Fallen Earth Developer Diary: New Flagstaff University

by Shawn Schuster Jun 11th 2009 at 12:00PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, Galleries, Fallen Earth, Culture, Lore, MMO industry, New titles

Massively is proud to host a brand new five-part developer journal from the Fallen Earth team which will explore various levels in Fallen Earth, their storylines and how they make the player experience richer. This fourth one takes us through New Flagstaff University, and was written by Wes Platt, Content Team Lead for Fallen Earth.

Higher education's never been quite so deadly as it is in New Flagstaff University.

The campus was established by GlobalTech in the Northfields section of the Grand Canyon Province soon after the megacorp took over the national park from the federal government. A prominent and well-funded university, NFU provided top-notch scientific research and experimentation programs. In the century since the Fall, the school-like the great city that yielded its name-has crumbled into disrepair. However, it still contains equipment that's useful for scientific tinkering.

The Shiva's Favored, mutants who are bent on shaping the Province to their liking, have holed up here with a crazed scientist named Dr. Eddings, who has enlisted a small army of mutants to defend his lab. That lab includes a gas-powered centrifuge needed to create radioactive material needed for a bomb.

Players who visit the barter town of New Flagstaff in Northfields will start their journey to NFU by completing a mission sequence in a sewer system known as the Underworks, where friendly mutants known as Underfolk dwell. Eventually, you're informed that the Shiva's Favored are hard at work creating material they need for a dirty bomb to further wreck the climate for humankind, while making it more amenable to their own needs.

We asked the art and boss design folks to create a creepy multi-level campus with a few key rooms that would serve as our set pieces for the NFU adventure. They gave us dim hallways, spacious showcase chambers, monsters that leap out from behind opening doors, and a boss who provides a great challenge for players who are finishing up content in the second sector of Fallen Earth.

Take friends and make your way across the rolling hills to the sprawling campus. Just inside the main building, you'll find mutants held in thrall by Eddings' minions in the Shiva Strike Force. Clear these, then you have to work your way down a corridor that's crawling with vicious (and rapidly respawning) blight wolves.

Classrooms throughout the university are packed with piles of dead bodies: the detritus of the mad scientist's experimental failures as Eddings worked to create his strike force. Your team will have to work its way up and down stairwells to reach the various mini-boss fights.

After defeating strike force leaders in an auditorium, swimming pool, and basketball court, teams finally get a chance to take on Eddings himself as he tries desperately to save his centrifuge from destruction. This dangerous encounter puts players in a room with a device that puts off increasingly powerful bursts of lethal radiation. If something goes wrong, Eddings gets the upper hand and wipes everyone in the team.

Be careful taking on the lessons NFU has to offer. The teacher's a beast.

Gallery: Fallen Earth

Tags: dev-diary, dev-journal, developer-diary, fallen-earth, featured, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Aganazer said on 1:15PM 6-11-2009

Their color pallet makes me want to take a shower and have some antibiotics.

Simon said on 1:51PM 6-11-2009

Yeah, the first couple of screenshots look horrible.. like Quake 2 without any lighting.

Evi said on 3:01PM 6-11-2009

I hate to agree, but the graphics are really turning me off to this game. Ugh. Quake 2 all the way.

danarchy said on 3:22PM 6-11-2009

It is fun in the beta, but ya the graphics seem a little ol school, yet still seem to somehow chug on my SLI system. /shrug
fun though

Mitch said on 4:17PM 6-11-2009

Lately I've been disregarding the part of the NDA that says I can't say I'm in beta, so why stop now? One of the reasons these screenshots look bad is (I'm pretty sure) that they're old screenshots. Massively doesn't do the game any favors by featuring dated screenshots because more naive players simply assume they're current and that the game's graphics are bad. The game as it is now in beta (and there is no doubt that further graphic polish is coming soon) has great textures, good lighting, shadows, etc.

Anyhow, graphics aren't everything, and they're one of the less important factors for me personally. I always think it's kind of sad when someone blows-off a game without giving it a legitimate try simply because they think the graphics aren't cutting-edge, but to each his own I guess. Icarus deserves props; they've been working on this game from the bottom up (even designed their own engine) for years without all the rich, popular publishers helping them.

Shawn Schuster said on 4:25PM 6-11-2009

These screenshots were provided to us by the Fallen Earth team specifically for this dev diary.

I actually agree with you 100% in your last paragraph, and have spoken in my mind about it in the latest Massively Speaking podcast . For the sake of a fairly innovative game, I hope more people share your opinion.

Mitch said on 12:01AM 6-12-2009

Thanks for the info on the screenies. I didn't mean to (and should have done a better job pointing this out) accuse these particular shots as being old since I was not sure. Given that, some more flattering "photography" would definately help; there's just something about the game that these shots fail to capture. Maybe I'm just too used to seeing the game full of life now that screenies just don't look right to me /shrug.

Honestly, the graphics as a whole make me think that this is how an MMO would look if Valve made one. That may be good or bad depending on who you are, but my first thought on the graphics/artwork when I really saw it up close was, "Hmm, 'Valvey.'"

I'm breaking NDA like a fiend, but with open beta "coming soon" according to whats-his-face, hopefully they won't catch me or care too much about my [intentionally] vague leaks. FE has had an exceptional closed beta period, players and team, and I hope that FE has an equally productive open beta.