May State of the Game
Welcome to the State of the Game!
As you all know, we are closing in on the final release of Global Territory Control, an exciting and major update to the post-Sector 1 experience in Fallen Earth. We’ll discuss some of the latest additions to this system and the world later in this blog, including the all-new PvP conflict area, The Foothills, in Deadfall.
First off, a couple of the Free2Play restrictions will be modified soon with the 2.4 (Global Territory Control) update. This is being done to fit better with the capabilities of the engine, and allow us to grant even greater benefits for supporters. The Crafting Queue (meaning how many recipes you can have in progress at once) will be set to 1 for free players, 20 for Survivalists (this is what it currently is for everyone) and an increase to 30 for Wastelanders and Commanders. The upshot for free players here is that you’ll never hit an artificial wall preventing you from crafting for the rest of the day, so as long as you’re actively playing you can always craft something new once the previous item is finished. Most notably, this will eliminate the dreaded “stuck” crafting queue bug for all players regardless of paid status. The amount of Death Toll free players can gain is also being reduced, as currently there is a surplus of Death Toll in the system, and the Premium benefits do not offer a very noticeable increase in comparison. Reducing free Death Toll makes more sense than going in and raising all Death Toll costs of individual items to bring everything in line. It’s not all negative, however; free players will no longer have an XP penalty, and will earn 100% of the available XP from quests, hunting mobs etc (versus the current 75%).
We’re also working on addressing some calculations on the client and server that a portion of players have been abusing via third party tools. Until then, consider this an automatic first and only warning: Everyone caught for exploitation/modification of any kind will be banned immediately with no further discussion and no appeals process. So instead of cheating and then blaming it on your cousin/brother/best friend/dog, maybe just don’t do it in the first place? That seems like the best route, if you ask us.
Now, enough of that stuff, let’s talk about THE GAME.
We’re closing in on the finishing touches for Global Territory Control! In addition to tweaking some values and adding specialty merchants, one of the things that was most important for us to include before GTC goes live was a new more centrally located area for high level players to fight over that provides a good amount of Faction Control Points towards the GTC faction buff.
We wanted an area that would be between two important destinations for level 55 players—Los Alamos and Citadel—as well as a town layout that utilized some of the most requested and favored features from Haietta.
The central road in the area cuts straight through the center of town, and the discarded vehicles and abandoned houses give plenty of vantage points for snipers and ambush points for the unlucky traveler who happens upon the wrong end of a Volatile Bloodvine Axe.
The Foothills is an abandoned settlement that never quite made it despite its proximity to Los Alamos and as the settlers were driven back to safer towns, the factions have moved in eager to take control of the area and further their influence over the entire canyon. Check out some screenshots of The Foothills below!
With The Foothills added, we’re in the final stages of testing, balancing and tweaking for the Global Territory control patch so stay tuned for all the final details, as well as a few surprises we’ve managed to sneak in. We are hoping for a launch of the 2.4 update next Wednesday, if our final tweaks and additions come along smoothly.
See you in The Foothills!
http://fallenearth.gamersfirst.com/2012 ... -game.html
