Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I’m hoping that Firefall‘s co-op PvE focus will prove to be the antidote to my months spend exploding dudes in the purely-PvP Planetside 2. I checked out Firefall’s closed beta some months back, and very much liked what I saw, and I also met some of the team last summer and was impressed by Scott “Tribes” Youngblood’s take on it all. I think this game could well be a Rather Big Deal indeed.

Come July 9th, you’ll be able to decide for yourself. That’s when the open beta will commence. I’ve jammed the latest gameplay trailer below, because that’s what I do.
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Someday, Firefall will come out. Maybe. Or perhaps it’ll forever lurk in the bug-riddled shadows of beta, only emerging on weekends for a refreshing hover about town. For now, we can only hold out hope for the former, but at least take solace in the latter, given that the gravity-loathing MMO’s penciled in the whole of humanity for a quick flying lesson this weekend. Get an idea of what you’re in for – set to music that suggests you’re both flying and winning a gold medal in every Olympic sporting event at once – after the break.

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That other MMOFPS, the one with jetpacks and PvE, is starting to open up for testing. Firefall will have three open beta weekends, starting this weekend, where anyone and everyone is invited to leap in and try the game for themselves. Red 5 explain: “These Beta Weekend stress-tests will be completely unlocked with no keys required – allowing everyone to participate in the Tribe’s Closed Beta push. Additionally, each 48-hour weekend will incorporate a community unlock, exclusive contest and unique theme to teach new players what Firefall is all about.” I’ve been dropping into the closed beta in the past few months, and I’m very excited about it – more so after chatting with Scott ‘Tribes” Youngblood at Gamescom last year. I really think they know what they’re doing with this one.

Jetpacks vs giant alien insects footage below.
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Firefall, Red 5 Studios rather fancy jetpack MMO (one of the project leads is the excellent Scott Youngblood, who worked on the original Tribes games) is heading for some beta weekend plans. They explain: “Firefall’s upcoming Beta Weekends are scheduled Nov 30-Dec 2 and Dec 7-9. These are North American and European 48-hour stress-tests with players encouraged to find bugs, test various features and help the developers improve the beta by providing feedback.”

You can sign up here, with the now-traditional pre-order “founders” pack option alongside it. Recent video below for motivational beta-sign up purposes.
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Firefall. Among the made-up words I’ve met in my many travels, it definitely stands out as quite, er, aggressive. I mean, there’s fire and falling involved. Both tend to perform their designated actions in fairly short order – leaving behind little question as to what happened and usually also some form of smoking crater. And yet, for all that, Firefall the game is taking its sweet time en route to release, polishing up an extended beta with no intentions of going live (or even into open beta) until its good and ready. But now, you can at least drop in for a brief stay in Red 5′s colorful world of shooting and looting. And by “drop in,” I mean never actually touch the ground for more than three seconds at a time, because jetpacks.

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I haven’t dipped into Firefall since my excursion back in April, but I think now might be the time. Yesterday’s patch has radically altered the game, as you can see in the update video below. Movement has been significantly changed, one of the classes has been dropped, a new one added. The biggest change, however, is that they’ve removed the traditional levelling system (one thing I felt sat awkwardly for the game) and instead given you experience points that can be spent on your battleframe specialization as you see fit. As Red 5 had promised at the start of this beta, they are genuinely changing the game based on how players respond to it, and I think they’ve shown some impressive responsiveness and agility. I look forward to seeing where they go next.
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The past few weeks have seen us take a whirlwind tour of Firefall‘s massive summer milestone update, and it’s been quite a ride. Laughter, tears, happiness, and muscular men with jetpacks have all flown freely in equal measure – but mostly, it’s wrapped day-to-day life in a warm blanket of stability. Empires may fall, stars might blink out of existence, and The Hobbit will definitely get hacked into three still-quivering chunks, but at least a reliable stream of Firefall videos gave our tiny, insular world some semblance of order. Today, however, the Recon battleframe’s here to deliver us back into the arms of cruel uncertainty with the final video in the class series – which, I suppose, is pretty fitting, given that the Recon seems to exist for the sole purpose of ruining everyone’s day.

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Oh thank goodness. My life is saved. I, of course, recently bet it on the assumption that more Firefall videos would drop this week, and became quite disconcerted when maniacally grinning mercenaries started showing up outside my house with calendars counting down to Friday. Happily, however, I’ve been saved by the Dreadnaught, who sounds like the cheeriest of fellows. Bask in his muscular, minigun-toting glory (read: a hail of unstoppable bullets) after the break.

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After giving us a glimpse of the assault battleframe’s quick-drawing, rapid-firing revamp, Red 5′s now taking a leisurely fly-by trip through Firefall‘s entire summer milestone update. The short version? No class is safe. From having their space stockings stuffed with tons of neat presents! So now we’re onto the Engineer and the not-a-Medic-anymore Biotech. Yes, they’ve renamed that one. Apparently constant use of poison is grounds for having your medical license revoked. Who knew?

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Soon, the Firefall you know and love/haven’t actually played/have never heard of and know nothing about will be gone. Like a caterpillar entering a cocoon, the high-flying MMOFPS will soon emerge from the “biggest patch in Firefall history” as a sleeker, more graceful butterfly. With a jetpack. Among many other things, that means the Assault battleframe (the separated-at-birth brother of the Warframe) is in for an overhaul. In short, it’s about to become a lot faster and get some cool new toys to boot. Watch it do assault-type things after the break, as is its wont.

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The beta for jetpackin’ online shooter Firefall has been in progress for a while now, and I posted some impressions on it over here. Since then Red 5 have been busy collating feedback from players and are now getting stuck into tweaking and rebalancing the game in light of all the data and suggestions they’ve received from the community. They’re overhauling the development and specialisation of the battleframes, which will have far-reaching consequences for the kinds of choices you’ll have to make as you play, fight, and gather resources. Check that out below.
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