wants to explore DayZ as a standalone release, but the framework provided by Arma 2 is enough for the moment to use. There are things he would like it to do that it wasn't designed for and at some point, the needs of DayZ might require it's own core code.

__________________________________________________ _________

Q - The zombies can move really erratically sometimes and do weird things like clip through walls. Have you got plans to sort it out?

A - Dean said he's recorded some new anims with Marek Spanel as the mocap guy. The anims need to be cleaned up and put in the game but it wouldn't be immediate as he has other priorities like stability to consider first. He said it was because a designer (Dean) was doing an animators job and just basically turned up the anim value in the config rather than going through the whole anim process. He also mentioned that the speed will need to stay reasonably high so that if the zombies go the wrong way, they can catch back up to the player. It's primarily a pathfinding issue.

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Q - Some other games (like L4D) feature super zombies that can spit venom and do other weird things. Will you add those kind of things into DayZ?

A - No. He said that he wanted them to be infected, not classic reanimation zombies and there wouldn't be any variation in the types of zombies. Although they provide a big risk to survivors, other (hostile) players should always be the main threat.

__________________________________________________ _________

Q - Some people log on to have fun whereas I play DayZ for the hardcore survival aspect. What can you do to make it more interesting? Maybe natural predators?

A - Dean explained you should be able to play the game any way you want to (and that you should have fun too)! He's considering adding in dangerous animals but it's not just a case of getting a (bear) model and porting into the game. There's a lot of issues like anims, pathfinding, scripting in the attacks etc to consider.

__________________________________________________ _________

Q - Will you expand DayZ to new maps?

A - One of the issues with Chernarus is that it was never designed with this type of game in mind, so there's lots of un-enterable buildings. He wants to look into this in the future as Arma 2 can support maps up to 500 sq km and Chernarus is only 225 sq km, so there's lots of possibilities for expansion in the future. (To be honest, I wasn't sure if he was thinking aloud about Arma 3, given that BIS recently mentioned they want to re-visit Chernarus for Arma 3).

__________________________________________________ _________

Q - Will you add in some kind of currency/bartering system for DayZ? Also, if somebody does set up a safe zone, then devious players can spawn into the safe zone on that server to kill everyone. Can you look at that?

A - Dean said that if the zombie apocalypse happened, then the first question on everyone's mind wouldn't be "let's get some cash". He doesn't want to add in any kind of system for money and would rather leave it to players. He touched on the issue of 'safe zones' and said it's difficult to enforce currently, but they are looking at ways to stop people exploiting the game like that.

__________________________________________________ _________

Q - Will there be any kind of higher purpose/quests for players?

A - Dean got very candid in his reply and talked about a few things he wanted to look into. He doesn't want to have scripted events happen, but he wants to provide the framework for the players so they can do their own thing like construct a fortress/camp and guard it (no specifics on things like power grids etc). He conceded that the game doesn't do this currently, but it is on the list and he's looking into it. He said that the barbed wire and sandbags were added to see if the game could cope with lots of spawned objects (stress test) and they aren't ideal but it's given him some data to work with for the future.

__________________________________________________ _________

Q - With the removal of global chat, players can't communicate and organise themselves like they could do in the past. Have you got any solutions, like adding in radios/CB's?

A - Global chat was removed because Dean felt it broke the immersion. He referenced his 'Anyone in Cherno?' T-Shirt and stated that he will add in a mechanic for communication, but it's hard to do and so won't be in the immediate future. He mentioned ACRE and said he'd like to something like that so that players could communicate effectively (if desired).

__________________________________________________ _________

Q - Do you envisage the servers being ran by the community (current model) or moved to in-house?

A - Dean said that he never thought it would get this huge, this quick. The current model is the one he wants to run with as any changes would be hard to implement and might not be a step in the right direction. He's killed too many servers updating the central database to think about it right now! He also said that he would love to add in an underground tunnel network that would be shared by all servers! Personal opinion: Arma 3 maybe?!

__________________________________________________ _________

Q - Will you look at a SP/co-op mode?

A - No. Dean felt it would dilute the game and remove some of the more interesting gameplay (see banditry answer above). Essentially, it would become boring and besides, there's many other games (some of them being demoed at Rezzed) that provide a better SP/co-op experience.

__________________________________________________ _________

Q - A while ago, you were talking about adding Dogs (DogZ) as a player companion. Is that still happening?

A - It's in progress. Dean said he's mainly thinking about all the posts on the DayZ forums with players lamenting the death of their beloved pet He said it's not done, but he is thinking about it. He also said there should be some cool missions in the new Czech DLC for A2 featuring dogs. I got the impression that he can't go forward with it until some code has been patched into the main game when the Czech DLC comes out. (My personal opinion).

__________________________________________________ _________

Q - There's some hacking going on that ruins it for genuine players. What are you doing to combat that?

A - Dean said that hacking is ALWAYS going to be an issue but he and his team are working flat out to minimise the threat. In fact, hacking very nearly killed the mod recently so he had to spend lots of time that he could have spent on developing the mod, making it secure. He stated that the RV engine traditionally lets players (clients) run scripts that can have effects globally but it hasn't been much of an issue in the past because it's normally like-minded groups of players getting together and playing. He said that if DayZ ever moves to a stand-alone release, then he could have more freedom to lock parts of the code down.

__________________________________________________ _________


Q - I recently heard about some guys who kidnapped a player, disarmed him, and made him run into houses to check for zombies. Are you surprised about the weird things players are doing to each other?

A - Dean - I heard about some new guys who started together and went up to the airfield to find loot. First mistake... They then ran into a guy with a hatchet who wouldn't reply on comms and kneecapped them. They were trying to crawl away and saying "Why did you kneecap us?". Second mistake... He then executed them all. I love that story.

__________________________________________________ _________

Q - Are you thinking about adding in skills for the players?

A - Dean said he believes that if you have a skill in real life, then it should be applicable to the game. If it's night and you can read the stars to work out North IRL, then you can do it in game. He said that he didn't want to artificially add skills or classes, like "I will spawn as a medic, or I will spawn as a Hillbilly"

__________________________________________________ _________

Summary:

As I mentioned, this is what I can remember to the best of my ability. I hope I'm not putting words into Deans mouth, so please clarify anything with him if you need to He went to great lengths to thank everyone who's spent money on Arma 2 so they could play DayZ and also was very appreciative of the support he's received from BIS - I hope he gets a pay rise for the unexpected business he's bought in!

He was aware that it's not an original idea and said that probably most people in the room have though of making/playing a game like this. IMO, he was the right man at the right time (with the right skills).

Last of all though, he said that everyone playing this sends out a message to the games industry and thanks everyone for voting with their wallet.

I really enjoyed the presentation and it was good to see the "BrainZ" behind it in person. In fact, the whole day was doubleplusgood, with lots of interesting games on display and some thought provoking lectures. The Paul Wedgwood and Gamejam shows being my other personal favourites.

EDIT: one of the questioners (radio question I think) referred to players who like to group up as 'Carebears'. It seemed to me Dean was pained at the expression and referred to it as "The C word". I intimate that he doesn't want to get into player politics and values people who like to play co-operatively as much as he does people who like to attack them. They aren't supported as much as bandits at the moment, but as mentioned above, it is on his mind and it seems he has plans to make it playing co-operatively worthwhile. Again, just my opinion but that's what I got from what he was saying.

[Alpha-Kilo]

Thanks for taking the time and effort to write this interesting summary, Das Attorney.

[metalcraze]

Dont know why people complain influx of new players into mp and how they are bringing down the gameplay.

I've never know public servers to be all that great. That's life, just like if I go to the Y for a pickup game it's going to be a mixed bag. Unless you know who you are playing with you will always get a mix of skill.

Well you won't see people complaining about PR players. The problem here is how DayZ players and reviewers are very arrogant. I like DayZ but I'm really annoyed when people ask questions about DayZ in ArmA interview/presentation like it's some kind of a platform for their precious DayZ. I really hated it when there's was some ArmA3 E3 presentation finally beginning and the dude asking questions suddenly was like "let's talk about DayZ". So the only thing to do was muting the sound and watching the graphics.

As a result we are able to get some proper info about ArmA3 only now through Gamestar weekly bits.

[Tonci87]

Thx Attorney, those answers sound good