I loved the game, there are not enough MMOs that are into actual role play like FOM is.

The diverse factions are all very interesting and the setting is damn good. I've only been playing for less than a day and I can see that it is a solid game.

However, it is brought down on the following faults: There are too many police. Not a bad thing you'd think, but these police don't ask questions they just shoot, it is impossible to complete a single objective in NYC without being ganked. Now despite the fact that I chose the Brotherhood Of Shadows faction, a faction that deals with drugs, I have never intended to kill anyone in the game. So as I go about my business I just walk, no guns out, barely any armor and then the boys in blue come hurling at me with the biggest guns you've ever seen. They don't bother to check to see if I plan to attack. They just shoot, I've never seen a single guy in blue choose to use their arresting function, which would be more than enough to prevent crime. It's just not proper role play for a police to gun down anyone that isn't in blue, if that were the case we wouldn't have a police force because they're just murderers.

And then the deaths just kill me. Seriously it's great that you are cloned. What isn't great, however, is the time it takes to regenerate your health and then try and find where you were -because you have to be a premium member just to teleport to a direct location of your choice- before you were shot down in cold blood. And then you realise that you have lost all of your ammo that you haven't yet loaded into your guns. That's another thing; if you have a high quality gun you have to buy high quality ammo too. So you find the right ammo but then the quality doesn't match so you don't have any ammo for your gun...

There is a lack of direction to start with, which didn't bother me too much because it gives oppertunity to search. But there isn't anything to do unless you're being shot at or talking to more experienced people that tell you not to Rage Quit. The reason why there are so many Rage Quiters is because there is a lack of respect for other factions. If you're not blue then you may aswell be a Jew in the holocaust.

I may continue to play a bit longer as it is a very interesting game... You'll know when you see me, I'm called Donnie Brasco

x

I am quite surprised that you would not have figured this out from anywhere in the game or its forums, but at the moment your chosen faction is in a very vicious war with the police and military.. So obviously they will kill you when they see you.  Now, i'll have my own list of complaints about Face of Mankind, however, I feel that the particular one you've chosen to bring to light is not quite justified considering the current in game situation.

As for the other problems, those are just things that come with learning the game and its general playstyle that you'll come to understand over time.  High Quality stuff is expensive, it's high quality.. there are two lower levels of quality you could choose from and not spend quite so much for one.. you lose things when you die, so use your storage, ask around and talk to other players, they'll inform you on how to stay alive and stop losing so much.

Ahhh, I see. I certainly was not aware of the war going on and that does explain a lot.

Well, like I said I do enjoy the game it is worth having a look at, at the very least. I suppose it's important for a new player to not only research the faction based on what the game says but to look a lot closer at actual player activity, as they are the ones whom are pretty much running how the game currently works.

Obviously one rant won't change this, but I am still not a fan of the "Shoot now, ask questions later" approach that those in a faction war choose to take. There is no helping it. That is undeniable. I just sort of wish that the game had a status indiactor of a player's level (And thus their threat -or lack thereof- to you) I know this will never happen as it is a Role Play and it's not realistic to have floating numbers above you :L And still the regeneration time in the cloning chamber is a bit of a bother, but I suppose if you play the game far more strategically you will not die quite as many times as I have.

I think it's more worth to play the game as a civilian...

x

Ah, man. This game could have been great, it could have been something great, something original. But these assholes had to ruin it, didn't they.

I played the game the pvp takes a bit to master but that wasnt a problem. The problem is faction imbalance, you can have multiple factions with different agendas, but you can never let one or maybe two factions dominate everyone else by default. This would be like WOW except one faction cant openly pvp while the other gets free access to your towns and can kill with no reason and imprison you for retaliation. I found that how do you say, stupid. They hide behind the mask of it being a RP driven game, but in a purly player driven game where all factions are equal to begin with, there is no default imbalance. I think games like Fallen Earth and Earthrise have emulated this game while avoiding those pitfalls, sort of its own genre at this point.

Originally posted by Azaria

I played the game the pvp takes a bit to master but that wasnt a problem. The problem is faction imbalance, you can have multiple factions with different agendas, but you can never let one or maybe two factions dominate everyone else by default. This would be like WOW except one faction cant openly pvp while the other gets free access to your towns and can kill with no reason and imprison you for retaliation. I found that how do you say, stupid. They hide behind the mask of it being a RP driven game, but in a purly player driven game where all factions are equal to begin with, there is no default imbalance. I think games like Fallen Earth and Earthrise have emulated this game while avoiding those pitfalls, sort of its own genre at this point.

Not so true , and waht i mean by that is, all fraction are actual tighly bound to thier roles. and each fraction has sertain aspects that forces other fractions to react either positive or negative its not uncommon that several fractions team up to reballance the game.

it  almost sound if you went to a dominion (goverment) planet and started to shoot up some led (police fraction) if you were randomly killed by a led then you just have to follow the rules and report him to the right people whitin that fraction. the downside to every fraction incleuding led and fdc is that there are pow pow pow kids and their are gank lulz pwn f2p bastards not to mention the guy who realy are intrested in the game for what it is but lack the finese it sometimes requires.

its as mutch a fps as its a political / roleplay game.

as i said the fractions usaly do a fine job balancing themself , else everyting in the game would be fdc or Led owned by now , one has the years of skill and the other got plenty of pow pow pow cant stop my trigger finger.

today I went back to the game to see whats up whit it , new toon , no connection, no gear, started off slow trying to work out how the hell production worked since i was now in a non-combat fraction (yeaa...right..) walked about a littlelearning the fraction owned colony layout a bit watching political qq on fraction chat for a bit (seems i joined right at a internal reform )(free intell!)  then the high rank came on calling the online fraction folks to arms. in short two fraction dominated the market on some resorces and had multiple planets/colony's leaving a other fraction whitout any home base of thier own and the guardians (my fraction) job amoung things is to make sure that there is some form of ballance between everyone.

so I ended up in a semi large battle suporting that lone fraction taking over a planet/colony trying to stay out of gun fire the best i could and even pop a few shots when I got clear aim at the 60 crazy folks fireing guns at 1meter to each other while running around  whit a strategy taken from  somekind of "how to survive for dummies"book ina room no bigger then my bathroom.(tho my bathroom is fairly large)

the f2p restriction are harsh to say the least, its hard to explain but basicly once upon a time some tech dude installed a bunch of teleport entrees on all colony's and you could go to a central vortex (teleporter) and select any of those exit anywere you liked. the restriction to f2p now being that you can not select any of these nodes at all, you can only select the fraction entree and that one is randomly picked every few mins from all target colony node's , imagen a war, tons of bad guys, and you know your good friend guys are at a place called the medical center that on that colony is a tactical vantage point and it even got a node right next to it. but the system evil as it is sents you to the hanger bay node that just is crawling whit guys who are jumping up and down to do some pow pow pow to you and your friends.. not..fun..

the game supose to be big on rp (and alot of people do rp in spatial chat) but f2p members get no cloths.. nope nothing..you can wear fraction armor but thats it.  you get 1/3 of the storage that premiums get and thats not alot anyone joining one of the "crafting" focus fractions will fairly soon need to spent alot of time to manage their invertory since every item (also stacks ) are counted so you better not mine or produce to much else its gona be run around hell.

population of the game is fairly low, on avarage im guessing there might be around 400 people online whit peaks of 5/600, that is if i cauculate my own fraction knowlige (activity ) and things i picked up listing to other fraction members chatting correctly.

all in all I had a fun day comming back and will log in tomorrow again, ..who knows, maybe the new company will lower the premium prize in half..that would be worth it for me $9,99 is just a little to much for a older game whit limeted gameplay

for as long as it last I be a Guardian now following the commands of leadership hoping for a bit of action in a not so combat related fraction.

The populations are amazing for a game of its age and size.

It's a fun game, if you make it that way. Your actions determine how fun the game is.