The leader of the Scarred Cadre clan, DarkTreader, posted today a very detailed report covering Fallen Earth's GenCon presentation!

So, I finally made it to GenCon after about 13 years of wanting to do so -- and while that was nice enough, the fact that I got to go and meet some of the Fallen Earth crew made it that much more memorable. I arrived at GenCon on Saturday, fought my way through the line at the badge registration booth, then headed into the Exhibitor's Hall. If you've never had a chance to see this place, I highly recommend doing so -- you could cut the geek excitement with one of the dull foil-covered cardboard swords that seemed to be everywhere.

I made my way to the Fallen Earth booth, good old 535. I met with a few members of the staff and presented the basket of mead to them from myself and Taelanna. At that moment, Lee was off on another interview and not present, but I was told that I could come back later and talk to him as much as I wanted. And so, I did. When I came back, I was able to get a few stillshots of Lee and myself, and then set about getting answers to a lot of the questions from various people around the forums -- here are the results of my endeavor:

On the Character Creation front, everything looks pretty well set. Lee showed off some of the starter pieces of clothing and apparently, the LifeNet creators were big fans of Converse sneakers. He loaded into the tutorial and, from my perspective, it looked as if a lot of the textures had been cleaned up from the previous videos I had seen.

Shortly afterward we jumped to Newton, where I saw some of the nastier zombies -- Newton is definitely NOT a place for lower level characters. Apparently, a character at equal level to the zombies in the area would be hard pressed to survive. After Lee offed a few zombies with his Heavy Machete of Doom (and Dev Hax), I had the chance to see how drops and resource nodes would be handled. Dead bodies will have a green glow that sets them apart from their surroundings, showing you that they have something carried on them. As far as Resource Nodes go, any node that you come across will display the Ability, the Skill Level, and the Tradeskill Kit necessary to harvest it -- in this case, I believe it was Blood Cactus, which needed a Nature Tradeskill Kit. To that end, it seems as if every tradeskill that harvests or produces an item requires a Tradeskill Kit. This will make inventory management rather important, what with the limited number of backpack slots available.

Along with this, Lee expanded a bit more on the scavenging system. There will be 4 tiers of salvage quality, and each resource node will distribute resources based on the Skill Level required to harvest there. For example, if a node requires 10 Nature and you have 10, then chances are good that you will receive only the 1st tier of materials. However, if it requires 10 and you have 40, you shift up on the drops table and have a higher % chance of receiving 2nd, or possibly 3rd, tier items. Even more interesting is the way that scavenged materials can be 'refined'. For those familiar with the Diablo 2 gem system, this will seem very familiar -- multiple pieces of lower tier salvage can combine to form a higher piece. Because of this, resource gathering and salvaging is still quite lucrative at higher levels, even if you're just getting the 1st or 2nd tier items.

While in this area, I was graced with a shot that we'd seen earlier, the accelerated time view that shows the sun rising and falling and the stars whipping across the sky. I was told that, in regard to the stars, there is already a calculated seasonal drift -- the stars will shift positions to where they should be as the seasons change. And yes, the seasons DO change. As time passes, flowers will bloom, grass will grow, snow will fall... seasons and weather are all fully integrated. However, weather at this point in time does not effect gameplay: walking through what appears to be 10 inches of snow will not affect you. As Lee said, weather at this point is 'in the sky and on the ground.'

I was shown a good many portions of the first sector, and was able to ask and receive answers to all manner of questions -

Pets:

Pets will have abilities, but they are a mechanic that is still in flux. I was not told whether pets will be combat-capable or not.

Ammunition:

Ammunition will NOT be poisonable... per se. There will, however, be certain weapons that shoot poisoned/acidic rounds, such as the Acid Burst Crossbow. Presently, the use of poisons/acids will be bound to the quickbar and thrown in a vial at your target.

Villain Factions:

Lee gave some details on a couple of the villain factions, including the Judges, the Allmind, CoG, and a couple of others that did not make it into my notebook. The Judges are a radical branch of the Lightbearers, who feel that it is their duty to remove sin from the world... generally, by shooting it. The Allmind is another offshoot of the Lightbearers who, through the use of their mental abilities and gratuitous use of pharmacology, are able to form a collective consciousness -- what this means for the rest of us is yet to be seen. CoG are a radical form of Techs who seem to believe that technology is the source of all solutions; it is from CoG that another splinter group started, those who worship the Mathematical God. Alt-tab seems to be a popular saying with them.

Player Factions:

As you progress through a faction, you will have the opportunity to advance through the ranks of that faction, possibly as high as 2nd in command. Each rank of a faction you achieve will come with a bonus of some form: ability, tradeskill, or item. Which ranks get which rewards has yet to be determined, but this mechanic is in place to reward loyalty to a particular faction. Also, there are sub-factions within each of the 6 main factions, catering to the entire spectrum of views within that faction: for example, Jackbooted thugs vs. Law Enforcement for the Enforcers, or Tree-hugging pacifists vs. violent activists in the Vistas.

Player Groups:

Player Groups are another mechanic that has yet to be worked into the game, but is one that they have a lot of good ideas about. Not a whole lot was said because there isn't much that's set in stone yet. Guilds will also have the opportunity to construct bases, which were defined as expensive -- both chip and resource-wise. Lee stated that he wanted to make guilds more than just a 'glorified chat channel', so what this means is up for grabs.

Player Structures:

Lee mentioned that player structures may be set up in town-sized plots of land that are not attached to NPC towns, allowing for groups of people/guilds to establish a town of their own, if they have the resources to do so. There is also a mechanic idea to charge an upkeep cost for buildings -- if the upkeep is not paid for a certain amount of time, the building will disappear. The player will regain a portion of the resources used to construct the building, but will lose the building, the cost, and the time needed to construct it.

Low-level Travel:

Lower level characters, it seems, will be able to travel anywhere within a sector... but whether they can survive is a different story. More than that I am unsure of, as I saw no travel between sectors. Between much of the initial area, there is an active bus system that will allow travel between a portion of the sector. More types of travel may be available in the future, but nothing was stated for certain.

Early Game:

There may be a number of 'Tutorial' contacts stationed near the post-tutorial starting point that would send you on a series of easy missions to give you a bit more information about the society and familiarity with the area. As for regular mission, Lee stated again that they were doing their best to keep away from the '20 rat tails' missions. He also said that missions would not send you all over a sector, nor would it bounce you back and forth between 2 towns repeatedly. I would take this to mean that while there would be certain missions where you would have to go to a more distant town, it would be a rare occurrence.

New Tools!!!

Announcement of a new tool: the Flashlight! Due to the actual darkness of, well, darkness... the Devs have decided to provide we clones with flashlights at/near the beginning. The first ones will likely take up a single hand slot, but there are other types of light that can go on a chest slot (Military flashlight) or a head slot (miner's helmet).

Inventions and Recipes:

Inventions are on a 'laddered' system. To explain: If you produce a large number of .45s, for example, you will reach the point where they no longer give you experience or AP for crafting. At this point, you may receive the recipe to construct a NEW .45, that performs better than the standard one. You will still need to find the resources to build it, but the new product will be better than the first. From there, you can construct the new weapon, eventually receive a recipe for an even more advanced one, etc... This means that it is feasible to progress through the crafting tree and specialize on a particular weapons type.

PvP:

Player versus Player (PvP) areas will have the same % of AP-granting missions as any other region of the game, so there should be no worry about hardcore PvPers not being able to gain AP. It was said that there should be no missions in PvP zones which will force you to attack other players -- however, there WILL be opposing missions where one group of players may be trying to escort an NPC while another group is trying to take out the NPC. Sounds like a great mechanic to me. There are also two PvP areas set up in the first sector for those who 'just want to kill somebody'.

Scavenging:

Lee stated that there are two types of resource designations that they use, Area and Regional. Area markers (a junkyard, for example) are areas that have been designated to spawn certain nodes for harvest (i.e. Scrap Copper). Regional markers are just what they sound like -- entire regions that have particular resource nodes designated to spawn within them (Dry Flats, for example). In either case, the resource nodes are NOT static -- you can find harvest points anywhere within the designated area/region that is not on a road or otherwise occupied (structures, burned out cars, etc...). Also, certain items that are found can be broken down to their component parts -- a right-click menu will show what can be done with an item, and 'Salvage' will reduce it. Nothing was stated, but I would assume that there is some requirement for being able to take apart an item, possibly the same skills needed to construct it.

GUI specifics:

The minimap in the upper right corner gives information about your surroundings, as you'd figure. Yellow dots are non-aggressive, red dots are aggressive (or their dead bodies), a bullseye signifies a resource node. There are rotating compass points on the minimap, showing you the direction you are facing, as if a true compass were built in. As far as I was able to see, these only appear when the minimap is zoomed in quite close. The sound bar also appears to have been moved to the bottom of the minimap. The two buttons on the top to either side are Top-Left: Gear (IIRC, but don't quote me) and Top-Right: Map. Weapons holstered are displayed across the top of the screen, and can be switched out as needed.

NPC Interactions/Atmosphere:

A lot of work has been done on NPC/NPC interaction. As you go through towns, the NPCs will talk to each other, animals will attack, etc... and it gives it a very realistic feel. The NPC interactions that I was able to see are highly amusing, one in particular involving someone being lit on fire. At other points, there were attacks on guards by stray dogs, and it felt like there was an actual world happening around the character.

All in all, I had a great time with the Fallen Earth staff, and I hope that I didn't talk their ear off with all of my questions. Just want to thank them again for giving me the opportunity to spend the time with them that I did, and for being such good sports about everything.

Additional information, besides this, can be found in the video that will be posted in the near future. Oh, wait. Did I mention there was a video? *looks back* Guess I didn't. Yeah, I've got almost 35 minutes of video that I'm piecing together, just waiting for some final approval from the guys at FE. Sooooo, watch for that soon!

Many thanks to DarkTreader, Natura Tribe, the Scarred Cadre, and the Communal Heap for sharing this excellent report with the FE community!