Face of Mankind - Downsizing

[Mrbloodworth]

Dear FoM Community,

many of you are waiting to hear word from us about the future of Face of Mankind.
Since we have been informed about the cease of service by Ojom at the end of november, we had to do a lot of thinking and planning. The main questions were whether we would be able to continue hosting the game by ourselves and if we would be willing to take the financial risks involved.
We have spent a lot of efforts, diligence, money and even health into the project, and we are not willing to give it up that easily. So we decided to go on, with a few changes, but at least go on.

In order to be able to host the game on our own, we need to simplify everything a lot. During the last weeks we've come up with a concept for this, which I'd like to present to you roughly.
By simplification I mean the game, the server structure and the portal.

The rest here...

[geldonyetich2]

There's a bummer if you're a FoM player.

I played it a bit.  It wasn't a bad game, really, just a but unstructured.  Players were divided into corporations and staged raids against each other.  Only, there wasn't really much incentive to performing these raids, and the consequences of death meant hours of effort down the tube.

Of course, that was back in beta, the score may have changed a bit since then.

[BigBlack]

Corp-centered PvP?  Sounds interesting, sort of like how Neocron sounded on paper?  Is it Diku?  Obnoxiously so?

[Morfiend]

Yeah, some how I missed this game. Corp PVP sounds kind of cool. But hours+ death penalty = no thanks for me.

[HaemishM]

It wasn't a bad game, really, just a but unstructured. 

You are high. This game was ass on an ass stick.

I wrote about it over 2 years ago.

[geldonyetich2]

That review sounds about right.

I'm high on Mass Effect right now.

[Falconeer]

i am with Haem here.

I tried it long long ago, in beta and just after retail (well, they called it retail).
It was very "indie". So indie that the line blended with "amateurish".

Cool concepts and ideas but once again not enough money, or talent, to make it bearable.

I even gave them a few dollars cause devs were there welcoming every single new player (we were like 7 or 8), and they were so passionate and nice I really wanted them to fulfill their dream.
A few days later I fled while everyone was asleep, and my face was like 

[schild]

Jesus Christ. All the Shit is coming out of the woodwork.

[Ixxit]

Jesus Christ. All the Shit is coming out of the woodwork.

Maybe if you brought back the Star Wars Galaxies thread it would contain it.   

[BigBlack]

Wow.  Haemish's write-up is impressive, but does the game still look like that?  Are they still doing perma-death, perma-PvP 2 years out?

[DarkSign]

Face of Mankind was a game that had so much promise. It was one of the few games that didnt try to totally change from beta one or two months after launch.  There were a ton of bugs in open beta which put a lot of people off. And this was a game that was relying on a large number of hard core people.

See the real problem was the fact that they were wanting players to fulfill every role from day one. That's great and all but in a game of this magnitude you cant make "turning on the gears of the world" so intensive that it feels like a job or too hard to do. Players were supposed to create atmosphere for each other...and the game suffered.

The game didnt look the greatest either...although gameplay should take more importance in any review. The controls didnt have a distinctive feel which you really need in a game like this.

For having slagged it so much, the political system had a germ of a great idea...but it wasnt realized at all.

[Hoax]

The problem with FoM was at its core the combat gameplay was shit.  Their cone of fire was so fucking ridiculous as to remove all skill from combat, also hotswapping armor was not a good feature.  Everything else worked as well as you wanted it to.  I had a lot of fun for awhile but eventually grew weary of the fact that outskilling someone was close to impossible thanks to CoF.

*edit* had/hate, similar, stupid CoF...

[geldonyetich2]

To an extent, a cone of fire doesn't remove skill so much as add a second facet to it: making effective use of cover since a cone of fire prevents anyone with an optical mouse can't shoot over it from 5 simulated miles away.

However, there's a limit.  Too big of a cone of fire, requiring you to run right up to point blank range to have a chance of hitting at all, is ridiculous.

I can't comment from memory about which category FoM was, but I do seem to recall it was pretty kludgey FPS combat.  It wasn't incredibly well balanced at all, the only real merit it had being that it took place in an MMORPG (albeit one of low population).

The interesting thing about the game is it was open PvP, just like all the old school Ultima Online adherents like.  Kill somebody, and you're likely to get their best weapon and armor off their corpse.  In time, it becomes a matter of joining corporations (which were completely player managed with special communication channels and everything) just so you could take your equipment form the corporate stockpile.

[geldonyetich2]

making effective use of cover since a cone of fire prevents anyone with an optical mouse can't shoot over it from 5 simulated miles away.

Wow, I butchered that one.  Lets try this:

Cone of fire allows cover to work because, without it, anyone with an optical mouse can easily shoot you from a great distance away with very little difficulty.

[Venkman]

He wasn't talking about the CoF as a concept, just how it was delivered in FoM.

Wait for Jumpgate II or whatever they call it this week.

[Mrbloodworth]

The problem with FoM was at its core the combat gameplay was shit.  Their cone of fire was so fucking ridiculous as to remove all skill from combat, also hotswapping armor was not a good feature.  Everything else worked as well as you wanted it to.  I had a lot of fun for awhile but eventually grew weary of the fact that outskilling someone was close to impossible thanks to CoF.

*edit* had/hate, similar, stupid CoF...

You should have seen it before i told him to change it. The Cross hair moved to create the inaccuracy, instead of the cross hair being static, and the bullets going slightly random.

[Falconeer]

I feel bad for necroing this but I think it's necessary, it's everyone's responsibility to be up to date with the level of crazy of the planet. Side note: sandboxes, sandboxes everywhere!

Face of Mankind is going Kickstarter.

It is supposed to be a completely new game, but with a goal of 50k, looks like all they are asking for is for someone to pay for their servers and the electricity bills.

Since I am at it, for those who are really bored at work and have a fascination obsession for the past, here's the original f13 thread, from 2005, with lots of Sir Bruce and a Geldon cameo.


EDIT to make having clicked this link slightly less painful: Here's The Repopulation, a Futuristic sandbox that looks ten times better and probably 100 1 times more likely to happen.

[Mrbloodworth]

Go home FOM, you are drunk.

[Hoax]

They are getting rid of the game factions and replacing them with player made factions? Talk about learning nothing. Pass. Let's never speak of this again. RIP in pieces FoM you were pretty damn fun but it also hurt that you couldn't stop shitting the good things you had going up which has kept me mainly away from sandbox titles these days.

[Lucas]

[Dark_MadMax]

Man I played this game a few times and wondered how this was alive for so long lol.... It like has no content and all it is just a few maps("planets") to pvp on .And pvp itself wasnt even good

[Sophismata]

Since I am at it, for those who are really bored at work and have a fascination obsession for the past, here's the original f13 thread, from 2005, with lots of Sir Bruce and a Geldon cameo.

Why does he sign every post with his name?

[Modern Angel]

How the shit did you know this thread even existed Falc? 

[Falconeer]

obsession for the past

There are some awesome old discussions that would be great to necro. If f13 had a frontpage, I'd make a "featured retro-threads" section.

[rattran]

There are some awesome old discussions that would be great to necro. If f13 had a frontpage, I'd make a "featured retro-threads" section.

That may not be the very worst idea ever, but it's fucking close.

[Falconeer]

It's good to see how wrong we were about pretty much everything. Or how misplaced our hopes were. Or our expectations and craves evolved or de-evolved. Anyway, it's never gonna happen so my explorations in the bowels of the search tool are going to stay private and harmless.

[Draegan]

I've always enjoyed the old WOW threads from a decade ago where people though it would just be an ok game.

[Sophismata]

I've always enjoyed the old WOW threads from a decade ago where people though it would just be an ok game.

I still think it's just an OK game. My opinion of pretty much every other MMORPG is just much, much lower.

[Merusk]

It's good to see how wrong we were about pretty much everything. Or how misplaced our hopes were. Or our expectations and craves evolved or de-evolved. Anyway, it's never gonna happen so my explorations in the bowels of the search tool are going to stay private and harmless.

Speak for yerself.

I've been wrong about specific games, totally.  But my general mantra has always been "virtual worlds are bunk and will never take off because people want games, not 2nd lives."

[Falconeer]

Fear the search tool, Merusk. Don't make me use my mouse.