H1Z1 – Page 2 – MMO Fallout

Remember last year when we talked about how Daybreak would likely be splitting off its properties into separate studios? They’ve done that. Daybreak today announced its “Franchise First” initiative, establishing three new studios; Dimensional Ink Games, Darkpaw Games and Rogue Planet Games. Dimensional Ink will be captained by Jack Emmert and continue work on DC Universe Online, Darkpaw Games of course will handle the Everquest titles and be helmed by MMO Fallout patron saint Holly Longdale, and finally Rogue Planet Games will have control over Planetside 2 under Andy Sites.

“By allowing the identities of each of these studios to thrive under their individual studios, each team will have the flexibility to continue their work developing current and upcoming games, recruiting new talent and building upon the legacy of their respective franchises.”

The news gives a little tease into what Daybreak has been working on, as Dimensional Ink Games is working on a high profile action MMO starting this year, Darkpaw has something in the works, and Rogue Planet is working on a “genre-defining” game for fans of shooters. Marvel MMO, Everquest 3, and Planetside 3 when? Only time will tell.

Notably absent from this announcement is H1Z1 or Z1 Battle Royale.

In A Christmas Miracle: Z1 Battle Royale Population Spikes

In a post-Christmas miracle, Z1 Battle Royale has received the breath of life from…someone somewhere. At least it’s a lot more lively than it has been.

Z1BR’s death has been slow cooking in the crockpot of Steam’s lavatory for the last seven months or so, so it’s all the more surprising that the last few days have seen the population spike. Insanely spike. I’m talking hitting peaks of nearly six thousand concurrent players if you bothered to read the header image in this article. All this from a game that wasn’t . What gives?

A tournament. With Twitch streamers.

This Friday (1/17), a tournament is going to take part in H1Z1 with a lot of the big streamers from back in H1Z1’s heyday…except Ninja. The attention of streamers has brought people back into the game to take part in the scrimmages that have been going on this week, and it has breathed a bit of life back into the mostly dead title.

Will Z1 hold its traffic up after the tournament is over? Only time will tell.

Source: Steam Charts,

[Column] H1Z1 Season 6 and the Death Spiral Of Daybreak

H1Z1 is now in Season 6 and if you thought Daybreak couldn’t put any less effort into a season pass than the last time around, you are completely wrong.

I wanted to wait until Season 6 launched because I honestly didn’t believe Daybreak’s own website that listed out the rewards for this season. Season 6, for the 100% of my audience that no longer cares to personally keep up with the simmering dumpster fire that is H1Z1 and Daybreak overall, might just be the worst attempt at raising some extra cash that Daybreak has ever put forward in this game’s history. It is truly astonishing.

For $5, you get the premium reward track. For $12 you get the track plus 25 tiers. There are only 50 tiers of rewards for this season. For twenty bucks, you can just skip the season pass and get all fifty rewards. Twenty dollars and you don’t even have to suffer through extensive exposure to H1Z1’s increasingly broken systems and busted gameplay to get cosmetics for a game you probably got tired of supporting a year ago and whose QA and bug fixers probably got laid off about three rounds back. Don’t look for a list of patch notes or come into this update with expectations that Daybreak has fixed any of H1Z1’s problems. Rest assured they have not.

And let’s be clear, the rewards for season 6 are without a doubt not worth your $20. The free track offers 11 rewards;

5 locked crate
40 credits
2 Unlocked crates

Wanna know what 40 credits will get you? Jack squat! The cheapest item I found available on the marketplace right now is 1200 freaking credits! You’ll need $2.50 worth of crowns (as crates are discounted to 50 crowns to unlock) just to unlock your free crates.

The PS+ track gives you;

6 unlocked crates
1000XP bonus
100 credits

So a couple bucks worth of unlocked crates and a smidgen more worthless credits. And what do you get with the paid track?

8 unlocked crates
4 XP Boost
1500XP bonus
650 Credits

Are they seriously asking $20 to unlock all of this crap? It’s not even worth the initial five because you’d have to play the game more that Daybreak is unable to fix! I’d even like to tell you about the Thanksgiving event but it’s not up, the arcade mode doesn’t freaking work and H1Z1’s social media hasn’t even acknowledged the update going live over an hour later and I swear this game is going to give me a heart attack.

On the other hand, there is a horrible looking bacon ghillie suit that can be bought for $10! Hide yourself from H1Z1’s numerous bugs in an outdated meme!

I want to know Daybreak’s budget going into Season 6, because I’m willing to bet that my annual Disney+ subscription is more expensive. You could have just color-swapped some existing models and threw them on the reward list, it wouldn’t have been ideal but it would have at least been something outside of recycling your crates and calling it a day.

Icing on the cake, it doesn’t look like Daybreak even bothered to add in a challenge set this season. On the other hand, you’ll have over three months to slog through this at a snail’s pace to get what paltry rewards Daybreak could afford to cobble together.

I don’t think I have ever had less faith in Daybreak’s ability to exist as a company, and I say that knowing full well that I say this every time H1Z1 comes out with a new season.

[Breaking] Daybreak Undergoing Fourth Set Of Layoffs In Two Years

Daybreak Game Company is laying off more people, a statement that has become all too familiar over the past couple of years. While an official statement has not been made by the company, Daybreak (now ex) programmer Alex Hoffman posted that today was his last day at the company as part of a “studio wide layoff.” There have been no confirmations of how many were let go or how many remain at the studio.

I got let go from Daybreak Games today. So I’m looking for a job.

— Alex Hoffman (@muldoonx9) October 11, 2019

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

MMO Fallout has contacted Daybreak and will update this piece if we receive a response.

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