I was fortunate enough to score a closed beta key for Fallen Earth last week. Have spent about three hours in the game since. It has potential. I am still working out the mechanics and how it all fits together, but the atmosphere seems fitting: gritty, dark and tough.
I have only my experiences in Hellgate, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online and Warhammer for comparison purposes ( and varying degrees of commitment to those games); consequently I hesitate to make judgements concerning Quality of Game Play. I can foresee, however, that there are enough elements present to make Fallen Earth compelling to play for me.
What makes for a compelling experience for old Bede? The first thing I look at is the overall "atmosphere", for lack of a better word. Hellgate and Warhammer drew me in for precisely that quality. Some of that is attributable to "design" - does this world look like you expect it should; some is attributable to "story" - are the actions called for in the story appropriate to the time and place, and the condition of the character I choose to play; some is attributable to what I choose to call "integration" - is the gameplay (the mechanics, skills, attributes and actions of the characters) well fitted to all the other elements.
Another piece of the puzzle of "the compelling experience" is (for this old bull, at least) a little more difficult to express. Perhaps one can approach it indirectly through the concept of "directed action has an effect on the game world". This concept can apply to combat, crafting, PvE, PvP, missions, raids, factions, reputation and so on and so forth. Lord of the Rings Online and Guild Wars, to a lesser extent, failed for me in this regard. Much of the "directed action" in those two games seemed trivial. There was a story-line to follow, and many different things to do, but none of it seemed to matter, or if it did, it mattered only to me in terms of advancement, shinies and the like. Warhammer, on the other hand, has succeeded for me in this regard. The overarching story-line of the Realm War, the smaller stories within the War, all combine in a way that as my character moves through the world in both PvE and PvP I get the feeling that I am somehow advancing the cause, having an impact, no matter how trivial in the larger scheme of the game world each individual action may be.
That second piece of the puzzle is not in place yet for Fallen Earth and Bede, as I am still mooching around on a low level character in a starter town. But enough of the "atmospheric" pieces are present to draw me further in.
I have only my experiences in Hellgate, Guild Wars, Lord of the Rings Online and Warhammer for comparison purposes ( and varying degrees of commitment to those games); consequently I hesitate to make judgements concerning Quality of Game Play. I can foresee, however, that there are enough elements present to make Fallen Earth compelling to play for me.
What makes for a compelling experience for old Bede? The first thing I look at is the overall "atmosphere", for lack of a better word. Hellgate and Warhammer drew me in for precisely that quality. Some of that is attributable to "design" - does this world look like you expect it should; some is attributable to "story" - are the actions called for in the story appropriate to the time and place, and the condition of the character I choose to play; some is attributable to what I choose to call "integration" - is the gameplay (the mechanics, skills, attributes and actions of the characters) well fitted to all the other elements.
Another piece of the puzzle of "the compelling experience" is (for this old bull, at least) a little more difficult to express. Perhaps one can approach it indirectly through the concept of "directed action has an effect on the game world". This concept can apply to combat, crafting, PvE, PvP, missions, raids, factions, reputation and so on and so forth. Lord of the Rings Online and Guild Wars, to a lesser extent, failed for me in this regard. Much of the "directed action" in those two games seemed trivial. There was a story-line to follow, and many different things to do, but none of it seemed to matter, or if it did, it mattered only to me in terms of advancement, shinies and the like. Warhammer, on the other hand, has succeeded for me in this regard. The overarching story-line of the Realm War, the smaller stories within the War, all combine in a way that as my character moves through the world in both PvE and PvP I get the feeling that I am somehow advancing the cause, having an impact, no matter how trivial in the larger scheme of the game world each individual action may be.
That second piece of the puzzle is not in place yet for Fallen Earth and Bede, as I am still mooching around on a low level character in a starter town. But enough of the "atmospheric" pieces are present to draw me further in.
[url="http://profile.xfire.com/bedecfc"]
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