WarZ turns out to be a scam.
I never did like it from the looks of it, but didn't think it was this bad.
<a href="http://www.rhinocrunch.com/forum/general-discussion-of-things-and-such/82-hey-rhino-you-were-right-about-warz?limitstart=0" target="_blank">http://www.rhinocrunch.com/forum/general-d...rz?limitstart=0</a>
<a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/13x8na/shocking_info_on_the_game_thewarz/" target="_blank">http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/13x...e_game_thewarz/</a>
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->EX-Forum Mod Devin here. Let me tell ya some stuff you can spout on for a new youtube video :)
My forum account was hacked, my fault, they deleted a lot of posts. I was de-modded and banned, got my computer secure, re-modded and unbanned and took care of business as usual. Except their company is full of dumb ###### and didn't backup the forums at all. No backups whatsoever.
Ser###### then took it upon himself to tell Kewk to demote me for my ######up that could have been reversed if they were not so ###### stupid.
I then made a post on the forums about how I knew this was coming; and I was sorry and would not long be supporting a company that did not support their unpaid volunteer Moderators that spent over 100+ hours answering THEIR CUSTOMERS questions and concerns as well as relaying them the ideas the community had for their bull###### game.
I was then banned for making a "Rage quit" thread permanent and here is the even funnier part my in-game account banned under the excuse I requested a refund
So, since I didn't sign any sort of NDA for those ######faces here are some interesting facts.
WarZ is a direct port over from War Inc. They literally took the game and added NPCs, made a large map, and changed around camera angles and gun settings while adding more functionality and switching over some things. ALL ART however was actually done in-house by their amazing ART team. (Those were the best guys to know, they were in touch more with the community than Kewk)
They randomly ban accounts that have a certain amount of time spent playing in-game, knowing they are hooked on the game so they re-buy the game.
Their anti-hack is actually functional but here's the kicker..wanna know WHY their bans are TEMPORARY the first time around? 0.8% hacking? Try an EXTREMELY LARGE PORTION of the player base is hacking. If they banned everyone they'd have a mass refund issue on their hands, and no one to play their piss poor of an excuse game.
they plan to HALT DEVELOPMENT AND ABANDON THE GAME in SIX months if revenue is not enough for them (I.E. People are not buying GC and spending the ###### out of it) -- take note, if they do not get ENOUGH revenue. They will have enough revenue to pay for the game development for over a year at this point in time already, but if they don't get enough to give themselves regular raises they will stop making the game and shut down the servers and website.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is a week old, but it is starting it's approach all over the web, and the company is not helping themselves when they delete every thread within minutes that asks about it. Literally, even completely, rational posts just asking for information about it, is just gone, and the user who started it banned, instantly, and obviously no refund.
<a href="http://www.rhinocrunch.com/forum/general-discussion-of-things-and-such/82-hey-rhino-you-were-right-about-warz?limitstart=0" target="_blank">http://www.rhinocrunch.com/forum/general-d...rz?limitstart=0</a>
<a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/13x8na/shocking_info_on_the_game_thewarz/" target="_blank">http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/13x...e_game_thewarz/</a>
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->EX-Forum Mod Devin here. Let me tell ya some stuff you can spout on for a new youtube video :)
My forum account was hacked, my fault, they deleted a lot of posts. I was de-modded and banned, got my computer secure, re-modded and unbanned and took care of business as usual. Except their company is full of dumb ###### and didn't backup the forums at all. No backups whatsoever.
Ser###### then took it upon himself to tell Kewk to demote me for my ######up that could have been reversed if they were not so ###### stupid.
I then made a post on the forums about how I knew this was coming; and I was sorry and would not long be supporting a company that did not support their unpaid volunteer Moderators that spent over 100+ hours answering THEIR CUSTOMERS questions and concerns as well as relaying them the ideas the community had for their bull###### game.
I was then banned for making a "Rage quit" thread permanent and here is the even funnier part my in-game account banned under the excuse I requested a refund
So, since I didn't sign any sort of NDA for those ######faces here are some interesting facts.
WarZ is a direct port over from War Inc. They literally took the game and added NPCs, made a large map, and changed around camera angles and gun settings while adding more functionality and switching over some things. ALL ART however was actually done in-house by their amazing ART team. (Those were the best guys to know, they were in touch more with the community than Kewk)
They randomly ban accounts that have a certain amount of time spent playing in-game, knowing they are hooked on the game so they re-buy the game.
Their anti-hack is actually functional but here's the kicker..wanna know WHY their bans are TEMPORARY the first time around? 0.8% hacking? Try an EXTREMELY LARGE PORTION of the player base is hacking. If they banned everyone they'd have a mass refund issue on their hands, and no one to play their piss poor of an excuse game.
they plan to HALT DEVELOPMENT AND ABANDON THE GAME in SIX months if revenue is not enough for them (I.E. People are not buying GC and spending the ###### out of it) -- take note, if they do not get ENOUGH revenue. They will have enough revenue to pay for the game development for over a year at this point in time already, but if they don't get enough to give themselves regular raises they will stop making the game and shut down the servers and website.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This is a week old, but it is starting it's approach all over the web, and the company is not helping themselves when they delete every thread within minutes that asks about it. Literally, even completely, rational posts just asking for information about it, is just gone, and the user who started it banned, instantly, and obviously no refund.
Comments
But they haven't made a topic, about it, like "Do not post topics about", or given their side of the story.
And then they ban the person who did it without refunding? Not to mention besides the mods, others have come to support him from the forums claiming stories like this.
I played War Inc, and just watched a video of War Z. These people are right. They reused almost all the assets from War Inc., animations, models, textures, sounds, then put Zombies in with basic AI, and are trying to profit off of DayZ's popularity. They claim they had this in the works for "years"
Yet all the assets for it are from another game of theirs, that flopped?
Let's not forget that the lead guy behind it is the guy that made the engine for the ever popular and multi-GOTY winning 'Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing' Did you know they also copied and pasted the TOS from league of legends? You do now!
Horribly rushed and lazily executed designed to cash in on the popularity of another game and scam the ###### out of everyone while they do.
Let's not forget that the lead guy behind it is the guy that made the engine for the ever popular and multi-GOTY winning 'Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing' Did you know they also copied and pasted the TOS from league of legends? You do now!
Horribly rushed and lazily executed designed to cash in on the popularity of another game and scam the ###### out of everyone while they do.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I read about that! Isn't it weird? I mean they aren't EVEN FROM THE SAME STUDIO! / Developers! Not even close! It's like it was a straight copy & paste.
Let's not forget that the lead guy behind it is the guy that made the engine for the ever popular and multi-GOTY winning 'Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing' Did you know they also copied and pasted the TOS from league of legends? You do now!
Horribly rushed and lazily executed designed to cash in on the popularity of another game and scam the ###### out of everyone while they do.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Pretty much what i was gunna say
This oddly warms my heart to hear. I tried looking up the developer behind War Z since their publisher/distributor was the same group behind War Inc and could never find a solid connection. War Inc is pretty much the bottom of the barrel when it comes to F2P so none of it is too surprising.
<a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/226700/" target="_blank">http://store.steampowered.com/app/226700/</a>
And has since been taken down, full crazy break down here
<a href="http://kotaku.com/5969784/the-war-z-mess-every-crazy-detail-we-know-so-far" target="_blank">http://kotaku.com/5969784/the-war-z-mess-e...-we-know-so-far</a>
best warz site!
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RtKAm3nzg6I#" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...;v=RtKAm3nzg6I#</a>!
"Scam" is a bit of a harsh word. It's not uncommon for an indie studio to release a game with overstated features, but in the end, the game works for the vast majority and from what I saw (havent played in a while) most players were having fun. Hell, I remember the last MMO I looked forward to, Darkfall, released without half of their feature list. It's not right when they do this, but it's not the end of the world.
Get it?
End of the world... and today is 12/21
<a href="http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85682663&caseType=SERIAL_NO&searchType=statusSearch" target="_blank">http://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=85682663...pe=statusSearch</a>
I am NOT saying it's a decent game. I'm NOT recommending anyone go and buy it. I'm NOT saying gamers should lift the tiniest finger to defend or support a company that churns out crap like this. But that's just what it is, crap, a bad game that was rushed to much, sacrificed too much for the cash market the developers wanted to cash in on, and not original enough in what it brought to the zombie survival sandbox genre. None the less, it WAS a real game, it took real development effort to make it happen, it was worked on by real professional game makers trying to make something good, and what WAS done was a lot more than any of us could sit down and do on our own.
It is to gaming what "The Birds" is to film. It's not "Kony 2012".
Half-truths or abusing context are lies in my book.
I am NOT saying it's a decent game. I'm NOT recommending anyone go and buy it. I'm NOT saying gamers should lift the tiniest finger to defend or support a company that churns out crap like this. But that's just what it is, crap, a bad game that was rushed to much, sacrificed too much for the cash market the developers wanted to cash in on, and not original enough in what it brought to the zombie survival sandbox genre. None the less, it WAS a real game, it took real development effort to make it happen, it was worked on by real professional game makers trying to make something good, and what WAS done was a lot more than any of us could sit down and do on our own.
It is to gaming what "The Birds" is to film. It's not "Kony 2012".<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
If you say something is in your game, and it isn't, that's a lie. Simple and straight forward. And yes, most companies do this, but they are merely exaggeratations. These guys had a list of features on the Steam page, with more than half not actually being in the game yet. And sorry, you say professionals but everything they've done says otherwise. From the game itself to the recent interview PR disaster where they basically blamed the buyers for reading the features poage wrong.
I don't follow, what's the distinction for when they're actually lying?
I thought it was funny you dont start out with a gun ( but you can buy one with real money) and your supposed to run into a bulding surrounded by 20 zombies to find one??? mmmhmmm Ok. lol
No they literally sold it on steam saying it had things it did not have.
When you knowingly say a thing is one thing when you know it is another, that is called <a href="http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lying" target="_blank">'lying'</a> and that is what the word means.
In this specific context it is also called 'false advertising' and 'false advertising' is called 'illegal' because it is 'against the law' in many parts of the world, and you get things called 'fines' where you have to pay money because you 'broke the law' and you get 'put in prison' which is where the 'government' send you to a 'big secure building' and keep you there for 'a while' until you have 'learned your lesson'.
Yeah, that's where I drew the line with this.
I've learned to see through all the superlatives and exaggeration, but when something is listed as a feature I still expect it to be there. Quality is subjective and vulnerable to all kinds of buzzwords and exaggeration, quantity much less so. If you promise quantity, it better be there as promised.
I haven't been paying much attention to how games handle their feature lists and such in general, but I definitely think War Z deserves the flame. Whether it's the only game deserving such treatment is a different thing of course.
I've learned to see through all the superlatives and exaggeration, but when something is listed as a feature I still expect it to be there. Quality is subjective and vulnerable to all kinds of buzzwords and exaggeration, quantity much less so. If you promise quantity, it better be there as promised.
I haven't been paying much attention to how games handle their feature lists and such in general, but I definitely think Day Z deserves the flame. Whether it's the only game deserving such treatment is a different thing of course.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Day Z or War Z? Different things there.
Oh yeah, got the Zs mixed up. War Z definitely. Day Z is awesome as far as I can tell.
Edited the original post.
Edited the original post.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Yeah, quite weird you mixed the two up. I mean they are completely different games right? <img src="http://members.home.nl/m.borgman/ns-forum/smileys/rolleyes.gif" border="0" class="linked-image" />
Day Z also has serious issues, but at least that one is free and still a pre-alpha under heavy development. Where War Z was sold as a... Feature complete v1.0 RC...
I thought it was funny you dont start out with a gun ( but you can buy one with real money) and your supposed to run into a bulding surrounded by 20 zombies to find one??? mmmhmmm Ok. lol<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This wasn't a "problem". This is the same bull###### DayZ pulled. I hated it then too, but people flamed the ###### out of me on the forums for expressing that opinion. Apparently it's good for games to be unapproachably difficult for newcomers.
When you knowingly say a thing is one thing when you know it is another, that is called <a href="http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lying" target="_blank">'lying'</a> and that is what the word means.
In this specific context it is also called 'false advertising' and 'false advertising' is called 'illegal' because it is 'against the law' in many parts of the world, and you get things called 'fines' where you have to pay money because you 'broke the law' and you get 'put in prison' which is where the 'government' send you to a 'big secure building' and keep you there for 'a while' until you have 'learned your lesson'.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What they claimed wouldn't have been enough to get them convicted for false advertising. I didn't mean to claim they didn't lie in any context, their lies were indirect. It's not that their engine can't support 100 players, it's that they capped player count lower than that during release. It's not that they don't have a 400 KM^2 map, it's that it's not finished and public yet. Their game technically "does" the things they advertise it does, it's just not accessible to the customer base yet.
They lied in the sense that they implied that players could play with things the engine could technically do, but wasn't actually doing, and that's generally not enough of a "lie" to found a false advertising claim.
What they did was undeniably skeesy in almost every way, but it wasn't a "scam"
It was never a situation in which you thought you were buying a game, but you actually got a video file instead. You did get a game, it just was MUCH MUCH worse than it could have been.
I just want that to be clear to people. This company deserves absolutely NO praise, however, what they did was not criminal (aside from the copyright enfringment of the title, but that was accidental)
They lied in the sense that they implied that players could play with things the engine could technically do, but wasn't actually doing, and that's generally not enough of a "lie" to found a false advertising claim.
What they did was undeniably skeesy in almost every way, but it wasn't a "scam"
It was never a situation in which you thought you were buying a game, but you actually got a video file instead. You did get a game, it just was MUCH MUCH worse than it could have been.
I just want that to be clear to people. This company deserves absolutely NO praise, however, what they did was not criminal (aside from the copyright enfringment of the title, but that was accidental)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Again, what's the distinction between direct and indirect lying? What difference does it matter that these things are feasibly possible if they ultimately have no bearing on a user's experience? That's like advertising that a console game can get 200fps but is limited by hardware specs. Or that a car can average 300 mph, but just only when it's not beholden to our physical properties. Why doesn't Unknown Worlds just slap on another feature bullet saying they have 3 more races for NS2 now currently available?
If something is objectively listed down, especially in a hard numerical count, anything to a lesser extent means it's not being followed through, period. It's not even like they're skirting around using advertiser speak saying "an unprecedented amount of enemies" and "larger environments than have been seen in games before".
They were the ones to literally list exact specifications that weren't followed through. Do you even get the implications of if advertisers were able to get away with making claims that only needed to be able to theoretically be achieved? 'Hey, our fighting game has 300 dudes. Just, you know, only a dozen are available.' Jesus, it's scary times when a defense can be boiled down to 'not lying, just in a position where we didn't get to whatever it was we promised'.
Edited the original post.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Day Z is what started it all. Glad the Alpha came out when it did, or else War Z might have been a much bigger scam later on.
Day Z's creators thoughts about it:
<a href="http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/12/20/dayz-creator-depressed-about-war-z-situation" target="_blank">http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/12/20/day...war-z-situation</a>
And War Z's creator thoughts on it:
<a href="http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/12/20/the-war-z-interview-sergey-titov-backlash/" target="_blank">http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/12/20/the-war-...titov-backlash/</a>
Day Z is a clear winner here.
Day Z is all about learning the terrain, sneaking around. It is way more a zombie survival game than a zombie shooter game. Best of all, Day Z removed the starting gun and thus created a whole lot more fun tension in the start. Day Z is Lego, while War Z is Playmobil...
- War Z was removed from steam due to not having the stated features (Yes this is false advertising, yes in the UK at least that advert could have landed them with a hefty fine and having it removed, I know as I've had to get the consumer rights agency involved with a company before)
- Steam is offering full refunds for those who want it.
- Its been discovered that War Z used assets owned by AMC taken from "The Walking Dead" for part of its title graphic, as yet no action is being taken by AMC.
- War Z has had the copyright / patent on its name turned down due to similarity to an existing patent filed by Paramount pictures for World War Z the game, due to potential confusion between the two. War Z can still remain as the name but will have no legal standing, meaning if anyone wants to tell them they have to change it then they can't fight it in court and if they carry on they could be liable if someone claims lost sales due to it.
very interesting story this whole debacle
[edit]
<a href="http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2012/12/war-z-description-comparison.jpg" target="_blank">before and after steam advert</a>
[/edit]
Although I've played WarZ for about 10 hours or so, I'm far from an avid fan and I don't really follow the drama. That said, I believe all they 'lied' about on release was leveling skills and private servers. They 'mislead' on the size of the map and the server size. Everything else, as far as I know, was in the game.
That said, people who bought WarZ thought they were buying a large, persistent, multiplayer, zombie survival game... and that's exactly what they got. In addition, it's very playable (almost more so than NS2's initial release) and I haven't heard of any mass technical bugs or glitches preventing someone from enjoying the game.
I think that's the difference Swift is trying to explain. If someone were to read the features of WarZ and buy the game, they would be (basically) getting what was advertised. I think this whole thing is being blown way out of proportion by people who haven't played WarZ and have no interest in playing WarZ.
It's just a fun cause to get behind.
If we want to whittle it down instead to the game's own merits, I'd argue regardless of those features being in or not or whether DayZ existed as a comparison, it's still a heaping pile. I had put in a few hours over the course of a 48 hour free trial from an IGN handout and I could hardly find any redeeming qualities that weren't immediately overshadowed by how much of a cash grab it was.
At least when I still played DayZ, I'd be the first to point out how much of a buggy mess it was held up by glue and string, but the giant environment alone was enough of a saving grace to look past things like zombies running through doors. Outside of WarZ having an actual catered art style and UI that doesn't look like someone puked out a spreadsheet on the screen, the singular draw is something that was accomplished better many times over. I'd happily call out any developer for how ridiculous they've come out in handling every bit of this.