#Dayz launcher mod path mod#
#Dayz launcher mod path software#
#Dayz launcher mod path series#

'I think that the fact that it was based on a videogame was a stumbling block to some people, yeah.

#Dayz launcher mod path software#

While simulated training programs are not a new concept in the armed forces or law enforcement, a homebrew software program created by a junior officer may struggle to catch the imagination of the top brass of a military organisation. I ask Hall whether the fact that he'd created something that was based on a video game was a stumbling block to its success. They're not very progressive, I think some people thought it was a bit out there.'

#Dayz launcher mod path mod#

I came up with the basics of it in an ArmA mod and showed it to a few people some thought it was amazing and some were just like 'right, OK'. It was hard, and I felt an emotional connection to what I was doing and so I really wanted to experiment with the survival side of that and with tapping into the emotional side of more standard training for soldiers. 'What I really liked about it was the way it was emotionally preparing me.

#Dayz launcher mod path series#

Since then James has chronicled his own calamities in a series of video diaries that have charted his journey towards competence in the world of DayZ. Stepping foot on virgin land back in May and wondering if DayZ was the best zombie game ever made. Quintin was our own post-apocalyptic Captain Cook, Since DayZ's inception in May, Eurogamer's plundered and blundered its way through the zombie wasteland, exposing the fragile alliances that run through the game and, more often than not, simply running around scared.

It was kind of an Amazing Race set in the jungle, so you had to reach a certain number of positions and get a certain number of points in order to get your badge. They plopped you in the jungle and they basically let you fend for yourself. 'Uhm, yeah, sorry, did I just say 'plopped you in the database'? My mind's all over the place. I tentatively ask if he's still there, not wishing to break his train of thought or provoke tortured screams of 'YOU WEREN'T THERE, MAN' but aware that we can only sit in silence for so long (it later comes to light that he's been coding and testing new features for DayZ as we've been speaking). It was really hard but brilliant, what they did was basically plopped you in the database and.'Īt this point, Hall trails off and I'm unsure whether we've lost our audio-only Skype connection, or if perhaps he's sitting glassy-eyed recalling something traumatic. 'I got selected to go over and represent New Zealand in the Singaporean army officer training program and while I was there I did a local training course in Brunei. So, while I was doing my training I started using ArmA to recreate the training area and play out the scenarios that I would be facing.

'As I was going through it I felt like I was getting taught stuff but I wasn't getting my mind prepared for what I needed like I was learning a lot of stuff but not really getting any process knowledge. What's that coming over the hill, is it a monster? Yes, yes it is! 'I re-enlisted when I was around 27 and so I had to redo my officer training but this time for the army. 'I was first in the Air Force when I was young, 16 or 17, and it all kind of went over my head really,' remembers Hall.

But, as is often the case, what is shunned by some is wholly embraced by others. It's telling that Hall's original technical build, from which the DayZ mod evolved, was intended to provide members of the armed forces with an emotional context for their training exercises, rather than to needle the consciousness of gamers. It is instead predicated on the concepts and systems upon which its open-world is built. That's because DayZ's morbid brilliance does not rely on a scripted narrative or staged set pieces. But he'd be hard pressed to recount how any of those stories have played out or how their inevitable, often gut-wrenching, ends came to be written. For over a million people, Dean 'Rocket' Hall, creator of ArmA 2 mod DayZ, is responsible for some of the most emotive stories to come from a game in 2012.