FamilyAC Roleplayers; Fallen Age

Current Beta: Phase 1, Began on April the 21st, 2001.

Estimated Release Date: 2001 (no confirmed month or quarter.)

Primary Category: MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game)

Secondary Categories: RTS (Real-Time Strategy) & TBS (Turn-Based Sim)

Fallen Age Overview

Developed by Netamin, Fallen Age is an online game which caters to several genre needs at the same time. On the one hand you have exploration, dungeon-delving, hack n' slash, and roleplaying. On the other hand you have colonisation, strategy, management and Guilds. Then, precariously balanced on your foot, is the PvP situation, which I'll talk more about below.

The game itself takes place in 6415 A.D. though the actual setting is very much good ol' fantasy with melee weapons to pummel your foes with, magic to amaze them and send them fleeing with, and creatures with names to match their weird and wonderful appearences.

So what makes Fallen Age any different to all the others out there? Let's take a quick peek and find out.

Visuals and Sound

The majority of the game is played in the 2D view, as shown in the first screenshot. The first thing that will strike you is how similar it is to some of the classic RPG's of the past, such as the mid-to-late Ultimas and the Baldur's Gate series of games (including Icewind Dale). With just about all the MMORPG's currently out there keeping themselves firmly planted in the 3D first and third person style of gaming (except Origin's Ultima Online, which is traditionally in the 2D view), it can certainly offer a nice change to smite your foes from a more strategical vantage point, leaving your character to do your questionable bidding while you rub your hands together in glee. On the graphical performance side of things, a 2D card could probably have been acceptable if it could handle the on-screen mayhem, but for the colonisation section of the game, a 3D card would definately be needed for the 'god-mode' 3D view. Anyway, let's face it, the only computers which don't have 3D cards should either have been retired, or are the innocent victims on office desks of company employees who take online gaming breaks when the boss isn't looking, as often as coffee and cigarette breaks. tsk tsk :)

Player Killing vs. Non-Player Killing

A nice feature of Fallen Age is in how they impliment PK'ing and NPK'ing, giving alot of freedom for the player to decide. The system is subject to change, depending on how Beta goes, but currently it's set that you are open to PvP (Player versus Player) when you reach level 30. Then there are areas which are safe from PvP, while other are unsafe, following by areas which are unsafe but carry no death penalty. Still, many will be concerned about situations where PK's can't be avoided. Netamin have made a couple of ingenuitive measures of their own to lessen the chances of this occuring, while not taking away too much freedom of play. The first is that if a player is reported three times for non-consensual PK'ing, the next time they die, they will be forced to spend 30 minutes in-game time in a jail where they cannot speak or interact with their environment, but they cannot be idle either, otherwise the timer will not move. The second thing they've done is to have an honour system in place. The lower your human opponent is in level compared to you, the more points you lose, and also the more people you kill, the lower your honour will get. This has very serious repurcussions for those who PK just for the hell of it, by increasing the cost of shops, repairs and other arrangements, as well as making their colony prone to natural disasters. Not only that, but it means they won't be allowed to create a guild, nor ever become a King or Emperor. Not enough? Well the death penalty for PK'ers then becomes 100%. (all carried gold lost, all spendable experience lost and a random item dropped). that's all for those who commit non-consensual PK'ing. For those who just want a friendly duel, or would like to climb the Deathmatch ladder (yep, there's a ranking system like in Quake-type gaming where players can fight other players and be placed on a league table, if they so wish), then areas are designated for this. Enjoy :)

I've dropped 14 items and can't get my corpse :(

Fear not, for the developers of Fallen Age offer a supporting hand of sympathy for the loss-conscious among us. Until level 30 you will lose absolutely nothing upon death, and past that you will randomly lose 0 to 70% of whatever gold you're carrying (don't forget you can build a bank in your colony to store you vast hoardes of booty), or you may instead lose 2 to 25% of your unspent xp. Atop this, you will randomly either drop one item, or you won't drop an item. For PK'ers who have been tagged as the non-consensual types, they lose 100% of their gold, 100% of their unspent xp and one item. The system isn't ideal in my eyes, and can still burn you pretty bad if you've been saving up for a long time and lose a high percentage of gold or xp, along with your best item, but it's a step up from most death-systems, and pretty individual.

Colonisation, and when you can earn your hard-hat

You're given a plot of land to do with as you will, though you will have to wait until level 30 before you can access it by completing a quest. Decent enough, as that allows you time to get to grips with the game before throwing yourself back in the deep end. You can build all kinds of ramshackle pads for your friends to crash at after a hard night's monster-looting, ranging through Banks, Factories, Houses, Warehouses, Schools, Laboratories and so forth. Go ahead and use your facilities to produce new and fantastic items, store goods, train Soldiers to defend your colony, spend tax and resources however you see fit, or any other range of possibilities which come from this foolishly granted new power :) The main reasoning behind the use of your colony's buildings is to replace the need for your character to train in trade-skills, which are completely covered by the buildings you construct and manage. Why not go take over the neighbouring colony to meet your expansion needs, or maybe you'd prefer to befriend them. Maybe do it the good ol' fashioned way and explore the surrounding land and build on your own terms.

Performance

Concerned that your computer may be turning senile and ratty in it's old age, sputtering and coughing as it struggles to keep up with the latest games? Fear not, for Fallen Age doesn't require a high-end, or even mid-end computer, according to the official specifications released by Netamin, though these will undoubtedly change by the time of release. Also, Fallen Age does tend to lose frame rate noticeably in some areas on a GeForce 2 card in a system all above what is recommended, but that is likely to simply be a matter of compatibility with drivers and such, which usually aren't optimised until late beta or release.

Minimum Requirements
Pentium celeron 433
64M Ram
170MB hard drive space
3D card
33600 modem

Recommended Requirements
Pentium II 400
128M Ram
300MB hard drive space
3D card (16M)
56K modem

If you'd like to add anything to this Fallen Age page, would like something added, or would like to post anything of your own on the site, please let me know at reltrethan@hotmail.com or use aew21@globalnet.co.uk if you are sending pictures, screenshots or anything else out of Hotmail's size-limited range.

Thanks, I'll keep you posted on any changes.

Andrew (Starfire21 / Reltrethan)

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