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SWG Vets Should Try FALLEN EARTH
DrSaw
Member Posts: 81
Hey gang. I'm an old pre-CU SWG vet and I finally found a game that I actually enjoy about as much as pre-CU SWG. It's called Fallen Earth and is by a small development company. It is post-apocolyptic in genre, and has many of the things that made pre-CU SWG so great (classess development, intense crafting).
I've been playing for about a week and have really enjoyed it. They have a free trial so go check it out.
Comments
I found it to be very much like SWG.....post-NGE. That same terrible targeting and attacking system is there, along with a dated interface and unimpressive attack abilities. I guess it all depends on whether you like Star Wars or Fallout as an IP as to which one you'll swing to.
Prax
I agree. I am also Pre-CU SWG vet. I played FE in Open Beta and decided at the time I would not get the game at launch, but after being fortunate enough to score a free game key from an FE promotion on this site, I tried the game again. Fallen Earth has greatly improved since Beta days and I am enjoying it immensely. The growing, in-game community is wonderful and so many players are willing to help guide newbies.
I admit there are certain game systems in the game that are not as refined/advanced as you will find in other games (such as the social interface, or the AH features), but the game in itself is entertaining and highly immersive (yes, even addictive). The Icarus developers and staff are dedicated to Fallen Earth and the customer service is outstanding. The player freedom the game gives me from the usual class bound, hand-held theme-park type MMO's is what truly sets it apart.
Here is the link for a free 10-day trial -
www.fallenearth.com/trial/success
The game is also 50% off until the end of March should you decide to upgrade.
I know it has been difficult for many Pre-CU vets to find a new MMO to call 'home'. Many have given up trying. For those that are still looking, I can only say Fallen Earth is definitely worth a look.
There is bit more player freedom with characters and crafting than in typical MMORPG, but I wouldn't say that FE is replacement for orginal SWG what SWG veterans should try.
It is theme park - not sandbox. It is not entirely player run economy - there are lot's of craftable items, but that doesn't allways mean that you need to buy your items from AH or craft them - you can get almost all items from loot, rewards and NPC merchants too. It is not social world - no housing, no cities.
"I know I said this was my last post, but you my friend are a idiotic moron." -Shadow4482
I liked it but didn't really consider it a replacement for SWG pre-CU. It was still a level based, questing game. In fact the questing was rather brutal. I only made it to about level 13.
It's too quest driven for SWG vets.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
tested it in beta and tested it with the trail and did not play it longer then that. i really miss SWG my creature handler was my cup of tea but i dont really miss FE.
Benjamin Franklin wrote the best quote to use for MMOs in development.
Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.
Fallen Earth:
A single, large, barren wasteland.
NGE-Similar combat which is "twitch" based, but feels rather clunky.
No player housing..
Crafting is based off putting items together, any of which given items will be similar across the board.. may vary in some ways..
SWG, Pre-NGE
A multitude of worlds, all different, colorful, and extremely large.
Place a house wherever the fuck you want, decorate it however you want. Place vendors inside your house, sell your crafted items.
Crafting..
I'm just going to stop here, and explain the depth of the above mentioned item, because listing items in SWG as if it were just a 'feature' like other MMos, is far too shallow to properly explain the depth that this MMo had.
To craft an item, you needed a combination of other items, and resources. Resources could be harvested, or gathered from mobs, using a scout "mob harvesting" skill. Think of it like skinning.
Now, each individual resources had an individual quality. Higher level mobs dropped higher quality resources, that were determined by a decimal system, not a solid number. (IE: Quality... 5.6787 or 4.62... as opposed to quality: 4, quality: 5, like Darkfall's system works. I can't quite remember the exact numbers, but that's besides the point..)
The REASON that this had a lot of depth is because the quality of the resources that you gathered directly impacted the item you wished to craft. For instance, you could craft a rifle with low quality materials and have the damage come out to be 157-173. Or, you could -top dollar- for the best quality items (and believe me they were rare), and come out with a rifle that could have, let's say... 169-189 damage.. Again, I'm just throwing numbers out here, but it really made a difference.
The reason this was relevant and unique to SWG was because you began to see items crafted which were INDIVIDUALLY UNIQUE. For instance, you could have a player who happens to own the "best rifle on the server", simply because he got lucky in finding the top quality materials, being able to actually afford them, finding a highly-skilled crafter (skill-set of crafter directly impacted how good an item came out), AND JUST BASED ON PURE CHANCE, the item happened to come out amazing. Keep in mind there were many other factors that go into making the item, such as "experimentation", which offered variation of the balancing of stats for a particular item, and there were also things like chance of failure, where you could simply lose all the items that it took to craft your rifle.. I know a lot of MMos have the 'chance of failure' thing, but I feel it's worth mentioning.
This was just a small corner of SWG. The combat, housing, and everything else for that matter, was unique to SWG in its own regard, and worked extremely effectively to create a game that I wanted to play on a daily basis. I think it was well understood that in a game where stats control everything, TWITCH COMBAT WAS NOT APPROPRIATE. Regular RPG aspects worked very effectively in the game.
This brings up the idea that my brother and I were discussing yesterday. The concept that in order for an IP-based game to be good, it has to have individually good game mechanics, and actually be a good game in itself, regardless of if it has "Sta Wars" or "Star Trek" pasted onto its name. Think of the success of Batman: Arkham Asylum. They didn't simply paste Batman onto a game and hope for it to succeed. They may have actually just made a good game, which happened to involve Batman.
Now, to give people an idea of what the NGE did to SWG, I will offer a description.
Imagine everything I just described in the above paragraphs, the depth, the experimentation, the variability, and imagine yourself playing this game. You have a character which you have spent endless hours developing and working to your liking, a completely unique AND VIABLE combination of two and a half of any of the 32 given professions. Then, one day, you wake up, and all the 32 professions have been mashed into 9 classes. There are no talent trees. There is no variability. The RPG-based combat is replaced with a clunky "aim it yourself" thing. The crafting was eliminated completely.
The company was refusing to revert the changes.
Can any more really be said?
Oh yeah.
Fallen Earth doesn't approach the depth of pre-NGE SWG.
Last post sums it up pretty good. FE was just OK, but not worth my sub. Interface clunky, crafting a joke. Perhaps Earthrise will finally break the long wait for a decent sandbox to play.
Playing: Nothing (nothing worth playing)
Favorite: SWG (pre NGE, CU)
Played: WoW, Eve, DAoC, Warhamer, AoC, SWG, Earth & Beyond
Hope: GW2 maybe
Pre-CU SWG was the best gaming experience I ever had. Screwed up my MBA though... the only major screw up in my life actually, but I have no regrets.
/kowtow
Condensing this awesome post down for the bits that matter.
Ive been saying this since my time in Beta.
PAST: UO-SWG-DAOC-WOW-DDO-VG-AOC-WAR-FE-DFO-LOTRO-RIFT-GW2
PRESENT: Nothing
FUTURE: ESO
Fallen Earth has improved considerably since its Beta days and launch. In fact, it just received one of many notable content patches yesterday. I am the first to admit that FE does not have many of the in-depth, complex systems that other games presently have, but this is a game created by a small independent company, Icarus. The game is evolving and growing. Sure, there are things like character respecs that should been fast-tracked within the game, but FE is still seeing postive progression. It certainly is not a game that will appeal to all mmo gamers, but many can appreciate it and the company.
SWG on the other hand is devolving and imploding. Bad decision after bad decision has driven off the playerbase leaving just a couple of servers with a worthwhile population. That is sad considering that SWG once had 25+ servers with bristling populations. Maybe $OE could use a few tips from Icarus.
Fe is a good game. If you can get a free trial, you have nothing to lose but a little time. That said, the level of complexity is nowhere near what precu swg was.
FE?? Replace SWG???
No.
A: it runs like shit.
B: It isn't Star Wars.
Fixed that for you
Tried it. It's fun, certainly one of the more original MMO's I've seen in awhile.
But if you're looking for the expansive sandbox combat system pre-CU SWG had, you are NOT going to find it in this game. At all. It is sandbox, it is mix and match, but the options you can actually mix and match are few.
Fallen Earth doesn't try to be SWG, though, it is a very original game all its own. And going into playing it, that was my mistake. I wanted a game that recaptured pre-CU SWG, and if that's what you go into this game expecting, you are going to be disappointed.
However, if you are looking for a very original sci-fi MMO with a sandbox type classless combat system, this is a game you should try. Just don't expect it to recapture the magic of SWG for you.
Old School SWG - "I paid you 1,000,000 credits not for you to slice my Krayt weapon for me... I paid you 1,000,000 credits to give it BACK to me."
It has an FPS style combat system, which means I'm out by definition. Can't play that crap without it causing me physical pain. Too bad, because the premise sounded nice.
Linna
yeah, me and the other countless people who tried to hep get the game running smoothly during beta....and were totally disgusted when instead of fixing the obvious coding issues they simply increased the system requirements of the game.
Poor coding is poor coding. Even the people who claim that the game runs "fine" only get 10-20-ish FPS in towns, usually with quad-core processors, 8gb DDR3 and dual $400 graphics cards.
The game looks five years old, and runs like crap due to bad coding. Period.
B.S.
I just downloaded the 6 GIG free trial because of this topic. Fallen Earth plays exactly like WOW, the crafting is exactly like WOW. I found myself doing quests to level up, while bending down over copper nodes as the mobs aimlessly wander back and forth within a 100 foot radius ready to be killed and looted.
And I actually like aiming and FPS games.
Hey whatch out while throwing the word "Complex" out there, you might confuse delovopers into thinking complex simply means you get to craft more weapons and armor out of a longer list of raw materials.
Fallen Earth atmosphere would have been perfect for SWG player strucctures, but allas there is no player structures and there neverw ill be player structures in Fallen Earth.
Remember how in SWG people use to complain how player placed houses looked like shanty towns, and it don't match the Star Wars atmosphere? Well shanty towns fit perfectly into the Fallen Earth atmosphere.
Too bad.
FE ran fine for me, it's just boring as a dog's ass.
The Grand List Of Forum And Community Laws
There hasn't been a MMORPG since SWG that could be seen as a replacement, FE is no exception, but regardless of that it's the first MMORPG that has captured me into playing it since launch, no other MMO after SWG had made me play this long.
FE never intented to be a sandbox, it's people on forums who keep pretending that, it has always been a hybrid, part Themepark mixed with some sandbox feature's.
You can progress without doing missions, but since the missions are actually fun to read and do I didn't mind this aspect, though normaly I don't really like missions/quest. Yes you might progress slower not doing the missions, but that's excactly what I a niche player like about the game as I aint in a rush to cap lvl so find enjoyment in slowing down my progress, I have spend weeks at a time without doing a single mission. Then switch do doing missions again.
Crafting is very enjoyable but doesn't come close to the depth of SWG's crafting, but I love it regardless.
Also you can NOT get almost all items from loot, you only get very basic items from loot, very rare you might get lucky getting a somewhat special item from mission rewards, but overall there are no rewards or loot items that out-do crafted items. People who mainly use looted items or reward items instead of buying from the Auction, Trade or Craft them will have a hugh disavantage in both the gameworld aswell in pvp. There are plenty of rare mats you gonna need as a crafter that you will NOT find on any merchant, but this encourage exploring for mats to scavage them.
Nerf09 (Fallen Earth atmosphere would have been perfect for SWG player strucctures, but allas there is no player structures and there neverw ill be player structures in Fallen Earth)
Housing is another topic of great discussion. This is something we would very much like to see in the game—this hasn’t changed. The camp system is the gateway into the housing system and we will be working to bring that system closer to fruition. We want to make sure it meets expectations, so we will be taking our time on it to ensure quality. taken from the State Of The Game July.
Regardless anything said by who ever including me, the only way to find out if this game is fun or not fun is to try it out yourself.
Is it a replacement for SWG???, NO, I dare to challenge anyone to mention a replacement for that game, and no EVE doesn't count as it's a total different type of game compared to SWG, if EVE would have had the option to land on planets, explore those planets with a humanoid character then it might be comparable, but as said no MMORPG comes close in my opinion to what was SWG. And don't get me wrong EVE is a great game by itself and simply no game can be compared to EVE aswell.
And let's face it FE can be enjoyed by those SWG VETS who where players with patience, these day's from what I see in this section many of these VETS have changed so much in how they play MMORPG's that I highly doubt it will atract the type of VETS we see in this section.
I tried FA. Its realy U?gly and Boring. Graphics and colors looks extreemly depressing. I would say AVOID this game.
If i ever where to play a sandbox game i would want it to be like swg pre cu - nge or not as you truly have freedom to go where you want unlike fallen earth where you cant since you gotta do stupid quests all over the place. So to me this is not a sandbox game. And if i wanted to do quests il save it for gw2 and swtor.
The only real sandbox game out there right now is Ryzom, I think. No loot drops, all player crafted items, no classes, totally skill based, few or no quests.
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