Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

This past weekend at PAX 2009 the Ten Ton Hammer ground crew had the opportunity to speak with Lee Hammock, lead designer for upcoming indie MMOG Fallen Earth to discuss the recent open beta as well as what the studio has planned for the game after the official launch later this month. We covered a wide range of topics, so whether you’re a seasoned beta vet or simply looking for your next great gaming fix there’s plenty of great Fallen Earth info to be found in this exclusive interview.

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Ten Ton Hammer: Faction choice can play a fairly large role in Fallen Earth. Have you been seeing any unexpected trends through the open beta in terms of certain factions being more popular than others?

Lee Hammock: So far it does seem to be leaning towards the Enforcers and the Techs which was surprising to us. If you took a poll a few months ago, the Travelers were always the top faction and now it’s changed to Techs and Enforcers which tend to be fairly equal, so we have been noticing that people have been skewing that way. They are kind of the easiest to get your head around.

The Enforcers are all about law and order, so that’s good, and they shoot guys – who doesn’t like that? Compared to the Chota, their arch nemesis who are the crazy guys with mohawks who hit people. So obviously one of them is really heroic, so you want to be that dude. The Chota do have some really heroic qualities in that they hate people being enslaved and they always hate people being pushed around, so you can play a ‘good guy’ Chota and it would be a really interesting character, it’s just not the character that’s evident when you look at the faction. You look at the faction and you see crazy barbarians, not the guy who champions the downtrodden because he doesn’t like people being pushed around.

Ten Ton Hammer: When we spoke earlier this year, you mentioned that each of the factions is even somewhat of a ‘gray hat’ – that there’s no clearly defined good vs. evil absolutes.

Lee Hammock: Every faction has its good guy / bad guy elements to it. So with the Enforcers, everyone seems to look at them and go, “wow, they’re law and order – they’re the police” There also can be fascists – so there are Enforcers who think our way is the best and if you disagree we’ll shoot you, and tough shit. So just like the Chota who are anarchists who tare everything down and just do whatever they want, there are enforcers who try and control everything. So every side does have that good and bad element to it. It’s just that with some factions it’s harder for the player base to see.

Ten Ton Hammer: Sector 1 essentially introduces players to what those different elements of the factions are. Have you added any new content that might help make that path selection a bit more evident as players advance towards Sector 2?

Lee Hammock: We did introduce some more content. Each of the factions has a starting town, and we’ve also added some stuff in Watchtower and Trumbull – the towns in the northern part of the sector – that also have members of every faction in the town. So you can talk to them all, get their missions and gain more of a perspective on what each faction does. So by the time you get to Sector 2 you’ll have a pretty good idea of what they’re about.