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Warning: Avoid this game.
Cathmor
Member UncommonPosts: 12
Face of Mankind has a long history (5+ years now), a history I've had both the privilege and misfortune of witnessing and experiencing as a player. If you're looking for a new game to try, there are a few things you need to know abour the state of Face of Mankind as it is today.
The game has a single developer working on it. In some cases this would not be a problem but in the case of duplex (the single developer) it is a very large problem and hindrance to this game being even remotely fun. Over the last year or so since FoM was restarted, duplex has done little in the way of innovation or patching (patches often come every 2-3 weeks to even 1 month at times, ignoring the community when it comes to necessary balancing issues and simple tweaks needed to fix the game), but what he has done is set the game up so you are forced to pay monthly to have the few perks that make the game remotely playable. Along with this, duplex frequently implements over powered items into the game for players willing to pay money for them, further ruining the gaming experience.
90% of the things FoM needs, duplex cannot do himself because his skills are so sorely limited. Most things require him to outsource the work and hire someone else to do it, which he won't/can't do.
duplex has also stated that he views this game as a "hobby" and therefore can neglect it as much as he wants to/feels like, despite the fact he is charging players money for many aspects of this "neglected hobby".
Finally, duplex in conjunction with neXeon (forum/billing administrators) refuses to listen to any criticism about his decisions and they have recently begun banning popular members of the forums (such as myself) for doing nothing but offering constructive criticism. These bannings are occuring without warnings or forum infractions and afterwards no reason is given for the bannings (because no forum rules were broken, they have no justifiable reason). This is purely player abuse on their part.
Face of Mankind is dying and you will only be allowing yourself to be exploited if you choose to play this game and pay duplex/neXeon your money. Avoid it. You can do better.
I've spent 5+ years playing this game, being an active part of the community as a role player/suggestion maker/moderator and I've given hundreds of dollars to the developer over the years. In the end, I was banned for no reason simply for criticizing the developer constructively. Everything I've written here is the complete and sad truth.
Comments
If you aren't "forced to pay monthly" how is the game supposed to remain alive?
Because its run with 1 server and they bring out subscription packs with overpowered items to make money without any thought on how these items might affect the game. Im not sure you could call the game alive anyway. Id bet theres less than 100 people on at any time.
There's no point in it staying alive if the single developer is doing such an abysmal job of attempting to keep the playerbase steady. In fact, he's ISN'T trying to, at least half of the game left in March due to his involvement in a completely player-run RP event. I lost interest in the game at that point too, but I continued to pay monthly and play the game and force myself to enjoy it, remaining optimistic in hopes that the developer would appeal to the community somehow.
what i want to know is......if this game sucks so much why on earth would you pay a monthly fee for 5 years?!
dude!?!?!?!
i mean i undestand being misled into buying a game that looks good on paper but then ends up sucking.....i can even undestand trying 1 or 2 extra months just to see if things improve.....but 5 years?!
joke is on you man.
How is the game going to remain alive if the developer refuses to do anything beyond using cheap tricks to connive players into paying for things like over powered gear or premium perks necessary to make the game playable?
The veterans of the community (prior to being banned) were continually helping by pointing out exactly what needs to be done to both make the game more successful financially as well as mechanically for the sake of fun and player enjoyment. We were, however, ignored and banned instead.
@Jakdstripper
What can I say, I was dedicated for longer than it deserved. It didn't always suck as badly as I described in the OP though. In the last year it has just crossed the line of redemption and begun spiraling out of control.
This is just a warning so new players don't get caught in the same bad joke like I did.
The game ran from 2004-2007 (it was free to play untill late 2006. It shut down in 2007. (it was a really good game during this time)
The game restarted around 2009 ish with closed betas and the game was actually entertaining and fun to play but slowly the developer added changes that made the game worse and worse untill it ended up in the state its in now. People stick around in the hope that it will get better but recent events have proven it probably wont
ps. Its free to play and you can p2p for bonus's.
Look at from a child's point of view.
He invited you over to his house to play with his toys but only if you brought cake. You said, "Ok, good". You brought cake and played with his toys.
Then you started complain about his toy selection. You still brought cake but you no longer liked his toys as much.
Over time he got tired of hearing you complain about his toys while you continued to play with them. He has now decided your cake isn't worth having to listen to you complain about your use of his toys. So he pushed you out his front door, told you to never come back, and that your cake stunk.
Move on.
Think of him as a less intelligent, less wealthy Derek Smart.
I have not played the game myself but I will be looking at it. Your post has a couple of....issues that you may want to consider. First, you are a player of five years in the same game and just now have decided that "you have experienced misfortune" while playing. This leaves one to ask, "he played the game for 5 misfortunate years?" a little odd for a gamer. I mean to hang out for five years in a game experiencing such misfortune is a little...excessive, whouldn't you say? I mean, the information of this one developer making a game he considers a hobby is nothing new. That is, for five years you participated in a "remotely playable" game recieving patches that the developer purposely avoided any concept of making the game better. Certainly, this dedication to a game should be commended, I have a hard time maintianing any game that long.
Furthermore, you remain in the forums community as a participate knowing full well of their reported actions of "not listening to the players" where you know that this companies aledged abusive behavior is being conducted...for five years. And now that you have been banned for a self-reported "nothing" but constructive advice, the game is dying. This added to the reported fact that you have spent hundreds of dollars, to be abused, may lead readers to consider this a rage posting. Or, you like to spend your time, money and efforts in a game that shows....little promise.
Like I said, it wasn't always bad. Most of us stuck around in the hopes that it would one day return to the "golden age" we all experienced and were hooked on originally. It really was a truly unique and amazing experience during the first year back in 2005. It has gone through several different stages, the last year or so being the latest once after the game was canceled for a short while.
I've always been a part of the community working to try and make the game better as well as help the community (taking down abusive moderators, encouraging role play, leadership roles, being a moderator myself for a short while, etc). I stuck around despite the increasing amount of player abuse to stand up for the community and call it out in an educated and polite way every chance I could.
I'm in no way trying to make a rage post, just offer my story and a warning about what has happened to this game and its community. I hope that clears it up for you a bit more.
People keep missing it so ill repeat myself.
The game was up from 2004-2007 (it was a fun game back then but got shut down because the publisher dumped it)
FOM was relaunched in late 2009. (once again it was pretty fun to play but slowly became worse and worse and now it is in the state thats described in the OP)
He didnt play a bad game for 5 years its a recent development.
Just sharing the observation sir, did you during the 4 years of hell, ever attempt to tell others of its state as a moderators officer, role playing adviser or moderator? Or , decide that today was the day you needed to report the game as...barely playable?
Absolutely. I've spent the last year very actively attempting to better things within the community. I'm only stepping out to sites like MMORPG.com now because things have gotten so bad that players like myself have been forced out of the community with surprise bans due to our criticisms of the problems.
To put it simply, the situation has become a hopeless one to the majority of the Face of Mankind community and we're now reaching out to warn others about it.
Try reading the thread before responding. Or just the post above your own.
Lets keep the baiting to a minimum, the maximum being none at all. Follow the RoC please. Thanks!
The games dying so now the devs are selling huge expensive bundle packs in hopes to get as much money as possible before it is shut down. As Duplex the sole developer stated himself FOM was a hobby of his and he no longer has time for it.
So take it for whatever you want all I'm saying is I highly do not recommend you buy the new six month / yearly bundles and if you are looking to join it sometime soon and stomp some players out with the new overpowered gear it isn't worth your $30 because FOM's combat system is... unique.. and you will just end up getting beaten by even the worst of the original players because of it's heavy emphasis on strength in numbers, slight focus on booster micromanagement on top of poorly imitated Quake 1 style spastic third person shooting gameplay.
Everything Cathmor said is right. The community is treated like an animal that isn't wanted. In the past they tried to find reasons to ban you if they don't like you. now they don't even try to find reasons to ban people.
The forum had a reputation system that was removed 2 weeks ago. and this week suddenly mebers with a big reputation got banned. Some for 1 month others for "2" (TWO) years<---like me. The reason was: "No specific reason".
I even helped to made advert-threads on other forums, made animations for them, everything for free.
It seems that the developer (DPS) and the company (NeXeon) that host the forum and the servers know that FoM will die soon and they just try to milk the dying cow. They charge money for tools that give advantages in combat.
The game isn't fun anymore, it was fun, only thing that kept me there was/is the community.
Maybe if DPS sells the game or i can bother to make an emu, the word "FoM" would be used together with the word "fun" in one sentence again, but with the developer it has now, it will die soon.
I agree with OP. I have been paying ever since the second CB ended, 10 months now, we were all very optimistic about the future of the game. But the developer has been paying less and less attention to the game and community. After calling this game a hobby project I felt like it was an insult to all the players who were supporting it with $ and marketing (players recruiting new people) and who were hoping that the game could one day be what it should have been from the start.
As of now the game looks like its going nowhere, The developer is quiet. One would have thought that someone who is running a mmo would be informing his community about upcoming changes, content, developments. But all we hear (whenever there is an outcry from the community in the forums, and he is "forced" to say something) . Be patient, this is my 2nd job, I dont have time now.. and when a patch does come, it is halfass, only balancing that should have been done in CB and no content.
My cool sig: Turrets suck.
I tried this game, it was fun at first until the shitty community manifested itself. The game mechanics ran everyone out years ago, imagine playing an MMORPG and investing your time then another player that pays the same subscription as you has the abiliy to remove all of your xp and then force your char into permadeath.
Well you just imagined FoM, a bunch of dicks at the top of each faction half are GMs the others are supported by them, crapping on new players because they're bored of the game already and just need to raise their low self esteem. Duplex doesn't give a shit and Nexeon doesn't know what to do or is just about to pull the plug.
Every MMORPGer should do themselves a favour and avoid this "game" like the plague,
Agricola
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Well I will give my reason here why I did not like face of Mankind, and still don't.
I started fom Back in 2009 I think it was, and I played about 3-5 months total. I do not like the game because of a few problems with the game.
First I would like to make you aware that Face OF Mankind is a high roleplay game, and that the game in general has really old graphics. I believe that the entire game should be rebuilt on a new engine and such to prevent cheating. Yes there are hacks for this game out there, but putting these out of the way I will explain why I quit FOM myself.
1. Unless your playing a (LED) Law Enforcement Devision, or a (FDC) Freedom Defense Corps, You will constantly have issues with the game play. If you play Brotherhood OF Shadows, or Mercenary, chances are they are over populated with Kids. You get attacked a lot, and die a lot, you loose a lot of money with very little income at all. As a BOS, you get scammed with Drugs sometimes they get you to get them then kill you look quickly deposit in bank, and such. Overall your character gets a Perma Death once you cant afford clones, and you have to start all over again.
If you play LED, or FDC you are bound by very strict rules. Rules OF Engagement, People giving you orders, LED not allowed to kill, and sometimes I enjoy killing people, and such, so FDC would be the best choice, but again if you step out of line the fact that its all controlled by a community they can order you KOS, and you die over and over until your character is deleted perm.
These are the problems I faced when Playing FOM, I was forced to play a role I did not wan't to play really. I enjoyed ganking people shooting everyone up in this game, it was really fun, but once you get into your first war as a new player, you loose all your clones and die constantly. I hate to say it but this game needs a lot of changes, mostly based on the community. Also Objectives need changes too, and such where everyone can have enough cash to survive and such balance to the game.
Honestly LED, and FDC have the best Leadership, the others have really no Leadership.
Also another problem is that Faction Leaders have full control over your game play, and this ruins the actual Roleplay of the game. For example as an FDC if I capture someone alone Roleplay, Knife them dead, and they die there, they are allowed to take snapshots and show ISD, which makes this game roleplay not good.
I played FDC and saw the faction leader online twice in 2 months, my clnnies who were online in his timezone and played when I didn't saw him ingame maybe once. They spent all their time playing world of tanks or space station 13 and logged on to dish out punishments probably to make themselves feel better after being pwned in the other games they were playing.
I tried to initiate a no confidence vote on the forums and got capital demoted by him (lose all rank/level and lose all xp you ever made) then got fined (lost most money I'd made and increased penalty points) then I got prived (can't work off penalty points = perma death), couldn't change faction despite being subbed because if you still have gear on the yukon you're perma FDC.
I complained to the GMs but most of them are faction leaders and friends with the other faction leaders so they told me to STFU. I complained to Duplex and he blew me off and gave me a false address and telephone number. I complained to Nexeon, they wanted to help but just don't know what to do about it.
Ultimately it meant I'd wasted about $50 on that game when I could have got the same shitty experience for free. People said to join another faction but to be honest after being treated like utter shit by GMs, DEVs and the publisher I'd rather burn the money than give it to them. In fact I'd give the cash to smedley rather than let those scum have a single dime from me!
FoM logo should be "FoM where you're forced to eat a shit sandwich and smile!"
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
So basically Cathmor was interested enough in the game that he played quite actively AND joined the forums (are you guys active on the forums of games you wouldn't recomend?), and when he was kicked out (probably because he's such a nice troll) he comes to mmorpg.com to cry.
Your post Cathmor actually made me curious in the game.
If you had read what I posted, it answers most of the points you bring up in your own post. But for the sake of clarity, I'll readdress them:
1. I've been a part of the game's community for 5+ years. In its first incarnation which existed in 2005, it was an amazing game and well worth playing and being a part of the community for. The staff and publishing company was almost entirely different (though not much better) and the developer actually had people working with him.
2. The game goes through several milestone patches which completely alter it, culminating in an engine change and a final form which he went to P2P with. The game slowly declined, however, because the changes he made in this version (and continued to make), coupled with GMs/CMs who actively crushed player freedom, and eventually was canceled by his then publisher.
3. Roughly 1 year later, the game returns to development with a new publisher and the developer (now a one man show) heavily alters it again. This led into the first CB which started about 1 year ago. As it has progressed, the developer and his publisher (who runs the forums/billing) have progressively become more and more anti-player, seeming to only be interested in making money, expoliting the communtiy and as it stands now, booting out anyone who disagress with this. I was one of those people, so I was also banned.
That is as clear as I can tell you the history. If that comes off as crying to you, you're free to think that. Go ahead and check it out for yourself if you're that curious. You'll find out soon enough that I was right.
I totally agree with you on that, Wraith.
This kid is signed up for over 2 years and now decides to post just whining about a game. Pitiful.
Gamer-4-Life
I played for about 2 months and quit myself because the game and community are shite, FoM isn't about making money it's about running a simulation of North Korea where we all pay money to be treated like shit by the GMs and their friends. So much like North Korea they don't have any immigration problems however unlike North Korea they have no affective means of containing the population!
Hence the reason why the game is dead!
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Will you please dry my tears with your big manly arms?