By Jim Rossignol on December 16th, 2009 at 4:53 pm.
The post-apocalyptic MMO is touting it wares to all and sundry with a ten-day trial and 20% off the purchase price. The game has been noted as being both flawed and interesting, which is why I’m going to having a look at it myself over Christmas. I’ll probably see some of you in there. Meanwhile, go read Phill’s impressions of it for a dram of what it’s like.
16/12/2009 at 17:02 Railick says:
I don’t know when I came to the point where I’m not even willing to try 10 day trials for MMOPRGS. I’m certainly not willing to pay the subscription fee but now I’m not even willing to pay the time it takes to play these games. I dunno what a mmorpg would have to offer now a day to draw me in again but I suspect I’ll never see the day. I personally hope this turns out to be successful though as it looks very interesting.
16/12/2009 at 17:02 Gutter says:
Wow, seeing this post reminded me that I was paying for this game since launch, but didn’t play more than 5 days.
Thanks RPS, I owe you 14.99 per month.
16/12/2009 at 17:07 Railick says:
What I wouldn’t give to be able to waste 14.99 a month and not notice it ;P Lucky guy Gutter lol
16/12/2009 at 20:17 Gutter says:
Haha I usually notice it after 6 months and they swear to all gods. I learned long ago not to blame the game publishers…
It’s not “being lucky”, it’s “being stupid with my credit card” :)
16/12/2009 at 17:29 Arathain says:
Hmm. I might give this a go. How large is the download, does anybody know?
16/12/2009 at 17:48 royale says:
5 gigs.
16/12/2009 at 17:32 VHATI says:
the game is definately worth checking out.
There is a real sense of accomplishment as you craft stuff. Combat is pretty fun. Polish wasnt quite there for launch, so i think ill download and give it a try.
Large Scale PvP was awesome in this. Nothing else like it.
16/12/2009 at 18:06 CMaster says:
@Vhat
Surley any kind of organised PvP just involves lots of stun-lock? Certainly when I played a small group of mutants could hope to kill the first couple of opponents almost instantly with molotov + sonic lance, then keep sucessive opponents in stun lock while they weapon killed.
Hell, me+one friends, both only partial mutants could manage something like 14 seconds of continuous stun between us, admittedly some of them at melee range. Still, more than enough to gun someone down.
16/12/2009 at 19:01 Aganazer says:
@CMaster
They just added stun protection in the last patch. That should diminish the effectiveness of stun locking enemies.
16/12/2009 at 17:35 westyfield says:
Dram is the best of all the measurements.
Also, something about Fallen Earth?
16/12/2009 at 17:53 CMaster says:
I wonder if it’s improved much since beta.
Anyway, the plans the devs have for the game mean it isn’t really worth paying for until a couple of years post-launch. I think most people will find that the game is too slow to get into and get going in 10 days. Certainly the game gets much more interesting come Sector 2 (starting level 15-20 ish). The down side is it never really stops feeling like a lot of work, for only short periods of fun.
Disclaimer – this is all based on ~3-4 months of Closed Beta play. Game may have changed somewhat since then.
16/12/2009 at 17:57 Skoul says:
Some reasons for trying out FE:
The somewhat sandboxy approach.
A crafting system which requires some thought and planning (not exactly Einsteinian levels though).
The graphics (which I like)
Some reasons for NOT trying FE:
You want demanding grouporiented gameplay. (at least not in the lower levels – my max char is lv 25 of 45)
You want to play an online FPS.
You are kind of impatient ;)
The graphics (which some people don´t like)
Most of the performanceproblems and lag which plagued FE at launch have been solved – its still worth taking note of the minimum specs though.
16/12/2009 at 18:30 Torgen says:
Hmm, would someone in the middle of a Borderlands addiction find this disappointing?
16/12/2009 at 18:34 CMaster says:
@Torgen
Probably.
Borderlands is very much instant gratification, rewarding shooter action.
Fallen Earth expects you to work as much, if not more than you have fun, and has a combat system that is really just click-targeting with an abstraction layer over the top that looks a bit like an FPS game, but isn’t actually.
17/12/2009 at 07:07 invisiblejesus says:
Yeah, they would. Borderlands and FE are about as polar opposite as it gets in terms of mood and gameplay.
16/12/2009 at 21:16 Nihilille says:
I downloaded the beta this morning and have been in the patching process for just about 12h now and there’s really no way to see how it’s progressing, and I’m on a 100mbit connection. Make that a 9-day trial!
16/12/2009 at 21:40 a says:
I played this in beta, and it seemed pretty damn awful. Maybe I didn’t give it enough of a chance but I doubt I will now. Oh well, have fun for 10 days pals.
17/12/2009 at 00:22 nelson says:
Where can I actually download the trial from? Maybe I’m missing something obvious but I got to the website and it has an article on the news page mentioning the trial but it just directs me to the website that I’m already at.
17/12/2009 at 04:55 Skoul says:
Link to a torrent here:
http://forums.fallenearth.com/fallenearth/showthread.php?t=30310
Note: you´ll need to get a torrent-client (utorrent works well in my experience) before starting the download.
17/12/2009 at 05:05 Skoul says:
…and link to the official downloader which apparently should give you an updated client. I would probably try this first.
http://forums.fallenearth.com/fallenearth/showthread.php?t=29182
17/12/2009 at 05:14 WFL says:
I tested it in beta, and found it to be.. well.. very much a grind. The insane “find X of item Y” quests are in full-force in the beginning, and it takes a lot of time typically to hunt down all of each.
Crafting is cool, and the combat system felt “ok”. The graphics certainly weren’t bad, either.
Hell, unless you’re a hardcore player, you’re going to spend most of your life in the early grind just trying to get past the hunt X monster for so many pelts/teeth/whatever. There is more to it, of course, but not enough to redeem the extreme necessity of grindy-quests.
17/12/2009 at 06:09 Skoul says:
The experience you get depends quite a lot on which town you decide to start in. I remember Mumford for being heavy on the fetch quests while others are much more varied.
The Globaltech Atlas is a good general FE ressource
http://www.globaltechatlas.info
…and you can get some info on the starting towns here: (can contain spoilers!)
http://www.globaltechatlas.info/2009/05/landing-page-starting-towns.html
Remember that you can allways just ride to another town if you get tired of the one you started in :)
17/12/2009 at 15:32 bender says:
I played this for about a week and then gave up. There’s some good ideas and concepts at work in the game, but it’s just completely unfinished in every aspect. The basic ideas of this game with the polish of say, Blizzard or Valve, would be incredible. Then again, those companies really don’t make bad games.
Definitely more interesting than the countless fantasy MMO’s out there that all seem to be identical in terms of combat and interaction. Just out a year too early.