I’m not above taking shots at folks when I think they’ve boned something. In fact, I make it a point to take shots at projects I like a lot specifically because I think it helps me to keep things in perspective and be a little more balanced. That’s why I had no trouble publicly firing a few hot rounds at SOE over their H1Z1 release.
We all know SOE is a huge company with tons of MMO experience. For a company like that to not have a scalable system in place for quickly handling unexpected numbers of players on the launch of a new IP after all these years is really mind-blowing. That’s why I went hunting for someone to crucify at PAX South earlier today.
Unfortunately for you readers, all I could find were Senior Game Designers Jimmy Whisenhunt and Adam Clegg. While the launch wasn’t exactly smooth, great game design is one thing H1Z1 has in spades, so I decided to hit them up in their hotel lobby for a short interview. Though, I did lead off with a tough one to let them know I meant business.
First question was obviously to ask about what’s going on with the loot system. It’s been problematic at best over the last week, and Clegg had the expected insight. “One of the initial issues we found was there were certain requirements set on cabinets that just kept things from spawning. Then we found an issue where things would spawn, but then would despawn if it wasn’t looted quickly enough. Then we found an issue where spawning requirements were set correctly, but items still wouldn’t spawn because there were too many players in the area.”
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Zombies have been a little sluggish, but recent patches have made them down-right vicious.
It seems like a long list of problems for something that should be simple, butAdam pointed out that the loot system isn’t just a single system. Rather, it’s the result of a complex set of layered inputs, and that the team had discussed early on that loot would be the most difficult thing to get dialed in initially, so they were expecting and prepared for at least a little early trouble.
You might think that there should be a simple programmatic solution to the loot generation by timing the server population by some fraction and a variable number. I did, and curiously asked about what seemed like an overly-complicated system, at which point Mr. Whisenhunt demonstrated why he is the professional, and I am not. He explained that it wasn’t just a matter of current population, but also of how geared that population was and how fast they were dying.
A population of 200 brand new characters are going to need and absorb a lot more loot than a population of 200 established characters who’ve stockpiled things over weeks of playing. Not only that, but what new characters and more mature characters need for loot will change as well. Clegg added that “it’s really easy to go [too far] one way or the other. Right now we have no loot, but it’s really easy to give too much loot. It’s the hardest balancing act in the game.”
I’ve been having a lot of trouble finding metal, and I know fixing loot might change that, but I asked if they intended for metal to be a really scarce material as a design decision or if you should find it every few cars. Jimmy started by reminding me about how commonly metal was looted from wrecked cars and from the ground around them when I played the game at SOE Live. He says, “Even before we did car-spawning [for metal], we were spawning on the ground in warehouses, but we’re balancing all that back in.” Though he didn’t nail down exactly how common they were planning to make it.
It also turns out those wrecked cars are eventually supposed to all be drivable. Adam Clegg explained that the basic component system that exists now is supposed to be much more complex in the future. Sparkplugs, headlights, batteries, and turbo are used to fix the few drivable trucks in the game right now, but Clegg expands that by saying, “Once we start customizing the vehicles a bit more, we can start switching out the wrecked cars on the roads right now for ones you can drive.”
A more complex repair system and greater variety in parts will be needed before anything like that makes it into the game, though. It’s a survival game, and cars should be rare. I definitely agree with the two developers that the last thing you want is a car for every person. Plus, they’ll probably be looking to expand the map to something a bit larger by then as well, I’d think.
Turning it to away from specifics of programming, I asked the guys what the most surprising thing has been for them with the new game. Clegg immediately said that for him, it was how many people are playing it. “I’ve worked on a lot of projects on a lot of projects, even at SOE, where I’ll talk to a friend or a family member, and unless they were into PC gaming, it would be very rare that they’d understand what I do. I’m seeing more and more with this game that people know the game I’m working on. Even just at PAX South, I’m seeing a huge difference.”
According to Jimmy, H1Z1 is “crossing genres and it’s crossing types.” He adds, “Walking around PAX, there are guys who are just into Game Cube or whatever, but they know what H1Z1 is and they’re interested in checking it out. We’ve had multiple people say that they’d never played a survival game. They say they liked watching people play RUST and play DayZ. They’d tried it themselves, but it was just never their thing. But then they try H1Z1 and they love it.”
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Why do all the character models look like Adam Clegg?
Even Matt Higby from PlanetSide 2 who says he doesn’t normally care for these sorts of games has noted how much he’s enjoyed playing the game. It’s no wonder the response has been so much stronger that had been prepared for when the game is so much more approachable than anyone would have thought. I asked Adam and Jimmy if the rush of people into the game has changed their strategy going forward.
Jimmy said, “I think the biggest thing is that from an engineering side, we need better solutions to hold more servers with more people, but that also comes with the design side of us needing to grow the world.” To that end he said, “We have incredibly dedicated platforms and dev-engineer teams. They just sit around and they look for solutions in tech and it’s been getting better and better.” So in a lot of ways, H1Z1 is pushing the envelope on technology in ways PS2 apparently never even did.
I asked the guys if there was anything coming up that players would be particularly excited about, and it turns out that there are a lot of things on the radar. The very next thing players should see is a roadmap system, redesigned from lessons learned from PlanetSide 2 development, which will allow players to voice concerns and help guide the direction of H1Z1’s growth. I know the road map system created some extra work for the developers when it was originally rolled out, but I think that the community feedback also made it a really positive thing.
Whatever happens, H1Z1 has some really cool developers working on the team, and developers who are in constant touch with their community. It did take a little longer than I think it should have, but SOE stabilized the login issues, and they really do have a history of developing solid games with a high fun quotient. Having worked on some of those other games, Clegg and Whisenhunt have plenty of experience creating fun environments and great game content, and it looks like they’re well on their way to doing it again.
I’d like to give Adam Clegg and Jimmy Whisenhunt a huge thanks for taking time out of their PAX schedule to give me a few minutes. They didn’t flinch when ambushed for an interview, and were much more candid about what they were wanting to do with the game than they could have been. They’re two seriously cool guys, and I always enjoy talking with them. It also sounds like they are having a blast making H1Z1, and if that’s not a really good sign, I don’t know what is.
