What got me interested in FF

[DARKB1KE]

Nononono; you don't understand. I KNOW people who are serious and monotone (my current boss at work is.) I KNOW military folk, personally, across several generations of people (my dad, some friends my age, and a couple who are my junior by decades.) They still sound like people. They are tolerable to listen to and I can even get along with them.

THIS GUY-->

(the santa NPC who's a bit hard to hear--there are so few quality vids of Firefall...) makes me want to bite him in the throat and pull every time I hear his lines. He did a terrible acting job and there is no justifying it.

Oh, I thought you were talking about Accord generals/etc. not the specific Santa event.
I'll disagree with you again, his voice acting was some of the funniest in the game. I think you're kinda missing the point, it's supposed to sound cheesed/hammed up, that's what gives it character!

Several people agreed with me:
http://forums.firefall.com/community/threads/who-did-the-wintertide-santa-voice.5935021/

Father Wintertide is voiced by one of our developers, ScottyB, who is a writer on the narrative team. The lines were a collaboration between ScottyB and Chapperwocky.

Live Events have such a quick turn around that it's hard to get professional voice actors into the studio. Contracts, recordings, scheduling conflicts, etc. all work against quick iteration. So we end up using internal voices for a lot of that stuff. I shared this thread with them last night.

 

[Omnires]

high piercing sound in the background but i prefer a really cool cybernetic voice

even a dog voice with subtitles for fun

Yes, but I'm a believer that in order to know where you are going you to have to know where you have been. Because one of the things I have to look into for my studies from time to time is history, when I talk to normal people I'm sometimes surprised they are not aware of the history of things they talk about or question. People are controlled by history more than they think they are, and before you can change that you have to be aware of the reasons why.

Even to this day think about all the different voices you hear that give you information or warnings, most of them are female for the same reasons the phone operators are female. Siri, Cortana, the GPS voice that gives you directions, the voice of things like talking cars are mostly female, in sci-fi spaceships the voice you hear over the intercom system is mostly female, etc. Part of the reasons for this has to do with history and the other part being psychological. And the idea that women tend to have more calming voices than men, and in high stress situations keeping people calm will also help keep them alive because they are not panicking.

 

[Daynen]

Yes, but I'm a believer that in order to know where you are going you to have to know where you have been. Because one of the things I have to look into for my studies from time to time is history, when I talk to normal people I'm sometimes surprised they are not aware of the history of things they talk about or question. People are controlled by history more than they think they are, and before you can change that you have to be aware of the reasons why.

Even to this day think about all the different voices you hear that give you information or warnings, most of them are female for the same reasons the phone operators are female. Siri, Cortana, the GPS voice that gives you directions, the voice of things like talking cars are mostly female, in sci-fi spaceships the voice you hear over the intercom system is mostly female, etc. Part of the reasons for this has to do with history and the other part being psychological. And the idea that women tend to have more calming voices than men, and in high stress situations keeping people calm will also help keep them alive because they are not panicking.

The calming effect of a female voice is easy to explain. We all came from a womb and were capable of hearing our mother's voice from within. A female voice gives us a small psychological connection to and reminder of our very first home.

Anyway, voice acting aside--I just hate the--no. NO. No more ranting. Sorry. Positive thoughts, positive thoughts...

Jump jets gave verticality, guns, frames, and abilities with moddability gave a variety of functions and combat styles, game-changing perks allowed crazy fun setups(blademaster dragonfly, anyone?), one character was all you needed for all the frames, the narrative of the melding gave real motivation to push back and investigate the mystery, the survival waves that accompanied thumpers in such a spectrum of difficulty were great for testing your raw combat potential, and the idea that the game world was never obsolete due to the persistence of the Chosen and the limited lifespan of your gear was SO important to me to keep a game fresh. Firefall dared to do things other online games did not. It was a true pioneer in the genre and I had such high hopes for it.

There was a lot to like about Firefall--until The9 came along...aaaaand the rest is history.

 

[Thorp]

the pax prime 2010 video is what really got me to jump onto the FF hype train [vid]. I was already at the station but man oh man. The whole video made me happy. But what really got me sold onto FF was the Chosen invasion scene [here]; the Chosen AI could use some touch-ups the video was pretty good. All the characters were grounded to the world, not giant health pool flying machines. Bullets looked like an actual concern, cover was used by the players and the chosen. Abilities were available for the players to spice things up. The entrenched warfare within the town really sold that trapped feeling, you ain't flying out of this one, hold the line.

When I finally got into FF beta I was extremely grateful about the dev decision to remove the randomness of crafting. During the randomness I felt really frustrated saving up resources to end up crafting an item with stats that I didn't want. Over and over I wanted an overheal medgun with +% healing and multiple times I got a vampgun with mediocre stats. When the devs removed the randomness it felt so much more meaningful to craft, to log in every day with a set goal and not a sad concern that my efforts would be in vain...to restart and try try again felt terrible.

Finding resources felt great. It was easy to take a glider from Copa to the shoreline or from Trans Hub to the forest and search for resources. My friends and I would split up in search of the best node then the best thumper placement, I really felt connected the the world my character walked on. (making resources 1-1000 quality destroyed this as nothing was ever "good enough" unless it was 1000. Keeping resources at a baseline of Choralite or Azerite, ect. was best).

Being grounded in a sci fi setting is what made me interested in FF. Jetpacks were fun to use as a maneuver...once jetpacks allowed for long periods of airtime and was more reliable than finding cover I lost that connection to the ground and have never felt the same; I was disconnected to the world and to every other player I saw floating around like bobbing health balloons.

 

[13umbleBee]

What I loved/missed about Firefall

1) Jump Jets... aiming AND shooting while Jump Jetting around.
2) Gliding. (the cooldowns are a pain tho, given that gliding already requires a starting altitude, that should act as a natural cooldown)
3) 1 player, many frames, many roles. Switch'em up! This is by far the best feature. It encouraged using the best frame for the job. And allowed for some remarkably creative play.
4) Crafting, even towards the end, crafting was always enjoyable because it allowed us to truly customise our equipment towards our play style.
5) Meld Thumping, making a run for it when you have mere seconds to spare between thump complete and repulsors shutting down, mobs presumably in tow.
6) Invasions. Incursions. Love it cos everyone loves a good party. Especially when you're out thumping and you spot a line of Chosen making their way towards a watch tower take over and you line up a head shot
7) Horizontal progression. Anyone can jump in and play.
8) Active and skill based healing role. eg. Healing ball, Healing pillar etc. Man, I miss healing ball.
9) Freedom to explore and experiment
10) Above all, a really, really good community to do stuff with in game.

13B

 

[TankHunter678]

Are you kidding? Aero was one of the few voices I could stand; she was head and shoulders above the acting of most of FF's voices..for the most part. she had a few cringeworthy lines now and then, but overall she sounded more alive and believable than 90% of the ingame actors. After launch, several actors became much more enjoyable, and new ones popped up that actually sounded pretty good (Wiley and Scarlet spring to mind) but a lot of them just made my ears bleed. If you must get only one FF voice actor, get Aero.

The guy who did Zed was pretty good too, the VA clearly knew they were handed an over the top scientist character and just ran off with it. The dynamic between him and Aero was just on point and it was always amusing listening to his quest dialog.

 

[Omnires]

Also about the VO. I loved how Graves was done.

Back in the early days of the game when the overworld A.I. was still working after you cleared B.W.A. Graves would randomly hack your SIN and talk to you to play mind games. For example, when I was thumping near the Melding wall this happens. Graves: "Why is that you fight?"
A few moments later after I cleared the wave, Graves: "Do you even know what it is you are fighting for?"
A few moments later while in the middle of the wave, Graves: "Do you really think YOU can make a difference? That anything you matters?"
A few moments later as soon as I cleared the wave, Graves: "NOTHING YOU DO MATTER!!!" and a large group of Chosen comes running out of the Melding to attack me and few seconds off that the boss survival wave of the thumper spawns too
That is things like that make me fall in love with the game. The overworld A.I. remembered what I did and knew what I was doing so it would make up situations and scenarios where different NPCs would target me specifically either for testing me in trying to recruit to join them (some of the things Graves would say made seem like he was trying to turn you into a Chosen. And some of the bandit leaders with try to get you join them even if it was impossible to do so) or revenge (Graves would sometimes be clearly upset at you by yelling at you or trying to throw off you game telling you cryptic stories "about the wolf and the goat" and asking you odd questions about things in the game world. Or different NPC graves come after me because I killed too many of them that day, even some wildlife would set to ambushes sometimes, namely wargram hissiers and aranha.)


I use the loved those old SIN Imprints and how they would give you information and lore about the area or something all in little sound chips. My fave one the ones around the Biodome area about how all the alien lifeforms escaped the lab, the once around Thump Dump where Oilspill and some other guy are fighting over dating Aero and Oilspill getting pissed off because guy says he is going to try and have sex with Aero on their date, the ones from BWA of about one of the missing units that was sent in there before you and how some of them was killed and other was turned into Chosen.

 

[Silv3r Shadow]

I liked Aero apart of the campaign but for open world stuff it got irritating, her and oilspil forgot what a nano was everyone one would appear.
The accord command was better in the sense of open world objectives. Aero is only really to be scripted once if ye get what I'm meaning

 

[Tamás Csaba]

Hi!

I would like to help to create a Firefall like game too. Firefall was my favorit game, and I still play with it, I tried a lot of games, and never find any game what is as cool and Firefall was, so I have big hope for Ember.

Things why I fall in love to Firefall 1.2 and 1.3:

1. This video:

Yes I want to became to an Ares.
2. Aero. I know everybody say that, Aero is so cool, but she is our partner, and escort us in all the time. She is worry about us, etc.
3. Battleframe/Exoskeleton it seems a real possibility to became a hero, and who don't wanna be one?
4. The battleframe classes, you can choose what suits you (Accord frame), and then you can specialized for what suits you more (Advanced frames).
5. Change frame when you want
6. Costumization of you character, any time.
7. The open "living" world.
8. The frames was realy ballanced, before Amazone.
9. I'm a dread type guy so the HMG-s
10. Tumping, Crafting
11. Prefixes and the ability to craft items with the exact prefix what i want.
12. Awasome story line
13. Missions, Titans, Events (that was a lot of event when i start the game)
14. And of course the mobility (jumpjets, gliders, Afterburner for the assault frames, LGV, MGV)

Some thing what I don't really like in Firefall:

These thing is all come fith the 1.6:
- Item enhancement
- The new dread type weapons
- Too much item on a frame: well before 1.6 i think that was cool, there are a limited number of ability what can use, and a few more, to change if it is nead, 2 weapone and a core. After 1.6 there are too many items, which are still ok for me, but i hate MMO-s when there are too mutch items (for example rings, earrings and items like this)

I hope these things help to create a very nice game.

 

[MattHunX]

I know people were pretty torn on having a voice like Aero in the game. I don't plan to do one for Em-8ER. But maybe she'll appear *somewhere*

Well, I've been told her voice-actress contacted you guys about doing more voice-over work and since the teaser for EM-8ER already had her voice, she should most definitely return and in the same capacity. As an operator/navigator. If not, then just a mission-provider. A lot.

 

[MajorChuah]

I actually hated Aero when I played FF but after a while it feels like she's part of FF. Without Aero FF wouldn't be the same.

 

[HumanTrainingBot]

To pull my favorites from what I've seen listed while adding some of my own:

1) The lore and story (It even raised some questions about how ethical it is to put implants into humans. I still have the chat logs saved somewhere of the discussion)
2) Death Squads, tornadoes, and incursions (invasions maybe? When that ship spawns and you have to protect the shield disruptors and destroy the shield generators) For Death Squads, it's a mix of "Oh crud" and "I'm important enough to the enemy to be marked as a major threat" (I must be doing something right. ( * sense of accomplishment * ) For the shield generator thing, essentially multi-stage fights / fights with multiple simultaneous objectives.
3) Jumpjets for exploration
4) Gliders (Especially in Coral Forest with the thermals to fly forever)
5) Free roam
6) Thumping and finding that resource peak with the scan-hammer
7) Extreme customizability, though it was confusing at times (I loved the sliders for power allocation and switching frames whenever I want)
8) I could add an item to a crafting recipe to make a laser gun (I love energy weapons)
9) LGV (I still want drifting, though)
10) Chosen taking over outposts and the entire map
11) Refining dirt into cristyte (crystite? cristite? the resource abbreviated CY) so that nothing goes to waste.
12) Missions that can be soloed
13) Earn one real money currency every day after logging in every day for a week
14) Day/night cycle existed
15) Class locked primary, but universal secondaries
16) Open action instead of tab-targeting (skill and aim matter)
17) Level 40 accord frame (don't have to take an upgrade branch)
18) Not sure if I experienced it, but enemy faction world AI sounds cool (Graves)
19) Environment variety
20) Dev stream with voice chat call-in
21) Alt fire on primary (My mid-range needler just became a shotgun)
22) 1st person / 3rd person camera swapping
23) Story and secrets uncovered by dialog/imprints/exploring new areas
24) Good sound effects (As a sound technician, this is a huge point for me. If a weapon sounds powerful, then it feels powerful even if it isn't, which gives the illusion of power to the player, which makes the player feel good.)
25) Few tutorials needed. Just some crafting and customization stuff. (It took me a long time to find out on my own that I could craft any gun into a laser gun with the right crafting parts.)


What I didn't like:
1) Randomly spawning ARES missions when I was trying to move from one city to another. I wanted to get to an unexplored zone, not run in alone to find those three things to prevent an explosion.
2) Couldn't actually reach the Arclight by glider. (I got so close and then the Melding instantly killed me)
3) Lack of aim function on primary
4) The player race to the next random ARES mission

- HumanTrainingBot / LastingLongbow

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

2)Couldn't actually reach the Arclight by glider. (I got so close and then the Melding instantly killed me)

I found doing it in the sky kills you.
Doing it from underneath the map doesn't.
I don't know if they fixed it but there were holes to under the map in the underground caves under serato.
Then if you used the glider underground and headed to the border, you would cross over while still under the map and your glider wouldn't disappear. Then you can fly right to the arclight. The melding killed you if you flew way past that.

 

[acp_ember]

Firefall did the jumpjets RIGHT and that was what kept me coming back even with no content, just grind. The feeling and freedom of movement was intoxicating compared to every other FPS. Just the minigame of jumpjet timing to climb mountains is fun in itself.

Version 1.6 is where things really went downhill with a ton of the fun, quirky mechanics getting removed. Like why can't bastion throw throw turrets anymore? Sticking turrets to walls and ceilings and doing it while flying was the most fun thing about the class. And removal of secondary fires was just dumb at that late stage in the game.

The progression of 1.6 with the elite ranks was a great idea to keep motivation to play at max level.

Also the "story" aspect with chosen turning into emo vampires was cringy as hell but that isn't a turnoff so much as something to laugh about.

 

[Gaya]

Firefall did the jumpjets RIGHT and that was what kept me coming back even with no content, just grind. The feeling and freedom of movement was intoxicating compared to every other FPS. Just the minigame of jumpjet timing to climb mountains is fun in itself.

Exaclty! I havent experienced such freedom anywhere else.
And yes, Bastion (my main) was pretty fun to play too (pre-1.6). I wonder what the FCK went wrong between 1.5 - 1.6?

 

[Luna12]

Too much item on a frame: well before 1.6 i think that was cool, there are a limited number of ability what can use, and a few more, to change if it is nead, 2 weapone and a core. After 1.6 there are too many items, which are still ok for me, but i hate MMO-s when there are too mutch items (for example rings, earrings and items like this)

About those items: Have you played the Firefall beta? You used to have a lot of items before the game was launched, and each item had its own purpose, like jumpjets and servos(movement) which you could change to tweak those specific properties of you frame. Do you like it that way or do you just want to keep it simple?
(I'm just curious about this as I didn't like the 10 types of armor that all do the same thing but the system from beta was fine)

 

[Dracomon]

The cooooonstant need to craft, which meant constantly needing to thump, because your stuff kept breaking and you needed stuff to do stuff and so we also needed 2,000,000 bag space to carry that stuff, cuz your good stuff you crafted could break so you needed to pick up some semi-good stuff to replace your good stuff when it broke until you could recraft more good stuff. What drew me in was prolly the huge bag-space, it meant I didn't have to stop and look back to clear things out that I didn't necessarily needed at the time and I could focus on important stuff like... jumping on peoples' heads. There wasn't a more worthy pursuit in firefall.

 

[Rio Aria]

do u guys know that current ff had some issues on coral forest zone, preventing new player to play and old player to go there, when someone did go there, ur character stuck at loading screen and cant play no more. till now there's no fix, maybe this is the start of ff becoming a realy dead game, and maybe mark can buy it from the9 and bring back firefall to its former glory. I was intended to play firefall until ember release, but now maybe this is the end since my character stuck on loading screen and no response from support or the9, great right? sad
realy what is the the9 realy think to just abandon such a great game. what they doin right now is wasting a such great asset for their company. hell how does their management realy work.

 

[ToorimaKun]

Most of all the Healing frame when i joined, in the MMORPGs i play i main healer.
and in FF i could use my healing skills the same way i could in the RPGs i played by selecting one of my party members and heal them with the touch of 2 buttons.... sadly when they attempted to make the e-sports part of the game more skill based they ruined this.
and i switched to the engy frame.... but then they ruined the frame trying to please the internet feminist bullies.

the other thing i liked was the idea of being able to push back the melding to reveal more and more of the world.
i would have been fine with pushing threw instance zones that were linked like star systems are linked in eve online.. you have to go threw zone B to get to C to get to D.... instead of being and zone A and picking from B, C or D..... that did not feel open world like at all.

random note:
any one know what was up with the big evil looking tree thing in the abandoned city that was on the cliff?