May State of the Game

In the March State of the Game Neverender gave you guys a bit of a sneak peek at The Dome, an arena based PVE challenge for high level players that he, Ninja and Tee have been working night and day on. While this is still the case, we have also been chipping away at many of the smaller bugs that folks are submitting to us via /bug. Most urgently, we are underway on implementing fixes for the chat and loot lag issues that have worsened over the last month or so. We are getting much closer to a resolution, so hang in there for another week or so!

The majority of our non-bugfix related work has been focused on the Dome, and while we have made tremendous progress, there is much, much more to do.  However, after many months of Dev time, we are now at a point where we need your help! Specifically (or PAcifically, as Tee Affo would say), we need testers to subject themselves to hours of being mauled by the fiendish and highly experimental boss fights Never and Tee have been assembling. 

We are specifically looking for level 55 players with killer builds – literally. If you have the best gear and stats we want to see how long you and a partner will last. Of course you’ll be sworn to secrecy as to the mechanics of the bosses you will be testing but will also be richly rewarded for your time, in the form of a special in-game currency used to purchase augmentable goods when the system is released.

So, how do you take advantage of this limited time offer? Simply send an email to DeconLead@Fallenearth.com with the subject line “Dome Alpha Testing”, and in the body include the following information:

• Your forum name (required)
• Your typical hours of play
• Your build
• How often you participate in PvP vs PvE (ie 80% PvE vs 20% PvP)

Do note, this testing program is separate from Decon, and your participation does not you mean are a member of the official Decon team, nor are you responsible for any duties normally associated with the Decon team. Of course, more helpful participants may be asked back to be official Decon team members once this focused testing program is complete.

We hope to see some of you on the PTS (which will be closed to the public once testing starts) in the weeks to come!

April State of the Game

Happy April!
The cold weather seems to be behind us and all of us at FE are focusing on the New! Except for Tee Affo, he’s still bug fixing like a maniac, but more on that later. Last month Neverender gave an inside peek at the new feature he’s working on as well as the new augmentable weapons Alarik and I have been  designing, this month everyone’s favorite ninja is here to show off his latest labor of love -

An all new vehicle: the Vandal!

Hi friends, Ninjanomicory here!
I'm getting an opportunity to put the finishing touches on this project that's been in the works since the chopper debuted. The screenshots are of the high detail model of one of the versions of the car, and I'm in the process of getting this into the game world. There will be hood scoops, and air dams, and side pipes. I'll be doing several different (read: awesome) custom color options for this ride once it hits the wasteland.

As mentioned above, Tee Affo would also like to fill us in on the bug fixes he’s been working on over the past few weeks –

Hey guys, It's Tee Affo,
My recent work has been attempting to track down remaining Blood Sports issues.  Some of you may have noticed that, at random, Assault liked to kick you for no reason.  We tracked down the issue in the code, and are still arguing vigorously over who introduced the bug, Neverender or myself. While that argument may never be settled, the issue is gone for good.

Secondly, I dug into the "boss disappearing" Assault issue. Although initially we suspected that he was just going on vacation to Hawaii, we eventually figured out that the big guy had somehow managed to lodge himself under the floor.  So now, if we notice he's down there, we put him back where he's supposed to be.

Thirdly, sometimes absolutely insane things happened related to teams in Bloodsports.  Some players ended up on teams that no longer existed, sometimes players spawned in on no team, and sometimes all players were all on the same team.  That shouldn't be happening anymore either.

I'm hard at work on the handful of major issues we're still seeing - hopefully none of you will be cloned at lifenet facilities when you leave a Blood Sport very soon.

It’s been a busy month for us, and we’re not letting up any time soon!

M

State of the Game - March Madness

March Madness
Wastelanders! Neverender here, and I want to tell you about the madness going on behind the scenes at Fallen Earth HQ. No, I’m not referring to my amazing MSPaint concept art skills or Tee Affo’s continued improvements on his sheep imitations (But seriously, good job Tee Affo. We are all proud of you.) Whether you prefer PvP or PvE, we have some exciting new content in the works for you to look forward to.

Before I jump into what's on the horizon, I'll tell you a bit about what's we've been working on over the course of the last few weeks. In addition to pre-production for the below stuff, most of our time has been taken addressing minor issues and bugs with the Coresuit and effects changes, in addition to several major bugfixes and server-side improvements to instances and stability. The final frontier, which we are in the middle of work on now, is improving and stabilizing the Blood Sports experience once and for all. Recent issues provided us an opportunity to dig deep and address some core issues that have lingered for a while, and once those things are fixed and tested (in the next week or two) Blood Sports should markedly improve for the better.

As we wrap that up, we will begin to transition onto some new and exciting features that we'll discuss starting NOW.

New Death Toll Weapons
I am saddened to report that my Neverender’s Revenge pistols may only have a short time left as the most badass Death Toll weapon available. Here is an early look at two of the upcoming additions to the Death Toll arsenal. First we have the quite clever and very reliable Jet Engine Hammer, for those of you who enjoy getting up close and personal to beat the competition into submission.

Some of you may have noticed a dearth of weapons of the shotgun variety at higher levels. We aim to change that, and the new Murder of Crows sawn-off shotgun is a direct hit. DISCLAIMER: No crows were harmed in the making of this glorious shotgun.

The new Death Toll weapons are special not only because of their raw power, but also because they will be among the first that will be a part of a new AP Augmentation system that Skathi will tell you about later in this post. 

The Dome

The Dome is a 2-Man PvE gauntlet of 10 bosses that will require a combination of skill, strategy, and teamwork to conquer. The arena itself (crafted by our own Ninjanomicory) is a run down Football stadium that the Bankers got their hands on and repurposed for their entertainment. 

Level 55 players will be able to queue as a pair or can queue solo to be matched with another player looking to participate in The Dome. Gear will not degrade and ammo will not be expended from participation in The Dome. The difficulty and rewards will scale up with each boss encounter completed successfully. 

The Dome bosses will feature some before-seen foes, as well as some familiar faces that have been given a new look. There will also be a few surprises, but I won’t spoil those here...

The main reward for success in The Dome will be the recipes and necessary components to craft new AP Augmentable weapons that will be patterned after the new Death Toll weapons. Other rewards include AP to spend upgrading the new weapons. 

 

AP Augmentation System:

Some of you might remember that a few years ago we had started to work on an augmentation system. Unfortunately when we took a step back and looked at what we had, the original draft of that system ended up not fitting the needs of the game mechanics or the community.  

What we really wanted from an augmentation system was a way for players to continue expanding their builds after reaching max level, while using existing systems and resources they had already gathered – AP, in this case. 

Through Deathtoll and Dome rewards we will be introducing weapons that players will be able to stat out similar to building a character.  While we don’t have a lot of details to release at this point, I can say that weapons will have various stats that players can put AP in that will enhance aspects of the weapon. We will focus on weapons for max level characters first and then expand the system to armor.

Stay tuned for more previews, and keep an eye out for this stuff to hit the Live server later this year.

-Fallen Earth Dev Team

February State of the Game

With our next update (tentatively 2.62) just weeks away, we’ve been hard at work finalizing the effects changes, balancing the Coresuits, and squeezing some major bug fixes in. We’ve been able to collect a lot of really useful  information, and although this has been a long process, taking the time to gather feedback from the PTS was well worth the time investment; we’re very confident in the changes going live later this month.

After the Stage 3 Coresuits hit live, we will turn our attention to our Next Big Thing. We’ve been looking for more ways for PvE’ers to distinguish themselves and provide a competitive outlet to test their mettle outside of PvP. This led to the Dome – a two man PVE arena where players will be able to enter and trigger a series of battles that are played through consecutively in a (semi) controlled environment. The farther the teams get, the tougher the opponents, and the better the rewards.

We are doing a bunch of pre-production on the Dome, designing the encounters to make sure no one build has a consistent overwhelming advantage and finalizing the design concept for the dome itself as well as the rewards. So while we are still a ways off from having any concrete info, we’re looking forward to sharing more in the next 30 days as things progress. The good news is that as part of pre-production for the Dome, we will be focusing on things like instance stability, and hopefully those fixes will be incorporated even before the dome itself. 

In addition to the Dome, we’re looking at adding ways to improve and enhance existing weapons beyond their given capabilities. We’ve tried several iterations of this feature in the past and none of them really satisfied the goals we set for them. The latest version feels solid, giving more freedom while working within the existing systems in a very satisfying way. Expect more info on that when we’re on a bit more solid ground design-wise!

M

January State of the Game

Happy New Year!

I usually take this space to fill you in on what I can on our projects, however quite by accident this month’s SOTG falls in a bug fixing/schedule wrangling phase, so this time, I’m going to give you a bit of a behind the scenes tour of how FE operates, starting with how a production schedule comes to be.

Napalm, Linus and myself (Skathi, if we haven’t been formally introduced) keep a nice long list of all the bugs, features and systems we feel need to be in the game all of them focused on the long term goal of making Fallen Earth more of a sandbox-y world for players to live in. Napalm and I will sit down and go over the list roughly once a quarter, barring emergencies. We’ll discuss and debate the immediate need to each feature in terms of what player concerns each addresses, how much dev resources they require and the overall impact the feature will have on the world. This process can take a bit of time but when we’re done we have a pretty rough schedule of bug fixes and feature concepts including estimated deadlines for when they’ll hit internal testing servers, PTS and Live.

From there I take the list and break it down with Neverender, lead scripter, Alarik lead engine programmer, Tee Affo – programmer, Ninjanomicory – Lead Artist and Wiggles, lead intern. The team all contributes to the overall design of the feature or brainstorms the most effective way to fix bugs. When we have a better idea of the tech requirements we break the feature up into tasks by team.

Usually once production gets started we discover multiple unforeseen issues or limitations for either the engine or the design. This is actually where the strength of the team comes into play. They’re very adaptable and adept at changing direction or coming up with 11^th hour solutions. And despite the best laid designs there are ALWAYS 11^th hour solutions.    

Once the features are complete and off for testing the real work begins. Getting feedback from players allows us to tweak the numbers or concepts to better fit the needs of the community. Interpreting that feedback can be a tricky process but an incredibly worthwhile one that always has an impact on not only the current project, but also future designs.

So that’s how we generally get things done, omitting the knock down drag out design brawls, cause that part just makes us all look bad :D, especially Alarik, he cheats.

To quickly go through the "usual" SotG stuff: we are still cleaning up some issues related to farms, but overall feel good about the system, and look forward to doing even more with it, including tying it in with upcoming content and systems. The effects changes that were on PTS last month will also be rolled out with the new Coresuit, and we feel good about the changes that will be made as a result of your feedback. 

Sooooo, where are we with the S3 coresuit? Let's call it the "the tech discovery phase". Ninjanomicory is working on getting the models correct while Tee Affo and I are hammering out the details of the suits functionality.  It’s been a longer process than we would have liked, however given both the mitigation cap and the ongoing effects rebalancing, it’s something we really believe needs the extra time to get right.  

ANYWAY, as promised – here is a sneak peak of the Coresuit Stage 3:

See you in the Wasteland!

December State of the Game

This month:

Farms! Specifically, farms are in QA as we speak, and very shortly will be heading to PTS so you guys can provide feedback before they go live later in the month.

HOW THEY WORK: Farms are crafted through construction. There are three levels of farms, 3 plot, 6 plot and 9 plot. The number of plots in the farm determines how many seeds or cloning kits you can plant. Seeds (used to grow plants) and cloning kits (used to grow animals) are crafted through construction.  Each farm has a farmhouse attached, with the higher level farms having larger rooms and more amenities including vaults, mailboxes and those super comfy couches.

Once crafted, Farms do have a few restrictions on where you can place them. You’ll need a nice patch of mostly flat land that’s not too close to another camp, player, node or hostile. Farms last for four hours, long enough for several good harvests. You can also find or buy items that will extend the life of your farm for up to three days as well as items that will generate more produce from your farm or speed up the growing cycle.

Along with Farms we have a new set of vanity clothes inspired by some of our favorite western movies and steampunk styles that we think you guys will enjoy. These will be available inside a new lockbox, THE DUSTY BOX.

Aaaand since it wouldn’t be the holidays without huge greedy mutants rampaging through the wasteland! Tee Affo and Ninjanomicory have been working on some world events with some new unique rewards, inspired by familiar seasonal tropes.

Next Month:

Happy New Year!

We’ll be kicking things off by completing the effects revamp and the next stage of the Coresuit. We’ve put some very rough drafts of the effects changes on PTS and gotten a lot of amazing feedback. We’re going to look at those numbers and what we want the Coresuit to do and make sure they are working together the way we intend. There will be more iterations of these effects changes and the Coresuits on the PTS starting in January. This is something we really want everyone’s feedback on, so please keep an eye out for PTS announcements!

And yes, when these changes hit live we will be sending out respecs and Combat Knowledge Recalculators!

Q&A

Are there any other player structures incoming any time soon?

So, we’ve talked about players housing on an off for many years. We’re made no secret that it’s something that could be good for FE. It is, however, a huge project from a technical and artistic perspective. So rather than tackle the whole thing at once we look at what the smaller components are what problems they present and how to solve them. And sometimes we split them up into test projects- like farms. So what does this mean for housing? It means we’re looking at what it takes and how long it will take to get there and in the meantime we’re working on the player made structures that won’t contain full blown resident management, decoration etc. systems that might be a piece of a later version  of housing.

Any chance we will get updates on mounts?

We’re introducing an update to a mount you may recognize for our holiday event. You might have seen some pics of this on our Facebook page.

What are you looking at with the effects changes?

We’re looking at everything and how it works together. Most of the mutations are due for some type of modification. At this stage however nothing is carved in stone.

Mutations and Effects Changes on PTS

As mentioned in the November SotG blog, we've been monitoring player feedback and wanted to begin addressing the strength of mutations and effects overall, as well as audit their actual functionality, removing redundancy and creating more differentiation. Starting tomorrow at noon PDT we are going to be pushing the first round of these updated effects to PTS and opening it up for you to check them out

We’re going to be doing a lot of tweaking to the initial numbers we put on PTS. These are by no means final numbers. They are not designed to be final numbers. We will be continuing to change and modify add and remove based on the feedback we get. 

These numbers are a starting place for a new balance point, so please get on the PTS rip them apart. Try all the builds and go nuts!

We’re also making some tweaks to weapon damage at high levels. Some weapons are too high, others are too low. We had to look at the time investment required for players to get these weapons and make some decisions on what that time meant to in terms of damage then balancing those decisions with feedback indicating a desire for longer battles.We’re going to be rolling the changes on the PTS starting this week and tweaking numbers until we are satisfied. 

Finally and importantly, check out this forum post for a breakdown of the new values that will be live on PTS. Note that because of the numerous revisions and tweaks that are planned, the skill descriptions in game have NOT been updated, so refer to the forum post throughout the testing period for updates and changes.

November State of the Game

After spending the past six weeks on bug fixing we’re starting to move on to some new exciting features. The first on our schedule is farms. We had intended to get these out sooner, but held off a little bit to get the system different enough from harvesters to be fun.

For farms we wanted to focus on longevity for the structures and more customization of the resources players can place in their farms. Players will be able to craft either a 3, 6 or 9 plot farms. Once they place their farm in a suitable location in the world , they will be able to plant seeds for organic components, place young animals to raise, or a little of both. We want to make sure that players aren’t locked into one type of resource per farm. Harvesting the resource will give the player a chance to get a common, uncommon or rare component. Players will be able to use crafted, dropped, or purchased items to extend the longevity of their farms, speed up the growth of their resources, or improve their chances of getting a rare component. Additionally, placing a farm in a higher risk area such as a PVP zone can improve the yield of harvested resources.  

In addition to farms we are working on making some adjustments to skills and mutations. We are fixing buggy abilities, increasing the strength of some mutations and adding new functionality to other lines. We should be putting a rough draft of these changes on PTS in the upcoming week or so and tweaking based on player feedback. If you have any questions or concerns this will be a great time to be heard by the devs.

From there we’re looking at adding the long-awaited stage 3 coresuit recipes. There will be three versions; ranged, melee and support. Ninjanomicory has been working his fingers to the bone on the models while Tee Affo is adding the necessary functionality to make them play a significant role in combat. We will be doing a separate blog on the suits and another few new features in the upcoming weeks. 

See you in the Wasteland!

M

October Bug Blog!

I mentioned last time that we were working on some bug fixing, but thought you might appreciate some more specifics on what we’ve been doing, and will continue to work on.

What we have fixed on Live:

We’ve found one cause of a reoccurring bug where players are not getting the correct deathtoll for CFT kills and matches. We’ve put a fix for this on live and are monitoring the situation to make sure we have addressed all cases of this

Also on live is a fix for players with no faction entering keeps.

What we have fixed internally, waiting to be pushed Live:

We have fixed one case of doors not opening in the Earthbound bunker instance.  We had a similar issue with the Briggs Point instance that required a more drastic fix and as a result the Access Denied mission chain is being reworked.

In some cases harvesters were not correctly communicating their state and appearing broken to players trying to use them. We have added more ways to communicate the current state of the harvester to the players.

Neverender has also restored functionality to the broken keep lifenet pods and adding vaults to the keeps that are missing them.

What we are currently fixing:

Cooldown Bug:

Alarik and I were able to track down more information on the most problematic causes of this bug and he is now working towards a solution. 

Commander Aura bugs: 

Our fearless producer Napalm got into the bug fixing action on this one and is working with Alarik on a solution.

Art Bugs:

Ninjanomicon has been smoothing out locations where players get stuck and looking into an exploit or two.  He’s also looking in some issues with weapons causing framerate issues.

Effects issues:

In addition to the cooldown bug, we’re also looking at effects in general. There have been issues with equipped mutations affecting weapon damage so we are working on diagnosing that issue as well.

What we’re going to fix next:

Vehicle bugs:

We have fixed some cases of vehicles becoming “super parked” or vanishing while players are riding them, there are others out there we are working to identify.  There are also some vehicle exploits we will be addressing.

Bloodsports Bugs:

Tee Affo is going to be addressing possible Bloodsports exploits and difficulties players have been having leaving Bloodsports.

So we’ve got our hands full for a while.  We’ll keep you posted on our progress. We will continue to update the Patch Notes page as these fixes are pushed Live.

M

October State of The Game

October State of the Game:

Summer is finally over, and as the days get longer and colder the Fallen Earth team is doubling down in to one of our oldest fall traditions – bug fixing. We’ve added two new programmers to the NC Team to help us with this, both of them old friends we’re happy to have on the team. So If you see Alarick or Tee Affo wandering through the wastes, please take the time to stop, say “Hi!” and tell them what bugs you want squashed.  In the short term Alarick has been digging in to stability issues while Tee Affo has been looking into World Event issues and cleaning up Road Rally bugs. From there we have a list of issues ranging from further improving Mount behavior to fixing “stuck” cooldowns and reload bugs.

As we get most of these (and other major) bugs into QA, it’s back to content.  In the coming months we are going to be rolling out some new features that are designed to raise the difficulty level for our max level players, and wanted to provide a bit of a power boost before then. The G.O.R.E. system is part of this, and while I can’t go into too much detail yet, I can say that there will be new experiences for crafters, PvErs  PVPers, lore fanatics and everyone generally wondering what’s going on with the District.  We will be adding challenges specifically for small groups as well as larger team based scenarios, new max level recipes and what will be the first step towards a feature we’ve been wanting to add to the game for a very long time… It promises to be one of the most “fitting” additions to Fallen Earth, so stay tuned for more info in the weeks to come!

Trick or Treat!

M

August Update!

This July was a pretty great month in terms of what has been done to eliminate some outstanding issues, and also build towards the future with our Next Big Thing update coming in September. Some highlights:

• Mounts: We've made loads of progress on how mounts are handled on both the client and server side. Expect to see a lot less weirdness (rubberbanding, disappearing vehicles to name a few) when cruising the Wasteland, reducing some of the everyday annoyances that folks have to deal with.
• The Dump: We know the debuff issue has been lingering for a while, a result of the fix requiring a ton of investigation on how the engine handles area-bound buffs. Our new developer-ninja has been working to eliminate root cause of the underlying issue, and we hope to have a fix out soon.
• Server stability under load: Some players may be more familiar with this than other, but issues that sometimes cause levels, character models and inventories to display weird/incorrect data should be resolved with upcoming patches.
• Bloodsports: Our next major project from a "fix stuff" perspective will be focused around Bloodsports, including everything from movement prediction to objective completion bugs. We hope to release this around the same time as our Next Big Thing.

And just because we've been spending loads of time fixing things doesn't mean there isn't still good stuff on the horizon. Next up is Neverender, with a glimpse at some of the upcoming game updates.

Next Big Thing

Ahoy, Neverender here! I’m sure you’ve all been wondering what those silhouettes were in the last update we did. If you guessed “completely badass new weapons that will melt your face off”, you were correct.  GlobalTech Ordnance of Rapid Extermination (G.O.R.E.) weapon plans have been discovered and these babies are unlike anything else in the Wasteland you’ve encountered! But be warned, it can be a bit hazardous to acquire the plans and necessary materials to construct these instruments of destruction.

Some of the materials required can be found at an abandoned GlobalTech dump site, but there have been reports of a creeper den in that area. But this isn’t just any creeper den, as it is protected by the monstrous Crabbahoak. Nobody that has laid eyes on this beast has survived. But they were clones, so they still told us all about it. It’s pretty gruesome; I’ll spare you the details.

In other parts of the Wasteland, the Cult of the Dead has re-emerged with a scheme to use G.O.R.E. technology to further their own interests. Protected by Queen Lilith and her Pale One minions, this technology will have to be pried from their lifeless fingers.

There’s been a lot of buzz about the last area. Well, a lot of buzz, and then some screaming, and a lot of running. As soon as we’re able to get more intel on that we’ll be sure to let you know!

Anyway, the team has had a lot of fun designing and testing this new content and we’re looking forward to sharing more with you soon.

-Neverender and the Fallen Earth Team

What's Up?

Greetings Wastelanders,

While we have been working on a bunch of new stuff, we aren't ready to share what *exactly* our Next Big Thing is going to be. Most of our time right now is dedicated to fixing a host of issues and bugs (like nodes, mounts and more), along with said Next Big Thing(s).

While more will be said about our Next Big Thing(s) (ie it's more than a few images can reveal) in the coming weeks, here is a 'lil preview...

July Premium Reward Preview!

For our loyal Premium players, check out July's exclusive Premium Reward!

You can still lock yours in by purchasing any Premium package before the end of the month. Additionally, because your 30 Day (or longer) Premium would extend into August, you will receive next month's reward as well! Oh, and if you don't like the color, fear not, it is dyeable!

If you think this Fedora is snazzy, you can get yours delivered on August 2nd by picking up Premium today here.

June State of the Game

How’d that GTC thing work out for you?

We released GTC last month and since then have been busy addressing the bugs that have come up. Now that we have a good handle on those, we will be looking at some of the concerns players have brought up with balance issues for the harvesters and the consumables.

We are looking at the Deathtoll consumables to make sure they are worth the investment for the players.   For these consumables to really play the role we wanted them to have in FE they need to be balanced a bit differently than other consumables, simply put – they need to be a bit stronger, especially for what’s coming.

As for  harvesters we’ve stated in the past that we want to put players more directly in control of gathering resources so in that line we will be beefing the harvesters back up. We are also going to be releasing Farms, the non-pvp alternative to Harvesters. We still want activities with greater risk to have higher rewards, so  before we can get Farms out, we have to make sure Harvesters are giving enough resources to be worth the effort. We’ve got a better balance point now and will be getting those changes on live asap.

What’s next?

I’m glad you asked, we’re working on a few new systems that should keep players entertained and challenged for a while. Since we’ve just spent a good long time on PVP, this time we’re going to be focusing on a bit more of the PVE side for our challenges. While I’m not ready to get too much into detail here, we’ll be working on putting some unloved and abandoned territory to better use as well as getting some new recipes out there for players to experiment with.

How come you don’t talk to us anymore?

We, and myself particularly, have gotten a bit lax about posting lately and for that I do apologize. It’s never my intention to leave you in the dark for too long. We had moved a bit more towards blog posts  than posting.  

We’re still reading your posts and comments, and as things move a bit more into production on our new systems, we’ll be hopping back over to give more info, answer questions, and generally be social - we’ll also try to bring Bob by as well, but he seems a bit shy these days.

See you in the Wasteland!

M

Player Experience: Let's Make it Better!

Hi folks!

You have probably noticed a lot of small changes and tweaks popping up FE, from mini-map tooltips to skill detail pages and more. The goal of these small changes is to increase the “accessibility” factor in Fallen Earth, and generally just make it easier to use for everyone. While we want Fallen Earth to remain a complex and challenging game, the challenge shouldn’t come from figuring out the system, but from figuring out how to make it work best for you. We’d like to go through a few of these changes and give you an idea of how they work, where applicable.

With our last patch (2.39) we introduced multiple mission tracking, new icons to better differentiate between merchants and trainers, new faction colors for player radar icons and new mount icons.  We also added pages players can access from the attribute window that give more details on the function and abilities of their Stats and Skills/Mutations.  These pages should help players better design and plan their builds, both at high and low levels.

When our 2.4 patch (Global Territory Control) arrives, you will see even more tweaks and functionality improvements to the basics of Fallen Earth.

Find Nearest Garage (ability)

Now, if you get lost in the canyon with an empty fuel tank or a dead horse you will be able to get the waypoints to the closest garage to refuel, repair or heal your mount.  Since we’re giving you the waypoints you’ll be able to store all the locations of your favorite garages!

Gear Slot Reduction

We have reduced the amount of gear slots necessary to fully equip your character. The amount of resistances are the same, but gloves, lower and upper arm armor and thigh pieces will now function like boots - equipping one will equip the set.   While this does limit some of the customizability, we will be addressing that through more custom clothing options rather than through forcing players to hunt out available matching sets.

Improved Trainers

Trainers and skillbooks are a constant source of frustration, inventory clutter and are just generally a bit clunky.  For all combat skills and mutations, the book system has been replaced with trainers who will directly give knowledges. The recipes that use the books have been adjusted to use other components. 

A Brighter Night

We’ve also made some tweaks to the sky box so players will be able to see the things lurking in the dead of night just a bit better.   The change is subtle enough to not ruin the feeling of trekking across a wasteland, but enough to prevent interruption in gameplay. We’re also making day longer to give players a bit more time in the sun.

Chat!

We are adding sector chat so players will be able to communicate with all the players in order to better get groups and socialize. This will be available to everyone in the sector regardless of sub level.

Beyond GTC

AI Improvements

A common complaint from players level 1-55 is that the AI can sometimes seem a bit underdeveloped in its decision-making capabilities. We have been spending a lot of time reviewing how AI in Fallen Earth behaves, and improving it for a more challenging and fulfilling experience, across the board.

Other Stuff

We have plenty of ideas and stuff we are already looking at, but do let us know what YOU think would help improve the general player experience. Obviously things that cast the widest net for the most benefit will take priority, but if it's something specific to PvP, or vehicle crafting or whatever, and it's awesome, share it here or on the forums and it might get done!

See you in the Wasteland!