It can be stated without doubt that Bohemia Interactive’s DayZ team had one plan for the end-of-year season: they were going to share some happiness and their gift was…a picture of them wearing Christmas sweaters. That’s correct. A team photo depicting all the DayZ team members in Christmas sweaters was shared through the official DayZ Twitter account. They looked very different but they were all wearing custom-made festive sweaters. The announcement of their merch store, where only the sizes of XL and XXL were left of the “almost out of stock” ones with the note “plenty of room for mince pies” was also part of the announcement, plus free shipping for orders above €100. Classic merch drop tactic.
But the thing is, it is DayZ we are discussing. A survival game where no one is to be trusted and beans are the rarest and therefore the most valuable thing. You post a nice team photo and you are almost sure to get replies from all over the community spectrum. And boy they did.
At the very beginning, some players were simply delighted to meet the people who created the game. The user CamCantRun was pretty happy and said: “Wow, what a wonderful picture. It is so nice to meet the human faces that are behind this game.” Doom Peaks told the devs to thank them for their continuous hard work, and Luh_Herm was very happy with “the heart emoji” as he said “the white faces” he was “seeing.” It is a very good reminder that there are still real people behind the code, even though sometimes that code unluckily makes you die of hypothermia because you didn’t find a hat.
But then the other side of the same coin appeared. The immediate, disruptive, and so very DayZ reaction. The requests and… not so gentle feedback came flooding in quicker than you could say “are you friendly?”. It seemed like the community saw a developer post and just let out the survivalist energy, which was pent up for over a decade.
Ferenc pápa went directly to the point with: “game discount when?” A classic question. Casey’s Repository mentioned that they would like to see the “open-world classic survival with no sci-fi stuff” but the price is still a barrier. The struggle is real, dude.
Next, there was a call for game modification. ZimtZuDemStern was not going to take any rubbish and stated: “Add reshade back, no one needs the Sweaters. Enable our filters on the Community server.” Ross Asprey said even less: “Do better updates.” SoloClone elaborated about changes in building methods, locations, and the equilibrium of raiding, concluding with “4th year asking, thanks.” What a patient person he is!
And naturally, classic DayZ paranoia was noticeable in the comments. Cody Massey asked, “Before I shoot, are you friendly?” Donnie Adams declared his love for the sweaters but still felt the need to scream, “Don’t shoot, I’m fucking friendly!!” It is a mindset. You see a group picture, and your first thought is to determine whether they are hostile. That’s DayZ experience summarized in a nutshell.
At the same time, some of the community’s good-natured rivalry was going on. MattZee! in a teasing manner suggested that the “HOT” girl with the black hair is and was curious where streamer Marks was during the photo session. Marks himself popped in to say that when the picture was taken he was live. A little inside information for the hardcore fans. Someone even asked for a particular smiling man in the picture, wanting to know more about him. CamCantRun, we are all curious now.
However, it was not all fun and games. Kuzyn made a slight jab, “500 employees in BI but only 20 people are working on their most popular title. 🤡” Ouch. The argument of small team perception on a big game is one that has been around for a while. Grandstand Video shared their merch horror story of moaning about an unforeseen UPS tariff bill of $18 that came two weeks after their shirt was delivered. Merch drama is a problem that is universal.
And then there were the feature requests. More feature requests. They started coming in fast and furious. Mind219 wished that the developers were still working on “system optimization and upgrade to current gen.” RealLAnative asserted that the oceans should have sharks. MattZee! was so enthusiastic that he even went on to discuss the addition of hens that lay eggs which you can loot and boil or fry, along with a plea and egg emojis. Because what is a survival game without a functional poultry system, right?
This wild mix is what makes the DayZ community so… DayZ. One moment it is wholesome appreciation, the next it is a thorough investigation of the missing helmet assets from the official servers (we’re looking at you, PlayStation and Xbox players).
