Kingman Prison – Downing Casta Gaunt with the Wolves

The other night I was doing missions in and around Old Kingman, when the howl came out from my fellow wolves to assist in the felling of Casta Gaunt, the master up in Old Kingman Prison. (By the way, I’m in the Vista clan, Wolves of War)

So I naturally joined up, since group combat has come to be one of my favorite things to do in FE and I’d run this before. All together 7 wolves assembled to venture into the prison, lvls ranging from 13-15. We waited a good 30 minutes for everyone to get ready, inventory cleared, ammo and armor kits stocked, etc. We were, perhaps, overly cautious in the beginning, methodically making our way up the hill to the prison in a tight pack, while picking off hostiles. Having run Casta before, I was not too concerned and went running about on my horse picking up scavenge, but I wouldn’t dare decry strategic discipline that would help us survive within. And I do believe this beginning to end discipline & patience is why we were so successful, with only 3 deaths, one on each boss.

News Of The Future

I suppose you’ve noticed that I haven’t been around much these last several days. There are several reasons for this, but the most significant one is one I’d never have anticipated if you’d asked me more than a week ago.

There’s no easy or politic way to say this, so I’m just gonna say it: I’m going back to EvE-Online.

I really like Fallen Earth. It’s innovative, interesting, engaging, and the people who play it are awesome, among the very best I’ve had the privilege to game with. I’ve had a blast with this game, and I don’t regret a moment of it.

At the same time though, EvE is where I feel most at home in an MMO. I know the game well, and the game knows me. I’ve restarted my EvE blog, “Just A Girl And Her Thorax” and that’s getting some attention, and I spent a lot of the last week re-establishing myself in the game.

And before anyone asks, I want to make this clear: It isn’t about “I’m leaving because Game A does _____ better than Game B”, or anything like that. It’s solely a matter of A) personal taste (I just like a high-tech space theme better than post-apoc), B) I’m just more comfortable with my position and situation in EvE than I am in FE, C) I know and understand EvE and it’s nuances better than I do FE, D) I’ve decided that I like the gameplay style of EvE better than FE’s…it just fits me better, and E) I’ve accepted the reality that there’s just no way I have enough time in my daily schedule to play both games well…I’d rather choose one or the other and give that game the attention it deserves than try to play both and have to do it half-heartedly. I’ve been down that road before and I’ve learned my lesson about trying to cram too many MMO’s into one’s life…it just doesn’t work.

So, this will be my last post here for the foreseeable future, but I also think Fallen Earth Bloggers is a great idea and one I don’t want to see die just because I’m leaving the game. I’d like to pass the site on to someone who will run it as intended (as a group blog), seek out new bloggers for the site, and use it to inform, promote, and discuss Fallen Earth.

If you’re interested in taking over management of Fallen Earth Bloggers, get in touch with me at bekkajai@gmail.com. I want the site to be run by someone who really cares about the game and who wants to make this site everything it can be for the FE community. If that’s you, let’s talk.

On a personal note, I hope you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read here as much as I and other posters have enjoyed creating it for you. I love writing, and there’s plenty of good stuff to talk about in this game. It’s my hope that others will take up the mantle Baltar and I have laid down, and take a small but active group blog and turn it into something really special for this community because you guys deserve it.

Thanks especially for your attention, your participation, and your love and support of FE and this site. Without you, there is literally nothing.

Thanks again for everything, and as we say in EvE, fly safe.

Bekka

The Cost of Life and Death, and One Too Many MMOs

On the side of many Lifenet pods (at least those in Sector One), there’s graffiti that covers the last word of the Globaltech motto, “Making Life Better”, replacing it with the word “CHEAP”. It adds a little insight into how residents of the area must have viewed Globaltech and Lifenet before The Fall…or perhaps even how they view them now, at least the residents who aren’t clones.

In a way, it’s not only a clue to the feelings of the fictional residents of Sector One toward clones who, unlike themselves, can be instantly reborn in one of these pods to go continue on with their lives as if nothing happened, it’s also a clue to the developer logic behind Fallen Earth as a whole, and to how those who play FE may perceive it as well.

Server Weirdness

Well, it had been a while since I’d seen something like this, probably in beta.

I’m still in Watchtower, which has plenty of missions I can handle and aren’t ridiculously easy for me at level 14. The only problem is that most of them send me back into that frakking mine with the ants. Not that I’m freaked out or anything, it’s just that it’s a pain in the ass to navigate in there, especially when you have to get to multiple targets.

Anyway, I’d just gotten to the last of a series of shipping crates inside the mine I needed to get. I’m heading for the exit and suddenly I’m bitten once by an ant, and the little black and white popup comes up, informing me that I’m dead. Huh? On one bite?

Chronicles of Cujo Gasket

I’m announcing the newest addition to the FEB team, me!

Let me tell you a little about my background before I start expounding on my wasteland expoits. I’ve been playing an mmo religiously for the past 6 or so years. I got started with Earth and Beyond, a now defunct game from EA that was a predecessor to EVE, and when that well ran dry, I spent most of my time playing WoW. I know! Ewww. I must be a total loser and not know a quality mmo if one hit hit me on the head. But before you write me off as a noob for making three lvl80s and regularly attending weekend raids to get no loot, hear me out! I was debating between SWG or WoW and since about 5 of my RL friends were already on WoW, it was a no brainer and I never looked back. I am now completely sick of WoW. I can’t even stand to pvp with my epic geared enhance shammy that melts faces… sadness. Onwards and upwards! I always say.

Crisis Averted!

Great news!

Baltar has been found and set me up with moderator status, so I’m now officially, really, truly running things here at FEB. I hope Baltar will rejoin us when he can, and in the meantime I hope I can do the site justice in how I run it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’d like to promote the site to the FE community and grow our staff of bloggers, and I’ll be sharing those thoughts with you here and over at the FE official forums over the coming days.

FEB Needs Your Help!

As I mentioned in a previous post, Baltar, FEB’s founder and moderator, is overwhelmed with schoolwork and dealing with a lousy Internet connection at his school. He’s not in-game much right now and can’t moderate the site anymore. He’s asked me to take over the site and I’ve agreed.

The problem is that Baltar apparently forgot to give me moderator permissions on the site before he left. I can post as I’m doing now, but I can’t approve comments, register new bloggers or change anything on the site until I have that authorization.

All Along The Watchtower

After a while of thinking about it, I decided to leave Oilville even though I’d only done a couple of missions there and head north, knowing I could and probably would be making a return trip south eventually. There’s still a lot I haven’t gotten to in the southern areas of Sector 1, but I wanted something a little more interesting and challenging than what that area offers for the most part.

I decided to set my waypoint to Watchtower, a place I’d never been before. I’ve been far north of it in the past but never actually went there. I discovered that heading there was probably a smart move on my part, but it also led to the single genuinely creepiest in-game experience I’ve had since I started playing FE.

Stranded

Well, not really but that’s kind of what it feels like right now. Before I tell you why I feel that way, though, let me tell you how I got there.

I finally finished making and collecting what I need to build an ATV yesterday, thanks to the timely and much appreciated assistance of fellow Saint Marie Tesla, who helped me take down Grindil, the Gully Bandit boss in Old Kingman, and score the final part I needed.

Downtime

The servers are offline as I write this. It’s the usual Thursday patch. I read the version notes and I’m sure there will be noticeable improvements when they they reopen. I say this because it seems that just about every time there’s a patch of any significance in this game it gets detectably better in some way.

It’s funny, y’know? I’m really of two minds when it comes to MMOs I get involved with. On the one hand, like all players I want the game to work right every time I log in and I get annoyed when it doesn’t.  On the other hand, as someone who’s been involved with her share of Internet startups, both successful and not and as both employee and customer, it’s exciting to me to see the Fallen Earth getting better and better as time goes on.