Fallen Earth
Gamers First’s Fallen Earth became free-to-play this weekend. I have enjoyed a number of forays into post-apocalyptic landscapes (Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Rage; even Left 4 Dead is, in some respect post-apocalyptic); so I expected to enjoy Fallen Earth. Also, having played Eve Online, I was cautious of the time-suck ability that MMO’s could become — although this latter point didn’t bear fruit in Fallen Earth’s case.
Even if it’s not immediately apparent, I play fair number of different video games; mostly of the first or third person genre. There are a few conventions to this genre. WASD (the ‘w’ key moves forward, ‘a’ and ‘s’ move left and right and ‘d’ backs up) is a core convention. What isn’t mentioned by the it’s name (WASD) is that the 2nd part of this convention is the mouse: the mouse controls where you’re looking and in that manner controls where you are running and shooting as well as the looking.
Fallen Earth breaks this fundamental contract by providing a complex modal interface where the player character moves entirely with the keyboard (using the ‘q’ and ‘e’ keys to turn) and then changes mode to “combat” mode whereby mouselook is mysteriously enabled. This interface is doubly confusing when you get stuck (as I did) in combat mode with popup windows in the way of your field of view and doubly annoying when that window is a nag screen to upgrade to the pay-per-month service. In fact the nagging never really goes away: an “upgrade” button was in my center low field of view constantly and I never found a way to be rid of it.
I also got stuck in the tutorial (and had to restart). I’m fairly used to the first-person RPG genre and one of it’s core values is rewarding exploration (“you must look at all my wonderful textures,” says the game designer). I was jumping and running around in the tutorial section even though there was supposedly some urgency of something going to happen; it was perfectly clear to me that the standard “nothing happens until you move forward in the map” was fully in effect. Anyways… I was looking on top of some ledge when I got completely stuck: I could not move in any direction.
After getting ignominiously stuck, I decided not to explore any more and finish the tutorial campaign. I realized as I made this decision that everything looked rather Doom-2-ish in graphical quality. Once I had made the decision that I wasn’t having fun exploring the environment, I started to criticize the environment in my mind. This break in the immersion is not a good thing. It was at this point that I realized that the funky control scheme was of the same era as the old-skule graphics.
Plowing on directly to the end of the tutorial section, I was introduced to the non-death mechanic (you die at the end of the tutorial and you are “reborn” because you are a clone with a clone-mind-sync-collar — not unlike the “theory” by which you are reborn in Eve Online). While saving the Hoover Dam is cool, forced sacrificed death after 10 minutes of play is a bit of a downer.
At the end of the tutorial, and this is a mild SPOILER, you sacrifice yourself after a short driving section and die. The driving is horrid. I couldn’t figure out how to look up … I spend the whole time looking down at the nearfield and luckily, there were curbs to keep me driving in the right direction. It’s considerate that the game exposes all of it’s extremely bad control schemes within the tutorial so that you know what you’re in for.
At this point, I’ll admit that I was disinterested enough to stop, but I listened to the end-of-tutorial cut scene and chose which hub I would start with. The hub choices were coupled with different fighting styles and I choose the combination of pistol and rifle. This choice immediately transported me to an area with shops, quest givers and other player characters.
Since I didn’t have any appetite for questing, I simply ventured out of the “safe zone” into the world. This was the biggest disappointment of all. I realize that, to reach the widest possible audience, MMO’s have to have graphics settings for the lowest common denominator available, but in this case, on a relatively powerful rig, the graphics were the greatest disappointment.
The draw distance was such that I could only see a few buildings around me and a chunk of broken expressway that was featured in the trailer. That chunk of broken expressway seemed to repeat quite a bit. I suppose some elevated expressway wasn’t completely out-of-place in Fallout 3 (as it’s set around Washington D.C.) and similarly in New Vegas; but carrying on to Rage’s unknown location with elevated expressways running between Buttes in a Wile E. Coyote landscape, I just can’t take it here. There are a number of elevated expressways in the U.S., but the type pictured — 4+ story high single post expressways arn’t that common… especially in the middle-of-nowhere that you spawn.
Maybe that last gripe is too much, but the draw distance and horrid graphical quality combined with the lack of a sensible control scheme just turned me off. You can add to that a plethora of special abilities that immediately granted for which only one is explained (healing someone else, not yourself) and a basic yet confusing interface.
I couldn’t play on. Maybe this game gets more compelling as you continue. I certainly played 100’s of hours of Eve Online. Eve certainly doesn’t have a reputation as a game that coddles players. I think the real show-stopper was the graphics. When I think about it, the urge to explore a world is based on what you will see. Fallen Earth left very little to see. Maybe even one moment like emerging from the vault (either Fallout or RAGE) would make it interesting to press on. Maybe I’m just not interested in pre-2000’s graphics any more. I’ll leave you with an image that shows the dreadful graphic quality and amazing lack of draw distance … and the relative complexity of the interface given to the first-time player.
I’d give this one a pass even though it’s free.
Fallen Earth Interface Example: Note Lack of Draw Distance
This is my review of a game called Fallen Earth
Fallen Earth is now run by a company called K2 Networks Inc.
and are also know by the name GamersFirst
K2 Networks Inc.
14252 Culver Drive Suite A‑355
Irvine, CA
USA, 92604
Phone #1: 949–870-3100
Phone #2: 949–486-0400
Fax #: 949–486-0399
Website #1: http://www.k2network.net
Website #2: http://www.gamersfirst.com/
If you look at the BBB page about K2 Networks they have had multiple
complaints over the past while and yet still maintain an A+ rating.
http://www.la.bbb.org/business-reviews/Online-Gaming-Websites/K2-Network-in-Irvine-CA-100018034
That is because the Better Business Buearu takes money for better ratings
and has obviously been paid off and the A+ rating that you are seeing here
is a bought rating so don’t believe the rating that you see on the BBB website
about these guys.
The Better Business Bureau ratings are misleading at best and misrepresent the
true rating of a company. If you file a complaint with them they will close
off the complaint and do nothing to help you and if you question them about
the rating they will just give you a bunch of garbage about how the rating
system is a complex system.
This was covered by ABC’s 20/20
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/business-bureau-best-ratings-money-buy/story?id=12123843#.T2DGVXlDQ_Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNlwHf7NTKE
So you are probably asking why I am telling you to avoid the online game
Fallen Earth. Basically the game is laggy as hell most of the time
it is quite unplayable. Also a thing occurs that is called “rubber banding”
where you will walk forward 2 steps and then get pulled back to your orginal
position again due to all the lag. There are frequent outages and server crashes
and log in issues with not being able to log in.
The servers have been like this for months now and nothing is getting better
recently they introduced this on the steam network and ever since then it
has gotten 10 times worse.
If you complain about the problem to the staff nothing gets done about
the problem. The Game Masters (GMs) in the game are rude and ignorant
towards the players and their customer service in game or if you
open up a ticket is horrible.
Basically in game every time you log into the game if you are a free member
a large logo comes up telling you subscribe to the game. Which I did because
I got sick of seeing this come up every time and opening up a web browser
window every time trying to get you to subcribe then when you do subscribe
to the game you can’t even play the game because of all the technical problems
with their server and software.
Over all the game is extremely buggy even in game as well with lots of glitches
and problems. The server I am playing on is NOT a test server this is the full
production server and there are this many problems.
There are frequent disconnects and the server is extremely laggy!
Now I have asked to be compensated for all of the outages and lag
and extremely horribly play and nothing has been done up to this
day to compensate me since I am a paying customer and have a commander’s
level subscription which costs an outragous $29.00 a month. You can go play
a lot of other MMOs for a heck of a lot cheaper then that. Over all this
is just yet another rip off.
This is nothing more than a money grab they want you to subscribe
and pester you till you do. And once you get in game if you have to reset
your AP you have to buy that from the cash shop with real money.
This is nothing more than a money grab by this company and they are doing a
horrible job at running the game and expect people to pay for this crap!
Even once you are a subscriber you get very little and still have to pay
for reset injectors (reset your AP) if you screw up and put the points into
the wrong location. THis should be 100% free if you are a subscriber.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/4700334#4700334
Here are a few examples of the problems in Fallen Earth these were not posted
by me but other players complaining of all the same problems.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmOeViMsG4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY06ZFOuYm4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua_JiDwYKjM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNVP1BBBEp4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJe02bhbp2E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvo_RaniGI0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdynvYuh-Ds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpbt6ZagOg4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOib89x0pgc
http://www.dual-boxing.com/threads/24632-Fallen-Earth-My-impressions
This game has already failed once before when it was under control of
Icarus Studios and it looks like K2 Networks Inc. is not doing any better
of a job at running the game.
April 30 2010
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100379-UPDATE-Fallen-Earth-Developer-Icarus-Studios-Closes-Up-Shop
Bottom line is if you are thinking about signing up for an account on
Fallen Earth don’t bother the game is horrible and extremely glitchy and
very little if anything is actually being done to fix it.
Avoid Fallen Earth it isn’t even worth your time or trouble and all of the
poor game play and poor customer service that you will receive.
All I can really say is “wow.” You really must have a bug up your ass to go posting that entire review on someone’s blog (that already had a negative review) as a comment. The thing that really strikes me is that you’d go to the LA BBB to complain about a game company. In this internet age, that just seems to be an anachronism.
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(1) “the ‘w’ key moves forward, ‘a’ and ‘s’ move left and right and ‘d’ backs up” — Wrong. ‘d’ moves right and ‘s’ moves back
(2) “Fallen Earth breaks this fundamental contract by providing a complex modal interface where the player character moves entirely with the keyboard (using the ‘q’ and ‘e’ keys to turn) and then changes mode to “combat” mode whereby mouselook is mysteriously enabled. This interface is doubly confusing when you get stuck (as I did) in combat mode with popup windows in the way of your field of view and doubly annoying when that window is a nag screen to upgrade to the pay-per-month service.” — Wrong, it changes modes like neocron does, you have one normal mode for playing (called combat mode with permant mouse aiming) and some more RP Like mode where you can move your mouse freely to control the UI and stuff, target characters (not aiming, more like in wow where you have a target UI-window). BUT in UI mode you can hold down right mouse button to activate mouseviewing and control your movement with your mouse like in combat mode. You will never get stuck in either mode, just hit TAB. You can move and/or close almost every UI element when in UI mode.
(3) “I was looking on top of some ledge when I got completely stuck: I could not move in any direction.” — happens even in the best games, you do not have to delete your character when getting stuck, there is an unstucker in your abilities.
(4) “While saving the Hoover Dam is cool, forced sacrificed death after 10 minutes of play is a bit of a downer.” — I didnt see it as a downer, in fact i think you were just pissed at the game at that moment. It’s just part of the story, it’s not like forced kill by enemies with a death penalty, it was just a way to bring you from the tutorial into the present time with a nice cutscene. Also, it tells you “don’t worry if you die”, which is something i think more Games shoudl tell their players (i’m especially thinking of WoW, where kids are raging when the group dies once).
(5) “The driving is horrid. I couldn’t figure out how to look up … I spend the whole time looking down at the nearfield and luckily, there were curbs to keep me driving in the right direction. It’s considerate that the game exposes all of it’s extremely bad control schemes within the tutorial so that you know what you’re in for.” — Again you seem to not even have tried to figure out the control, i didnt really think about it, i just drove it into the vault with the keyboard (like in gta). I can’t remember any fps game with cars that ever had other controls per default.
(6) “At this point, I’ll admit that I was disinterested enough to stop” — i think you should have read more of the tutorials text.
(7) “I realize that, to reach the widest possible audience, MMO’s have to have graphics settings for the lowest common denominator available, but in this case, on a relatively powerful rig, the graphics were the greatest disappointment.” umh, you can change graphics settings, they are not like crisis, but for an rpg they are more than ok.
(8) “The draw distance was such that I could only see a few buildings around me and a chunk of broken expressway that was featured in the trailer.” — you can change that in the settings, also. On the other hand, i didnt notice the view distance was too short by default. Maybe you just have a crappy machine? The game decides on optimal graphics settings based on your machines power when first starting up.
(9) “You can add to that a plethora of special abilities that immediately granted for which only one is explained (healing someone else, not yourself) and a basic yet confusing interface.” — Wrong. The abilities have been explained perfectly, also the Healing ability is not just for others, you can heal yourself, too (just target yourself and use healing abilities). In the tutorial you have to use it on some npc, that doesnt mean it’s only for npcs. READ more, especially before writing reviews.
(10) “Maybe this game gets more compelling as you continue. ” — it gets more compelling as you try to figure it out. Like any other game.
(11) “Fallen Earth Interface Example: Note Lack of Draw Distance” — What lack of draw distance? You can see the whole town?
All in all i really don’t like your review. It felt like someone raging about a game that he didnt master in every aspect from the beginning. We have some kind of metaphor (or such) for that: Buying a book (and reading the back of it) just doesnt cut it, you have to read the book itself to know what’s inside. In my opinion the game is completely ok, it is not really as good as more modern games, but for being free and post apocalyptic (and old) this game is quite good, actually. I also really like the controls, i was looking for something like that (reminds me of neocron).