Ammo – DayzUnderground Team
Hello DUGies! Community member Jallen is conducting a new series of interviews with various members of the community. The goal of these interviews is to allow you to better understand who is behind the characters of DayzUnderground, and showcase the wealth of personalities and experiences we have here in the community.
Our first interviewee in this series is Ammo; a long-time community and staff member here on DUG. Ammo has played several notable characters in his time, including his eponymous PTU head trader, the notorious DAMN bandit and golden fist winner Bullet, and the insidious cultist known as Krampus. He is also a key author for the DUG mod, and can often be found lurking in the public DUG Teamspeak as he works on new content for everyone to enjoy.
How did you hear about DayzUnderground, and what made you want to apply for membership?
I applied after having hung out on TS talking to some people and having some wonderful and weird interactions.
I read about DUG on the main DayZ Reddit I think, and watched some videos by people playing on the server. I was fairly new at DayZ, having played 80 hours or so, of which 40 on DUG when I applied for whitelist. I applied after having hung out on TS talking to some people and having some wonderful and weird interactions.
Walking down the coast as improvised zulu cannibals, and some shootout together with a guy that played a pirate versus some people in Zelenogorsk. Those were my first real interactions on DUG, and I wanted more.
You are one of the staff members here on DUG. How did you come to join the team?
I was asked by the team to join. Me and Diesel were in fact asked together. We both were involved in two factions (me PTU and Diesel UN) who were already helping a lot of new members out by being on TS and answering questions and guiding new members. Didn’t have to think very long and accepted the position.
Ammo (middle) meeting Martin (ex Brand & PR Manager), Peter (ex Lead Designer) and Adam (Lead Map Designer) from the DayZ dev team during Gamescom 2018. We’ve got a video of the meetup here!
Which parts of your role in the admin team do you enjoy the most, and which do you find hardest?
I enjoy making the tools for server administration and the DayzUnderground mod the most. I am a software engineer professionally and I love solving puzzles. And tools were lacking when I joined. Qauntum made some helpful tools for application checking, but there was no real insight into the logs and relations between people and accounts.
I am a software engineer professionally and I love solving puzzles.
Diesel had fiddled some with a script to check for VAC bans on players, I redid that and after feature request upon feature request it is now a tool every admin can use to check for cheaters and combat logging etc.
The hardest I find is some of the decisions we have to make in regards to applying bans on long standing community members. It just fucking sucks to have to ban people that you have played with or against and have been in the community with for years.
What motivated you to join multiple factions? Did you find the adjustment of your playstyle between them difficult?
I joined the PTU pretty much by coincidence. I was playing on the server and found a SVD at a crash site. I decided to contact the PTU, a faction of traders here on DUG, to see if they could use it. Turns out Roland was only a couple of hundred meters away from me near Grishino. So we met up, he asked what I wanted for it and I told him something in the lines of I’ll talk to you at the Trade Bazaar which happened to be that same night. There I asked to become a member in return for the SVD.
After Ammo died I played around a bit as Timur in the PTU, and then decided it was time to try something else and I left. Started the Bullet character who had no purpose yet. Fucked about a bit shot and robbed some people. Which Ammo never did, he killed 7 people or so in his 1.5 year stint in the PTU. Then Dark as Midnight, a notorious faction of anarchists, opened recruitment and I contacted them to join and got in. Bullet was then formed by his encounters and interactions, same as Ammo was formed by them.
I always go all in, set a few behavioural rules and then try and stick to them as much as possible. Regardless of personal well-being.
As for playstyles, no difficulty adjusting at all. I always go all in, set a few behavioural rules and then try and stick to them as much as possible. Regardless of personal well-being. For example Ammo would trade with anyone, and would approach anyone. This has gotten me in sticky situations, but it also made very memorable interactions. Ammo is I think in a brothers of dayz video and one of DeadlySlob’s as well. Both situations outgunned and outnumbered, but trading and talking can get you out of a lot of shit. Bullet also ‘talked’ a lot, but usually as the upperhand party.
If you meet Shell, my latest character, have a chat with him.
What piece of advice would you give to newer members of the community? What do you wish you had known?
Don’t be afraid to talk to people on the DUG Teamspeak (ts3.dayzunderground.com:11617), Discord or to write your stories and experiences in the private member forum. DayzUnderground is what it is because of all the stories, videos and audio tracks created by the community for the community. And remember there is a person behind all the characters, you might not like their character, but the person also wanted to be part of this community just like you.
Don’t be afraid to talk to people on TS, Discord or to write your stories and experiences on the forum.
I wish I had known this community sooner. Or started playing DayZ sooner.
You are a key member of the DUG modding team. What have you been most pleased to bring to the game as part of the mod? What would be the number one item in your wishlist for the future?
I am most pleased with bringing in smoking part of our mod. No one had done ‘real’ smoking yet and it took me way too many hours, but I managed to get the model in game get it all working in the end. Polish came from excellent textures by DrDeSync and models and textures from Valdark.
Notes. Without a doubt. They have been an integral part of communication in game on DUG for years, and they were taken from us!
What has been your most memorable interaction to date? Why was it so good?
It must have been Karlos the Butcher with the Lucky Bastards and Black Paw and Spootin. I went in with only a name. Karlos. No story no nothing, not even an idea, oh and no weapons, just a gaslight. The whole persona of Karlos was shaped by the questions Red Star, Hybris, Shadow and Spootin asked him. I wasn’t a butcher until Hybris said he was a chef, I didn’t have a mother until Red Star asked about family. And a story of torture and loss unfolded, completely organic.
Who are some of your favourite storytellers on the subreddit? What makes their stories stand out?
I will say Jari, Red Star, Spootin and Farmer John. Their stories contain a lot of detail and give the feeling of a character that has an ‘alive’ feel about them. References to a past that feel fitting to their characters. They don’t just write about what happened in-game, but also fold in some measure of backstory.
If you ever stepped away from DUG in the future, how would you want to be remembered?
As a friend of DUG, its community, and anyone that wants to be.
We want to thank Jallen for conducting this interview. You can be looking forward to the next one, which we’ll also share here.