H1Z1 125-Hour In-Game In-Depth Review/Opinion So far..

[G-Run]

H1Z1 125-Hour In-Game In-Depth Review/Opinion So far..

First and foremost I just wanted to say that the Dev’s have really impressed me thus far in their Alpha stage.
They seem to be working diligently since their rocky launch correcting/fixing most game-breaking issues with skill and pride in their game. The things I'll reveal/speak about are not to be taken personally these are my sole opinions not influenced by anyone else.
I am in no-way affiliated with H1Z1, I am just a consumer and a gamer.


Should You Buy Into the Alpha?

It's become a dangerous trend for gamers to pay into Alpha testing of their favorite or most promising games. There have been a few scandals on this topic in this exact same genre of game development, this leads to bitter relationships between the producers of the product
(The Dev’s) and consumers (us gamers). It is safe to say that at this point Thursday, January 30th, 2015 this is not the case with H1Z1.

As long as you are aware that nothing is final going into Alpha H1Z1, that your in-game experiences from day to day are subject to change without your consent. That the money that you put-down as an entry fee does in no-way entitle you to anything other than the raw experience of an Alpha Build and your own opinions.

Speaking of Monetary Gain there are Micro-transactions in-game. These come in the form of Air-Drops.

You pay for the ability to have one of these dropped on the map creating a sort of mini-event for all the players in the nearby location who happen to spot it. The map is very large and there can be up to two hundred players on any server at any time. So this is not yours, this is the worlds/servers, if you are lucky enough to order a drop, and also receive it, then you're just that. Lucky. (Or perhaps in a nice size/skilled group of individuals) As I'm aware the loot is completely random in the crates, or the crates are completely random, Weapons and ammo are included. But like I said, it is not yours. It's as far from Pay to win as it could ever be.

Side Note Concerning Air-Drops.. The worlds will be wiped, you should exercise caution when buying these because your items will be gone if you did happen to retrieve any from an air-drop. There's currently a sticky debate on whether these should be purchasable given the volatility of the servers. Some have requested the removal of this service, claiming it is unfair.

Know that any money you put towards an Alpha game is there for invested into the Alpha games future in some way. They will use it how they see fit.
They are not obligated to disclose who/what/why/when. If they do, consider it a courtesy. If you cannot spare it, you should not spend it.

Before you buy into an Alpha of any sort you should ask yourself

1. Can you afford it?
2. How important is the games development to you?
3. Do you have patience?

If you can come up with good supporting reasons for those questions, Then Alpha H1Z1 will not disappoint.
'
What is H1Z1/ What does it really compare to at this point in time?

H1Z1 is most closely compared to Day Z or the "Day Z Standalone", but it's more than that. It also includes something similar to the voxel based crafting system found in Mine Craft and games like it, like 7 Days to Die. For those that compare this to Day Z I think they are mistaken.
While I've never purchased a copy of Arma for the mod or bought the standalone I have to say that H1Z1 Alpha has been out for two weeks and it already functions better and has more content than Day Z Standalone. This is evident to me from watching countless hours of lets plays from Youtubers’ like Frankie1080pOnPC/RhinoCrunch/SideStrafe. At one point I had literally watched all of their Day Z content... Lol. '

H1Z1 is a sandbox MMO/survival/horror with little emphasis on the horror aspect at the moment, placed in an unspecified time in a post-apocalyptic world. You'll have to manage your food/energy, Hydration/stamina and health accordingly by eating and drinking, scavenging for foods and drinks, medical supplies in the ruins of a broken state/place called Anywhere.USA (or Anywhere, America?).



What kind of Gameplay would you experience if you bought it now?


As of now after the latest patch on January 27th the zombies are not much threat - more of a frustration. The developers have addressed this issue and the community stating that they have lesser AI functioning for the zombies until they tweak it so it doesn't affect the performance of the overall game so dramatically. They've been recently adjusting the spawn rate of both nature/zombie threats experimenting with the right frequency for the players.'

Because of the previous observation it is only fair to say that the game as of now is extremely PvP (Player vs Player) oriented at the moment. There are three types of people that play H1Z1, People who kill on sight (KOS). People who get killed on sight and people who play on PVE (Player vs Environment) only servers where PVP literally cannot happen. (Except the occasional griefer attempting to find a damage loophole).

The Developers are currently working on their spawn/proximity system in-game, Loot is so abundant you can gear up with all the best gear in approximately fifteen minutes, which leaves little left but PvP. For anyone who has stuck around since Day One, it's not so bad. We remember the beginning when Loot didn't re-spawn at all. Then again... If you can gear in ten minutes... What’s to stop you from going kamikaze at a group of possible hostiles with seventy or so assault rifle rounds?

There is a special game mode called "Battle Royale", you can enter this for free currently, be air dropped into the map and forced into a FFA PVP situation, the map will slowly close in on one specific area, those not within that area will slowly die. The guns and ammo are plentiful and the survival factors from the core game removed. This is extremely cool for those who love close-quarter combat and interesting situations.
The only downside of this is... Well, that's almost the exact definition of the core game Just without the area limit and additional survival needs.

There is a fair amount of crafting available in the core game but currently it's not advised to invest time into it. That's my personal opinion fyi. With server wipes coming (and they need to wipe them) and no ETAs on them I try not to get attached to my in-game items.
So no attempting to build super impenetrable bases for me yet. The Dev’s also underestimated the craftiness of some players. At the moment any base regardless of crafting material can be broken into. This can be done a multitude of ways of which I'm totally not going to share here. Just know that if you want to have the ultimate loot stash, do your research or you'll regret it.
Until then, build bases to form new ideas, see if you can find bugs or glitches, Go Wild!

..Speaking of wild expect to see a lot of senseless half built/half ruined buildings in a few spots. It appears that some building restrictions never made it to the original Alpha Release. So...now we have ass-hats building in the middle of high-ways.

There is currently no-way to properly base-war, defend against players or anything. Your things are forfeit if you're not manually defending them and your base is found. On the plus side... The zombies are pretty dumbed down atm so you're safe from them...I guess.

These are my opinions based on my time spent in game... I like this game a ton, I'll probably easily spend another 100+ hours in game if the Dev’s continue to work as hard as they have been to iron out the kinks.

If you've been waiting for an experienced team of Developers to pick up on this genre I believe that wait is over. The question is will you support them in Early Alpha or not?

Lasting Concerns... they've stated they're going free to play eventually, which means they'll be relying on either micro-transactions or ads or both to bring in profit after release. Given the quality promised, the features-gadgets and gizmos' that this is supposed to have on release, I'd EASILY pay 10.00$ a month.

It's funny how you would think an Alpha Testing that required an entry fee would have a more mature player-base. As of now it just...Doesn’t. This game to me needs to be seriously mature, DEAD serious. o_O. I mean everyone goofs off but I feel once this is opened to the public what with the ease of access through steam the amount of griefers/hackers/kids are going to triple, no- quadruple what they are now. Look at the forums on Steam, Look at the Reddit forums about H1Z1. The overall maturity for this game is like fifteen.
Something I believe a lot of people are looking for from this genre game is real fear and decision. Real risk and reward. Do you risk your life to save a survivor from an incoming horde? Ask yourself if he’s friendly? It’ll be easier to talk him into sharing whatever ammo he may have. Instead of retrieving it off his dead corpse in the middle of twenty or so pissed off zombies.
An MMORPG Zombie survival game where zombies don’t spawn around players giving away their location away to other players who are there solely for PVP. Zombies need to be persistent, constant and invasive on the world map, giant gaping obstacles of despair for nearly any player and certain death for the inexperienced.
I believe that H1Z1 will become that game and I fully support it. If you’ve got the patience, skill and maturity. I say get it now. Now’s the time for community input, that is what Alpha is about. If everyone came up with one unique Idea, and the Dev’s picked one idea out of every one-hundred idea while maintaining their original vision of H1Z1 we all win.

[Symptom]

Bump

[Drothen]

if u need 125 hours to review any game, i dont wish to know what u have to say.
so gtfo.
first 1-3 hours is more than enough to get a general idea about any game. especially empty and boring game such as this.

[mr_hmm]

SOE=multimillion dollar corp.
SOE is not an indie company needing capital investors to make a game.

SOE has a history of saying one thing and doing another...
here are some examples:

(historic example)SWG-over a year after release they overhauled the ENTIRE character system and ruined a good game.

(RECENT)AIR DROPS-exec producer quoted "there will be no guns or ammo in airdrops" day 1 airdrops contain guns and ammo-this has been changed yep now less chance for guns or ammo, and the crate doesn't drop on your head anymore-oh yeah you need to buy a key to open said crate

(RECENT)THE ABILITY TO CRAFT GUNS OR AMMO-exec producer quoted "today I built a 1911"
anyone able to craft a gun or ammo?

this business model of paying for unfinished products is a bad move...the game industry already has a history of releasing bugged products and "patching later"...now we pay them to find the problems...look up game title "stomping grounds" dev took the money and ran...and its still on steam...

I see alot of potential, I do. But I feel foolish for paying them to test.
also OP how long have you been smoking smedley's pickle?

[Tobax]

Originally posted by TRONlol:

if u need 125 hours to review any game, i dont wish to know what u have to say.
so gtfo.
first 1-3 hours is more than enough to get a general idea about any game. especially empty and boring game such as this.

He didnt say he needed 125 hours to do a review only that he was up to that time when doing it and the fact he's spent so much time checking everything out is exactly why you DO want to know what he has to say.
Also no you can't play this game 1-3 hours and get the rough idea since a lot of the fun comes from player interactions over time.

[Symptom]

h8ers gonna h8

[nXane]

Originally posted by mr_hmm:

SOE=multimillion dollar corp.
SOE is not an indie company needing capital investors to make a game.

SOE has a history of saying one thing and doing another...
here are some examples:

(historic example)SWG-over a year after release they overhauled the ENTIRE character system and ruined a good game.

(RECENT)AIR DROPS-exec producer quoted "there will be no guns or ammo in airdrops" day 1 airdrops contain guns and ammo-this has been changed yep now less chance for guns or ammo, and the crate doesn't drop on your head anymore-oh yeah you need to buy a key to open said crate

this business model of paying for unfinished products is a bad move...the game industry already has a history of releasing bugged products and "patching later"...now we pay them to find the problems...look up game title "stomping grounds" dev took the money and ran...and its still on steam...

I see alot of potential, I do. But I feel foolish for paying them to test.
also OP how long have you been smoking smedley's pickle?

No you dont , the crate that you need a key for are cosmetics ,which imo they should change its name to Chest to confuse less people.

The crate inside the airdrops have no lock nor require a key to open it

[G-Run]

Happy that some found this useful. Lol. @Tobax, You're right about that, I didn't NEED 125hours. That's just what I played. Hell when I started playing I didn't even know I was going to write a review. I like the idea of a functioning game that delivers what it promises. (Especially in this genre-.. You wouldn't see me write ♥♥♥♥ about BF or COD or anything. lol. (same formula usually from game to game anyway). Even if they are seriously successful in what they do.