In a panel discussion, the developers of the zombie survival MMO H1Z1 answered questions from fans. The main topic was: The Early Access of H1Z1.
Five or six developers joined the Dead Feature Rant livestream to answer questions from the moderator and fans. The whole thing took place in a very relaxed atmosphere, the devs were relaxed and in a good mood. The unpleasant topic of “Early Access” was taken with humor. In a longer explanation about a side aspect, the Object Designer mumbled, “Early Access in a week!”, for which he received dirty looks from his colleagues.
The last 20% are always the hardest
When the topic “Early Access in H1Z1” finally came up, it was up to Senior Game Designer Adam Clegg to respond: Most of it is done, now only 20% are missing. And those, as often, take the longest. It’s similar to when you move files on your computer and the last bit of green takes forever. From something that still needs to be done, quickly five more arise.
All this time, Clegg had been saying that one had to wait until the interaction with the objects worked, which has now been resolved. The three biggest hurdles left to overcome are: Missing animations, missing animations, and missing animations. Tom Schenk, the Technical Director, added that the three biggest challenges are probably still animations, code, and level design.
That’s also a relatively vague answer. Ultimately, it seems that it just takes time to get the “vertical slice”, the bit of everything that one wants to present in Early Access, good enough to be satisfied with it.
Cars, buses, hackers, and lootable zombies: Mixed topics in H1Z1
Otherwise, the conversation flowed casually between different topics. They addressed the car questions, which were recently the subject of a dev blog. The pick-up truck is not only supposed to be a two-seater but provide space for up to six people, four of whom can take the opportunity to lounge in the back. After the pick-up and bicycles, one might imagine a police car, and a bus is also being discussed. That would probably be something for larger combat groups. Perhaps there would only be one per server, a real prestige item.
A concerned question about hackers came from the stream, after all, competitors like DayZ have struggled greatly with these issues, but Schenk reassured: “We have an anti-hack system from Planetside 2 that has been working excellently for a long time.” They will also apply that to H1Z1.
This week, zombies are supposed to become lootable. Then you can take from them what they carry on their undead bodies.
You can watch the chat in a relaxed atmosphere here, although the audio quality is not always perfect (we have fast-forwarded past the Early Access question).
More about the survival MMO can be found on our H1Z1 topic page.
