The DayZ inspired The War Z only released this morning, and is facing a fair amount of not just criticism, but outright vitriol from players.
Several threads on Reddit as well as Steam Community are accusing The War Z developers Hammerpoint of fraud, and calling for the game to be removed from Steam.
While it's important to consider that the current version of the game is only a beta, or as Hammerpoint calls it, a "Foundation Release for Steam." Either way, it seems far from a final version, putting Hammerpoint in a bit of a shady spot. Their initial description of the game, which one user found issue with (see below) changed their description of the title since the game released. You can see the comparison below.
(Links to first and second picture provided for a better view)
Not only does the description of the first world, Colorado, seem to shrink in size, but when a key feature goes on to be listed as an upcoming feature in the case of Private Gameworlds, something's afoot. And oh yes, the game apparently was once to be playable from a "single purchase" and "without subscriptions or requiring in-game transactions."
Even when the beta launched, things at Hammerpoint were a bit...off. One user who requested a refund received a response from a mod telling the player that if a refund was made for him now, he would be but on "a global black list of non-trusted users and some services may refuse" the player in "providing a payment in future."
An ex-mod also accuses Hammerpoint of "randomly banning 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." The mod also says Hammerpoint plans "to halt devlopment and abandon the game in six months if revenue is not enough for them."
Hammerpoint's general manager Sergey Titov spoke with Kotaku in regards to fans' complaints, essentially refuting them. He claims that there is a hardcore mode, the Colorado map is over 100 square kilomoters, and that private servers are coming soon, and they're currently "testing skills right now with small select group of players. As soon as everyone is satisfied with balance and design, we'll push it public. I honestly can't give a solid timeframe for this to happen, since it largely depends on how our player community reacts on our initial version of the skill tree."
While this does appear to be a fair amount of backpeddling, the most questionable quote from Titov during Kotaku's Q&A was the following: ""I don't see 'LIE' in saying 'up to 100 players per sever' and having the current limit at 50 players."
Call it a game or a cash grab, but I'd advise staying away until all the kinks are officially ironed out. If zombie MMO's are your thing, the Arma II mod DayZ is currently under development as a standalone game coming to consoles.
