SOE - New Post-Apocalyptic MMO

Thanks to zentr we have news that Sony Online Entertainment has annouced a new post-apocalyptic MMO called H1Z1, and surprise it's another zombie game.

If you're interested check out Polyon, or Reddit.

Special EXTENDED episode of Game Talk Live features the first EVER reveal of gameplay from the highly anticipated zombie MMO from Sony Online, H1Z1.

We have Sony President John Smedley and Jimmy Whisenhunt as our guests to discuss the project, as they detail nearly every aspect of the new game and fields questions from members of the Skype audience.

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More information.

Looks we're going to be zombied to death... so to speak.

Looks like Rust or DayZ with a developer who may actually get a game done in our lifetime. Beyond that - I have next to zero interest in the PvP in a game like this since it's all about grief and I'm not some wanna be eThug or eBully who just wants to go around ruining things for other people - which is a huge part of the Rust/DayZ crowd.

If a developer could make compelling zombie PvE that'd be pretty cool. For sure there are tons of zombie games these days and many get some elements right but nobody has really NAILED it yet, IMO. 7DTD is getting there and gets better all the time, so there's hope with it.

Co-op survival/building with very strong AI would be cool (and again, 7DTD gets closer and closer to it all the time).

A prettier Rust/DayZ - who needs it - especially when instead of pay 20-30 once and play forever (server costs may apply to those that host) it'll be F2P with microtransactions forever. SOE does F2P worse than most and F2P is garbage for MMORPGs.

There are supposed to be servers with different rulesets. I don't know if one includes PvE only.

I would love a good post apocalyptic mmo but I don't think a zombie one is the one. Forced pvp isn't my thing either. I'll probably try it but don't have high hopes.

Sound absolutely horrible.....man, I remember when SOE put out good mmo's like EQ1 and EQ2, wtf happened.....

zentr. said:

There are supposed to be servers with different rulesets. I don't know if one includes PvE only.

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PvE rule set was apparently mentioned on reddit.

If they dont move things a great bit, PvE wont be possible other being fake (being fake does not bother many people these days though, on the contrary)

Zombies are not what they must be in this type of game: a primary threat that the remaining surviving humanity can not overcome.

Surprising to read that there is no compelling environment. I know two of them.

One is Project Zomboid which features well done zombies. Even though the latest build have diluted the factor.

I was excited and then Smedley mentioned those three hideous characters - F2P. Blah.

The absence of a compelling environment made of zombies that would drive the players' decisions is confirmed at the moment.

Zombies are mere elements of scenery. As it stands, this will be dominated by clans play. Dont join a clan and things are going to be tougher. Zero reasons to co operate other than to kill other survivors. Once again, it is one of those products that fail to establish relations between players through gameplay.

Even though game functions exist to support the establishing of partnership, no reason when encountering a survivor not to shoot them on the spot, nothing like two survivors meeting up and realizing that forced cooperation toward cleaning an area from zombies is the way to go.
Once again, it is a "play with your friends" product as co operation cant be induced by game mechanics.

Some fuss around them promising not to sell stuff like guns etc when they actually do. Players can buy airdrops. To cover the move, they make it so that every player on the server get a claim to the airdrop. You buy stuff but it wont be yours if you dont manage to secure it. Yet while people complain about things like paytowin etc, they do not take into account consequences.

Potentially, it could make the survivors vs survivors only worse: scavenging is tedious, going into empty places searching containers, no zombie threat etc

Calling an airdrop could be a convenient bay to be used by clan members to attract suckers to them and loot them after they endure the tedium of scavenging around.
It is implementing a level of predation. People would do all the dumb job, a clan pays for an airdrop, lay out an ambush without bothering about the drop, just waiting for people to show up and get mown down. Looting them could make for the drop items clans do not care about. Once the place is clean from suckers, the clan might try to recover the drop.

Air drops get a 30 minute call limit. Every half an hour, clans could call for airdrops in order to attract and milk up all the poor sods who think they are going the right way.

This product might introduce a new version of pay to win: pay to shear.

rjshae said:

Looks we're going to be zombied to death… so to speak.

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Maybe some publishers and developers are already zombies so they are unable to come up with anything resembling some creative idea.

im excited about this one, it appears to be traditional shambler UNDEAD!
By a major studio as well, tears of joy here!

A zombie survival game. That's original

Ugh. Don't see the attraction. I prefer demons over zombies, myself.

DArtagnan said:

A zombie survival game. That's original

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I'm still trying to understand why they are so popular...

Well, I do enjoy the whole survival and scavenging aspects - and one might argue a game like Fallout wouldn't quite work without them - but there has to be other ways to handle it than just with Zombies.

Still, if the gameplay is solid and the world is immersive, I'll give it a shot. Correction, I'll give the Zombies a shot…. in the brain

What this game has done to both EQ 1 and Two is criminal. Basically, any new game gets put to the top of the internal queue, and the older games fall back in priority. Possibly the worse way I've seen to reward those loyal to your company. About the game itself, I have no idea if it is good or not, but I can tell you what it has been like trying to log on to any of the SoE games the past week.

I'll tell you what the big deal is: This is potentially the "Dawn of the Dead" type of experience that people like me have been waiting for our entire gaming lives. By a major studio, this is not 3 guys and their dog sitting around with free tools doing a bunch of voxel-based bullshit. This is millions in development!

Very rarely have games have ever effectively portrayed the zombie apocalypse as envisioned by the classic George Romero films (later by The Walking Dead), and allowed you to participate as a survivor therein. Some have tried, with varying degrees of crapitude, Fort Zombie being the worst, and State of Decay being the best.

STILL - this is not "infected", or "mutants", or any of that shit. This is the undead apocalypse, and you need to survive not only the undead but the rest of mankind gone berserk. This is also a major studio, this isnt vaporware or some early access greenlight crap that's never going to see the light of day. This is Sony, which gives me hope.

Still, of course the game could be absolute shit. The player community could ruin it. They could make it non-locational damage. There's a lot of variables that will go into whether it's actually good or not, worthy of time or nary a squirt of piss let alone 20 bucks.

Me, I'm hopeful. Like it or not, zombies arent going anywhere anytime soon. People like me like mowing them down/ blowing them up/ setting them ablaze far too much. One of the biggest shows on television right now is zombie based.

this trailer doesnt do anything for you?:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=_Ko5AXctkIE&app=desktop

This game is far from delivering the dawn of the dead experience. In post apocalyptic worlds dominated by zombies, zombies are the barrier between human beings and tons of resources. Human beings go against other human beings because they cant overcome the zombie threat, that is too big to be dominated. That is far from being the case in this game in its current iteration.

All this type of games (MMOs) are mostly about power, acquiring power to dominate.
The fastest way to increase in power in H1Z1 is to farm human players. Zombies exist for the immersion factor, they are no threat, farming them yields less than farming a human being.
The game is PvP, with a guild system, set in a post something world, with zombies appearing in the landscape.

H1Z1 zombies are closest to later zombie versions, like human beings infected by the rage virus in the 28 weeks later movie.
H1Z1 zombies are tough, they are fast. It is not possible to outrun them.

In the current version, they could be replaced with rabid dogs. It wont change much, apart from the immersion factor.

It is a zombie post apocalyptic world, zombies must be present for the flavour.

azarhal said:

I'm still trying to understand why they are so popular…

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Developpers have so far either failed to deliver a zombie overwhelmed world or keep trying. Ventures that allow failure attract people quite understandbly.