'H1Z1' Launch Issues Worsen, Sony Offers Refunds Over Microtransaction Controversy
After a disastrous launch, the situation doesn't seem to be improving for Sony's new open-world survival-horror game "H1Z1." The long series of technical snafus has persisted for six days now, with the latest glitch putting the game completely offline to the dismay of early buyers. This has prompted John Smedley, the President of Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), to apologise on Twitter for the poor experience. The game-killing bug was ironically traced to a new bug introduced by a patch meant to fix the existing problems.
Gamers had initially found the servers had gone offline on Tuesday, followed by a brief respite that didn't last for long. "H1Z1" continues to remain offline as reported by Gamespot. The initial launch woes included a host of bugs, general network instability and frame-rate issues. Early adopters who have purchased the game through Steam's Early Access feature also suffered from log-in problems and queues that lasted for more than an hour. This was compounded by a pressing lack of active servers, most of which had crashed. Even those who managed to get in were harassed by persistent lag and broken voice chat functionality.
The MMO survival game is based on the ever-popular zombie apocalypse theme. "H1Z1" puts the players in a persistent sandbox world set in middle America, where resources such as weapons and ammunition are hard to come by. Developers had initially assured gamers that the title wouldn't allow purchase of guns or ammunition through microtransactions.
At launch, however, "H1Z1" was criticised for opting to have a "pay-to-win" model. Instead of weapons attainable via crafting only, it appears that there is now unfair advantage of ammo and supplies to those who had forked out real money for air drops. This was in violation to the developer's pre-launch promise of keeping weapons and ammo out of microtransactions.
According to Polygon, these serious day-one issues have elicited a response by SOE President Smedley on a Reddit thread. He assured that players who had purchased the game through Steam Early Access could apply for refunds for a limited timeframe. Apparently, the decision was prompted by the microtransaction controversy after many buyers had cried foul.
"H1Z1's" early access version was priced at $20, with the full version costing twice as much. If you intend to cash in on the refund, be advised that the refunded amount won't go back to your credit card or bank account. Refunds will instead be delivered in the form of Steam Wallet currency, which can only be spent on Valve's distribution platform.