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[Kelroth]

Official Site: https://www.playnether.com/

About the Game:

Nether is a first-person, survival-shooter that introduces players to a desolated, sprawling urban cityscape (based loosely on Chicago). Nether features core survival elements, requiring players to scavenge for resources in order to survive as well as crafting. More importantly, Nether brings unique gameplay elements to the genre, and brings the experience to a new level. The city spans several hundred blocks and players can access most of the buildings, including multi-level skyscrapers that provide huge vantage points. Danger is around every corner, sometimes only a few yards from you, raising tension to a new level. Nether also presents players with a meld of PvE and PvP that fosters unique, emergent gameplay and forces big decisions when it comes to trusting other players. The enemies, called “Nethers,” are unique and each species possesses both demonic and human qualities, making them fast, smart and hard to kill. This also factors in when it comes to working together to defend safe zones or clear out structures. Finally, by setting world objectives, Nether adds another dimension to the survival genre, which further sets it apart from other online games.

Launch Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhfHHM79rRw

Live-Action Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmkkkCP4e3I


If you love TRUE survival games, and hate to walk for hours doing nothing (I'm looking at you, DayZ!), Nether is the game for you. Forget mindless and almost harmless zombies, who just walk or run at you eagerly taking bullets or baseball bats in the head from you, here you face the Nethers, horrible creatures from another world which crave only your painful death. Once they spot you, they hunt you, but they won't just run to you, they TELEPORT to you, and once they're gone from your sight, they may reappear behind your back ready to beat you to a pulp. They won't let you go until they're dead, running away from them is rarely an option, because the more noise you make, the more Nether will hunt you. They're blind (except for one type of them), but they have really good ears.

But what's best in this game is its atmosphere. It's incredible, and if you loved movies like The Road and I Am Legend, and games like I Am Alive and The Last of Us, you will find that eerie sensation of despair, desolation, and death perfectly represented here. The city in which you will be roaming is full of buildings in which you can enter, abandoned camps, crashed helicopters in which you can find any kind of loot.

There's a variety of dynamic events which may happen at any time, such as Nether invasions of outposts, supply drops or Nether massive spawns. They are very exciting, both if you want PvE or PvP. It's never safe to participate in them alone, so find friends to go there with!

If you want to play together, post here your Steam ID. Mine is: grayfox90.

[rabidgam3r]

ENGAGE CYNICISM!
I hate, HATE, -HATE- monsters that instead of moving smartly teleport behind you for a cheap jump scare. And I've heard the 'atmosphere of death and loneliness' spiel so many times, and not a single person has actually represented it. But that's just me being jaded by all the dumbass horror games with their jumpscares. And if you can fight in a way that doesn't just stop the monsters momentarily, it stops being scary for me. I mean, if I can stick a grenade launcher down Slenderman's throat, I stop shitting my pants and start laughing maniacally. Another disjointed thought is that if the Nether are so scary, why do you need so many of them?
But hey, that's just my baseless opinion, having not played the game!
So...
Enjoy it. I'll leave my baseless, idiotic, overly cynical uninformed opinion here.

[PrimusRibbus]

I'm kinda confused by the premise of the game. Both OP and Nether's website compare it to DayZ (a 100% PvP game where zombies are used solely as a vehicle for player conflict), the website describes it as being like Left 4 Dead, and the trailer makes it look more like Killing Floor.

So is it a PvP game, a forced co-op game, or a run-and-gun monster shooter? Or is it trying to be all of the above?

[ukulele]

Its DayZ (open world sandbox pvp, maybe not a sandbox or at least not at the same level) but instead of a huge amount of non threatening zombies you have somwhat dangerous AI once in a while.
I failed to see any real improvement over the idea Dayz created tough, so i dont really know whats the selling point.
All of this is by looking at gameplay. Havent played it myself.

[Kaitol]

Urban, more enemy variety/creativity.

Hey its more different from day Z than any generic military shooter is from its competitors or previous iterations.

And competition is never a bad thing. It annoys me somewhat when people say why, the ideas been done before. I just want to point out the word GENRE in big glowing letters.

[Kelroth]

ENGAGE CYNICISM!
I hate, HATE, -HATE- monsters that instead of moving smartly teleport behind you for a cheap jump scare. And I've heard the 'atmosphere of death and loneliness' spiel so many times, and not a single person has actually represented it. But that's just me being jaded by all the dumbass horror games with their jumpscares. And if you can fight in a way that doesn't just stop the monsters momentarily, it stops being scary for me. I mean, if I can stick a grenade launcher down Slenderman's throat, I stop shitting my pants and start laughing maniacally. Another disjointed thought is that if the Nether are so scary, why do you need so many of them?
But hey, that's just my baseless opinion, having not played the game!
So...
Enjoy it. I'll leave my baseless, idiotic, overly cynical uninformed opinion here.

The Nether are not cheap monsters, the fact that they teleport means that you don't just stay still and shoot at them until they die, they force you to stay alert, adopt tactics not to have them hitting you on the back, every fight is very dynamic and you will try to avoid them at any cost because they are dangerous for real, not just an annoyance.
Also, except where there's a surge, there are not many Nether around, exactly for the fact that each one of them is highly dangerous alone, when you face a horde you're pretty much dead. Hearing a Nether cry because it has spotted you is way more frightening that cheap jumpscares, I can assure you.

I'm kinda confused by the premise of the game. Both OP and Nether's website compare it to DayZ (a 100% PvP game where zombies are used solely as a vehicle for player conflict), the website describes it as being like Left 4 Dead, and the trailer makes it look more like Killing Floor.

So is it a PvP game, a forced co-op game, or a run-and-gun monster shooter? Or is it trying to be all of the above?

It's a survival game more immediate than DayZ, just by the fact that Nether takes place in a big city, while DayZ in the country. There are many more places to find loot, and less road to make between a point of interest and the other, but it doesn't mean that you can find great quantities of items easily. They're scarce, but it doesn't require you to spend hours to find a single gun. The action when engaged by the Nethers is frenetic, and fighting the special Nethers is quite like fighting the special infected of Left 4 Dead, but as the ammos are scarce, you have to make every shot count, and try to avoid fights as much as possible.
It's not trying to be all of the above, it's an unique game in its kind, it shares some aspects of them but it has its own personality.

Its DayZ (open world sandbox pvp, maybe not a sandbox or at least not at the same level) but instead of a huge amount of non threatening zombies you have somwhat dangerous AI once in a while.
I failed to see any real improvement over the idea Dayz created tough, so i dont really know whats the selling point.
All of this is by looking at gameplay. Havent played it myself.

The improvement I find is that the environment is far more appealing and interesting, the presence of outposts and trade makes the scavenging more fun and rewarding, and the dynamic events are very engaging and help making the world, well, dynamic.
If you want to try it, there are 72-hours keys that you can request even on the official forum, the game is also very light so after you receive the key you will be able to play it in a matter of minutes!

[Biowraith]

Disclaimer: I haven't played DayZ, or any other games in this genre really (I have played and enjoyed the occasional open PvP MMO, although not recently).

I had a go at this via a beta invite a few weeks back.  I didn't enjoy it, though I don't know if that's because it was bad or just because I'm not a good match for this genre.

My experience went as follows:

I picked a server with a reasonably high population.  I was dead before it finished loading.  From reading chat it seems some players were spawn camping.  Not the most encouraging start, but eh, to be expected from an open PvP sort of game.

I spawned a new guy and got to explore a bit - went through a few buildings, tried (and failed) to get into a scrapyard, and wandered about a bit a little unsure of where I was meant to go.  I didn't find any loot or gear in the buildings I explored.  I was heading down to a waterfront when someone shot me in the back.

I spawned again, and checked the map.  Saw some $ icons on the map, so started heading for one of those.  Explored some more buildings on the way and found some shotgun ammo and a couple bits of food.  Met my first Nether - a demon dog thing, which teleported about a bit as I stabbed it with my newbie butter knife.  I won!  Got a skill point which I put into melee for a couple % and the newfound ability to block.  Bumped into another player while exploring a store (which was empty, at least of anything I could pick up), also armed with the newbie butter knife.  We sorta circled each other warily, I got the impression he didn't want trouble and wandered off.  I guess that was a mistake because he then ran over and attacked.  We flailed at each other with our knives.  I lost; shoulda attacked first.

I spawned once more, checked the map again and headed towards the safehouse (or somesuch) at the other end of town.  I found some more food, but still no weapons or anything like that.  Killed another demon dog.  Actually made it to the safehouse without anyone killing me.  There were a few other players there, one of whom seemed pretty well equipped with guns and a fancy hat.  They didn't try to kill me (unsure if that safehouse was a mechanically enforced safezone or if it was just mutually agreed between the players).  I explored the main building but didn't find anything of interest.  So I headed out and wandered a bit more, found a vendor or something (but had no money to buy anything), a couple more demon dogs, but still no loot or purpose.  At that point I decided it wasn't the game for me and quit.


So that was my experience - I probably only played for 2-3 hours, but in that time didn't find much to do besides aimlessly wander a mostly empty town, punctuated by the occasional knife fight or ambush.  I was probably missing a whole lot (I saw some sort of Nether-related event on the map at one point, but didn't get there before it was gone), and as I say I'm maybe just not well suited to the genre, but there wasn't anything that made me want to stick with it and learn or see more.  (Sorry!)

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I watched some LP action. Three guys got together and played co-op and were able to group up with some difficulty when someone died and had to make his way to the group. They were attacked by some established players and ganked them -somehow- and took their sweet loot which included guns. Later they all died and lost their stuff.

I don't know how persistent EXP is and whether you ever get to the point where you keep some stuff when you die, but it doesn't seem like that much fun to play a guy who stabs a demon dog sometimes and gets shot by someone other times. Like, it's nice to have some progress over time, you know?

After watching it I didn't have any desire at all to play it.

[Kelroth]

There's one thing that should be clear in this kind of apocalyptic situations: people are more dangerous than monsters.
This concept is present in every movie, book, comic and game about surviving in the end of civilization, and Nether is not different. You have relatively safe havens where nobody can shoot, but just as you go out of their borders, you're again a target for people with bad intentions.

There are people killing for paranoia, people killing just because they have fun hunting humans, people killing because of accidental friendly fire, people killing because in desperate need for food. When you see a monster, hide. When you see a human, run.

You can trust no one but your friends. Every stranger is an enemy, don't try to make friends out in the streets, either you run, you kill or be killed.

Put in your mind this concept, and you will have higher possibilities of surviving in Nether.

[MasterFancyPants]

There's one thing that should be clear in this kind of apocalyptic situations: people are more dangerous than monsters.
This concept is present in every movie, book, comic and game about surviving in the end of civilization, and Nether is not different. You have relatively safe havens where nobody can shoot, but just as you go out of their borders, you're again a target for people with bad intentions.

There are people killing for paranoia, people killing just because they have fun hunting humans, people killing because of accidental friendly fire, people killing because in desperate need for food. When you see a monster, hide. When you see a human, run.

You can trust no one but your friends. Every stranger is an enemy, don't try to make friends out in the streets, either you run, you kill or be killed.

Put in your mind this concept, and you will have higher possibilities of surviving in Nether.

You know, when people say this it always really annoys me. If people are more dangerous than monsters: How did the apocalypse happen anyway? A few groups of feuding civilians with dilapidated weapons can take on the monsters but the militaries of the world could not, please.
 It's just an excuse for bad AI and monster design.

If we go back to the classic Romero zombie movies there was plenty of human conflict, but the zombies were still the biggest threat. It's the threat of the monsters that should force human cooperation or conflict, not boredom.

[Glowcat]

As poorly I regard the game, from what I understand of the lore most of the world is wiped out first via cosmic cataclysm before a transformation is triggered. The small fraction of the population that wasn't transformed wouldn't be able to defend against them that well... and there's a difference between fighting individual Nether and large groups of them.

Nether from what I experienced is a buggy deathmatch game with monsters there to annoy you. Most of them are easy to kill and end up being a hassle although shriekers in a highly populated area can be incredibly dangerous. It's still in early beta but personally I think it needs some more long term goals and significant work to be a good MMO.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

I guess it depends on where they have plans to take it. Maybe they're pretty happy with it as-is in terms of gameplay. You'd be surprised what tweaking things like spawn rate and monster special abilities will do to the tone of a game.

Re: human conflict post-apocalypse, I think there are two competing impulses:

1: I want resources (such as food, security, shelter) and whoever competes against me for those resources is a potential threat to my life. If resources are abundant, who cares what Jimmy takes for himself? If there are almost no people, and resources per person are adequate, why fight with others?

2: I want humanity to survive and am willing to sacrifice my needs to help humanity as a whole. Perhaps even die so that many others can live, but more likely just avoid conflict with people over resources. It's better for ten people to subsist than for five people to die and five to eat adequately, or even one to live fat and the other nine starve to death.

Taking the game world as it stands, there really are plenty of resources. As long as other people don't jump you, and demons don't kill you, you can get ahold of guns and food enough to sustain you. And a group of people banded together can defend against the demons easily. There really is no reason to fight each other - except that MMO players can be bored jerks.

//

As for rationale for the game world, what if mutation into demons is an ongoing thing? You don't know when your friend might turn, or why. Demons teleport, which means there is no real fortification against them. And they hunt by sound, which means a large group is just going to attract more attention. There may be reasons why organizing into tribes is less beneficial for the first time in human history. And if every man is his own tribe, we enter that dreaded "state of nature" lacking law and morality where every human contact is a possible fight to the death.