H1Z1

[Morreion]

SOE's H1Z1 is a zombie-flavored sandbox after all (Massively)

SOE has just released more information on its upcoming F2P zombie MMO H1Z1. In a letter posted to Reddit just moments ago, President John Smedley explained his vision for the game. "It's a massively multiplayer game in which players fight for survival in a world where death is the only sure thing," he writes. Set in middle America with a distinct zombie flavor, the game will be a sandbox with a "deep crafting system" with which "players can build shelters out of resources in the world" and "work together to make amazing fortresses complete with weaponry to help defend against both the Infected and other players."

How is the game different from the multitudes of other kill-or-be-killed post-apoc zombie sandboxes already in existence? Smed says it's a persistent MMO with thousands of players and different rulesets, a strong economy, open looting in PvP, access to devs, an emphasis on "player ownership and building," and cool tech borrowed from PlanetSide 2. The studio plans to have a player-playable version within four to six weeks; it will fall under the $15 All Access Pass and have microtransactions but will not be P2W.

H1Z1 … hmm (Keen & Graev)

Why a zombie survival game?

Simple. SOE is targeingt a completely different market. They were live streaming about Landmark at the exact same time they did this first-look at H1Z1 on someone’s live stream show. This isn’t for the fans who are hyped up about Landmark, EQ Next, or heck even Planetside. This isn’t for the people who go to fanfare (SOE Live) or post on message boards. H1Z1 from the moment they came out of the gate has been aimed directly that that L337 crowd of DayZ gamers – the “bros” of gaming.

I get why they are trying new things. SOE went for the kiddie market for a while, the F2P Eastern model for a bit, the shooter market, then heavily back to the Fantasy RPG crowd (their roots), and now they want a taste of the growing zombie survival scene.

Smedley talks H1Z1's map size, population density (Massively)

When we open up the early access there will be a massive map for players to enjoy. Over time (very quickly) they'll magically just be able to keep going further than they've gone before. It's a very unique way of doing it, but we actually think this is a better way to go.

So not to worry. Zombie Apocalypse isn't going to be any fun if it's like Disneyland on Spring Break and super-crowded. We want remote... haunting... being scared when you see someone. Your first instinct needs to be to hide. If there are 20 players in your view it's not a very convincing Apocalypse.

SOE's new Player Server initiative debuting in H1Z1 (Massively)

Today I'd like to announce H1Z1 will be the first game to implement our new Player Servers. In addition to the traditional servers that we set up and run (what you've come to expect in MMOs), we will allow the players to come together in any way they wish and if they can get enough people together to vote for the server we will make it for them.

At first this will be for specific pre-defined rulesets. Later we will expand past rulesets into adding more features. For example perhaps one community prefers to go more militaristic. So they add more military vehicles. So we're truly letting you, our players get exactly the kind of thing you're looking for.

Mechanically this will allow players to buy pledge tokens in Station Cash to vote on a proposal. However, should the vote [succeed] we refund.

John Smedley discusses H1Z1 monetization (Massively)

The early list contains character slots, wearable items, crates with random selections of wearable items, and emotes. The team also intends to allow players to loot wearables from other players, but looted cash items will degrade over time rather than being perpetual acquisitions. Smedley makes it clear that resources like food, water, and ammunition will not be sold, nor will any boosts to those resources, since acquiring these assets makes up the core of the gameplay.

SOE's Jimmy Whisenhunt on the paranoia and potential of H1Z1 (Massively)

Scrounging what they can find, players will either use discarded gear or fashion their own to stave off death for another day. Weapons from machetes to rifles can be used for defense (or player-killing offense), wood can be fashioned into barracades, and entire homes can be built from the ground-up. Of course, considering that player structures can be burned down or destroyed, one would be advised not to get too attached to one's abode. SOE is even mulling over some sort of "natural" way to get rid of player ghost towns and abandoned structures after some time has passed.

...Without stats, very little will be carried over from one player life into the next, other than perhaps the knowledge of how to create certain items. A couple of the interesting ideas that the team is contemplating are the abilities to either play as a zombie for a short while after death and having to find your now-zombified past self to get your gear back.

[Regolyth]

This actually sounds really, really cool. At the start of the article I didn't think too much of the game (other than the name, I love the title - LOL). However, after reading through some of the articles, I think this game could be a great little time waster; especially since it's free to play. I like that they're not letting things you buy give you an advantage over other players. That's good.

I also like that it's full loot, PvP. I know a lot of people hate that, but I think the way they're designing the game, it'll be fine. With no stats in the game (no XP and all of that), starting over isn't so bad. Especially since all the items are just found laying around or made from a combination thereof. It's not like you're going to kill King Lich Master for his Unholy Staff of Super Badness after a six hour dungeon raid and lose it to someone who jumps you as you're logging off. I like it when games are like that. Then again, I like PvP.

The one criticism I have on the PvP side is that I think they need to give players a reason to team up. Otherwise you'll just attack all other players and zombies alike. There currently seems to be no incentive to group up. I think if they fix that, they're golden. I did read in the comments section the following...

They're talking about having purchased items be permanent, but looters being able to loot a decay-able "copy" of said items.

[Morreion]

May 15, 2014 11:19:14 GMT -5 Regolyth said:

This actually sounds really, really cool. At the start of the article I didn't think too much of the game (other than the name, I love the title - LOL). However, after reading through some of the articles, I think this game could be a great little time waster; especially since it's free to play. I like that they're not letting things you buy give you an advantage over other players. That's good.

I agree with you Rego- once I got past the idea that 'this would make a poor long-term MMO', it sounds like it could be fun- in small occasional bites.

[Morreion]

E3 2014: Hands-on with H1Z1 (Massively)

You have stamina for actions, health for living, and hunger and thirst. Comfort might be added later, SOE says, and it will be affected by the weather, but let's keep that in the background and focus on what's in the game right now. As you'd expect, hunger and thirst need to be kept up or you'll die. You can eat meat to keep hunger at bay. Drink water for thirst, and preferably clean water because dirty water will hurt you. Later, you can make a dew collector, which will not only collect dew but rain. You can also eat berries, which will help solve hunger and thirst problems. Again, neat, but we've seen it before.

Then we had base building. Put down a foundation, add buildings, make your stuff safe. Sounds like what I did at the start for Rust. The difference? If I die, my stuff unlocks and my zombie wanders around and needs to be killed (unless a zombie actually takes my stuff, or perhaps another player). That's a little different. What's really different for this genre, though, is that not only do you have to make a new character, but your name stays the same.

Now, this doesn't sound like a big deal to some people, and maybe it isn't. But for me, it means the player can't run away from their reputation. While I was told that a player who's been playing for a while has an advantage against a brand new player, I've heard that before. I've seen first hand what happens when a vet gets lazy or experiments and things go horribly wrong, so I take that information with a dose of skepticism. The game will also be free-to-play, which should concern anyone who understands what permadeath means.

H1Z1 floats possible server rulesets (Massively)

A short Reddit post from SOE revealed a few possible server rulesets that the team has been discussing for H1Z1. While these aren't set in stone, it is an interesting peek into the possibilities of both official and player-run servers. The possible server rulesets include:

Hardcore ruleset (wipes all ownership and recipes upon death)
PvP vs. PvE
Military weapons toggle
Guns toggle (melee/bows only server)
Roleplay (VOIP attracts zombies and other tidbits)
World chat vs. area chat
Hardcore ruleset #2: Starvation! (food and water consumption are much higher)
Hardcore ruleset #3: Zombies and wolves are deadlier, faster, and hardier
Base destructibility (easy, hard, not at all)

H1Z1 working hard on Steam early access prep (Massively)

Schenck said that the team is strongly focusing on getting the antagonists to look and play the part: "High priority on our Early Access feature list is polishing group behavior and tuning Emergent AI systems to the entire ecosystem. Our AI team is going nuts regulating interactions for all of the NPC characters in the game including zombies, deer, wolves, and more."

SOE teases H1Z1's dynamic weather (Massively)

We all know that the most important thing to your MMO immersions when you're neck-deep in zombies and dastardly corpse-looting player-killers is whether you can wear a t-shirt in a blizzard with impunity. Worry not, roleplay fiends, for SOE has today teased its dynamic weather system for upcoming survival MMO H1Z1 via a septet of screenshots that show the effect of changing seasons on the environment.

PAX Prime 2014: H1Z1's bears will end you (Massively)

In most MMOs, bears are chunky cannon fodder: good for lowbie XP and a sad scrap of a pelt as loot. In H1Z1, bears are possibly more terrifying than zombies and gankers combined. At PAX Prime this weekend, Senior Game Designer Jimmy Whisenhunt explained that in this game, a bear attacked will run you down as fast as it does in nature and make a plaything of your skull. It's a good thing that they're relatively rare and give a warning roar before charging, otherwise the zombies would be coming to you for help.

Expanding the role of nature is essential to the immersion of H1Z1's survival aspect. Wolves, deer, and bear roam the countryside, getting into the occasional tiff with each other and the undead. They're useful if you can take them down quickly, since the harsh elements (such as rain and snow) will soon be programmed to degrade your well-being and those animal pelts could be made into clothes.

PAX Prime 2014: Going on a deer hunt in H1Z1 (Massively)

The time was just before dawn, with colors muted by the limited light. I silently roamed through fog banks, looking for a quarry in the woods and finding none. It was my first time playing H1Z1, and I had no other purpose than to find something living (or unliving) and end it with my hefty axe.

Suddenly I spotted it: the flash of a white tail as a deer sprinted away from me through the brush. I pressed down the sprint button and went after it, chewing through my stamina and cursing my lack of four legs or gasoline-powered wheels.

The deer led me on a grim chase through the mostly silent woodland. At one point, a wolf appeared out from behind a tree and sprinted after the doe as well, although it couldn't catch up and eventually became disheartened (or glitched out). Yes, I felt both gruesome and silly spending my moments at the demo booth trying to kill Bambi, but I needed to know if I would be able to survive in this environment.

One wrong move and I was upon the prey, bringing it down with a sickening thud. Continuing to hack away at the carcass with my axe found me rewarded with more crafting materials and a dented conscience. Stricken, I wandered away and roamed up a hill, only to encounter a strange solitary sign with a skull on it.

"That marks the border of the game," a nearby developer told me while another dev professed amazement that he had never seen such signs before. "If you go past here, you'll die," the first dev cautioned.

How 'feel' trumps realism in H1Z1's weapon design (Massively)

"We've mentioned in the past that we want to avoid tuning and creating things simply because they 'that's the way it is in real life,' which means I get to take to take a realistic ballistic and weapon recoil feel and make it feel satisfying and fun. Typically the gravity of projectiles in real life doesn't fit the intended play experience we seek out. After all, the weapon feel and functionality has to fit our world design as well as Zombie and Player combat."

H1Z1's audio is a key part of its immersion (Massively)

When done right, you hardly ever consciously acknowledge a game's sound, but when it's missing or done poorly, it can jar a player out of desired immersion. In a dev diary posted today, H1Z1 Technical Architect Greg Spence talks about the sound of the game and demonstrates a few tests.

"So much goes into making these sounds seem realistic beyond just choosing an audio file to play," Spence explains. "Taking into account your surroundings, whether you are inside or outside, what type of ground you are on, time of day, and even weather can play a big part in the final thing you hear."

[Morreion]

H1Z1 early access available January 15 (Massively)

SOE's H1Z1 zombie sandbox is coming to Steam early access on January 15th. CEO John Smedley posted the news to Reddit a few moments ago, and he was quite specific about who should purchase the title in its current form.

"Is it going to be a finished game? Absolutely not. If that's what you're expecting, DO NOT BUY EARLY ACCESS," he wrote. "The goal here is to let you in early and help us mold it into a game you want to be a part of for quite a long time." Smedley went on to mention the entry-level price point ($19.99) and he also addressed comparisons between H1Z1 and Day Z.

H1Z1 boasts 150-200 early access servers, including 'carebear' servers [Updated] (Massively)

[Update: Smed's confirmed that yes, that was meant as a joke. This afternoon, he tweeted, "so for you PVE loving folks, we will have vanilla PVE and hardcore PVE that requires headshots, and only support First Person. [...] so despite my jokes, we really have gone out of our way to make sure PVE players will be happy. Not everyone enjoys KOS [...] for PVP we will support hardcore as well.. first person only, headshots required and you lose recipes when you die (ouch)."]

H1Z1 is now available, here's a trailer (Massively)

Zombie survival sandbox H1Z1 is now available to play. Or test. Or whatever it is ya'll are doing inside these half-finished games that are killing it on Steam. What can you expect for your $19.99 or $39.99? Well, lots of bugs, placeholder artwork, and low-quality character models, according to a recent dev post. You also get to shoot your fellow zombie fans in the face, though, and purportedly influence development of the game going forward.

H1Z1 bests login issues, justifies and tweaks 'pay-to-win' airdrops [Update: Refunds being granted] (Massively)

Reddit and Steam's user review section have exploded not over the predictable early access technical issues but over cash-shop airdrops, which some players say constitute pay-to-win in violation of SOE's stated philosophy. Smed denied obfuscating the presence of airdrops, saying SOE has "been straight about it" and justifying the mechanic:

1) You cannot call in airdrops until the servers are 1/4 full. 2) You can't call in airdrops without generating a ton of zombie heat. 3) the airdrops are random in what they deliver. 4) you are not guaranteed to get a single thing out of the airdrop you called in. You could die trying and you're out the money. 5) We fly the plane in very slowly and loudly.. we also stream green smoke from it you can see from very far away.

But he does note that SOE will be "making some big changes" to airdrops, including widening the radius, reducing the chance they'll drop guns, slowing the airdrop planes even more, and increasing the number of players who can call them at any given time. "If you think it's P2W don't buy it. Don't play it," Smed posted. "But I have to say wait until you've personally tried them before making the call."

[Update Jan 16 12:42 EST: Smed has told Twitter fans that SOE will grant refunds to those who request it: "if you are upset about the airdrop P2W issue and want a refund email [e-mail] and we will take care of you. please note we are NOT doing this through Steam. We're doing it ourselves. This will be a no questions asked policy. also please be a little patient about this - because the purchase was made through Steam it takes more work on our end. so far we've had 30 requests for refunds. Please note - if you want your refund request it now - this offer is good until Monday."]

Pay 2 Win (Keen & Graev)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 4 days, you probably saw something about H1Z1’s early-access launch debacle. SOE clearly stated several times that guns, ammo, etc., would not be something players could acquire with real money. They would not be purchasable from the cash shop, yada yada. Turns out that wasn’t entirely true.

In what is now being apologized for as a misspeak by a dev during an interview, SOE is cleverly getting guns into players’ hands via the cash shop … indirectly. Players can buy airdrops with a random chance of dropping these types of items. The problem with the airdrops was that they were landing too close to where the player ordered them. Supposedly these have been tweaked for balance already.

So yes, players can get guns and ammo from the cash shop. It’s just not a direct option. You can’t go to the cash shop and buy an AR-15 with ammo. You have to order an air drop and hope no one steals it from you. I’ll let you decide for yourself if the semantics matter. Smed and his team are 100% pro-air drop, so unless they change their minds it looks like it’ll stay.

What I love about this entire affair is how hard the community policed the anti-pay-to-win philosophy. Reddit blew up on Smed, players started demanding refunds (to which SOE is currently obliging) and a massive spotlight was shined on some pretty crappy decisions and (maybe) bugs leading to a style of play that isn’t in-line with what players want these days.

SOE's Adam Clegg apologizes for H1Z1 airdrop snafu (Massively)

I wanted to address what I said in an earlier stream with NGTZombies prior to our release. I said you cannot buy a gun or ammo and it had to be found in the world. When you are on a stream, and you are talking about your game, you tend to talk a million miles an hour both to keep the information flowing and to keep it entertaining. But sometimes things get said without completely thinking about what you are saying 100% through. H1Z1 is a massive game with a lot of systems, some of which we were tuning every day and finishing last minute. When I said you can't buy any guns or ammo, I completely disregarded the possibility of airdrops and meant that you can't buy a gun or ammo and have it go into your starting loadout, or your loadout immediately like you were buying a gun from the gun store.

All that being said, I totally understand how what I said was at the time lying to you guys and I apologize. But please understand that's not what I was trying to do. For those of you that don't know me or understand me, know that I'm not trying to be this monster that is conniving and lying in hopes that you get tricked into buying the game. I am very passionate about making video games and I want more than anything in the world for people to love the games that I am a part of making.

First Impressions: H1Z1 is more boredom than terror (Massively)

My second life progressed marginally better. Against all odds, I found a machete in one cabin and enjoyed thwacking away at a zombie that was running into the base of the house. For a game that's all about zombies, H1Z1 is relatively frugal about using them. I must have seen perhaps 8 or 9 during my entire session, and apart from the swarm accompanying the airdrop, none posed any actual threat. I could punch one out with several jabs if need be or just run right on by and count on the undead getting distracted after too long.

With few zombies, little to no loot, and nothing to craft, I found myself running... and running... and running. I followed roads. I checked carbon-copy houses. I sprinted through the countryside hoping for some out-of-the-way treasure trove. I went dumpster diving. I climbed to the top of a mountain. And nothing ever really happened as I made no progress whatsoever in equipping my character or crafting anything useful. I actually fell into a trance as I watched the terrain scroll by without incident for the better part of an hour.

It got so dull that I actually welcomed the weird graphical glitches that happened here and there. My favorite was a house where all of the furniture was shifted about three feet through the walls (which were invisible) and barbed wire ran through the living room.