Big changes are afoot, and this is what you have to look forward to.
State of the Game
So it’s been a quiet few months around the FE offices…nah just kidding. Things have been insane here. At this state we’re about 9/16ths of the way through the transition to Free2Play. We’ve already seen a nice boost in both active players and subscriptions since joining G1. It’s been a learning experience for everyone involved and while things may not have been a seamless as we would have liked, the heavy lifting is over and we can all get back to the business of continuously evolving FE.
Which segues nicely into what’s happening in the coming months; this week we will have what we are calling the Fast Travel Patch. We have added fast travel locations to the major towns in each sector to alleviate some of the frustration players have with the long distances in regards to grouping and socializing. Being able to move about the world more freely should lend itself to increased player interactions, both cooperative and competitive, while aiding in roleplaying as newer players can participate
Also in this patch we have tweaks to the combat system including but not limited to a change in the formula used to derive health. This will now mean you’ll get three health per level, three per point of Strength, and four per point of Endurance. We’ve also increased the damage bonus from critical hits, and changed what we call the “damage variance”, meaning players will only ever receive a positive bonus to damage (whereas before it had an equal chance to be positive or negative), and raising damage per attack slightly across the board, increased precision’s critical hit chance bonus, and added the Rest stances to help PvE players get back into combat faster.
We will be posting the compete patch notes shortly (actually we already did, I’m just late posting this) , so I don’t want to get into too much detail about the other changes we have made but rather take this time to talk about the upcoming months.
In September Fallen Earth turns 2! In MMO years we’re in the bratty teenager stage so we’re looking to celebrate by stealing a car, getting a fake id and partying until the cops come for us. (Legal Disclaimer: the fallen Earth Staff does not condone or recommend any illegal activity, and if you see the photos they were totally photoshopped).
Actually we’ll be adding a major new feature to our quickly evolving “sandpark” – World Events. The world events will be large scale events that will drive players to unite to accomplish a goal, for example – save the town from raiders, provide medical support to townspeople, clear hostile creatures in order to scavenge resources or defend faction towns from enemies. World Events will be available in all sectors and provide dynamic repeatable content across all levels.
In September we will also be starting to put in place the economic changes we have been developing for the past few months. This will break into a two step process over the September and October patches. The first step is making sure that the rarity for all components is correctly represented by their drop rates from nodes or mobs. From there we will be looking into making sure recipes use the right component for their level and value. There will be a few changes in terms of how certain components are obtained and used but the crafting system itself will be the same. We are extremely proud of crafting in Fallen Earth, and intend to leave the system functioning as is, but make higher end crafting far more rewarding—especially for dedicated crafters.
We will also have a nice live event to celebrate our 2 year anniversary…but more info on that when we get closer to the actual date.
October is another large month for us as we roll out the new Territory Control PVP system. Factions will be able to take control of parts of the world and use them to generate resources, so long as they defend them from other factions. The rarity work we have been doing leading up to this will ensure that these areas are worth holding as well as make significant improvements to resource availability and demand. When we are done with the component availability improvements we will be able to address the issues present with component merchants and what they should be selling.
Summing it all up: this week we’re adding Fast Travel, which supports the upcoming inclusion of World Events. Together these two features form the backbone for realigning resource rarity, and ALL of this becomes the foundation for Faction Territory Control, which helps accomplish our strategy of making faction and PvP “matter” more.
It’s been a busy year for us and we’re not planning on slowing down anytime soon! We’ve got some major projects on deck after October that are much more time and resource intensive, but players have been asking for them since forever ago and we really feel like if things keep moving in the direction they are we’ll be able to make them a reality. More info on those will follow …soon.
See you in the wastelands
M
