In an attempt to clarify the controversy around The War Z, Hammerpoint Interactive’s open-world zombie survival “MMO”. The controversy comes from the very similar concept, game play, and title between The War Z and Arma II mod, DayZ. Sergey titov, project lead, posted on The War Z forums a short FAQ about The War Z’s relation to DayZ. In the post, Titov explains that the game was in fact under development before DayZ even came into the public eye, but when DayZ gained momentum, it forced Hammerpoint to expedite their announcement.
2) Title – “War Z” – really ? you stole it from DayZ.
Hmmm, actually we’re not. We had list of titles we want to use – World of Z, World of zombies, Z Day, Day of Z, The War Z, Infestation, etc. Some titles didn’t worked because of trademark issues, some didn’t’ worked out because Dayz was announced ( for us it was like – oops they used our title ))) ), so we settled on The War Z – which was nod toward title Arktos funded – The War Inc. We’ve filed trademark registration for “The War Z” and got it from USPTO.
In The War Z you are a man against a world full of zombies and bandits
Most interesting though, is Titov’s doubt that DayZ’s popularity is lasting.
5) Do you fear Dayz standalone ?
Nope, I fear some crazy drivers on the streets. I fear Call of duty Blackops 2 more. I just don’t know enough about DayZ to make any real assessment of how it’ll be doing. I.e. – how may of 1M “unique” players are actually still playing game ? How many players who purchased Arma wasn’t been able to run game, connect to servers, etc. ? How many of them will do it again with standalone ? Dayz doesn’t affect what we’re doing right now.
He raises an interesting point, there’s no guarantee that the zombie survival game will maintain it’s current levels of popularity. It is a very frustrating game, I’ve played it, I’ve yelled at it. I can say that I’ve been resolute in playing the damn game, but others with less dedication to getting shot for no reason might have been put off the game entirely. I guess in the coming months we’ll see whether or not DayZ will maintain it’s popularity or if it will slowly waver.
In DayZ, you are also a man against a world full of zombies and bandits
One other thing to consider is that because DayZ is going to be developed as a standalone game (in partnership with Bohemia interactive, developers of Arma II). Migrating the playerbase from the Arma II mod to the standalone game could be a challenge. Not to mention that development efforts will be split between the mod and the standalone game, so whether players will be willing to stick around long enough for updates is also in question.
It’s all an interesting topic that will unfold in the coming months.
(The War Z is the upcoming zombie survival game from Hammerpoint Interactive. Closed beta signups are happening now)
(DayZ is a mod for Arma II that’s been in development starting this year, it has recently been announced to moving into a standalone game)
Writer for Mana Pool living in New York. Enjoys shooters, strategy, and nearly every genre. Has been involved in games in a meaningful way for about half a decade. Began writing for Mana pool in summer of 2012 
What an extremely vague and uninformative article. You should mention more of how The War Z, up until around a year ago, was a 100% different game than they’re marketing now (you know, how they changed it to become sandbox, they ditched their quest, npc, and experience system and more or less scrapped the coding of their entire previous game balance).
Maybe talk about the fact that this “frustration” you experienced was due to the lack of endgame, which drives the more geared players to hunt the newer players for lack of a better reason, and how The War Z maintains similar problems, whilst not having the experience in development or even a gameplay video to support just about any claims they’ve made about their current title. Also I’m not sure if you understand how mods work, they tend to be created by players or happy coders that simply enjoy their work. Usually they don’t make much in the way of cash, however their happy work is seeming to pay off as the amount of attention their amazing mod has gotten has pushed arma 2 more than arma 2′s own development.
No offense meant to the writer, but it seems like you haven’t done much of any research and are simply responding to the interviewees answers out of context.
PS: you can be sure when DayZ becomes standalone, there will not be much trouble in migration, as solid server support, stress testing and yknow, funding, tend to make things much more functional in a game…if you need an example simply look at counterstrike. I know, research, that’s the rub right?
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Hi Vintage,
Thanks for reading the article. Sorry to hear that you found it “vague and uninformative”, but I think that might have come from a misunderstanding about the goal of this article. This isn’t an exposé about why The WarZ devs are a bunch of liars. It’s more to explain the dev’s point of view based on this post. I’ll admit that I did not know that about the experience system, I have to read a lot of news and sometimes things slip through.
Thanks for the input!
If you’d like to discuss anything further with me feel free to contact me through steam(zeroth305) or an other method
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Was simply pointing out the article is riddled with personal bias and uninformed opinion drawn from answers taken out of context, I don’t believe anybody expects an “exposé” on two games that have yet to truly see fruition of any real kind. I mean hell, one isn’t even a game, it’s a mod.
Sorry, I don’t wish to discuss this, I just think your readers deserve more than what you’ve written here, like showing DayZ in a better light than: “Oh I got shot and the game is frustrating because of said experience.”
Thank you for your response, good to see you guys appreciate feedback
. Take care!
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Vintage, it seems you are heavily biased against The War Z. I plan to own both personally. I activly play DayZ and it has many weaknesses that will not be fixed in the stand-alone. As with all pvp games, it has a lot of ass-hats that kill on site. That is the consequence of pvp though. Endgame will not fix that. There must be a deterent system to griefing, something nether game has announced.
Supplying a distraction will help, focusing on group pvp for resources could as well. But that would exclude solo players from saught after items. DayZ currently has too many bugs, rules are too strict as well. No side chat, terrible spawn rates on vehicles and nothing carrying over aftger a reset. Currently the DayZ devs seem to focus on adding things that will not increase playability or provide a true distraction. Dogs seem to be a wasted frill considering what little endgame there exists is broken. That is not a good sign. Without even a video though, The War Z may not be better.
A lot is clearly barrowed from DayZ. But even Day Z barrowed from a lot of sources. War Z book for one. Ill personally reserve judment on both until they are at least playable.
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Forgive me Chris I’m not sure if I understand the point of your comment. Yes I have made it rather clear I am biased toward DayZ, as I have played it, and the promises they’ve made have been fulfilled so far, as well as the fact that they already have a working formula that has attracted.. oh.. over a million now to buy a completely different game(package) just to play the free mod? Yes, that along with the fact that I again must stress that so far it is not a game, it is a mod of another game, Arma 2: Combined Operations, if you’re not aware.
Honestly though it frustrates me to no end that people like you complain about being shot… in a shooter. I mean come on, have you ever played a shooter before? Death happens, people shoot on site, cry me a river. What you seem to be missing is that shooting somebody for their gear in a shooter where gear can be looted by another player is NOT griefing, and strikes me as a bit childish that you would think of it as such. The griefing lies within seasoned players sitting around hunting newer players for no good reason around their spawn points (even the article mentioned that, how do you miss it?), that is very different than what you’re describing.
Also, I believe you havent played much of DayZ, there is a deterrant system in place, but it is simply ineffective as looking like a bandit or earning a hero skin doesnt matter much when there is nothing to do when you get the best gear aside from killing other players. Also side chat was removed as it is unrealistic to have a big chat room in a wide open world, as well as opening people up to trolling and griefing, yet another reason to doubt you’ve played DayZ.
I have a server that i frequent that maintains items in tents after resets, maybe you should look a bit harder for better places to “lay your head” so to speak. Dogs have yet to see true fruition but I rather like the ideas they have so far of having a companion that can hunt with you, take orders, hold a spot down, play sentry and bark when certain things are near etc..
Anyways, your post seems almost as uninformed as the article, speaking of which, I believe the book your thinking of is “World War Z”, and yes, i have read it, as well as the Zombie Survival Guide and numerous others. I think you should probably look into DayZ a bit more than a quick google search
bet you’ll dig it.
PS: Not mentioning The Warz(inc) anymore here because I’m sure just about anything I say (considering how long I have been following the game) would go right over your head. So let’s just settle with the fact that my biased opinion is well informed, unlike yours.
Take care!
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Heres an experience of ‘griefing’ I’d like to share with you two (author and poster): On my first day playing DayZ I found myself in Cherno right away, recklessly scavenging for weapons and supplies as I had little knowledge of the real threats in this game: The people. Zombies were easy enough to lose as I dodged and weaved through buildings and fences as effortlessly as most online shooters, and zombies are stupid. However night had hit before I found a proper weapon outside of a hatchet, night is rather scary in this game unless you exploit or have night vision.
From one of windows of a building I had recently ducked into, I saw a flare tossed up in the distance, considering how dark the game is at night time, the light was almost impossible to miss. Curious I sneakily made my way over to where the flare had come from, the church.
As I neared the large distinct building, I heard a voice from inside, “Help, is anybody out there? I broke my leg and I’m bleeding out, I have a ways to go but no bandages or morphine, somebody please help.”
Naturally, the humanitarian thing to do was rush to his aid.. however I’m rather familiar with human nature, especially in these situations. So i wasn’t as trusting as the two that I witnessed run full sprint across the street, who then proceeded to shout “Don’t worry buddy we got supplies we’ll be right there, just hang on.”
Poor trusting bastards. As soon as they swung the doors open around 3-4 silenced weapons opened up, filling them full of holes and they died pretty instantly. Having my doubts validated I moved to the side of the building as quietly and slowly as possible. Positioning myself right outside the door in a small gap that would be mostly covered when the door was opened, there I waited.
A few minutes later I heard the same guy start back up, “Somebody please help, I’ve broken my leg and I’m bleeding out, I need help somebody.” I waited as patiently (more out of fear) as I could. Then the door swung open again and one of them, (I’m assuming the talker) popped a flare and began to throw it..
Only he didn’t get a chance. Because I smashed the back of his head in with a hatchet and ran off before his buddies could come out and get a clear shot. They definitely didn’t stay there anymore, now that their game had been recognized they got out of dodge pretty quick.
This is the stuff that you (previous poster and author) dislike apparently, this is what you whine about. I say this is reality, I say this is human nature (book of eli, anybody?). In a world where the players make the rules, this is the flavor I feel. And apparently alot of others feel that way too, now if we could just keep whiny children like you two out of our games wherein there might be a hurt feeling or mean action here and there, I think we’d have much better games than Call of Duty and World of Warcraft.
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First off, you call me a baby for mentioning the griefing, then question my willingness to pvp because I find griefing to be a game flaw. You admit geared players have nothing to do but kill, oftentimes at spawnpoints and then accuse me of never having played the game. I’m 35, I’ve played hardcore pvp games and can identify the difference between pvp and griefing.
Being biased toward dayz doesn’t mean you have to have a bias against The War Z. I also own both world war z and the zombie survival guide. I have played Dayz for about a month and a half. You should try not using straw man attacks or red herrings. That itself is childish. It is also a common tactic of people who have no case to argue, look at the republican party. They use the same deflective tactics to never address the issue. I get it, you are a fan of DayZ. Does that mean you need to silence critism? The DayZ devs have shown amazing potental for a mod. But their priorities bring in tk qustion their abilities to make a stand alone game where people expect polish and functionality. Gamers are brutal against games that do not deliver, dogs will not help the DayZ stand alone deliver.
Sorry for my errors, this is on my phone.
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I hate to use the tone that you engage in, but you should avoid discussing the games outside of your circle of fanboys. You may find the rest of the worlds lack of zealotry offencive.
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I just wanna point out that you attacked me using the “red herring” and “straw man defense” classifications without providing any substantial evidence or examples backing your claims as well as comparing me to the republican party. Pot. Kettle. Black.
Again I have to address the issue that you’re comparing an established and paid dev team that’s working on a product that has been an active title (and changed their formula 100% upon dayZ’s obvious popularity) for a long time now, making promises they cant even showcase (no videos)…to a free to play mod that has been around for a few months. I don’t really think I need to further this argument, you’ve really lost and made yourself look pretty immature a million times over with your own comments. I simply highlighted that which ruins
gaming communities today, namely you.
By the way! I love constructive criticism; theres alot that dayz needs to fix! Here let me name a few things that are realistic and yknow, not absolutely childish biased crybaby opinion:
Major artifacting glitches, bugged weaponry (yknow when you put something in a full pack and it disappears?) a fix to the humanity system (I had a hero skin on my first day, still not sure how I managed that as I didnt trust a soul) or added extras or negatives to enforce the system, a fix to the vehicles (not spawn rate, if you cant find a vehicle its mainly your fault, I have an encampment with a URAL, UAZ one of the pickups and 2 bikes, hasnt been touched in a week). However while driving I encountered problems with “invisible rocks” that would utterly damage your hull and wheels. Also, getting out of a vehicle and hopping back in when it has only sustained minor damage repairs said vehicle.
Plus that god awful eating sound!!! I hate that sound byte!!
Anyways, those things are called criticism, what you do is complain about silly little nonsensical things, like being shot in a shooter. Also, this is a public forum where we are having an open debate in an appropriate atmosphere, I sure as hell am not going to become the grammar nazi! That’s the sign of somebody with no ammo in his arsenal!
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Ok I admit I openly complain about that eating noise, god it’s so annoying to me.
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Man, this is an arguement that isn’t even worth engaging in. Like I said, I will buy both. I will play the one that makes a superior product. I think the competition in a new gere will keep both teams from being lazy. I’m just glad that hyper-realistic sandbox gameplay has hit the mainstream.
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You know, I find it sort of ironic that you would start this little debate then say “I don’t find this argument worth engaging in”. In the first place I was pointing out the lack of fair or intelligent facts in the article. Not exactly healthy competition when a writer that may or may not be influencing the purchases of a fan base to sit there and say things like
“It is a very frustrating game, I’ve played it, I’ve yelled at it. I can say that I’ve been resolute in playing the damn game, but others with less dedication to getting shot for no reason might have been put off the game entirely.”
That seems to go against what you want from competition in this genre Chris, it seems opinions like that might come off as a bit biased and in fact, bad for competition. So why did you start this argument again?
Though I have to say, all around I would be thrilled to find out I’m dead wrong. Seriously now, DayZ is a great mod that’s currently playable, but if The War Z(inc) comes through on half the things they’ve promised without it turning into a steaming pile of coulda been, then I will gladly jump on board.
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You guys are taking this way too serious
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Yeah, this website and the writers that work with it are obviously not meant to be taken seriously whatsoever, I recognize that now, thank you.
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Hey vintage,
loving the insults man, loving them. I’m sorry we’re not the outlet that tells you exactly what you want to hear
. I’m sorry I don’t fill my articles with rhetoric and my articles are full of agenda 
.
More importantly though, I’m sorry that anyone reading through these comments might look at you and and actually think you knew what you were talking about.
so let me give some clarification for those people, because obviously you’re a lost cause and it’s not really worth it trying to convince you
.
1) It really doesn’t matter if DayZ is a mod and The War Z isn’t. You have to compare games quality independent of whatever went into making them. You can’t compare two things, and say one is equal to the other only because it wasn’t made by a dedicated studio. You can applaud a studio for making a game despite its size, however you can’t use it as an excuse
2)Yes, it is suspect that there is no gameplay footage out for the War Z yet. But that can explained by having a marketing strategy. IT CAN ALSO BE explained by them not having anything to show as of this moment. both are very possible. The only thing any of us can do is adopt a “wait and see” attitude.
3)You have confused my frustration with the game as dislike. I love DayZ. I have played it for dozens of hours. there are videos online of me playing it for dozens of hours. What flew right over your head(basically everything) was my point that there is definitely a small population of players who bought Arma II, installed dayZ, logged on, ran around for a couple hours, got shot, got frustrated, and resolved to never play again.
4)People still play CS 1.6, a good population of people. There’s always been trouble migrating people to the next version of a game. Add in persistant characters and you have even more of a challenge. I think that the standalone DayZ will be successful, but it won’t be nearly as successful as the mod because people understand what the game is now. it’s no longer a mystery
Really everything else you said either didn’t make sense or was a snide little insult that I appreciated greatly. Thanks for reading, and while I know you’ll come back so that you can have internet fights and be a strong man, I hope you’ll come back to also read things with an open mind.
Thanks
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Ok, I realize you’re just baiting me because this has to be the absolute most posts on an article on this site from what I’ve seen (was a dedicated reader ’till this article). And it’s not that you’re full of agenda, you would have had to put some effort into your article to give that sort of apperance, I commented that you have personal bias against DayZ because of a bad experience, and the rest of your article was random nonsense you spit up and insulted your readers with.
“1) It really doesn’t matter if DayZ is a mod and The War Z isn’t. You have to compare games quality independent of whatever went into making them. You can’t compare two things, and say one is equal to the other only because it wasn’t made by a dedicated studio. You can applaud a studio for making a game despite its size, however you can’t use it as an excuse”
With all due respect, no shit sherlock, the fact is that DayZ HAS A PLAYABLE GAME RIGHT NOW. The WarZ doesn’t even have a video. One is a free to play mod THAT HAS PLAYABLE CONTENT. One is a game that’s been in development for a good period of time, that doesn’t even have a video.
2)Yes, it is suspect that there is no gameplay footage out for the War Z yet. But that can explained by having a marketing strategy. IT CAN ALSO BE explained by them not having anything to show as of this moment. both are very possible. The only thing any of us can do is adopt a “wait and see” attitude.
They’re two games competing in a market, I hear what you’re saying about “let’s wait and see what comes up.” I’ve already made it very clear that I’m on board with that and would gladly buy and play the game when it comes out if it proves to be half of what they’ve said it will be. But I’m not holding my breath. I severely doubt their “grand scheme” is to mystery the gaming world into wanting to buy their product. That just seems stupid. Especially since so very few people have heard of the game or dev company behind it.
3)You have confused my frustration with the game as dislike. I love DayZ. I have played it for dozens of hours. there are videos online of me playing it for dozens of hours. What flew right over your head(basically everything) was my point that there is definitely a small population of players who bought Arma II, installed dayZ, logged on, ran around for a couple hours, got shot, got frustrated, and resolved to never play again.
No more than the amount of people who picked up any other online shooter and got frustrated with playing with other players.
“It is a very frustrating game, I’ve played it, I’ve yelled at it. I can say that I’ve been resolute in playing the damn game, but others with less dedication to getting shot for no reason might have been put off the game entirely.”
Dude, do you even read what you write? Saying you’ve been resolute in playing the damn game sounds a lot more like you’re enduring it than playing it. Honestly, I think you’re just a whiner, you probably don’t play many online games or just get “frustrated” easily. I don’t think there’s any misinterpretation there, but if there is, I believe it’s the writers job to convey some sort of point.
4)People still play CS 1.6, a good population of people. There’s always been trouble migrating people to the next version of a game. Add in persistant characters and you have even more of a challenge. I think that the standalone DayZ will be successful, but it won’t be nearly as successful as the mod because people understand what the game is now. it’s no longer a mystery
Yes I prefer 1.6 to source too, mainly because source uses a completely different engine, messes with hitboxes and the recoil on source is way too low. But if you did the littlest bit of research you would know that DayZ is going to be update/patch based, like Minecraft it’s going to have constant development with features added in wave like packages, which was more or less my point with the smooth transition thing. But I know, again, research is way too much for you to take on in your position, what with all that comment responding you do.
Why again are you addressing me after I stated I don’t want to discuss this with you? As a writer I understand your job is to bullshit, so go bullshit somebody who doesn’t see through you. And I’m sorry if you’re mistaking my feelings of betrayal (after a website I used as a source for ‘good’ game reviews, guides and comments allows some asshat to write such a terribly useless opinionated article), with “snide little insults,” I just want you to know, that you personally, lost a long time reader for your website with your piss-poor writing, horrible researching skills and all around shitty attitude.
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Also if there’s anything I said that “didn’t make sense” I really hope you’d bring it to my attention, and why is it when people are confronted online they use the “oh you’re so strong” cliche? It’s the internet man, we’re talking. Get over yourself.
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thanks for reading!
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Heh, no problem.
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Wow, after reading through all that i gotta say: im 100% with vintage. You should be ashamed of yourself Will, way to be a typical internet troll. Never again coming to this site for game reviews.
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@Vintage
As I said, you are taking this way too serious. So you disagree with someone on the internet, big deal
If that’s worth never visiting a site over again, you’ll quickly run out of sites to visit.
Just need to be a bit less narrow-minded and not take life so seriously
Ultimately your life didn’t take a dramatically different turn just because of Will. Or did it…? *insert spooky tune*
Edit: Edited your last reply, which you made under a different name (Josh T.)
Same IP address – almost the same e-mail address (not very creative..), absolutely no doubt that it was made by the same person. Kind of lame chipping in to your own argument pretending to be someone else, don’t you think? Corrected now so it shows up as you rather than your alter ego – at least be a man when you make a comment.
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I don’t even get what all the fuzz is about, really. The article just reported about a couple of statements from the War Z developers along with some commentary on that. It didn’t really criticize DayZ, just raised a couple of interesting questions like: “Will DayZ keep its momentum?” and “Will a lot of players migrate to DayZ standalone?” … which IMHO are very valid concerns to think about – not just regarding DayZ, but really for a lot of other game franchises.
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Nice one there.
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I must say Vintage has a few good points in his initial post, though it got personal and ugly after a while.
But he has a point. The most important aspect of journalism is to be critical, and this article completely forgot about being critical.
I find it kind of funny that everything related to this game, did not exist prior to dayz. Their twitter account, facebook group, and youtube channel has all been registered july 2012 or later, the same is true of their trademark.
I mean, it’s more than ok to copy ideas, I just don’t get why they so blatantly deny it. Allmost everything about this game is nicked from their own free to play FPS. I find no evidence supporting their claims, so why lie so blatantly about something as trivial as this?
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Good article, and a good contribution. I love both games and although I am a die hard Arma fan, i have to say the usability of the war Z (despite its bad press) is much higher than that of the Arma 2 Mod.
Sorry to the readers who had to see the mess above, thanks for the contribution.
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