Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley recently took to Reddit and Twitter and talked about their upcoming zombie apocalypse MMO, H1Z1. And in the process, he revealed several features of the game and answered questions that he felt were quite common amongst fans.
First off, he announced player servers for H1Z1, which will take online customization of the game to a completely new level. “The idea is simple – If a community of our players wants to host a server with a specific theme or ruleset then we’re going to do our best to give it to them,” Smedley explains. “Players will recieve a pledge token for free if they’ve played more than 5 hours. This pledge token can be used to cast a vote for a server. But use it wisely. You only get one free one per year. Make sure it’s a community you believe in and that has a good chance to succeed because we’re going to set the bar such that the community can sustain an MMO server.
“If you find yourself dying to vote on another server initiative we’ll also sell pledge tokens but you can only use 2 pledge tokens a year max. So again, it’s up to you but we want to make sure if we build it you’re coming. We’re also going to refund the station cash you used to buy it to your account if the Player Server Initiative succeeds.”
“Why refund it if it succeeds?” Smedley continues. “Simple – we really want to give you the kind of servers you want. We’re going to set that bar high. If it succeeds, you’ve built a community of fellow players you want and as our customers we want to give you that. But we also need some indication of reality in order to make this work.”
Smedley announced several other features for the game- the game will feature both first person and third person playable perspectives, but vehicles will be third person only, for example.
The big question, though, that Smedley answered was whether H1Z1 would be different from DayZ, the popular MMO with an almost entirely similar concept, and if so, then how. Smedley gave quite an interesting answer.
“Not going to give some politically correct dodgy b.s. answer,” he said. “It is a survival in a Zombie Apocalypse game. So is Day Z. They have made a brilliant game (first I might add). They have a great vision for it and can count myself and most of the people on our team as fans and contributors.
“We’re making the game we’re making. Long term we plan on making this about a persistent world with a big landscape with thousands of players.”
“So this is our take on the Zombie Apocalypse with a lot of friends and hopefully some great enemies both living and dead,” Smedley continued a little later. “We’re proud to be up front and say we love Day Z and the job they’ve done and we hope they enjoy what we make too.
“I can say this another way. I love 28 Days and 28 Days Later I love World War Z I love Warm Bodies (oh come on you did too you) I love Night of the Living Dead… and all the other ones. I love The Walking Dead.”
“And so do most of you,” he concluded. “So sure. We’re another Zombie Apocalypse game. Call it what it is. But our goal is to make ours fun, accessible, hard core and super, super deep. As time goes on we hope our take on the end of the world by zombie is fun and lots of people get to try it.”