In the survival MMO H1Z1 everything revolves around a big Twitch event. Many players do not like this. They wish that the game would develop faster.
A few months ago, we had articles about H1Z1 every week, but recently hardly any. This is not because we have lost interest in the game: there is simply little new to report.
H1Z1 is focusing on a big tournament at the end of September, for which they want to polish and fix the “Battle Royale” mode. At the tournament, Twitch personalities will compete against each other for a huge prize pool. This is a major PR event. H1Z1 aims to reach new players with this prize money, enticing well-known streamers to try H1Z1 and showcase it to their viewers.
The prize pool for the event has now risen to $160,000.
The Twitch event is seen by fussy H1Z1 players as taking resources away from development, falling into a quieter phase anyway: They had already announced earlier that they would not bring much new content to H1Z1, focusing first on fixing and repairing the existing content. This phase has now dragged on for months. Meanwhile, H1Z1 is still in Early Access. During the first half of the year, new features were constantly being added.
The now former head of the studio, John Smedley, had described the future in the brightest colors in June. He spoke of a huge world, first role-playing elements, and an incredible project. It was said that this is not like other Early Access phenomena that burn brightly, eventually stagnate, and die out.
However, these promises have since been retracted, Smedley was too far ahead of himself. In June, he promised a vast world, in August it was postponed indefinitely. The summer brought hardly anything new, just a lot of polish. Even smaller features that had been announced were pushed back.
Why are you on vacation when there’s still so much to do!
This development increasingly strains the relationship between developers and players. Now, the open communication channels are more often used for unpleasant things. Numerous posts on reddit or tweets revolve around players accusing the developers of not doing anything, only focusing on Battle Royale and the Twitch event. De core of the game, the survival mode, is falling behind. Fans feel neglected. The old Early Access problem: they have our money, why should they continue working on the game?
Responding to the hate, it’s hard sometimes, most times. People write things, we read them, they are mean, it’s not fun https://t.co/L5Skfmdz74
— Adam Clegg (@Arclegger) September 6, 2015
The developers sometimes react visibly annoyed to criticism. Understandably, when they hear on their personal Twitter accounts why they are posting vacation photos or playing other games when there is still so much to do in H1Z1. The relaxed approach, mixing private and business matters among the developers, the “always available, always approachable” attitude shaped the early days of H1Z1. Now it shows its downsides.
Especially the subreddit for H1Z1 is seen by some developers as a “negative place” where constructive exchange is no longer possible.
For example, one of the key figures in H1Z1, Adam Clegg writes on reddit about the H1Z1 subreddit:
What I have noticed more than anything is that on reddit we get a lot of feedback that is extremely negative, and when we try to engage we get downvoted and bashed. I have much more engaging conversations on other platforms. I still lurk and read reddit, but after so many times trying to engage with the playerbase and continually getting spit at, it’s really hard to keep engaging.
I don’t like it, it’s not fun.
Today, September 18, a new patch is coming
It cannot be said that the developers are doing nothing. Today at 2:00 PM a new patch will go live. Of course, it does not introduce anything new, but continues to deal with fixing and polishing the existing game. You can read the patch notes on reddit.
The developers assure: Soon there will be new content. The many hours of improvement should have a noticeable effect. An improved zombie AI can be seen in this trailer.
