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[miauw62]

Then again, it seems to happen in EVERY community when a spinoff appears. Minecraft & terraria, DF & Gnomoria/Towns...

[GlyphGryph]

Among a vocal minority, sure - but a large portion of the DF fanbase was just as enthusiastic about those games (and ultimately disappointed, for example, in towns, not because it copied stuff from Dwarf Fortress but because it simply wasn't good enough).\

Game's that copy another game, but do it better are often quickly forgiven by the majority of the fanbase for copying at all, since it means they can now do what they did before in a way that's even more fun. It's when a game copies, and overpromises, and copies POORLY that you get a huge deal made.

[PanH]

Then again, it seems to happen in EVERY community when a spinoff appears. Minecraft & terraria, DF & Gnomoria/Towns...

You mean, insults, personal attacks, spam of the other forum, trolls and so on ? That was really awful. It pretty much stopped 1-2 week after the first release, but that's different from DF players not liking Gnomoria/Towns.

[Thexor]

Among a vocal minority, sure - but a large portion of the DF fanbase was just as enthusiastic about those games (and ultimately disappointed, for example, in towns, not because it copied stuff from Dwarf Fortress but because it simply wasn't good enough).\

Game's that copy another game, but do it better are often quickly forgiven by the majority of the fanbase for copying at all, since it means they can now do what they did before in a way that's even more fun. It's when a game copies, and overpromises, and copies POORLY that you get a huge deal made.

Indeed. The DF forums had at least a decent following for Infiniminer back in the day; that didn't stop us appreciating Minecraft when it came along.



Ignoring all the out-of-game problems (scummy devs, blatant lying, etc.) with The War Z, there's still the in-game fact that it's worse than DayZ.

* Its graphics are shoddy - models not loading, reflections being incorrect, low-quality environments. ARMA II was hardly eye-candy, but it was still higher-quality than this.

* Its gameplay is equally bad - concentrated spawn points leading to spawncamping, extremely difficult new player experience, 4-hour respawn times. God help you if you don't have a team of 'allies' to help you clear a building in order to loot a weapon.

* It has a heavy reliance on P2W microtransactions - real money buys food/drink/bandages to negate the survival aspect, melee weapons, ammunition, and also negates the 4-hour respawn times. If you don't spend real money, you start with nothing more deadly than a flashlight, and you'll be scrounging for every last bullet. If you do spend real money, you're a near-invincible behemoth with easy access to awesome melee weapons, infinite ammunition for the game's most powerful guns, and unlimited food, drink, and health without ever having to put yourself in danger to scout the ruins.


This, to me, sounds like the very definition of a terrible game. Sergey keeps bragging about being the top-selling game on Steam... except his sales were based on a dearth of other popular games being released at the time, and complete fabrications in the advertising material on the Steam page. I'm willing to bet that, right now, with the Holiday Sale on, The War Z wouldn't sell more than a couple dozen copies.

[symonthewise]

I'm so confused by the vehemence of the attack on this game. I watched a let's play a while back and thought it looked a little boring but assumed that was a result of my tastes being out of line with the games target audience.

False advertising is bad, but they said there was a mix up with the marketing team, unless I'm missing some info there doesn't seem to be any evidence they deliberately mislead people. You could infer that based on the behavior of the developer, but it would be speculation which is here treated like fact.

And really, if you ever read the back of game boxes you shouldn't be too shocked by exaggeration which verges on outright lying. Not that this justifies lying, I'm just expressing my surprise at the vitriol (not really surprised-- passionate mobbing is the fire which powers the engine of the internet)

[Shooer]

False advertising is bad, but they said there was a mix up with the marketing team, unless I'm missing some info there doesn't seem to be any evidence they deliberately mislead people. You could infer that based on the behavior of the developer, but it would be speculation which is here treated like fact.

Except they have lied and tried to mislead.  Specifically the continued statements that the game has been in work since 2011 when there is ample proof that it's been in work for only a few months and it went in the zombie direction specifically because of Day Zs popularity at the time.

[Thexor]

Since I'm never averse to shamelessly stealing from Reddit, here's a timeline summary of why The War Z has attracted such vitriolic attacks. It's more than a bit of false advertising, it's a perfect storm of terrible PR, blatant lying, and poor game quality.

[nenjin]

I'm so confused by the vehemence of the attack on this game. I watched a let's play a while back and thought it looked a little boring but assumed that was a result of my tastes being out of line with the games target audience.

False advertising is bad, but they said there was a mix up with the marketing team, unless I'm missing some info there doesn't seem to be any evidence they deliberately mislead people. You could infer that based on the behavior of the developer, but it would be speculation which is here treated like fact.

And really, if you ever read the back of game boxes you shouldn't be too shocked by exaggeration which verges on outright lying. Not that this justifies lying, I'm just expressing my surprise at the vitriol (not really surprised-- passionate mobbing is the fire which powers the engine of the internet)

I think if you've actually paid attention to the WarZ, the reasons for the vehemence should be pretty clear. From the pay-to-nullify-the-point-of-the-game microtransaction model, to the advertising fiasco, to the the Executive Producer firmly putting his foot in his mouth multiple times, to the bans, to the misappropriated assets.....

[majikero]

Besides the zombies, at what point is the game about surviving zombie Apocalypse? You have people running around with military grade weapons and gunning down everything.

[symonthewise]

Since I'm never averse to shamelessly stealing from Reddit, here's a timeline summary of why The War Z has attracted such vitriolic attacks. It's more than a bit of false advertising, it's a perfect storm of terrible PR, blatant lying, and poor game quality.

But I think this furthers my point. This was terrible from the beginning (according to the reddit list), so it seems people should have moved from disgust to apathy quite quickly. My confusion is why people seem to be taking poor game development so personally, like its actually insulting to the individual.

And my empathy towards the angry is further reduced by the fact that their PR is totally irrelevant to how good the game is. I didn't read any feature lists or any press releases, I heard about the game here and watched a lets play. It looked boring so I investigated no further. Some people have said they enjoyed it, for what it was worth. It doesn't matter if Titov is a twit and calls people faggots unnecessarily because his opinions and personality are not interesting or relevant.

I do not believe you can predict how good a game will be with much accuracy before it comes out. You can get an idea based on past games but if the development team has never worked together, who knows? It would be folly to assume that because one designer is irascible and tactless that his game will certainly fail.

[Grakelin]

Come on, guys, we already knew the game was being made by the geniuses behind Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing. I'm disappointed it wasn't worse.

[PrimusRibbus]

Since I'm never averse to shamelessly stealing from Reddit, here's a timeline summary of why The War Z has attracted such vitriolic attacks. It's more than a bit of false advertising, it's a perfect storm of terrible PR, blatant lying, and poor game quality.

But I think this furthers my point. This was terrible from the beginning (according to the reddit list), so it seems people should have moved from disgust to apathy quite quickly. My confusion is why people seem to be taking poor game development so personally, like its actually insulting to the individual.

Because zombies.

I don't know why, but this has always been the attitude of zombie apocalypse fan communities. They take things very personally and have a unique level of investment in their entertainment sources.

I've come to avoid anything zombie related due to the community's said eccentricity.

[symonthewise]

He's been involved in a load of crappy games.. I think its what happens when you drag the bottom for profit. Check this out if you haven't seen it already http://www.yourewinner.com/index.php?action=stitovinterview

Primus- I agree, but would add that its similar behavior to other fan communities (and perhaps more interestingly, religious and ethnic communities) Not all on the same scale, but of a similar type.

[GlyphGryph]

He clearly cares far more about selling games than making them, heh.

[fenrif]

Ignoring all the out-of-game problems (scummy devs, blatant lying, etc.) with The War Z, there's still the in-game fact that it's worse than DayZ.

* Its graphics are shoddy - models not loading, reflections being incorrect, low-quality environments. ARMA II was hardly eye-candy, but it was still higher-quality than this.

* Its gameplay is equally bad - concentrated spawn points leading to spawncamping, extremely difficult new player experience, 4-hour respawn times. God help you if you don't have a team of 'allies' to help you clear a building in order to loot a weapon.

* It has a heavy reliance on P2W microtransactions - real money buys food/drink/bandages to negate the survival aspect, melee weapons, ammunition, and also negates the 4-hour respawn times. If you don't spend real money, you start with nothing more deadly than a flashlight, and you'll be scrounging for every last bullet. If you do spend real money, you're a near-invincible behemoth with easy access to awesome melee weapons, infinite ammunition for the game's most powerful guns, and unlimited food, drink, and health without ever having to put yourself in danger to scout the ruins.


This, to me, sounds like the very definition of a terrible game. Sergey keeps bragging about being the top-selling game on Steam... except his sales were based on a dearth of other popular games being released at the time, and complete fabrications in the advertising material on the Steam page. I'm willing to bet that, right now, with the Holiday Sale on, The War Z wouldn't sell more than a couple dozen copies.

The graphics aren't great, sure, but I've never had a problem with models not loading (might've been a bug introduced in a recent patch?). I'll take gameplay over graphics any day.

The spawn points werent really concentrated? I mean for like a week maybe when it first launched into beta, but they were pretty good about spreading them all out. The four hour respawn times were added in a few days ago. And yeah it's kinda sucky, but I always had 3 non-hardcore character slots and then just deleted the other two every time they died anyway, so it's pretty easy to avoid. Unless like all five of your characters were spawnkilled instantly it's not a huge deal. I mostly played solo and never needed anyones help finding weapons, or clearing buildings. Also you could make the same argument about Day Z: that the game is orders of magnitude more difficult working alone than with a team. Doesn't mean the game is bad.

Holding Day Z up as an example of a good extremely new player experience is so bizzare to me that I'm wondering if they've completely overhauled the entire game since I last started playing. Do you still spawn on the coast and basically defenseless, do the zombies still teleport around, hit you through walls, and run in extremely random patterns? Does the game still actively punish you for not knowing things like "don't turn around too fast indoors if you're holding a long-barreled weapon"?

There's really no reliance on microtransactions, and none of them are p2w, except possibly the respawn timer bypass thing. Anything you buy with real money can be lost just the same as anything you find in the game. If you think having anything from the cash shop makes you an invincible behemoth then I don't know what to tell you. Does finding an axe and a tin of beans in Day Z make you an unstoppable behemoth? It's the same as that. Finding these things in the game aren't really that difficult, except maybe the C-mag and one other thing I forget. Both of which have easily found equivalents. Sure you can pay to have 50 or 100 or whatever rounds in your gun rather than 30, but is that such a massive advantage as your painting it to be? It's certainly not infinate, and you're still constained by your inventory as to what you can carry with you in terms of ammo. Same for food and drink and the like. The melee weapons are all the same, so the only awesome thing about them is cosmetic

Day Z is a game that's literally designed with the mindset of it being an art project and an excersize in cultivating player frustration and unfun. Sure it's more sim-y and less action-y. But I like action as much as I like sims. being an action game doesn't make it bad any more than day z being a sim makes it bad (Rocket's terrible design decisions make it bad )

Come on, guys, we already knew the game was being made by the geniuses behind Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing. I'm disappointed it wasn't worse.

One of the guys who worked on the game worked on Big Rigs, and also Gears of War and League of Legends. Game developers don't often get to choose to only work on really good games, especially early in their careers. Not that I'm defending the man really, I just find it odd that this specific tidbit of information has been latched onto in such a way as if every other game developer in the world would've been like "No, I don't need your paycheck. I'd rather be a binman or work in Mcdonalds than work on a game that isn't triple A stellar quality!" Also, according to Symonthewise's post he didn't actually work on, just licensed his engine for it.

But I think this furthers my point. This was terrible from the beginning (according to the reddit list), so it seems people should have moved from disgust to apathy quite quickly. My confusion is why people seem to be taking poor game development so personally, like its actually insulting to the individual.

And my empathy towards the angry is further reduced by the fact that their PR is totally irrelevant to how good the game is. I didn't read any feature lists or any press releases, I heard about the game here and watched a lets play. It looked boring so I investigated no further. Some people have said they enjoyed it, for what it was worth. It doesn't matter if Titov is a twit and calls people faggots unnecessarily because his opinions and personality are not interesting or relevant.

I do not believe you can predict how good a game will be with much accuracy before it comes out. You can get an idea based on past games but if the development team has never worked together, who knows? It would be folly to assume that because one designer is irascible and tactless that his game will certainly fail.

Well all the drama around the develpment of this has been fairly entertaining. It also helped along by the gaming press having found an easy target to give them some credibility. "Hey look everyone we asked this Russian developer everyone allready hates and who has non-millions to spend on advertising some hard-hitting questions! Remember this next time we ask a major publish softball questions in the wake of a major scandal!" That Gamespot review was notable for the first time since the GiantBomb guy was fired that anyone at gamespot said something bad about a game.