Right now the modular weapon system is an art tool only. We were using this to quickly made new guns for the future versions of Em-8ER. Just wanted to make sure people were aware that you can't swap parts like this in-game. However, we do sell skins and I've some thoughts on this:
1) Omniframes, Thumpers and Weapons are not customizable when you first get them.
2) We sell skins, as our primary business model, to keep staff paid and servers afloat.
3) Each skin is for a particular frame (light,med,heavy) or weapon type (xyz crafted weapon).
The unique twist we have on this, is this:
Each skin you buy can be mixed and matched with parts of other skins you own and the default skin.
So, for example, if you have backed us and obtained the "gold THMPR skin" it would not be part of your "customization library."
The gold skin is entirely gold, but now you could swap out just the gold shoulder or thigh plates or forearms with parts from another other skin you own.
I had not planned on doing this with weapons until now, when you all mentioned how excited you were for customization.
So in that sense, Em8ER does not allow customization, except for skins you earn or purchase, which you can then swap around in parts.
Does that make sense? I have to make sure this will be performant, so I'm not promising this mix and match system definitely yet, but its my current thinking. (Performance reasons is because we feature a lot o players in battles and this limits us in some ways, potentially)
1) Omniframes, Thumpers and Weapons are not customizable when you first get them.
2) We sell skins, as our primary business model, to keep staff paid and servers afloat.
3) Each skin is for a particular frame (light,med,heavy) or weapon type (xyz crafted weapon).
The unique twist we have on this, is this:
Each skin you buy can be mixed and matched with parts of other skins you own and the default skin.
So, for example, if you have backed us and obtained the "gold THMPR skin" it would not be part of your "customization library."
The gold skin is entirely gold, but now you could swap out just the gold shoulder or thigh plates or forearms with parts from another other skin you own.
I had not planned on doing this with weapons until now, when you all mentioned how excited you were for customization.
So in that sense, Em8ER does not allow customization, except for skins you earn or purchase, which you can then swap around in parts.
Does that make sense? I have to make sure this will be performant, so I'm not promising this mix and match system definitely yet, but its my current thinking. (Performance reasons is because we feature a lot o players in battles and this limits us in some ways, potentially)
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Well the world starts out as a harsh planet. A icy and yet volcanic planet, a mix of snow and lava. Players terraform the zones of the planet over time, and the final biome of each zone ends up being a variety of things, desert, or forest or yes, even Copa Jungle style potentially. The one thing that will be a factor is that giant Kaiju need large flat area, and so do bases, so you wont' see an entire zone that is mountainous etc.
You still have frames, but they are now light mechs, about twice as tall as humans. They still jetpack and glide and now, skim (fast travel). They move as fast as Firefall frames, not clunky mechs. But now YOU control your "class" by crafting the abilities and weapons you want, and mixing and matching them into three frame types "light," "medium," and "heavy." You can collect as many frames as you want and have different loadouts and play-styles for them.
When you fight, you are fighting shapeshifters that flip between ranged, humanoid form, and brutal melee, beast forms. They have special siege weapons, that are actually large and giant monsters, that you will have to fight, often using your jetpacking verticality.
There are two main things to do in Em8ER, resources and crafting, and invasions. There is always an invasion going on. You can jump in and fight in one right away, or you can go to a quiet zone not under attack and thump and mine and craft and establish and improve bases.
Hope that helps!
You still have frames, but they are now light mechs, about twice as tall as humans. They still jetpack and glide and now, skim (fast travel). They move as fast as Firefall frames, not clunky mechs. But now YOU control your "class" by crafting the abilities and weapons you want, and mixing and matching them into three frame types "light," "medium," and "heavy." You can collect as many frames as you want and have different loadouts and play-styles for them.
When you fight, you are fighting shapeshifters that flip between ranged, humanoid form, and brutal melee, beast forms. They have special siege weapons, that are actually large and giant monsters, that you will have to fight, often using your jetpacking verticality.
There are two main things to do in Em8ER, resources and crafting, and invasions. There is always an invasion going on. You can jump in and fight in one right away, or you can go to a quiet zone not under attack and thump and mine and craft and establish and improve bases.
Hope that helps!
Hi, we'll be moving this thread to the complaints and gripe section, but I wanted to reply.
A lot of the negative stuff that people heard came from one poster on Reddit, Brutal Whimsey. Brutal spun a pretty tight and commercial quality written narrative, combining bit of truth and leaving out a lot of things, to weave a hitpiece out of some kind of grudge, or perhaps corporate motivation (The9 was looking to discredit me to explain to new investors why I left...and I did resign, I was not let go, that is fakenews). I suspect the later, because a year later, when The9 and Red 5 failed to pay employees at Christmas, Brutal slammed employees for leaking their NDAs and told them to shut up (funny, he praised them for breaking NDA when talking about me, odd that). From there, that post was the basis for an article about me on some clickbait game site and the rest of the slander campaign is history.
I have several Ex-Red5 team members working for me (JoeSolo, Michael Bross, Noel Rubin, and three others (2 who just joined) I can't name because they work for other companies right now), which should tell you that a lot of what you heard is selective truths and hyperbole. Also, you don't see people on the World of Warcraft team complaining about me, and I was Team Lead and in the trenches on that project for five years. When I directly manage a product, like WoW or Starcraft: Broodwar, Diablo 2, etc. they tend to go really well. As a CEO, I had less and less direct management of the team as time went on. We were fighting an internal war with The9 and I was often called away to China to say, argue against firing the entire management team, or doing layoffs (unfortunately at one point The9 insisted and we had to do a round of layoffs during beta). During my tenure at CEO we had one of the highest retention rates of employees in Red 5's history. When I left, droves of employees started to leave as The9 took over. I never fired on a whim, gave people 30-60 improvement programs, and fired very few compared to The9 later, who eventually fired everyone but core team to work on mobile and porn games.
My team is motivated by I'm passionate. I'm passionate about Firefall, mechs, anime and Kaiju, and it shows. I strive for a high quality of work and will even do things like remake the Omniframe based on user feedback that it wasn't good enough. They also were there with me and saw things the public did not (or even some team members). They tend to be people I've worked with directly for years, instead of managed by the middle manager of Firefall, so they know me better, rather than 2nd or 3rd hand company rumors. Or they have worked with me the on concept and art for Crixa, the tabletop game, and enjoyed it. I've not lost a single team member on Crixa or Em-8ER .
Did I make mistakes on Firefall? Absolutely. Did I tank the company? No, beta was the highest point and I presided over the "golden age" of Firefall. After I left, they changed the game to WoW with Guns and user concurrency sank rapidly. They had 2 years and changed the game many times during that time to try to make "their vision" of Firefall, which I creatively disagreed with (a source of many arguments, and yes, I would get a little heated sometimes when they wanted to make WoW with guns).
This time I have no investors who want me to "just make WoW again" and my team is small, motivated and loyal. Instead of me being away in China all the time, I'm here working directly on the game, side by side with my team. It's where I'm best, really, as you can see from my history of all my games.
I hope you are here because you are genuinely curious. I'm a pretty open and friendly person, as the community here knows. If this helps you in any way to change your mind, then stay with us awhile and see for yourself how it goes.
- Markus
A lot of the negative stuff that people heard came from one poster on Reddit, Brutal Whimsey. Brutal spun a pretty tight and commercial quality written narrative, combining bit of truth and leaving out a lot of things, to weave a hitpiece out of some kind of grudge, or perhaps corporate motivation (The9 was looking to discredit me to explain to new investors why I left...and I did resign, I was not let go, that is fakenews). I suspect the later, because a year later, when The9 and Red 5 failed to pay employees at Christmas, Brutal slammed employees for leaking their NDAs and told them to shut up (funny, he praised them for breaking NDA when talking about me, odd that). From there, that post was the basis for an article about me on some clickbait game site and the rest of the slander campaign is history.
I have several Ex-Red5 team members working for me (JoeSolo, Michael Bross, Noel Rubin, and three others (2 who just joined) I can't name because they work for other companies right now), which should tell you that a lot of what you heard is selective truths and hyperbole. Also, you don't see people on the World of Warcraft team complaining about me, and I was Team Lead and in the trenches on that project for five years. When I directly manage a product, like WoW or Starcraft: Broodwar, Diablo 2, etc. they tend to go really well. As a CEO, I had less and less direct management of the team as time went on. We were fighting an internal war with The9 and I was often called away to China to say, argue against firing the entire management team, or doing layoffs (unfortunately at one point The9 insisted and we had to do a round of layoffs during beta). During my tenure at CEO we had one of the highest retention rates of employees in Red 5's history. When I left, droves of employees started to leave as The9 took over. I never fired on a whim, gave people 30-60 improvement programs, and fired very few compared to The9 later, who eventually fired everyone but core team to work on mobile and porn games.
My team is motivated by I'm passionate. I'm passionate about Firefall, mechs, anime and Kaiju, and it shows. I strive for a high quality of work and will even do things like remake the Omniframe based on user feedback that it wasn't good enough. They also were there with me and saw things the public did not (or even some team members). They tend to be people I've worked with directly for years, instead of managed by the middle manager of Firefall, so they know me better, rather than 2nd or 3rd hand company rumors. Or they have worked with me the on concept and art for Crixa, the tabletop game, and enjoyed it. I've not lost a single team member on Crixa or Em-8ER .
Did I make mistakes on Firefall? Absolutely. Did I tank the company? No, beta was the highest point and I presided over the "golden age" of Firefall. After I left, they changed the game to WoW with Guns and user concurrency sank rapidly. They had 2 years and changed the game many times during that time to try to make "their vision" of Firefall, which I creatively disagreed with (a source of many arguments, and yes, I would get a little heated sometimes when they wanted to make WoW with guns).
This time I have no investors who want me to "just make WoW again" and my team is small, motivated and loyal. Instead of me being away in China all the time, I'm here working directly on the game, side by side with my team. It's where I'm best, really, as you can see from my history of all my games.
I hope you are here because you are genuinely curious. I'm a pretty open and friendly person, as the community here knows. If this helps you in any way to change your mind, then stay with us awhile and see for yourself how it goes.
- Markus
Hello.
I could delve into the history of firefalls development, and how much of it has been misrepresented buy certain parties. But..meh.
instead I'll just give my own personal experience. I've worked with Mark for nearly two years now. On the Em-8ER project, he and I have spent countless hours getting things done. He has been nothing but a fun guy to work with and talk to. He is a good freind and mentor to me. Simple as that. So why am I here? Because I believe in the project, and I believe in the person. If I didnt I wouldn't be here. If he treated me poorly I wouldn't be here. Those who know me know that I don't put up with BS from folks. So make no mistake, I'm here because it's been nothing but awesome.
That said I do get the skepticism from folks. I get it. When you watch a game fall apart and there is a certain version of events that gets repeated many times it's hard to not buy into at least some of it. All I can say is to keep your mind open and your eyes on us. I think, in time, we will make you happy that you did.
I could delve into the history of firefalls development, and how much of it has been misrepresented buy certain parties. But..meh.
instead I'll just give my own personal experience. I've worked with Mark for nearly two years now. On the Em-8ER project, he and I have spent countless hours getting things done. He has been nothing but a fun guy to work with and talk to. He is a good freind and mentor to me. Simple as that. So why am I here? Because I believe in the project, and I believe in the person. If I didnt I wouldn't be here. If he treated me poorly I wouldn't be here. Those who know me know that I don't put up with BS from folks. So make no mistake, I'm here because it's been nothing but awesome.
That said I do get the skepticism from folks. I get it. When you watch a game fall apart and there is a certain version of events that gets repeated many times it's hard to not buy into at least some of it. All I can say is to keep your mind open and your eyes on us. I think, in time, we will make you happy that you did.