Players unhappy about airdrops containing weapons and ammo in Sony Online Entertainment's new zombie-themed MMO, H1Z1, are being offered refunds in the wake of a raft of complaints.
The airdrops have been called a "pay-to-win" feature by many disgruntled gamers, who have highlighted the fact that SOE president John Smedley already previously stated that players wouldn't be able to buy guns and the like.
"If you feel like the airdrops are an issue for you, you may immediately request a refund to [email protected]," Smedley said on Reddit. "This offer applies 'til Monday and it applies only to people that have purchased the game as of 10:30am Pacific today, 16th January 2015."
While Smedley and SOE acknowledge that players are unhappy and have confirmed that they will be offering limited-time refunds, they are pointing out that the presence of the monetised airdrops is something that has been discussed at length by the studio. This is what he had to say on the matter on Reddit:
"We've been showing it [the airdrops] clearly in all of the streams we have been doing. I made a point of personally doing it during last Friday's streams. We want them to be server events... so we make sure the whole server knows they're coming and I've personally been killed many times after I paid for them myself. So I fundamentally disagree with the argument. In terms of us not being honest about it - untrue to an extreme. Quoting an eight month old Reddit post after numerous streams and interviews where we've been quite public AND putting it front and center in our ‘What to expect document' which was right on the purchase page just makes this blatantly unfair IMO.
"So if you think it's P2W don't buy it. Don't play it. But I have to say wait until you've personally tried them before making the call. We included airdrops in both the $20 and the $40 versions just so you could see for yourselves.
"But to clear up the misconceptions - 1) You cannot call in airdrops until the servers are one quarter full. 2) You can't call in airdrops without generating a ton of zombie heat. 3) the airdrops are random in what they deliver. 4) you are not guaranteed to get a single thing out of the airdrop you called in. You could die trying and you're out the money. 5) We fly the plane in very slowly and loudly.. we also stream green smoke from it you can see from very far away. This is all I'm going to say on the subject. We've been straight about it. We've called attention to it publicly and it's something we've decided we want in the game. It makes it more fun. It can shake things up. Please don't judge based on knee jerk reactions. Try it. Or watch more streams with people doing it.
"Now with all that being said - we're going to be making some big changes to them in the next day or so: 1) Dramatically widening the radius they come in - it's too small from what we're observing. 2) Making sure the chance for guns is a much lower chance so they are much more rare. 3) Upping the minimum number of people on a server to even allow air drops. It's set at 50 right now and we're going to at least double it. We are serious about these being server events and contested. 4) Making the plane fly even slower."
Discontent has been increased due to server log-in issues in the wake of the launch of the alpha version of H1Z1, an annoyance for early adopters that are paying £14.99 to play a game that will eventually go on to be free-to-play.
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