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What's New in Fallen Earth Since AGDC?
MMORPG.com News Manager Keith Cross caught up with Lee Hammock, the Lead Designer from the upcoming post-apocalyptic MMORPG, Fallen Earth and asked one simple question: What's new in Fallen Earth since the Austin Game Developer's Conference?
While at the Game Developers Conference I had the opportunity to chat with Lee Hammock, Lead Designer for Fallen Earth. My first look at Fallen Earth was at the Austin Game Developers Conference, where Lee gave me the beginner’s tour. Before that, all I knew of Fallen Earth was that it was a post apocalyptic MMO built on the topography of the Grand Canyon. I said in a blog last week that it was great talking to Lee because he’ll answer your questions before you ask them. At the GDC in San Francisco my first, and pretty much only question was, “What’s new since AGDC?”
What’s New Since AGDC?
Lee told me that 75% of the game’s content is in, though much of it still needs polish. So far they have between three and four thousand missions ready to go. These missions will take players beyond the desert terrains that we’ve already seen in Fallen Earth, and move them on to greener pastures, and I literally mean greener pastures. At the Fallen Earth booth they had a demo of the game running, and a trailer running on a loop on another screen. In the demo, Lee took me to a grassy field that stretched far off into the distance.
On the horizon I could see the distinct form of an old roller coaster track rising and falling in the distance. It looked like it could be a functioning roller coaster but I was assured it wasn’t, because really, who would run a roller coaster in a plague-ravaged nuclear wasteland? Panning 90 degrees, I could also see a series of structures just over the rolling green terrain. Lee explained that the structures were large houses and small mansions, which surrounded what had been a golf course in the pre-apocalypse time. Now the entire region is a “suburbs-gone-bad” environment. Beyond these suburbs gone bad is Sunshine Corner, one of the 40 or so towns that are currently in Fallen Earth, where everyone seems to be taking the destruction of civilization quite well. They’re very happy in Sunshine Corner. I asked Lee why they were so happy, and he responded by saying, “They’re very happy” several times, finally ending on, “It’ll come out in the story.”
Oh Yeah, and You’re a Clone
;)
Lee went on to tell me how they’ve gone over the initial storyline and they’ve been working to improve the flow of information to the players, especially in the tutorial and early game. At AGDC I learned that everyone in Fallen Earth is a clone, made from DNA stored in a project similar to the one going on in Svalbard, Norway, except with human DNA instead of grain and rice. Every time you die in Fallen Earth you are re-cloned but no one knows why, and in the last incarnation of the story, players didn’t get much in the way of hints until much later in the game. Now, Lee says that they have revamped the entire tutorial section. At one point you get to watch a propaganda piece on the cloning process which doesn’t give you all of the answers, but is still a meatier appetizer than just saying “Oh yeah, and you’re a Clone.”
After the tutorial, Lee tells me that more of the cloning information and other story elements will come out sooner rather than later. Bosses from later encounters will be introduced earlier too. One simple trick in RPG storytelling is to have a villain from a planed encounter near the end of the storyline show up near the beginning, and have them reveal themselves as a complete douche bag. That way it’ll be that much more satisfying for the players when they defeat them. In that spirit, you’ll get to meet a few early level bosses in the tutorial and witness him being a jerk.
Players will also be getting more information from NPCs in the background. The sparse unpopulated landscape of the future now has a few more residents, who will be playing out scenes in the background to inform and entertain. Lee described one scene where a newly cloned individual is unable to cope with the new reality which he’s been spawned into and winds up having a bit of a freak-out culminating in offing himself, only to be cloned again to play out the scene again to the bewilderment of by standing NPCs who just watch and make humorous comments.
Keep on Truckin'
So they’ve added lots of content and terrains, and now they’re working on polishing and improving that content. So what else have they been working on? They’re still working on vehicles and mounts. The latest news on this front is that players will have access to vehicles sooner in the game. The early vehicles will be along the lines of small ATVs to help players move around more easily, with the Mad Max style machines being reserved for higher level play. They decided players need a faster way to get around earlier, as there is a lot of space in the Fallen Earth world. A lot of that space is filled with oversized mutant arthropods, so it’s in a player’s best interest to move quickly, unless they’re armed with the finest weapons of the post-apocalyptic era, such as the mighty hockey stick or the cricket bat. (The game has better weapons, these are just two that Lee mentioned which I found amusing.)
Closing Tidbits
Pets and the auction system are still being worked on, but Lee informed me that the mail system is working, and the first PvP structures have been added to the game. In closing, we talked about the game’s guild tools, where Lee explained that they added a level of RPG dynamics to guilds. Guilds will have levels, and will be able to ‘level up’ and gain abilities although the nature of these levels, abilities, and what players will need to do to gain these levels wasn’t revealed to me.
And that’s what’s new with Fallen Earth since Austin.
Good info.
Shows they are comming along rather fine for a small company.
Oh but next time? Ask more questions, and don't quit until you have 10 pages of screenshots and tidbits from Lee! I know Lee wouldn't mind help you with that
still hopefull that they will have a raw and believeable aftermath game that doesnt reduce the gameplay to a boring processed killing/level arena.
I just about fell of my chair laughing at that one.
heh, i hear about games that sound so awsome early in development, and then closer to release it sounds blander and simpler due to the release of the "fine print" ...... FE on the other hand .... theres no fine print, and the content is the same as the last q/a 10 months ago, wich is great. It means they are staying on track, and i have a feeling this game will be great.
"On the horizon I could see the distinct form of an old roller coaster track rising and falling in the distance. It looked like it could be a functioning roller coaster but I was assured it wasn’t, because really, who would run a roller coaster in a plague-ravaged nuclear wasteland?"
I would.
Step right up, folks!! Bring some fun into your dreary existence with this great blast from the past!!! Ride tickets are only 3 parts each!! Bring me your plant parts, computer parts, auto parts, body parts, all parts welcome!! Come ride the Apoco-coaster!!!!
Fallen Earth, Earthrise, and Champions online are the 3 MMO I look forward to most.
Hopefully at least one of these will produce the goods.
Still waiting . . . .
It all sounds great. It always did. Icarus looks to be a very capable developer, and I am looking forward to Fallen Earth, even after the very long development of the game. I just hope we see it before the end of the year.
This game sounds like it has real potential, though the long, long LONG development time is a tad discouraging.
Am I correct in assuming this will be a subscription-based MMO?
One of the things that has impressed me about this game (after looking through the game's website) is the depth and creativity of the lore that they have created. It all sounds plausible and fun, and all six of the factions sound distinct, well-thought-out, and intriguing. I'd love to be writing for a game like this -- and there are not many games I can say that about.
I have definitely added this MMO to my "watch list."
I am glad now there are several sci-fi themed MMORPGs in the world. Between this, Earthrise, Stargate Worlds, and jumpgate revolution, there must be one that will be good.
Every new release gives us new hope. So here's hoping Fallen Earth will have a great release when it's ready.
I am not too discouraged by the long development time. They have made it clear that they will not release an unfinished game... and Ive played too many games that were released before they were polished...
(Vanguard, EQ2, Tabula Rasa, just to name a few.) Tabula is still having to patch in upper level content, and vanguard well.. needed months and months of beta before it was released.. but was forced to release due to financial issues.) EQ2 had faced huge uphill battle to regain the trust and loyalty it has now.. Vanguard hasnt gotten there yet.
Its kinda why they wont set a release date... it will be released when its finished.. and not before then.
As for me.. Ive been hooked on Fallen earth since first seeing the video interview at http://www.fallenearth.com/article.php?article=13
Just remember..Good things come to those who wait...
Only problem with this game is that it is level based. So the FPS element will be less than it could.
It has been stated explicitly and repeatedly, by the devs, that this game will NOT be level based in the way it is done in WoW, EQ2 and NGE-SWG. Each of the particular skills a person has , has number associated with it, and total skill points may act as a key in entering new areas, but there are NO LEVELS. Thank goodness. There are to be no set classes, only skills to build a character with.
Also, according to the devs, combat and crafting skills will not be counted together in the way points are allocated. Some combat skills, according to the plan, will be used to augment crafting skills. For instance, the highest level/complexity rifle a crafter can make, will be a combination of the crafter's rifle skill and ranged weapon crafting skill.
Many of us are looking forward to this game. Plenty of good info in the Fallen Earth section here and at the official site, www.fallenearth.com .
I always get a smile on my face when i see a new update for Fallen Earth. For so many other small indie developers its a constand fight between trolls and fanbois on the forum. Fallen Earth forums are always so calm and laid back. I like that.
thank you sweet lord, thank you so much.
do not ask about captain pouches. there is no wombat.
are you serious? is this a troll attempt?
skill point/ap point management is much more important than base level.
Another fail of a mmorpg
At this point, I happy to see someone planning to put out something different. What have the "big guys" released over the year+? For the most part, a bunch of crap. The only game that came out in recent memory that has been "successful" was LoTRO. The others, VG, TR, Hellgate, Fury, PotBS and a couple others were generally considered failures or didn't live up to the hype.
Why?
Because they followed the same recipe of shallow, level-based, linear, pew-pew, eye candy. Even LoTRO wasn't all that different than that, but it was at least technically tight, and visually appealing. The rest? Not so much.
Fallen Earth is something different. Will most people like FE? Will it get more than a couple hundred K subs? Maybe not. But it is bringing back a good skill based, Sci-Fi themed game with deep crafting and player based (non-loot) economy. Old time SWG proved there was a market for this type of game, and right now, there isn't anything else to fill the void in the market that the destruction of SWG created.
Free PVP , natural ressource based economy , player crafted items only; Clan managing tools, Huge world (so adventurer class is legitim) eventually integrated VoIP is a winner formule !!
i 'm still waiting for this game. few yeasr after the first announcement, and i'm still not stay on any mmorpg yet. even if i tried few.Icarus can count on me if they reach their objective.
+10