The upcoming survival MMO H1Z1 is on the verge of Early Access, with developer blogs, videos, tweets, and screens providing new info about the game almost every day. We pose the typical MMO questions: How much MMO is in the game? What is SOE planning with it? And what makes H1Z1 appealing?
Let’s start from the beginning: What about character creation?
Poor. This has already been confirmed. At the beginning of Early Access, there won’t even be female player characters available, just a generic male character with limited customization options. Later, they plan to introduce at least African American characters into the game. However, character creation is not a high priority. Game dev Jimmy Whisenhunt recently stated that they would rather add 50 new items to the game than further customization options. This is more of a focus for the release version. One would add: This is probably also more for the item shop.
You are what you wear
What about character classes? Are there levels? How does my character get stronger?
No, there are neither character classes, nor experience, nor any typical progression. The character gets stronger through the items they possess. In a zombie game, the fundamental principle of progression is different from that in MMORPGs.
You start the game with an axe and a T-shirt and then improve your items through the crafting system or by looting houses, cars, or stores. The areas where better survival items (firearms, protective clothing) can be found are heavily guarded by zombies and, of course, more attractive for other players. Better loot always means higher dangers and greater risks.
It’s somewhat like those first minutes when the Hunger Games begin. You either take a risk and fight right away for the “high-tech” supplies or you head into the supposedly safe bushes, where you start with a bow and arrow.
A character in H1Z1 becomes stronger with the items they carry. Someone in full combat gear with night vision goggles, various grenades, and a sniper rifle is the “high-level” type in H1Z1. However, they can also be taken down by a lowbie with an arrow. The bow is the great “skill equalizer,” as the devs say. It is quite difficult to hit with, but when you do, it puts the other player’s light out.
You are who you know and what you can do
So you say, with the items I gather, I’ll get stronger?
Sort of. The items you collect are not permanent. Upon dying from zombies, an accident, or other players, you leave your backpack on the ground, which can be looted. By the way: If you die somewhere in the wilderness from zombies, it can happen that your corpse turns into a zombie and carries your gear. Also, houses and fortifications you build, which leave a mark on your progress in the game, can be looted or occupied. As the saying goes: If you hoard supplies and can’t protect them, then you are just gathering them for the strongest guy in your neighborhood.
Real progress can only be achieved if the clan, the guild to which you belong, sticks together, and you can rely on the team and your people when you build social capital.
And of course, it helps a lot when the player’s skills in front of the monitor improve. It’s a different form of character progression that happens more in interaction with others and in the player’s mind, rather than being permanently reflected in the “toon,” in the player’s character.
It is likely that there will also be server variants that are a bit more lenient, where the player cannot be completely looted upon death.
In other words: For anyone who watches the film “The Book of Eli,” a post-apocalyptic thriller from a few years ago: The villain, played by Gary Oldman, is only as “powerful” as the number of guys who listen to him. You can think of it similarly in H1Z1. This is the appeal of an open-world MMO: it thrives on the interaction of players with each other, which can theoretically lead to constant adventures and exciting situations, with a chaotic and unpredictable element that the players bring themselves. There will also be the possibility to communicate directly with others via in-game voice client through headsets.
Cars and Zombies
Zombies! What are they like? How strong are they? What’s going on?
Zombies are relatively resilient and strong compared to other zombie MMOs. A headshot with an arrow takes them out immediately. If you only hit the leg or the chest, it takes considerably longer. A single zombie should not pose a major threat. If there are more, you have a problem. If you overdo it with firepower and create an overkill, there will soon be many more. Initially, there will only be one type of zombie (which has different skins), but later different types of zombies, including significantly tougher ones, will be introduced.
What about cars?
Upon Early Access, there will be a “multi-purpose vehicle”, a Jeep. It will require fuel regularly, which will be quite hard to obtain. Players will either have to loot it or produce it themselves through growing and processing grain. They also plan to introduce quite a bit for vehicles and modes of transport. Recently, it was said that horses are being considered. By the way, with a car, you can easily run over zombies; they die like flies. And speaking of flies: No flying is planned for the near future.
Zombie-Minecraft?
The crafting system – is that really the strength?
Yes, it seems that way at the moment. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Minecraft or the crafting system of Guild Wars 2. However, the menu navigation in the streams still looks pretty clunky and inconvenient. There is a “research” mode where you simply drag raw materials into the fields and see if there are combination possibilities.
In the streams, you usually only see the same items being discovered and crafted (bows and arrows). Here, H1Z1 aims to stand out. Especially the base-building aspect will presumably be emphasized and taken seriously. Players should be able to build real shelters. How well this aspect turns out is certainly an exciting question. It gives the impression that it is extremely important to the developers. Just recently, they simplified crafting so that you can now craft “end products” without having to create the intermediate steps separately.
The world could be vast
What does the world look like?
First of all, what qualifies H1Z1 as an MMO: It is a persistent world – like the servers in World of Warcraft or WildStar. The core area with which each server starts is supposed to resemble the Pacific Midwest of the USA – a fairly rural region with a temperate climate and sparse population. As a server grows, the world will also expand, and they intend to broaden the boundaries geographically to represent the USA. This means there could be large cities, desert regions, or lakes. The world would expand, and new “zones” would come into play if the plan works. This certainly depends a lot on how H1Z1 is received, how many players it has, and how they distribute themselves across the servers.
Recently, Smedley tweeted that he is currently facing an upgrade of the Forgelight engine and what that could mean for the landmass.
How this will play out in practice remains to be seen. It’s not much fun to have a vast world but encounter no players for hours.
The idea of a “persistent” world is important to SOE. Players should get to know their neighbors on the server, build relationships with other players; all these social components should become important (“There’s that guy who shot me in the back the other day after saying he was my friend – I’m gonna get him now.” or: “The Dalton gang has valuable supplies and weapons stored in their fortress; we should team up with 4 clans, wipe them out, and seize their stuff”). All of this reminds one of the intricate dealings that happen in EVE Online.
In streams, the possibility of “friendly fire” is always emphasized, and it indeed brings advantages to accidentally shoot your buddy and loot his supplies.
The goal is survival
What is it really about?
It’s about staying alive. Players need to drink and eat regularly. Ensuring this basic supply could already be a challenge some days. Otherwise, naturally, you always want to find better items and rise in this world. But ultimately, there is no game objective; it is an open world. If someone wants to spend the whole day lying in wait with a bow and arrow and shooting other players, they can do so freely.
Combat logging will not exist, you will remain in the world for 30 seconds. It will be hard to magically escape when the hungry mob is nearby.
Is there anything else?
Yes, the weather. H1Z1 has developed an almost obsessive weather obsession in recent weeks. They want to take new approaches here, making it as realistic as possible and ensuring that the weather influences the players.
Release date, payment model, and system requirements
What do I need for a computer for this?
SOE responds: Install the now optimized Planetside 2. If that works for you, H1Z1 will work too. Overall, H1Z1 has a lot in common with Planetside 2. They also want to introduce the item shop later. They want to keep the system requirements manageable. Performance should be the priority.
When will it start, how will it start, how much will it cost?
It is expected to go into Early Access in the coming weeks. In mid-August, SOE has a big convention, SOE Live; this would be the “latest” date people currently have in mind. However, it could happen soon. SOE does not want to mess up the launch and definitely wants to go into Early Access with a showcase-worthy version. It will cost around $20 – probably around 16 Euros or so – and will be on Steam.
The actual release game will then be free-to-play with an item shop. Here they assure that there will only be fluff and nothing that truly affects survival.
Assessment and perspective: Much hinges on the start
What is your impression of the game?
Nice of you to ask, Gerd. I’ve watched several streams, read some interviews, and seen a lot of pre-alpha footage: I waver between skepticism and cautious optimism. Right now, it feels a bit like SOE is polishing the chrome of the car while two wheels are still missing. The weather and intricacies in the eighth crafting tier are certainly interesting, but at the moment they likely still have some bugs in the core gameplay: clipping errors, zombie AI, issues with fine-tuning. This could be the typical case of a game that releases and ends up suffering so much from teething problems that it rapidly fades into obscurity and takes a long time to recover from it.
Anyone observing the MMO market knows this vicious cycle. For studios, it is extremely important to launch as quickly as possible and meet certain deadlines set by marketing. Thus, studios tend to release games that still have many problems. And for players, the first days and weeks in a game are crucial. If they frustrate and uninstall it, it’s too late.
How great a game may be after 6 months or a year doesn’t interest most, as they’re already waiting for the next game. Therefore, it is incredibly important to launch with a presentable product, otherwise the hype balloon will deflate faster than one can say “When is Destiny coming out anyway?”
However, SOE is actively addressing these issues, promising to solve them, maintaining constant contact with the fans, and has taken extra time to polish the Early Access so that they don’t lose “steam”.
If the core gameplay is solid, and all the future ideas SOE talks about come into play, it could really become a great game. It benefits enormously from clever design ideas that should ensure that after 4 weeks on a server, everyone has two dozen archenemies and eight guys they kind of trust but would shoot if the opportunity arises. If they manage to allow players to experience their own adventures and stories in this environment, it could become a successful MMO.
