Hey forums, I know I'm probably gonna get hounded on like a reddit echo chamber but I need to voice this. I've been in and out of firefall throughout all the big changes and the many many "revamps" that ended up either removing entire segments of the game (anyone remember back when PvP took gear into account then got turned into non-gear, then removed the mode entirely?) or completely changed the game in a different direction. (No levels with the whole world to explore, to tiered gear, to actual levels, to literal grinding levels, and not to forget the infamous 1.6 patch) Though that information is pretty irrelevant to my skepticism, it only serves as a measurement to my time invested into the game. I, like many others received an in-forums PM about the ember project and its attempt and garnering crowd funding however some red flags were raised for me in its project vision and I'd like to discuss them in an organized point by point basis.
Point 1: the supposed missed direction that the game was "supposed to become"
To quote:
We were promised a game that would be unique, shooter first, open world, sandbox MMO like never seen before. We could all see ups & downs during its development as management and investors were at each other's throats fighting over direction, but in the end that originally promised game was never delivered.
And: The community that once supported Firefall has moved to a new project called . Fusion of community effort and former Red5 & Firefall founders and developers, this game aims to bring back the original vision of Firefall to life
I'd like to call in to question what this undelivered game is supposed to be. We can know for sure the game has wildly changed direction from shifting hands and development cycles however we've never really been given any concrete points from the official game nor from communication from any of the developers what their supposed "true" vision for the game was in the first place. It seems to me the bulk of the opening letter is nothing more than false flag signaling and an appeal to nostalgia, essentially hot air in text form.
Point 2: HOLY BUZZWORDS BATMAN
Here is a collection of all the buzzwords that I personally found as red flags to me as a consumer.
[ Crowdfunded, milestones, Bloatengine4, claiming horizontal progression when we all know how that went with firefall, """""""""""""Sandbox""""""""""""""""""""""""""" (I airquoted so hard my fingers inverted themselves), dynamic quests, Go anywhere, do anything (See: play how you want, See: misleading claims), Events that unfold as you play.
Point 3: Clarifications
Crowdfunding as a red flag: While I can say that crowdfunding is a great way for independent developers to get their game off the ground, it's also a way for developers to essentially get donated for doing the job that they're already doing and essentially slacking off since they now a financial net that will sustain themselves for months on end and delaying content drops for the sheer intentions of keeping the donation drip feed running. One of the biggest offenders of delayed content via hot aired hype is Star Citizen and unfortunately alot of large crowdfunded games are now following in their footsteps which has put a sour taste in my mouth for any games that are being crowdfunded without a playable demo. Gameplay reveals won't do it for me anymore considering how accessible video editing software is in this modern day.
Milestones: See above, purposeful development gating behind a paywall with no actual promises to deliver, sometimes milestone goals don't appear in the pipeline until 1-2 years after the project was funded.
Unreal Engine: It's just a really bloaty engine that is also a bitch to work around which makes editing of internal parts of the game a royal pain in the ass for programmers. Mostly anecdote on my end from watching other people work with the engine.
Horizontal progression: Regardless of how much players claim a certain game item is a sidegrade, horizontal progression systems eventually cave into feature creep instead of powercreep with certain items offering so much utility or stats that it overshadows others of the same typage and then it becomes an arms race of stats vs utility which eventually leads into a stagnant metagame of people running the "best" of a setup and ignoring nearly half or more of a game's itemized content. (Eg. Arsenal overshadowing accord dread is nearly every way)
Sandbox: Most games that approach sandbox style of gameplay usually have alot of things to do, or a few things to do but with tons of replay-ability and depth of gameplay. Most MMOs that attempt a sandbox approach eventually turn into boring grindfests, or eventually turn into sandparks (themepark MMOs with the illusion of looking like a sandbox eg. Black Desert Online) I hope Ember doesn't go down the road of being another dime-a-dozen "mile wide in deep" sandbox. I know Firefall started out as a sandbox but people always complained about running out of things to do which eventually led to the game adopting a quest board system which eventually led the game to ditching its horizontal progression system entirely.
Dynamic quests: They're nothing more than glorified quests that are set to a rotational timer or sometimes an environmental timer with no actual lasting effect on the world since they'll simply reset everything the player does after X amount of minutes or hours. Pretty much just a misleading title for rotating quests. There's nothing truly dynamic about them just like there was nothing really dynamic about ARES quests.
Go anywhere do anything/ Play how you want: Just flat out wishful thinking. Everyone is at the mercy of a game's world and mechanics so there isn't a true meaning to this statement. What this statement really means is "Go anywhere we didn't set up kill zones of invisible walls" and "Play how you want to play as long as you obey the mechanics of the game. Wanna blow up that shack? Well too bad, we coded it to not be a destructible environment"
Events that unfold as you play: See dynamic quests. The only way this could work is if each individual player has a specific phase with internal system flags that signal if player X has completed event X/Y/Z so that their own player specific world is affected by an unfolding event they've been around to experience which sounds like a player-to-server coding nightmare unless the game is actually a sandbox that is actually permanently affected by player decisions.
Well now that I've got all that off my chest I feel better. If you've made it this far, enjoy some alligators laying on a log.
Point 1: the supposed missed direction that the game was "supposed to become"
To quote:
We were promised a game that would be unique, shooter first, open world, sandbox MMO like never seen before. We could all see ups & downs during its development as management and investors were at each other's throats fighting over direction, but in the end that originally promised game was never delivered.
And: The community that once supported Firefall has moved to a new project called . Fusion of community effort and former Red5 & Firefall founders and developers, this game aims to bring back the original vision of Firefall to life
I'd like to call in to question what this undelivered game is supposed to be. We can know for sure the game has wildly changed direction from shifting hands and development cycles however we've never really been given any concrete points from the official game nor from communication from any of the developers what their supposed "true" vision for the game was in the first place. It seems to me the bulk of the opening letter is nothing more than false flag signaling and an appeal to nostalgia, essentially hot air in text form.
Point 2: HOLY BUZZWORDS BATMAN
Here is a collection of all the buzzwords that I personally found as red flags to me as a consumer.
[ Crowdfunded, milestones, Bloatengine4, claiming horizontal progression when we all know how that went with firefall, """""""""""""Sandbox""""""""""""""""""""""""""" (I airquoted so hard my fingers inverted themselves), dynamic quests, Go anywhere, do anything (See: play how you want, See: misleading claims), Events that unfold as you play.
Point 3: Clarifications
Crowdfunding as a red flag: While I can say that crowdfunding is a great way for independent developers to get their game off the ground, it's also a way for developers to essentially get donated for doing the job that they're already doing and essentially slacking off since they now a financial net that will sustain themselves for months on end and delaying content drops for the sheer intentions of keeping the donation drip feed running. One of the biggest offenders of delayed content via hot aired hype is Star Citizen and unfortunately alot of large crowdfunded games are now following in their footsteps which has put a sour taste in my mouth for any games that are being crowdfunded without a playable demo. Gameplay reveals won't do it for me anymore considering how accessible video editing software is in this modern day.
Milestones: See above, purposeful development gating behind a paywall with no actual promises to deliver, sometimes milestone goals don't appear in the pipeline until 1-2 years after the project was funded.
Unreal Engine: It's just a really bloaty engine that is also a bitch to work around which makes editing of internal parts of the game a royal pain in the ass for programmers. Mostly anecdote on my end from watching other people work with the engine.
Horizontal progression: Regardless of how much players claim a certain game item is a sidegrade, horizontal progression systems eventually cave into feature creep instead of powercreep with certain items offering so much utility or stats that it overshadows others of the same typage and then it becomes an arms race of stats vs utility which eventually leads into a stagnant metagame of people running the "best" of a setup and ignoring nearly half or more of a game's itemized content. (Eg. Arsenal overshadowing accord dread is nearly every way)
Sandbox: Most games that approach sandbox style of gameplay usually have alot of things to do, or a few things to do but with tons of replay-ability and depth of gameplay. Most MMOs that attempt a sandbox approach eventually turn into boring grindfests, or eventually turn into sandparks (themepark MMOs with the illusion of looking like a sandbox eg. Black Desert Online) I hope Ember doesn't go down the road of being another dime-a-dozen "mile wide in deep" sandbox. I know Firefall started out as a sandbox but people always complained about running out of things to do which eventually led to the game adopting a quest board system which eventually led the game to ditching its horizontal progression system entirely.
Dynamic quests: They're nothing more than glorified quests that are set to a rotational timer or sometimes an environmental timer with no actual lasting effect on the world since they'll simply reset everything the player does after X amount of minutes or hours. Pretty much just a misleading title for rotating quests. There's nothing truly dynamic about them just like there was nothing really dynamic about ARES quests.
Go anywhere do anything/ Play how you want: Just flat out wishful thinking. Everyone is at the mercy of a game's world and mechanics so there isn't a true meaning to this statement. What this statement really means is "Go anywhere we didn't set up kill zones of invisible walls" and "Play how you want to play as long as you obey the mechanics of the game. Wanna blow up that shack? Well too bad, we coded it to not be a destructible environment"
Events that unfold as you play: See dynamic quests. The only way this could work is if each individual player has a specific phase with internal system flags that signal if player X has completed event X/Y/Z so that their own player specific world is affected by an unfolding event they've been around to experience which sounds like a player-to-server coding nightmare unless the game is actually a sandbox that is actually permanently affected by player decisions.
Well now that I've got all that off my chest I feel better. If you've made it this far, enjoy some alligators laying on a log.
