Exclusive Fallen Earth Update Interview - Testing, Timelines, and Flying Fists

[Cody Bye]

For game developers, creating an MMOG is one of the most daunting tasks imaginable. Thousands of man hours are logged in the creation of even the most basic MMOG, and the bigger a project gets the longer it takes developers to produce a final product. So when the group of developers at Icarus Studios opted to create a skill-based, post-apocalyptic title that included real time combat and vehicles, the Ten Ton Hammer staff knew it was going to be a major undertaking. However, it seems the team and their product - which is titled Fallen Earth - are really starting to come together. Recently, the developers announced that they were “feature complete” and ready for testing. To find out more, Ten Ton Hammer’s Cody “Micajah” Bye sat down with Fallen Earth’s lead game designer Lee Hammock and had an in-depth discussion about the game and its progress thus far. Please enjoy!

Ten Ton Hammer: If you could have the Alpha testers concentrate on one thing, what would it be?

Lee: Combat. It’s the meat and potatoes of our game, so we want it to be as fun as possible. Being an FPS system with a strong PvE element we’re doing something not many other MMOs have done and we still have fine tuning to work out. We’ve got lots of bugs and stuff to work out in missions, crafting, etc but the only thing that I real think needs fine tuning in terms of overall feel is combat.

To read more of the Fallen Earth interview, click here!

[Acidbaron]

The game looks okay for a skill based MMO, it's one of the many coming out in 08-09.

It has some nice features such as detailed crafting, a fps element, open world etc.

I might try it out as but i'm still more interested in Earthrise for personal reason i won't mention here.

However i must say they lost some points by making their first beta stage a gamespot lottery thing, without giving a good explaination for it and for me this overshadows all the rest.

If i was part of the community and was an active contributor i would feel like this being a slap in the face and being told that i am useless for anything but my money.

Do not get me wrong it is okay to do such a media stunt to put your game on the MMO map. But the game seems to be very dependant on its community and instead of first handpicking active community people and then adding a media hype lottery system is a bad signal to send out.