Nether, slipping out of the clusterfuck?

[Aldurin]

Ok, so some of you have probably noticed Nether (http://store.steampowered.com/app/247730/) come out on Steam for Early Access.

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So how well has this been going? The thread titles on steam's Nether subforum tell the story. (http://steamcommunity.com/app/247730/discussions/) The servers themselves won't run and there are plenty of accusations and conspiracy theories going around that this is really the second attempt at WarZ, despite Phosphor Games (http://phosphorgames.com/) having it's own distinct history and several other published games (two mobile games, one of the Kinect Adventure games and they appear to have shelved a 3rd person action game for PC) to prove it isn't the mildly tech-savvy mental ward known as Hammerpoint (I'd link the actual Hammerpoint site, but to prove my point visiting it only gives a login page. Also actually logging in might risk malware or whatever else gets into their lego-complexity software).

It's rather disappointing, to me. The whole "sandbox post-apocalyptic world where encounters balance between monsters and people who are the real monsters" genre has done very poorly ever since DayZ blew up, and Phosphor has made a bit of a leap to see if they can contend with such an ambitious project. I actually ended up buying this before being aware of everything that's actually been going on, and I'll probably ask steam for a refund if this doesn't get anywhere. And on the actual chance of it being good (which seems to be less and less likely) I'll be sure to update the thread with how this goes and give out the beta keys that supposedly come in tomorrow.

And yes it's looking like Steam Early Access is being more of a detriment than a blessing so far, but that should be its own thread.

[Flarecobra]

there are plenty of accusations and conspiracy theories going around that this is really the second attempt at WarZ

Especially since that "Game" is called "Infestation: Survivor Stories" now.

[Aldurin]

Update: Servers are up, and I'm posting this while I get my headset's mic working so I can talk with the surprisingly diplomatic players.

Pros so far:


Atmosphere is captured well, there's the right amount of ambient sound and a nice color scheme to make traveling tense as you scan your environment for threats.
Sound design is done pretty well. Voice is handled in a way unlike Arma's ACRE mod, and any noise you make when doing stuff can be heard by others. At one point I heard a pistol get chambered out of nowhere, and it sounded just like you would expect in a dead environment where someone is messing with a gun. Distance-based volume drop could use some tweaking but other than that it works well.
PvE and PvP are balanced to each other. Nether pose enough of a threat that wasting ammo on people is bad, but you also have to be wary of people since they may or may not shoot you at any given moment.
Explorable environments are nice. Pretty much every building can be explored, though a few designs leave only the top floor or bottom floor accessible.
Mobility is nice. Regular walking has a nice pace, running seems good and sprint jumping does allow you to cross rooftops and explore more easily.


Cons:


Not sure how loot spawning entirely works, but the trickle of PvP deaths in the chat indicate that the loot economy may be a little imbalanced in favor of looting the nearest person instead of the nearest buildings.
Meshing is an absolute nightmare. There is a lot of world geometry that doesn't match up with world models. Snagging is rampant, can be fixed by jumping out but makes stealth far harder. And at many points it seems as though the meshing was entirely forgotten. I found a cargo crate and some fencing that I could clip through as if it didn't exist.
Phosphor is clearly struggling with the technical end of this game. The first server I was on crashed, but the fact that the rubber-banding effect took at least 15 second intervals to trigger shows that connectibility probably isn't stable or secure.


Big experience that showed that this hadn't devolved into entirely DayZ tactics was when I was running on elevated train tracks to pass through the city (good for avoiding monsters, bad for stealth) and I heard gunshots nearby and then a voice started calling my name (if you get close enough to someone or aim your sights at them then you see their name) to figure out if it was me. So after a quick moment typing in chat and replacing my smg with my knife so I could do the "no don't shoot me" dance, the guy surprisingly was cool with it and let me walk away without shooting me (I still don't know his vantage point, so he could totally have capped me if he chose). People are trying to make this work socially, and that's cool.