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Face of Mankind: Dev Diary #4
Face of Mankind's Marko Dieckmann pens this new Dev Diary that outlines the general concept of their game in terms of both features and gameplay.
Programming & General (written by Marko Dieckmann)
A few more weeks than usual have passed since our last development update. But we’re still alive and the project is more than alive. It’s making progress and growing. Right on time for the Easter Holidays we took the time to release this new update. Happy Easter!
Let me announce an important thing first. As you have seen, we have basically taken down the Face of Mankind portal. There is just an image and a few links to fan sites. This is because we have to redo most of the site contents and it wouldn’t make much sense to keep it there half-baked and confuse new visitors by letting them register and then not getting anything from it.
For news releases we have chosen MMORPG.COM as our primary official channel. We have had many good specials running with the guys over there in the past. So, you can expect all major news related to FoM to be released on MMORPG.COM.
And here we go. In this issue I’d like to bring you the general concept closer again and I’m going to explain how things will work together rather than going too much into detail with each feature. This is to make the general picture clear to you and I truly hope this will answer a lot of questions. But be warned, we have made lots of rather essential decisions for this relaunch of Face of Mankind. We found them necessary after careful analysis of the game’s mechanics.
I am now going to introduce all important mechanics and features and then explain how they all fit into the adapted economic system.
Let me throw a few words at you:
- Elementum
- Body Features (previously announced as Bio Updates)
- Tasks, NPCs & Enemies (PvE)
- Objectives (PvP)
Elementum
This is the essential substance needed for everything. Money, as we know it, is of no importance anymore. Elementum is needed to produce other items, to develop body features and is also a replacement for currency. How the revised economic system works will be explained at the end of this article.
Body Features
The central character advancement feature will be the so called Body Features. Almost every aspect of your character can be developed and advanced, from body movement, weapon/implant usage to more advanced features such as healing and cloning. When you start the game, only a few features will be available. Others need to be developed by spending Elementum for research.
Some Body Features can be developed further by research (they have multiple stages), others by practicing them. Examples for the latter would be all the weapons. An Example for the first type would be Cloning, where you can clone faster and with more health and stamina with every new stage. Or Healing, where you can heal others more efficiently.
;)
For each new Body Feature that you develop you have to spend more and more Elementum. So you have to decide which features are most important to you at the beginning, because it will take longer and longer to develop new ones.
Tasks, NPCs & Enemies (PvE)
Due to limited resources and time, we were never able to complete one major feature in MMOs, which is known as PvE (Player vs. Environment). This is basically known as “content”. We have often been criticized of lacking content, which is true. We are planning to change this now.
Tasks will be provided by NPCs. Tasks can be compared to “quests” that you all know from other MMO games. They provide a fun way to learn about the game world and offer entertainment that does not depend on other players.
There will be a wide range of NPCs and a lot of tasks. We have created a new content creation tool for specifically this purpose. Patrick and Tim (our community managers, aka Zordax and Silldude) will be using this tool together with other gamemasters to plan and create tasks in the weeks to come.
Highly anticipated there will also be a range of Enemies in different difficulty levels that are plague to the game world and obviously need to be terminated. They range from simple beginner bugs to elite aliens.
Completing tasks and killing enemies is one way to earn Elementum, which is highly needed to advance your character.
Bases & Objectives (PvP)
The basic PvP (Player vs. Player) element in Face of Mankind will be the fight for Bases. As explained in previous development updates, there will be clans. They are the primary structure to form PvP groups. And yes, you can also form a clan for you alone, even though this wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Clans can “own” bases. Why should they?
Bases are important for earning Elementum and/or raw materials. When owning a Base, these materials will be spawned regularly. The energy plants surrounding a Base produce energy. This energy can be distributed among the following functions:
- Elementum streaming
- Mining raw materials
- Activating Turrets for automatic defense
Each function requires energy. One energy plant is required to hold up the force shield, which secures the Base from hostile takeover. The energy coming from the other plants can be distributed. Each active turret requires energy. If another clan attacks your base you might have to put all mining on hold for more defense resources.
As for mining, each base can mine a predefined set of materials. (Note: This mining will not fully replace the ways to retrieve materials.) ? Image: Screenshot (widescreen) of a Base at the Space Harbor on Pegasi 51 Many of you are wondering how the whole Base game play will actually work. Let me try to put that in words.
Conquering Bases
Bases can be conquered by Clans. To accomplish that, the clan members have to take down the Base's protective force shield by destroying ALL energy plants surrounding the Base (it’s 3 in most cases). At this point, all active Turrets obviously loose their energy as well and become inactive.
Now the tricky part. I hope I’m able to explain that properly.
Once the shield is down, the base is no longer “owned”. Now a counter starts running, a counter that indicates your Clan’s progress in the takeover. It’s a big, easy to understand, progress bar. Now, this counter runs at variable speed depending on your Clan’s presence within the force shield vicinity (which is not a very big area). That means, if you have the absolute power in the area, the takeover doesn’t take long. If the situation is closer and the numbers almost match, this can take much longer. This also allows for situations involving more than 2 clans and very interesting fights. When a Clan’s progress bar reached its end, this Clan has taken over the Base. Now all energy plants and the force shield become active again.
Objectives
;)
First of, players of a clan can be “linked” to a base, which means they are assigned to it and the involved objectives. If a clan wants to take or defend a Base, there will be 4 objectives available, which will give immediate Elementum bonuses as well as special bonuses generated by the Base.
The 4 objectives are:
- making 100 damage points on non-clan players in area
- healing 100 health points of clan-players linked to a base
- repairing 100 structure points of energy plants
- “using” X amount of checkpoints (checkpoints are within the wider vicinity of a base)
(Note: The exact numbers are subject to balancing.)
This gives everyone a chance to contribute and offers enough tactical game play. The last objective on the list is meant to measure activity.
Important: The energy produced by the Base’s energy plants also depend on the amount of clan players linked to a Base. Mining and Elementum streaming will become only really effective if there are at least 3-5 players linked, else the produced energy is just not enough.
Let’s assume there are 5 players defending a Base. The Base and all its 3 active energy plants will produce enough energy to both keep up the shield and generate a certain amount of Elementum and/or raw materials per timeframe (5 minutes). Each of the 5 players will be individually active. 3 of them are making damage points on attacking players, one of them is healing constantly and the fifth one is repairing the energy plants. Based on the bonuses received for these objectives, the royalties are calculated and they all receive their additional bonuses from the base per each 5 minutes. Even if there are no attackers around, they can receive bonuses by patrolling the checkpoints.
Besides all that Base game play there will, of course, remain the beloved freedom - that FoM is known for - to do whatever you want. You will always be able to PvP your own agenda. There will be enough freedom for your personal roleplay in whatever form you can think of.
Economic System
Now, how is all this working together economically? Where does Elementum come from? Where does it go?
Elementum is coming into the cycle by:
- Completing Tasks
- Killing Enemies
- Completing Objectives
- Receiving Base Elementum bonuses
- Selling raw materials to the market
Elementum is leaving the cycle by:
- Developing Body Features
- Producing Items
- Buying raw materials or items from the market
You might ask, why I put “Producing Items” there, since producing is not the end of the chain. Yes, that’s correct, but in the new system all producible items are destroyable items – items that loose their value. That means by producing an item, it is “value-related” the end of the chain.
Selling and buying items or raw materials from/to other players is not part of the cycle, because it’s only a step in the middle and doesn’t interfere in the process. It just delays it.
Also, mining is not on the spending side as well. Raw materials are coming as “value” into the cycle. They can be sold or used for production.
Why is “Buying raw materials or items from the market” included?
That’s one major change we will introduce with FoM: Rebirth. Basic raw materials and items will always be available on the market for a fixed price. We’ve made this decision to allow for a constant supply of the most basic things.
But producing items on your own will be more effective and as a result these items can be sold cheaper on the market.
- By Marko Dieckmann
Good, they are adding features to the game that were missing that caused the game to fail.
Good to see FoM finally at MMORPG. Its also good to see Pegasi as one of the starting colonys!
It's good to hear that the best MMORPG I ever played is taking steps forward again ...
!!!
Go marko
Seekah,
Best Game Ive ever played, can't wait for it to reopen.
FoM never really failed..they just ran into a speed bump, and an even bigger 1 when that 1 company decided to drop them >.>. FoM is honest 1 of the best games I'd rather go back to.
WAY TO RUIN THE FUCKING GAME, SKILLS? O LOL NICE ONE MARKO YOU FAIL
I played the beta and it was one of the worse games I ever played. The only way I'd even think of trying it again is if it went F2P. How this game stayed open and Ryzom closed I have no idea.
Yes beta was buggy, the majority of those bugs was fixed though..
and ranger I think your over reacting a little bit....
One of my first memories of Face of Mankind was being surrounded by Most Wanted criminals in the factions MotB, BoS, and GoM. The clans all looked the same and no one could tell them apart. This brought about the "KILL REDS" government order. Anyone wearing the color red is to be associated with the Brotherhood and slaughtered on sight for crimes against humanity and the Global Dominion. A large force of FDC forced its way into the Manhattan market area and attacked us. Possible to have this experience in a safe zone? No.
Another memory was my friend was killed by someone named gFk. He was a mercenary, fully equipped with armor, guns, medkits, and implants. Yet, he was still able to die to us, two noobs with newly bought guns off the market. We hunted him down, and we died. Possible to have any form of chance against this guy if he and his "guild" farm Elementum all day and level their characters? No.
After that, we attempted to lure a man into the dark corners of the city. Half way through the tube he realized our promises of riches and free items was false, turned tail, and ran. He was too close to the public to fire on without causing a ruckus.
The players became more civilized through time, but it still had that freedom. Once a rank 6, I started numerous wars in Tiergarden.. for freedom.. Assassinated CMG in Brooklyn, surrounded by cops, to get the message across that the Brotherhood wouldn't rest until the war with CMG was over, even if they were hiding behind the government.
This is the only game that I've found to be this free. This is also the only game that made my hands shake and my heart pump when a fight was on.
Face of Mankind was a unique game based solely on the players. It had politics, war, peace, criminals, assassinations, arresting, drug dealing, oppression, FREEDOM, and even cyber sex (lol). Everything was player run, from the faction leadership (for the most part) to the items produced on the market.
This also had a price. It wasn't a game a lot of people could get into right away. With few players, it would cease to exist.
So, now Marko is making it into a GENERIC mmorpg in an attempt to salvage what still remains. A complete U-turn for the whole concept of what I believed FoM was suppose to be.
I have no doubt in my mind that some form of idiot will infest this plague of a game. Marko and co will be able to feed their families.. until more generic MMORPGS are pumped out in the weeks to come.
Good luck with your guild wars, mindless alien slaughter, and the leveling of your characters.
Sadly, entertainment is stuck in this same rut. All the movies, tv shows, and games are staying safely in a little circle of success, too afraid of failing when making something new.
I hope like the development blog
- SillDude
Great stuff, cant wait to play FoM again. Some of the best RP and PVP i ever had where in this game.
Garrik
i played beta, was one of the most horrible MMO experiences ever for me. absolutely atrocious. wouldnt go back truthfully they lost any and all credibility in my eyes.
I played Open Beta from Day 1.. Most fun I had in any Beta I tried.
After it went retail it was not so crowded.. But there is not one MMORPG that gave the players so much freedom. Politics and Roleplay were just amazing:D
EraserFemtiFem (GoM)
NemoDahFish (BoS)
Can't wait to play this game again. Oh.. dont forget to add lots of trees.
On topic, it's nice that these "pros" finally realized after all these years that a game actually needs content to get people to play. Wonder which one fell out of bed and hit his head to have that friggen epiphany?
I meant updating on MMORPG.
What your not seeing is, is that FoM was setup so the players make the content. By player made missions, a complex economy, and GM/Player hosted goverments. Don't be so quick to dismiss a game that didn't sterotype a game to be about NPCs, skills, and quests. Instead Duplux chose to use the most complex content, other people. Too many MMORPGs are solo grinds, where you never interact with people. FoM was a game where you had to interact with other people to survive.
Still no doubt you'll continue to argue contant, because there is no more RPG in MMORPG.
Quote:
"Due to limited resources and time, we were never able to complete one major feature in MMOs, which is known as PvE (Player vs. Environment). This is basically known as “content”. We have often been criticized of lacking content, which is true. We are planning to change this now."
I don't need to argue the point. The games' dev does it well enough on his own.
FoM was a niched game to begin with. They are just stating they are looking to expand their playerbase by seeking out PvE customers. Most of the current playerbase which is still active is very distraut over this dev journal and alot threaten to leave because of this catered content. So what seems to be a good update for you might be bad news for past paying customer. And face of mankind, a tick based FPS with limited skilling, outdated graphics, and understaffed support. Might find themselves going from one niche to another. Which could cause them to Lose past players and kill itself.
I may seem like a disgruntled fanboy player. But I am seeing almost the exact same thing I saw when Pre-CU swg was taken away.
The few people remaining paying and playing weren't enough to even keep the game running. We're not talking about 100k-200k people being hit with NGE, we're talking about 50-100 ( if that ) being unhappy and leaving to hundreds or thousands coming to play a game with content. Sorry, but if I wanted my game to succeed and can't get more than 100 players subbed in a good month, I'd rather add content that would bring enough people to at least let the game break even.
Well here is the kicker, forgot to mention this, for the past year or so Duplex has been working on milestone 2 which would have added Aliens(PvE), an Alien planet, and more contant without effecting the core gameplay. But they haven't delievered yet and they are just revamping everything by adding skills, guilds, quests, and classes. So the fact is they were going down the right path content wise but they decided to turn a whole new direction all together.
And to your latter comment. Do you really think you or I want to see another mmorpg transform into a mainstream and bury diversity? Why do I need another Wow, Tabula Rasa or Neocron? I want to see Marko Dickman and Duplex succeed as a pioneer, not as a sheep.
Sure you might say changing the game may save it, is this a fact? In the future Age of Conan comes out with FPS tick combat, clans, quests, and other resembling qualities of FoM:Rebirth. Wouldent the old innoviative FoM hold out better? Who knows.
There are many other things old FoM could of done to succeed, like advertise, create dev journals which they never did with the old development plan, put in Aliens, or hell did you know for most of retail half of the customers exploited payment methods so they played for free?
(this quote box is getting big :P )
Sorted
There's no reason for the game to be a carbon copy simply because it gets PvE, quests, etc.
For example, if I wanted to build on FoM to make it successful, I could do it based around the current game. NPCs' can give quests, with item/credit rewards ( but leave crafted items as superior, the quest rewards just need to be good enough for players to keep up, not to excel ). They can give quests ranging from kill 10 aliens all the way to kill 10 cops (players included ). But you have the current player ability to give quests. So you update and streamline that process, make it easier for someone who has never played in a dynamic world setting before. Now, players can get quests from both NPCs and players, and both can be used for PvE or PvP purposes. But if their is no quest/mission from players, the rest of the players don't have to sit and twiddle their thumbs for something to do. They just get a mission from an NPC. Base quests on the storyline, on the differing factions, etc.
There are ways to upgrade FoM to have things other mmorpgs have, while maintaining the current roleplaying focus and player involvement.
One of the things that forced me away from the game was having to depend on other players to have something to do. Especially when most grew tired of nothing to really do and turned the game into more of a gankfest than a game. What else was there to do with no static content, noone willing to sit and think up content every day for others to do, except play the damn game like it was nothing more than a bad counterstrike copy? For every 1 player who would be willing to create content, you'd have 10 that couldn't or wouldn't be bothered. Doesn't take long for even a devoted roleplayer to say screw it and join 'em. Then it all goes downhill, as we've seen.
All the things that have happened to FoM were told to the devs by players back in beta. The devs didn't listen. Now they have to do what they should have done then, in an effort just to get back on the map. When they could have been a large chunk of that map if they'd done it right in the beginning.
W00t!! Even on non-FoM forums there are flamefests about FoM!
Well I do hope they do conserve revamping FoM, and what you propose is fair. However, there are just doubts, which I hope are wrong. And alot of the doubt comes from adding clans and bonuses to what faction you choose. It kills roleplay when everyone chooses the GoM faction to recieve a 10+ health regen and not for the roleplaying aspect of the faction. Alot of doubt also comes from getting rid of the police force (LED) and jail/crimes. While players could try to recreate factions, there are not suffiecent tools. Of course clans open some roleplaying oportunities, it also closes alot of others such as rank, faction funds, offical history, and squads. So I hope the developers will add these tools to allow players to customize a faction, the only problem is they haven't mentioned including these old features that I am aware of.
A big misfortune of FoM in early retail was there publisher Ojam. Which did not provide sufficent funding to Duplex and hindered many ideas/updates. And also from the old community manager "smoker" who did not listen to players. Now we have Zordax as the community he listens pretty well, I hope he can find away to cater to potential and old customers.
I just don't think Duplex ever thought, hey we don't need more content. It was just the lack of funding and time as they were squeezed by they're publisher.
It's an epidemic!
honestly, the reason i could not get into the game was because everywhere i went someone killed me for no reason before i even knew how to play... (and these were people from every "faction")
hopefully the new changes will fix that and ill actually be able to play the game instead of being slaughtered whenever another player sees me
You guys should go play Planetside or WoW.
Why do you need mechanisms to protect you? What's the fun in that ? Is there a mechanism in real life that prevents you from dieing when some guy stabs/shoots you down on some colony in space? I don't think so . Even the chance of getting raped in dark alleys etc in big cities is pretty big.
So why doesn't this happen 24/7 to you in real life? Cause you avoid those places.
FoM was an amazing game. I pretty much played the whole beta and it was definitely the best experience in an MMO that I've had...I just wished they would've kept in in beta for a little longer. I don't know about this new Rebirth version...seems like it's not gonna be very similar (meaning it'll be worse to me).
But yeah, first day I played the game, I made an LED and was going to the vortex gate to travel to one of the Earth cities and there was a guy standing there with a gun out, so being a cop, I told him to holster his weapon (I didn't have a weapon myself yet), and he asked if I was talking to him, so I said yeah and told him to put the gun away again. Instead, he decided to kill me :(
This is what made the game amazing in my opinion...you always had to be careful and be aware of what was going on around you (also, having friends that play the game helps make it more fun of course, which a lot of my friends did play).
The game started to fall apart for me near the end of beta, when they revamped the mining and production systems (I preferred the original system), but the revamped graphics and UI were good changes after the '1st' beta. Also, they made it harder to sell drugs (but it was more realistic by not letting people sell them on the markets :P), but it did make the drug business somewhat less lucrative.
Definitely one of the best gaming experiences I've ever had were in this game (the only time it got annoying was when people would never believe me when I was telling the truth about what happened and why I had to kill a guy or something, but they'd believe the other people that were lying...I was part of the MotB at this time, so that probably had something to do with it).
using your logic; in real life we also grow up and learn where to live/what to avoid and we choose what to do with our lives knowing the consequences of what we do in advance....
now in a game when someone is new to playing and has not learned what to do/how to play, it is detrimental to the game for people to die constantly even when walking in a well "protected" area of a city without the ability to even defend themselves... also, in FoM everywhere seemed to be a dark alley O_o
While true that in a game liek FoM users 'create' content for each other. the fact of the matter is that in a system like that when there are no other players around there is no content at all. So you get a continuous downward spiral. A person pays monthly and gets to a point where they feel bored and unable to get their moneys worth from the game they will walk. The developer sees this and knows that in order to get and keep new players they have to implement a PvE system that is always running so a player can have something to do no matter when they login and who is present or not present.
For a Combattant, in old FoM if no one R4 or above was on you basically had nothing to do.
In a game with a monthly fee you can not rely solely on other players to provide content for players. Some has to be provided 24/7 and compelling for the player to get them through times when not many other players are on and to bring players who aren't comfortable yet interracting with people they dont know into the game and keep them there until their fellow players can run into them and bring them into the rest of the game.
FoM also had the issue of not knowing what it was. Was it an RPG or persistent Quake world? The players who considered it an RPG might go partake in the politics or interract with other players somewhere. The players who considered it quake would see things like the politics as a waste (or an opportunitity to randomly grief other players who were probably not ready for combat).
Face of mankind will have an F2P option in the future. We hope to post more info on mmorpg.com in the future.
And there the thing i liked most about FoM was ripped away....
bye bye economic system
It's just really no point playing trader when theres unlimited amount of raw material and cash in the game.
s'up, DPS not catering to people who wanted to grind quests and mobs all day wasn't what brought FoM to it's demise, at least not directly. FoM had a decent following of players that enjoyed the freedom to reach their ends by their own means, instead of having Community Mangers dish out "kill 10 aliens" quests.
If anything, DPS' attempt to appeal to the non-RPers' whines of "no content" with the "professions", "objective-based missions", and the new mining and production systems of the milestone was what caused most of the discontent within the community. We were led on with screencaps and concept art and lack of details, and by the time we realized how much the milestone had changed the game it was too late. Ojom rushing the game into release and then leaving when they failed hard didn't help either.
Nice! Altough, I will probably pay right away... As soon as it launches! ;)
Btw, you happen to have any ETA on a CB?
Greetz,
-Yendor/Psorian
Just get rid of those damn cheap radars. We don't need them and they just ruin a perfectly made game. That's what drove me away from paying monthly. When you want to shoot someone and then you run to go hide somewhere they will always find you! or even just basic hiding for some fun ganking, this game completely eliminates the option to hide.
FoM had such potential. It's good to see that it's coming back.
Don't worry, this was removed AGES ago. Only way you could be seen on the map was by a commander of the same faction and, if you are in a mission, by mission members. Both no threat to your ganking
i hope pvp is just enabled in these "bases" or atleast theres an option to turn on pvp outside of these bases for those who liked the original ffa idea.. trying these "tasks" from npc's with gankers everywhere doesnt seem appealing
I am going to side with Meat in this one. Me and him played FoM from the very first day of OB leading raids, committing murder, selling drugs, and humping.
The thing that I loved about FoM is that, a new character armed with a weapon had a realistic chance of killing another player no matter how experienced or loaded down with implants or armor he was. It was never about who had a more advanced character, more "skillpoints" or any of that garbage. FoM was all about individual ability and thats what made it great.
All this update does is try to follow the flavor of the month, work for npcs, get points, upgrade character rinse and repeat... Guilds will be farming that stuff like nothing and the regular player is going to want nothing to do with conquering some "megabase"
There is nothing more I can add this to this man's post. He hit the nail on the head. Nice job.
FoM went slowly downhill after 2006. I remember busting drug dealers by doing buy-busts, chasing down most wanteds, fighting for truth and justice, trying to stop LED-FDC wars, and typing in all caps: "POLICE! FREEZE!"
As far as I know the GMs rarely had roleplay events. They had more in 2005 than in 2006. Or 2007. Not to mention Smoker made alot of people mad with his restriction of freedom of speech.
Those were the days. This new FoM could never give me that, since the LED will be no more. No more arresting or scanning or pp checks or any of that good stuff. To be honest, I'd rather play WoW if I wanted to do quests and to level. I played because players promoted me manually. There was more freedom. People generally like freedom. The more freedom you give to players, to kill anything when they want how they want, and to promote when they want and how they want (instead of an automated system) will generally make the player base happy.
Well, to bring a bit of enlightment to this thread. Rebirth has been cancelled, yes true, BUT FoM is coming back, as a combination of FoM milestone 1, milestone 2 and rebirth. From what we have seen so far, as DPS as teamed up with publishers NeXeon, who will have very little to do with the game aside from providing the servers and possible advertising, it looks very interesting.
A fair amount of coverage has been release, which you can have a gander at on the links below.
http://forum.fomportal.com/showthread.php?t=541
http://forum.fomportal.com/showthread.php?t=907
From what we can see, it looks like things are going to be very interesting. A few screenshots have been released as well, meaning that this isn't just talk, this is stuff that has already been implemented, not stuff that they are telling us that they are going to implement.
If you wanted to play FoM, or played FoM and loved it, or want something that is completely and utterly different to the grind MMO's out there then come have a look at www.fomportal.com and say hello at forum.fomportal.com . Give this game 3 weeks to a month of your time and it will suck you in and never let you go.