H1Z1 (Zombieapocalypse: SOE edition?)

[HaemishM]

Fuck's sake. SOE is the last goddamn company that ought to be allowed to use Early Access. Talk about totally shitting on the concept of Early Access funding smaller projects that might otherwise not get finished without the cash infusion of the early suckers.

[Kageru]

Judging by the quality of a lot of SOE's output they're getting closer and closer to being a small company that might never get it's projects finished.

[taolurker]

LOL Smedly tweeted there are going to be 150-200 H1Z1 servers on 1/15.

[Falconeer]

The way I understand it that's not weird as it's not a MMO in the traditional sense, more like extended Counterstrike maps where you pick a server from a server browser every time you log in. Like DayZ, or Rust. Those servers will have a population cap of what, 100? 200 people each?

[Draegan]

That sounds about right. What is the point of this game anyway? Build stuff? Kill people? Kill zombies?

[Falconeer]

Get some money out of the DayZ monster. Especially if they manage to "finish" this before the Bohemia people finish theirs which is now scheduled for 2016.

Oh you mean what's the point of playing this game? I honestly think this goes back to that other thread about the Shadowbane people, although I am sure the answer to that would be once again buried under the usual truckload of sneers and jeers (not yours).

[rattran]

If it's less crashy and cockstabby than DayZ, they stand to make buckets of money. But it's SOE, so I suspect it'll be cockstabby and crashy. Like you can't buy water/ammo/food/guns, but they're mostlyonly found in crates that you can only open with rmt keys.

[Cyrrex]

I've probably said it before, but if they can make a prettier DayZ with a more efficient engine (all ARMA based stuff runs horribly) and just a touch of atmosphere and less cockstabbing...there is a market.  I know virtually nothing about this game, but there is no way I am not going to be trying it.

Wait, it is free-to-play, no?

[Falconeer]

Early Acess is 20$. Not sure about the price when it'll launch, but that's far away anyway.

I also read some interesting and/or funny things in the official FAQ:

How many players can one server host?


As with Landmark and PlanetSide 2, H1Z1 uses the ForgeLight engine so we have the potential to support thousands of players simultaneously in game. With H1Z1, however, we want to find the balance between it feeling like you are a zombie apocalypse survivor and having others to play with. As development continues we will adjust the number of players allowed on each server.

That's interesting.

Will you have female characters in the game?

Yes, we are working on creating female characters and intend to have them implemented in the game in the near future.

Wow awesome! Cheers to the near future! Thank you SOE    

How are you different than DayZ?

One of the main reasons we wanted to make a zombie survival game is because we are all fans of the survival genre. DayZ did a great job and we hope fans of the genre will enjoy our take on the zombie apocalypse as well. Our goal is to make H1Z1 fun, accessible, hard core, and super deep, and we can’t wait for players to get their hands on it.

  - Why even bother to put this question in the FAQ if your answer is gonna be "because jhdguiyuh/!"/"(HD  h/&("&D DJ/(/uhhhd677%$%" WP=DIPIDJH= RAHAAAAAHHHHHTTTTTRRTRMFLBHFGDDBGBERVBBLE" ?

[Gimfain]

Early Acess is 20$. Not sure about the price when it'll launch, but that's far away anyway.

H1Z1 will be f2p on launch.

[Cyrrex]

Piss, I didn't realize you had to pay for the Early Access thing.  For a Free-to-Play game even.

Seems likely I will take the plunge anyway.  You know, for you guys and stuff.

[HaemishM]

Piss, I didn't realize you had to pay for the Early Access thing.  For a Free-to-Play game even.

Somebody has to pay for development. 

[Cyrrex]

Well I just figured, you know, that maybe the giant corporation making the game could do that.  I should know better by now.

[Falconeer]

I've probably said it before, but if they can make a prettier DayZ with a more efficient engine (all ARMA based stuff runs horribly)

More efficient engine for sure, but prettier? No way. DayZ, even with its older ArmA 2.5 engine, is ridiculously good looking. It's already obvious from videos and screenshots that H1Z1 went for performance over quality.

[Cyrrex]

I've probably said it before, but if they can make a prettier DayZ with a more efficient engine (all ARMA based stuff runs horribly)

More efficient engine for sure, but prettier? No way. DayZ, even with its older ArmA 2.5 engine, is ridiculously good looking. It's already obvious from videos and screenshots that H1Z1 went for performance over quality.

I don't really agree.  The best thing about the ARMA engines are the amazing draw distances.  To actually make any of it look decent, you have to have a crazy powerful machine (by most people's standards).  They also scale horribly.  You can turn off all of the graphical goodness, scale down the resolution, and still get absolute shit performance.  I have tried this on four totally different computers of different levels of power and have tried with both ARMA 2 and ARMA 3.  They share the same problems in all versions and all systems.

[Falconeer]

You are still talking about performances, and I have already agreed with you on that. Even on low details though DayZ looks better than H1Z1, and that's why I questioned the "prettier". Doesn't run better, but it sure looks better. Anyway, I'll post some screenshots from both games tomorrow. Who knows, maybe when seeing them side by side I'll find out I was wrong.

[Cyrrex]

Yeah, okay, I see the distinction.  If you assume max performance, the Arma stuff looks pretty sweet.  I guess my point is that few people have machines that can pull that off, and when you dial back the goodies it still runs like shit.

My son is playing Arma 3.  He can turn the graphics up to max...because he gets 22fps whether it is on max or on min.  Makes virtually no difference.  It looks amazing.  Like an amazing, unplayable slide show.

[Falconeer]

First impression: this is a joke. This is not even better than WarZ (Infestation), which is a feature complete game that came out two years ago. Let alone DayZ. Sure, Early Access, alpha version, whatever. Things could change but it's hard to overstate how underwhelming it is. I have always expressed my skepticism for this project, but now that I've finally tested firsthand I really have to say that it feels like a joke and much much worse than I anticipated. Visuals in particular are just TERRIBLE. Even the glorious Planetside 2 engine doesn't save it as it looks like an indie mess. I am no tkidding you: it plays and feels like WarZ but in alpha stage. Also, as a cherry on the shitcake, their monetization system seems really not cool. Give me DayZ and its 25$ box cost any day of the week.

Seriously, it feels like a joke indie mess. Anyway, first impressions are seldom logical and objective.

8)    We have made the decision to allow paid for airdrops into the game with things like guns and other things being randomly selected as part of the airdrop. We’re making them highly contested and building a whole set of rules around this, but you should be aware that our goal is to make this a way to keep things interesting on the servers but still be contested. If these offend your sensibilities just know that they are going to be there. We have gone out of our way to make sure the airdrops are contested in-game and that you can’t simply expect to easily walk about to the airdrop and grab it. Even if you paid for it.

14)   Crates – one of our primary monetization methods is crates. You are given crates over time simply for playing. The keys will cost 250 Station Cash ($2.50) and can be purchased in bundles for less per key. Inside the crate are skins that can make your character or equipment even cooler. However you have to actually find items in-game to reskin. So if you get a military backpack camo pattern.. you still have to find a military backpack in game (which has the same # of slots btw). The crates have one item each in them and there is a random rarity, so you might get a common item or you might get a rare item (obviously less chance for the rare). Crates are not necessary for gameplay. You never have to buy one if you don’t want to.

15)   Event Tickets / Event Servers – We have many different types of servers that you can play on. One type (Event Servers) requires an Event Ticket which can be purchased for roughly 100SC ($1). At the start we have Player Unknown’s Battle Royale servers that you can play on. This is an awesome Last Man Standing kind of game that we think you’ll really enjoy. You don’t need to buy the tickets.. you will earn them simply by playing H1Z1. If you like it and want to play that more, you can buy them. If you get good at it, we give you additional tickets for being near the top of the leaderboard after the end of a match.

And they promised no pay2win and no pay for guns only a few days ago a while ago.

The funny thing about airdrops is that they are absolutely pay2win crap that you can have delivered from the sky... except it's not even guaranteed. You pay for the airdrop, the airplane comes and everyone can see it and then it drops the box... which can be picked up by EVERYBODY who is running by and kills you before you get it. Supposedly, it's their idea to create contested objectives, but you will be literally contesting someone's money. How long before they change this?

Smedley posted today about it on Reddit:

We want them to be server events... so we make sure the whole server knows they're coming and I've personally been killed many times after I paid for them myself.

You are literally paying and praying. And other players can also literally steal your real money.

EDIT: Airdrops.
EDIT 2: more on airdrops.

[Malakili]

This is why free to play is stupid.


Edit: I guess I like the idea of paying for a drop than just straight pay to get sweet guns, from a gameplay perspective.

Watching someone stream this now.  It seems... ok I guess.  However, this feels about 3 years too late for me to care.

[rattran]

Watching the login and soe account servers melt was fun. Really old skool fun of a failed mmo launch.

[Malakili]

Watching the login and soe account servers melt was fun. Really old skool fun of a failed mmo launch.

This thing clearly isn't ready for prime time.  This is effectively launch, you're right, but the game looks alpha.

[rattran]

There's not even a bit of a game yet. Seems more of a semi failed tech demo. At least you can't fall off the world when you get to the edge. No matter how hard you try.

[Malakili]

There's not even a bit of a game yet. Seems more of a semi failed tech demo. At least you can't fall off the world when you get to the edge. No matter how hard you try.

I dunno, I saw a guy driving around earlier in a jeep and it clipped through the ground.

[waffel]

Looks like they're trying to put out the shitflames by offering refunds now:

https://twitter.com/j_smedley/status/556142754254704641

[Malakili]

If I'm understanding the whole thing, it is supposed to be like you are buying a server event that is this air drop that has all sorts of goodies in it.  It's supposed to be contested, and have lots of zombies spawn with it to make it not just, I bought myself an airdrop. BUT, because the game is not finished and still buggy as hell, right now it really is effectively just buying yourself a bunch of stuff.

So 1) The people who are upset about this being pay to win are kind of missing the point. and 2) This "launch" is hilarious.

[kaid]

One thing I don't quite get about the bitching about air drops is sure there may be a gun. But anybody in the area has about as much of a chance at it as you do and can kill you to take your stuff if you happen to get it.

[Falconeer]

They also said they are lowering the gun drop rate in airdrops, which sounds like a weird plan. This way, not everyone ordering an airdrop will have a chance to get a gun, only the whales ordering airdrops until they get it. Making SOE richer in the process of course.

Anyway, obligatory wall of weird.

[Malakili]

It seems like they are trying to figure out interesting things that could be in the cash shop without just going 'pay us 10 bucks for an AK 47.'  I sort of commend them for trying to get around it with this idea of buying server events (I imagine airdrops could be the first of many such things).

But what I keep hearing is people talking about this game "launching."  It clearly isn't a launch.  And yet, it is a de facto launch.  Clusterfucks like this, even from major AAA devs like SOE are now the new normal.

[sam, an eggplant]

Fuck that bullshit.

You can call it beta, early access, etc, whatever you want. But once you start accepting money, you've launched.

[Malakili]

Fuck that bullshit.

You can call it beta, early access, etc, whatever you want. But once you start accepting money, you've launched.

I don't disagree at all.  That is the problem with this sort of thing.  They clearly have launched without being ready to actually launch.  And it's not like it was even 5 years ago where buying into something (like Minecraft alpha) was understood to be a rare thing to get a buggy product.  But now people expect something like this to be fully functional when they are clearly paying to play in an alpha.

[sam, an eggplant]

Sure, a great deal of it is that paying for an "early access" game is almost always a bad idea. And Steam displays warnings in bold type. Comes back to the PT Barnum bit, the world is full of suckers, but is it really morally acceptable to exploit their naivete?

[Malakili]

For years people hopped to the newest thing, and since the advent of early access/alpha funding/whatever that means hopping to the newest thing that isn't even finished.  At least there used to be the pretense that the newest release was actually "ready" for launch, whatever that meant.  The reality is I bet plenty of people get just as much value for their 20 bucks (in terms of entertainment) on this buggy garbage as they did paying 50 bucks for the box of whatever latest MMORPG they bought circa 2007, 2008, 2009, and so forth.

So really I don't even know anymore.

[HaemishM]

Developers, especially experienced fucking MMOG developers, need to learn the lesson - if the goddamn customer is paying for it, FUCK YOU IT'S LAUNCHED. You can call it Early Access and Alpha all you fucking want, but if you take money, YOUR GAME IS LAUNCHED.

[Malakili]

Developers, especially experienced fucking MMOG developers, need to learn the lesson - if the goddamn customer is paying for it, FUCK YOU IT'S LAUNCHED. You can call it Early Access and Alpha all you fucking want, but if you take money, YOUR GAME IS LAUNCHED.

What's the lesson?  The lesson is if they charge for something people will keep paying them even if the thing is barely functional garbage.  That's the lesson they've learned so far at least.

[Gimfain]

Refund available for early buyers.

Hi folks,
If you feel like the airdrops are an issue for you, you may immediately request a refund to bwilcox@soe.sony.com - this offer applies till Monday and it applies only to people that have purchased the game as of 10:30am Pacific today 1/16/2015 -
Please note that this is going through us, not Steam. Which means it's a little more work so please be patient with the actual refund (it may take a day or two).
Smed

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