My second night in Fallen Earth

The Zanesville airport is now overrun by raiders

I got the chance to spend some more time in the wasteland last night and I’m glad I did. When I last left off, I had done a couple of quests and some exploring but was getting a little frustrated at the fact that I couldn’t scavenge anything. Since scavenging is one of the biggest ways you get materials for crafting, I was feeling road blocked from progressing my character. My goal is to keep my crafting skills in line with my level so they remain useful.

With horses like this, who needs cars

So, when I logged in last night, I resolved to figure out why I couldn’t scavenge and get my crafting career rolling. I started in Zanesville, a combat town, and nowhere could I find a scavenging trainer, or anyone who sold anything in reference to scavenging. After some asking around, I found out that I had to visit the “Tradeskill Trainer” inside a building labeled “Nature Training.” From there, I had to buy different nature kits that unlocked the ability to scavenge. I found this to be somewhat obtuse (if your skill is called “scavenging,” you should probably reference “scavenging” somewhere in the training books) but it worked.

After that, the game cracked wide open for me; some artificial barrier was lifted and I felt free to do whatever I wanted. More importantly, I could prioritize what materials I needed to collect. Now, I only need to figure out where all of these materials come from and I’ll be set.

As I played, I noticed quite a few things I didn’t talk about in my “First Impressions” post, some good and some not so good.

We’ll start with the main negative to get that out of the way: I find it very jarring that I can aim my gun at a mob’s head, at point blank range, and miss. They calculate hits/misses and damage on random dice rolls behind the scenes but, if you’re trying to emulate an FPS, shooting something’s head from 10 inches away, should probably result in a hit.

Do you want a thigh or a drumstick?

Apart from that, it’s small, quirky things, such as your inability to do a /who for a particular person or guild. Hello 1999, long time no see.  And, for the life of me, I couldn’t manage to send a tell to a player with a first and last name. I’m a noob. So maybe someone could help me here.

That aside, I noticed a lot of good too.

First off, the community here is top notch. The help channel is always running fluid with questions and veteran players answering them. It does get a little spammy at times but you see very little drama and other annoying stuff (*cough* Well, WoW does this… *cough*) that you see in many other games. When I asked a question, I could usually get an answer. Granted, I had people tell me the wrong answer to my questions on scavenging more often than not, but people are trying and that’s saying something

Second, I definitely felt immersed like the other bloggers have talked about. I started playing and, this isn’t an exaggeration, before I realized it two and a half hours had gone by. I don’t know whether it’s because I was so actively trying to figure everything out or because the first person lends itself towards “being there” more than third person. Probably both and more. The setting and detail of everything is all so right that it really makes you feel like you’re there. The aftermath is a place easy to get lost in.

I love the sense of humor the modern setting allows

I also love how crafting works. The fact that you can set something up to craft, close the window, and go about your business is neat in itself but I think the depth of it lends the whole system more weight than I’ve ever seen before (sans EVE). In Fallen Earth, you don’t just make the thing. You make the thing that’s a part of making the bigger thing. And sometimes it goes further than that. Each part takes a decent amount of time, too. When I logged out, I had myself making two extra stacks of zipgun ammo (80 pieces each) and something from the Science tradeskill as well. My timer was set for seven minutes and twenty two seconds to get the job done. Nothing is instant in FE’s crafting system, at least so far, and it all wraps into a package I can only call “deep.”

Oh, and a word to the wise. Don’t use up all of your zipgun ammo right off the bat. It’s probably the easiest and quickest way to kill things but you’ll be missing it when it’s gone.

I won’t go too much further with last night’s experiences but I will say this, after you understand the basics of the game, Fallen Earth can be a lot of fun. The quests a fresh and funny and worth your time to read them. I went into this game knowing virtually nothing about its systems or mechanics and you’ll probably know little more when you do. Don’t give up or get frustrated. When it comes, the whole of Arizona will open up before you.

It’ll probably raise more questions but, hey, the fun is in the learning, right?

Not my horse.