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Post Date: 21:15 10-01-2010
Rating: 2
Author: many100
Comment: This is coming from a level 50+ player who's played DF for a year and a half. Take 15 minutes to read it, and it'll save you many hours and even real money:
I played Dead Frontier not because it's a great game, but because it's the ONLY zombie survival themed MMORPG. Having said that, all aspects of the game can really be summed up with one word: mediocre.
The game itself is mediocre. It's nothing more than a simple, 2-D bird's-eye-view "shooter" that's a grind to play. There are many, many, many shortcomings to the game itself that you are all already aware of, such as poor graphics, sounds, etc. A lot of this comes from the inherent limitations of the game being in flash. But even taking that into account, I simply don't see any merits to DF as a video game.
The gameplay has been described by and agreed upon by people as being "a grind", boring, dull, repetitive, etc. For higher levels, a good chunk of time is wasted by "commuting" to the deeper regions of the "map". If I wanted to commute, I could accompany my dad to work every morning. The map itself is poorly designed, if designed at all - the streets layouts, the wreckage and corpses on the streets, the furniture and rooms of buildings, even the street names all seem to be randomly generated. I understand that it's the zombie apocalypse and every place is ransacked, but a room with 5 beds? There are two "Lerwillbury" on the map, and a lot of place names don't make sense (like a "South"-something would north of its "North"-counterpart.
And when there are zombies to kill, like in high-aggro situations, the "action" consists of nothing more than a glorified version of Asteroids. Come on, we're in the 2010's, not the 1990's. You move around your tank-like character whose torso can rotate 360% with his legs moving in the opposite direction, clicking on the baddies. No headshots (come on - it's a zombie game! sever the head or destroy the brain!), no different postures / positions, no jumping over that overturned chair or knocking over that potted plant, no zooming, no dual-wielding, etc.
Okay, so this game isn't your Gears of War or Call of Duty. It's not even an "action" game because it calls itself an "MMORPG". But is it really an MMORPG, or just using it as an excuse for its mundane game mechanics? For a game that claims to have RPG aspects, DF's character creation and development system is terribly rudimentary, not to mention stupid. "Engineers" repair armor? Engineers make calculations and design things - they don't actually wield metal or anything. "Scientists" make medicine? I think a better term would be either a Chemist or a Pharmacist. Clearly, very little thought as been put into these basic things.
Names aside, the actual character build configuration is unbalanced. It's very expensive and hard to start off specializing in heavy weapons like machineguns or explosives and using a strength-oriented build - unless you pay the "free" game real money to afford the costly ammo and weapon upgrades. Then again, if you go with lighter weapons like melee, pistols, or rifles, you'll find that you lack firepower later on in the game, and you'll need to buy a stat reset to change your build. Everyone ends up having only a few viable options for builds and weapons, or you're free to choose your own stats and guns but suck. Just look at all the higher level players - their equipment are awfully similar. So much for being able to configure your character as you like.
Aside from that, the "missions" (which were, by the way, were about half an year late) are nothing more than fetch-this, kill-that chores with no plot advancement at all. Speaking of the plot, there is none other than a generic zombie apocalypse mad-lib. Replace "T-virus" with "N4", replace "Umbrella Corporation" with "Secronom", replace "Raccoon City" with "Fairview". I've seen B-grade zombie flicks with more interesting storyline than Dead Frontier's. Someone fire the game's story writer!
It's official (according to former moderators and the admins of the game) that the game is set in the United States, but there are so many obvious inconsistencies. The game developer, "AdminPwn" (seriously, is he in middle school or something - what self-respecting person would use such a lame, meme-name?) is from England. There are red double-decker buses all over the place and "color" are spelled "colour". You see building names such as "so-and-so Solicitors". In the United States, law firms / offices are usually called "The Law Office of so-and-so" or "Proskauer Rose", etc. Obviously, whoever made the game didn't bother to do basic, basic research.
A glaring failure in the game's RPG aspect is that it is NOT a zombie game. One fundamental aspect of the zombie genre is man versus nature. Think about the billions upon billions of grains of sand covering up ancient city ruins in the desert, or thee vast and unforgiving oceans swallowing up armadas of ships and sailors, or rust and vegetation converting an urban landscape back into nature. But instead of the desert, the seas, etc., you've got zombies. Just watch the first five minutes of Day of the Dead and you'll get the feeling. Hordes and hordes of relentless, flesh-eating, never-resting zombies banging down your door, eating your brains.
What about Dead Frontier "zombies"? First, there are not hordes and hordes of zombies. There's not even a large group of zombies. The most you can have on the map is 8 at a time. AdminPwn says it's because flash doesn't allow it. Okay, fine, blame it on the technology. So Dead Frontier has the typical gray zombies. But then, it starts to get festive. You get your "charred" PURPLE zombies, then your "mutated" RED zombies, and then your "irradiated" GREEN zombies. What is this - Christmas festivities meets a bad case of Halloween all-year-round? Not to mention those "longarms" - "zombies" with laughably long arms. For people who are familiar with the game and the "plot", this is all explained vaguely by "mutations" and whatever, but it's like we're fighting demons or monsters. So call it a monster survival game or a demon survival game or a mutant survival game - don't lie to us by passing these things as zombies.
Another aspect of the zombie genre is the man versus man tension. Your friend is infected - do you try to save him or put him out of his misery before he can turn? We're trapped and running out of food - do you resort to cannibalism or try to fight through the zombie hordes? You encounter a group of survivors - do you join up and help them, or kill them and loot their stuff? You rescue a defenseless young girl - do you be kind and help her, or give into your urges in this lawless place and have your way with her? Well, you guessed it - Dead Frontier has none of that either.
Dead Frontier also advertises itself as an "MMO", but its multiplayer aspects are shamefully pathetic. AdminPwn blames a whole lot of problems on the game being in flash - yeah, blame it on the technology again. For example, "multiplayer" consts of you playing with computer-controlled bots representing other players. The zombies you see and are killing on your screen is different from those on your friend's screen. You can't actually come to your friend's rescue - you just have to hope that your bot on your friend's screen is hitting the right zombies. This synch problem hasn't worked after a year and a half, and whatever the excsue may be, the fact remains that Dead Frontier fails to deliver, remotely, its promises. I recall multiple times when AdminPwn has said he'll fix synch. But delay after delay, announcement after announcement, DF is the same, crappy game at the core few a few new cheap tricks covering it up.
Something integral both to the RPG and MMO aspects of Dead Frontier are clans. Right now, there are clans in the game, but the only thing extra with clans is that there's a section in the forums for clans. In other words, "clan" are in name only. You don't get access to extra places like clan armory or headquarters or anything like that in the game if you're in a clan, etc. You and your clan buddies can't team up against enemy clan members in PvP where friendly fire is off (in fact, you can't even avoid shooting your clan members since in multiplayer, you're playing with computer-controlled bots).
There was a thread made by the players of Dead Frontier calling for a clan system and what features it should have, and after more than a year, there is still no clan system. What does the person currently in charge of creating the clan system have to say a bout it? "As for the clan system it's going to start off as just a basic create/invite/promotion thing as well as redoing the ugly SMF buddy system we have with a new contacts system. Then I imagine we'll slowly begin adding more features to the clan system after a few other things get worked on. At any rate the clan system will most definitely be out before the 3d client." Notice that he talks in the present tense, which probably means he hasn't done much at all, if any work, for the clan system. If he had done something, he would've have mentioned it if he's discussing his work. And what he does say is vague and generic - it's as if he hasn't even put anything down on paper yet as to what the clan system will actually be like. And he's setting himself a generous deadline of "before the 3d client", anywhere between June and August of 2010. AdminPwn has a history of delays, and so if zenmaster is setting his standards by AdminPwn's, it's not unlikely that the clan system will come out even later.
The game community is mediocre - mostly of middle school internet shut-in types and such - but that's to be expected for a free-to-play online game about killing zombies with machineguns. On a scale between a regular internet forum on one end, and 4chan on the other end, I'd say that Dead Frontier is closer to the 4chan end. So if you're looking for good social interactions, go to a networking cocktail or a conference on something interesting in real life, or at the very least, just stick with Facebook. If you're looking for stupidity and nonsense, then go to 4chan.
Most importantly, the "company" behind the game is mediocre without redemption. Yes, the game Dead Frontier is developed by the "company" called Jagged Blade Software, so while it's all games and fun, there is a "business" side to the game in the same way that the good people at Blizzard or Infinity War take WoW or MW2 very seriously. Only there isn't a business at Dead Frontier - it's just a shits-and-giggles crap-shoot, if I didn't know better.
Consider Jagged Blade Software. Game design is by Neil Yates. "Community Management & Support" is handled by Ian Yates. Game Promotion is handled by Nick Yates. Now, the last time I checked, JBS (Jagged Blade Software / jack bull shit) was not a family business, so it really seems to me that Neil just grabbed a couple of relatives who had nothing better to do. In all likelihood, they're probably not qualified or experienced. This was actually quoted from an e-mail sent by Ian Yates the "community management and support" guy regarding the temporary ban for a player who criticizing the game: "I’m bored of you now... your long history of being an obnoxious little shit...". This was sent from his "work" e-mail: , and thus, as a representative of his "company". Mr. Community Management here is clearly doing a great job doing community management - so polite, so tact (NOT). Having family members work for a company is a bad idea, and in this particular case, that family member can't even be civil.
AdminPwn has a track record of always failing to meet the generous deadlines that he set for himself, then he'll blame the technology he's working with or that one programmer that he hired who then ragequit on him. Yeah, he actually hired one legit employee that wasn't a player-volunteer or family member, and that employee "ragequit" (to quote AdminPwn himself).
The only good thing that Dead Frontier has going for it is that Jagged Blade Software / Neil Yates aka AdminPwn has had the tremendous but tenuous good fortune of there not being another MMORPG-type game of the zombie genre. However, being the only zombie-themed MMORPG (if DF could even qualify as such) does not make the game automatically good when in fact it is mediocre. Sooner or later, another game developer - one that is actually half-decent - will enter the market. Dead Frontier has had almost 2 years of beta to wallow in its own mediocrity. I wonder how much longer that'll last.
All companies produce poor results sometimes, but they are also capable of making great things. But a truly mediocre "company" like Jagged Blade Software (if it even qualifies as a company or game developer and not some guy in a basement with a computer and internet connection) cannot possibly produce anything but truly mediocre results like Dead Frontier. Jagged Blade Software hardly qualifies as a company. It lacks propriety, management, structure, standard practices, basic services, etc. I've seen high school clubs run under better leadership. In terms of the product itself, Dead Frontier is far from an impressive game, and can only be generously called "adequate". Dead Frontier's commercial and entertainment success probably won't be greater than Runescape's, or Kingdom of Loathing's, or Neopet's. Despite a recent announcement about the game's development which promises dramatic, but ultimately unimpressive changes, I doubt even these promises can be met without the results being thoroughly mediocre.
It takes about an hour to do the "Outpost Attack" event. In that hour, you could go jog two, three miles then come back for a hot shower. A full loot run into the city and back at the outpost in the game takes 2, 3, 4 hours or more. In that time, you could watch a movie with friends, possibly finish a short book and learn something, or play another video game that's better-made and more fun. Buying virtual guns in the game like the GAU can cost up to $200 or more real money. With that same amount of money, you can literally buy another game system, 3 or 4 brand new video games, or the new iPod Nano.
A cost-benefit analysis simply doesn't stack up. Playing video games in general could be fun, but that's why people play Modern Warfare 2 or Super Smash Bros. Brawl instead of Pong or Tic-Tac-Toe. They derive more enjoyment and their time is better spent with better games. A disappointingly and deeply mediocre game like Dead Frontier is far from being that "better" game. In the end, after hours of grinding, looting, leveling, etc., perhaps even spending real money on the game, there are simply no worthwhile take-aways.
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