Fallen Earth Free Trial
So, I tried the Fallen Earth free trial. They give you 10 days to test it out. It's a decent game, but I don't think I'll be paying for it. I can't see paying a monthly subscription for that. The game is a great, great crafting simulator, but it needs a lot more polish before it's worth buying. It'd be a decent single player game, but nothing that is worth $15/month.
The setting is great. It's set in post-apocalyptic, south-western US. There's a wrecked monorail over the starting town I chose (South Burb in the house!). In the tutorial, you escape from the Hoover Dam. I loved the tutorial's story and voice-over work. Yes, the voice-overs are plentiful and they are good. However, the tutorial mechanics are not. There are TONS of things that they don't tell you how to do. Example: "Go there and shoot that guy." Um, how do I switch weapons? I had to blindly click on things madly until I drew a weapon. The tutorial needs some fleshing out. Heck, at least you get one. WoW doesn't even have one.
The crafting is, quite simply, awesome. You can craft almost everything in game. What you can't craft, you have to harvest. What you can't craft or harvest is extremely rare. You get XP for crafting, too, which is nice. The crafting is logical (you need wool and dye to make shorts) and diverse (there are 4 different colors of gloves, all with the same stats). The crafting queue is ... interesting. Most games, you craft instantly (except EVE online). Fallen Earth (hereafter referred to as FE) doesn't. In FE, you craft in real time. It takes 10 minutes to make those shorts. The good news is that you don't have to be online to do it. You can craft faster if you're in the right facility.
The inventory management shows some flashes of brilliance (you can sort it into multiple tabs based on your criteria) but fails in other ways. If I've got 3 wool and I craft some shorts, those 3 wool sit in my inventory until the shorts are made. If I craft some shorts, some horse feed, some dye, a belt buckle and some crossbow bolts, what exactly is the total of all the items I'm using? Which items am I crafting with again? I forgot, so let's sell some things. FE doesn't stop you from selling crafting goods that will be used later in the crafting queue. I've gotten pissed at it several times because I can't manage to hold in my brain all the things that I'm crafting with. FE doesn't set them aside either. Those items stay in your inventory. Like I said earlier, good ideas, needs lots of polish.
The combat mechanics are a little weird. Think of WoW but with aiming involved. Enemies tend to move around a lot. If you're using a crossbow, you have to get the crosshairs on the target. You can't target and then turn 90 degrees and expect the bolt to hit. You can still get mathematical glancing hits. I think you can mathematically miss, too, but I'm not sure on that.
The mount mechanics are awesome. Once you create a mount, it exists. It can't go back into a magical backpack somewhere. I didn't like that about WoW, because mounts become tools if all they do is make you run faster. I like a more personal attachment to my digital pets. *scratches head* Yeah, that sounds weird. Anyway, they have hit points, stamina/fuel and pack space. The starter mount sucks, is inefficient and only has 2 pack spaces. You can easily trade that horse in for another one. You can get an ATV, but then you have to be able to buy or make the gas for it. Guess how gasoline compares to horse feed, pricewise, after the apocalypse? Yeah, horsie goooood.
The graphics are okay. They look like you would expect a current generation MMO to look. They're nicer than WoW because it's 5 years younger than WoW. There's lots of brown and green and brown and dirt colors. It's after the apocalypse, people! I don't think there's purple going on!
In conclusion, good game, not for me to play by myself. If it was a single/multi player RPG, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Since it's an MMO, I can't justify the monthly fee. Also, since none of my friends play it, I won't either.
The setting is great. It's set in post-apocalyptic, south-western US. There's a wrecked monorail over the starting town I chose (South Burb in the house!). In the tutorial, you escape from the Hoover Dam. I loved the tutorial's story and voice-over work. Yes, the voice-overs are plentiful and they are good. However, the tutorial mechanics are not. There are TONS of things that they don't tell you how to do. Example: "Go there and shoot that guy." Um, how do I switch weapons? I had to blindly click on things madly until I drew a weapon. The tutorial needs some fleshing out. Heck, at least you get one. WoW doesn't even have one.
The crafting is, quite simply, awesome. You can craft almost everything in game. What you can't craft, you have to harvest. What you can't craft or harvest is extremely rare. You get XP for crafting, too, which is nice. The crafting is logical (you need wool and dye to make shorts) and diverse (there are 4 different colors of gloves, all with the same stats). The crafting queue is ... interesting. Most games, you craft instantly (except EVE online). Fallen Earth (hereafter referred to as FE) doesn't. In FE, you craft in real time. It takes 10 minutes to make those shorts. The good news is that you don't have to be online to do it. You can craft faster if you're in the right facility.
The inventory management shows some flashes of brilliance (you can sort it into multiple tabs based on your criteria) but fails in other ways. If I've got 3 wool and I craft some shorts, those 3 wool sit in my inventory until the shorts are made. If I craft some shorts, some horse feed, some dye, a belt buckle and some crossbow bolts, what exactly is the total of all the items I'm using? Which items am I crafting with again? I forgot, so let's sell some things. FE doesn't stop you from selling crafting goods that will be used later in the crafting queue. I've gotten pissed at it several times because I can't manage to hold in my brain all the things that I'm crafting with. FE doesn't set them aside either. Those items stay in your inventory. Like I said earlier, good ideas, needs lots of polish.
The combat mechanics are a little weird. Think of WoW but with aiming involved. Enemies tend to move around a lot. If you're using a crossbow, you have to get the crosshairs on the target. You can't target and then turn 90 degrees and expect the bolt to hit. You can still get mathematical glancing hits. I think you can mathematically miss, too, but I'm not sure on that.
The mount mechanics are awesome. Once you create a mount, it exists. It can't go back into a magical backpack somewhere. I didn't like that about WoW, because mounts become tools if all they do is make you run faster. I like a more personal attachment to my digital pets. *scratches head* Yeah, that sounds weird. Anyway, they have hit points, stamina/fuel and pack space. The starter mount sucks, is inefficient and only has 2 pack spaces. You can easily trade that horse in for another one. You can get an ATV, but then you have to be able to buy or make the gas for it. Guess how gasoline compares to horse feed, pricewise, after the apocalypse? Yeah, horsie goooood.
The graphics are okay. They look like you would expect a current generation MMO to look. They're nicer than WoW because it's 5 years younger than WoW. There's lots of brown and green and brown and dirt colors. It's after the apocalypse, people! I don't think there's purple going on!
In conclusion, good game, not for me to play by myself. If it was a single/multi player RPG, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Since it's an MMO, I can't justify the monthly fee. Also, since none of my friends play it, I won't either.