The War Z

[nerfmeplease]

Nerfme here today to talk about The War Z (The War Z: The Survivor MMO Zombie Game coming to you this fall!). This game is being produced by Hammerpoint Interactive, led by Sergey Titov. Sergey has previously been involved in game such as League of Legends (technical direction 2006-200, Gears of War, Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing, and Taxi Racer.
The War Z claims to be the first zombie survival MMORPG. It is a sandbox based survival mode game, pitting you against zombies and potentially other players in the game world. The game only differentiates players by items, there are no levels, skills, stats, or experience system as with most MMO’s. Every player will start with full health, food, and water bars on their UI, and the fight to survive begins.

Throughout the game world there is loot. For example, an abandoned town may have a grocery you can pillage for anything from candy bars, cans of soup, cola, flashlights, hammers, all the way to sniper rifles and ammunition. Keeping your food and drink replenished is a common goal for everyone in the game, and can lead to tense situations with other players also looking to loot the same stockpile of goods. The War Z has implemented a “Global Inventory” system for this game, allowing you to store any items you find in a virtual bank on your character selection screen. The catch is you must make it to one of very few areas on the map that are labeled as safe zones that you use to access this from. If you die to some bonehead camping the limits of the safe zone, tough luck, chuck. If you make it, you are free to store and swap items to any of the available characters on your account.

The PvP system leaves you to fend for yourself in a map that is (potentially) filled with up to 100 players. These players can communicate within a proximity based chat or a global chat, at the moment. It is always a dangerous situation when you encounter another player, never knowing if he is a friendly, or if he wants to put a bullet between your eyes to steal the loot from your body like a mob from Diablo 3, just bursting at the seams with the gear and necessities you just spent the last 2 hours scavenging for. There is also always the classic “woman in distress” bait that you can fall for, as well. Groups of players can lure in unsuspecting players looking for someone in global chat offering to “group up”, meanwhile a team of ambushers waits off the side of the road waiting for your arrival to kill and loot you.

The War Z has recently come under a lot of media fire for their inability to communicate with the end user (also see: Hammerpoint blames consumer for misinterpreting game features) and false claims from their Steam game page, when they made their Steam release. They also have a different take on what the traditional Alpha, Beta, and Release labels mean on their products; they call The War Z a Foundation Release, defining it as an online game will never really be released as long as there are new features and additions to the game). There are many more controversies with this game that could be talked about, but the majority of them can be read here. Also, if you want to snoop around the site and read through their FAQ, you can find it here. For a list of features either in the game or planned to be implemented, step on over here.

What do you like or dislike about this game?
How do you feel it compares to Day Z, the Arma 2 zombie survival mod?
Where do you think the game will go in the future?
With so much controversy, do you think the meta-critic score is just a reflection of how the company carries itself or does it reflect the gameplay?

[Nyarly]

Didn't read the thread but wtf about the reflection bug on the first screen (the sign)?

[d3rrial]

I am really glad you mentioned Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing
The game, to this date, winning awards for how bad it is!
DayZ feels more smooth to me, altough DayZ has huge weaknesses, it is really nice to play, and does not seem to have such gamebreaking bugs.
I honestly don't see a future for The WarZ, first of all, they have to change the name of the game for trademark violations, then I believe the game was created merely to make a quick buck and then shelve it, leaving the players to themselves.
Me and my friend were banned for looting a weapon that appears to be hacked from a dead guy, so... yeah I think the score accurately represents gameplay.

Didn't read the thread but wtf about the reflection bug on the first screen (the sign)?

Thats normal, most games make reflection rendering in post processing, at that point the game can no longer differentiate whether or not something is in front of the water or behind it. Many games do it like this, usually its not that obvious...

[jaczar]

well for valve to even consider offering a refund it has to be causing quite a bit of trouble.
for one when you buy a game over steam you dont own it. you are leasing it.
two, they dont give refunds even if your account was hacked and a purchase was made on your credit card that can be linked without your approval to your account.
and three their support system sucks hardcore...

[Bsmunban]

Personally I feel Day Z far overshadows War Z to the degree where War Z has become for the average gamer. It's simple - A gamer looking for a more serious and in depth post-apocalyptic experience will take the route of Day Z. Although Day Z does include various flaws, they involve hackers which comes down to the community and several glitches and game mechanics which do make the game feel clunky, however despite this as Rocket stated it was only a mod and he never expected it to take off in the direction it did. I won't completely bash War Z as I've played both, however I feel War was so poorly made and was nowhere near ready for release. The screenshots prior to release indicated a fresh, unique and innovative game which ran smoothly and provided an enjoyable open world without the problems Day Z had.

When I first logged into the game after the excruciatingly long download on release I was disappointed to say the least. I'm not one to play a game due to it's visuals, however for a game of such a serious caliber I find the cartoon-like graphics, poor Gollum-like crouching animations and the ability for a flashlight to kill someone a contradiction of the generic zombie survival game. I played for around two days and then quit for good,

I hope the developers have fixed the problems that aroused on the first week of release, however the perception we gained of the game prior to release was a mask for the cracks that showed on release. Upon the Day Z standalone release (whenever that may be -_-), I believe it will put the War Z to rest once and for all.

Interesting topic, however