Post apocalyptic MMORPG Fallen Earth is getting plenty of attention this week with the new Dev Journal taking a peek at Vista and Tech gear, and Lee Hammock's latest QotW feature.
Starting with the Question of the Week feature, Fallen Earth Lead Designer Lee Hammock gave a quick progress report and answered sticky questions about: ingame foods, Euro/US servers, name filters, mutant powers and more.
Question of the Week: 10/30/08
We're pretty much still in bug fixing and polishing stages this week, concentrating on sector 2 towns and large segments of the crafting system. We've got a good many weeks of polish and bug fixing ahead of us as well.
1. What kind of delicous and gross foods are there? Are there Spiderville omelettes?
Some of the culinary selections from Fallen Earth:
* Mystery Meat Sandwich, accompanied by the slogan, "My baloney has a first name, it's OH MY GOD WHAT'S THAT?"
* Rage Crispies
* Hard Tack
* Killer Skunk Moonshine
* Toilet Tank Gin
* Uncontaminated Pasta
* Candy Covered Ant
* Meal: Not So Ready to Eat
* And everyone's favorite, Dingo's Kidney Pie made from real coyote kidneys.2. Will there be European and US servers, or just servers based in US?
We're still not sure. Most likely we'll have some manner of European server, but it's completely dependent on populations, latency, and publisher deals. Basically there's two major sides of the discussion: keep all the players in one big community vs. keeping latency reasonable. We don't know how those are going to play out yet.
3. Anyway, how freaky do mutant powers get? Can we sort of grow our flesh into a weapon to contaminate the munitions so our enemies slowly lose health and writhe in pain?
Well, the freakiest ones are probably the patho-transmission mutations, which are very similar to what you are describing. It involves turning your body into a host for all manner of diseases and irradiated materials, which you can then use to attack others.
4. Are there any restrictions on naming of alts (eg. some games require that the last name always be the same)?
Nope, just the normal naming limitations.
5. With regards to character names in the Aug 7, 2008 QotW, can you clarify what you mean by "articles"?
We mean words such as "a," "an," and "the." Articles as in the parts of speech.
(And the Articles of Confederation, too: you can't have any part of the document detailing America's original government in your character name.)6. Will there be any filters in place on names (i.e. will you ban swearing in character names, for example)?
Swearing will be filtered from character names, as will all manner of racist or sexist titles (plus any other -ists you can think of).
7. Are you planning on restarting the regular screenshots, particularly as virtually all the screenshots in the wild are pre-art-revamp?
We're working at getting more recent screenshots out into the world through a lot of the interviews we've been doing lately, such as the recent ones on faction outfits at mmorpg.com.
In addition to that, MMORPG.com is running a weekly Dev Journal which talked about the Vistas and Techs, their beliefs, social system and faction gear. Here's a snippet:
The Vistas are masters of the natural world in Fallen Earth. The Vistas work to protect what remains of the environment from any harm that may befall it while working to restore what they can of the ecologies of the old world. They are experts in hunting, farming, ranching, animal training and camouflage. They are the leading agricultural power in the Grand Canyon Province. Many enemies underestimate them due to their interest in non-combat matters, but such enemies rarely last past the first Vista ambush. Mobile, quiet, and determined, the Vistas rarely fight in the open, preferring guerilla warfare tactics that play to their strengths. They avoid heavy armor and weapons, preferring mobility and stealth over protection. Their equipment is made of wool, cotton, and other natural materials with most of the metal parts coming from salvage.
Read the full journal here!
