Infestation: Survivor Stories (WarZ)

Joe sent me a 24 hour pass on Saturday night and I tried out the beta for the last couple days. Interesting concept of a game but with some annoying side effects. Basically it's a Zombie first person shooter but within a MMO world. 70 player servers. You start with a small back pack that contains a can of coke and a bag of chips plus a flash light. Your main goal is to survive in a large map of a area in Colorado. You watch your hunger and thirst bars and drink and eat when you need to. If you come across a house you go room to room looking for food and water and possibly a weapon. You can dodge zombies and even attack them with your flashlight until they die in approx 200 hits (annoyance #1). If you come across another player you can team up with them or try to stay back. Problem is that 90% of the time the other player will kill you. And they are rewarded with all the stuff you have picked up. AND you are locked out of the game for 1 hour (hard core mode it's 24 hours). So you learn quickly to stay away from other "survivors" which is probably pretty realistic. Problem is once a unfriendly player gets an assault rifle and starts hunting the map I find it hard to stay alive. I never did find anything for defense except a bat once.

I think the concept is pretty cool but I don't think it would hold my attention for long with all the player killing etc. I think they should change it to at least not give the pk all your stuff to reduce the temptation to just find other players to kill instead of fighting the zombies etc. Still it's only $15 and might be worth a try.



http://www.thewarz.com/

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Yeah I think they need an easy mode too.

I've found two M4's, two 9MM, extra mags, lots of helmets, larger backpacs, and some kevlar vests, but I keep getting killed before I can get them stockpiled.
I even killed a guy (who had the drop on me), an then while I was oo-ing and ah-ing over all the shit he dropped that was now mine, I hear footsteps... Must be the guy I killed friend. Unfortunately I hadn't bandaged myself, and despite me getting the drop on him this time, one bullet killed me....

What I enjoy is how real it is.. The very visceral feeling of tension and trying not to die. Unlike other games this one has consequences.. So you are going to have to be willing to enjoy this game for that aspect, because thats whats setting it apart. Frustrating to die yes... But I find myself trying to be extra sneaky... The feeling of not wanting to get killed is very real.. W/out that it would just be another fps.

It is in beta too. There is content yet to come. There is going to be some type of mission system. There may even be some kind of bounty system, where you can create a mission on a individual player (someone camping one spot all the time, put a bounty on their head... Want revenge for the bandits that stole all your stuff, put a bounty out there).. I've already encountered one way they will do this. Found what is essentially a time capsule that someone can leave a note in. The one I found was spam from some non-game porn site lol...

I like the idea of the consequences but I think it's poorly implemented. 72 players is too many for the map size. That's the complaint I heard on almost every server I joined. And I think the playing field should be leveled a bit - more pistols. Maybe even start with a short range weapon/pistol so you aren't easy prey for some assclown with a M4.

Yeah the 70 slot server was new on Friday, before that it was only 40 slots...

Most of my success was later at night, and I would find a low pop server, like 15-25 people.

Another trick is to server hop (I'm sure there are plenty of others doing this)... Scavenge an area. Log out, and when you log onto a different server you will be in the same location so you can scavenge the same area again. Supposedly there are better drops around the military areas than say the cities and farms.. My one character has been on the west side the whole time, going between the airstrip (military) and the meteorological station (also military)...
My second character spawned at the extreme northeast corner.. Got him to a safe zone first, and was heading to the NORAD compound when I got killed last night.

According to wiki there may be both PvE and PVP servers in the future...

So I assume you can form groups of friends. I'd be up for some survival gaming.

The "Friends" list is not enabled yet (still beta, its in game, its just not working yet) so the only way to group up would be to get in vent. I tried last night but both my guys are w/out even flashlights now... I snuck way into a base, even outran some zombies, but ended up cornering myself... Agro'd another zombie and tried to get away... Find a gun in a room, but get attacked before I could pick it up... frustrating... lol

There is a trick to melee'ing the zombies w/out taking damage too. You need to square up and stand toe-to-toe with them and you want to aim high, like the top of their head. If you have a space between you and the zombie you take dmg, if you are toe-to-toe you dont.

I will be around tonight if you want to try. I think I have one more 24 hour pass ;) I did kind of figure out the trick to not take damage when beating a zombie with a bat for 15 min or so it takes to kill them :) I think I only took damage once as I was trying to figure out where to hit them.

Played a lot more with Joe this weekend. Pretty fun when played with other people. We would join a low population server like 10/50 online and go through a couple towns and pick up all the supplies and hopefully find a gun or two. Then hit a safe zone to save the extra equipment - and give it out to your other "survivors" on your account. Made it lots more fun. Eventually we tried a 30+ online server and quickly lost all our stuff after we were killed. I did score a few kills to other survivors and wow do some people RAGE when you kill them.

Here is a pretty fair review lol

This game has got two big updates since I tried it last, including private servers and skill trees. Going to update this.

Awesome. Let me know how it is.

Updated last night and jumped on a server. It seems that weapons already in your inventory don't work... I wasn't able to fire any gun I had or ever swing a bat I had equipped. I started a new survivor and had no issues. There is a skill tree that is based on XP points gained from killing zombies.

That is one angry dude! :) on the review you posted earlier

Yeah that was a pretty direct review.. lol I don't think the game is that bad but it does have issues. It's a $13 game.

Joe - I played a bit last night and I was wrong and was able to equip my older guns etc. They did implement the virus into the game now and it doesn't appear that you die when you hit zero life you just sit on the ground and can't see or do anything. I assume you can trade with friends and get bandages etc. They also added a grouping feature. Once grouped you can see each other on the map. I accepted a invite from a guy who then quickly un grouped.... I assume it was to get my position then come and kill me. I left the server.

The name was changed to Infestation: Survivor Stories lol