The War Z, "At SSMB, having a nice cold pint, waiting for all this to blow over"

[Badnik Mechanic]

What a difference a few months makes.

 

Do not buy this game. Do not buy this game. Under No circumstances buy this game!

 

See post 3 for reasons why not.

 

You are probably familiar with that mod Day Z right? That Arma 2 thing? Well... Since the start of PAX Prime this year, there has been a flood of activity around a much lesser known title called The War Z.

The War Z is... well... pretty much World War Z/The Walking Deads bastard love child. It's set five years after humanity has been devastated by a zombie outbreak, there are only a handful of survivors, looking for food, water and ammo.

Sounds very familiar doesn't it?

Well, it's getting a lot of attention now following some footage which came out of PAX showing a pre-alpha build of the game.



Gametrailers version is much better quality.

Lets not forget, that is pre-alpha, and it's quite clearly made to show you how a real person would play a game with friends. For that standpoint, it's an oddly compelling piece of video, exploration and the unerving feeling that something might happen at any point. The way the person plays is quite like how somone playing this genre for the first time might... granted the commentary is a bit much. But for pre-alpha and what it's trying to show, it's certainly interesting.

Looking on it's website, it's got a lot of very ambitious plans.

* Once you buy the game, there are no subscription fees, no paid for DLC, no extra charges (sort of), the game will automatically update with content once it's released.

* You can buy/rent a server for you and your friends to play on. These can be public or private and be customisable to you.

* You can pay real world money for items. (so much for that no extra charges thing eh?)

* It's a huge open world MMO, you'll find yourself in the ruins of a city, to a wooden wilderness, and even vast open plains.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The game describes itself as neither a shooter or an RPG, but more of a 'what you make it.' the aim of the game is to survive as long as possible, how you do that is up to you, scavage supplies you find? Kill zombies and loot any spoils? Kill other human players and loot them?

Yeah it's pretty much the Arma 2 mod, only it's built specifically for what the Day Z mod intended it to be.

There is however some controversy around the game right now, it's due for release at the end of the year, they're even taking pre-orders for it, but... very little has come out of the studio other than some screens on their website, and pre-alpha video from PAX, and the quality of that video is nothing on the screens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyone getting this or have any interest? It's PC only by the way.

http://thewarz.com/index.html

More screens here http://thewarz.com/media.html

 

 

 

 

[VO.SUPER]

Certainly looks to be interesting. However, I'm skeptical on how well this game will perform when it's finalized.

[Badnik Mechanic]

So then... where to start?

 

Since E3, it's been a non stop series of controversies..

 

The TOS/legal agreement was actually the TOS from League of Legends, they didn't write/get a legal team to produce one for the game.

 

 

Which they admitted was stolen taken by mistake.

 

Following the release of some screenshots, it appeared that the game was a near carbon copy of another game made by the same people called 'War inc'

 

 

 

 

 

When the game was released on Steam, it carried this description.(the parts in red are what the reality is).

 

Those screenshots you see in the first post? You will NEVER see anything like that in the game... ever.

 

 

When questioned about this, the developer of the game blamed the customers for misreading what was written and blames most of the negative press on Day Z fanboys.

 

And a few hours ago it was discovered that the most of the artwork on its website has been stolen from The Walking Dead

 

 

Then there is... this...

 

 

And thats only a tiny part of it. Thousands of people have been banned for aparently no reason. Some have been globally blacklisted for asking for refunds, Valve is now investigating the conduct of War Z modderators on it's forum and The War Z's inclusion on it's Steam service.

 

Complaints about the game include 4 hour respawn time for a character. Ai that is completely broken. No weapons/items can be found except for in very specific areas of the map.

 

Theres so much more to this story.  But chances are if you just google 'The War Z controversy' you'll get thousands of hits.

 

Just do not buy this game!

[SenEDDtor Missile]

Well, I can imagine there will be MANY lawsuits against these guys. Unprofessionalism at it's peak here ladies and gents!

[krazystitch]

Huh..I had no idea there was so much controversy over this game. I had heard about the Walking Dead images being stolen and such, but not about all that other stuff. Talk about lazy, reusing their own models for another game? As for accidentally stealing an entire Terms & Conditions from a different game entirely..woops.

 

The game was also accidentally released on Steam too early. I'm not too sure how that happens, but apparently this game hasn't gotten off to a very strong start and it's not even out yet.

[buba]

 

This is the most retarded thing I've ever seen in a video game. Scratch that, this is the most retarded and depressing thing I've ever seen in any form of entertainment.

[Alternate Evolutions]

I considered getting this BEFORE all this controversy, and just because a few people said it was a bit crappy, i stopped myself......Man, I really dodged a bullet by waiting to see everyone's opinions after a week. Its not even been that yet and i'm already facepalming at how insanely awful this all has been! Plus, not spending my money on this crap means more money spend on good stuff in the steam sales.

[Skyward Sword]

... I wish I wasn't human sometimes. Can I be a pug or a giant dick-shaped monster plz?

[Carbo]

Just do not buy this game!

Can't buy something that got removed from Steam, yo.

[Cola]

I'm pretty sure that isn't what you should say to a paying customer.

[Badnik Mechanic]

I considered getting this BEFORE all this controversy,

 

 

You can probably tell in my oppening post that I thought this sounded like a cool game, and to be fair, the idea is really cool and those screens do look great. But the product they've put out just falls so far away from those expectations.

 

 

... I wish I wasn't human sometimes. Can I be a pug or a giant dick-shaped monster plz?

 

 

 

This is the most retarded thing I've ever seen in a video game. Scratch that, this is the most retarded and depressing thing I've ever seen in any form of entertainment

 

 

I've been doing a little more digging on this. Aparently the guy who got that ban message was a bit of a cock to the forums. Constantly trolling and spamming. But still that ban reason does nothing in the games favour. However, aparently the people who modderate the board are not paid staff, a lot of them are not even out of secondary school yet and messages like this are not uncommon, one ban reason tells the user the difference between a scam and not a scam.

 

 

 

Can't buy something that got removed from Steam, yo.

 

 

You can when it's being sold on The War Z's website dawg. Though why you'd do that is another question... though many hundreds of people did.... they're kinda angry now.

 

Edit: Anyone get any suggestions for a funnier topic title?

[SIXTH-RATE SOMA]

Edit: Anyone get any suggestions for a funnier topic title?

"Really More of A Frankenstein'd Game"?

[SenEDDtor Missile]

"Really More of A Frankenstein'd Game"?

"Frankenstein got a game, and it's called War Z." - My title suggestion?

[Conando]

I'm pretty sure that isn't what you should say to a paying customer.

 They certainly don't seem to care about that. Though it will come back to bite them in the ass soon enough. You can't run a business like that, and despite what people tend to say about EA, Activision, what have you, they don't say you're a fucking idiot for buying their game and tough luck.

[Phos]

The thing about this game is, how cool could it really have been?  In this sort of game there doesn't seem to be any reason not to shoot other players on sight.  Just extra bodies to have when zombies show up?  

[Candescence]

TotalBiscut demonstrates how utterly terrible this game is:

 

 

And a v-log after that talking about the aftermath, and that he has no personal beef with players, but with the developers, who are outright liars:

 

[Solkia]

The way he says "controversy" bugs me.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

The way he says "controversy" bugs me.

Contraversy?

[Stacy]

Then there is... this...

 

 

 

Woah that is pretty harsh people should the right to criticize a product they have paid for it is a glitchy as hell and full of bugs which the ideal way forward is a patch that will hopefully fix the problems and keep people invested in your product.

 

But instant banning people for voicing criticism is bollocks and shows just how incredibly immature and thinned skinned their staff is. I mean ban people if they threatening you but don't ban them straight away if they are a bit angry that you didn't test this shitty plagiarized game.  

Edited December 21, 2012 by BW199148

[Eternal EX]

Um....

Edited December 21, 2012 by Frozen EX

[PSI Wind]

So the guy who made this game, Sergey Titov........yeeeeeeeah

He created and licensed the propitiatory engine for.....THIS abomination

Even if he didn't actually develop the game, he still made the engine and just sold it off to some unknown company and says he "didn't want it released in that state". Yeah right  

[redhellc]

I still find it weird seeing people defending this game.

 

I mean sure the game could have been good if they did all the game was suppose to have.

 

I mean sure that since it's suppose to be an mmo(even do I don't how it can be since you can only go to one map with a limit of 50 players which is few in mmo standarts) and could be upgraded overtime, BUT the core game must be playable and it's not, plus some really bad design choices. Also looking at the zombies you can see this game is rushed I mean look at that I.A. it's horrible.

 

I don't even need to know about all that controversy, all I need to do is look at the game and I can see it's a bad rushed unfinished ripoff.

It's so bad I can't even put this besides 06.    

[Blue Wisp]

I've never heard of a game company who makes a glitched and fucked up game, and then blame the customers who purchase it for being "fucking noobs". That's just messed up.

Shouldn't the customers of this game start legal action against the company for fraud?

[Badnik Mechanic]

 

See if you can spot the hidden message

 

Clue: Remember that letter Arnold wrote to that senitor?

 

Answer in spoiler.

 

Help me its awful!

 

GameSpy Review: 0.5 out of 5.

 

Metacritics user score is 1.2

[Badnik Mechanic]

The War Z fail train continues it's course into oblivion.

 

I... I just...

 

Right, you all more or less know everything thats happened so far right? Well... the cherry on the cake has been found.

 

The War Z's trademark was suspended on November 15th 2012

 

Meaning the game has to be renamed and was actually sold on Steam despite being in this state.

 

Furthermore, the patent suggests that the game has only been in production for 6 months!

 

Not only does this mean Mr Big Rigs is likely to need a very good lawyer, it also raises serious questions at Valve. How on earth can a game which was not going through Greenlight get onto the service for download with the misleading description, in the state that it was in and when it didn't have a trademark? This is crazy.

 

Well SSMB... any suggestions for The War Z's new name?

 

Sources: Patent/Trademark office.

 

The War Z Scam website.