Face of Mankind: Fall of the Dominion

[Mkilbride]

Sorry for it being my first post, topic, ect, long time reader - great job with the Divinity Kickstarter, I hope you guys enjoy your statue.

Face of Mankind is giving it one last shot.



One of the greatest sandboxes ever made, and flew under everyones radar. It was such an addicting game...

I had some of my favorite moments in my history of gaming in that. Being an illegal arms dealer. Tricking the police & escaping. Just generally psych'ing out people in the Police zones by whipping out my gun then putting it away.

Also, the dirty cops. Prison breaks. Raiding other factions HQ's. Taking over cities. Random Alien infestations that forced everyone to work together, or we'd be overrun.

There was fight clubs in peoples houses, and just the way housing worked was wonderful.

One of my favorite moments is, I can remember running away from some cops or so(I was a Merc, I had my target and got him), warping into my House and seeing two guys standing there. They had hacked my apartment and were waiting for me. They were from a rival faction, and made some snarky comments, then mowed me down.

Full loot PVP. Player run entirely. No real restrictions on what you can do. Then they released it to retail, with a monthly fee and well, it just kinda flopped because it wasn't ready.

One fun aspect is that if you forget to buy a Clone...your character can perma-die.

I remember one time when some Police wanted to check my PP(Penalty Points, you get for killing someone), I was /dancing at the moment and I said I had to wait for the animation to finish. Then took off like a bolt of lightning as soon as it did, guns flying off in the backround as I ran for a teleporter and then ran from one to another, teleporting to a bunch of different places to throw them off my trail.

Ah, the memories of the game that I played like an addict. IT was sad when it went retail, I tried it though, but barely anyone bought the game, and so it became a ghost town. IT just wasn't ready to sell yet! If they had just waited...

One time we took of Manhattan from the Police, and then we forced them outta New York too. They were confined to their HQ. We raided that, but met much resistance, and eventually were wiped out after a many hour long battle.

It was never a pretty game, nor even a game with good shooter mechanics. But completely player run MMO's...something so fun about them, especially if people play them right.

What's your FoM story? I played 2005 / 2006(Was a rough year for me, the game made me miss quite a few days of school, I am not ashamed to admit, I consider that a MMO's highest honor!)

-------

So please, make this KS happen!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nexeon/face-of-mankind-fall-of-the-dominion

It doesn't seem like they'll hit their 250,000$ goal, but their 50,000$ one is within reach. It's the last chance for a game that just never lived up to it's potential. Watch the video "Letter from the community" and you'll understand what an amazing game FoM can be. While I do acknowledge the prior history of FoM as something to be wary of, for the love of gaming, give it a chance.
The video is incredibly touching, even if you didn't play Face of Mankind.

*Also, they are part of Kicking it Forward, where they will donate 5% of their pledge total to another project on Kickstarter...who is to say that project couldn't be a KS you are interested in?

 

[Sranchammer]

I thought Vaarna went nuts for a second.

 

[Mkilbride]

I thought Vaarna went nuts for a second.

Well this response has me curious. Can you explain?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Oh damn, I still remember prison jokes I used to say.
And the day when I started to call the Brotherhood commander 'My dear Mother Hen'.
And raids.
And harassing the police.
It was fun.
But I can't force myself to play MMO games.
So even if I had anything to spare, I would not spend it on this.

 

[Sranchammer]

I thought Vaarna went nuts for a second.

Well this response has me curious. Can you explain?

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?members/vaarna_aarne.9547/

 

[Tzaero]

Popamole, anywhere any time.

 

[Mkilbride]

I thought Vaarna went nuts for a second.

Well this response has me curious. Can you explain?

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?members/vaarna_aarne.9547/

Ahw ell, this forum wouldn't let me upload my own, so I chose one I like. But damn, 22,000 posts. lol.

 

[Cholo]

Oh man, remember playing the FoM beta that game was awesome. Rigging the economy with EC and ganking cops and military, some really fun memories

 

[Data4]

Vaarna_Aarne, when did you turn into a pla--- oh.

Nevermind.

 

[Mkilbride]

They made it folks.

 

[belowmecoldhands]

So what's going on with FOM? I tried it for maybe a month about 4 years ago, but a few things turned me off. The first was while everybody says it was player-run, it sure didn't come away as being player-run when I played it. Seemed like sandbox-lite with lots of political rolepaying. It was certainly NOTHING like Wurm Online, not even close. BUT it was a shooter-fps and had a lot of potential and I didn't play it long enough. Honestly, the politcal area of the game felt too restricted and overall the MMO felt restricted. But I did like the teamwork aspect and how you defended your HQ and so on.

This is sad kind of:
http://gamepolitics.com/2015/07/14/face-mankind-shutting-down-august-31/

I remember when I left I made a post how I was unhappy the government was so controlled. I understand things "needed" to be controlled to keep the game entertaining, but I didn't like it. I like FFA.

I wrote this in 2012 in the Wurm Online chat (omitted my player name):
[21:55:26] <> freedom is bad because it can hurt us... so it shouldn't be in games
[21:56:19] <> only things that keep us playing should be in games
[21:58:17] <> i'm being sarcastic
[21:58:21] <> but some people think like that
[21:59:47] <> problem is...some players play BECAUSE of the freedom... they may quit because they're hurt, though.
[22:00:53] <> one-size ifts all just doesn't work... removing freedom will satisfy maybe most gamers.. but not all
[22:02:42] <> i think more and more people are coming to games to get a sense of freedom they don't get from their real life
[22:02:59] <> and they won't take kindly to removal of freedom
[22:04:22] <> this idea that nobody should be hurt by the game.. that everytyhing should be liinear and predictable to protect them
[22:04:40] <> only go 55 mph
[22:04:43] <Potissimus> spicy it up with adding raiding on freedom servers, turn freedom servers full pvp and raidable each saturday for example
[22:04:50] <> don't turn on red
[22:05:10] <> go on green
[22:05:13] <> rules
[22:05:14] <> linear
[22:05:19] <> they're there to protect us
[22:05:47] <> but the more rules there're... the less freedom there is
[22:09:05] <> that's why so many games are themeparky... and why so few games are actually sandboxxy
[22:09:09] <> sandboxes are dangerous
[22:09:16] <> they can hurt you
[22:09:47] <> and game companies don't wnat you to hurt... they want you to be addicted to their product and always be smiliing
[22:10:26] <> but it doesn't matter since people who get tricked into doing themeparks don't want freedom in games anyway
[22:11:16] <> freedom is two parts
[22:11:25] <> it's the freedom to succeed
[22:11:30] <> and the freedom to fail
[22:11:38] <> game companies want to remove the ability to fail
[22:11:50] <> but if you do that it's not freedom anymore
[22:14:28] <Akronyhm> what are you preaching about now?
[22:14:59] <> was reading some posts about Faces of Mankind in their forum... they removed ability of players to vote for R7
[22:15:22] <> the rationale by the man in charge was that players kept voting bad leaders so they had to take control of elections away from the players
[22:16:16] <> he said they were losing players because of bad leaders... they got complaints about it ... so they felt forced to remove player-run elections
[22:16:35] <> so now only the company can offer up candidates... not hte players
[22:16:58] <> security is always the reason for removing freedom
[22:17:10] <> even in RL.... it's true sometimes but anyway
[22:18:47] <> and that game is already deficient of things to do... it's far from the sandbox wurm is
[22:19:03] <> just lots of pretending and little substance IMHO
[22:21:23] <> in my heart of hearts I trust in freedom... i was pondering this b4 logging in.. i play sandbox games for the freedom
[22:21:41] <> to have that taken away is my worst fear

EDIT: I don't mean to hate on FOM. There were things I really liked about it. I probably didn't play it long enough to make a conclusion anyway. And maybe it just wasn't the kind of MMO I like for other reasons.

 

[Zewp]

I tried it a year or two ago and didn't even stick around long enough to make use of my premium membership. The game was dead as a doorknob.