Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 302

Secret of The Magic Crystals, Spec Ops: The Line, LOTRO Rohan Beta, Gotham City Imposters, Dyad, Wii U Experience, Life in Day Z, Your Emails and more!

This week Shawn and Julian are joined by Jeff Cannata and DayZ expert Charlie Hall! We dig into the experience of playing Day Z and how it may influence the industry at large.

To contact us, email [email protected]! Send us your thoughts on the show, pressing issues you want to talk about or whatever else is on your mind. You can even send a 30 second audio question or comment (MP3 format please) if you're so inclined.

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Show credits

Music credits: 

Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

Chandra - (b-sides) - workbench-music.com - 33:54

Equinox - (b-sides) - workbench-music.com - 1:07:03

Comments

Tanglebones wrote:

Finally finished the episode on my drive home. Julian, have you read Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber? The dimension hopping you described re: Day Z seems like it would lend itself well to the dimensional 'shadow walking' that the characters in Amber are able to do.

This mechanic is a lot close to the wrold walking mechanic in Charlie Stross's Merchant Prince series. There, they need to have spaces that are secured in multiple worlds.

BreechLoad wrote:
Tanglebones wrote:

Finally finished the episode on my drive home. Julian, have you read Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber? The dimension hopping you described re: Day Z seems like it would lend itself well to the dimensional 'shadow walking' that the characters in Amber are able to do.

This mechanic is a lot close to the wrold walking mechanic in Charlie Stross's Merchant Prince series. There, they need to have spaces that are secured in multiple worlds.

Ah, haven't read that yet; only Stross I've read is the first Laundry book.

shoptroll wrote:

I wonder if the increasing popularity of Day Z is going to get developers to re-consider the recent trend of limiting/scrapping mod support on their games. I think every recent time I've looked at the "Best Sellers" list on Steam, Arma II has been in the top 5. I think the last time there was this much selling of a game for a single mod was either Warcraft III (for Dota) or Half-Life 1 (for Counter-Strike).

Sure it probably takes more effort on the developer's sides, but I'd like to think a successful mod like Day Z provides a lot more "stickiness" for a game than DLC packs and grafted on multiplayer modes.

It's not a new phenomenon though. I doubt DayZ will convince anyone not already convinced by Team Fortress, Three Wave CTF, Counter-Strike, Desert Combat, Day of Defeat, and probably a dozen other mods I can't remember off the top of my head.

I'm surprised noone has mentioned that if you do HDMI via the graphics card for your PC audio you can't get surround sound in your games. That was the biggest annoyance for me. I had to run an optical cable and install a dedicated sound card.

ranalin wrote:

I would also like to point out that this type of hardcore game play you find in DayZ has been around before in MMOs. Ultima, EVE, Darkfall. Each of these games have the same brutal type of game play where you risk everything you have each time you log on. Being able to experience that again with modern weapons has been a very special treat.

Indeed.
I'm very happy about the fact that this kind of game is reaching a broader audience and getting more exposure. I've been wanting more games like this for a very long time. Let's be honest, the reason people stick with EVE is because there's nothing else like it, not because it can't be improved upon. Hopefully we'll see this space explored much more in the coming years.

It's also cool to get another validation of the mod scene. There hasn't been a mod with this level of impact in quite some time and people were lining up saying that modding was a thing of the past. I'm glad to see them proven wrong.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

It's not a new phenomenon though. I doubt DayZ will convince anyone not already convinced by Team Fortress, Three Wave CTF, Counter-Strike, Desert Combat, Day of Defeat, and probably a dozen other mods I can't remember off the top of my head.

Right it's not new, but this generation has seen a noticeable die-off of games with modding (or map editor) support, probably due to the "console first" mentality of the big publishers.

shoptroll wrote:

I think the last time there was this much selling of a game for a single mod was either Warcraft III (for Dota) or Half-Life 1 (for Counter-Strike).

I agree with the broader idea of championing mods on PC games, as they're one of the best aspects of the platform, but saying that either of those games only sold because of a single mod is a pretty big stretch.

OzymandiasAV wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

I think the last time there was this much selling of a game for a single mod was either Warcraft III (for Dota) or Half-Life 1 (for Counter-Strike).

I agree with the broader idea of championing mods on PC games, as they're one of the best aspects of the platform, but saying that either of those games only sold because of a single mod is a pretty big stretch.

No really, it's not. Not for those mods. The reason steam exists is because of updating CS. The reason the new battlenet exists is so that Blizzard could have control of the next DOTA.

OzymandiasAV wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

I think the last time there was this much selling of a game for a single mod was either Warcraft III (for Dota) or Half-Life 1 (for Counter-Strike).

I agree with the broader idea of championing mods on PC games, as they're one of the best aspects of the platform, but saying that either of those games only sold because of a single mod is a pretty big stretch.

Sorry, wasn't saying that was the case. I'm saying those are the last times I remember there being significant interest in a mod that caused people to run out and buy the parent game. I expect that in a lot of cases, if the parent game wasn't already popular there wouldn't be much of a mod community. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the existence of Epic's UDK wasn't partially due to the low adoption rate of UT3 by the series' fans.

shoptroll wrote:

...if the parent game wasn't already popular there wouldn't be much of a mod community. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the existence of Epic's UDK wasn't partially due to the low adoption rate of UT3 by the series' fans.

I don't know if it's so much to do with how popular UDK is, as it is about removing obstacles. Playing or developing a UDK games requires no previous purchase, and it also allows developers to sell their games which is probably more important now with the high professional standard needed to get noticed. Making anything but the most simple mod isn't a boxy room and low-def models now.

shoptroll wrote:

Sorry, wasn't saying that was the case. I'm saying those are the last times I remember there being significant interest in a mod that caused people to run out and buy the parent game. I expect that in a lot of cases, if the parent game wasn't already popular there wouldn't be much of a mod community.

Ah, okay. In that case, yeah, I agree. (And yeah, Arma II certainly stands out as a unique case vs. more popular "parent" games like Quake or Half-Life.)

Hey, thanks for the email answer! Good point about "logging on" being a vote in and of itself.

Independent game stores do persist in many parts of NYC. Mine is underneath the elevated 7 train, and they stay alive by also selling cell phones and RC cars, strangely enough.

What has to be one of the worst Gamestops in existence is just around the corner. I try to pretend it doesn't exist (though they did have Dragon's Dogma when I needed it).

What people seem to want from Day Z is what you get from S.T.A.L.K.E.R. For instance, there are things to discover, there are quiet times, there are exciting times, the world itself is interesting on top of having to do certain objectives.

While I'm currently lukewarm on Survivorim (the ex-S.T.A.L.K.E.R. team's next game), I'm really interested to see what they are going to do in order to incorporate multiplayer into the game. Is there going to be that Day Z experience where you do have to worry about any human you meet or is it going to be mostly cooperative? Time will tell.