# bohemia interactive's odd one year of dayz promo vid analysis of bohemia interactive's "one year of dayz" video - the old yoke being "one hour in dayz feels like a year of grief" // video here summary: it's all so emotional 'honest' oddly self congratulatory and bombastically back slapping; a kind of (internally released) industry promo video in which the 'investors' are bohemia interactive themselves - a series of convenient myths it (apparently) needs to keep repeating to itself in order to 'function' the uber-schmalzig overlayed music chosen by the team is also telling; "crossing the divide" by kevin macleod - as much a mildly stale warmed-over slice of all amerikan apple pie as a famous painting of national illusions by emanuel leutze in 1851 one is reminded of an old camera with picture view mode featuring some awful plastic-romantic 'heart warming kodac moment' style music note also the telling name of kevin macleod's website - "incompetech" // images here as for the preaching to the converted video: what does the unseen off-screen body 'interviewing' them represent - if not the (false) ideas bohemia interactive has of itself; a young fresh clean self projected other consisting of all that's allegedly eg. exciting dynamic dedicated and inherently fan friendly about them the overall mood viewers are supposed to read into the video is one of "making it good despite tough times" - the unstated narrative being "everything we do is for you guyz" transcript of developer justifications the well practised flood of 'honest' heartfelt and cathartic revelations by the developer of dayz is incredible honest and heartfelt; one wonders if ir's staring into a mirror and talking to himself ala marla from fight club: "i saw you practising this - how well is it going?" tourists.. here's dean > one of the big psychological barriers for us was the end of the year **+** psychological barriers? as in some kind of thinly unconscious "i hate everything to do with constantly developing this (permanent alpha) product and-but this conflicts internally (kinda) with the amazing amounts of cash it generates for us on a daily basis" type barrier? smell the standard corporate damage control casually shrink wrapped with faux personal revelations about 'the often difficult nature of our (by now big) business' > our build just wasn't ready **+** but it wasn't before it isn't now - and it need never be because why actually complete something when you can infinitely string / drip feed 'development' along forever - as long as there are enough poor suckers to pay you (aka "welge's law")? and the very next scene a garme dev can be seen slowly shakes ir head - "like an old man who knows the mountains are impassable" > we were struggling with performance with crashes and er it was a very difficult time for us **+** anti-ironic; sounds like something an unfortunate player of dayz might say > we were kind of worried how the community might react **+** modern developers sometimes in the slippery foxy business of fleecing consumers with janky rafts of 'inherently un-finishable by design' forever alpha product are often indeed worried about 'community reactions'; heck some might even start calling them on it > people wanted to see results **+** a great politician in the making. notice the way how the so far all but insurmountable ever growing / mutating pile of (/inherent) problems of dayz gets cynically turned on its zombified head and is made into some kind of display of 'genuine concern and rapier-like insight' - conveniently forgetting that the cat has long since escaped the bag and been busy t-bagging the pigeons that is just how poor a state many garmes are in for many players has long been public knowledge. maybe what players need is less silver tongued devs feeding them back ir own lines about what everybody already knows - like cliched psychologists simply turning (mirroring) private concerns into questions they don't actually give a can of out-of-date beans about - "..your mother?" yeah no shit people 'want to see results' sherlock. but where are they? sad empty promises all delivered a little too late > it was a moment that (..) **+** teh garme's profoundly unfinished / un-finishable - but we're already basking in the pre-planned soft-focus remembrance of all that we've done? let's not start sucking our own long list of bittersweet hard-won achievements just yet > (..) they wanted to see this and i think they were just elated to have the chance **+** information-content zero. the subtext here seems to be that players are automatically expected to uncritically be thankful for all the devs have and is doing for them; because "it's all about you"(tm) - honest. (or at least your money.) the key word here is 'chance' - as in "yeah sure there's always a chance teh garme will work as they keep saying it will.. some day" just then the video is handed over to the capable hands of dayz producer brian hicks who somehow manages to be even move vague enthusiastic and falsely celebratory than dean. firstly ey usefully (mysteriously) informs us what dayz is not > for me dayz is not about as much erm creating a living breathing world as it is (about) understanding the lure and the draw of dayz in this single sentence is perhaps contained much that's depressing about the video garmes industry - where the massively dominant draw has all but nothing to do with interactive art that is 'living and breathing' but with merely knowing how better (psychologically speaking) to suck much of the joy (and potential for human advancement) out of people and the garmes they play. mere monetization - not art garmes or quality of life is what counts for such neckless industry bean counters brian hicks (immediately cont) > what makes dayz special is that it is different every time what 'different every time' might means is simply valve's "entertainment as a service" model; design something with impossibly lofty deliberately vague / 'open' and forever unreachable goals that you can positively spin-monetize forever and a day - where a mere tossed out patch for (/inherently) broken garmeplay or shoddy performance is twisted by smart developer use of language into "check this cool thing out: it's not a bug - it's an updated new feature!" then all you have to do is wait for poor saps to log back on give your squirty product another undeserved shot and feel (at least a tiny bit more) satisfied with your garme's fake infinitely elongating 'progress' brian then goes on to talk about (big) user data / metrics and 'watching' in order to 'adjust the design' based upon them. this is important because it indicates what many 'indie' companies are fast becoming; just another form of aaa style garmes development treating players as (well paying) unpaid constant beta-testers - infinitely monetizable (exploitable) units of video 'garme' consumption > in effect we've got nearly three million user research-designers **+** such pride in your travelling sharecropper bands of human resources. while it's not surprising that the line between players and garme developers are blurring / being redrawn daily brian hicks deliberately seems to twist that unique and potentially fascinating relationship to best suit ir own rapidly growing company that is rather than 'allow' players to make the garmes and styles of play they'd like to see we'll just ever more skilfully ab-use them as unpaid interns at corporate headquarters; the only real garme in town isn't challenging and encouraging human imagination and improving our awful human condition - it's simply making ever-larger ultra-cynical piles of money for a select few that is to say (as brian states) dayz is an (industry) "toolset for dynamic experiences" - no doubt like eg. making money off user generated content > every time you join a server your experience will be different **+** 'different' perhaps as in: impossible to predict how many asshats one will meet how many 1337 haxx0rz will be spawning how much free loot for themselves how many undead will still be glitching through walls or falling through the floor just how low the framerate will dip just how bored players will feel crawling through open fields for hours like fools only to be axed in the head by some self hating player screaming vile obscenities / memetic non sequiturs down overly-bassy mikes the idea of a dayz dev roadmap consider the mere concept of a dayz development roadmap as somewhat amusing - for such a list should have been the core part of its original design documents - as opposed to merely something slapped together as an afterthought (like so many garmes in early access) first quarter **+** (very) basic vehicles **+** advanced loot distribution **+** new renderer **+** new infected ai **+** basic stealth system (infected and animals) **+** dis-eases **+** improved cooking and horticulture **+** advanced 'anti-hack' system (dynamic battleye) second quarter **+** advanced vehicles (repair and modifications) **+** advanced animals (life cycle group behavior) **+** player statistics **+** new u.i **+** player stamina **+** dynamic events **+** world containers **+** new physics system third quarter **+** traps **+** barricading **+** character life span + soft skills **+** animal predators (ie. not just players ;-) + birds **+** aerial transport **+** console prototype **+** advanced communication other than lol or f#g fourth quarter **+** animal companions **+** steam community integration **+** construction (base building) **+** *cough* beta version // republic of bob