H1Z1 - New SOE Game

delita

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Smed says today (4/9) the game will be announced with an apparent playable demo video

Could it be a new zombie MMO by SOE?!

Announcement will be between 5-6PM PST via

http://1337loungelive.com/GTL/
 
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I'm sure all current speculation leads to Zombie MMOFPS on the Planetside 2 engine.

Which in my opinion....could be pretty freakin awesome. Compared to your current zombie FPS games out there like DayZ and Infestation. The sheer number of players the PS2/EQN:L engine supports (up to 2000) would give SOE a huge advantage in making the first "large scale" zombie game.

I, for one, am most definitely interested if this is anything close to what they are going to announce today.
 
Long as its better then PS2 and not just a reskined version id be interested
 
I heard about this earlier, will definitely stay tuned to see what it is. Hopefully something good!
 
screenshots looks like an old game guess because it is built for mmo
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lneZYriSbG4&feature=youtu.be

http://www.reddit.com/r/h1z1/comments/22nr99/what_weve_learned_now/

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


They seem to be going after the DayZ/Rust market, but on a much larger scale (Thousands of players on a server, official servers, some of which will have very different rulesets).

Early access is on steam in 4-6 weeks supposedly.

The details sound great, vehicles are in the game, you can build small houses, all the way up to towns/fortresses and work together to fend off zombies/other players.

No "instances," housing and everything is non-instanced and other players can try to take you down.
 
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Very excited for this.

Based upon what I have heard and seen so far, it appears that it may be light years ahead of DayZ upon release - which will be nothing short of amazing...Time will tell!
 
screenshots looks like an old game guess because it is built for mmo

When I read the part about "1000's of players can be on a server" immediately I thought DayZ knockoff mod for the Planetside2 engine. And then I read confirmation of it: "The game can also be played in first person or third person and runs on a modified Planetside 2 engine."

So yeah, zombie stuff is at the height of trendy now and everyone wants to get in with a me-too offering. So they saw DayZ and decided they could texture mod Planetside2 and throw it in the oven without a huge development curve, and people will eat it up #CuzZombiez. Pretty smart from a business standpoint I suppose.
 
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So I watched the "livestream" last night.

It was a build from Jan 31 when they made the video, many changes have been made to the build since then.

It will be F2P - Smed said NOT Pay2Win (he literally said "pay to win is shitty")
It will be on the PS2/EQN:L engine (with the capacity to support up to 2000 players)
There will be different servers with different rulesets (I'm hoping for a server with a FIXED 1st person only mode, 3rd person has always made corner peeking possible which in a "survival FPS" kind of game has always been a turn-off to me)
SOE will be doing another actual LIVE twitch feed next week

Some of the features they mentioned in the live stream:
Buildings will be persistent
You will be able to BURN things, like buildings, trees, etc.
There will be vehicles, many of which will have to be salvaged to pull parts to fix other vehicles
Crafting is a huge part of the game, you will be able to create weapons (they mentioned basic weapons like molotov cocktails up to different types of guns), buildings, housing, large clan "fortresses" etc.
They said aircraft is a possibility they have not yet made a decision on

All in all, I'm super excited about what they mentioned so far.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, will be available on Steam Early Access (~$20) in 4 to 6 weeks.
 
Free to play but costs $20.
Good job soe.

Anyway it looks better than that garbage DayZ. We've needed a quality zombie survival game for a long time now... maybe this is it.
 
Yeah a good replacement for dayz. In dayz you cant find a friendly player. Everyone shoots everyone at first sight. Wich sucks.
 
Yeah a good replacement for dayz. In dayz you cant find a friendly player. Everyone shoots everyone at first sight. Wich sucks.

Heh, what makes you think H1Z1 isn't going to be shoot-on-sight gankfest? That's just the nature of these games, and the mentality of many of the people drawn to them. They've stated when you die you will lose your gear, which means the "I better shoot before being shot" anxiety to hold on to your accumulated stuff will be present.

Now, if they decide to make some areas where it's PvE/Co-Op only where players have to band together because zombies are an actual threat, then they might be on to something. On a sidenote I see very little originality in the art/design - seemingly the same empty fields, farmhouses, countryside setting as DayZ. Either every developer thinks a zombie apocalyse happens in the country, or its just less work to fill the game world with empty fields.

All that said, I actually think this has serious potential to take over this market segment, which is right now just B-level developers and modders that ultimately can't execute and finish a commercial product (I'm not sure DayZ will ever be finished, and WarZ/Nether are fake game cashgrabs by a scammer). The name of the game is lame and needs a come to jesus epiphany, but the Planetside2 engine is pretty much proven - and MASSIVE (2000 players per server). I suspect it'll easily sail past Planetside2 player numbers in no time.
 
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DayZ is about surviving with minimal supplies. I'm sure this game is a FPS action in a zombie infested world. Completely different games targeting different type of gamer.
 
Found some info here...

http://www.polygon.com/2014/4/9/5598202/h1z1-zombie-mmo-sony-online-entertainment

"When you see a zombie coming up to you with nothing out but a highway flare. But here is something your gonna be able to do that you can't do in these other games: Light things on fire. We are in the middle of putting that in so you are gonna be able to burn down trees, burn down stuff, and that's gonna be a lot of fun. The idea is that these players [are] building these forts and all of the sudden these other guys coming in lighting it on fire and waiting till they come out of the fortress ... is awesome."
 
DayZ is about surviving with minimal supplies. I'm sure this game is a FPS action in a zombie infested world. Completely different games targeting different type of gamer.

Smed did state that the game is meant to be a SURVIVAL game. He wanted to take the genre, and he said specifcally "games like DayZ" and take it to a new level in terms of a more robust crafting system, as well as the ability to play on an engine that can do much more than what's currently out there.

What we'll end up with is yet to be seen, but I'm enthusiastic for now.
 
Letter from Smed:

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 alot 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 itemsto make their way into the game. The main thing that differentiates H1Z1 from the other great gamesin 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 ake 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 level 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 toprovide 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 nothingmore than to kill everything that moves, by all means see how that goes. It’s going to be a blast!

Check out 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
 
I'm actually kinda excited for this. They nailed the talking points and if they deliver 80% or more of them they will blow DayZ out of the water. I'm a huge DayZ fan but didn't touch stand alone. The writing was all over the wall on that project. Dean Hall is an idea man and at this stage in his career unqualified to lead a project like he has. He will learn from this project. Bohemia would of been a fool not to give him a chance. Ultimately though DayZ will never deliver on what it promised. The other indie studios won't either. That is where my Zombie fatigue comes from. These small studios or cash grab individuals that have no hope delivering what they promised. Out of all of them I can only really recommend Project Zomboid.

H1Z1 is the first real heavy weight zombie/survival project post DayZ. They have the tech, resources, and a clear goal. I will wait for the live stream before I pile on to either bandwagon.
 
I'm actually kinda excited for this. They nailed the talking points and if they deliver 80% or more of them they will blow DayZ out of the water. I'm a huge DayZ fan but didn't touch stand alone. The writing was all over the wall on that project. Dean Hall is an idea man and at this stage in his career unqualified to lead a project like he has. He will learn from this project. Bohemia would of been a fool not to give him a chance. Ultimately though DayZ will never deliver on what it promised. The other indie studios won't either. That is where my Zombie fatigue comes from. These small studios or cash grab individuals that have no hope delivering what they promised. Out of all of them I can only really recommend Project Zomboid.

H1Z1 is the first real heavy weight zombie/survival project post DayZ. They have the tech, resources, and a clear goal. I will wait for the live stream before I pile on to either bandwagon.

Agree to all of this, and a shout out to Project Zomboid as well.
 
I've held off on the Zombie spam for a long time. Even avoiding DayZ through all of its iterations. I've almost bit on State of Decay, and I still might, but so far this one seems like it's the most promising. I'm excited and keeping a close eye on this. I really hope the F2P doesn't ruin it.
 
You guys realize this is SoE, and you're going to be paying to beta test a bad game.

It's free to play, so they'd only be paying if they want to. And SOE isn't known for bad games. They might have had their issues, but from Everquest 1 through Next, to Star Wars Galaxies, to Planetside 1 and 2; there's a ton of people who love their games.
 
SOE makes good games, not excellent or omg I must play that type of game, but what they do make seems to always get enough people to sustain it for a long time unlike SWG which we know why that failed, and the new Everquest/Minecraft mash up looks interesting and I never even played Everquest.
 
As someone who has been interested in a game like DayZ or Rust but has been completely and utterly turned off by the buggy alpha builds and overall shit controls ... color me interested in giving this a shot.

If SOE can put together a better open world zombie experience than DayZ .. they may have a customer. Need to feel this out and see how it goes. Controls are king when compared to others in the genre. My fear however is "early access" .. all this shit needs to stop. Release a game when its ready .. I'm going to set the bar low and expect this to be a steaming pile of shit out the gate with the potential to be better over time.

If its better than that.. horray!
 
SOE makes good games, not excellent or omg I must play that type of game, but what they do make seems to always get enough people to sustain it for a long time unlike SWG which we know why that failed, and the new Everquest/Minecraft mash up looks interesting and I never even played Everquest.

SWG is still played to this day. People have modded it to play on private servers.
 
I can't really see this being that much better than DayZ, to be honest. Maybe engine-wise, but you're still going to have the same problems with griefers and mass PKing unless you somehow add incentive to not do so.
 
SWG is still played to this day. People have modded it to play on private servers.

There are people still playing just about every MMO ever made, I think the point ServerKing was making is that Galaxies died off for the vast, vast majority of people who ever played it or ever considered playing it. (not to mention it was officially killed off)
 
This game will also be apart of SOE's new "All Access" pass that will give you access to all of their games full features as well as some perks (such as 500SC per month to spend in cash shops) for $15.99

SOE is at the forefront of testing new subscription models and I definitely applaud them on this title. If it's half of what it's claimed to be, it will undoubtedly become the most played online zombie survival FPS (mainly because of the F2P model)

As long as they don't screw it up in terms of Pay2Win, which Smedley even said himself was "shitty," the game should be fun. It looks fun as hell, and I am excited to see the twitch livestreams next week.

If you can't tell, despite being screwed over so many times by game developers, I am still an optimistic early adopter. Sue me.
 
Some things I see when reading about the game and SOE's vision

-thousands of players on one server
-resource collecting and base building
-potential for commerce (trade/bartering at least)
-potential to be part of large groups of allies

IMO it sounds kind of like EVE but on land with zombies. It'd be pretty damn cool if the game ends up pretty much becoming that.
 
I've held off on the Zombie spam for a long time. Even avoiding DayZ through all of its iterations. I've almost bit on State of Decay, and I still might, but so far this one seems like it's the most promising. I'm excited and keeping a close eye on this. I really hope the F2P doesn't ruin it.

I would suggest you pick up State of Decay next time it's on sale on Steam. Sometimes it drops to $10. It's a great game, almost like a GTA zombie game. It's a nice 10-12 hour affair that is very entertaining, although it gets repetitive towards the end and lacks replay value (for me)
 
I would suggest you pick up State of Decay next time it's on sale on Steam. Sometimes it drops to $10. It's a great game, almost like a GTA zombie game. It's a nice 10-12 hour affair that is very entertaining, although it gets repetitive towards the end and lacks replay value (for me)

Great game for sure, I'm looking forward to a sequel or a multiplayer addition.

Currently playing some Project Zomboid which is a ton of fun as well.

When Dead State is closer to being finished I think it will be a great addition as a turn based zombie game.

LOTS OF ZOMBIE STUFF OUT THERE FOLKS. Pick your poison.

Really the BIGGEST thing I'm looking for in the genre is a multiplayer game that actually ENCOURAGES co-operative play for survival to be possible. Zombies are just not a threat in the other games out there. People are the only real threat and more times than not there is very little reason to band together. I'm HOPING with H1Z1 the sheer number of players in the world will make for a higher likelihood of banding together to stay alive. It's a lot easier to be a loner when you are playing on a server with 10-20 people tops. But when the potential for hundreds of people to be on the same server at once, the higher chance (IMO) people will work together, else the result is a HUGE free-for-all. It's acceptable in Infestation or DayZ, but if people are working together in a much larger player server, it's doubtful you'd last very long on your own.
 
looking forward to what the newer SOE can put together for pvp w/ survival elements... I think it'll be way smoother than what's out there by using their PS2 engine
 
Smed did state that the game is meant to be a SURVIVAL game. He wanted to take the genre, and he said specifcally "games like DayZ" and take it to a new level in terms of a more robust crafting system, as well as the ability to play on an engine that can do much more than what's currently out there.

What we'll end up with is yet to be seen, but I'm enthusiastic for now.
.. yeah, but like others have said, it's SOE.

Conservation is a huge part of survival and Sony has only made casual games recently. I don't associate a survival and conservation with casual and conservation is not fun to the masses of gamers that SOE targets. Since it's a free to play game and F2P games can't survive without a lot of people playing and paying, they're going to make the game to get the most amount of players interested.

I really doubt it will be as challenging as DayZ. They even said in the video that there's a good chance they'll make ammo common, so it's just going to be another shoot'em up.
 
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I can't really see this being that much better than DayZ, to be honest. Maybe engine-wise, but you're still going to have the same problems with griefers and mass PKing unless you somehow add incentive to not do so.

But the game at its core will be functional. I play dayz, but I cant wait for this game!
 
The more I think about it the more I think this game has the potential to be SOE's killer app for the engine that runs Planetside2. Let's face it not everyone can get into a spacegame with pew pew laserguns - especially when its kinda clunky and the flight model is very basic, it doesn't really do any one thing better than other more specialized FPS's and mainly has scale as its biggest selling point.

But people have come to expect rough-around-the-edges from zombie survival games so expectations are tempered and that works in SoE's favor while it finds its footing in development. I'm kinda bored by this type of game but I think from a business and strategy standpoint DayZ and friends have a lot to be worried about because this thing could really blow up into a blockbuster with both the proven engine and a big commercial interest behind it. They also seem to understand how to leverage community feedback.
 
I've held off on the Zombie spam for a long time. Even avoiding DayZ through all of its iterations. I've almost bit on State of Decay, and I still might, but so far this one seems like it's the most promising. I'm excited and keeping a close eye on this. I really hope the F2P doesn't ruin it.

State of Decay is probably the best and "closest" one to actually feeling like a survival game with other people depending on your.

Searching for supplies, building up defenses, rescuing people, it probably nailed that feeling of a post apoc zombie genre the best.

Definitely recommend you picking it up when it's on sale (or even not when it's on sale) if you enjoy survival games.

Just be aware (fromw hat I last heard) the pc version is better with a controller unless they've ironed it out.
 
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