Hey guys, first I want to say thank you to all of you, even the ones that are very upset with us. We have received an overwhelming amount of support and feedback from everyone and the dev team is all working hard on all of the current issues and I appreciate your patience as we try to get H1Z1 up and running smoothly. We are a little over 24 hours in and it has been and absolute roller coaster.
2nd I wanted to address what I said in an earlier stream with NGTZombies prior to our release. I said you cannot buy a gun or ammo and it had to be found in the world. When you are on a stream, and you are talking about your game, you tend to talk a million miles an hour both to keep the information flowing and to keep it entertaining. But sometimes things get said without completely thinking about what you are saying 100% through. H1Z1 is a massive game with a lot of systems, some of which we were tuning every day and finishing last minute. When I said you can't buy any guns or ammo, I completely disregarded the possibility of airdrops and meant that you can't buy a gun or ammo and have it go into your starting loadout, or your loadout immediately like you were buying a gun from the gun store.
All that being said, I totally understand how what I said was at the time lying to you guys and I apologize. But please understand that's not what I was trying to do. For those of you that don't know me or understand me, know that I'm not trying to be this monster that is conniving and lying in hopes that you get tricked into buying the game. I am very passionate about making video games and I want more than anything in the world for people to love the games that I am a part of making.
The dev team loves airdrops, and in testing, every time we used one, they were highly contested where the person who actually called in the airdrop had to earn it through a gladiator style brawl. They usually weren't the one that ended up with the airdrop but no matter what, the person who called it in was satisfied with the event that they got to make happen. That event is the magic we are trying to capture with everyone. The last thing we want is it to be a boring item that someone can sneak around and quietly get to find gear without it being contested. In our opinion that is basically cheating and nobody should be able to do that.
Whether you agree with us or not, that is how we want airdrops to work. We are going to be tuning them throughout early access until we can get them to work that way, here are the first pass initial changes.
1) Make the plane move slowly (53% of current) This increases the ability for other players to react to the plane coming in.
2) Make the drop fall more slowly (80% of current) This increases the ability for other players to react to the plane coming in.
3) Less accurate maximum drop radius (was 250m now 700m, so with these settings it would drop up to 700m from the calling player)
4) New minimum distance of 250m for airdrops to appear from a player. This is a little less than ½ the player density of 700m distance with 120 players on a server. Therefore more players are likely to be near the airdrop when deployed.
5) Increase the minimum number of required players to 120 (a little higher after more discussion about player density being important to keeping airdrops contested)
H1Z1 Airdrop Events and drop percentages
65% chance to call in one of these airdrops
The Caveman
Bow 1x
Bundle of Arrows 2x
Torch 1x
Waist pack 1x
7 Zombies
The Welder
Wrench 1x
Hammer 1x
Metal Sheets 4x
Metal Pipes 2x
Weapon Repair Kit 1x
7 Zombies
The Medic
First Aid Kits 2x
Bandages 5x
Cloth 6x
Purified Water 2x
Saline 2x
7 Zombies
The Demolition Man
IED 2x
Lighter 1x
Landmine 1x
Flares 2x
Smoke Flare 2x
Ethonol 1x
7 Zombies
The Builder
Nails 20x
Furnace 1x
Logs 4x
Metal Bits 10x
Scrap Metal 10x
Wood Axe 1x
7 Zombies
The Farmer
Tamper 10x
Corn Seeds 10x
Wheat Seeds 10x
Fertilizer 10x
Purified Water 5x
7 Zombies
The Hiker
Motorcycle Helmet 1x
Military Backpack 1x
Goggles 1x
Binoculars 1x
Compass 1x
7 Zombies
12.5 % chance to call in one of these airdrops
Life of the Party
IED 5x
Swizzle 20x
Moonshine 15x
Flare 30x
7 Zombies
10.0% Chance to call in this airdrop
The Hobo
Shotgun 1x
Shells 12x
Moonshine 2x
Torch 1x
Twine 1x
Bear Sandwich 1x
7 Zombies
The Lone Wolf
Pistol 1x
Ammo.45 14x
Logs 2x
Wolf Sandwich 1x
Animal Trap 1x
Deer Bladder 2x
7 Zombies
Thank you guys for being patient with us!
-Arclegger