I believe
There isn’t alot that I will put my faith in “right off the bat” – sight unseen (well, not unseen in the case), without being “tried and true.” Anyone who knows me knows that I am the sort of woman who would make someone from Missouri, the “show me state”, prove the issue in question even after their doubts had been satisfied.
I don’t believe in the Loch Ness Monster (there is more than one heavy drinkin’ Scotsman in my family tree)
I don’t believe in bigfoot (unless of course you are referring to the size of the gunboats I wear)
I do, however, believe in Fallen Earth and Icarus Studios.
Now I am not about to sit here and tell you that anyone else in the mmo community that happens to disagree agree with me has somehow suddenly and magically lost their mind the second they sat down to write about this issue. (On the other hand, there were those writers in the mmo community who where out of their collective minds to start with – it has nothing to do with Fallen Earth). I am also not about to tell you to “ignore that man behind the curtain” – that patches to the game mean nothing.
But lets face a few realities here shall we friends?
As we spoke about earlier in the week, the success of companies like Activision/Blizzard often has an adverse affect on the industry as a whole, especially where bean counting executives, who have never played a game that didn’t involve a deck of cards or set of ball and jacks are concerned. Not every studio (Thank God) has a slave driver at the helm who pinches the nickle until the buffalo farts and demands a profit margin that would pay off the national debt. Couple the fact that there are a goodly number of such bean counting, buffalo farting executives out there with a downturned economy and you have an extremely competitive market.
And an extremely competitive market means that fewer people with their hands on the money are willing to put said money into something that is not tried and true. Fewer people are willing to go where no game developer has gone before. We are in an era when most games are busy telling us to take out our wands, spread our wings, or dance around with bunnies hurling toilet paper hither – thither – and yon. Few developers these days (unless you count Bethesda and Interplay who are still busy duking it out in court) seem to want to address those of us who simply want to whip out grenade launcher and put one up the next persons nose over the remaining acre of earth that is not irradiated with nuclear fallout.
“Wow is that woman a nun?”
Such are the comments that I often get here at No Prisoners, No Mercy, whether written to the podcast, the site or whispered to one another in game. But the fact is I enjoy a bit of post apocalyptic mayhem as well as the next person and I get a bit tired of waving wands around. I get tired of cutsie graphics (as our readers can tell from my opinions on Teletubbies). And I get REALLY, REALLY tired of the same old garbage pumped out at the mmo community because some bean counter somewhere said this is what everyone wants.
Toady-like yes man X: “So what game shall we work on this year sir?”
Bean Counting Slave Driver X:“Give them more swords and wands – if it works for Bobby Kotick it will work for us.”
(Toady-Like Yes Man X looks nervous)
Toady-Like Yes Man X: “But, um…ah…sir. Begging sir’s pardon, but if everyone else in the market is busy doing the same thing shouldn’t we at least consider the remote possibility that we should be addressing a sector of the market that isn’t already being addressed…I mean…maybe?”
Bean Counting Slave Driver X:“Are you INSANE? Stack those fantasy genre games high man! I want to see a stack so high it would take a team of climbers and sherpa guides 15 weeks to scale to the summit. Let ‘er rip man!”
Toady-Like Yes Man X: “YES SIR!!!”
Do I believe in Icarus Studios? You bet, I am more than willing to give a smaller studio a bigger break. Lets face it friends, these days games are released early with more bugs than an Orkin-Man and if a game has a glitch or two that’s par for the course. Do I believe in the post apocalyptic genre? You bet. Despite the fact that Heartless Gamer left me a comment calling it a “niche of a niche” that is still ONE HELL OF A BIG NICHE.
So yes, I believe in Fallen Earth.
I believe in Icarus Studios.
Why? That one is easy to answer. For once a game developer is doing something different. For once someone is breaking the mold and trying to bring us something that would have been brought to us earlier if we were able to magically get rid of World of Warcraft. And that, my friends, is something worth believing in.
See you online,
Julie Whitefeather
First Syp, now you… FE is gaining a following.