Hammerpoint Interactive, developers of the highly anticipated survival MMORPG The War Z, haven’t had the best of luck earning the trust of their player-base and this latest move appears to have made it even worse. The game has come under heavy attack from players and critics after a number of slip ups from the developers, including one of the boldest statements in game development history as the executive producer claimed the game could not be hacked.
Any MMO player, especially those well versed in FPS titles, will know that there’s no such thing as not hackable with today’s technology. Sure, Cloud gaming could see that problem eradicated but for now, it’s as certain as the sun rising each day. Many players have scrutinized the game and developers for the rampant hacking that has plagued The War Z for over a month now and for a long time it appeared the developers didn’t really care.
That was until they rolled out the latest patch and with it, thousands of bans. According to posts on the official War Z forums the developers had intentionally placed items in locations that the average player would not be able to reach, and then banned any players that were able to collect those items. This sounds like a good idea on paper but in a game known for glitches and bugs, that the developers have personally asked people to seek out, it didn’t exactly go to plan.
The developers original intentions of capturing noclip and flying hackers have backfired as many of the items could be collected without using any third-party program, just a clever abuse of in-game mechanics. Some of the items didn’t even really need any serious abuse to collect as many can be collected from a good 5-10ft away, meaning it’s very easy to grab items through a wall.
Thousands have flocked to the forums claiming that the bans are unfair, some even say they were banned immediately after purchasing the game before they were even able to play it. Are these the echoes of scorned hackers or is there real injustice here? We’ll let you know as soon as anything official has been announced.