In H1Z1, the early access starts in the new year, on January 15, 2015. The zombie MMO H1Z1 clearly distinguishes itself from the competitor DayZ in the announcement.
It has been a long wait, but it’s almost time, at midnight we will receive the early access date for the launch of H1Z1. Afterwards, there will be a small talk session on Twitch.
We’ll keep you updated on the most important news and bring the post up to date as quickly as possible.
Update 23:55: The early access date is now known. It is January 15. That’s still quite a bit further away than hoped.
Interesting announcement as well: People are often asked if they will be better than DayZ on the first day. The answer is a clear “No.” DayZ currently has more features and a bunch of cool stuff that H1Z1 does not have. But H1Z1 is also a completely different game and leans more towards “MMO and Masses.”
The zombie MMO will start with 64 square kilometers of area, planning to expand the area shortly after early access to continue growing.
Additionally, they offer a kind of “premium” access for $19.99 along with the early access, allowing players to join servers that operate a bit differently and offer a different game mode.
0:30: The live stream on Twitch is starting now.
Summary of the live stream:
- To switch to certain servers, you will need “tickets,” which you can earn through in-game activities. Some tickets will come with the premium package.
- There will be PvE servers. In fact, there will be servers that support a variety of different play styles. The premium servers will also include those in the “The Hunger Games” style, with a kind of battle royale for the best items at the start.
- H1Z1 will launch with under 50 servers; the exact number is not yet known. The servers are expected to be relatively small at launch.
- Base building will already be available in early access.
- The early access will launch with 16 weapons.
- A player studio will be introduced later, allowing players to create their own game content. In other SOE games, it’s possible for player-created content to be sold to other players. The “designers of these items, the players,” then receive a portion of the profit.
- Among the strengths of H1Z1 are the variety of zombie types and how dangerous they are, especially when they flock together in hordes.
- When a player kills another player carrying “shop items,” they can take a damaged version of those items. However, the killed player does not lose these items; instead, multiple copies are created.
- They are considering providing a lot of statistics to a player when they die, such as how long they survived, how many zombies they killed, where they stayed, and similar.
- The team has decided to tone down the gore factor. It will not be possible to sever limbs or decapitate someone. Internally, they have agreed that this is not the game they want to make.
- There will be no quests or missions in H1Z1.
- There will be no “map” in the MMORPG sense, where you just press “M” and an auto-map appears; rather, there will be maps that can be found in the world that players can go to and view to see approximately where they are – similar to the layout system at a bus stop.
- H1Z1 will also feature handcuffs – and thus the possibility for kidnapping and similar misdeeds.
- No support for PS Vita.
- SOE President Smedley categorically excludes pay-to-win.
- To make survival more attractive, SOE plans to equip players who survive for a long time with small skill bonuses based on the “practice makes perfect” principle.
