The War Z (video game)

[Rancid Carcass]

Okay, who ordered the bandwagon?!!

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/07/19/the-war-z-announced-zombie-survival-shooter-mmo-with-strong-parallels-to-day-z/

http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/07/WarZ-610x343.jpg


Here’s a breakdown of features, taken verbatim from the press release:

Big open worlds to explore between 200 to 400 square kilometers
Two modes of play: Normal and Hardcore
Combination of first-person and third-person perspectives
Meld of PvE (player versus environment) and PvP (player versus player)
Strong Role Playing Elements
Multiple playable characters with customizable features
Unique social elements, including bounties, help requests, trap setting, etc.
Safe settlements where players can purchase, sell and store items as well as post notes for other players
Dozens of unique skills that can be learned and improved
Up to 250 players per game server
New weapons and items become available as players explore the game world
Full developer support with regularly scheduled, free content updates
Dedicated public servers as well as private servers that can be completely self-managed in game client
Single purchase, downloadable client with ability to play full game without subscriptions or requiring in-game transactions


From this, I think it’s fair to speculate that The War Z won’t share Day Z’s emphasis on realism and experimentation. Some of its systems seem more in-line with what we’d expect from conventional RPGs or MMOs: a skill system, customizable characters, item selling, and bounty-setting, which I actually love the idea of (my death to Pokerguy33 in Day Z still goes unavenged). Promising larger player capacity than Day Z (although this is something the mod’s creator, Dean “Rocket” Hall, continues to pursue) is also something of a surprise, especially if The War Z will be able to accommodate all of those players in a single instance.

What’s totally unclear is what kind of shooter The War Z could be. The release makes no mention of real-life ballistics modeling or what form its combat mechanics will take, leaving me to imagine it might strive for accessibility.

[paranoid101]

Interview on IGN saying that they started making the game last December before DayZ

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/07/19/the-war-z-a-new-zombie-survival-experience

[AcesandEights]

Hell, it's all cashing in on the same upswing that's been going on for years anyway. As long as it's a fun game, I don't care :)

Fingers crossed.

[Rancid Carcass]

It'll be interesting to see where they go with it, I do like the five years in time frame (happens after LAND and before DAY right? ;) ). Perhaps the thing that concerns me most is that it's been in development since last December and yet they're planning on an autumn release date? That's an awfully short dev time for an MMO surely? Hopefully it won't be a rush job just to cash in on DayZ, it does look rather tasty from the screen shots and it would be nice if they get it right.

[SymphonicX]

Thanks for posting this dude - really excited about this :)
Don't forget DayZ is still in Alpha - and is a mod, so really it's not even a proper game (yet) - so to get a fully realised version would be awesomes :)
Its just one dude and a few hands working on DayZ - apparently Bohemia are holding back on support too...

[rgc2005]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnyegriffiths/2012/07/19/the-war-z-zombie-mmo-announced/2/
http://www.thewarz.com/
"Retail copies of The War Z will be available for PC, priced at $29.99, according to Titov, which will include regular content updates. There will also be a micropayment-based store, but no subscription fee.

At present, I would file this one under “interesting, but unproven”. The laundry list of features is a little overwhelming, and the background of the team delivering it currently opaque. Quest-driven MMOs are tricky - and they need to fund their ongoing content without making the game so little fun for non-paying players that they drop out before they can be monetizombied.

I mean monetized.

Zombies."

[Neil]

Well, if it's Day Z, but done properly ( ie: not a shoe horned in mod) sounds promising!

[SymphonicX]

even though Day Z is imo, the best zombie game made yet.

[Neil]

even though Day Z is imo, the best zombie game made yet.

RE DayZ - From what I've seen the zombies are (a) runners, (b) sort of run/attack oddly?

[SymphonicX]

LOL they are gammy runners...!

the animation SUCKS...it's sooo alpha. They break into instant sprints, they go to hit you then stand there swiping the air, they run in zig zags, they are rubbish....it's so forgivable though, the actual gameplay and idealogy far exceeds it's actual performance.....

-- -------- Post added at 04:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:05 PM ----------

I mean to put it this way - it's the only game I've played where you have an actual adventure....like a true adventure in the most honest of ways...in a zombie world....making allegiances, banditry, looting towns, cities, villages, building vehicles...every time you log on, a different zombie adventure ocurrs and it has all the elements of the actual movies, except not scripted....trust, betrayal, assistance, loyalty, desperation for supplies, fortifying buildings/towns, becoming self sufficient (hunting animals for food) - the game scripts nothing, and the player creates the adventure.

I think my friend is bored of it though, so I may be lone wolf from now on...!

[Rancid Carcass]

New interview and a few new screenshots to cast your peepers over:

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/07/27/the-war-z-new-screenshots-interview-on-weapons-game-systems-ambition/

If this thing has anything like the atmosphere of DayZ, and providing they can deliver on most of their ideas, then it sounds like it should be a nice addition to the zombie gaming universe. I remain cautiously optimistic.

http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/07/WarZNight32-610x343.jpghttp://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/07/Wz54-610x324.jpg

[Neil]

^^ That article has made me more excited!!!

[Rancid Carcass]

^^ That article has made me more excited!!!

This might too - the website is up with plenty of info and stuff to rummage through. I'm beginning to hope they don't balls this up, it's starting to look seriously interesting...

http://www.thewarz.com/index.html

:D

[Rancid Carcass]

Some actual gameplay footage on Gamespy. Looks to be more of an FPS with added survival elements. Still, seems oddly familiar though...

http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-war-z/1225949p1.html

0UwpLOVTjLU

[Rancid Carcass]

New 20 minute video with dev commemtary. Seems it's still early days yet, but the world they've built looks pretty nice.

Oh and zombies can only be killed with headshots!


http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/09/21/new-footage-and-commentary-for-the-war-z

[Zombie134]

The War Z is an upcoming zombie MMOFPS from HammerPoint Interactive and should appeal those gamers that have sunk many hours into the popular Arma 2 modification DayZ. More and more people like playing facebook games because they don't need to download client. CoasterVille (http://www.dotmmo.com/coasterville-15145.html) is one of them. Join this game and play with your friends on facebook.

[Neil]

Not a lot happens, but an interesting watch! Surprising amount of tension!

AovacuGtDzo

[Danny]

man, the drama on this is crazy. Looks like the products a cobbled together hodgepodge of stolen assets and ip from other products and the creators are doing their damnedest to firestorm ban anything on the steam forum for it pointing it out.
-They took screencaps of the walking dead tv show and zombie walk images and took those zombies and slightly altered the for their art assets:
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91/khazrak/1355952548316.jpg
-use a slightly off tempo version of the theme to the show american horror story for the menu music
sPCXPm97GAg&
-all of the animations stolen from war inc.
-cannot do what they stated, for example 50 person limit per server, half of what they said it would. their response? "i could update it to 100 tomorrow, how do you know, just shut up"

I could go on but so far Steam has removed it from the store and is using the "we never meant to release it" exscuse as damage control for a very large number of customers of the product who are very unhappy with a day z clone thats looking like not just a scam that aims to rip people off with whats basically a buggy mod of a mod thats poorly coded and the creators are doing everything they can to try and silence any gaming community from talking about it.
What a goddamn mess this one turned out to be.

[Neil]

Regarding the art assets, this kind of thing being pointed out there is common practice. Indeed we can see it on the Star Trek II poster - http://forum.homepageofthedead.com/showthread.php?20193-Star-Trek-II-%28film%29-J-J-Abrams&p=292419&viewfull=1#post292419

As for stealing animations from War Inc. Isn't that another game of theirs? How can they steal their own property?


Sorry, but this has such a strong feeling of hater got to hate!?


EDIT:-

I stand corrected - I see it has indeed been taken off steam! You're right! I'm wrong! Review here gives it 0.5 out of 10 - http://www.gameshampoo.com/magazine/articles/1147/the-war-z-review-update.html

To think I nearly bought it!

Can't help but think there's actually a good game waiting in there somewhere!? Infact some of the youtube reviews seem +ve about it!?

[AcesandEights]

I stand corrected - I see it has indeed been taken off steam! You're right! I'm wrong! Review here gives it 0.5 out of 10 - http://www.gameshampoo.com/magazine/articles/1147/the-war-z-review-update.html

Interesting. Their money upfront and rush to market screamed caution.

That said, this caught my eye:


according to Hammerpoint, "The War Z is an open world game. Each world has huge areas between 100 to 400 square kilometers." Too bad that there's only one map in the game right now, and it spans about half that. Seriously, this confined world is so tiny...

I always wonder how realistic claims of scale and map size are in any game, but to be honest, I have a bad head for these size comparisons.

[Neil]

Odd thing is, a lot of the youtube reviews/previews do seem +ve!

[Rancid Carcass]

Grade 'A' Clusterfuck:

http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-war-z/1226980p1.html

And Rockets take on it all:

http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-war-z/1226994p1.html

[Neil]

TBH, I couldn't care less if its 50 people per server, or 70 or 100... I'm more interested in the game mechanics/gameplay!?

[shootemindehead]

Yeh, me too.

To be honest, while this Sergey character "misled" people, he's hardly alone in the games dev world. He doesn't come across well in that interview though. I still think this is a bit of a storm in a teacup, however.

It looks like it has potential to be good, but since I think that online gaming is a load of old bollocks, I probably won't be trying it.

[Rancid Carcass]

I'm more interested in the game mechanics/gameplay!?

You might not be after reading this review.


I started playing on December 17th, dying meant the character couldn't be resurrected for an hour. That's a harsh death penalty. Then on the 18th, a patch was released: revival now takes four hours, or you can pay to have the character spawn back early. What an awful, money-grubbing thing to do to people who've already bought a game.


http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-war-z/1227010p1.html

I was hoping that this might turn out okay in the end - if there is a decent game hiding away in there then it's going to take a bigger salvage operation than raising the Titanic by the looks of it.

[Mr. Clean]

pulled from Steam....

http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/11570/article/the-war-z-pulled-from-steam-amid-allegations-of-fraud/


The War Z has been pulled from Steam by Valve, in the wake of their investigation into allegations of fraud by the game's developers Hammerpoint Interactive. Hundreds, if not thousands of reports were made by customers who complained that the developer had mislead them when it launched an incomplete game that boasted features which had yet to be implemented within the game.

Late last night, we reported (http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/11544/article/controversy-with-the-war-z-continues-users-banned-for-complaining-on-forums/) that the War Z's developers had made attempts to conceal the game's problems by banning anyone who complained on the official Steam forums about the problems they were having. Many users vocalized their dissatisfaction with the fact that the studio had added a lengthy 4-hour respawn timer and had begun to charge players to respawn their characters upon their deaths.

[Danny]

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y91/khazrak/1356319183661.jpg

More images doing the rounds that makes it look like these dudes are compelte twats.

[Neil]

How do you know that image is genuine?

I'm confused because the game doesn't look too far away from being a good product?

[Rancid Carcass]

More news from the land of happiness and joy!

Seems Paramount Pictures are non too pleased with it either:

http://uk.pc.gamespy.com/pc/the-war-z/1227023p1.html

[MinionZombie]

Neil - I've read about the ban-hammering in a few places, and IIRC, I also heard (perhaps on IGN) something about them changing the terms of service so that the user wasn't entitled to a refund (which is illegal).

All of this said, I was never actually going to buy the game (I don't go in for multiplayer games, I just can't be arsed), and I was never going to get into DayZ or whatever the other one is called either ... and I'll probably also never get around to Dead Nation, unless it's on-disc and supports a solid single player option.

Been hearing about a lot of bad press and user outrage in connection with this game though.

[JonOfTheShred]

Aw man, I was hoping this game was going to kick ass. Looks like it's another cash-in on the zombie genre. Zombie games practically write themselves, I don't understand how there is so few good zombies games coming out -the genre is perfect for gaming, and yet so few seem to make games worthy of bearing the zombie banner.

This is the biggest trainwreck I've seen in recent times.

[MinionZombie]

Aw man, I was hoping this game was going to kick ass. Looks like it's another cash-in on the zombie genre. Zombie games practically write themselves, I don't understand how there is so few good zombies games coming out -the genre is perfect for gaming, and yet so few seem to make games worthy of bearing the zombie banner.

This is the biggest trainwreck I've seen in recent times.

Because like so many zombie movies, they're cobbled together by people who know sod all about the genre/have little appreciation-or-knowledge of it, but are getting paid to make one regardless. There's so much zombie movie dreck out there, and likewise there's so many shoddy/half-arsed zombie-themed games out there too. Then there are other titles which some like, but others don't.

Many of us have spoken at length about, put very simply, 'Fallout 3 with zombies' - I'm still yet to see anything that resembles all the ideas we HPOTD'ers expressed during those discussions.

[MinionZombie]

4o-zXNLNPv0

IGN's Review - it gets a 3/10 "Awful".

Another shonky move seems to be, according to this review, having to spend real-life money on ammo and such, and then losing all those items you've bought with your own real-life money the instant you're killed! :eek:

[Neil]

Another shonky move seems to be, according to this review, having to spend real-life money on ammo and such, and then losing all those items you've bought with your own real-life money the instant you're killed! :eek:
Ouch! What went wrong with this game!!

[Eyebiter]

Russian developers wanted to cash in quick on the zombie genre. So many complaints on the Steam forums they removed War Z after a few days.