Hi Everyone,

Mikkel Martin Pedersen here, back with another blog post! This time the topic is about what’s probably turned into one of the most iconic features of Deep Rock Galactic (DRG) - the ability to hit [V] and salute your fellow dwarves by raising your pickaxe in the air and shouting “ROCK AND STONE!”. The impact that little salute has had on the game, the community, and on us as developers is quite amazing. I’ll be bold and make the claim that “Rock and Stone” plays a big part in how we’ve succeeded in making a game that has generated one of the best, friendliest, and most non-toxic communities for any multiplayer game in our experience.

The idea for this Blog Post started forming right after our 1.0 launch of the game on May 13th 2020. During one of our Reddit AMA’s, a question cropped up several times: What was the story behind our now iconic “Rock and Stone”, and how did the idea form in the first place. After answering the question in the AMA, I started to think more about it and I realized how big a part of the experience of playing DRG the “Rock and Stone”-salute is and has become. So, I wanted to share my thoughts with you - This is the story of “Rock and Stone”.

Rock and Stone Fan Art by Karniz

Rock and Stone is for Real

Let’s start with a little anecdote. The very first time I experienced “Rock and Stone” being used outside the game was at Gamescom 2017 in Cologne. At this point in time, we were not even in Early Access yet, but we already had a growing community appearing just through our Close Alpha on Steam. At the conference was Søren Lundgaard (our CEO) and myself, slogging through a ton of meetings with different potential business partners, and we had a small booth in the business area just for that purpose.

As we’re having a break in between two meetings, a guy walks by our booth, notices the logo, raises his fist, and proudly exclaims “ROCK AND STONE” at us. Well, to be honest, he was a bit shy, so it was more like the whispering of a secret, and not really a war cry - but, we saluted him back, and were both left with goosebumps and big smiles on our faces. That was pure magic - we had created something that transcended the game and manifested in the real world. That’s when we started to realise just how powerful and important this salute could be for the game and for us.

But this was obviously not the actual origin of the “Rock and Stone”-salute - that was earlier.

Contextual Communication

“Rock and Stone” was implemented very early in the development of DRG. It began with me wanting to introduce voice acting into the game. Voice acting was an easy way for us to expand and establish the universe, develop the dwarves as characters, and also a super handy way to add audible reactions to ingame occurrences - as much to make the dwarves feel grounded in the game world, and also to alert you, the player, of ongoing events. Nothing new under the sun there - having them shout when they killed bugs, when they took damage, or when they were being targeted with friendly fire was a no brainer. But we also wanted to introduce a simple contextual communication system (this was way before we introduced the laser pointer).

The first method of in-game communication we added was tapping [X]. Doing so is a contextual call for attention from your fellow players. Depending on the situation the dwarf will say different things. For instance, if you are sprinting your dwarf will say “Follow me!” and if he is down he will cry for help and if he is standing still he will call out something like “Come here!”.

Introducing Rock and Stone

Tapping [X] worked out very well for us, but Issuing commands is a very one-sided way of communication and we quickly realised we needed some way of responding.

Furthermore, I felt it was important that these underpaid workers - risking their lives every day - had something that bound them together. Hence, we wanted to give them a salute. A way for the dwarves to ritualize their work in the mines and elevate the mining above just being plain hard labor.

Robert Friis (Art Director) and I did a lot of brainstorming on what their salute should be. In the end we settled on “Rock and Stone” - it was simple and modest, but still held so much tonal power that it was easily the winner. To be honest, I don’t remember any of the other suggestions we came up with because we nailed this rather quickly.

We also wanted to give the dwarves a handsign and raising your pickaxe up in the air just seemed natural. The pickaxe is your primary tool and an iconic symbol for mining. When you raise your pickaxe and shout, you show that you are a friend, a colleague, a team player and that you are ready to die for your fellow dwarves. With “Rock and Stone” you celebrate teamplay and the codex: Leave No Dwarf Behind.

For Rock and Stone!

The [V] key was just a natural key to use when you take all the standard first-person keys from the keyboard into consideration. And V as in Victory just felt right ːsteamhappyː

With [V] as the “Rock and Stone”-salute we had completed the first iteration of the communication system. Now you could give contextual commands on [X] and you could reply by saluting on [V].

Later, we saw the need for a bit more advanced way of communication and we invented the Laser Pointer, so you could point out and ping points-of-interest for teammates.

Depending on the situation, “Rock and Stone” can mean so many different things. It can be a greeting. It can mean “Affirmative”. It can mean “Job well done”. It can be a “Thank you” for rescuing me. It can mean “We are awesome”. It can mean “You are awesome”. And it can mean a gazillion other things depending on the context.

The “Rock and Stone”-Salute was introduced with Update 5 in February 2017.

Rock and Stone + Context = Let’s play! Fan art by reddit user Joe_Duncan.

Game Identity Through Control Layout

Deep Rock Galactic is in many ways a standard FPS with a fairly standard control scheme and most people even a little familiar with playing first-person shooters can pick up the game and play it. The biggest departure is obviously how the game blends mining and shooting.

On the pc standard control layout, we have shooting on the and mining on beautifully underlining the mix of shooter and miner. On the controller, it is split between the two shoulder triggers. The sacrifice is that we early on decided to not have an alternative fire or iron sight on . By reserving a button just for mining, instead of, for instance, being able to toggle to the pickaxe, you can say that we elevate the importance of the action.

Quicktap for Rock and Stone

When it came to the Rock and Stone salute I also felt it was important to have a unique button for it - [V] - so you can easily and instantaneously activate it in the middle of any other action you are performing. And just like with the shooting and mining it emphasizes the importance of the action.

On forums I have seen many suggest that we should add gameplay mechanics to the Rock and Stone shout - say for instance a chance to buff your teammates. However, I really think it is important to keep the “Rock and Stone”-salute pure and not polluted by gameplay. If there is any gameplay gain connected to the action of saluting, it loses its value as a way of communication.

I believe that keeping the Rock and Stone salute pure has played a big part in elevating it to the phenomenon it is for the game and our community today.

A Community of Rock and Stone

And speaking of community – Just as the “Rock and Stone” shout works in binding the players together, the same thing is happening on social media in binding the community together. You guys are really not wasting any chance to use “Rock and Stone” whenever you can, and I love it. It makes me so happy that we have managed to establish our own lingo around the game, and Rock and Stone is the strongest and finest example of this.

Many of the memes that are created have Rock and Stone in them and if you are seeking proof on how important the Rock and Stone is in-game just look at the two memes below.

If a new player of the game don’t know about “Rock and Stone”, they quickly learn it from other players.
Left: Meme by reddit user Diribiri. Right: Meme by reddit user zombonita_beach (Original comic by Shen Comix)

The Good Vibes of Rock and Stone

When we began working on DRG our plan was to make a co-op game where teamwork and camaraderie really mattered and where you appreciated playing with other players – randoms or friends, experienced or inexperienced. The fact that we have succeeded making a game that fulfills this goal is in no small part due to many of the game design decisions we have taken (like how the 4 classes supplement each other), but it is also very integrated into the way you communicate in-game with “Rock and Stone” as a cornerstone.

I believe that the friendly atmosphere among players and the general co-op gameplay experience is something we see spill over into our community. And today I’m so proud that we not just managed to make a game that our players love, but also that we have created a community around the game that is extraordinarily friendly and nice. As a game developer, this is very motivating.

My Best Rock and Stone Moment

One of the best moments for me in the development of DRG was 15 minutes before we went 1.0 with the game. On YouTube, we were premiering the Launch Trailer and was running a countdown. The minutes just before the trailer premiered the chat channel was spammed with Rock and Stone and just “V”. Those minutes were magical and made all the hard work we had put into the game seem like nothing. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to everyone who showed us this honor.

If you have a favorite Rock and Stone moment, please share it in the comment section below.

The YouTube Launch Trailer premiere was the perfect culmination of the Early Access development phase of DRG and it marked an important milestone for us. And I say milestone because we are far from done expanding DRG - new missions are in the making as we speak – and we still got a gazillion features we want to add to the game.

Rock and Stone Forever

With this blog post, I have tried to answer the question: What does “Rock and Stone” mean? And to sum it up:

Rock and Stone is a salute, it’s a way of saying Hi Mate! It’s a war cry, it’s a big THANK YOU for helping me, it’s a recognition of good teamwork and a celebration of a well-executed task. Rock and Stone is about showing that you enjoy the company and that you are having a good time with friends as well as with strangers. Rock and Stone is what binds us together as colleagues, players, fans, and dwarves. Rock and Stone is our not-so-secret password in our community. It’s our code of honor. Rock and Stone is Deep Rock Galactic and it’s Ghost Ship Games. Rock and Stone is what puts a big smile on our faces when we go to work. And it cheers us up on rainy days! Rock and Stone is a magical spell and a blessing.

…..And Rock and Stone is so much more than we ever anticipated.

ROCK AND STONE!

With Love,
Mikkel Martin Pedersen