H1Z1 (Zombieapocalypse: SOE edition?)

[pants]

Just squint a bit, pretend the zombies are mutants, and you have MMO Fallout!  Problem solved!

[Falconeer]

From Reddit, Dean "DayZ" Rocket Hall stance:

I'm sure Rocket and Co. feel just a bit threatened

Honestly I don't. I'm at most a bit annoyed that everyone keeps slapping "survival" when I don't really consider their core design survival.
It is mildly annoying that people seem to think DayZ is popular because it has zombies and "lots" of players, so naturally... to make the game better, add more zombies and players?

I certainly do not hold that view. DayZ is a survival game because it has permadeath. If you don't have permadeath, then it is not a survival game. If you are making a game that may consider permadeath, then it's obviously not one of your design pillars.
Permadeath and the ruthless nature of the game are the key component of DayZ. People have done mass zombies before. People have done mass players before. DayZ is about the emotion that comes with a sense of loss, a molding of risk and reward over a very detailed map in a scenario that pushes the boundaries of survival. It doesn't rely on gimmicks to do this, and while things like advanced crafting are very awesome - they are not the core of the DayZ experience.
I also get tired of people with "there can be only one" attitudes. People said the same thing about Rust, about any other game that has survival attached to it. Always asking me how I feel about it.

How do I feel? Well, 1.8 million people are interested enough to buy into the early access. So I feel pretty awesome. I also feel the weight of responsibility to those people. If DayZ sold not a single other copy, then by every measure it will have been a massive success commercially and critically. It's driven major companies in the industry to look inside themselves and see if they can replicate the components (The Division & H1Z1 both stated DayZ as inspiration).
I put my heart and soul into the mod when it was only 10 or 20 people playing it. Just the same as I do today, as I have done for the last few years. I do my work for me, as I always have. Although I do have that sense of responsibility - that keeps me focused when I'm down a bit. But above everything else, I make DayZ for myself.

tl;dr
1. How can I feel anything other than absolutely amazed that something I did has such impact on the industry?
2. A survival game, to me, has key design pillars focused on survival (most notably permadeath). Without those it is not a survival game


(cont.)


What I find is a bit strange is that I don't see the concept as being very similar to DayZ, it appears to me to be more focused around what Rust was trying to do in it's early days - although they have decided to steer away from zombies anyway.
There are people - both within the industry and consumers - who like to create drama around "which game is going to kill which game". That kind of thinking is stupid, it's counter productive, and it's an entirely worthless exercise. I stressed out a lot about WarZ, I got worried about Rust initially, ZombiU, State of Decay, etc... etc... But at the end of the day many of those titles ended up having positive effects on the industry and in many ways the development of DayZ too.

(...)

The issue of competition and "market exposure" I dealt with previously in my discussions around rust, warz, and others. I really don't feel like rehashing those discussions.
I don't care if DayZ sells another single copy. I don't care if someone else is making a game. The last time competition affected me, was with WarZ, and it caused me to make bad calls with the game development. Since then, and since Everest, I have focused on making DayZ the game I wanted it to be.

[Bzalthek]

Maybe Rocket should just fix his shit already.

[Venkman]

Just squint a bit, pretend the zombies are mutants, and you have MMO Fallout!  Problem solved!

Heh, or at least The Secret World, which I did enjoy for a short while.

[UnSub]

I must be looking at this completely the wrong way, but "post-apocalyptic zombie survival horror in rural US" seems light years away from "aspirational interstellar adventure on a variety of planets."

Maybe Smed is thinking of the post-apoc survival horror show that was the SWG forums on the day that NGE was announced?

[Lucas]

livestream on Twitch in about 15 minutes (gameplay):

http://www.twitch.tv/h1z1

[Falconeer]

4 weeks from now for (paid) early access on Steam. They said so in the stream.

[Surlyboi]

Don't see much to differentiate it from DayZ at this point other than the potential for even more assholes on one server. That said, if the map's larger than Chernarus, I might give it a shot just for the variety.

[Falconeer]

I've watched the stream and the game seems veeeery behind in every field. And they are gonna start sellign in 4 weeks? Crazy. From what they showed it looks like the pre-alpha of an indie clone of DayZ and Rust. Honestly, after SOE's recent hard work to earn some respect back, this seems like a weird move. We'll see.

[Lucas]

I watched it too, although I left it hmm.....probably toward the end, I think.

It was a total snoozefest for the vast majority of it; this streaming event seemed very improvised, but in the actual state the world is devoid of anything remotely interesting....And yes, probably because the main attraction of such games (beside Z) is other players. But yeah, inventory, hotbar and anything else is barely pre-alpha. Still, surprise, they want to capitalize on the current trends and offer early access :P

[Bzalthek]

It seems like a combination of dayz and rust, which is pretty good.  I like the fact that the zombies are actually deadly.  In all these zombie survival games they thing that wiped out humanity is apparently taken down by every retarded redneck with a two by four.

You don't have to really try hard to improve on dayz.  Maybe the mod is a bit more up to speed but the standalone is glitchy shit.  Having servers where things are responsive and  inhabited by other players, and with a deadly zombies all over, well it's a better alternative than what's out there currently.

So they can allow early adopter access for a fee, and then let everyone in with free to play, and I imagine that since they have plans for private servers, they'll monetize that aspect which would be genius.  You can play with all the retards for free, but you'll want to rent a private server you can customize and ban people from.

But meh, I'm sure one of the zombies will have sharp knees.

[Surlyboi]

The point of zombies hasn't been that they're deadly. Singularly, they're not. It's the fact that the dead outnumber the living and that you'll eventually be crushed by the weight of the numbers that draws.

If I wanted singular deadly zekes, I'd watch 28 Days Later.

[Bzalthek]

That's what makes lone zombies dangerous.  Taking them out runs the risks of attracting more.  But in games like rust and dayz they are only an annoyance and are damn near inconsequential.

[Surlyboi]

Day Z standalone, maybe. And that's mostly because they haven't been implemented properly. And even when they are, they'll still fuck up you day because they're too goddamn fast for normal zombies. I want the inexorable waves, and so far the only game to provide that has been Project Zomboid.

[Bzalthek]

Project Zomboid?  Allrighty, I guess we're done here.

[Cyrrex]

Day Z standalone, maybe. And that's mostly because they haven't been implemented properly. And even when they are, they'll still fuck up you day because they're too goddamn fast for normal zombies. I want the inexorable waves, and so far the only game to provide that has been Project Zomboid.

The inexorable waves are what 7 Days to Die is going for.  They seem to have the best idea on the zombie implementation, and you can even customize their level of danger to a great extent.  Which isn't to say that game is perfect, because as I've mentioned before, it lacks some of the world-y aspects of something like DayZ.  And it is still raw.

[Malakili]

Project Zomboid?  Allrighty, I guess we're done here.

Even though they had some clownshoes development moments early on, the game has always been good, and now it's really good.

[Falconeer]

Official "gameplay" video.

[Draegan]

Is this a game where you build/collect/craft stuff with permadeath? How do you develop a character?

[Falconeer]

No one knows, as Smed is being as vague as humanly possible. Speuclations point to many of your possessions being account bound rather than character bound. And since people can build structures, thanks to a lot of what is being developed in Landmark, houses and buildings could be account-bound and have persistent vaults. Same for your character: he/she may be dead, the name gone, some of the things he/she held dear stolen and a chunk of your progress vanished, but some of the skill increases could be account-wide. An example: in Rust when you die you lose everything except the recipes you learnt. While in War Z you have a "bank" that is shared among your characters, so you can put all the things you don't want to lose in there. Then again, War Z has hardcore characters (permadeath) and standard character (can respawn after an hour or so), and I would be really surprised if SOE didn't make different servers for different needs.

Bottom line: I strongly doubt they will enforce permadeath across all servers.

[Falconeer]

More gameplay footage.

Things gathered from the video:

- We can see a bit of UI.
- Zombies can occasionally run faster than players (called super-sprint).
- Players take almost two seconds to go from standing still to max sprinting speed.

Based on the video alone though and not the propaganda, so far not a single thing makes it look or feel better than Day Z or even War Z.

[Cyrrex]

To be honest, though, if they simply copy the shit out of DayZ but significantly improve the engine/graphics, plus put more variety into the world itself, then that is potentially huge.  DayZ runs like shit, and it isn't because it is gorgeous to look at.  The view distance is great, but that's it. 

[Falconeer]

If you crank down the visuals to improve the framerate, and move it from Eastern Europe to the USA, what you have is War Z. I was all hyped for this, but so far everything is very, very unimpressive.

[Mrbloodworth]

Is this a game where you build/collect/craft stuff with permadeath? How do you develop a character?

You don't. It's not an RPG.  No Artificial "Skill" here.

Based on the video alone though and not the propaganda, so far not a single thing makes it look or feel better than Day Z or even War Z.

Simple. SOE has the time, money, skill and Technology that DayZ/warZ does not have. The Platform alone makes it better than DayZ/WarZ.

As for "Unimpressive". SOE is adopting the same model of development that Starcitizen is. Extremely open, Extremely Early. Most people are not accustomed to seeing games this early. Expect this title to look like DayZ for a while as far as features, but it will be a shorter time frame to hit what DayZ is currently, than DayZ did it, and it will then Surpass DayZ development speed and content after that.

Its Technically already surpassed DayZ (SA). With Working Vehicles and open world building.

ARMA is a client-side system. Stand alone is an attempt at Server Authoritative. H1Z1 uses the Planetside 2 Networking system. So, it has none of those pains to go though.

[Falconeer]

I sense faith in your words. We'll see how this goes.

[Mrbloodworth]

I sense faith in your words. We'll see how this goes.

Was just stating facts. It's SOE. We Shall see. But they do have all the ingredients.

[Cyrrex]

I've probably said it somewhere already, but a blatant copying of the better ideas out there already from the likes of Rust, State of Decay, DayZ or whatever, with the might of some AAA graphics engine...that would be sweet.  Of course, this will be covered with the veneer of a cash shop somewhere, fucking it all up.

[Mrbloodworth]

I've probably said it somewhere already, but a blatant copying of the better ideas out there already from the likes of Rust, State of Decay, DayZ or whatever, with the might of some AAA graphics engine...that would be sweet.  Of course, this will be covered with the veneer of a cash shop somewhere, fucking it all up.

I Believe they said only cosmetics, and possibly the custom rule set server hosting. The 24 hour live stream was a rather interesting behind the scenes. There was an open thread on Reddit asking what people wanted to see.

[Mrbloodworth]

There was another thread about the outcome of the montization meeting after the first one.

We had our first monetization meeting yesterday

Some of our outcomes. Please note I'll do a comprehensive posting after we're done with this. We have another meeting Thursday to discuss.

• We will be selling wearables. We felt like this will be a good, fair revenue generator. However - we recognize how important finding wearables in the world is so you'll be able to find and craft a lot of stuff. We agree that's something important. We've also come up with a pretty awesome idea to let players who kill other players loot stuff. So if a player has a black ski mask and gets killed by another player, that player can wear the ski mask for a few deaths (we have durability in the game. Station Cash wearables won't degrade at all but when you loot something.. it will degrade. Please note the original player always keeps their SC purchased wearables. This gives the great feeling of whacking some unsuspecting fool who decided to bring a knife to a gun fight.
• We will NOT be selling Guns, Ammo, Food, Water... i.e. That's kind of the whole game and it would suck in our opinion if we did that.
• Nor will we sell boosts that will impact #2.
• Emote Pack - of course we'll have the basics for free. But we felt like this is another good and fair revenue generator.
• Character slots - feels reasonable.
• Crates - You can find crates sometimes in game. They're filled with random cool stuff from the store. We're considering letting you see what's in them before you buy a key (ala Dota 2.). This idea isn't fully locked yet.

That Monetization thread has turned out to be a terrific source of ideas and it also is helping us steer clear of the stuff you just don't want to see.

More to come late this week.

Smed

[Cyrrex]

My problem isn't the cash shops per se, it is the fact that the shit gets thrown into your face all the time.  I get it, but it wears on me.

[Pennilenko]

I don't really care about cash shops. If i have to buy shit to be effective I just play another game. If I like the game, I generally throw money at cosmetics (if the game is a free game). I also avoid subscription games that require additional cash shop purchases to be effective.

[Mrbloodworth]

http://www.twitch.tv/h1z1

SOE is doing a live stream right now in the form of a "Radio show Survivor stories" Orson Welles style.

[Ginaz]

It was announced earlier today that Early Access on Steam begins 15 Jan. 2015.  First EA package will cost you $20 with another package, presumably more expensive and containing more goodies, coming in the future.

https://www.h1z1.com/news/h1z1-release-date
http://www.reddit.com/r/h1z1/comments/2op00t/h1z1_early_access_release_date_january_15th_2015/

[Fabricated]

Cool, more zombie games.

[apocrypha]

An early access zombie game at that. They'll never get old.