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Game Preview: Firefall (video)
With three letters, you can get most gamers' attention: MMO. With three more, you can just as quickly inspire skepticism and doubt: FPS. Ever since the MMORPG craze got underway, players and developers have been looking for ways to meld it with the FPS craze that's been going on since the days of Doom. Unfortunately, it's proven much more difficult than expected. The spectrum ranges only from high profile failures, like Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa, to minor successes, like the Planetside games. That's why Red 5 Studios, a company built upon industry veterans from studios like Blizzard, has been hesitant to throw around the term 'MMOFPS' to describe its first game: Firefall. They say emphatically that it's 'a shooter first and foremost,' and that it also has MMORPG elements. It's more than an academic distinction; they feel that you can't simply cobble together two different genres. In order for the game to work, it has to do the shooter part well, with the relevant RPG parts (character advancement, a persistent world, crafting, etc.) added only in service to the shooter aspect. As Firefall takes shape in an open beta period, it's clear that this is the proper approach. Red 5's unfinished experiment is promising.
I stopped the video once the 2nd of two 60 second ads came on.
They just decided to remove PVP from the game for the time being while they work out the kinks. I have been in the beta since the beginning and I'm not sure what to think. When the game first was unveiled, it seemed like PVP (normal fps multiplayer) was the main focus of the game. Fast forward to today, the CEO claims only 3% of Firefall players are playing PVP (I believe it). PVP definitely needs work, so this is probably a good thing - but I have to wonder how deep The9's pockets are (Red5's Chinese investors)....so far, they have allowed Red5 to completely change gameplay over and over....which can be a good thing, but I worry about how many people are getting burned out due to the game changing every few months. I read somewhere that they have spent more on this game than Blizzard spent on the making of WoW and Diablo3. I don't know if that is true though....if so, it should be worrisome because this game is nowhere near as complete as either of those games.
It also seems weird that they are spending all this money on marketing (million dollar statues, multiple RED cameras, advertising blasted all over PAX and other conventions) - without generating money.