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John Smedley discusses H1Z1 monetization
Player characters in H1Z1 won't be concerned with money, seeing as how they'll be busy trying to fortify themselves against hordes of shambling zombies. Sony Online Entertainment, however, does indeed want to make money off of the game. President John Smedley took to Reddit to share the details of the team's first monetization meeting, and while it's not a decisive list of how the game will make money, it serves as a preview. The early list contains character slots, wearable items, crates with random selections of wearable items, and emotes. The team also intends to allow players to loot wearables from other players, but looted cash items will degrade over time rather than being perpetual acquisitions. Smedley makes it clear that resources like food, water, and ammunition will not be sold, nor will any boosts to those resources, since acquiring these assets makes up the core of the gameplay. Take a look at the post for the details and the community response.
SOE's new Player Server initiative debuting in H1Z1
Did you watch SOE's late-breaking H1Z1 livestream last night? Are you excited for the zombie survival sandbox MMO? Well, here's another nugget to chew on courtesy of CEO John Smedley and his Twitter feed. The game will feature private servers. Today I'd like to announce H1Z1 will be the first game to implement our new Player Servers. In addition to the traditional servers that we set up and run (what you've come to expect in MMOs), we will allow the players to come together in any way they wish and if they can get enough people together to vote for the server we will make it for them. At first this will be for specific pre-defined rulesets. Later we will expand past rulesets into adding more features. For example perhaps one community prefers to go more militaristic. So they add more military vehicles. So we're truly letting you, our players get exactly the kind of thing you're looking for. Mechanically this will allow players to buy pledge tokens in Station Cash to vote on a proposal. However, should the vote [succeed] we refund. [Thanks BabaGraPL!]
SOE is streaming H1Z1 live right now
SOE has just announced that members of the H1Z1 dev team will be streaming the recently revealed zombie survival sandbox for the first time tonight on Twitch starting at 7:00 p.m. EDT, which is right this very minute. We've included the stream embed after the cut for your entertainment. Popcorn sold separately. [Update: The devs streaming are Game Designer Jimmy Whisenhunt and Technical Director Tom Schenck] [Source: SOE press release]
Smedley talks H1Z1's map size, population density
SOE CEO John Smedley's not done talking about zombie sandbox survival MMO H1Z1. Earlier this afternoon on Reddit, Smed posted a lengthy comment addressing questions about the game's map size. Rather than summarize it for you, I'll just go ahead and leave the whole thing here. I've seen a bunch of people asking questions about the map size. Forgelight is built to handle arbitrarily sized worlds. Our plan is simple -- we're building the core of "anywhere USA". When we first open it up to users the map will be huge, but nowhere near as big as it's going to be in short order. Our map editing system allows us to quickly add massive areas. We want to make sure we clearly understand how the players are playing the game before we do that. On PlanetSide 2 we made a mistake by making multiple continents before we had a strong enough idea of what worked and what didn't. This game is different. We're doing it smarter. When we open up the early access there will be a massive map for players to enjoy. Over time (very quickly) they'll magically just be able to keep going further than they've gone before. It's a very unique way of doing it, but we actually think this is a better way to go. So not to worry. Zombie Apocalypse isn't going to be any fun if it's like Disneyland on Spring Break and super-crowded. We want remote... haunting... being scared when you see someone. Your first instinct needs to be to hide. If there are 20 players in your view it's not a very convincing Apocalypse. So how many players per server? Who knows. As we add more land the number of people we can hold on a server goes way up. So we're excited. We have a ton of zombies for you to fight too. You'll be seeing hordes, oh yes you will.
SOE's H1Z1 is a zombie-flavored sandbox after all
SOE has just released more information on its upcoming F2P zombie MMO H1Z1. In a letter posted to Reddit just moments ago, President John Smedley explained his vision for the game. "It's a massively multiplayer game in which players fight for survival in a world where death is the only sure thing," he writes. Set in middle America with a distinct zombie flavor, the game will be a sandbox with a "deep crafting system" with which "players can build shelters out of resources in the world" and "work together to make amazing fortresses complete with weaponry to help defend against both the Infected and other players." How is the game different from the multitudes of other kill-or-be-killed post-apoc zombie sandboxes already in existence? Smed says it's a persistent MMO with thousands of players and different rulesets, a strong economy, open looting in PvP, access to devs, an emphasis on "player ownership and building," and cool tech borrowed from PlanetSide 2. The studio plans to have a player-playable version within four to six weeks; it will fall under the $15 All Access Pass and have microtransactions but will not be P2W. Have a look at the first released screenies below. The Game Talk Live stream is now over. [Source: SOE press release]
SOE revealing H1Z1 tonight, teaser site live
Is SOE's new game a zombie MMO? Does it feature Star Wars: Galaxies' mechanics? Are players going to complain about zombies being cliche and overused before logging in to their cliche and overused fantasy MMO of choice? These questions and more will hopefully be answered tonight at 8:00 p.m. EDT when the firm unveils H1Z1 on Game Talk Live. CEO John Smedley teased the announcement on his Twitter feed last night, saying that the game is pretty far along. "You can play it yourself soon," he tweeted. "And by play I mean fully." The game's website has also gone live, though it's currently a single image. [Smedley has since confirmed that the game is indeed zombies. "H1Z1 is an MMO that allows players to take on the role of an apocalypse survivor who is in a world that is filled with zombies [... ] A world! Not just a little tiny server."] [Thanks Dean!]
