The survival MMO H1Z1 currently has an interesting, albeit somewhat genre-inappropriate problem: The zombies are just too stupid. This is going to be fixed with a patch.
Anyone who has been following H1Z1 for a while will notice a significant difference from earlier builds: The zombies are passive and not as violent, bloodthirsty, and relentless as they used to be. There are videos of one of the controversial air drops falling, seven zombies standing around the crate, and a player simply looting the crate and leaving. Such a thing would have been impossible in earlier streams.
SOE chief John Smedley is aware of the passive, idiotic zombies and tweets. He claims that the zombies are mere shadows of their bloodthirsty selves. This is linked to problems with the server frame rates that they are working on. These issues are making the zombies dumber. Once these problems are resolved, the idiot zombies will turn into highly intelligent killing machines with a degree in “Ripping players’ heads off and using them as cups.”
the zombies you see are weak shadows of themselves starving quite literally for brains. The server frame rates are making them dumber.
— John Smedley (@j_smedley) January 19, 2015
when they come home from frame rate college, they will have Doctorates in ripping your skull off and using it for a cup. — John Smedley (@j_smedley) January 19, 2015
The zombie fix was supposed to happen yesterday, but they weren’t able to finish it in time because a last-minute problem arose. For today, they are promising the patch for sure (for us, this could mean an update late in the evening or at night). This patch is also expected to fix the lack of loot in the containers that players can open.
Previously, there had been repeated discussions at H1Z1 about how much more dangerous the zombies in their game are compared to those in other games in the genre. They should ensure that even well-equipped players or those traveling in teams regret making so much noise and generating so much heat. With stupid zombies, players in teams lack this natural predator.
