War Z creator apologizes for controversy

Sergey Titov admits he became "arrogant" due to zombie game's quick growth; says community management and moderation fell short. Outspoken The War Z creator Sergey Titov has apologized for the game's controversial launch (and subsequent de-listing from Steam) earlier this month. In an open letter to the community, Titov said developer Hammerpoint Interactive "failed to effectively communicate" its plans for the new zombie survival game, which led to some "very negative feedback" from members of the community. "I became arrogant and blinded by the early success and quick growth of The War Z, our increasing number of players, numbers we were getting from surveys, etc., and I chose not to notice the concerns and questions raised by these members of the game community as well as others," Titov said. "This failure is entirely on my shoulders and if anything I owe thanks to that vocal minority and admit that I should have paid attention sooner. I chose instead to concentrate on the bigger picture: my dream of turning The War Z from being a game developed by a small indie team into a large online venture, instead of addressing small things first and staying focused on the game issues." Titov further noted that the events of the past week were "especially humbling." He said the past cannot be changed, but promised the same mistakes will not be made in the future. "I was too focused on how great we are and how a small independent team got their first game to over 700,000 users in a two-month period," Titov said. "Though that is something to be very proud of, allowing that to overshadow the existing community and their satisfaction was poor judgment." Titov explained that community management and moderation for The War Z fell short. He said Hammerpoint relied too heavily on forum moderators, whose primary directive was to punish those who broke rules, he said, instead of engaging the community and guiding conversations toward constructive discussion. Additionally, Titov said there was not enough attention paid to talking about upcoming War Z features or appropriate dialogue through social networks. "There wasn’t enough presence of the development team on forums; there wasn’t enough updates on development of upcoming features. We failed to communicate our position and messaging on the outside platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and various online websites, and when we did this we chose to rely more on arrogance rather than being humble and trying to understand why people were saying negative things," he said. The solution to the community management and moderation problems, Titov said, is an overhaul of Hammerpoint's community management procedures and rules. "We’re going to reevaluate publishing and marketing team performance, and I will make sure that Hammerpoint Interactive developers will have a much stronger voice when it comes to community management." Titov also shared that one of his proposed ideas to engage the community further is to invite 10 players from around to the world to visit the Hammerpoint offices in Los Angeles, California. There, these gamers would meet the development team, get a look at in-development features, and addresses concerns, wishes, and other thoughts. Lastly, Titov clarified that the current version of The War Z is titled "Foundation Release," which is a "first-stage" release used as a foundation to build on top of. "I do believe that we aren’t even close to uncovering the true potential for The War Z, and I hope that in the coming year, we’ll be able to regain trust from people who were alienated by our actions and we’ll be able to move forward and grow the game together," Titov said. Controversy surrounding The War Z came to light upon the game's release through Steam last week. Users quickly began reporting numerous issues with The War Z. Further, many players criticized the game and Hammerpoint for being misleading and for censoring their comments about issues with the game. The game has since been pulled from Steam. Day Z creator Dean Hall previously said the controversy left him "depressed," noting he contemplated leaving game development altogether as a result.

CyberRepublik

CyberRepublik is war-economical strategy what simulates the politicly-social situation of the Real world to the Cyber world. The game is 1 day alive and have ~3000 population, have’s potential and deserves a chance. In the game you are citizen what is abble to Study, Train, Work, Fight. Also you can be businessman, owner of company, president of party, congressman, president of your country, minister, ambasador, owner of house, journalist etc. In CyberRepublik you are soldier too. The game has 2 alliances now GAS (Republic of Macedonia, Spain , USA , BiH, Indonesia, Germany Hungary) and ODEA (Croatia, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Romania, Sweden), the other countries are neutral. Every country is on risk by being attacked by its neigbor-enemy. In the war can fight all countries what have MPP (Multy Protectional Pact) with the atacker/defender. Every citizen what fights makes damage what depends of the military rank, military skill, quality of weapon, quality of the ammo, if its member/captain/commander of military unit etc. In CyberRepublik there are 3 skills: Gun, Heli , Tank and 52 military ranks. Every citizen trains and improves his skill. The Military Rank depends of the total dmg you have made. If your country falls unde occupation you can get it back by Resistance Wars. Will you be the best fighter in your country,world? You can be the best fighter only if you “own” the economic module in cRep. In cRep there are 3 economical skills: Manufacture, Land and Construction. What skill you will study it debends on you. For every skill there are companies. For Manu there are : Ammo, Food, Gift, Heli, Tank and Gun companies. For Land there are: Grain, Wood, Dust, Oil, Diamonds companies. For construction there are: Hospital and Defence System companies. To produce final product you will need raw what is producing in the Land companies. Every citizen is abble to own and menage companies. Game Title: CyberRepublik Platform(s): Browser based game Release Date(s): 29.7.2012. Genre(s):war-economical strategy Publisher: Developer: ESRB/PEGI Rating: (Original) New Price: Free to play About the game: Gameplay, Graphics and Sound/Effects: Very pleasant gameplay Pros and Cons: Doesn't take much time to play Simple game, everyone can play it Score: Presentation: 9 Gameplay: 8 Graphics: 8 Sound: - Overall Score: 9

District 187

District 187 is a new FPS published by CJ Games. In District 187 players must fight for their turf as the world economy collapses. Players will take on the role of a notorious gang member or the hardened SWAT as they fight through cramped alleyways and rundown apartments. Players are able to extensively customize their characters appearance and weapon modifications while engaging in various 8v8 game modes including clan based territory wars where players fight for control over persistent locations within the District 187 universe.

Darksiders II

First 30 minutes 9/10. Halfway through 7/10. Final opinion [4/10.] -Below average platforming mixed with below average combat. Darksiders2 is an action game. With platforming, boss battles, and story that is a little bit predictable. So lets get down to it. First off, a little recap in the first one: You played war, you beat the shit out of satan, and now your four horsemen brothers joined you. ------------------------ That sounds like a great start huh? Joining in the fight against satan/god himself? OH WAIT THIS IS A PREQUEL.....*rewinding noise* ------------- Darksiders 2, sets well before the first game, is what you'd call a bit of an obvious conclusion. If you played DS1, you know whats going to happen by the end of this game. Alrighty lets get on to the scales: Story: Shit. Example: Blah blah blah blah, fetch quest, blah blah blah blah, corruption, blah blah blah blah new platforming item. Blah blah blah Entirely too easy/small boss battle. blah blah blah blah REPEAT TILL THE END -DS2 is not the least bit fun storywise. You fetch an item, so and so unlocks a door, you move on. In one part i had to find 3 Dead lords, who would serve the king, and then the king just killed them. I was a bit mad to realize the game just trolled me, which it should never do with this bullshit fetch quest into a dungeon of puzzles. I cannot explain how fucking annoying it is to have "fetch so and so's fucking crystal" played a hundred times. This game has more fetch quest than i've ever done in WoW. What surprised me is that there was no arena in this game. Gameplay: Slightly less shit, but still shit. Combat is fun, exciting, and shit gets clusterfucked every which way. But thats about 1/3 of the gameplay. The other 2/3 will have you. A) Walking to the next place. B) Figuring out the puzzles to the next walk, to get the the next puzzle. 90% of your time will be spent doing the puzzles, the other 10% will be short, fun combat. Which would be cool if i was playing proffesor fucking layton, but i'm not. I'm playing DEATH, motherfucking badass DEATH, and I spend 90% of my time fetching stones and shit for some godawful story of fighting pollution. In short: the combat is fun, but the puzzles are so numerous and just tedious to keep on doing it doesn't make up for it. Graphics: OK, but loading every other door is a pain in the ass.(considering there is somewhere between 20-50 doors in every fucking place you walk into). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rant: Darksiders has a good combat system, a good item system, and a (could be) decent story. Why oh why does this game suck soooooooooooooooooo much dick? Because its developers are fucking morons. What comes to mind when you mention DEATH, a member of the four horsemen? If its platforming and puzzles go kill yourself. Combat, hundreds of enemies dead, skills involving the dead, any of that would do. What i got was a game with more bullshit platforming than mario. Hey you got the crystal!? Oh sweet now go to the next area and fetch more bullshit. AHAHAHA each 1/3 of the dungeon requires 3-4 seperate puzzles. AHAHAH. This game is shit, nuff said.