MMORPG.com's Bill Murphy takes a critical look at the post-apocalyptic virtual world MMORPG, Fallen Earth.

Fallen Earth is the type of game fans of MMOs should love to see hit the scene. From a small group of talented developers without coffers the size of Fort Knox, comes a game that hearkens back to the days of MMO-yore while giving the genre a much needed dose of originality. The game is buggy, a bit antiquated in terms of visuals, and has some rough edges that need smoothing, but in a gaming scene populated by products that are all trying to copy one another while spending the budget of a small country, it is certainly refreshing to see the little guy shine.

In a lot of ways Fallen Earth reminds me very much of EVE Online. Both are from unknown developers, had little to no fanfare at launch, and yet both managed to score a small but dedicated fan-base from day one. The latter, as we now know, grew exponentially over the years almost entirely by word of mouth, and I would not be surprised if with time and polish Fallen Earth sees the same trend. But before you start to think this game is my own personal messiah, let's get into the parts I found a little tough to swallow.

Read the Fallen Earth Review.

 A fair review,much better than the 1st review on this site.

Overall, I agree with your "daunting yet promising" review.

In fact, I just started the trial last night. I'm 90% sure already that I'll sub at the end of the trial.

As much as I've defended STO in these forums, I have come to realize that it is too one-dimensional for my tastes. And the more I read about TOR, the less I like what I'm hearing.

So, here I go, in to the apocolypse to live the life!

Agreed. Fair review.

The part about rolling the die to see if you hit has always confused me. I've never missed anything I was aiming at (level 38 atm.)

I've heard this comment before and believe that people are experiencing it, it just doesn't happen to me :)

"open sandbox world"  lolwut ? u can have open world or a sandbox world

FE cant be a sandbox is a theme park

Originally posted by cosy

"open sandbox world"  lolwut ? u can have open world or a sandbox world

 

FE cant be a sandbox is a theme park

Another clueless poster who does not know what a sandbox is.  Please understand what you are talking about before making silly posts.

Good review, I think it is right on.  The game has potential, I hope this game sticks around and improves.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by cosy

"open sandbox world"  lolwut ? u can have open world or a sandbox world

 

FE cant be a sandbox is a theme park

Another clueless poster who does not know what a sandbox is.  Please understand what you are talking about before making silly posts.

if u are so good post here on how many different ways you can acquire the skills needed to craft a ATV  if FE is a sandbox u have options if is not a sandbox u only have on way to get said skill

i wait for your post

Originally posted by cosy

Originally posted by Ozmodan

Originally posted by cosy

"open sandbox world"  lolwut ? u can have open world or a sandbox world

 

FE cant be a sandbox is a theme park

Another clueless poster who does not know what a sandbox is.  Please understand what you are talking about before making silly posts.

if u are so good post here on how many different ways you can acquire the skills needed to craft a ATV  if FE is a sandbox u have options if is not a sandbox u only have on way to get said skill

i wait for your post

You play EVE so you must know it all. OKKKK!!!!

FE is not a very good mmo.. i played it for two months, most people after a month find out that there really isn't much to do besides ap grind, and everything feels like it's done for nothing. .. boo FE you could have been so good :(

Originally posted by Vaedur

FE is not a very good mmo.. i played it for two months, most people after a month find out that there really isn't much to do besides ap grind, and everything feels like it's done for nothing. .. boo FE you could have been so good :(

After a month play? oreally, I am sure everyone will take your word for it. There is nothing else to do except for AP grind, right!!

The replies are getting interesting already and we are still on page 1. I am excited !!

Patch notes of today: http://forums.fallenearth.com/fallenearth/showthread.php?t=31584 with lots of graphics improvements. Yay!

New interview with Lee Hammock: http://www.massively.com/2010/01/06/massively-speaking-episode-83-fallen-earths-lee-hammock/

Cheers

I've been a member on fallen earth for 27 weeks 6 days :) that means i am playing since beta and what do you know i still enjoy it SOOOO MUCH. I haven't got tired of it and i tried other mmos in this time.........allods,alganon, the new LOTRO expansion, WAR......but got tired of them pretty quick and stayed true to FE because it is different in so many ways!

it's weird why dated visuals are always a bad point, if it had up to date visuals then the 1 server thing would not be a viable option due to the increased lag on all ends. it'd be less of an MMO and more of a shard/server fest.

I mean if WoW didn't have cross realm Bgs and Dungeons, it wouldn't even be high on my list.. the visuals are hardly stunning but to fit so many on a server is pretty good and it is the most successful MMO.

Unlike some others with high visuals, what did happen to Vanguard, and i hear AoC is widely popular now.. *cough* then there's tabula rasa... oh wait.... no there isn;t ;)

an MMO MUST have dated visuals as gameplay must come first, it's an MMO (object to get as many people to SUBSCRIBE to it) not a single player game (object to get as many people to buy and play it, complete it in 5 hours and trade in) :-p

not that i think fallen earths visuals are that bad, but reviewers and fanboys (not gamers) from other games have to bitch about something.

Originally posted by cosy

"open sandbox world"  lolwut ? u can have open world or a sandbox world

 

FE cant be a sandbox is a theme park

FE is a mix of Sandbox and Theme Park.

Originally posted by describable

it's weird why dated visuals are always a bad point, if it had up to date visuals then the 1 server thing would not be a viable option due to the increased lag on all ends. it'd be less of an MMO and more of a shard/server fest.

I mean if WoW didn't have cross realm Bgs and Dungeons, it wouldn't even be high on my list.. the visuals are hardly stunning but to fit so many on a server is pretty good and it is the most successful MMO.

Unlike some others with high visuals, what did happen to Vanguard, and i hear AoC is widely popular now.. *cough* then there's tabula rasa... oh wait.... no there isn;t ;)

an MMO MUST have dated visuals as gameplay must come first, it's an MMO (object to get as many people to SUBSCRIBE to it) not a single player game (object to get as many people to buy and play it, complete it in 5 hours and trade in) :-p

not that i think fallen earths visuals are that bad, but reviewers and fanboys (not gamers) from other games have to bitch about something.

Reviewers and Gamers alike have been fed with shiny graphics for too long and since most games are just the same old same old, only graphic quality is what makes the game better than another. It's the reason why I believe players have forgotten that Gameplay > Graphics. DarkFall had similar comments that the graphics are outdated and all that crap (and quite frankly, the environment looks great but that's out of subject).

Either way, had players not been served clones with better graphics, perhaps reviewers woulld not even mention anything about "dated visuals".

---

As for Fallen Earth, the reviewer hasn't mentionned anything about Fallen Earth's story, which is pretty good in my opinion, so I'm left wondering if the reviewer skipped the quest text or not...

Looks like a pretty fair review. 

Originally posted by Getalife

Originally posted by Vaedur

FE is not a very good mmo.. i played it for two months, most people after a month find out that there really isn't much to do besides ap grind, and everything feels like it's done for nothing. .. boo FE you could have been so good :(

 

After a month play? oreally, I am sure everyone will take your word for it. There is nothing else to do except for AP grind, right!!

The replies are getting interesting already and we are still on page 1. I am excited !!

Yes really, i believe that it is not a very good mmo....  and anyone who enjoys it, good for them!

On the other hand, i did see the are working on alot of my complaints (not because of them, lol) as others disliked things too, like adding item degradation..

But..

There is still very little challanging PvE content (and no i'm not talking about instanced raids) and take some time, all the 45's are feeling like nothing to do.. it's obvious it's more a "enjoy slowly" then a "rush through" type game (nothing wrong with that)

A very fair review in my opinion. More in line with what I felt should be the case when the first one was done. Additionally having known the reviewer from when I spent some time on another MMO site I have confidence in the integrity of the review.

MMORPG.com will benefit in having Murph conduct reviews in my estimation. Heck, I wanna work for the site now, lol!

Originally posted by Guillermo197

 

Patch notes of today: http://forums.fallenearth.com/fallenearth/showthread.php?t=31584 with lots of graphics improvements. Yay!

New interview with Lee Hammock: http://www.massively.com/2010/01/06/massively-speaking-episode-83-fallen-earths-lee-hammock/

Cheers

Is there a non-member link so I can read the notes? Are they posted elsewhere? When I check the forum link it says I need to be a registered member to view them.

Thanks for the review. I've shared a simmilar experience in the game during my 14 day trial. I found the tutorial helpful but information planly stated by players was far more informative then the info delivered by the NPC's. I found that to be an annoyance as I wanted to grasp the basic mechanics of the game via the tutorials and not just be given a platform to Q&A the community (which I found to be extremly helpful and delightful).

I found I had a hard time getting past the visuals and with max settings things looked decent but chugged massivly in towns and dense areas. So I had to turn things down a bit and the visual loss was significant. Animation and the puppet factor also kept drawing me out of the game. Perhaps I picked a bad starting town but nature is full of color, I don't understand why the apocolypse has to be "brown-town". Even 100 years from now plants will be green in the desert, not a muted-olive ontop of brown/grey dirt.

Visuals aside, I really did find the game exciting. One thing I'd like to comment on is the lack of rolemodels. Weather as an NPC or player, I lacked any carrot to grow. Perhaps town guards with some cool looking gear would incentivize me  a bit, but everyone around town was in noobie gear (the NPC"s) and the few players I saw looked just as lack-luster.

I know there exists advanced gear which players strive for and makes your road-warrior character look more like a brotherhood of steel character, but all that is hidden from you initally and maybe I've just grown to desire that carrot to lead me twards higher aspirations from the get-go.

Just my 2 cents.