March State of the Game
February went fast here at Fallen Earth. We’ve been preparing the content side of Terminal Woods for release mid- March while we work on the combat changes in a parallel development track. Details on all the upcoming content are listed below:
Terminal Woods:
Through the Terminal Woods missions we will begin to introduce Alpha County and some of its displaced residents. Without giving any spoilers, it’s safe to say the people of Terminal Woods are starting to understand why the Wall is there… Now it will be up to the clones to help them survive in this new territory.
In addition to all the new missions there are also additional achievements, a PvP zone , the introduction of Scavenger bosses and all their new recipes and gear, as well as a several world bosses roaming the wilds. The entire area is half the size of a full sector with plenty of area to explore and more than one surprise to be revealed.
Along with the new territory, we will also be introducing the next part of the economic changes, including the revised component and recipe costs as well as the new social channels and the Nuclear Blast Heavy Metal Bunker Bar featuring Nuclear Blast Radio (NBR). Clones should expect to see Terminal Woods hit the live server later this month.
Alpha County:
Alpha County is moving forward for a Q2 release. We’ve had the opportunity to look at the schedule and realized we’ll be able to fit some of our long-term projects into release along with Alpha County, making it one of our largest content patches to date.
Along with an increased level cap to 55, close to 700 new missions, a new conflict town called Blockade, additional recipes, gear and consumables, we will also be including Progress Towns and World Events in the feature list. More info on both Progress Towns and World Events will come closer to the launch date They will both provide additional content across all levels of the game as well as add more excitement and conflict throughout the Wasteland.
We are also beginning work on expanding crafting with an augmentation system. More details on this will be available in a future State of the Game.
On the Art side, in addition to the new ecosystem, art has begun work on new creatures that really help convey the tone and mood of Alpha County. Devo and his team have outdone themselves on this one. He graciously sent along some concept art to share, included below.
PTS:
We will be continuing to push combat changes and iterations of the new system to the PTS for feedback. One important thing to keep in mind as we do this is that there is a method to our madness. The entire system may not be there, or there could be specific numbers we have not included in order to gain a specific type of feedback. As an example, this last patch focused on the bare bones of the system, emphasizing the new tech for mutation weapons and the general direction of the revamp. With the feedback we received we have been able to add further improvements to the mutation weapons and further alter the technology in order to replace some skills and mutations that were desired by the community.
Thank you to everyone who emailed us, posted on forums and submitted bugs with feedback. This really is the first time we’ve opened up our design process to players this early. I’m looking forward to the next stage as we get further along with the design.
Community Questions and Concerns
Here are our answers to some of the most frequently asked questions from Help chat, emails, bugs and the forums:
What about Housing?
Housing is something we’ve discussed and planned, then scrapped and gone back to the drawing board on. Done well, player crafted housing could be something that truly enhances the landscape and fuels the post-apocalyptic environment and the lore specific to Fallen Earth. Rushed, it would do more harm than good. The good news here is that we are now at a place in the schedule where we can start to see where and how player housing best fits in.
Are you ever going to make improvements to Blood Sports?
Yes. It’s being worked on by our scripting team.There are many issues we want to address. Our first priority is ensuring the teams have similar numbers of players before the match starts.
What about raid content?
Full raids as seen in other games require a huge amount of time and resources from every department in order to make them fun and challenging repeatable content. It was a higher priority for our team to get Alpha County completed before we began work on the Fallen Earth version of a raid, which for us would be a large dramatic instance with strategic fights and repeatable content. We will not be adding the necessity to grind raids for high end gear. That being said, we do have a much larger-scale instance on the schedule for about two months after Alpha County’s release, and while I’m pretty sure Devo (our Art Director) would have my head if I gave too much away, I can safely say it will be a large part of the Sector 4 storyline.
M
