Infestation: Survivor Stories

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Infestation: Survivor Stories
Studio Hammerpoint Interactive
Publisher Arktos Entertainment
Senior Developer Sergey Titov
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 17th December 2012
platform Windows
Game engine Eclipse
genre Survival Horror , MMOFPS
Subject Zombie apocalypse
Game mode Multiplayer
control Mouse , keyboard
medium Download
language English

Infestation: Survivor Stories (formerly The Warz ) is a Zombie - Survival horror - computer game for Windows . It was developed by Hammerpoint Interactive and published by Arktos Entertainment. It is a multiplayer first person shooter where you can fight other players or zombies. Until mid-June 2013 the game was known as The War Z , the name was changed for legal reasons.

action

Infestation is an open world game . The action of the game begins five years after an unknown disease killed or mutated most of the population into zombies.

Gameplay

Equipped with a minimum of equipment, the player starts at a random point in the approximately 100 km² zombie-infested world. There is no goal of the game in the strict sense, the only task of the player is to survive as long as possible. For this it is necessary to find food in the ruins of the post-apocalyptic world and to defend against zombies and other survivors. Up to 200 players per server compete to survive as long as possible. A special focus is on the interaction between the players: They can kill each other to get better equipment, as well as work together in groups to defy the hostile environment together. With the death of the game character, the player loses all equipment and progress and is forced to start again from scratch. Each player has the option to create up to five characters and switch between them at any time. This does not apply to trial accounts with which you only have one character available. Once a character is dead, it takes twenty minutes to start over with the character.

Development history

Infestation: Survivor Stories was originally developed under the name The War Z by OP Productions. Infestation uses a modified version of the Eclipse engine from Arktos Entertainment (not to be confused with the engine of the same name from the Canadian game developer BioWare ). The engine, which is considered to be particularly flexible, supports servers with up to 300 players, detailed three-dimensional environments, extremely high visibility thanks to high dynamic range rendering and lighting including day and night changes. The engine was already used in the Free2Play shooter War Inc. , which visually hardly differs from War Z.

The War Z began its open alpha phase on October 15, 2012 and was released on Steam on December 17, 2012. Two days after the launch, the game was removed from Steam due to misleading advertising; some of the advertised functionality was missing from the game. After correcting the issues, The War Z became available again on February 26, 2013. On April 4, 2013, the source code of The War Z became available, but most likely as a leak from a hacked server.

On June 5, 2013 the anticheat engine PunkBuster was released as a patch.

On June 20, 2013 the game name was officially changed to Infestation: Survivor Stories to avoid copyright problems.

On May 6, 2014, the developers announced the release of an edited version of the game, which every player who has paid at least € 10 for the game or who has bought the Legendary / Pioneer Edition in early access can access it for free.

reception

Reviews

Meta-ratings
Database Rating
GameRankings 18.89%
Metacritic 20%
reviews
publication Rating
4players 36%
Buffed 66%
GameSpot 2/10
GameStar 39%
IGN 3.0 / 10
PC Gamer US 30%
PC Games 20%

The reviews after the official start were mostly bad. The German portal for online games buffed.de awarded a play fun rating of 66%. The PC Games awarded 20% and criticized technology, gameplay and cumbersome operation. The IGN website also gave TheWar Z a low rating , giving it 3 out of 10 possible points. The international site Metacritic came up with an average rating of 20% points based on 13 tests.

Graphics / optics, sound and the atmosphere as a whole were rated more or less positively. The War Z, on the other hand , received very low ratings for the AI of the zombies, the lack of long-term motivation and the practically non-existent interaction between players (groups were hardly formed as intended, rather the majority of players only fought each other). Many players complained about the high number of hackers that the developers are now trying to take action. A big step on the part of the developers was made with the introduction of the anticheat engine Punkbuster, which is known from several current games such as Battlefield 3 and Far Cry 3.

controversy

  • Even in the alpha version months before the official release, The War Z was criticized. The studio was accused of plagiarizing the game principle of the successful ArmA-2 modification DayZ ; the developers claimed that the game was in development long before DayZ.
  • In addition, parts of the license agreement from the license agreement for the game League of Legends are said to have been copied.
  • In October 2012, designer Sergey Titov came under fire for calling campers "fagots" (in German: "fagots") in the official forum. The insult was removed shortly afterwards.
  • Serious problems with cheaters became apparent during the beta . Increasingly frustrated players complained about aimbots, wall and speed hacks. This problem could not be solved satisfactorily even with repeated updates of the anti-cheat software.
  • On December 20, 2012, just three days after the official release, the software and game developer Valve removed the game The War Z from its Steam distribution platform after massive customer protests due to fancy feature lists and missing content.
  • On December 21, 2012, fans found third-party copyrighted portions of the game's artwork. Among other things, the studio is said to have used photos of a meeting of costumed zombie fans as well as excerpts from the popular American television series The Walking Dead when designing the artwork .
  • On December 25, 2012, it was announced that the US Patent Office had lifted trademark protection for the name The War Z due to its excessive similarity to the film World War Z, which was due to open in mid-2013 . As a result of this development, the game was renamed Infestation on June 19, 2013 .
  • At the end of December 2012, it also became public that studio employees had put players under pressure and forced them to denounce cheaters.
  • In the first days of January 2013, The War Z was the victim of hacker attacks, presumably initiated by angry fans. The studio fought against DDoS attacks for days, and the Steam version would not start for hours.
  • In response to thousands of angry fans, shitstorms in the forums and the ongoing hacker attacks, the designer Sergey Titov published an open letter to the community on January 2, 2013, in which he addressed the general dissatisfaction and promised improvement for the future.
  • On April 16, 2013, hackers gained access to the official forum and stole the players' email addresses. Both the forum and the game were offline for hours .
  • At the end of April 2013, players had free access to the shop due to a database error. Within hours items were valued at 14 million US dollars purchased.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ DayZ doppleganger The War Z announced • News • PC • Eurogamer.net. In: eurogamer.net. Retrieved October 21, 2013 .
  2. ^ Adam Gauntlett: Zombies Eat the World in The War Z MMO . Escapist Magazine. Retrieved October 18, 2012.
  3. ↑ Richard Mitchell: The War Z closed beta starts on Halloween, pre-orders get in early . Joystiq. Retrieved October 18, 2012.
  4. ↑ Player complaints drive zombie game off Steam . BBC News. Retrieved December 26, 2012.
  5. ^ The War Z Now Available for Purchase . In: Steam . Valve Corporation . February 26, 2013. Retrieved February 27, 2013.
  6. ↑ The War Z Source Code released. (Update: Infestation: Survivor Stories MMO source code released) . ragezone.com. April 12, 2013. Retrieved August 12, 2014.
  7. ↑ Tim Colwill: DayZ developers hacked, source code reportedly stolen - Bohemia confirms intrusion, but says no user data was accessed. . games.on.net. May 14, 2014. Retrieved August 12, 2014.
  8. ↑ How The War Z got hacked on steamcommunity.com
  9. ↑ The War Z Picks Up A Brand New Title . Retrieved June 20, 2013.
  10. ↑ Today We Will Be Changing The Name Of The Game! - Announcements - Infestation: Survivor Stories Official Forums. (No longer available online.) In: forums.infestationmmo.com. Archived from the original on October 13, 2013 ; accessed on October 21, 2013 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / forums.infestationmmo.com
  11. ↑ a b The War Z: The zombie survival MMO in the buffed test. In: buffed.de. Retrieved on October 21, 2013 (German).
  12. ↑ a b The War Z in the test: Apocalyptic conditions in the fight against the undead, player killers and hackers - Update: Now with test video - The War Z in the test: We didn't like it - Part 2. In: pcgames.de. Retrieved on October 21, 2013 (German).
  13. ↑ a b The War Z Review - IGN. In: ign.com. Retrieved October 21, 2013 .
  14. ↑ Infestation: Survivor Stories (The War Z) (PC) - Rating, Conclusion - GameStar.de. In: gamestar.de. Retrieved on October 21, 2013 (German).
  15. ↑ Test (rating) on ​​Infestation: Survivor Stories (Action, PC) - 4Players. In: 4players.de. Retrieved on October 21, 2013 (German).
  16. ↑ Infestation: Survivor Stories (The War Z) Review - GameSpot. In: gamespot.com. Retrieved October 21, 2013 .
  17. ↑ The War Z review - Page 2 of 2 - PC Gamer. (No longer available online.) In: pcgamer.com. Archived from the original on September 26, 2013 ; accessed on October 21, 2013 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.pcgamer.com
  18. ^ A b Infestation: Survivor Stories for PC Reviews - Metacritic. In: metacritic.com. Retrieved October 21, 2013 .
  19. ↑ Infestation: Survivor Stories (The War Z) for PC - GameRankings. In: gamerankings.com. Retrieved October 21, 2013 .
  20. ↑ The War Z - Shitstorm against developer Hammerpoint after Steam release - News - GameStar.de. In: gamestar.de. Retrieved on October 21, 2013 (German).
  21. ↑ The War Z - EULA copied from League of Legends? - News - GameStar.de. In: gamestar.de. Retrieved on October 21, 2013 (German).
  22. ↑ The War Z producer calls campers f ** gots - GameSpot. (No longer available online.) In: uk.gamespot.com. Archived from the original on January 15, 2013 ; accessed on October 21, 2013 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / uk.gamespot.com
  23. ↑ The War Z - New patch improves anti-cheat and ban measures. In: onlinewelten.com. Retrieved on October 21, 2013 (German).
  24. ↑ The War Z - Valve takes game off Steam again; Hammerpoint changes EULA - News - GameStar.de. In: gamestar.de. Retrieved on October 21, 2013 (German).
  25. ↑ The War Z: Brazen plagiarism? Developers apparently used strange photos for zombie artwork. In: pcgames.de. Retrieved on October 21, 2013 (German).
  26. ↑ US TRADEMARK APPLICATION NO. 85682663 - THE WAR Z - N / A. Retrieved January 19, 2013 .
  27. ↑ The War Z: New Zombie MMOG Scandal - Developer puts players under pressure. In: pcgames.de. Retrieved on October 21, 2013 (German).
  28. ↑ The War Z: Developers confirm hacker attacks, Steam version does not start. In: pcgames.de. Retrieved on October 21, 2013 (German).
  29. ↑ War Z dev issues apologetic open letter following rocky Steam launch - VG247. In: vg247.com. Retrieved October 21, 2013 .
  30. ↑ The War Z: Hackers gain access to data - game and website offline. In: pcgames.de. Retrieved on October 21, 2013 (German).
  31. ↑ The War Z: Free Items for Everyone - Players made purchases for $ 14 million after a database bug. In: pcgames.de. Retrieved on October 21, 2013 (German).