H1Z1 - may be better than DayZ! from SOE - FTP

grandpaflo

Member
Jan 18, 2011
139
2
81
I am re-opening this thread now. Some of you have received PMs from me; please try and take them to heart and to re-iterate expectations I will just quote something I posted earlier:


Ok, everyone needs to simmer down in here. Please keep things civil and refrain from personal attacks. Stick to discussing the actual game, not the poster(s).

Infractions will be handed out after this warning.

Thank you.


Anandtech Administrator
KeithTalent






Note: I am not the author of the following quote, this is a copy/paste.

http://www.reddit.com/r/h1z1

http://www.reddit.com/r/h1z1/comments/22niku/what_is_h1z1/

"Hi there,

I wanted to tell you about an exciting new free-to-play game we've had under wraps here at SOE for some time. It's called H1Z1. It's a massively multiplayer game in which players fight for survival in a world where death is the only sure thing. The H1Z1 virus devastated mankind and left nothing but death and destruction in its wake and a world nearly empty of human life where the remnants of humanity are in a fight against extinction against those infected with the virus. It's been 15 years since H1Z1 was first encountered and what's left of the world before is overrun with the Infected. Humanity has been reduced to hiding in the shadows, searching desperately for food and water and anything that can help to survive even for another day. But the Infected aren't the only dangers in the world. Everyday life in the Apocalypse means dealing with all kinds of wild animals and the brutality of other survivors, as well as finding your next meal and a safe place to sleep. It also means scavenging or crafting anything that can help you live just one more day. In H1Z1 every minute of every day is borrowed time and fearing for your life.unless you are the Danger (talking to you Walter), but life can and will go on.even in circumstances as dire as this. Humanity has not given in to the Infected. There are still pockets of humanity and the fight goes on!

Our vision for this game is very simple but ambitious. We are starting with what I would call "Middle America" - an "anywhere and everywhere" town. The world is massive as you've come to expect from our games. Over time we will grow the world until we have our own version of the U.S. after the death and destruction brought on during the H1Z1 epidemic. It will be our own version of America. We'll have urban cities and desolate wide open places. All connected seamlessly. Our focus is building a sandbox style of gameplay where players can build shelters out of resources in the world. They can even work together to make amazing fortresses complete with weaponry to help defend against both the Infected and other players. Players also have access to a very deep crafting system that can let players make a huge variety of awesome stuff, including weapons (I made a 1911 the other day) and things like Molotov cocktails, explosives.. and other fun surprises.

I will also go right to the heart of the question a lot of players will have - "There are a lot of survival / Zombie games.how is this one going to be any different?". First off, it's a persistent MMO that can hold thousands of players on servers we host (yes there will be multiple servers with very different rule sets). Why is that a good thing? It means a thriving economy (oh yes.there's trading). It also means you have potential allies in the all-out war on the Infected... and many an enemy as well. It uses our proprietary next-gen Forgelight engine and that means we've had a lot of really cool technology to work with to make the game we wanted to make. It's also designed from the ground up for our players to become part of the design process. The Roadmap system that we built for PlanetSide 2 will be used extensively to clearly communicate what features we're working on and what you can expect and when. You're also going to be getting awesome access to our developers. We'll be opening it up for Player Studio creations too so expect player-created items to make their way into the game. The main thing that differentiates H1Z1 from the other great games in the genre is the emphasis we are putting on player ownership and building. We want you to be able to form roving gangs that are headquartered out of an abandoned warehouse that you've taken over... or a house you've built from scratch after having cut trees down and secured the resources to make it. We are giving players the tools to make their own towns, camps and defenses, and they can decide how to set up their base (which is in the world btw... not instanced). We're building in all the social features you've come to expect from an SOE game (grouping, proximity voice chat, voice chat for your gang, and many other cool social features).

To use a simple reference I'm sure everyone interested in this game will get... we want our players to make Woodbury from The Walking Dead if they want to. Or take over a prison. Or fix an old car so you and your friends (yeah we have multiplayer vehicles) can run zombies and players over mercilessly, and revel in the sheer delight of hearing a zombie scream as you light it on fire, or craft a gun to take down your friends and enemies alike. Our goal here is to provide emergent gameplay that will allow our players to make the world their own the way they want to. One of the best things about H1Z1 being an MMO is the fact that with a lot of people playing, we're able to see all different kinds of gameplay. If you prefer a quiet life as a farmer raising crops... we're going to make sure your zombie apocalypse fantasy is complete. If you're like me and you want nothing more than to kill everything that moves, by all means see how that goes. It's going to be a blast!

Check out http://www.H1Z1.com and the subreddit ( http://reddit.com/r/h1z1 ). We'll be adding more information in the coming weeks to the website. We'll also be very openly answering questions in the subreddit.

Next week you can see us do a livestream of the game as we have a playtest. Stay tuned!

Smed"

- http://www.reddit.com/user/j_smedley

** What we've learned now:

http://www.reddit.com/r/h1z1/comments/22nr99/what_weve_learned_now/
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Dankk

Diamond Member
Jul 7, 2008
5,558
25
91
Sorry rocket. Dayz probably just died.

When I first saw this announcement, I thought, "Great. Another open-world multiplayer zombie survival game. We totally need more of those. :rolleyes: " But now that I think about it, this is actually a really good thing.

DayZ anymore is just a festering mess of a project. The truth is, Dean Hall is an awful game designer who had a great concept for a zombie game two years ago, but since then, has done literally nothing to improve on it. Features have gone in and out, there's been some experimenting here and there, but at the end of the day, it's still a mess.

DayZ was an unusual stroke of success that's now generating a crap-ton of money via the Standalone Alpha on Steam, but unfortunately that money is being funneled toward a small group of misguided developers who have been implementing nothing but fluff features while ignoring serious game-breaking bugs that have existed for years.

I've pretty much given up on DayZ at this point. I will be surprised if it ever becomes a finished product at all. My guess is that it will remain in alpha forever, and the playerbase will slowly rot away as the developers eventually admit defeat, resign out of incompetence, and move on to other projects. The game will slowly fade from people's memory and hopefully the whole open-world beta survival trend will fade away with it.

On the other hand, SOE is a reputable company with a solid structure and plenty of people who know what they are doing. Planetside 2 is proof enough for me that they can deliver a good product (especially seeing how they have an engine capable of letting thousands of people play together). Early-access games like DayZ and Rust need more competition to encourage them to finish their damn games. I'm okay with that.
 

Red Storm

Lifer
Oct 2, 2005
14,233
234
106
I can already predict that there will be lots of guns and ammo. I don't think a big company like SOE will go the route of "You only have a melee weapon, if you get lucky you'll find a gun, and if you're even luckier you'll find ammo for it." Just look at the preview video, he was spraying down zombies like ammo had no worth. I think this game will be more like a Left 4 Dead MMO, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I don't really like the idea of making a gun out of a bunch of random parts, doesn't make sense but whatever. It's about time a big dev company took on the MMOZ genre. The more competition the better.
 
Last edited:

lozina

Lifer
Sep 10, 2001
11,711
8
81
I can already predict that there will be lots of guns and ammo. I don't think a big company like SOE will go the route of "You only have a melee weapon, if you get lucky you'll find a gun, and if you're even luckier you'll find ammo for it." Just look at the preview video, he was spraying down zombies like ammo had no worth. I think this game will be more like a Left 4 Dead MMO, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I don't really like the idea of making a gun out of a bunch of random parts, doesn't make sense but whatever. It's about time a big dev company took on the MMOZ genre. The more competition the better.

That's what turned me off from DayZ.

You spend countless hours just to find any decent gear, then it becomes a game of BF4 Hardcore mode where the first one spotted dies.

I didn't like BF4 hardcore even when you spawn with full gear.

But same shit where you first have to first spend hours getting gear?

No thanks.
 

Revolution 11

Senior member
Jun 2, 2011
952
79
91
SOE and FTP means easy access to a interesting concept that DayZ promoted but without the cumbersome hideous UI and animations.

I am just worried about Forgelight, the engine. It is kind of outdated, SOE developers are slow to code 64-bit versions, critical bugs are slow to get fixed. They either need better management or more funds to fix this stuff.
 

pontifex

Lifer
Dec 5, 2000
43,804
46
91
I can already predict that there will be lots of guns and ammo. I don't think a big company like SOE will go the route of "You only have a melee weapon, if you get lucky you'll find a gun, and if you're even luckier you'll find ammo for it." Just look at the preview video, he was spraying down zombies like ammo had no worth. I think this game will be more like a Left 4 Dead MMO, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I don't really like the idea of making a gun out of a bunch of random parts, doesn't make sense but whatever. It's about time a big dev company took on the MMOZ genre. The more competition the better.

he was also spawning stuff from the console, so maybe he has infinite ammo or something enabled
 

Gloomy

Golden Member
Oct 12, 2010
1,469
21
81
I stopped watching that video as soon as the guy said "emergent AI"

Yeah okay buddy like I haven't been scammed by that crap before :thumbsdown:
 

Red Storm

Lifer
Oct 2, 2005
14,233
234
106
he was also spawning stuff from the console, so maybe he has infinite ammo or something enabled

My point was it's using the gun play of PlanetSide 2, so I don't expect ammo conservation to be a real issue. Not that it matters, I wouldn't mind a Left 4 Dead style MMO either.
 

Rinaun

Golden Member
Dec 30, 2005
1,196
1
81
I'm hoping SOE has some people involved from previous like-minded projects to help guide them away from huge issues in gameplay, IE player goals and "culture" in a zombie apocalypse-based game.

Luckily, I have a classmate whose family has relations very high up inside SOE and I'm hoping I can introduce those contacts to a few people from Epoch's Mod and DayZ Original (most are incredibly well-known within that community) to give some feedback in order to make this game what DayZ should have been. There is a lot to learn from those who spent two years making Epoch's mod and offshoot mods like new maps.
 

grandpaflo

Member
Jan 18, 2011
139
2
81
DayZ Of Our Lives: SOE Also Doing Zombie-Based Survival
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/04/11/soe-h1z1-revealed-dayz-mmo/

"Kelduum Revaan[1][2] says:
Hi all, I'm one of the designers on H1Z1, and been a reader of RPS (and occasional commenter) since the beginning, back in 1873.
I'm personally holding everyone to John's Rules for Games, as far as printing them out, wrapping them around a brick, and throwing them at people who don't follow them."

[1] https://twitter.com/kelduum
[1] Kelduum Revaan | @Kelduum | Once CEO of EVE University, now I work @SonyOnline, doing a few different things...
[2] http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/201...aled-dayz-mmo/comment-page-1/#comment-1533107

==========

"Distec[3] says:
Kelduum Revaan of EVE "fame"? I didn't know you landed a gig at SOE!
Now my harsh words feel silly.
"


[3] http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/201...aled-dayz-mmo/comment-page-1/#comment-1533301

==========

"Kelduum Revaan[4] says:
Yep, thats me.
And don't worry, it's a common thing - its a very popular "genre" right now, but give us a chance - we're
making a game that we want to play, as all the existing stuff either has some fairly major flaws either in tech or gameplay.
H1Z1 has elements of Stalker, Left4Dead, DayZ, Rust, Project Zomboid and EVE, but its it's own thing.
Just give it a go when we go live, and provide feedback if/when you do/don't like it."

[4] http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/201...aled-dayz-mmo/comment-page-1/#comment-1533589

==========
https://twitter.com/search?q=#H1Z1&src=hash
 

VulgarDisplay

Diamond Member
Apr 3, 2009
6,188
2
76
I'm optimistic they won't screw this up. They were able yo run through doors/buildings and zombies ran in straight lines. Miles ahead if dayz already.....