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Fallen Earth 1.8 patch on PTS, extensive ability changes incoming
The Fallen Earth public test server (PTS) is the place to be for sneak peeks at upcoming content, and as of right now, said new content is the 1.8 patch. Icarus Studios' Carlin has posted the version notes on the Fallen Earth forums, and a quick glance at them indicates that 1.8 is quite the meaty update. The biggest change is the forthcoming ability revamp. According to the notes, "almost all abilities have been changed, with the goal of increasing the number and viability of different player roles and play-styles. Some abilities have been removed, and some new abilities have been added." Patch 1.8 also introduces new NPCs and missions in various parts of the wasteland, UI tweaks (including new chat channels), and an adjustment to the rate at which random AP is gained. If you've never tried the PTS on for size, you can download the client and also pay a visit to the forums to get your bearings.
Rip out your Fallen Earth character's heart for Valentine's Day
What's better than surviving a nuclear holocaust and wandering your way across a blasted brown landscape rife with societal collapse? Why, sharing said wanderings with someone you love, of course (or at least, someone you lust after in that we've-got-to-do-this-for-the-future-of-mankind sort of way). In a novel spin on the traditional mid-February holiday, Icarus Studios is presenting Fallen Earth's Valentine's Day Massacre event, and clones everywhere can literally offer their hearts as a sign of affection (and a +3 stamina buff). The gruesome festivities include a special "My Bloody Valentine" mission which features a Heartbreaker item and a crafting recipe that will enable players to rip out, preserve, and gift their hearts to whomever they desire. The Icarus devs will be making in-game appearances throughout the day on February 14th, and the Valentine mission is repeatable. You can pick it up at various locations in all three game sectors, and you can also head to the official website for more details.
Fallen Earth state of the game letter details upcoming content
It's a new month, and that means it's time for a new State of the Game letter direct from the wasteland. Fallen Earth producer Marie "Aro Sei" Croall checks in on the official forums to let us know about the next patch coming our way from the folks at Icarus. All things considered, it looks to be a pretty substantial update, and nowhere are the changes more noticeable than in the game's skill and mutation lines. We're particularly excited to see how the Dirty Tricks and Escape Artist lines work out, since the descriptions dovetail perfectly with the cutthroat atmosphere of a post-apocalyptic world on the brink. The patch will also bring a new Scavenger Boss Area that serves as a preview for the new tech going into the upcoming Alpha County release. The area, called Ruination, includes several camps and encounters that showcase new creature behaviors and destructible barrels. You'll find it on the way to The Wall that serves as the Sector 4 border. Economic tweaks are also under way, as are a number of February events. Finally, Aro Sei concludes this month's letter with the answers to a few pressing community-generated questions. Check out all the juicy info on the Fallen Earth forums.
Wasteland Diaries: Hardcore mode
So during your wait for Sector 4, have you conquered it all in Fallen Earth? You've overcome every obstacle and achieved every achievement? You've amassed wealth beyond dreams and have become a king among men in the wastes? Maybe not, but let's assume you have. What do you do now? Well, I've got some terrific news for you. Fallen Earth has a hardcore mode. It's a realism mod of sorts. But the catch is: Nothing is changed on the server side. All modifications will be made client-side (and they will be made legally). This mode will take a large amount of self-discipline. It will be very easy to cheat. Many of the rules that will be imposed on you will also be enforced by you. In order for it to be considered truly hardcore, apocalyptic-realism, you can't cheat. Even Fallout: New Vegas has a hardcore mode. Of course, I played it in hardcore mode and still found it too easy. I had to impose rules on myself to keep it challenging (like no V.A.T.S. allowed). I also found that the ability to save right before a big decision or fight also alleviates some of the difficulty. Of course, I could impose further restrictions on myself to make the game more difficult. With that in mind, after the cut, I'll show you how to do just that with Fallen Earth.
Fallen Earth offers $9.99 box copy, prairie chicken mount
Still thinking about checking out Fallen Earth's wasteland charms, but looking for a little prodding to send you over the edge? If so, Icarus Studios' latest promotion -- announced today on its official website and via press release -- is for you. For a limited time (through October 22nd to be exact), customers who purchase Fallen Earth through GameStop retailers -- either online or at traditional brick and mortar outlets -- will receive a boxed copy of the game for a paltry $9.99. In addition to the $20 instant savings, players will get an in-game prairie chicken mount for their trouble. You can learn more at the official Fallen Earth website, or locate the nearest GameStop.
Icarus preps Fallen Earth soundtrack release
Once upon a time, we spent an afternoon ripping audio files out of the recesses of our Fallen Earth directory. This wasn't fun, or especially productive, but the end result was a collection of MP3 snippets strung together on a playlist labeled FE Soundtrack. The whole hackneyed effort served as a stop-gap measure for getting our daily dose of wasteland ambiance while waiting patiently on an official solution. Happily, this half-arsed attempt is about to become obsolete, as Icarus Studios is gearing up to release their Firefly-esque soundtrack to fans all over the Grand Canyon province. The 20-track album will be available via the Fallen Earth website next week, and can be purchased for $13.99 US (or $.99 per individual track). Shiny.
Wasteland Diaries: New paint job
The Fallen Earth 1.6 patch is a couple days old now, and I've had a chance to check out some of its features. I've painted more vehicles than Earl Scheib this week. I was able to test the respec injectors on the Public Test Server (PTS). I haven't tried them on the live server yet, but I have a few misallocated points that aren't serving much of a purpose. I was able to run through the new, extended tutorial with a brand-new clone. And the Fallen Earth team has given us the ability to flag ourselves for PvP anywhere, anytime. This should prove interesting. If you have been waiting on the sidelines for the next patch or are wondering what new things are in store for us, I will give you a breakdown of the new stuff I have been able to check out myself after the cut. The patch is only a few days old, but I have been trying to experience the new features to the fullest in that short time.
Fallen Earth PTS patch features respecs, pretty colors
If you haven't yet put in an appearance on Fallen Earth's public test server (PTS), there's no time like the present. The game's newest patch, 1.6, has just been pushed to the PTS shard, and it's ripe for all the poking, prodding, and pummeling that players can muster. The update brings a boatload of new features to the wasteland, including arboreal graphic enhancements, a revamped newbie tutorial, minor respec points, custom vehicle paint colors, and PvP flagging. Grab your respec injectors from mutagenics merchants and type /pvp to prep your clone for all the ganking action you can handle (and type /pvp again when you've had enough). Read all about it on the official site as well as the official forums.
Fallen Earth offers freebie time for old subbers
Missing the rusted hulks of automobiles, radioactive pools of standing water, and the rest of the visual splendor that is Fallen Earth's ravaged wasteland? Fear not, as Icarus Studios has your fix in the form of two free weeks of unrestricted gameplay (if'n you're a former subscriber). If you've played the post-apocalyptic sci-fi MMORPG at any point in the past, whether on a trial or fully paid account, you're eligible to receive two weeks for free if you reactivate your subscription (or sign up for one, in the case of trial players). Fourteen days seems like the sweet spot for seeing a little bit of what the game has to offer. "That's enough time to re-join fellow clones or an old clan, take out some nasty raiders, craft and sell some goods, utilize a respec and get yourself a handsome mount," says the press release on the official Fallen Earth website. Check out all the details and when you're ready, reactivate your account instantly.
Xenome: Episode 1 is a fully immersive post-apocalyptic RPG on your iPhone
As I kid I burned up an entire summer playing Wasteland on my Apple II. I spent countless hours playing Fallout many years later. Xenome is clearly inspired by these two games, and promises to chew up yet more of my time. You play a lone wanderer in the desert, searching for something and having a few nasty encounters with mutated animals and people along the way. Xenome: Episode 1 is also the first sliver in a much larger story, with an MMORPG to follow after other episodes (which will be single-player RPGs) have been released. I had become pretty jaded with iPhone games in general, and words like "immersive" are trotted out so often I rarely believe the claims. But the first thing that struck me about Xenome's in-game world was the large, open landscape. There is a fantastic sense of scale in the game, with beat up old buildings jutting out of the desert landscape, looming over your character. You can go anywhere and do nearly anything, although your character is quite weak at first. The graphics are as good as you can get on the iPhone whilst providing ample geometry, although the game isn't yet tuned for Retina displays. This didn't matter so much to me, however, as the overall polish of the game is impeccable. The 3rd-person camera, for example, floats perfectly. It's clear Nine Pound Studios spent a lot of time on the artwork, music, sounds and in-game graphics because they're as good as anything I've experienced in mobile gaming. %Gallery-97174%
Wasteland Diaries: Building character
When making a character in Fallen Earth, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. While I still have three of my four respec injectors, newly created characters will not get a respec. So it is very important to determine what you want your character to be before you start spending AP. Fallen Earth is a "classless" system, but most builds are differentiated mainly by their choice of weapon mastery, and these could be construed as the three classes. While choice of weapon type will be the cornerstone of the build, there are still a great many questions you will want to have answers to before you start to improve your stats. But your first consideration should be what type of character you want to play. You will want one that suits your playstyle, but isn't completely gimped. My goal with this post will be to help make sure you have a plan before you start your build. Even though you can probably just assign AP at random and still make a viable (at least for PvE) build, you probably want your character to be the best that he or she can be, right? Now, I am not a character-building expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I have some experience with it. After the cut, I'll give you the tools and knowledge you need to build a solid PvE or PvP character. You will need to make the tough decisions yourself.
Community Q&A: Send your questions in for the Fallen Earth devs!
Well hey there Massively community! I hope you guys have enjoyed our Fallen Earth giveaway and corresponding in-game event, but we're not done with Fallen Earth yet! We have received a chance to visit the secret Fallen Earth headquarters and we'd like you guys to throw some questions our way for the dev team! We're going to be videotaping all of the studio's secrets and transmitting them back to you guys, but we're also going to throw your questions at the development team while they're on video. So if there's anything you ever wanted to know about the wasteland, or any questions you wanted to ask about the team's upcoming plans or patch schedule, then be sure to drop your questions off in the comments section of this post! We'll pick the best of the bunch and ask them during our video tour in two weeks, so be on the lookout for the upcoming post!
Fallen Earth's State of the Game: Upcoming additions and more
When it comes to transparency regarding patches, Fallen Earth might have just won that category in spades. The latest State of the Game article on their site is more than just an overview of the direction they want to take the game in, it's a patch by patch listing of the features that the development team will be bringing to the table. Patch 1.3 will be expanding the game with the introduction of Kaibab Forest and Deadfall Point, as players will run a brand new plotline to push back the radiation zone and find more secrets hidden in the wasteland. The new areas come with a brand new level added to the cap, so all of that experience gained from the new area won't go to waste.
Go out and steal oil in Planet Calypso's 10.1 update
In a move to make our virtual lives eerily more like our real ones, the First Planet Company has re-opened the oil pumping station on Planet Calypso with patch 10.1, offering all players the chance to make a quick profit by grabbing oil from the pump -- if you can make it out alive, of course.The pumping station is not only in the middle of the wasteland, but it's also surrounded by angry NPCs (the wastelanders) and it's right in the middle of an open PvP area. Sure, you can make a tidy profit by grabbing oil from the station, but you have to be efficient and sneaky about it. Otherwise, you'll just end up with a bullet in your back and your blood mixed with the oil.
The Digital Continuum: Let's talk about the Fallout MMO
Fallout 3 is out this week and I've spent a whole lot of time exploring and fighting in Bethesda's singleplayer MMO world. I've always wondered whether a post-apocalyptic MMO would work well or not, which is part of the reason I've kept a close eye on Fallen Earth in the past. But what's always been in the back-burner of my mind is whether or not the Fallout license would be necessary for a post-apocalyptic to flourish. While endlessly exploring our own personal post-apocalypticia is incredible fun, do we want a massive one?
One Shots: Racing across the snowy wastes
With the surprising amount of news coming out this weekend, we've decided to ride far and wide to find a different perspective on One Shots for today. This screenshot is actually from the oft-shown Lord of the Rings Online, but involving a road less-traveled. Here's what Maerlin of Brandywine had to say about today's image:This is a screenshot of the northern expanse of the Misty Mountains. This particular area is pretty much a barren wasteland except for the occasional rare spawn mob that drops the oh-so-coveted Beryl Shard.We think it's interesting to see this image and contrast it against some of the other LotRO screens we've shown. While we knew certain areas of Middle-earth were gorgeous, we were wondering where the wastelands of the story were at! If you have a road less-traveled that you'd like to share with the rest of us, feel free to send those screens in to us at oneshots@massively.com. We love to see the unusual too!%Gallery-9798%
