Shadowfox
2013-01-21, 17:20
Release Date (private Alpha): Q1 2013
Release Date (public Alpha): Unknown
http://dayzdev.tumblr.com/post/39933141266/where-is-the-standalone-release-i-suppose-i
more pictures: http://www.shacknews.com/game/dayz/screenshots
As you can see they are working heavily on the interiors of buildings, also where loot spawns so it makes more sense then before. Other then that they have done a complete overhaul of the inventory system and clothing system. Each body-part can be clothed seperatly to improve the recognizability of each player.
Q&A with Rocket on reddit;
Do you think SA will come before April?
Yes I think so, but anything could happen and usually does. We'll know more when the results of the tech test are out. Any dates before then would be pure speculation, and my last speculation didn't work out so good.
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Any possible date or time frame for the closed test? Last week you said it would start imminently, so I was wondering how soon that was.
We're down to the last few things to fix before the first test servers pop online and we run the first full servers. Slowly we'll hand out the first keys and get a few servers running. Then we will reassess. It could go really well and we open up quickly, or it could go badly. Don't expect the tech test to be fun, or very pretty. It's a tech test, any game design that makes it into that will be a bonus.
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Rocket, when ArmA 3 comes out, are you going to mod DayZ into it or let the community do it?
My real hope, is that the next "DayZ" comes out and get's it's big break in ArmA3. I made a space mod for ArmA2 that I never released, maybe I might make that for ArmA3! I guess someone will mod DayZ for ArmA3 and it will probably be great for it, that's the awesome thing about this community.
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I was wondering if you plan to implement a sewer system via instancing in the major cities of Chernarus+?
I really want too. We'd need to do some magic though (or instancing... but only I am really happy with instancing as a solution at the moment! the programmers want to do it properly).
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Will the ragdoll system be initially available in the SA or you'll implement it later? I have fears about this because of the complexity of the RV engine. Keep up the good work, Rock on!
No ragdoll currently, it is a significant amount of work and one we haven't done yet. We looked at it, even tried some, but it was just going to cause far too much delay.
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Is the idea of making security systems for underground structures still in? I remember you mentioned that if you ever get objects as their own entities going that you might be able to "program" them. .. i.e. grenade attached to a door etc
I'm playing a lot of Space Station 13 at the moment and it is giving me some tremendous inspiration for ideas for base construction. But expect this more towards the end of this year. We have much ground to cover first.
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Has a chainsaw been added yet?
Nope, not yet. We've only really started on item art asset development recently, as we just confirmed all our desired item architectural changes are possible.
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Do you have anything in the works for more obtainable skins like the hero and bandit skins?
You can cloth yourself in custom items for each body part. So effectively, you create your own skin. We're still looking at options for humanity and we aren't tied down to a system yet.
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can we expect some unannounced surprises in the standalone release?
Absolutely. For the next 12 months at least, probably beyond that.
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From my point of view, one big issue of Arma/the mod is that a camo-player being 20 meters away is way harder to see, then the same player being 400 meters away. Same goes for loot on current crash-sites etc. Mainly because of the rendering distance of vegetation. Are you aware, and do you agree that this is quite important? Any plans on how to address it?
It is important, we're aware of it - but we haven't got it planned to be addressed yet. We're still on these major, sweeping, architectural changes.
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I've been quite impressed by seattle map in TOH. Would it be possible to rework the map to make it playable in DayZ?
It's very impressive map, but the issue is more it was designed for something specific (helicopters). DayZ needs interiors, they're really important. I think DayZ needs a new map, BI made, that features a western city... let's just say I have plans
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Are we going to be able to hide from zombies in trees and bushes? Swarm of zombies, I'll just sit in this bush until they give up.
Yes. Although for a few months expect these new mechanics to spontaneously break and hilarity ensu
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Has Marek Spanel (CEO at Bohemia Interactive Studio for those who don't know) played the mod/sa and given any feedback on it?
Marek has been extremely involved since very early in DayZ (since shortly after it's release really). He continues to be a key contributing member of the team both at a management/steering level and also with design.
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How do you deal with the stress of the game? When you get overloaded with Questions and the difficulties with the development etc, whats your method of keeping things together?
Bizzarely enough, aside from running or one of my hobbies like mountaineering or wakeboarding (which I can rarely do here) - the greatest stress relief comes from modding someone elses game. I love KSP and love modding for it, and I am really in love with Space Station 13 at the moment, and loving making new maps and editing/modding it. There is something inherently beautiful about modding that I just love. I probably was having a slow-moving nervous breakdown towards the end of last year, really. But this year has been great, the progress has been outstanding and all the huge gambles we took architecturally last year have started paying off.
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With implementation of clothing slots, what type of range of clothing has the team discussed and what kind factors have gone in on the decision process? (ex camouflage, body & head armor, degrading rates,)
All of the above!
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How do you intend to build upon the vehicle system and how you repair vehicles. Will it be a standard hunt for parts or will you be able to remove a few working parts from other damaged vehicles to rebuild your own?
Not initially, vehicles will remain very, very basic. But later we will add great depth to the parts mechanic something like a "vehicle construction" system. This will be our first foray into "endgame" type content, after we have stabilized the build.
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Will there still be a 'dot' system and will it potentially still allow ESP hacks (which are hard to detect)?
I want to remove the crosshair but I suspect we will have it configurable by servers. Same with 3rd person, but no firm decision is made yet we need to test everything out with you guys first. Hacking is something we will have to work on for the life of the product. I.e. forever. We just have to try this new architecture and continually innovate, adapt to the change of pace. That's just the reality of the world.
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Are you still considering underground bases? It was mentioned early on but not so much since.
Once we have things really stable and solid, like a really good experience (I estimate loosely on my return from Everest in June), I think we will start with base construction. I've been playing A LOT of space station 13 and it has given me some great ideas.
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The end game. While 'surviving' is a big part of the game, there is a point where you have little more to do apart from hunting down other people or continuing to hoard things. Is there something in the works for people to aspire to? Something like 'If you want to go to this island, you have to survive x days' or another survival based benefit? (even small achievements) I'm looking it from the perspective of longevity rather than having the game degrade into a FPS with cities, zombies and flares. tl;dr - I'm geared up rocket, Do I go out shooting people dfens style endlessly or live in the forest like a hermit? Is there something more to aspire to?
Firstly, once we have DayZ stabilized into something reasonable - we will look at some advanced vehicle stuff. I.e. sort of vehicle construction, adding different parts to vehicles etc... Then towards the end of the year, probably, looking at base construction as an entirely new game mode.
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Can we expect any new guns/gear upon foundation release?
yes lots
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Will each gun have their own unique sound in SA? I ask because it can be frustrating not knowing if I'm being shot at by an M24 or a DMR. Knowing the difference would help me know if I should make a break for it or not.
Ermm... sound isn't something we've played with alot yet. It's something we can easily improve - we want the freedom now to innovate, which means not getting locked down because we created certain content. The pace of our innovation is insane at the moment and is entirely changing the landscape of the future content changes.
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You compare the SA to Minecraft a lot in terms of the foundation release and then content updates thereafter, alpha pricing, etc. Are there any plans in the forseeable future for a one-time or yearly Minecon-style DayZ event?
Probably, no plans as yet. I would say by June we have a good picture on the success of DayZ as a whole and sometime around then we'll have a good think about the future.
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How long is the invite only SA test going to last before it opens up to the rest of us?
As long as it takes to smooth out the architectural issues.
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the price
Cheap for a start, rising in price during development.
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How often will updates come out ?
Daily/weekly. Pushed through steam as delta updates (<3 you steam!)
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Will there be some kind of report system in case of hackers ?
TBC, likely something we will have to work on improving for the entire life of the product.
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To what extent will customization go, e.g clothing, character
clothing, full range of selections: Head, eyes, torso, pants, feet, gloves, vest, backpack.
Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/dayz/comments/16mq1u/before_the_holidays_rocket_asked_for_harder_and/
Q&A with Matt Lightfoot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaEhw2qQTdc
Shadowfox
2013-01-27, 09:37
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl1Ogxfo0fk&list=UUz9vCGwqw9F-Lylx7drOVxA&feature=player_detailpage#t=325s
Q: Talking about the recent poll on Reddit, for me one of the most exciting things there was crafting on a basic level, the idea of being able to make a molotov cocktail etc makes perfect sense to me.
A: One of our programmers, Jirka, is REALLY into crafting and he has created this really amazing design idea that we hope to implement soon. He loves RPG's, and he is the programmer writing our inventory system.
Q: Will the game explain a little about the back story, why things have happened etc?
A: Our aim is to make items that allow you to find out about the virus and stuff in the world. My brother (being the virologist he is) has come up with a plausible virus
Q: What are you most excited about in the standalone?
A: For me, it's character clothing, the most profound thing for me is the ability to find different items of clothing that have real effects. I don't think people quite realise just how profound it changes everything, like you can tell people apart from their clothing etc (and clothing is unisex) and clan tattoos, symbols and stuff like that.
Q: Have you looked at implementing horses?
A: We have looked seriously at horses, the main issue is one of animation. Our CEO (Marek) really wants horses but there is a pretty serious issue with horses, like don't act like cars when going up hills.
Q: How do you feel about streamers and your whole relationship with the DayZ community?
A: Streaming is a big part of Dayz's success. I see a day where E3 is dominated by streamer celebrities going through and reviewing the games. I'm a realist - one of the reasons we are successful is because of these people so we have to maintain that community support. This is a big thing I'm going to discuss at my GDC talk. Our community is pretty amazing. I'm looking at working on a comic that is driven by player legends.. more to follow on this. You heard it here first, I hadn't announced it until now. I've hired some comic artists, going to choose the best one and I'm hiring a writer. It will be in print BUT the key difference is the stories are based on player legends, so the story is driven by the players. I might do some interviews with streamers from my base camp on Everest too.
Q: When is the game going to be released?
A: Honestly I don't know and for the first time that doesn't bother me. I'm confident now that if we don't screw up from here out, we are going to make the game I always wanted to play. It would be no fun at all at the moment, the inventory looks really "dev", it's got like bright blue boxes and all sorts of weirdness it looks like shit right now but the function is starting to be awesome. 3D objects, drag and drop off and on your 3D character etc. Technical test could fail, it's still in a very dicey state but also a very exciting state. It's pretty frustrating now as I want to work on it all the time and I want everyone else to as well. I am not a great deal of fun to work with at the moment.
Q: Will there be an in-game notes system?
A: Yes there will be notes, even books.
Q: Can we expect to see infected children?
A: We looked at infected children but it's a big job, it would require new animations, new skeleton etc so I would say horses are more likely then children.
Q: How do you feel about the last blog update, the progress made and the comparison to the mod?
A: It's good, it was a really good update and it was a lot of fun to do. It really felt at the end of December we didn't have anything to show for our hard work and that was really frustrating particularly because it had been such a tense time. So now it's great we can show stuff and finally getting to design stuff. That's why I wanted to do this, before it was a lot of business stuff, project setup stuff, data stuff etc. I definitely wouldn't say we are coming to the end, we are kind of at the end of the second beginning.
So originally we planned to just turn the mod into a standalone game which is really just a modified version of the mod that worked on it's own, but what we really happened was we actually made a new engine. So we are at the point where we have just finished that and got the engine to a point where it does the basic stuff we need to do and now we are putting the meat on it. We are being very particular with anything we pull across or are redesigning it and implementing it how it should be done, which is exactly what's happening now with zombie path finding for example. I think if there has been one lesson in making a good MP game, that's you keep doing something until you get it right. As development goes on we are going to be able to talk about more and more stuff. There are obviously some lighting problems, like the sky is a bit bright at the moment, like it's a bit blue so we will need to do some changes to it but we are well on the way. For a start we were just intending on tidying up the mod and push it out and making the decision to decide to do it properly was pretty nerve racking and I'm glad we made it now but up until December and particularly December it was looking like that was a bad decision. It wasn't until today when I did a comparison screenshot to look at the new lighting/clouds etc and I realised there was a lot of stuff that ArmA doesn't do that has been added into the engine, shadows at a distance etc. I like to have the view distance set lower and the object distance higher for example and in ArmA you can't change the object view distance so it's those small details that come together to have a large impact.
Q: A lot of people got into DayZ for similar reasons that I did, that heart racing experience unlike any other game, in which case all of this waiting will be worth it.
A: We were talking about this at lunch today, about the importance of context. I think it's that context that gives DayZ it's urgency and TotalBiscuit put it really well when he said DayZ is part of this desperation genre that so many people are desperate to play a game like that but there is nothing out there so they have to play this crappy mod and I think that's something we are able to provide this context to people gaming, risk vs reward and try and develop the social side of it. I think there will definitely be people disappointed with the standalone but I think a lot will understand we need to go back to the drawing board with it and redo all the components. In order for DayZ to be successful it has to effectively follow an MMO architecture, so that is what we have done. Even our programmers from BIS not working on the game are blown away by how much has been ripped out and completely rewritten from scratch.
Q: How far away will grass render?
A: I'm trying to think, it's forced by server I think. I'm not sure, it's kind of hard to tell because of the changes in the way rendering works. I haven't noticed it as much so I'd have to check. I read peoples concerns with another unnamed recent game and it's problems with that, so we are aware of it but we haven't looked at it yet and it's going to be an issue but hopefully one we can solve.
Q: Are dogs still planned?
A: We hope it's in there for release.I doubt it will be in there for the technical test. The tech test is going to be very basic with only a few weapons as we wanted to redo basically everything so it will start off very simply and build up but I imagine that dogs will be in for the first paid build, they won't be a milestone for it so if they are in there for release that's great but if not they will come in a near update. We won't hold the release for dogs.
Q: Are you taking the direction of more civilian based weapons?
A: Yes, It's a lot more civilian, even in terms of our approach with animations etc so you don't salute now, you wave. We wanted to make it feel a lot more immersive all around and as we are bringing in new weapons they will come under a strict review in terms of how they are made, what they look like etc so the attachment system becomes very important there, you will probably see a lot less weapons but the weapons that are there are more customizable, better designed, better models, the crossbow has been completely redone, all that kind of stuff.
Q: What about the sounds for weapons?
A: We have a plan to work on sounds, we are going to continue to work with the guy that did a lot of the sounds for the mod but to be honest we haven't even started on that yet, we are trying to get all the hard stuff out of the way because once we have that out of the way sounds etc are relatively easy.
Q: Bows and arrows?
A: I'm really into bows and arrows but they have some massive technical challenges that we have to overcome first.
Q: Any performance/FPS improvements compared to the mod?
A: I can only make a qualified guess as we simply just don't know yet. We know if you can run the mod you'll be able to run the game, but as to performance improvements, I believe it will be smoother experience with less up and down spikes, and from a server perspective it will be much lighter in terms of data footprint etc. We are likely to go with linux for servers but can't confirm that yet as we are currently still using windows (we have tested linux). I think it will be better and smoother but we will have to see.
Q: What about item spawns, are they going to change?
A: Forget everything you know about the spawning mechanics in the mod, at the moment you grab equipment and loot in piles, that's not longer the case, everything is an individual item and you'll need to scavenge drawers, cupboards, under beds, inside vehicles wrecks etc and it's going to be much more challenging in that sense. I think in some ways the game is going to be easier to play since we are fixing the glitches and that's often what killed player but I think to counter that there is a much greater depth to how you survive in the world.
Q: Is there going to be a spray or something to disinfect clothing?
A: Nothing is implemented on that yet as it's still quite an early mechanic but the design that is there at the moment is to use some multi-purpose disinfectant like iodine to wash clothes, similarly with water you'll be able to boil it to destroy anything in it like cholera the longer you boil it and that is why we wanted to add in defecation, as comical as it sounds I think after trying it that it's going to be quite compelling.
Q: So is there going to be an issue with contaminated water?
A: Well you don't have to boil it, but it might cause you serious problems like Cholera etc if you don't. My brother was saying it could provide some really interesting research output in terms of reacting to a serious incidents and see if people organise and making sure their waste will be put in certain areas or infect all the waterways and how people will react to those players or a server with a serious outbreak of Cholera. I think this is the crux of it, it's that organic context and I think a lot of publishers go for the safe ground of making a story, packaging an experience and DayZ is going in the complete opposite direction where we build a framework and the players/streamers/youtubers/content creators build the story, the mod doesn't do anything particularly exciting with it but it's how the people interact and the context it provides that provides the power.
Q: The humanity system in the mod doesn't necessarily reflect player interaction, are there plans for that to be reworked so it's more natural?
A: I'd say that I could spend the next 20 years trying to make humanity perfect but that's not to say that I don't think it worthwhile trying. I think it will take us a long time to figure out what works and the only way to see what works is by trying something and seeing how it goes and then dealing with it, changing and revising it. I think humanity is going to become a little bit less important in the standalone due to the increase in character customisation, if you see someone walking around with hunting gear, covered in blood and lots of damaged equipment, you can probably get a good idea that they aren't friendly. Someone with high vis jacket and lots of medical equipment is probably going to be less of a threat etc. So it's my suspicion that it will become less important.
Q: So what sort of gear would you start with?
A: At the moment, it's the hoodie, jeans and gym shoes but that's just because I think the hoodie looks so damn cool. I think what you will start with is a tshirt and gym shoes, so pretty basic.
Q: Are you considering putting the asshat glitch back in?
A: It wasn't as cool as people would think, It was a funny bug though. I wrote that bug report myself and quite enjoyed that. I also took some screenshots but you have to be so careful of screenshots you put up as media outlets will focus on anything you put out. I've had to be really careful of how I phrase things too.
Q: Have you thought of implementing bounties and pushing things like the Reddit Rescue Force?
A: I really don't want us to push this artificial stuff as I think the strength of DayZ is somehow it's creating this organic, emerging, social gameplay. I think we want to focus more on mechanics and support options, for example writing. Matt and I play a lot of SS13 and in that game you can write on pages, take those pages to a machine that creates a book and that is saved in a database so we were talking about that at lunch and how cool that would be and I have no doubt that someone will end up writing amazing books in DayZ. I would love to see something like a really famous book like a Book of Eli situation or tagging clothing and coming across some famous persons backpack etc but we don't want to build this stuff, we want to build it to happen as that is a million times more compelling to us then creating something artificially. That is why we don't want to take the easy route and add in bounties or this and that but instead set it up in such a way so that the players develop the stories and they develop a lot that we would never think of, legends like Dr Wasteland, The Black Widow who have become bigger then the game itself we designed.
Q: I remember when you removed the respawn button and you suddenly started finding bodies under bridges and lighthouses and it was so disturbing, what are your thoughts on that?
A: That's the kind of horror I am most interested in, that horror when you realise these things happened to someone and the perverse nature of you coming across it when it wasn't designed or intended for you to see, we are very particular about that and it's a key direction for the game.
Q: Will spawn points work similarly to the mod on the coast or will they be random throughout the entire map?
A: I just realised I haven't even looked at that yet. Any total DayZ hipsters from back when there was only one server will remember everyone used to spawn at the petrol station West of Cherno at the start and we are kind of back to that point now as it was the first building I configured with the new item spawning system so I've configured the spawn for that location while we are testing. We will have to look at it and test some things, I think definitely one of the advantages of coastal spawns was it gave a reputation to the inland towns and I think more then ever with the new areas we want to maintain that so coastal spawns will probably remain a good idea.
Q: Will you be able to track players or find evidence of a firefight, blood trails, bullet casings etc?
A: ArmA III has got it, (I'm pretty sure) but there is an issue for us with memory and dealing with these things, we had something like that in the mod at one point where eating a can of beans left an empty can but that has issues effect framerate so I think it's a bit much in terms of bullet casings, so that's probably a no.
Q: Will players still spawn with items similar items to what we have now, a bandage, flashlight etc?
A: I've thought about a bunch of options. We don't have as many artists as I'd like at the moment so the pace of creating clothing is a little slow (expect to see a post about hiring soon) I was thinking of trying something where you can choose a little about your characters background. I was a fan of that level of customization in Fallout but I think we want to have things much more organic in DayZ in terms of skills so it's a balancing act. We'll look at it but don't expect to start with many items.
Q: Do you think we will see any kind of leveling for your character?
A: We feel pretty strongly (definitely I do) that the levelling you do in DayZ is your gear, perhaps the different thing about DayZ is that.. I think Zero Punctuation put it very well when he said the great equalizer in DayZ is you can suddenly turn around and kill someone and take all their gear if you are lucky or skilled and it's not that you have won because you are a higher level. So I don't think we are ever going to have any type of levelling, we are always going to have this focus on the gear being your levelling and I think that's a really cool direction to go. I really want to see us develop more of the character side of it, that is our focus for the next few months, reinforcing the sense of character and beyond that we will look towards end-game content like customizable vehicles towards the middle of the year, stealing another cars bonet because you need a new one or want a different colour etc. At the moment the vehicle system will do exactly like it does in the mod just better performance but later on towards the middle of the year will be heavily customizable and then towards the end of the year providing the game has been successful we can start doing huge things like underground instanced construction.
Q: Why zombies?
A: I'm not really big into zombies I just see them as a mechanism to study people, I said it before it's more palatable to look at a zombie disaster game then if it were based on peak oil or fiscal collapse or something. Talking with my brother we have always talked a lot about diseases and the impact (since that's his job) and part of that is where DayZ came from and so I'm hoping DayZ can teach people how fragile that can be, how disease spread and how to control disease and so people can gain an awareness on what happens in a disaster situation like DayZ. If you do any reading into Cholera you will realise how serious it is in disaster situations and it will be a very serious problem in DayZ. It kills within hours, you need a lot of water and finding clean water is going to be problematic in DayZ. I can see clans trying to control areas around ponds to secure the drinking water and so many other dynamics coming from this system and all of this is possible because of the inventory system being designed from the ground up. Objects actually exist now, they are effectively a vehicle it exists, it's persistent and all of it's attributes are persistent and that's a fundamental change. I hope those people who have complained that we didn't use ArmA III have been answered now, this is a new engine now, it's not ArmA II, it's not TOH, it's not ArmA III, it's DayZ.
Q: How will the new engine prevent cheating?
A: The single biggest difference between standalone and the mod, is that in the mod, the way ArmA II works is it sends all updates to everyone and individual clients can control their world. In the standalone you only receive updates for objects that are near you and the server decides everything so unless you hack the server, the impact of whatever hacking or any of that is limited. That doesn't mean people can't hack but it does fundamentally change what effect hacks can have. It's a hard one to talk about because people will assume what you are saying is hacking is gone and I don't think it will ever be gone entirely, in a sense the mod was kind of a hack but I think it's drastically going to remove the impact of hacking and that's the key.
Q: What about combat logging, the server architecture and netcode?
A: Well essentially the whole architecture of the basis of how the mod worked has changed as well, previously the way DayZ worked was your client was connected to the server and that server connected to a database, that's problematic for security and a bunch of other reasons and it was very difficult for the mod to realise when a player had left the game. Now we have complete control so when the application knows it's closing it can force saves and things like that, now is you have the client, you have the game server, the game server talks to a central server and then that central server talks to the database. So it's really easy to control stuff like combat logging now as you don't control when you disconnect, the server controls everything, you don't log out until the server logs out out and if you just disconnect your player is just going to be hanging around until the server decides to clean it up.
Someone raised on Reddit why am I talking about volumetric clouds in the blog post while I am talking about the server architecture stuff and it doesn't matter how many times I raise this stuff people will focus on the visual graphical things so I guess I kind of focussed on those things but those who understand will realise just how fundamental these changes are. This is why we don't know when we are going to be released because we have taken a game that operates in one way and changed it into an MMO (done by our lead programmer who was the guy who wrote Operation Flashpoint and set up BIS). In terms of netcode, the way ArmA II works is all of the clients calculate their own simulation for objects so lets say I fire my gun, all clients are notified that I fired my gun and they compare notes on the server and it's usually the client who that object was local to that decides the outcome but there is no real umpire, everyone figures it out on their own and then tries to resolve it, in the standalone, the server decides. So that's why it's taking time and in the meantime we are looking at zombies, pathfinding, how they attack etc.
Q: Have you heard of another post apocalyptic game 'The last Of Us' coming out on PS3?
A: Yeh, we actually looked at it. There are a couple of things it does, they actually don't bother with transitions for their animations and a lot of people describe ArmA as clunky, Zero Punctuation described it as walking around with a washing machine strapped to your back and I think there is some truth to that and a lot of that is because of how ArmA deals with transitioning you between whatever animation state you are in. We have trimmed a lot of that, so I don't mind if your character jumps into something if it makes the game more playable. I think it's much more important that your character is responsive then if it's perfectly transitioned and that's something last of us does that I really like.
Q: Have you thought about implementing 'take downs' or something to that effect?
A: That's something Matt and I both love about SS13 and we are pulling a lot of ideas from it. In SS13 you can gouge someone's eyes out with a screw driver, you can kill them with viruses and stuff like that. So there is a tremendous variety there but at the end of the day DayZ needs to focus on it's simplicity so I guess i want to downplay some of the expectations for when it first comes out, for example, when the small limited group of people play it in the closed technical test, there will basically be one, two, maybe three weapons, that's it, so we are drastically restricting things so we can change things easily while we are testing.
Q: Is there going to be default player models or will we see face editing customization?
A: At the moment it's going to be pretty simple and you can see the screenshot of the three races we have in the blog update. We want to do more and more faces, even thought about allowing players to upload their own textures for the faces (that's actually supported already in ArmA) but a phrase called 'time to penis' comes in to play here, which is how long until someone makes a penis out of what you have, so that's why we probably won't allow people to upload their own faces. The artist behind them is currently working on zombie stuff but will move on to the two other female options next week and moving forward we will probably add more types of heads but it will be three of each for the time being. DayZ has been very popular in Asia so we definitely want to push that and making sure it's localised too. It's actually going to be localised by the community so it's open source localisation for Chinese, Japanese etc.
Q: Is there going to be a scrolling action menu similar to ArmA II?
A: We haven't finished that yet. I don't like to make design decisions until I have to because I think leaving it flexible helps. So we have a few ideas of how we want to go, I am a quite a fan of interacting with things through the inventory system for a couple of reasons, the new inventory screen makes you look at your character in 3D so that gives you a sense of engagement with it and also takes you out of the gameplay element a little bit and in terms of the context menu is we want to have it more like minecraft where it feels like you are interacting with the world, that feels a lot better then a context menu to me but we are going to keep playing around with it until we get something we like.
Q: Do you have any update on how Ivan and Martin are doing?
A: They did a TV interview today actually, but it's all in Czech. I haven't actually spoken to them because I think it's important they have time with themselves and their families. Ivan and Maxwell (Martin) are the guys who started Chernarus Plus, they did a lot of the work and that comparison screenshot actually shows some of the work they did. If you look at the screenshots you will notice some objects have been repositioned, the southern airfield is different and all of these changes are the result of these guys and it's my hope that now they are back they can get really heavily into it because Ivan is a magician when it comes to the Chernarus map, he grew up in the area it's based on and I'm confident now that he is back he can give it to attention it deserves because I haven't been able to.
Q: So they are responsible for the work we see in the comparison screenshots?
A: Well it was a lot of peoples work, it was the change in the map, it was one of our lead artists work with the shader side of it, we have a couple of more things planned for example ArmA III did a little work with ambient lighting which is one of the reasons ArmA III looks so beautiful so we might see if we we can pull some of that work across. There is some real awesome information sharing between the ArmA III team and DayZ team which is a great thing about working with Bohemia. If I know Ivan like I do, he will want to get back and work and I think when he does, it will be a fantastic addition and he will probably tell the entire team off for what we have done to Chernarus and I'm really hoping that once we finish Chernarus that he starts spear heading the next environment for DayZ.
Q: Will DayZ be Occulus Rift or TrackIR supported?'
A: Well I met the Occulus Rift guys at Pax West and tried it out and it was freaking awesome. They were big fans of DayZ and ArmA so we want to do everything we can to ensure that happens. However, ArmA and DayZ suffer from a very complex entity so achieving a locked framerate at 60FPS is very difficult because you can't guarantee what is going to happen and you need that constant 60FPS to make the Occulus Rift work. So the challenge isn't to technically support it (because we already do support TrackIR), the challenge is optimising the game. You don't want to optimise too early so we need to do all the innovation and then we do a lot of optimisation so we will see how it goes, but we love it and having played with the Occulus Rift myself I can hands down say that it will make DayZ a thousand times better and that's not an exaggeration. I don't know how many people have tried the Occulus Rift but if you get the chance to then do it but like I say we are going to have to do a lot of optimisation.
Q: Hunting is relatively easy currently, is there going to be any sort of chase mechanic implemented?
A: That's something that I am personally going to be designing as the new ambient animals finite-state machine (brains) change. Elements of hunting and survival are the biggest key things for me to develop.
Q: Any plans to implement the ACRE raido system?
A: ACRE is a fantastic mod for ArmA that adds an amazing level of detail to radios. We probably aren't going to go for something as detailed as the ACRE system but something more like SS13 how they have channels on their radios. So I think we are going to end up somewhere between where we are now and ACRE and more in line with SS13.
Q: Won't people just use teamspeak?
A: I don't think we need to worry about that too much, similarly someone could use a use downloaded map and that really doesn't bother me too much. What does bother me though is the chat and something SS13 does well is this concept of out of character (OOC) chat, so instead of having side chat, there will be an OOC chat where you can talk about server related issues and we want to have it so that players can hide that chat if they want and that servers can enable/disable that chat mid game.
Q: So there is going to be a lot more options in the standalone?
A: Yes, people don't seem to realise how much is possible now especially with the inventory system. Your weapon is an object, you can attach variables to it, we can say it's got cholera, we can see who the original owner was, we can see every person who has touched it and this can all be synchronised to the database. While a lot of the stuff isn't necessarily going to be there right when we start, it means every Friday, well actually not Friday as we decided that was a bad day for updates, let's say, every Monday or Tuesday we can introduce crazy stuff with new patches because of how the engine architecture was built.
Q: What about map markers. You've talked about leaving letters or notes, what about maps?
A: We have some ideas for maps but I am a little reserved about talking about them because I don't think anyone has every really done what we're considering doing and I wouldn't want another game to pick it up. So that one is going to have to be a surprise.
Q: Besides Space Station 13 and preparing for Everest, what else are you spending your free time on?
A: I'm pretty excited about Kerbal Space Program but I've been so busy I haven't had much time for it, fantastic game. I've also played a bit of prison architect but not much else. I should be doing more training for Everest but haven't really had the time. I'm really glad I am sticking with the Everest thing, the timing is pretty bad but it's literally written into my contract so I'm going.
Q: How do you feel about streamers, youtubers and user generated content?
A: I was thinking of doing some interviews with streamers from base camp (through satellite). I don't like to ignore traditional media too much but streamers are really how DayZ became so popular. When I went to E3 last year it was a bit of a mixed event for me as that was when DayZ had really started to become big business (I think we only had 300k users at the time) so I saw a little bit of the darker side of the industry while there and I think what's going to be cool is the rise of streamers and user generated content. I think streamers and youtubers are sort of like the movie stars of gaming and developers are like the directors. We were playing SS13 when SurvivorGamez were on and I put it up through twitch on my big screen and at that point it really struck home to me how exciting things like that are and how important streamers and user generated content is.
DayZ has some real potential there and one thing I really like about DayZ is it's sort of created this cottage industry. We know people who have made a lot of money through hosting DayZ servers (enough to quit their jobs and do it full time) as well as youtubers/streamers. A similar thing happened with Flight Simulator, it created this industry around itself that helped push it forward until Microsoft got greedy and that is one of the reasons we don't want to get in the business of managing servers and instead give that out to the community. I think we do want to build in some features to help with streaming but the biggest one is probably our focus on immersion and removing UI, there is no UI. If you want to know how many bullets are in your magazine you will have to either check or count.
I look at games like Transport Tycoon that are still alive so many years after they were made and that is why instead of having GameSpyTech (which I am not a big fan of), we are using steams server browsing system. We can't use their method of routing through proxies so that is a little bit of a problem and you will need to port forward your DayZ server when setting it up but at the end of the day it's a huge win for us and gives the project much more longevity.
Q: Will all servers connect to one central hive or will we see private hives?
A: Initially when we release there will be one central hive and once we have that working beautifully we will allow other hives to pop up just like with the mod. That will mean DayZ will survive for a long long time and I also think allowing anyone to host servers means we will get the best level of server hosting, much better then what we could do ourselves.
Q: Has you ever sought inspiration from Eve Online?
A: I actually met the CCP guys at E3 and we had a big chat at GamesCom. They are fantastic along with Valve, Chet etc so I am looking forward to catching up with them at GGC. We want to do something like Eve in the future but we don't know how that's going to go.
Q: DayZ will be on steam, can you talk a little more about that?
A: We are very deeply integrated into steams tech and that's been incredibly good for us. Our pipeline directly uses steam, DayZ is actually on steam right now and we use it as a developer. We can push to steam with a click of a button and the update goes out using delta patching, it's just been fantastic for us and costs us nothing. Those saving can then be passed on to you and that is why DayZ is able to be sold cheap. The steam costs aren't ridiculous, they just allows us to be flexible. We want to have a lot of players, DayZ is a multiplayer game and the more people that play DayZ the better so having a low price point is important for that and encourages people to buy DayZ now so they get it cheap which in turn fuels us money-wise to develop the game later on. We are very thankful to Notch and other developers as well for driving this model. At the end of the day, DayZ is part of Bohemia and Bohemia is a business and has to make business decisions but it's one of those situations where it kind of lines up and the consumer is directly plugged to the developer instead of going through some publisher, distributors and a whole bunch of marketing in between. To use a KSP reference, I'm pretty sure DayZ as a franchise has now achieved escape velocity, it's going to go up and develop itself as a franchise, we just need to make sure that franchise develops itself as what we want it to look like, which means No micro-transactions! I don't like micro-transactions. They just feel wrong to me even from a business standpoint as you end up focused on your micro transactions. Here is an example of how I see our monetary stream working, we make this basic game and release it in say a month or so, the people who are going to buy that are the people who are really interested in DayZ, they are following the streams, updates and then there will be 3-4, maybe 10 times as many people who think it looks kind of cool but are undecided. To get those next sales, we need to add more stuff to the game. So that's our focus, our revenue stream is generated by making the game progressively more awesome and because of that getting more people, then lets say DayZ reaches 1.0 and we release a console version, there is some more users. So I think using the revenue stream of innovation is much more pleasing to me then hats.
Q: One of the most exciting things about DayZ for me is the community as well as your involvement with the community and a sense of integrity we haven't seen from recent developers.
A: It's easier to see the nice parts of it, Matt will I'm sure tell you stories of me getting very angry at things so I prefer to think of myself as a pragmatic person, you may as well be pragmatic about things and if something is shit you tell them it's shit and when I was developing the game I was pretty controlling about what was going to happen and what wasn't going to happen and there are some things that I'm not concerned about and just say go for it, like the artists and other things where I say nope, this is how it's going to be and I think that for a mod to be successful you kind of need that and sometimes I think you need to reserve judgement until you actually work with me, it's easy to come across as nice when you are being pragmatic. A lot of game developers would love to take the approach that I am but haven't been given that opportunity. I guess one of the reasons I am most happy now and suddenly super enthusiastic about DayZ because I can turn around and say nope, I don't like the animations or the zombie behaviour so we are redoing them from scratch and because of what was happening to us towards the end of December it seemed like if I was going to take that approach we were never going to release anything, now I can turn around and delete them if I don't like them, and these aren't even zombie animations from the mod, they are new ones we came up with. Comic, lets hire three people to do a comic and choose the best one, you can't develop niche games like that, you can with big games like DayZ. Coming back to that cottage industry thing we were talking about, I think that's very much needed for the franchise because it perpetuates it, that was something that always disappointed me about the death of Microsoft Flight Simulator. I look at it as if there are a bunch of people who are making money and I think some have made a lot from DayZ servers, youtube videos etc. I think, that's great. That means these people are going to continue doing it and so I think in order for that cottage industry to continue that need to have that involvement. There is nothing more compelling then player interaction in a game, a story in DayZ would destroy that, if you find a book in-game, it would be written by a player instead of artificially forced onto players and it's a difficult balance between telling a story and setting it up so players can tell their own stories, there are very few games that do it because it's so risky.
Q: Is there going to be any sort of ballistic vests or riot gear?
A: The classes of clothing we have 100% confirmed are hat (helmets and hats), glasses and eye wear (night vision, masks and anything that covers your face) tops (jerseys, jackets, hoodies), vests (ballistic vest), pants and boots. All of these clothing items can add more inventory space.
Q: Will ghillie suits offer any sort of protection?
A: Unfortunately when you start to talk about the armour of clothing, it virtually no armour so if you wear a ghillie suit without a vest then you obviously will have no ballistic armour.
Q: Will wind have an impact on bullet ballistics?
A: I don't know, we probably aren't going to screw much with the ballistics, we'll look at that later so it will probably be similar to the mod.
Q: Do you plan on adding small things like seeing your breath in the cold.
A: I'm super big on all that sort of stuff, we definitely want to do a lot of that but it's not going to be in the first release you are going to see. One day you will join up and there will be a patch with all this stuff.
Q: Can we expect a bandoleer for holding additional magazines and will that impact backpack space?
A: That's what is awesome about the inventory system, different clothes will have different container space, so you can put items in your pants and if you put those pants on the ground and forget about those items they will stay in the pants. You will find ammunition boxes in the world and you take that ammunition and load it into magazines.
Q: How do weapon attachments work, can I swap an ACOG scope between lots of different weapons and will it degrade?
A: I'm using people like Dslyecxi (A well known ArmA celebrity) for some advice on coming up with how that works, I'm more concerned at the moment with how base architecture works and the build you see in the technical test will be architecturally based, there will be a lot of people disappointed with what they see in the technical test but for the people that matter they will see, yes this is what we need to build a good game, it's not going to be a good game, it's going to be the foundation that we can build a good game on.
Q: Will default aiming stances change so you don't look so threatening when approaching players?
A: Yes, there is going to be a lot of work done to make sure you walk around with your weapon lowered or on your back or something like that and because of some of the changes to first and third person (you aren't going to be able to change between first and third person as quickly now as you will have to go into your menu to change that ) it means if you want to shoot someone and you now don't have a cross hair, your going to have to aim down the sights so that's going to be a key focus on what we want to do.
Q: Will there be a sound for opening inventory to make it more risky?
A: I think that's a good idea, it's not on the plans but I really like that and will make a note of it.
Q: Will zombies run indoors now?
A: That's one of the new zombie mechanics, I tried doing it based on the current solution and that didn't work so those animations were scrapped and we are redoing them, I'm looking forward to showing people the new animations on video or when people see it from streamers in the technical test.
Q: So what about that release date?
A: The key thing here is that we have the chance to make the game I always wanted to make with no big compromises because there is such a following and anticipation around DayZ, we have the time to make it right and this week was probably the first time where I realised if something is not right I can scrap it and do it again until it's right. Everyone needs to take that in mind.
Q: Are we going to see cannibalism implemented, like we see with DayZ 2017?
A: Yes, I do. I think I really want to see some of ideas taken from SS13, we actually run a server called 'RocketStation' so everyone is welcome to join us on there as a lot of ideas are taken from there, they actually make burgers out of people in that and it's free. Maybe we should hire some of those people because we are actually looking for a junior designer right now.
Q: Can people climb through open windows after breaking them?
A: We did look at this, the problem is all the buildings were designed without this in mind, to make it so you could climb through a window we would have to reposition the window which would involve a lot of texture work, unwrapping changes all that kind of stuff, so that would be the kind of thing we would look at in a new world. There is no doubt in my mind we will see new worlds, personally this is what I would like to see. I would like to see a world with a large city in the middle of it surrounded by woods and mountains with natural barriers to it and it would be a western city, that to me is the next Dayz map I would like to see, but I also want to see some community maps ported over for the early DayZ as well.
Q: That to me sounds like the possibility of a sequel, DayZ 2?
A: I don't like the idea of DayZ 2. I'm more interested in just doing what we are doing and adding more stuff on to get more people coming into the game but I am quite sure that DayZ has reached a level that you could consider it a franchise, we just need to make sure we do good things with that and not crap things.
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