"Back from GDC" Report

Lee Hammock and the Fallen Earth A-Team are back from GDC and straight into development hell, but not before they answer few fan questions and give us a progress report from their trip:

We're back from GDC and, oddly enough, this year the annual plague struck folks in the office while we were gone instead of the attendees bringing it home with us. It's still lurking around the office, but it looks like the worst of it has passed for now.

GDC was again a whirlwind of activity; we did twenty-some-odd interviews, including several audio and video interviews, so hopefully those will be making it online sometime soon. I'm afraid a lot of them won't be that interesting for our long-term fans, since we got a lot of folks who hadn't seen the game before and thus got the "ground up" spiel as opposed to the "what's new" spiel. We did have several folks who also saw us last year at the Austin GDC (MMORPG.com, Ten Ton Hammer, The San Diego Daily Transcript, etc) who should have some of the more interesting, newer bits. Sadly I doubt we'll have the sort of large-scale video that the MOGArmy guys did last year since they seem to be MIA.

I'll leave most of the new bits we introduced at GDC to come out in the interviews so as to not steal their thunder, but the important bit I do want people to see is that we're roughly 70-75% content complete and 50-60% feature complete. We want those to hit 100% before we go to widespread beta, but to give you an idea of our progress, we were around 20% in both this time last year. Complete doesn't mean all polished and nice-like, but it does mean functional. Everything needs a good layer of polish and spit shine, but the core is moving along nicely. This week we're doing some experimental revamp work on some of the starter towns, in addition to working on Irondowns, Bountiful, and Shackleton.

So. On to the Questions!

1. Is it possible to be a Vista spy and pretend to be a Tech, and if so, how would this work?

There are Stealth abilities and Telepathy mutations that allow you to alter your faction ratings temporarily so you can sneak into enemy towns, but these may also be removed by other characters using their own abilities if they think you're up to no good. If you get your faction deception abilities removed in the middle of an enemy town, you're going to be accosted by the locals pretty quickly.

2. Is it possible to use vehicles in combat as Phenix asked?

This is a big question we're still working on answering. If you can run someone over with a car, it makes investing points in the rifle skill sort of pointless, so we're trying to figure out what role we want vehicles to play in our game. Transportation and storage? Combat? Some combination of both? We don't want Fallen Earth to become a driving game with some personal elements; instead we want it to remain a personal game with some driving elements.

3. Off the last fiction, will there be combat pets or was that just creative license? I so want an attack parrot - I mean, I'll settle for a big cat, but the parrot would rule.

While attack parrots are unlikely, we will have a wide variety of pets that can be used for combat, from creepers and other mutants to old classics like wolves and large cats.

4. Any plans on making a site or adding to this site helpful information about Fallen Earth when it comes out? Like the recipes it would take to make a car - not necessarily where to find them, but something that gets the player started on the right path. Helpful paths that beginning players could take with AP use.

We're working on incorporating some of the ideas you mention into the game itself currently, such as providing direction for crafting-oriented characters so they start with some recipes, tool kits, and an idea of where to find more. Basically we've found our new-player experience to be a little too open, so we're working on adding more hints as to where to go and what to do. Some examples of this are towns geared toward a specific playstyle and some options for players to let the system automatically assign their AP towards a certain chosen goal (such as the system automatically spending your AP so you can be the best pistoleer if you select that option).

5. 3D Glasses...Useful item or just random bling?

3D glasses may not be the most useful items in terms of stopping bullets or boosting your Perception, but they do have damage resistance against certain types of unusual damage. While in many situations they may not be useful, in the right ones they can be VERY useful.

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