Colin Dwan is the Project Manager for Fallen Earth. Just after the game's September 22nd launch, he spoke to Managing Editor Jon Wood about the game, it's launch, going up against Aion and much more. Find out what went right and what went wrong right from the team that brought this post-apocalyptic MMORPG to market.

MMORPG.com: Fallen Earth launched on the same day as Aion, a game with a large studio and a lot of hype behind it. How, if at all, did that affect the launch of Fallen Earth?

Colin Dwan: Some have asked if we consider Aion a competitor, and in short, we don’t. Their goals and game are very different than ours. It is really nice to see MMOs take more of a presence in the games industry. Aion has raised a lot of buzz, and it’s good to see more participation from the community.

Read it all here.

First !

Good review!
I bought the game on the launch day and I'm not regretting it !

Interesting interview.

The bit about not having a major publisher, I think this worked in their favour as did releasing on the same day as aion massively. Aion will have taken a lot of players who may have tried the game just to 'fill a gap' even if the game blatantly wasn't their thing. This happens all the time and those initial 'bad reviews' are damaging. Also (at least for me)  no publisher gave the game a dev participation feel (like MO) and I love that, it also helps to manage expectations, big publishers hype the game like mad, it's thier job, in the end nothing could live up to the expectations they enduce. Good for initial sales not so for longevity.

I like the talk about fans being proponents and marketing but its a fine balance when listening to the fan base, they need to keep an eye on the level headed not the fanbois, they're just as deadly to a game as haters.

Dodged the question on water, may be a reason for that? I hope down the road they take out the repair kits and limit the crafting abilites to go into higher tier at least.

I'm loving the game too and I think Icarus have a winner on their hands. Nice, short interview which I read with interest.

I think he's wrong though that they were not competing with Aion. Just because you have two very different games, doesn't mean you don't compete for people's attention and money. The point is that they released the same week and it was a choice between them for many players. It was for me.

I had to chose between Aion and Fallen Earth as well.  I chose Aion because it was polished but may look to try Fallen Earth again in the future.

  I love their approach and  the fact that they are not some money hungry whores. Of course they want your money but at least they don't show and they don't want to get rich over night. Slow and steady! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK Icarus i for one love the game!

I have to say I haven't seen an interview from any FE staff yet where they said something that threw up warning flags for me. With respect to what I want out of an MMO they get it better than any other dev house out there now.

This is truly a decent game with more potential for any others out there.  I hope things go well and if it is still kicking strong in a couple of months I may give it a go.  Right now still playing/enjoying CO ( let the flames begin ) and do not have time for more than 1 MMO.

If I get to the point where CO has lost its luster I may come over to FE.  It was a toss up for me between these 2.  I finally chose CO because I felt that FE required a larger time commitment to get to some of the content than I was willing to commit too. 

Great concept, good backstory, interesting open game play, and PvP end game.  There is lots of potential for expansion and where this game goes is anyone's guess.  Just remember that right now this only includes a small section of Utah!!!!!

a few things still on my list...

water ditch in monkeytown
travel times overly long (steam train)
costume clothing / clothing toggles
crafting que ability to pause one and craft another (shift priorities)
radiation barrier defined more obvious,, with rad meter clicker
vehicles need vehicle physics (jumping)
horse population gonna be a problem after release as in 100+ horses standing in oil
repeatable quests not identified
need grenage physics includes the poisons and acids
need shotgun physics not slug
shotgun damage out of wach 410 is the smallest NOT the bigest (12,20,410)
factions are wattery and have no unique contrast.
no player chat channels
no tiered clan bank security
need more player choice in crafting dyeing or other customizations like a blue mororcycle or green berret or spicy chicken (vs normal chicken)
no /follow command
no /drag command
ability to abort a loot or harvest by moving (foward)
if i had to pick the most critical for game it would be vehicle physics and customization,, even though the train and shotguns are important to me.
 

I expected more of a interview, but as the PM stated. If you want more information, go to the FE website.

However on my part, I am still enjoying the game to this day and have noticed a ton of fixes since the CB & OB with Fileplanet.

Keep up the good work FE, you have my support.

Finally a spokesperson for a game that can give an interview without stepping on his crank.  Makes me want to find out more.

my short review

this has little to offer a veteran player,, the overall game is a bit striped down and unfinished

many of the pyhsics engines are outright missing  like vehicles  they are ground huggers  and no ability o customize vehicles.

there is no grenade physics or shotgun physics  this means grenades dont work like you would think a grenade is supose to work  and a shotgun isnt a shotgun its actually a slow large bore rifle.

there are many quality control errors that were never addressed  like there are 3 types for every ammo in the game

so you got a medium rifle  you could have 3 different types of the exact same ammo taking up precious inventory space  and if you have a pistol thats 3 more  shotgun 3 more  stupid.

factons have a great premice but its in name only  factons are basicly all the same,, example  your anti tech tree hugging vistas still ride the same bikes and buggys as everyone else   most people go enforcer because guns are the primary combat mode and they are also centrally located  oh yess crossbows become obsolete at skill 60 or about level 15 another very stupid move for an aftermath game

the PVP is very flat and simplistic  basicly a gun and knife fight   there are no  mines or mortars or cantapults or  flame cannons  or anything that would make combat PVP interesting  and vehicle weapons are pathetic at best.

the costume clothing system,, they have a wide asortment of costume clothing but they begin becoming obsolete as soon as you exit the spasn tutorial  as they use a stat clothing system they also do not have ANY clothing toggles  so by the time your in S2  or S3  your wearing whatever armor is required for your given level.

the world itself feels like your basic unreal world construct  at star wars galaxy time frame  the performance was still prety low  11-14 fps  when i should have been getting 30-40

the higher you go in level the more stark and unfinished the zones

the water in gme is artifical and uninteractable so you can get stuck between the water and the edge of a ditch

the travel distances are horrible and very seriously effect many aspects of game play like grouping and even the auction (who wants to travel 20 minutes just to check the AH?) 

there are some redeaming features

best day night cycle ive encountered  as in true looking sky and stars

rifle scopes are great!  a must have on a rifle

the crafting and the forragables,salvagables,mineables are TOP NOTCH  while I have some small problems with the system  it has a great foundation.  need more player input than the precaned recipies.

my recomendation is revisit this game in 6mo or a year and see if they corrected these defects

Originally posted by brenth

a few things still on my list...

water ditch in monkeytown
travel times overly long (steam train)
costume clothing / clothing toggles
crafting que ability to pause one and craft another (shift priorities)
radiation barrier defined more obvious,, with rad meter clicker
vehicles need vehicle physics (jumping)
horse population gonna be a problem after release as in 100+ horses standing in oil
repeatable quests not identified
need grenage physics includes the poisons and acids
need shotgun physics not slug
shotgun damage out of wach 410 is the smallest NOT the bigest (12,20,410)
factions are wattery and have no unique contrast.
no player chat channels
no tiered clan bank security
need more player choice in crafting dyeing or other customizations like a blue mororcycle or green berret or spicy chicken (vs normal chicken)
no /follow command
no /drag command
ability to abort a loot or harvest by moving (foward)
if i had to pick the most critical for game it would be vehicle physics and customization,, even though the train and shotguns are important to me.
 

thats a nice wish list mate, can't say I disagree with any of them apart from not wanting a /follow or needing a /drag oh and I like the travel times.

The shotgun I haven't got to yet and can't say I noticed the harvesting not having an interupt. I would add get rid of repair kit for armour and weps and restrict high lvl crafting per char. Other than that very nice list.

ya this guy is great!  didnt he use to do PR for sadam?  you know the guy,, the one that said iraqi forces had driven the americans into the sea  as M1 tanks were basicly in the background driving into bagdad :P

I was a long time beta tester, and though I really wanted to like the game, I couldn't get over the targeting system.  It sadly was a deal breaker for me.  If I wanted to play a console game or FPS, I'd play those.  MMORPGs are SUPPOSED to be different games.

Sadly, FE's twitch cross-hair combat just isn't for me (esp. in a game with PvP).  The day they give me tab/locked targeting is the day I subscribe.

 Good to see a realistic approach by a developer for a change instead of delusions of grandeur.

Originally posted by Oyjord

I was a long time beta tester, and though I really wanted to like the game, I couldn't get over the targeting system.  It sadly was a deal breaker for me.  If I wanted to play a console game or FPS, I'd play those.  MMORPGs are SUPPOSED to be different games.

 

Sadly, FE's twitch cross-hair combat just isn't for me (esp. in a game with PvP).  The day they give me tab/locked targeting is the day I subscribe.

So knowing that you still decided to play the only game in the world (?) with twitch based combat that requires skill?

I know that you might suffer from some mental or physical handicap, so im not gonna make fun of that stuff, so im just gonna agree with you that if manual targeting is too hard for you for some reason, maybe you should go for any of the 50 000 wow clones out there right now with Hello Kitty style of combat instead?

My 92 (!!!) year old grandmother could handle Crysis btw on easy setting and had no really big problem aiming, only Strafing was a problem for her. Well, for the first 10 minutes atleast.

Its not that hard to aim with the mouse if you just dare to try it.

Good interview.

Personally I love the game, but I kinda wish the buzz would slow down. The new players are great, the legion of trolls on all the sites are just getting tiring now.

Funny thing so many of the bashing posts start with "I never played FE, but ..."

Its weird to me to bash a game you never played.

Altogether, I give them a solid B on launch quality.

They certainly gave it a best effort.

The interview actually worries me. There was nothing of substance - there were no concrete plans of content or additions. I am liking the game, but I am not seeing myself play it past a couple of months.

It just seems - bland now.

It's still the same old kill x, or find y and bring to me quests.

It is beginning to look more theme parkish rather thand sandbox the more I play.

going off other interviews and dev comments, they plan expansions every 3-4 months, each adding a new 15 level sector to the game. the final plan is supposedly 10 sectors total, each covering a 15 level range. max level cap is 150. rumor is the game will expand up to ruined Las Vegas. not unlike the upcoming Fallout 3 stand-alone expansion.

also read a comment a couple weeks back that sector 4 is nearly done, and they are busy working on sector 5. plus early work on sector 6. they have a smaller team so it will take a while to get all that done. but at least now you know they ARE working on new content and have it planned for a long time to come.

Originally posted by Dekron

The interview actually worries me. There was nothing of substance - there were no concrete plans of content or additions. I am liking the game, but I am not seeing myself play it past a couple of months.

It just seems - bland now.

It's still the same old kill x, or find y and bring to me quests.

It is beginning to look more theme parkish rather thand sandbox the more I play.

Dek, just an fyi, as far as "new stuff" or "added content", they started working on S4 months ago. Expect an expansion for S4 within a few months or sooner.

As far as the "same old, Same old" when it comes to missions, guess what, every game that will ever be made will have those. There simply arent other ways to make quests that can encompass all players without giving an advantage to a specific type of class.

If you can come up with quests that are different that dont offer advantages to certain classes or specs fell free to post them.

If you really think about it, there arent really any other ways to do quests.

Question: Do you HAVE to have horrifically stupid looking white-guy dreads in Fallen Earth?

Originally posted by Zerocyde

Question: Do you HAVE to have horrifically stupid looking white-guy dreads in Fallen Earth?

Is the any other kind of "white guy" dreads that arent "horrifically stupid looking"?

Originally posted by Oyjord

I was a long time beta tester, and though I really wanted to like the game, I couldn't get over the targeting system.  It sadly was a deal breaker for me.  If I wanted to play a console game or FPS, I'd play those.  MMORPGs are SUPPOSED to be different games.

 

Sadly, FE's twitch cross-hair combat just isn't for me (esp. in a game with PvP).  The day they give me tab/locked targeting is the day I subscribe.

that is very true  its definatly not a polished combat system,, you have to enter combat mode and aim to hit targets  but they have anoying things like localized grass that  blocks your ability to hit low things like snakes and ants  and they have  oodles of  combat moves and mutation powers ect  but its exceedingly hard to actually use them in combat    and there is VERY little to deal with multiple enemies     like the shotgun  is a single target  weapon  and is a very poor weapon even against   dogs and zombies ect where you would think it would excell,, same for grenades   there mechanics is so hard and alien they are effectivle unused  this includes acids and poisons  (there basicly a type of grenade too)