Fallen
Earth Senior Game Designer,
Marie “Aro Sei” Croall has just released the latest
State of the Game address for March, 2011. The address outlines the
upcoming content patch update as well as more details on Sector 4 style="font-style: italic;">Alpha County.
Other post-apocalyptic topics include player housing, blood sports, and
raids. Below is the full State of the Game address.

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March
State of the Game

February went fast here at style="font-style: italic;">Fallen Earth.
We’ve been preparing the content side of Terminal Woods for
release mid- March while we work on the combat changes in a parallel
development track. Details on all the upcoming content are listed below:



Terminal
Woods:

Through the Terminal Woods missions we will begin to introduce Alpha
County and some of its displaced residents. Without giving any
spoilers, it’s safe to say the people of Terminal Woods are
starting to understand why the Wall is there… Now it will be
up to the clones to help them survive in this new territory.



In addition to all the new missions there are also additional
achievements, a PvP zone , the introduction of Scavenger bosses and all
their new recipes and gear, as well as a several world bosses roaming
the wilds. The entire area is half the size of a full sector with
plenty of area to explore and more than one surprise to be revealed.



Along with the new territory, we will also be introducing the next part
of the economic changes, including the revised component and recipe
costs as well as the new social channels and the Nuclear Blast Heavy
Metal Bunker Bar featuring Nuclear Blast Radio (NBR). Clones should
expect to see Terminal Woods hit the live server later this month.



Alpha
County:

Alpha County is moving forward for a Q2 release. We’ve had
the opportunity to look at the schedule and realized we’ll be
able to fit some of our long-term projects into release along with
Alpha County, making it one of our largest content patches to date.



Along with an increased level cap to 55, close to 700 new missions, a
new conflict town called Blockade, additional recipes, gear and
consumables, we will also be including Progress Towns and World Events
in the feature list. More info on both Progress Towns and World Events
will come closer to the launch date They will both provide additional
content across all levels of the game as well as add more excitement
and conflict throughout the Wasteland.



We are also beginning work on expanding crafting with an augmentation
system. More details on this will be available in a future State of the
Game.



On the Art side, in addition to the new ecosystem, art has begun work
on new creatures that really help convey the tone and mood of Alpha
County. Devo and his team have outdone themselves on this one. He
graciously sent along some concept art to share, included below.



PTS:

We will be continuing to push combat changes and iterations of the new
system to the PTS for feedback. One important thing to keep in mind as
we do this is that there is a method to our madness. The entire system
may not be there, or there could be specific numbers we have not
included in order to gain a specific type of feedback. As an example,
this last patch focused on the bare bones of the system, emphasizing
the new tech for mutation weapons and the general direction of the
revamp. With the feedback we received we have been able to add further
improvements to the mutation weapons and further alter the technology
in order to replace some skills and mutations that were desired by the
community.



Thank you to everyone who emailed us, posted on forums and submitted
bugs with feedback. This really is the first time we’ve
opened up our design process to players this early. I’m
looking forward to the next stage as we get further along with the
design.



Community
Questions and Concerns

Here are our answers to some of the most frequently asked questions
from Help chat, emails, bugs and the forums:



What
about Housing?

Housing is something we’ve discussed and planned, then
scrapped and gone back to the drawing board on. Done well, player
crafted housing could be something that truly enhances the landscape
and fuels the post-apocalyptic environment and the lore specific to style="font-style: italic;">Fallen Earth.
Rushed, it would do more harm than good. The good news here is that we
are now at a place in the schedule where we can start to see where and
how player housing best fits in.



Are
you ever going to make improvements to Blood Sports?

Yes. It’s being worked on by our scripting team.There are
many issues we want to address. Our first priority is ensuring the
teams have similar numbers of players before the match starts.



What
about raid content?

Full raids as seen in other games require a huge amount of time and
resources from every department in order to make them fun and
challenging repeatable content. It was a higher priority for our team
to get Alpha County completed before we began work on the style="font-style: italic;">Fallen Earth
version of a raid, which for us would be a large dramatic instance with
strategic fights and repeatable content. We will not be adding the
necessity to grind raids for high end gear. That being said, we do have
a much larger-scale instance on the schedule for about two months after
Alpha County’s release, and while I’m pretty sure
Devo (our Art Director) would have my head if I gave too much away, I
can safely say it will be a large part of the Sector 4 storyline.

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