Fallen Earth Anniversary Q&A with Game Designer
This article originally appeared on ZAM on Sept. 24, 2010.
Fallen Earth celebrated its one-year anniversary this week, so Editor-in-Chief Darryl Gangloff sat down with Senior Game Designer Marie Croall to reflect on the past and look toward the future.
Fallen Earth celebrated its one-year anniversary this week, and the development team is keeping pretty busy for a game that's set in the wasteland of a post-apocalyptic future. Patch 1.7 is now live, the game's soundtrack has been released, premium features have been added to the game's mobile Companion App, the Customer Rewards Program is under way, and you can still take part in the anniversary events throughout the weekend! Oh, and did I mention an in-game wedding will be held on Sept. 25?
With so much activity going on in the world of Fallen Earth, we decided to sit down with Senior Game Designer Marie Croall and discuss all of these topics. Marie reflects on the past year and gives us some more information on patch 1.7 and beyond. Keep reading below for the details, and be sure to check out our Fallen Earth screenshots gallery for exclusive images of the in-game anniversary event!
ZAM: Congratulations on Fallen Earth's one-year anniversary! How does it feel to celebrate 12 months in the wasteland?
Marie Croall: It's pretty incredible. We've had some ups and downs since release, but overall it's been fantastic to see the game out there.
ZAM: What are some of your favorite Fallen Earth memories from the past year, both in-game and out?
Marie Croall: Launch day was pretty cool. I couldn't pick just one out-of-game memory, though. Instead I'd have to say that my favorite moments are any time the team really gets together to solve a problem or develop new content. It's pretty inspiring to watch and quite often hilarious.
ZAM: What are some of the major changes the game has undergone in the past year? What should players who tried the game a year ago keep an eye out for if they decide to log back in now?
Marie Croall: In the past year we've raised the level cap by 5 with a whole new area for players to run missions and craft in, we've added Blood Sports (our arena PvP system), Achievements, a limited fast travel system, a minor respec system, camp system, taverns, Blackjack and Slot machines, customizable colors for vehicles and now clothing. In addition to that, we've introduced a weather system, re-done the trees to improve the look of the game and added some new lighting effects that we started implementing with the Quarantine event (and will be seeing a lot more of in future patches). It's been a busy year for us.
ZAM: Speaking of changes, is there a push to make Fallen Earth a bit more accessible to new players through upgrades like the revamped tutorials, faster leveling, and minor respecs? Were these options you ever expected to add a year ago?
Marie Croall: The revamped Starter town tutorial missions were definitely re-done to get players into the action faster. Respecs we had always planned on putting in, in some form or another. There is a bit of a learning curve with FE, and while we don't want to over-simplify the system we also never want players to feel punished for changing their minds about their builds or play style.
ZAM: In addition to Fallen Earth's anniversary, this week also marks the launch of the Fallen Earth soundtrack. Many MMOs don't release soundtracks, so I thought this was an interesting move. How did it come about?
Marie Croall: For this question I went right to our Audio Director Mike Franke! He said, "The music in Fallen Earth was definitely a labor of love." Everything was done in-house from writing to mixing to implementing, all done by only two people: Enrique Varela and Mike Franke. The soundtrack is something that has always been on our radar, it was just a matter of time and the right way to distribute it independently. Earlier this year we had the opportunity to have our tracks re-mastered, which was awesome, and brought some new life to our music. While the old masters sound good in game, the re-mastered tracks sound even better!
The hardest part of defining our soundtrack was to select what to put on it. We have well over five hours of music in Fallen Earth and there was definitely some back and forth in deciding which ones made the cut. We feel that what we chose is a fair representation of the apocalypse, with room to grow further down the road.
ZAM: You unveiled the premium features for the mobile Fallen Earth Companion Application earlier this month. How did you decide which options should be accessible to players from their phones?
Marie Croall: The crafting portion of Fallen Earth's gameplay was the feature that lent itself best to a mobile platform, so we decided to focus on that. With that in mind, we designed the premium features to support the full crafting lifecycle of buying materials from the Auction House, crafting the item, posting the item to the Auction House and collecting the payment through email — we wanted players to be able to complete that cycle using only their mobile device.
ZAM: Alright, let's get into the next game update. Patch 1.7 attempts to rebalance combat in the game. Can you give us some more details on the improvements to the combat system and how they will continue to be made in future patches?
Marie Croall: Combat re-balance is actually a system we’ve decided to take a deeper look at (and we thank all our players for their feedback from our Public Test Server). It's vitally important that when we start reworking combat we get it correct, so we're not going to release anything until we are completely satisfied with it.
That being said, the combat re-balance will be taking us though several patches. After starting with mitigation and damage we are going to be looking at skills and mutation, weapons and consumables and other crafted items. Our overall goal is to make combat more fast-paced and a bit more dangerous. One of the comments we frequently get is that too much of the game is able to be done solo, we want to modify that and make grouping more important.
ZAM: Veteran Reward Points have also been introduced with patch 1.7. What are some of the items players will be able to buy? What can players who have been with the game for the full year expect to see for sale?
Marie Croall: We are starting with some very cool clothing items. We made some of the Banker's (a NPC faction) gear available as well as a Battle-Scarred LifeNet suit and some customizable shirts and accessories.
ZAM: The Veteran Reward Points are only the first phase of your Customer Rewards Program. Can you give us any details on what else is planned?
Marie Croall: We’ve known for a long time that we want to build in ways to reward players for things like veteran status or being a positive, supportive influence on the community. We have some tentative plans for how we can reward players for their support, but nothing we can announce just yet. Community is huge to us. We are a pretty small company, and staying connected to our player base is important. We are reminded on a daily basis that we are nothing without the support of our fans — and we want to make sure they know how grateful we are for that.
ZAM: The term "post-apocalyptic future" doesn't always scream customization, but players should be happy that new social clothing options are available in patch 1.7. How much further do you plan on taking customization in the game?
Marie Croall: We've planned to add some customizable features to the armor, past that we're still brainstorming where we can go with the system.
ZAM: Players are going to need to wait until early October for Progress Towns, in which they'll literally build a town from the ground up. Can you give us some more details on this feature?
Marie Croall: Progress towns are something I've wanted to do for a while now. With Progress towns, players will be able to take land for their faction by turning in crafted items to support the construction efforts. Once the land has been claimed for the faction, players will be able to buy recipes for different types of buildings and defenses. They will be able to create them and decide where they are placed. From time to time, Raiders will attack the town, so defenses are important – if you lose too many buildings to the Raiders, you will lose control of the land and other factions will be able to take it.
ZAM: What's coming in year two for Fallen Earth?
Marie Croall: More content. We're looking at how soon we can raise the level cap. More combat fixes — there is a lot that goes into the overall balance, mutations, skills, items etc. and we're planning on looking at all of it. More live events—we've gotten a good response from the ones we've done, so we are working on some bigger ones. So in a word — more.
Fallen Earth celebrated its one-year anniversary this week, so Editor-in-Chief Darryl Gangloff sat down with Senior Game Designer Marie Croall to reflect on the past and look toward the future.
Fallen Earth celebrated its one-year anniversary this week, and the development team is keeping pretty busy for a game that's set in the wasteland of a post-apocalyptic future. Patch 1.7 is now live, the game's soundtrack has been released, premium features have been added to the game's mobile Companion App, the Customer Rewards Program is under way, and you can still take part in the anniversary events throughout the weekend! Oh, and did I mention an in-game wedding will be held on Sept. 25?
With so much activity going on in the world of Fallen Earth, we decided to sit down with Senior Game Designer Marie Croall and discuss all of these topics. Marie reflects on the past year and gives us some more information on patch 1.7 and beyond. Keep reading below for the details, and be sure to check out our Fallen Earth screenshots gallery for exclusive images of the in-game anniversary event!
ZAM: Congratulations on Fallen Earth's one-year anniversary! How does it feel to celebrate 12 months in the wasteland?
Marie Croall: It's pretty incredible. We've had some ups and downs since release, but overall it's been fantastic to see the game out there.
ZAM: What are some of your favorite Fallen Earth memories from the past year, both in-game and out?
Marie Croall: Launch day was pretty cool. I couldn't pick just one out-of-game memory, though. Instead I'd have to say that my favorite moments are any time the team really gets together to solve a problem or develop new content. It's pretty inspiring to watch and quite often hilarious.
ZAM: What are some of the major changes the game has undergone in the past year? What should players who tried the game a year ago keep an eye out for if they decide to log back in now?
Marie Croall: In the past year we've raised the level cap by 5 with a whole new area for players to run missions and craft in, we've added Blood Sports (our arena PvP system), Achievements, a limited fast travel system, a minor respec system, camp system, taverns, Blackjack and Slot machines, customizable colors for vehicles and now clothing. In addition to that, we've introduced a weather system, re-done the trees to improve the look of the game and added some new lighting effects that we started implementing with the Quarantine event (and will be seeing a lot more of in future patches). It's been a busy year for us.
ZAM: Speaking of changes, is there a push to make Fallen Earth a bit more accessible to new players through upgrades like the revamped tutorials, faster leveling, and minor respecs? Were these options you ever expected to add a year ago?
Marie Croall: The revamped Starter town tutorial missions were definitely re-done to get players into the action faster. Respecs we had always planned on putting in, in some form or another. There is a bit of a learning curve with FE, and while we don't want to over-simplify the system we also never want players to feel punished for changing their minds about their builds or play style.
ZAM: In addition to Fallen Earth's anniversary, this week also marks the launch of the Fallen Earth soundtrack. Many MMOs don't release soundtracks, so I thought this was an interesting move. How did it come about?
Marie Croall: For this question I went right to our Audio Director Mike Franke! He said, "The music in Fallen Earth was definitely a labor of love." Everything was done in-house from writing to mixing to implementing, all done by only two people: Enrique Varela and Mike Franke. The soundtrack is something that has always been on our radar, it was just a matter of time and the right way to distribute it independently. Earlier this year we had the opportunity to have our tracks re-mastered, which was awesome, and brought some new life to our music. While the old masters sound good in game, the re-mastered tracks sound even better!
The hardest part of defining our soundtrack was to select what to put on it. We have well over five hours of music in Fallen Earth and there was definitely some back and forth in deciding which ones made the cut. We feel that what we chose is a fair representation of the apocalypse, with room to grow further down the road.
ZAM: You unveiled the premium features for the mobile Fallen Earth Companion Application earlier this month. How did you decide which options should be accessible to players from their phones?
Marie Croall: The crafting portion of Fallen Earth's gameplay was the feature that lent itself best to a mobile platform, so we decided to focus on that. With that in mind, we designed the premium features to support the full crafting lifecycle of buying materials from the Auction House, crafting the item, posting the item to the Auction House and collecting the payment through email — we wanted players to be able to complete that cycle using only their mobile device.
ZAM: Alright, let's get into the next game update. Patch 1.7 attempts to rebalance combat in the game. Can you give us some more details on the improvements to the combat system and how they will continue to be made in future patches?
Marie Croall: Combat re-balance is actually a system we’ve decided to take a deeper look at (and we thank all our players for their feedback from our Public Test Server). It's vitally important that when we start reworking combat we get it correct, so we're not going to release anything until we are completely satisfied with it.
That being said, the combat re-balance will be taking us though several patches. After starting with mitigation and damage we are going to be looking at skills and mutation, weapons and consumables and other crafted items. Our overall goal is to make combat more fast-paced and a bit more dangerous. One of the comments we frequently get is that too much of the game is able to be done solo, we want to modify that and make grouping more important.
ZAM: Veteran Reward Points have also been introduced with patch 1.7. What are some of the items players will be able to buy? What can players who have been with the game for the full year expect to see for sale?
Marie Croall: We are starting with some very cool clothing items. We made some of the Banker's (a NPC faction) gear available as well as a Battle-Scarred LifeNet suit and some customizable shirts and accessories.
ZAM: The Veteran Reward Points are only the first phase of your Customer Rewards Program. Can you give us any details on what else is planned?
Marie Croall: We’ve known for a long time that we want to build in ways to reward players for things like veteran status or being a positive, supportive influence on the community. We have some tentative plans for how we can reward players for their support, but nothing we can announce just yet. Community is huge to us. We are a pretty small company, and staying connected to our player base is important. We are reminded on a daily basis that we are nothing without the support of our fans — and we want to make sure they know how grateful we are for that.
ZAM: The term "post-apocalyptic future" doesn't always scream customization, but players should be happy that new social clothing options are available in patch 1.7. How much further do you plan on taking customization in the game?
Marie Croall: We've planned to add some customizable features to the armor, past that we're still brainstorming where we can go with the system.
ZAM: Players are going to need to wait until early October for Progress Towns, in which they'll literally build a town from the ground up. Can you give us some more details on this feature?
Marie Croall: Progress towns are something I've wanted to do for a while now. With Progress towns, players will be able to take land for their faction by turning in crafted items to support the construction efforts. Once the land has been claimed for the faction, players will be able to buy recipes for different types of buildings and defenses. They will be able to create them and decide where they are placed. From time to time, Raiders will attack the town, so defenses are important – if you lose too many buildings to the Raiders, you will lose control of the land and other factions will be able to take it.
ZAM: What's coming in year two for Fallen Earth?
Marie Croall: More content. We're looking at how soon we can raise the level cap. More combat fixes — there is a lot that goes into the overall balance, mutations, skills, items etc. and we're planning on looking at all of it. More live events—we've gotten a good response from the ones we've done, so we are working on some bigger ones. So in a word — more.