The Warz Cheats, Hacks and Aimbot!

We got a new patch a couple of days ago, and this was a big one. This was a very visual update, the look of War Z has been changed. Some of the changes are very obvious, some are quite subtle. You may have already logged in and taken a look, but there are a few differences that you might have missed.

Change of Clothes

Tired of the clothes you picked during character creation? Gained some unwanted notoriety with that tshirt? Want to change things up without spinning a new character? Hammerpoint has got you covered. Next time you log in, look for the ‘change outfit’ button on the character selection screen. Feel free to try some stuff on, and have fun dressing like your friends and enemies. We like to think that clothes can now carry some sort of meaning, and look forward to the day when killing redshirts is a thing.

Go West

Developer Johnny Truant made a thread about how nobody ever goes to the western side of the map. He detailed some of his favorite parts and commended the team for developing a beautiful environment, but lamented that the area isn’t worth players’ time and effort to explore. The War Z team decided to fix this by adding a gauntlet of zombies and some serious loot at the end. The area is built to resemble a safe settlement that was overrun, and the respawn rate has been tweaked so that zombies don’t reappear on top of players.

Graphics

The visual environment has been updated in a lot of ways. Landscaping has become overgrown since the outbreak, and plants can now be see creeping their way into buildings. Lighting has bee adjusted, and so has the beam from the flashlight. Fog is now a bit more realistic, and textures and graphics have been optimized everywhere. Your graphics settings are now simpler and easier to use. The Asian character now looks a little bit different, his name is Club Promoter and he is joined by the Park Ranger and Ex-Spetsnaz.

Time to Talk

VOIP has been altered through trial and error. Now a person using Voice Proximity Chat will have their name displayed in the right corner of the screen for everyone within earshot. No more looking around for the guy with the icon over his head. Don’t like what he’s saying? You can mute him no matter how close or far he is.

Bugs

Bug fixes this time around include eliminating the no-recoil perk when you switch to single fire mode. You’ll now have to turn to War Z cheats for your recoil-removal needs. Likewise, snipers will now have to breath while using chat unless they also use War Z hacks.

This was the announcement made by forums admin Kewk today at 3:12 pm. He then went on to explain that they had uncovered an issue that was causing connectivity problems for some users. The only fix for this issue involves shutting down the servers…until further notice. There is no ETA for bringing them back up, either. That was three hours ago, and there have not been any updates yet. Kewk assured us that he would let us know as soon as he had any additional information, and thanked us for our patience. Then those servers spun down, and left us all sitting here alone in the dark.

Connectivity

Issues with logging on and staying connected have plagued the game recently. Last week the issue was pinned squarely on the Voice Over IP feature that allows for proximity chat and videos like this. In this case, responsibility lay with the middleware VOIP provider. The servers went down last Thursday to disable voice chat, and were restarted again on Friday after the issue was resolved. That’s actually quite a few restarts in a week, in case you’re keeping track. Naturally, the servers went down in the mid-afternoon and evening, when most people want to play. On the other hand, it was a nice gesture for those who were having connectivity issues and could finally enjoy the game again.

The System is Down

We all thought the issue was resolved, but here we are with the servers down on a Friday evening…again. With no game to play, fans have gravitated to the forums to discuss possible reasons for the downtime. Is it an incognito PunkBuster update to better catch War Z cheats? While several players are keeping their fingers crossed for their connectivity issues to be resolved, others are rooting to an end to the rampant War Z aimbot problem. Opinions on the forums are pretty evenly split between those tired of timeouts, and those who just want to get back to headshotting zombies.

Renewed Confidence

It’s worth noting that, unlike previous outages, nobody is raving that it’s all over this time. Usually when the servers go down with no ETA, there are multiple parties raving that Hammerpoint has finally taken the money and run. This time, no one is making dire predictions that the game is gone for good, and everyone is biding their time more or less patiently. Sure, the prime time shutdown could have been better planned, but it might be worth it to fix the problems that have plagued so many in the last couple of weeks.

Trading is a serious deal in War Z. Just like real life, it can be very difficult to tell if the person you are dealing with is honest, or just trying to scam you. There are a number of ways to make life suck for your prospective trading partner, from lying about what you’ve got in your backpack to grabbing their gear and heading for the hills. Many savvy players have abandoned trades altogether except with friends and clan-mates. Anyone offering to trade is probably either a total noob or a scammer. However, some players are trying to change the face of trading by flaunting their successful trade records and offering advice to other players. Here is some of their wisdom.

Develop a Reputation

The Official War Z forums has a trading rep page where people can report successful interactions with other players. Good traders can generally be considered safe to trade with because that reputation follows a player out of the game and into the slightly-less-anonymous community.

Get a Screenshot

A picture of the item you are trading for is a great way to tell if another player actually has that amazing gun, or if they’re just lying through their teeth. Likewise, a screenshot of your own item gives yourself some credibility. This isn’t a new concept, people on internet forums have demanded photographic evidence for plenty of things, often with a sign including the date to show that the person in question didn’t just grab that picture from an image search. Screenshots during your trades can also help you label scammers for what they are.

Use a Middle Man

Some players with exceptionally good reputations are willing to act as middle men in safe areas, holding items for both traders and confirming that all items are as described. This is not an official or game-sanctioned transaction, however, and the middle man’s good rep is your only guarantee that he isn’t about to take off with both of your gear. A player with a good trading reputation and a lengthy forums history is probably a safe bet, but remember that everyone has a price.

The servers are back up! Now we have proximity voice chat and can actually talk to the people closest to us in the game. This feature has been requested since the earliest days of the alpha release, and for good reason. The ability to physically speak to someone in the game is supposed to help players cooperate and have more positive interactions and less shooting on sight. It also grants the ability to scream obscenities and verbally abuse other players until they put you on mute. Inappropriate sound tracks, crying children, and excessively loud music are all hazards of voice chat during gameplay. You might meet someone with a cute voice, or you might meet an angry twelve-year-old with an affinity for swear words.

Voice proximity chat can lead to some very positive interactions, and some terrible experiences. Apparently it can also lead to some seriously weird situations, as evidenced by the following video, uploaded to the War Z forums twelve minutes after the servers came back up:

In a safe zone, a whole crew of players are having a party to the tune of Yakety Sax, thanks to voice proximity chat. We’re not sure who’s playing the music, honestly. We’d probably have to mute everyone just to find out. Everyone seems to be having a good time saying hello, dancing, and…humping?

So far the only other video seems to mostly consist of players arguing about bad trades and how the game should regulate them. We think that taking your chances with trades is all part of them game, and those who want really safe trades should go look for a PVE server or something. The rest of us will just party.

It was an alpha release, and we all knew that War Z was going to be filled with bugs of all sorts. While the dev team continues to fix the game, add content, and then fix that, let’s take a look at some of the most hilarious, bizarre, and outrageous bugs the game has seen.

Walking Downhill Hurts

This one was fixed last month and everyone affected was handsomely rewarded for the inconvenience. For three days, walking downhill caused players to take damage. Running away from zombies? Gravity isn’t going to help you this time.

Run Through Walls!

Are those players and zombies using a War Z wall hack? Nope, it’s just a bug that occasionally makes the walls less solid than they should be. Probably not noticed by everyone, and written off as War Z cheats by anyone who saw it in Camp Splinter, we’re not sure how long this one lasted.

Tyler’s Ranch Free-for-All

This bug caused loot to spawn far too frequently in the Tyler’s Ranch area of the map. Many few players figured it out and got rich this way, the hotfix that patched this bug was met with cries of dismay.

Grass? What Grass?

Another favorite War Z hack, grass removal was also a bug at one point. The texture tended to disappear when aiming down the sights of a weapon, which was less useful for finding loot on the ground but quite handy for sniping zombies and other players.

Death from Behind

Early in the alpha release, sneaking up behind someone and whacking them with a melee weapon got you an instant kill. The sneaking was still the hard part, but double-teaming an opponent usually made things very easy.

Ghost Zombies

Ever feel like something just walked up and started munching on your brains? Invisible zombies was one of the first and most exciting bugs. You can’t run from what you can’t see, and your best bet was to flail wildly in all directions and hope for the best. Players could sometimes become invisible as well, which was as awesome as it sounds.

Levitation

Spawning in the air was a horrible bug, you could take falling damage the moment you logged on. Loot spawning in midair was actually kind of cool though, that can of beans or pistol would float before yur eyes like a heavenly vision.

Everything is Free

This game-breaking bug was exhilarating while it lasted. For just a short time, transactions at the trading post were not recorded and everything was effectively free. This is the one that led to the server-reset and wiped out 12 hours worth of gameplay. It was awesome, but we knew it couldn’t last.

In a recent developer diary, dev Sagor did a little bit of explaining about the servers that host our favorite zombie game. Topics included ping times, server locations, and the need for speed in the War Z. We’re happy to report that Hammerpoint is being a little more open now about their pricing structures. So what did we learn?

What’s a Server?

In case you are completely oblivious, a server is a giant computer that sits in a large air-conditioned room in a data center somewhere. The job of this machine is to process enormous amounts of data and connect users to each other. In the case of an MMO game, the server collects and saves the data, allows players to interact, and sometimes does a bit more. In the case of War Z, the user computers do most of the heavy-lifting. All the calculating is done on player computers, which then report back to the server what’s going on. This is why War Z cheats have been so easy to use. The servers simply keep track of everything and coordinate player interactions. BF3, the PlanetSide games, and Arma 2 all use this type of server-client relationship, but the standalone Day Z servers will be the ones doing the bulk of the computing when the game is finally released.

Where Do They Live?

Servers demand a lot of power and a lot of cooling, so they are usually located inside data centers run by server-hosting companies. Sagor has reported that War Z has servers in three different data center across the United States. The also have a bank of servers in the Netherlands that host European players. Hammerpoint did not expect the demand for private servers to be quite so high when they originally implemented the service, and they have since had to ask their service providers to rent them enough machines to satisfy player demand.

What’s Up with the Pricing?

Hammerpoint hasn’t made the best choices in the MMO business, and so they are currently stuck renting some particularly expensive servers in the US. While they are free to change providers and drop their European hosts, they are contractually obligated to stick with their US servers for the time being. The US provider was not able to provide service in a timely fashion after Hammerpoint realized how much everyone loves a private server, so Hammerpoint decided to change the price of server rentals to reflect demand.

Speed?

It’s no secret that the EU servers are faster than the US servers, but the contract prevents Hammerpoint from getting better US service. How much faster? Not enough to be noticeable or make a difference, the team has reported after running some tests. Maybe it would if War Z was a fast-paced FPS, but it’s not and there isn’t the same need for speed.

We’re currently counting down until 4pm when the War Z servers are supposed to come back up after a new patch. Sure, it’s only been a couple of weeks since the last one, but it still feels like a long time. We’re eagerly awaiting the new voice chat that is being added right this very second. Extra loot is another exciting change this time around, and of course there’s always the bug fixes that make everyone’s lives easier.

Voice Chat

Proximity voice chat has been something that users have requested since the beginning of the game. The ability to actually speak to people in your vicinity means a whole lot in a pvp game. It’s easy to just blow away anything that moves with your War Z aimbot, and the easy availability of guns makes player interaction unnecessary. However, it seems that Hammerpoint might be trying to foster a little more cooperation between players who are otherwise unconnected. They’re probably not going to go whole-hog and take almost every gun out of the game a la Day Z, so our beloved pvp survival game will remain intact for the foreseeable future.

When the servers spin back up in a few minutes, it will be important to remember that talking via proximity voice chat will give away your position and make you vulnerable to snipers. Your default push to talk button will be T until you rebind somewhere more convenient, we’re fond of those little extra buttons on our fancy trackballs. If you don’t like talking to live humans, you can always disable voice chat in the options menu. This is the same place you’ll probably need to set up your mic and speakers before being able to hurl insults at the newbs. An all-important mute option will be available when you hit Tab and then click on a player’s name, in case you’re tired of being screamed at.

Other Fancy Stuff

Other new additions for this patch include the ability to duel-weild handguns, they can now be equipped in both primary and secondary slots. Have fun pretending to be Lara Croft. Zombies are set to drop more and better loot, and global loot spawns have been increased everywhere. Let the rejoicing begin! Bug fixes include toxicity now remaining within the laws of physics by no longer topping 100%. The range finder will now stay on your screen while switching weapons in a safe zone, so you won’t need that particular War Z hack. Last but not least, binoculars will no longer inform you that they contain negative ammunition upon use. That is all.

Things are abuzz on the official War Z Forums, where developer Sergey Titov has opened a can of worms by asking players what is on their minds today. While Hammerpoint may never reach the level of responsiveness that SOE has developed with the PlanetSide 2 community, and Titov will never be Day Z‘s Dean Hall, the makers of War Z have been working hard at improving their image and proving everyone wrong. Early critics dismissed the game as a cheap knockoff and a cash grab, and every rough patch has been heralded as the end of War Z.

Despite all the drama, Hammerpoint has persisted in improving both their game and their image. From coming clean about the recent security issues, to personally responding to player suggestions, Titov and the gang have gradually become respectable developers. One of more recent ways of reaching out to the fanbase is Sergey’s weekly question for players: What’s on your mind? This query has been posted to the forums in Titov’s loveable Russian-English grammar, as What you’re expecting from the game this week?

More Guns

A favored comedy response, the request for more firepower isn’t entirely reasonable. However, another player brings up an issue with ammunition and weapons stored in the Global Inventory. When a weapon is taken from the Global Inventory and placed in a bag, the amount of ammo in that weapon changes randomly. Hammerpoint has worked at varying the amount of ammunition found inside weapons when they spawn, so that each found weapon is not fully loaded. The idea is to mirror a real-life disaster scenario, where guns have been discarded in various states by their former owners. An accidental oversight has resulted in ammunition amounts randomly changing whenever a given weapon is put down and picked back up again.

Better Anti-Cheat

The same complaint players have had since the game’s release, Hammerpoint still hasn’t managed to crack down on players using War Z cheats. The addition of BF3′s FairFight has helped to catch the most obvious War Z hacks, but the cheaters just keep getting more subtle. Genius hackers continue to develop more sophisticated programs to prevent a War Z aimbot or ESP hack from being detected. Some truly skilled players have also been falsely accused of hacking, so it is difficult to tell whether the continued complaints are well-founded. That said, Hammerpoint has promised to roll out an even better anti-cheat in the next couple of months.

A New Map

This has been a much-anticipated addition to the game since the whole Steam debacle. Currently, we are stuck with the Colorado map. Every player knows the place by heart and has their own paths and routines for loot-hunting. Colorado has gotten terribly predictable. At one point we heard some news about a California map. It would be even bigger, it would have drivable vehicles, it would give players some new places to explore. The devs have been pretty silent on this one lately, we’re hoping the speak up soon. Most players would be happy just to see things changed up a bit in the Colorado map. More settlements, random loot spawns, more reasons to get off the beaten path.

Hammerpoint recently announced, via the Official War Z forums, that the company would be implementing a better, faster, and more sensitive anti-cheat program in the near future. Since the very beginning, the game has been filled with players using blatant War Z hacks. As the company has improved its ability to detect and remove these players, War Z cheats have gotten more subtle and are now less likely to affect everyone on the server. Gone are the days when rogue players would randomly teleport everyone into a barn to fight amongst themselves. Today’s cheater is more likely to be using a War Z aimbot and picking his shots carefully in order to be less obvious. This stealth-cheating has made it much more difficult for observers to sit around watching for bad behavior, banhammer in hand. Hammerpoint has been slowly improving their ability to detect and eliminate cheating, though the company has been criticized for being slow and ham-handed about the process, as well as publicly denying that there was a cheating problem to begin with. What is Hammerpoint arming themselves with, and what are they likely to use in the future?

FairFight

This is the current solution to the problem, FairFight uses a proprietary engine to examine player behavior in real time, and reports back to the developers when it spots someone doing the impossible or improbable. Rather than handing out insta-bans, FairFight merely flags certain players for direct observation. This is a relatively new program to hit the anti-cheat scene, although it has been spotted on some BF3 servers since last year. Designed by the Game Blocks company, FairFight does not run on user’s devices and so its ability to ferret out cheaters is fairly limited.

Valve Anti-Cheat

Developed way back in 2012, VAC is credited with banning millions of Steam accounts. Valve’s proprietary anti-cheat system scans users’ computer memory looking for suspicious code. When an anomaly is detected, Valve’s engineers examine the code to see if it’s actually a hack. Cheat codes are added to a database, and when a player is discovered using a known hack, they are banned. VAC is designed to be difficult to hack. It’s worth noting that not every game available through Steam uses VAC, though it’s possible that this is what Hammerpoint is planning on implementing in a few months.

PunkBuster

Designed by Even Balance, this is another third-party program that could be in War Z’s future. Software developer Tony Ray founded the company after experiencing the ravages of hackers in Team Fortress Classic. Like VAC, PunkBuster scans the memory of users’ machines looking for known cheat codes. It also places a client on the user’s computer and sometimes even takes screenshots during gameplay to look for signs of cheats. PunkBuster is a less likely choice for Hammerpoint simply because the program does not play well with Steam.

As part of Hammerpoint’s plan to better respond to their fanbase, developer Sergey Titov has been using the Official War Z Forums to respond to some suggestions and complaints. While he hasn’t always been great at addressing player concerns promptly and respectfully, Titov has been gradually improving his image lately. The the biggest complain is, of course, the use of War Z hacks and the lack of an effective system for detecting and banning those who make use of War Z cheats. Hammerpoint has vowed to integrate a more sensitive and effective anti-cheat system sometime in the next few months. Meanwhile, Titov has addressed some other fan feedback recently.

Spawn Protection

This has been a big issue, so many players get spawnkilled and that’s just frustrating when you’re not even carrying anything of value. Spawn protection was added with a recent patch, and there has been great rejoicing.

Better Admin Controls for Private Servers

Administrators of private servers should be able to ban unruly players and set criteria that prospective players must fulfill before being allowed to join. Server-wide messages as log-on and announcements would also be nice and give private servers a greater sense of community. Titov reports that this dream will become a reality eventually, but it’s a fairly complex operation and will require quite a bit of effort on the part of the dev team.

Character Customization

One of the great joys of participating in an MMO is the ability to make a character that you enjoy staring at for hours. Players enjoy character customization so much that games like PlanetSide 2 can let everyone play for free because so many people will pay small amounts in order to change their character’s appearance. Titov is aware of this, and Hammerpoint is planning to include more options in the future.

Improving the Mini Map

It can be hard to get around Colorado when you’re unfamiliar with a particular area. The current mini map isn’t great. Titov tells us that they are planning to overhaul the mini map in the near future.

Zombie Spawns

There’s nothing more irritating than smashing your way through a legion of zombies with a shovel, only to have them respawn again moments later. Zombies really shouldn’t be spawning on top of people either, Day Z at least has figured out that it’s unrealistic. Titov reports that the devs are crunching numbers and hoping to optimize spawning to make it just right.

Melee Weapons

Most players thought melee weapons were too slow, and the devs have already addressed this in a recent patch, upping the speed of pretty much everything. This was a remarkably timely adjustment that just goes to show that Hammerpoint is getting a lot better at responding to their fans in a positive way.